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Asia’s marginalized
dread globalization
By Ranjit Devraj
Hyderabad, India Jan. 6 (IPS)— It is bad enough
being discriminated against as a descendant of a "burakumin,"
or outcast, in feudal Japan, but corporate globalization is
now also taking away an occupation traditionally assigned to
this "impure" group of people.
According to Nozami Bando, a young Japanese lady representing
the Buraku Liberation League at the Asian Social Forum (ASF),
"The impure task of leather work was given to impure people
-- the buraku. Now with globalization and cheaper leather goods
flooding the market, even this means of livelihood is being
taken away from us."
Bando spoke during the "Peoples Voices" section of
the five-day ASF, which ended Tuesday and drew some 11,500 participants
from across Asia and elsewhere.
In the centuries before the Meiji government abolished the
caste system in 1871, the "burakumin" -- the last
tier of society after the "samurai" or warrior class,
farmers, artisans and merchants -- were tanners, butchers and
undertakers. These were occupations that were considered impure
at the time.
Today, many of the three million "burakumin" suffer
discrimination at work and school and in society when their
ancestry becomes known.
But what Bando found really galling was that even when "burakumin"
are out of leather work, their own perceived impurity remains.
The group is fighting for social equality in Japan along with
the Ainus and people of Korean origin.
Bando conceded that her situation and that of the "buraku"
people may not be as bad as that of marginalized groups from
other parts of Asia.
Take the case of Padamlal Viswakarma, a "Dalit" from
Nepal, where the Hindu religion deems as untouchable cobblers
and, to a lesser extent, artisans who work with metals or those
who are agricultural laborers.
"Because we are considered untouchable, we are excluded
from the markets where we might have got a fair price for the
goods we make, but the profits are taken away by upper-caste
middlemen," said Vishwakarma.
Although Japan is a leader in the developed world and Nepal
is at the other end of the economic spectrum, marginalized groups
in both countries seem to face similar problems -- discrimination
at home and competition from abroad.
Siva Pragasam, an educated youth from Sri Lanka, spoke of the
plight of 1.5 million plantation workers whose ancestors were
brought to the island country by British colonials from the
southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
"Our low-caste origins haunt us even after generations
in Sri Lanka. We face all kinds of discrimination when it comes
to educational opportunities and jobs that we now need badly
because the plantations are failing thanks to sinking prices
for commodities such as coconut, rubber, and tea," he said.
In fact, many plantations in Sri Lanka are giving way to massive
hydroelectric projects and industries. A similar situation is
developing in many parts of Asia.
Sugar plantations in the Philippines, for example, were labeled
a "sunset industry" by former president Joseph Estrada,
according to Romulado Noble, who represented some 330,000 sugar
workers in the central province of Negros Occidental.
Noble said that since the Philippines acceded to World Trade
Organization (WTO) rules, sugar prices have crashed miserably
and the markets have become saturated with cheap sugar imported
both legally and illegally -- resulting in layoffs and starvation.
"The government continues to deny that there is hunger
in the sugar plantations," said Noble, adding that the
few hundred bags of rice distributed to the workers as assistance
were far from adequate to stave off hunger.
In April last year, 7,000 sugar workers staged a sit-in at
the provincial administration center in Bacolod city, capital
of Negros Occidental. When the governor refused to meet them,
they forced open a government-run warehouse to get at grain
stocks.
Yet stories of hunger were nowhere nearly as heart wrenching
as those from India’s Andhra Pradesh state, the capital
of which is hosting the ASF.
Following India’s decade-old liberalization, Andhra Pradesh
became a major recipient of World Bank loans and was compelled
to open up its once prosperous agricultural sector to seed transnational
corporations.
As a result, over the last two years hundreds of farmers have
committed suicide because they could not pay mounting debts
incurred from buying costly seeds, pesticides, and fertilizers
as harvests failed.
"My husband Abdul Rahima consumed pesticide and died a
year ago because he could not pay his debts and the moneylenders
and banks are now after me," said Sharifa, who now lives
in her father’s house along with a year-old daughter.
Widow after widow testified to their destitution and pleaded
for release from their debts. But India’s aggressively
pro-liberalization government has laid the blame on the dead
farmers for trying to get rich too fast, and remains generally
indifferent to the plight of their dependents.
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US, Pakistani
troops exchange fire
Compiled by Seán Marquis
Jan. 7 (AGR)-- In the second incident of cross-firing
within a week, Pakistani and US troops exchanged heavy fire
in a tribal area on the Pakistan-Afghan border as President
Pervez Musharraf held telephone talks with his US counterpart
George W. Bush, to defuse tension arising out of a Dec. 29 skirmish.
Pakistani and US-Afghan forces on the Pakistan-Afghan border
near Angoor Adda of South Waziristan Agency exchanged heavy
machine gun fire early Jan. 3, local daily The News reported
from the Pakistani tribal town of Wana.
Local government officials said a rocket launcher shell, fired
from across the border, fell into Pakistani territory. The fire
was returned, resulting in a heavy exchange of machine gun fire
from both sides for over an hour, the paper said.
Pakistani officials said fresh contingents of scouts and armed
forces have been dispatched to Angoor Adda to control the situation.
On Dec. 29, a US soldier was shot and wounded by a Pakistani
guard along the border. The Americans then called in an air
strike from an F16 fighter which dropped a 500lb bomb on the
building the attacker ran into for cover, and the guard was
taken into custody.
No comment was yet available for the Jan. 3 firefight, but
of the Dec. 29 incident both US and Pakistani officials stated
more co-operation between their respective militaries was essential.
"We have decided to increase coordination so that such
incidents do not happen again," Foreign Minister Khursheed
Kasuri said.
Musharraf and US Secretary of State Colin Powell agreed that
the borderland confrontation was probably a miscommunication,
Kasuri said.
"Both agreed that the incident ... may have occurred due
to some misunderstanding at the operational level on the ground,"
a Foreign Ministry statement said.
But on Saturday, the Pakistani government denied that the US
military had been given permission to chase Taliban and al-Qaida
fighters from Afghanistan into Pakistan.
"Absolutely not. The Americans cannot cross the Pakistani
border from Afghanistan to chase what they say are vestiges
of Taliban and al-Qaida," Information Minister Sheikh Rashid
Ahmed said.
That directly contradicted US officials, who asserted they
could cross the border if they were in hot pursuit of suspects
attempting to flee Afghanistan.
Brushing aside Islamabad’s objections, a US Army official
in Afghanistan has said the allied forces reserved the right
"to cross into Pakistan" in pursuit of al-Qaida and
Taliban fugitives.
"US forces reserve the right to pursue enemy attackers
across the border to evade retaliation," Capt. Alayne Cramer,
a spokeswoman for the US forces at the Bagram Air Base near
Kabul, told Pakistan daily Dawn over the phone.
But Kasuri refuted that claim on Jan. 4 and said: "Operations
within Pakistani territory would be conducted solely and exclusively
by our own forces and in response to decisions taken by Pakistan."
The Dec. 29 incident has fueled already strong anti-US sentiment
in Pakistan.
Pakistan has 60-70,000 troops along its Afghan frontier to
help stop al-Qaida and Taliban members escaping the huge US-led
manhunt in Afghanistan.
But sympathy for the fugitives is strong among ethnic Pashtuns
who live on both sides of the border.
The United States has expressed frustration at the apparent
ease with which many suspected militants have managed to cross
from Afghanistan into Pakistan.
The unexpected success of hardline Islamist candidates in last
October’s elections -- the first since Gen. Musharraf seized
power in 1999 -- has made the Pentagon’s fading hunt for
al-Qaida suspects in Pakistan much more difficult.
An alliance of six religious parties mobilized tens of thousands
of people to march through major cities on Saturday to protest
against US military operations in the region as well as a possible
attack on Iraq.
In Peshawar, over seven thousand people took to the streets
chanting "Down with America" and "Long Live Saddam
Hussein."
Maulana Fazlur Rehman, an Islamic leader, said: "The American
attack on Iraq will be an attack on the Islamic world. If today
we cannot stop America from attacking Iraq, then tomorrow they
will attack Iran, and then it could be Pakistan."
The demonstrators also denounced the presence of FBI officials
in Pakistan, and the American military involvement in Afghanistan.
In the capital, Islamabad, about 400 people rallied outside
the Red Mosque, some carrying banners that read "American
Terrorism," "Yankees: Don’t Spread Hatred in
the Muslim World" and "Stop the Holocaust Against
Muslims."
"The US has started a war against Muslims," cleric
Samiul Haq told the protesters from a small platform outside
the mosque. "This is a war between the friends of Allah
and the friends of Satan."
Supporters say the marches are just a taste of the anger that
an attack on Iraq would cause in Pakistan, a deeply conservative
Muslim country but a crucial ally in the US global terror war.
"The American attack on Iraq will be an attack on the
Islamic world," said Fazl-ur Rahman, a one-time candidate
for prime minister and a leader of the Islamist coalition, called
the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal. "If today we cannot stop America
from attacking Iraq, then tomorrow they will attack Iran, and
then it could be Pakistan."
There have been a series of terrorist attacks on Westerners
and Pakistani Christians since Musharraf’s decision to
side with the US in its efforts to topple the Taliban regime
in neighboring Afghanistan, and some fear the anger will intensify
if the US wages war on another Muslim country.
Most Western embassies in Pakistan are already operating at
emergency levels, with families evacuated after a grenade attack
on a church last March that killed a US Embassy employee and
her 17-year-old daughter. In June, a car bomb went off outside
the US Consulate in Karachi, killing 12 Pakistanis. A suicide
bombing in that southern city in May killed 14 people, including
11 French engineers.
Sources: Associated Press, BBC News, Guardian (UK), Reuters,
The Hindu
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Thai premier’s
populist standing comes under
test
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
Bangkok, Thailand, Dec. 30 (IPS)— Prime Minister
Thaksin Shinawatra’s reputation as the most popular figure
on Thailand’s political stage, as well as his populist
credentials, are due to come under severe scrutiny in the new
year.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have already gone public
with two strategies to challenge Thaksin, who is about to begin
his third year in office.
First, a network of 50 NGOs plans to host a "people’s
parliament" at a university here in March 2003 to give
the Thai public a venue to criticize the kind of development
that the Thaksin administration has pursued in its two years
in office -- one that skeptics say does not heed the voices
of affected communities.
"The event [is] being held to encourage the government
to pay more heed to public opinion," Nitirat Sapsomboon,
an activist and coordinator of the "people’s parliament,"
was quoted in The Nation, an English-language newspaper.
Furthermore, activists launched over the weekend a campaign
to collect 50,000 signatures in order to oust Thaksin from office.
This is the first signature campaign that Thaksin has faced
since his Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thai) party won at the January
2001 elections.
Under Thailand’s 1997 constitution, the public can oust
an elected official by collecting at least 50,000 signatures
in support of dismissal and submitting the petition to the Senate
to institute an inquiry.
These actions by activists, a constituency that backed Thaksin
at the 2001 polls due to his populist agenda, were triggered
by his government’s stance on two controversial projects
that critics say reveal the lack of sincerity in his supposedly
pro-poor approach.
The project that has generated the most heat is the Thai-Malaysian
gas pipeline in southern Thailand. Thaksin has continued to
justify the use of force by the police to break up a peaceful
demonstration by opponents of the project in mid-December.
To some critics, this heavy-handed approach, which left 38
demonstrators and 15 policeman injured, is reminiscent of the
harsh manner in which past dictatorships crushed dissent.
"The atmosphere is eerie; it feels more like the days
of dictatorship than of democracy," wrote analyst Wasant
Techawongtham for the English-language daily Bangkok Post. "All
this should be of concern among those who have worked hard to
uphold democracy and peace."
The gas pipeline project has been marred by protests from communities
in Thailand’s four southern districts, since Bangkok and
Kuala Lumpur signed joint contracts in April 1998 and in October
1999.
According to local communities, this project, which includes
a 225-kilometer offshore pipeline to carry one billion cubic
feet of gas a day from the Gulf of Thailand into Malaysia, will
damage the environment and curtail fishing.
The same twin problems -- environmental degradation and the
destruction of livelihoods -- lie at the heart of the restiveness
about the Pak Mun dam, the other controversy that has dogged
the Thaksin administration.
Activists are unconvinced that the prime minister will heed
the call of the more than 20,000 villagers to re-open the dam’s
sluice gates year round since they were shut in November, to
allow the revival of the fish population they depend on for
livelihood.
The Pak Mun dam, which cost $24 million and was completed in
1994 with World Bank funding, was built to generate 136 megawatts
of electricity.
Its construction on the Mun River, the largest tributary of
the Mekong River, resulted in a drastic drop in fisheries, a
main source of income for villagers living along the riverbanks.
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Indonesia pressed
to stop paper
industry abuses
By Jim Lobe
Washington, DC, Jan. 7 (IPS)— Indonesia’s
international donors are being pressed to link future aid to
Jakarta to addressing the grievances of the local population
in Sumatra against the country’s pulp and paper industry
and the security forces which protect it.
In a 90-page report released Tuesday, New York-based Human
Rights Watch (HRW) charges that the industry has wrought havoc
on both the environment and the property and human rights of
the indigenous people in Riau province in Sumatra over the last
20 years.
Saddled with debts of more than $20 billion, the industry finds
itself engaged in rampant deforestation in order to pay off
the debt. The cycle created by those pressures is not only devastating
the region’s remaining lowland tropical forests but is
also creating new tensions with the indigenous people, according
to the report, "Without Remedy: Human Rights Abuse and
Indonesia’s Pulp and Paper Industry."
The report is being issued in advance of the meeting of the
Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI) in Bali, Jan. 21-22. Chaired
by the World Bank, the CGI consists of Indonesia’s bilateral
and multilateral donors.
"Donors should urge President Megawati [Sukarnoputri]
and her government to take immediate steps to end these abuses,"
said Mike Jendrzejczyk, Washington director of HRW’s Asia
division. "They should also call for longer-term measures
to curb the problems of impunity and land confiscation underlying
conflicts in the paper industry."
Indonesia’s pulp and paper industry was launched in the
1980s when Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), the country’s largest
paper producer and owner of one of the largest stand-alone pulp
mills in the world, and its sister company, Arara Abadi (AA),
began seizing land — with the help of the police and military
— from indigenous Malay and Sakai communities without consultation
or compensation.
These seizures took place under former President Suharto’s
"New Order" administration that strongly favored the
dictator’s business cronies, such as the principles in
the Sinar Mas Group, which owns both APP and AA.
Those people who tried to resist or protest these "government
projects" were usually arrested or beaten by the military
and police, who provided protection and were frequently cut
in on the profits of the two operations. As in mining and other
resource-extraction industries under Suharto, the award of forest
concessions was used as a means of consolidating political power
and paying off the security forces.
As the company’s wood-processing capacity expanded, it
became more aggressive in seizing land beyond its plantations,
leading to wholesale destruction of forests usually by company
crews made up of employees hired from other regions. As a result,
the indigenous communities, which subsisted largely on products
taken from the original forests, have been particularly hard
hit.
Since Suharto was forced from office in 1998, local residents
began to openly protest the loss of their lands and livelihoods.
Their efforts to press their complaints through the judicial
and administrative system, however, have so far proved ineffectual.
As a result, they have turned increasingly to increasingly
direct action, usually by obstructing company operations by
harvesting plantation trees, reoccupying lands, charging "tolls"
for use of village roads, or at times seizing company vehicles
and equipment.
These protests, however, have been met with violent attacks
by organized mobs of hundreds of club-wielding men, usually
trained and sometimes even accompanied by state police, according
to the report, which details three such attacks in 2001.
In those three attacks, at least nine people suffered serious
injuries, and a total of 63 were detained by the mobs. Yet,
out of hundreds of assailants, only two people have ever been
prosecuted, for assault and battery. They were sentenced to
only 30 days in jail.
While those attacks took place in 2001, HRW said it continued
to receive reports of attacks by company- and police-backed
mobs on villagers who have refused to give up their land to
AA and other APP suppliers during 2002.
While the report stressed that HRW does not condone illegal
actions by the indigenous communities against the company, it
also emphasized that the overwhelming force used by company-funded
militias can also not be justified.
"The acquiescence of state security forces, and, sometimes,
their direct assistance in the militia attacks, moreover, has
meant that villagers have no recourse for the violations,"
the report said. "Impunity for those responsible for beatings
is directly fueling this cycle of vigilante justice."
While post-Suharto governments have made a number of promising
commitments to remedy many of the problems that have led to
both the trampling of the villagers’ rights and the massive
deforestation of the region, progress toward their implementation
has been slow.
Nor will it be enough for the government to simply try to curb
militia activity. Jakarta and local governments need to take
longer-term measures to strengthen the independence of the judiciary
and create a mechanism to which local people can address their
land claims.
Although the Indonesian constitution and forestry regulations
recognize indigenous land rights, "many state officials
and business leaders continue to operate on the mistaken belief
that, in the absence of written title, local communities have
no legal or legitimate claims," the report notes.
Moreover, some 70 percent of police and military spending still
relies on off-budget business ventures, many of which are in
the forestry sector, setting up a continuing conflict of interest
for security forces that profit from exploiting the timber resources
and are also obliged to uphold the rights of citizens.
HRW said it was particularly concerned about APP’s plans
to expand its plantation area almost two-fold in the coming
months and the likely implications for conflict between the
industry and local residents. Its enormous debt, on which it
partially defaulted to foreign creditors in 2001, is fuelling
the expansion plans.
APP has argued that expanding its wood sources and working
with villages to establish "joint ventures" should
reduce local discontent, but such arrangements are not nearly
enough, according to HRW.
HRW is urging donors to link aid to specific reforms, including
the creation of a land claims board and investigation of past
mob violence and the security forces’ role in it. These
kinds of efforts are required throughout Indonesia where resource-extraction
industries, such as the pulp and paper operations in Riau, and
the security forces that protect them, have impoverished and
repressed the local inhabitants.
Moreover, international lenders that hold much of APP’s
debt and that failed to take account of the social or environmental
impacts of the company’s operations should be required
to institute more rigorous due-diligence procedures to take
into account the kinds of disruptions the industry has caused,
according to HRW.
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Indigenous cabinet
ministers symbolize change in Ecuador
By Kintto Lucas
Quito, Ecuador, Jan. 3 (IPS)— Indigenous leaders
have been named to two key posts in the cabinet of Ecuador’s
president-elect Lucio Gutiérrez, who takes office on
Jan 15.
Nina Pacari and Luis Macas will be Ecuador’s new ministers
of foreign relations and agriculture, respectively.
According to Pacari, "In the midst of today’s globalized
world, this is a recognition of the various identities that
are building a new Ecuador and a new political blueprint that
integrates cultural diversity and seeks to promote the participation
of social sectors that have been historically marginalized,
neglected, and discriminated against."
The naming of Pacari and Macas to ministries that have traditionally
been controlled by the country’s powerful elites of mainly
European ancestry amounts to "a revolution without blood,"
according to political analyst Ruben Montoya.
For his part, political analyst Jorge Vivanco, assistant-director
of the daily newspaper Expreso, which is published in the city
of Guayaquil in southwestern Ecuador, said the cabinet appointments
that were announced Monday showed that "Gutiérrez
has taken the helm" and has decided to clear up the questions
and doubts as to what shape his government will take.
Gutiérrez is a retired army colonel who took part in
a January 2000 indigenous and military uprising that overthrew
then-president Jamil Mahuad.
He won the second round of elections in November at the head
of an alliance between his small party, the 21st of January
Patriotic Society Party, and the Pachakutik-New Country Movement
of Plurinational Unity, beating his rival Alvaro Noboa, a banana
magnate who is the richest man in the country.
The designation of Pacari and Macas indicates a break with
"a long and unjust cycle in which indigenous people have
been marginalized from all national decision-making spheres,"
wrote Vivanco.
Pacari said that holding posts in the government should not
lead to the co-opting or assimilation of the indigenous and
social movements.
"The struggle of the indigenous movement began in the
streets with a call for change, and we have continued to grow
as actors at the local and national levels," said Pacari.
"Administrative roles in the different spheres must be
complemented by the active participation of the people."
Around 30 percent of the 12.5 million people of this impoverished
Andean nation belong to 12 different indigenous groups, the
largest of which is the Quechua. Smaller minorities are of African
and Spanish descent, while most of the population is of mixed-race
Indian and Spanish ancestry.
Since 1996, Ecuador’s indigenous people have taken part
in elections through the Pachakutik Movement, which brings together
Indians, environmentalists, women’s groups, and other sectors
of civil society.
Pacari said shortly after her new post was announced that the
Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) should only go into effect
if the relations between the 34 participating countries are
modified and the weaknesses and specific characteristics of
each nation are taken into account in the negotiations.
"Under the current conditions, it would be suicidal for
Ecuador to enter the FTAA. Not even the survival of the biggest
national businesses would be guaranteed," she said.
She also said Ecuador would follow a policy of non-intervention
in Colombia’s four-decade armed conflict, and that it would
help work for a solution to the conflict by backing efforts
for the resumption of peace talks between the government and
guerrillas in the neighboring country.
The concession of the Manta military base in western Ecuador
to the United States, an arrangement made by the government
of Jamil Mahuad (1998-2000), will be respected, said Pacari,
because the agreement was upheld by the Constitutional Court.
But the agreement specifies that the base can only be used
in the fight against narco-trafficking, and only under certain
conditions, and if those terms are violated, it will have to
be cancelled, she added.
Macas, who is also a lawyer, said it was essential to reinvigorate
the agricultural sector with an emphasis on small and medium
farmers, in order to guarantee food security.
"We are going to provide access to credit by promoting
community lending networks in rural areas, and by capitalizing
the National Development Bank," he explained.
Macas is one of Ecuador’s most emblematic indigenous leaders,
having played a key role in the founding of the powerful Confederation
of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE). Like Pacari,
he has also served as a lawmaker.
Decent jobs must be generated in the countryside to curb migration
to the cities and to other countries, said the incoming agriculture
minister.
He also expressed his determination to resolve disputes over
land ownership and extend property titles to poor peasants,
in order to give them a sense of security that they will not
be kicked off their land.
In addition, he announced that "credit incentives, technical
assistance, access to water for irrigation, and possibilities
for marketing their products" will be made available to
small and medium farmers.
"It is indispensable to regulate the importation of foodstuffs,
in order for our people to be able to produce food," said
Macas, who added that under the conditions which it is being
negotiated, the FTAA "will destroy national production."
"We must not allow the country to be flooded by imported
products that drive our peasant farmers into ruin," he
stated emphatically.
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Undercover war
begins as US forces enter Iraq
Compiled by Eamon Martin
Jan. 8 (AGR)— The United States is deploying troops
fast enough to allow President George W. Bush to order an invasion
of Iraq next month, US officials and military analysts said
this week.
War preparations have been in full swing for months. The Pentagon
says 60,000 troops are in the Gulf region, and that number could
double in coming weeks. Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Donald
H. Rumsfeld is set to sign additional deployment orders. US
officials said that the Pentagon has alerted the 101st Airborne
Division, based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, along with troops
from the 1st Armored Division and 1st Infantry Division in Germany
for possible deployment.
Two brigades of the 3rd Infantry at bases in Georgia are shipping
soldiers to the Gulf this week. The news came as Rumsfeld weighed
plans to deploy up to 200,000 troops in the Gulf by mid-February.
On Thursday the Associated Press reported that the US army
is sending 800 engineering and intelligence specialists to the
Gulf over the next few weeks. The next day, the Pentagon ordered
units of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force to deploy to the
Gulf from Southern California.
Reserve and National Guard soldiers, including engineers and
intelligence specialists, were told in recent days that they
could be rapidly deployed between Jan. 10 and late February.
They’ve been alerted, said Albert Schilf, a spokesman
for Army reserve forces commander Lt. Gen. James Helmly. He
added that the activation was likely to include military police
and civil affairs specialists.
Defense sources said no decision on whether the United States
would wage war on Iraq would be made before Jan. 27, when United
Nations (UN) weapons chief Hans Blix must report to the Security
Council on the progress of UN inspectors who have been in Iraq
since late November searching for evidence of weapons of mass
destruction.
On that day, Bush may decide whether Iraq’s failure to
account for weapons of mass destruction is sufficient to trigger
an invasion to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
On Monday however, Bush warned Hussein that his "day of
reckoning" is coming and that the Iraqi president’s
latest charge that UN inspectors are spying for the United States
does not encourage a peaceful resolution.
"I thought that was an interesting statement on his part,"
Bush told reporters. "And when you combine that with the
fact that his declaration was clearly deficient, it is discouraging
news for those of us who want to resolve this issue peacefully."
Dressed in an olive military jacket while addressing the 1st
Cavalry Division in Texas, Bush made his most combative speech
on Iraq to date, dismissing Baghdad’s claims that it is
cooperating with UN weapons inspectors. Bush, who has made no
secret of wanting to see Hussein toppled, was given no ammunition
by a senior UN inspector to justify a war against Baghdad, however.
"We haven’t yet seen any smoking gun yet, if you
like, that Iraq has lied in its declaration on the nuclear issue,"
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei
said. "So far the results [of laboratory tests of samples
taken in Iraq] have not raised any eyebrows."
While military planners look at February as the optimum time
to begin an attack because of the weather, Pentagon officials
say there is no definite timetable and that a summer war is
possible.
In the meantime, Gen. Tommy Franks, chief of the US Central
Command in Tampa, FL, is assembling a force of 60-80,000 ground
troops that after air strikes would make the initial invasion,
according to US officials. Other units will be kept in reserve
and airlifted inside Iraq if the first wave bogs down.
As Gen. Franks continues to fine-tune his plan, American units
are preparing. In the "no-fly zones," coalition jets
have chipped away at air-defense batteries, command centers,
control nodes and radars. US warplanes bombed two Iraqi mobile
radar installations on Monday near Al Amarah, about 165 miles
southeast of Baghdad, a statement from US Central Command said
this week. Thirteen allied planes, including Air Force F-16’s,
carrier-based FA-18’s and British Tornado GR-4’s dropped
16 bombs on Iraqi air defense sites, including a Spoon Rest
early-warning radar, in Basra, Al Kut and An Nasiriyah, a military
official said.
It was the second airstrike this year with a strike on Saturday
destroying three Iraqi air defense communications sites in the
same general area as Monday’s attack.
US planes also dropped leaflets in the Al Amarah area Sunday
giving Iraqis the frequencies of US propaganda radio broadcasts.
About 100 United States special forces personnel and more than
50 CIA officers have been inside Iraq for at least four months,
looking for missile-launchers, monitoring oil fields, marking
minefields and helping their pilots target air-defense systems.
The operations, which are said to have included some Australian,
Jordanian and British commandos, are seen as part of the opening
phase of a war, intelligence officials and military analysts
say.
This is despite the Bush administration agreeing to the schedule
of UN weapons inspections.
The action by US and British special forces in Iraq breaches
international law because it is not sanctioned by the UN.
James M. Lindsay, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution
who was a member of the National Security Council during the
Clinton administration, said: ‘’What really matters
is whether [US forces] are caught doing it publicly, because
that would create political problems for the administration.’’
Lindsay said, however, that this could change if the operations
become more visible. "It’s one thing to go in and
make contacts with potential opposition leaders,’’
he said. "It’s another thing to go in and blow up
economic installations.’’
The Americans are reportedly working alongside fighters belonging
to Kurdish factions. They are also said to be identifying potential
leaders to work with in case of an invasion.
CIA and Special Forces members also are paying thousands of
dollars to those who cooperate with them. In other parts of
Iraq, Special Forces members are operating in small teams on
a variety of missions. These are taking place in areas populated
largely by Shiite Muslims around Basra, in the south, where
mistrust of the Baghdad government is rife; in the western desert
near the Jordanian border; and even close to Baghdad, according
to the analysts.
"Just as we did prior to the Gulf War, they are getting
as absolutely close to the urban areas as they can,’’
said an analyst who spoke with a Special Operations team leader
after he returned from Iraq in late November. "They are
extremely careful, of course, and they’re getting only
as close to Baghdad as the commands will let them go.
"They also have been a big help in the air strikes over
the last several months,’’ the analyst said. "Many
of the strikes on radar sites have been directed by guys on
the ground using lasers. British, Australian, and Jordanian
commandos are also inside, too, although not in huge numbers.’’
One goal of the operations will probably be to have spies in
Baghdad to watch Iraqi military movements, the analysts said.
Even as Bush repeated aover the weekend that it was not too
late to avert war if Hussein complies with the inspectors, bombing
by US jets over the "no-fly zone," coupled with the
commando operations, means that a fight is already unfolding.
"We’re bombing practically every day as we patrol
the no-fly zones, taking out air defense batteries, and there
are all kinds of CIA and special forces operations going on,"
said Timur Eads, a former US special operations officer. "I
would call it the beginning of a war."
Naseer Aruri, professor emeritus of political science at the
University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, said the Bush administration
was being duplicitous in conducting undercover operations while
agreeing to the UN inspections.
"Certainly, the Arab world and the Islamic world would
see it as being inconsistent with the weapons inspections, as
well as an infringement on Iraq’s sovereignty," he
said.
Sources: Associated Press, BBC News, Boston Globe, MSNBC.com,
New York Times, Reuters, Sydney Morning Herald, Washington Times
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‘Genocide’
is a strong word: An interview with Dennis Halliday
By Nyier Abdou
Dec. 30-- In the vast machinery of the behemoth that is the
United Nations, even a high-level figure is just a worker bee.
Or so it seems after talking to Dennis Halliday, who four years
after resigning his post as chief UN relief co-ordinator for
Iraq, still seems to relish the liberty to speak freely about
the notorious failings of the sanctions regime. Upholding a
sense of justice, keeping one’s faith in the various conventions
that make up the body of international law — these are
not the purview of humanitarian leaders working under the umbrella
of the blue flag. As for the colony, even the secretary-general
is not the queen bee.
In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Halliday described the
limitations on his autonomy during his tenure as the UN assistant
secretary-general as those of an "international civil servant."
"I mean, I was contracted; I was subordinate to the secretary-general
and I was not in a position to criticize the work of the Security
Council, the member states — they were my bosses. The secretary-general
is a servant of the council. I was the servant’s servant."
Noting that his efforts to expose the devastating impact of
sanctions on the people of Iraq shook the ground under the UN
establishment — and, by extension, his job — Halliday
has no regrets.
With liberation from the fetters of UN diplomacy came the freedom
to "go public, go worldwide with the crimes being committed
in Iraq." Those crimes, he says, have their bedrock in
the sanctions regime, but they are also derivatives of what
Halliday clearly identifies as "war crimes" committed
by the US during the Gulf War. Among these, he singles out the
purposeful destruction of water systems, which, despite being
a contravention of the laws of war, "very deliberately
kill the children of Iraq." The escalating calamities that
have proliferated under sanctions, Halliday suggests, can be
traced to a combination of direct war damage, the use of depleted
uranium and "chronic and acute malnutrition."
It is striking that with such high-profile defections as that
of Halliday and his successor, Hans von Sponeck, not to mention
the persistent struggle of former UNSCOM inspector Scott Ritter
to debunk US and British half-truths about the threat from Iraq,
the sanctions regime remains in place. Both Halliday and von
Sponeck have condemned the crippling of the Iraqi economy, the
prevention of health care and soaring infant and child mortality
rates in Iraq as nothing short of genocide perpetrated by the
very organization founded to protect the humanity and sovereignty
of its member nations.
"Genocide" is a strong word; and one that, it could
be argued, is used too freely. But Halliday does not shy away
from every implication the term carries: from the institutional
methodology, to the systematic execution, to the racial hatred.
"The fact is, the UN Security Council has allowed these
sanctions on Iraq to drag on for 12 years, and this is not happenstance;
this is deliberate decision-making. That’s why I’ve
determined it to be a genocide."
"We’ve got to get the [Iraqi] economy back on its
feet, get people back into their jobs, restore health care,
education — I mean, give Iraqi people back their lives.
That’s the least we can do. Give them their economic and
social rights back."
The question that emerges out of this call is whether we can,
or should, reinstate systems that meet those needs under the
leadership of Saddam Hussein. Within this question nests the
dilemma all anti-war and anti-sanctions activists must labor
under: can we defend the people of Iraq without defending Saddam
Hussein? Does fighting for the end of sanctions and the sovereignty
of Iraq carry with it the necessary consequence of propping
up Hussein’s regime?
"That’s a decision for the people of Iraq,"
says Halliday. "I don’t believe in regime change,
or assassination. I believe if the Iraqis had their economy,
had their lives back and had their way of life restored, they
would take care of the form of governance that they want, that
they believe is suitable for their country." Pointing to
the model of Indonesia, where a "largely bloodless"
revolt started by students managed to oust a "genuine dictator"
like Suharto, Halliday argues that Iraqis "are certainly
capable of doing the same thing. We’ve got to give them
the opportunity."
The US and Britain, says Halliday, are well aware of damning
reports by the secretary-general that spell genocide. "This
is a tragedy for the United Nations. Of course, there’s
a much bigger tragedy for the people of Iraq. And we’re
all responsible. The United Nations is us, and we are bound
by the resolutions of the Security Council."
How bound? It’s a tricky question. Can one argue that
a resolution of the Security Council goes against international
law, when it is the Security Council itself that codifies international
law? Halliday has raised this predicament before, asking whether
we are expected to swallow a resolution that is incompatible
with the UN charter and the declaration of human rights. The
answer, he feels, is obviously no. "The Security Council
is out of control," he says. "There’s no device
in the UN structure to oversee the work of the council, to monitor
its decisions, to monitor the impact of those decisions, and
their compatibility, or otherwise, with other aspects of international
law. There’s no Supreme Court. There’s no review,
it’s part of the reform discussion that many of us carry
out."
The loudest condemnation of US war plans is, of course, that
US policy on Iraq is solely determined by oil. Halliday notes
that the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon have indicated
to Bush that there is in fact no military threat from Iraq.
"So it’s about oil. But it’s also about oil and
Israel, Israel’s position, Israel’s representation
of American interests in the Middle East. I think that’s
certainly got to be part of the problem."
"But I think it’s also about this desire for influence
and power and presence throughout the world, including the Middle
East," he adds. "And it gets back again and again
to the need to control oil resources, which are of such importance
to the survival of the economy of the United States. And I think
that Washington is very insecure in its relationship with Saudi
Arabia; they’re not at all sure what’s going to happen
in the years ahead, and they want a reserve tank. And the reserve
tank, unfortunately, is called Iraq. It’s sitting on a
120 billion barrels, it’s cheap and easy to obtain, and
all it needs is a friendly regime in Baghdad that will cow-tow
to American interests and American demands, and I think that’s
the name of the game of the attack, the war, the bombing, the
invasion, [and] the occupation of Iraq that Mr. Bush clearly
has in mind. It’s part of a strategy to dominate world
affairs, world economy, to dominate world globalization that
is designed to support and enhance the lifestyle of Americans."
Predicting a heavy loss of life in the event of another war
in Iraq, Halliday warns that there could be a total breakdown
of civil society already considerably weakened by years of sanctions.
"I think, and perhaps I even hope, that there will be a
huge outrage in the Arab world," he adds. "That the
people will convince their governments that this is grossly
unacceptable." Ideally, he says, that decision would be
taken now. "We really need to see Arab governments refusing
to collaborate with the United States of America in its war
to crush the people of Iraq. This is criminal, you know, this
is hypocrisy."
"That, to me, is part of the tragedy for all of us,"
Halliday told the Weekly. "That we look at the Arab world,
we see the potential, we see the history — the great, great
history of this part of the world ... And we’re standing
back and allowing the United States to totally demolish this
potential. It doesn’t serve anybody, and the Arab governments,
above all, should see it and should do something about it, and
have the courage to do so. And we Europeans who are gutless,
should support you, should support the Arab leadership."
Pausing to insert a sly jab, he added, "We think Mr. Bush
is a moron — like the Canadians. We know he’s dangerous."
While there is no panacea for Iraq, Halliday certainly has
a clear picture of what could be done to set the country on
the road to recovery. "The first thing to do is to end
the economic embargo, to allow the economy to be rebuilt, to
get people back to employment, housing, education, health care,
agriculture, water systems — I mean, all the things that
have been damaged, broken down, through the 12 years."
Next, and perhaps most important in terms of regional stability,
Halliday calls for the implementation of paragraph 14 of UN
resolution 687, calling for the removal of all weapons of mass
destruction from the entire region. "That of course means
stripping Israel of its nuclear weapons — that would ease
a lot of tension, I believe, and it might be a move in the right
direction for ultimate, I would say, world disarmament."
He adds: "We’ve got to sanction the arms producers.
The five permanent members of the Security Council alone produce
80-plus percent of the weapons sold in the world today. We need
to stop the availability of cheap weapons."
Sources: Al Ahram, Znet
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A new chance
for old ‘social revolutionary’ ideas in Brazil
By Mario Osava
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Jan. 6 (IPS)— Luiz Inacio
"Lula" da Silva, who was sworn in as Brazil’s
new president on Jan. 1, kicked off his four-year term by confirming
that the fight against poverty and hunger would top his agenda,
and by relaunching a development model whose implementation
was long blocked by coups d’etat and suppression of social
activism.
Lula’s first high-profile decision was to delay for a
year the $760 million purchase of 12 fighter planes, with which
the air force was to replace its fleet of French-made Mirage
combat jets that are nearly 30 years old and were to be phased
out by 2005.
The funds will go instead towards the "Zero Hunger"
program, the government’s top priority, said Brazil’s
new defense minister, José Viegas.
The measure will not have any immediate practical effects,
since it will not modify this year’s budget. The financing
of the purchase of the jets was to be long-term in nature, and
the deal was also to include the transfer of technology as well
as investment in Brazil by the company that won the fighter
plane contract.
The decision has great symbolic significance. All sectors of
the government are to participate in the effort to eradicate
hunger in Brazil, Lula said in his first cabinet meeting, on
Friday.
All of the ministries will have to cut their expenses as part
of a united effort to enable the government to boost social
spending, especially on the "Zero Hunger" program,
said Lula, a leftist former steelworker.
The foreign ministry, for example, will seek international
support for the initiative, while the armed forces will mobilize
troops to help carry it out, and the ministry of science and
technology will put a greater emphasis on research focusing
on technologies aimed at bolstering food production.
To expand the sensibility of his cabinet ministers towards
poverty and hunger, Lula will take them on a Jan. 10-12 tour
to extremely poor, drought-stricken areas of the northeast,
the poorest region in the country of 170 million.
In the words of Lula’s chief of staff, José Dirceu,
the government’s ultimate aim is "a veritable social
revolution" — a phrase that would have drawn a violent
response 30 years ago, when Dirceu was a guerrilla fighter training
in Cuba after he was released from prison in Brazil as part
of a swap for US ambassador Charles Elbrick, who was kidnapped
in September 1969.
Lula’s administration represents a new chance to implement
the ideas that revolutionaries and left-leaning nationalists
tried to bring to life in many Latin American countries in past
decades, in experiments that were frustrated, in a number of
cases, by military coups.
"I am not the result of an election, but of a history.
I am bringing to life the dream of generations and generations
who tried and were unable to do so before me," said Lula
after taking office last Wednesday.
He was especially referring to the reformists in the government
of president Joao Goulart, who was overthrown by a military
coup in 1964, and to "the generation of 1968," of
which Dirceu was a prominent member. That generation lost many
young lives in the struggle against Brazil’s 1964-1985
military dictatorship, and for a socialist revolution or "national
liberation."
The dream has lost its revolutionary hues as well as its Marxist
terminology. It no longer faces the obstacles put in place by
the Cold War, such as the rabid anti-communism which meant the
risk of death under torture for anyone who dared to speak out
in favor of better conditions for the poor.
Now it is a question of putting into practice new adaptations
of ideas that have been around for a long time, with the aim
of putting an end to "underdevelopment" through a
nationwide Brazilian plan.
Many of the ideals touted by Lula emerged from the Economic
Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the
regional United Nations agency, in the 1940s and 1950s. In Brazil,
those ideas were disseminated by Celso Furtado, who served as
planning minister in the early 1960s.
His ideas were identified by a variety of terms, such as developmentalism,
structuralism, and national liberation, or the ECLAC model,
in opposition to the monetarism and neo-liberalism that have
prevailed in the region in the past two decades.
The strengthening of the domestic market, redistribution of
the national wealth, and an active role by the state are some
of the central tenets of that current of economic thought, which
was nearly buried in the current process of globalization.
Through the "Zero Hunger" program, Lula’s team
is reviving ideas that formed part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s
(1932-1945) New Deal. The aim is not only to fight malnutrition
among Brazil’s 10 million poorest families, but to expand
food production while generating jobs and sources of income
in the countryside.
This process will include an acceleration of land reform efforts
and changes to farm policies that have historically favored
large coffee, sugar, and — more recently — soy and
orange juice exporters in Brazil.
As part of this plan, Lula has instructed the finance ministry
to encourage the creation of credit cooperatives, in order to
foment small business and microenterprise by making low-cost
financing available.
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WORLD BRIEFS
Mexicans
with HIV/AIDS abandoned by state, community
There is no Mexican national policy guaranteeing
sufficient and timely supplies of antiretroviral drugs, and
state hospitals sometimes refuse to treat HIV/AIDS patients
in the emergency wards, said Martín Luna Sámano,
the director of the Center for Professional Attention to People
with HIV/AIDS (CAPSIDA). The absence of effective sex education
programs has also contributed to the rise in the number of AIDS
cases among women in Mexico, he added.
The Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center has
protested AIDS testing of people without their consent by private
companies and the Ministry of National Defense. The Center found
cases of dismissals of employees after they tested positive
for HIV; in another case, an employee was forced to continue
working and was denied his right to a disability pension. HIV/AIDS
activists are demanding that the Federal Labor Law -- which
allows employers to demand information they consider necessary
for hiring employees or keeping them on the payroll -- be brought
into line with the statute that establishes that testing positive
for HIV cannot be considered grounds for dismissal. (IPS)
More Americans filing
refugee claims in Canada
The number of Americans making refugee claims
in Canada has skyrocketed since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks,
according to statistics from the Immigration and Refugee Board.
From the start of the year to the end of October, the number
of Americans seeking refuge in Canada increased by 135 per cent
over the entire previous year, with 191 filed refugee claims
citing persecution in the United States compared with 81 in
2001.
(Toronto Globe and Mail)
Brits planned ethnic cleansing
of N. Ireland in 1970s
Cabinet papers released Jan. 1 reveal a draconian plan, developed
for British Prime Minister Edward Heath’s 1972 Conservative
government, to deal with possible civil war in Northern Ireland.
It would have involved relocating 300,000 Roman Catholics to
homes south and west of what would become a new border; similarly,
200,000 Protestants would face compulsory transfer to what was
left of Northern Ireland.
To effect the relocations, involving a third of the population,
battalions then stationed in the province would be more than
doubled. "It would be impossible to conceal the reinforcements
once in motion, but there would be no need for its purpose to
be made public," the report declared. "Such a massive
movement would not be peacefully accomplished; great resistance
could be expected… Unless the government were prepared
to be completely ruthless in the use of force, the chances [of
the plan’s success] would be negligible."
The plan could have been drawn up only on the specific instruction
of Heath after discussions with his most senior political colleagues.
After Bloody Sunday (the 1972 massacre by British soldiers of
13 demonstrators in Derry) Northern Ireland was experiencing
some of its worst violence, with up to 70 shootings a day.
(Scotland Herald)
Thousands arrested during protests against police
brutality in India
More than 2,000 people were arrested in the state of Bihar Jan.
3 after crowds torched a police outpost and two government office
buildings and clashed with security forces during a strike called
to protest the police killing of three youths who city residents
said were innocent.
Protesters hurled stones and burning tires at police in Patna,
the state capital, and one man hurled a fire bomb at a police
bus that was carrying away some of the detained protesters;
the protesters escaped from the bus. Police used wooden truncheons,
canes, and tear gas to disperse the crowds. Opposition leaders
were among those arrested. The leader of Bihar’s governing
party said the opposition was using the protests to tar Bihar.
Bihar, one of India’s poorest and most populous states,
is riven with caste violence, a Maoist guerrilla insurgency,
clashes between rival militias, and rampant corruption and kidnapping.
A statewide strike, called by opposition political parties,
was the second this week. On Dec. 31, during a protest strike,
crowds stoned police and burned cars. Police took 500 people
into custody.
(Reuters, Associated Press)
Pot possession not illegal,
Canadian judge rules
On Jan. 2 a teenager charged with marijuana possession was
cleared when Judge Douglas Phillips of the Ontario Court agreed
with the defense: Federal laws against possession are no longer
valid.
The defense used a legal opening created in 2000, when an Ontario
Court of Appeal judge ruled Canada’s marijuana-possession
law invalid because it forbade marijuana use by chronically
ill people to lessen their symptoms. The judge delayed that
ruling’s effect for one year in hope that the government
would introduce a medicinal-marijuana law. But only the cabinet
responded, by issuing medical marijuana regulations one day
before the year-long grace period ended. The defense argued
that new laws had been called for, not cabinet orders; therefore,
marijuana-possession laws remained invalid.
Police will proceed as usual, said federal Justice Department
spokesman Jim Leising, and the government intends to appeal.
But the Ontario judgment may be followed by enforcement officials
and the courts. Last month, a Commons committee recommended
that possession of small amounts of marijuana should result
in a fine and no criminal record. In an earlier report, a Senate
committee called on Ottawa to legalize pot altogether.
(Toronto Globe and Mail, Canadian Press)
South Koreans hold
anti-US protest
In the latest of a series of rallies, 22,000 South
Koreans gathered in downtown Seoul on New Year’s Eve to
protest the deaths of two teenage girls killed by a US mine-clearing
vehicle and the acquittal in a US military court of the two
soldiers, charged with negligent homicide, who had been driving
it. One block away, the US Embassy was surrounded by riot police,
who were confronted by hundreds of students shouting "Move
back!" No clash was reported.
The deaths top a long list of grievances South Koreans have
with the 37,000 US troops stationed in their country; some have
called for their total withdrawal. The acquittals caused a sharp
increase in anti-US sentiment here and sparked large protests
calling for retrials in a South Korean court. The Status of
Forces Agreement allows the US military to try soldiers accused
of crimes while on duty. South Korean critics argue that this
often results in lenient treatment for US soldiers. US officials
have ruled out an immediate revision of the 1966 accord, which
has been amended twice. (Associated Press)
Canadians alienated
by US travel indignities
Muzaffar Iqbal will not be fingerprinted and photographed by
US immigration officials and he will not sign a registry before
entering the United States. He refuses to submit to what he
considers indignities that are not required of all Canadians.
As a result, Iqbal -- Pakistani by birth, but Canadian by citizenship
-- is denied entry to Canada’s giant neighbor.
Iqbal is not alone. By mid-December, roughly 200 Canadians
had launched protests with the Department of Foreign Affairs.
They allege they had been subjected to unfair probing by US
immigration officials on the basis of their country of birth.
The first grievances were received on Sept. 13, two days after
the US Immigration and Naturalization Service brought in strict
new rules requiring anyone born in countries suspected of being
breeding grounds for terrorists to be fingerprinted and photographed
as they entered the US. The new procedures were to apply regardless
of citizenship.
Initially, there were five countries on the list: Iran, Iraq,
Libya, Syria, and Sudan. On Oct. 1, the United States said people
from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen could also expect extra
attention from immigration officials.
The policy drew ire in Ottawa where Foreign Minister Bill Graham
promised to force the Americans to back down. On Oct. 31, Graham
announced he had received assurances from US Secretary of State
Colin Powell that no distinction would be made at the borders
based on place of birth.
But since the day the agreement was reached between Powell
and Graham, the United States has expanded the number of countries
it considers suspect to include Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain,
Eritrea, Lebanon, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Somalia,
Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates.
A spokesman for the US embassy denied last week that Canadian
citizens were still being selected for registration at border
crossings based on where they were born. (Toronto Globe &
Mail)
100,000 offer to
be human shields for Iraq
Former Jordanian MP Mansur Murad, who has been campaigning
for volunteers to be used as "human shields" against
a US-led war against Iraq, was quoted by official Iraqi daily
Al-Qadissiyah as saying that some 100,000 volunteers from around
the world have already come forward. No dates were given for
their arrival. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said the
regime backed the human shield volunteers. Meanwhile, the Iraqi
News Agency reported from Paris that a group of French "peace
volunteers" would arrive in Baghdad shortly at the initiative
of the Franco-Iraqi friendship association run by Gilles Munier.
In Damascus, Turkey’s Prime Minister Abdullah Gul met
Syrian President Bashar Assad yesterday at the start of a tour
of Middle East countries to seek other ways to head off a US-led
war. (The Independent UK)
We kill our rebels the
Israeli way, says Russia
The Russian army has switched tactics in combating Chechen
separatist rebels and is now using the "Israeli method"
to eliminate them, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said yesterday.
"The tactics of the federal forces have changed. It is
now a precise operation during which we kill those who ought
to be killed," Ivanov said. "We use the wholly Israeli
method when we know the exact composition of a cell, and we
do not let go until the entire cell has been eliminated."
There would be no large withdrawal of Russian troops from the
breakaway southern republic in 2003, he added. Russian forces
have been accused by human rights groups of carrying out arbitrary
arrests and summary executions as troops try to stamp out separatist
resistance in Chechnya. (Sydney Morning Herald)
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