Man released
from Guantanamo describes year-long imprisonment
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Crisis
in Venezuela continues
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Sharon
broadcast cut off,
Palestinians killed by Israeli Army
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Anti-war
train drivers
refuse to move arms freight
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Workers,
students protest
utility hikes in Indonesia
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North Korea:
‘Sanctions mean a war’
Compiled by Seán Marquis
Jan. 15 (AGR)— The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea(North Korea)
has pulled out of the nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and rejected
a call by the Vienna- based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
to readmit inspectors and restore United Nations (UN) surveillance cameras
at its Yongbyon nuclear facilities, which are capable of producing weapons-grade
plutonium for making nuclear bombs.
The NPT entered into force in 1970, primarily to prevent the spread of
nuclear weapons and nuclear technology. Besides its withdrawal from the
NPT, North Korea has also declared its intention to revive its long dormant
nuclear weapons program and has expelled UN arms inspectors monitoring
its nuclear facilities.
France, which chairs the Security Council this month, said last week
the international community had to ensure that North Korea complied with
its non-proliferation commitments. "The UN Security Council will
have to address this new development," said French Foreign Minister
Dominique de Villepin.
A possible action the Security Council may take is imposing economic
sanctions on North Korea for pulling out of the NPT.
In a rare appearance at the UN, North Korea’s ambassador, Pak Gil-yon,
said on Jan. 10: "We consider any kind of economic sanctions to be
taken by the Security Council against [North Korea] as a declaration of
war."
This echoed an official Jan. 7 statement by the North Korean government
released through the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) which said: "Sanctions
mean war and war knows no mercy."
Pak also dismissed the IAEA as a tool of Washington and blamed the entire
crisis on hostile US foreign policy.
The US has been trying to use diplomacy to pressure the North into abandoning
nuclear weapons development, while North Korea wants to negotiate a nonaggression
treaty with Washington.
While both sides have made slight overtures in recent days, North Korea
for its part has been issuing some blistering rhetoric, while the US –
as opposed to its belligerent stance toward Iraq – has been soft
pedaling but immobile in its position.
In another release by KCNA on Jan. 10 Pyongang said US efforts to have
North Korea abandon its nuclear ambitions amounted to a "strategy
for domination" and said "let us see who will win and who will
be defeated in the fire-to-fire standoff."
North Korea added that "a new Korean War will finally lead to the
Third World War. If a war breaks out on the Korean peninsula where military
and strategic interests of neighboring big countries are entangled, they
will be embroiled in it, like it or not."
And on Jan. 12 the government-controlled North Korean newspaper Rodong
Sinmun said: "If the United States evades its responsibility and
challenges us, we’ll turn the citadel of imperialists into a sea
of fire."
"The government in Pyongyang believes the US wants war with the
North after war with Iraq," an official of South Korea’s unification
ministry said. "They think delay works only to the US advantage,
so they want to bring things to a head."
The Bush administration has refused to negotiate with North Korea, lest
it reward what it portrays as "nuclear blackmail."
For months, President George W. Bush has pledged not to use food as
a weapon against North Korea. But as the confrontation deepens over the
country’s nuclear weapons program, the US has continued to withhold
approval of grain shipments sought by humanitarian groups to avert starvation
on the Korean Peninsula.
The shortage of food in North Korea has been sparked by several famines
and natural disasters over the last two years.
The UN’s World Food Program said last week that it needed 80,000
tons of food to feed about three million North Koreans who have not received
food aid since the autumn.
Don Oberdorfer, an expert on Korea who met with North Korean officials
in Pyongyang in November, commented: "I think the North would have
given up their uranium-enrichment program in November for a promise of
non-aggression if it had been made in the right way, but when the US refused
to engage them in October and November, and then began to bring pressure
by cutting off the oil, the military [in Pyongyang] got the upper hand
and are now going straight for nuclear weapons as fast as they can go.’’
North Korea is violating a 1994 bilateral accord with the US, called
the Agreed Framework. It provided that Pyongyang would freeze a plutonium-producing
Yongbyon nuclear plant in exchange for the construction by South Korea
and Japan of two light-water nuclear reactors and shipments of heavy fuel
oil from the United States and others to maintain the country’s power
supply while the reactors were being built.
North Korea denied that it had admitted to US officials that it had a
secret nuclear weapons program.
Pyongyang issued its denial as the US stepped up its efforts to defuse
tension on the Korean peninsula by sending an envoy, James Kelly, the
assistant Secretary of State for East Asian affairs, to South Korea for
talks.
At his meetings in Pyongyang in October Kelly dispensed with protocol
and confronted the North with Washington’s suspicion about its uranium
program.
His hosts are reported to have been so shocked that they abruptly ended
the meeting and returned the next day with the furious counter-response
that they were entitled to have such weapons.
Doubts have been raised in South Korea, China, and Russia about Kelly’s
interpretation of what passed as an admission: skeptics say that the North’s
outburst was more likely to have been an emotional response to provocation.
Such a program violates the Agreed Framework. Washington used Kelly’s
meeting to halt oil shipments in December.
The Rodong Sinmun newspaper stated on Jan. 12: "The claim that we
admitted developing nuclear weapons is an invention fabricated by the
US with sinister intentions."
Last month, North Korea claimed it was re-starting its nuclear reactor
to produce electricity to make up for the loss of oil shipments.
The US Central Intelligence Agency believes that Pyongyang had produced
two atomic bombs before the 1994 accord and, with the plutonium fuel rods
that were put in storage as part of the Agreed Framework, could produce
another half dozen within as little as two months once the plant is fully
operational.
According to a Jan. 10 report by the BBC, it appears that North Korea
obtained substantial help from Pakistan in its recent nuclear activities
including assistance with a highly enriched uranium factory.
Pakistan’s apparent help to Pyongyang came despite its vaunted alliance
with the US in Washington’s global terror war.
The US was apparently unable to stop -- or even learn about -- Islamabad’s
rumored support of North Korea’s nuclear program until it was too
late, the BBC said.
Sources: Associated Press, BBC, Guardian
(UK), Independent (UK), Inter Press Service, New York Times, Qatar News
Agency, Sydney Morning Herald, Washington Post Foreign Service
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Workers,
students protest
utility hikes in Indonesia
Compiled by Kendra Sarvadi
Jan. 12 (AGR)— On Tues., Jan. 14 around 5,000 women staged a rally
outside the presidential palace in Central Jakara, Antara reported.
Carrying kitchen utensils and banners, the women, led by the Muslim Women’s
Solidarity Forum for the Poor, marched along the streets waving posters,
one of which read, "Led by a mother, other mothers suffer" in
reference to President Megawati Sukarnoputri. The rally ended peacefully.
On Jan. 1, the government introduced a 20 percent increase in the price
of petrol and diesel and a six percent rise in electricity rates as part
of its efforts to finance the state budget and reduce deficits. Telephone
charges have also been increased, and further hikes of power costs are
scheduled.
Similar rallies against the price increases occured across the country.
In Medan, North Sumatra, over 1,000 protesters blocked the roads to express
their opposition to the hike.
Thousands of protesters, comprising students, workers, and businesspeople,
including the blind, also flocked the streets in Surabaya, East Java,
Makassar in South Sulawesi, Manado in North Sulawesi, and Jayapura in
Papua.
The protests over the increases began last week. On Jan. 9, thousands
of workers and students staged a rally in front of Merdeka Palace, Central
Jakarta, to demand that the government annul the utility price hikes.
"Bring down the prices, reduce electricity and telephone tariffs,"
the workers shouted in front of the tightly-guarded compound.
The workers charged that the simultaneous price hikes would bring more
suffering to the people whose purchasing power had diminished since the
economic crisis struck the country in 1997.
"The government has to review this policy...decrease the utility
prices, or you two [Megawati and Hamzah Haz] have to step down,"
a protester yelled, waving a banner that read: "Increasing prices
means killing the people."
Over 500 police personnel were deployed to monitor the Jan. 9 protests,
including around 200 police who stood guard in front of Merdeka Palace.
In Indonesia’s second-largest city, Surabaya, some 3,000 workers
from across East Java province were fought off by police when attempting
to reach the city center to join 300 demonstrators there. Three protestors
were reported injured.
The House of Representatives approved the increases last year to meet
demands by foreign creditors for fiscal belt-tightening. Some estimates
say the higher prices could throw as many as three million people into
poverty as a result of the subsequent rise in the prices of food and transportation.
The price of diesel fuel, used for much public transport, was raised though
the price of local "premix" fuel, used in many modern cars,
remained unchanged, adding weight to public criticism that the price rises
hurt only the poor and those of limited means.
Dita Indah Sari, a labor activist from the National Front for the Struggle
of Indonesian Workers (FNPBI), deplored the fact that the government had
ignored the plight of the middle and lower classes and turned a deaf ear
to public demands.
FNPBI and other elements of society, Dita said, were planning to seize
gas stations belonging to Megawati’s husband, businessman Taufik
Kiemas, as a symbolic act of public resistance against Megawati’s
government, and to occupy the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) and use the
food stored there to feed the poor.
"The price hike is insupportable. We cannot cope with the increased
living costs," said Maladi, one of the 150 protesters grouped under
the Solidarity of National Workers (Sopan), affiliated to Amien Rais’s
National Mandate Party (PAN).
Calls have been mounting for President Megawati Sukarnoputri and Vice
President Hamzah Haz to resign.
Sources: Jakarta Post, www.laksamana.net
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Anti-war
train drivers
refuse to move arms freight
By Kevin Maguire
Jan. 9— Train drivers yesterday refused to move a freight train
carrying ammunition believed to be destined for British forces being deployed
in the Gulf. Railway managers cancelled the Ministry of Defense (MoD)
service after the crewmen, described as "conscientious objectors"
by a supporter, said they opposed Tony Blair’s threat to attack Iraq.
The anti-war revolt is the first such industrial action by workers for
decades.
The two Motherwell-based drivers declined to operate the train between
the Glasgow area and the Glen Douglas base on Scotland’s west coast,
Europe’s largest NATO weapons store.
English Welsh and Scottish Railway (EWS), which transports munitions
for the MoD as well as commercial goods, yesterday attempted to persuade
the drivers to move the disputed load by tomorrow.
Leaders of the Aslef rail union were pressed at a meeting with EWS executives
to ask the drivers to relent. But the officials of a union opposed to
any attack on Iraq are unlikely to comply. The two drivers are understood
to be the only pair at the Motherwell freight depot trained on the route
of the West Highland Line. An EWS spokesman declined to confirm the train
had been halted, although he insisted no drivers had refused to take out
the trains. "We don’t discuss commercial issues," he said.
"The point about the two drivers is untrue and we don’t discuss
issues about meetings we have."
Yet his claim was flatly contradicted by a well-placed rail industry
source who supplied the Guardian with the train’s reference number.
The MoD later said it had been informed by EWS that mechanical problems,
caused by the cold winter weather, had resulted in the train’s cancellation.
One solution under discussion yesterday between the MoD and EWS was to
transport the shipment by road to avoid what rail managers hoped would
be an isolated confrontation.
Dockers went on strike rather than load British-made arms on to ships
destined for Chile after the assassination of leftwing leader Salvador
Allende in 1973.
In 1920 stevedores on London’s East India Docks refused to move
guns on to the Jolly George, a ship chartered to take weapons to anti-Bolsheviks
after the Russian revolution.
Trade unions supporting workers who refuse to handle weapons could risk
legal action and possible fines for contempt of court. Lindsey German,
convener of the Stop the War Coalition, said: "We fully support the
action that has been taken to impede an unjust and aggressive war. We
hope that other people around the country will be able to do likewise."
The anti-war group is organizing a second national demonstration in central
London on Saturday, Feb. 15. Organizers claimed more than 400,000 people
attended a protest in September.
Source: Guardian (UK)
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Sharon
broadcast cut off,
Palestinians killed by Israeli Army
Compiled by Seán Marquis
Jan. 15 (AGR)— Israel’s Central Election Committee (CEC) cut
short a broadcast by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Jan. 10 when CEC head
Mishael Cheshin took the unprecedented step of ordering the broadcast
stopped when he judged that Sharon’s comments became overtly political.
Sharon was in the middle of a press conference speech attempting to defend
himself from corruption allegations against him in relation to a $1.5
million "loan" from a British business man. Campaign contributions
from abroad are illegal under Israeli law.
After 10 meandering minutes Sharon had failed to do anything but attack
the Labor party, and a supreme court judge ordered the broadcast to be
terminated for breaching a ban on electoral propaganda within 60 days
of an election.
"We are sorry to announce we have to stop broadcasting the speech
immediately according to an order by the Central Election Committee chairman,
Justice Mishael Cheshin, as the prime minister’s comments amount
to campaigning for the election," the announcement cutting the broadcast
said.
The instruction cut Sharon off in mid-sentence 10 minutes into his speech
- ironically, the Jerusalem Post noted, just as he was getting to denying
corruption allegations against him.
Ha’aretz, the newspaper which broke the story of Sharon’s financial
irregularities, suggested that his incoherent attacks on enemies was a
deliberate attempt to breach the ban on television electioneering.
The broadcast may even have fueled the decline of Likud – Sharon’s
party— which has lost about one-third of its backing over the past
month, according to the latest polls leading up to the Jan. 28 elections.
In addition, 31% of voters said they no longer believe Sharon is fit to
be prime minister.
In other statements, Sharon said there was nothing improper about the
loan, although he admitted last week that he needed the money to repay
illegal contributions from his 1999 party leadership campaign.
The fraud squad is investigating whether the loan to one of Sharon’s
sons from Cyril Kern, a wealthy former textile manufacturer in Cape Town,
South Africa, was indirectly used to repay illegal campaign funds.
If so, Sharon could face charges of deception, fraud and lying to the
police over the source of the funds.
The police have already made several arrests and Sharon was forced to
fire one of his deputy ministers implicated in the scandal.
The Likud is hemorrhaging support not only to its allies on the right
but, crucially, to a centrist party, Shinui, that looks likely to triple
its seats and emerge as the third largest party in the knesset.
In another election update, on Jan. 9 a panel of 11 judges lifted a ban
on two Arab Israeli members of parliament from contesting the upcoming
elections. An Arab party that had been banned was also allowed to contest
in the elections.
Azmi Bishara, the outspoken leader of the Balad party had been barred
by the CEC along with Ahmed Tibi of the communist Hadash party. The CEC
is made up of members of the Israeli parliament and political appointees.
The vote in the CEC to ban Tibi and Bishara and his Balad party was cast
along a left-right political divide. The committee went against the advice
of its own chairman, Supreme Court Judge Cheschin, in what was widely
seen as a political and not a judicial decision.
Tibi and Bishara were accused of supporting violence against the state
because of their alleged sympathy with the Palestinian intifada.
Both legislators denied the charges, saying they opposed violence but
had the right to criticize Israeli government policy.
Sharon has accused Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat of interfering in
Israel’s general election campaign by trying to engineer a period
of calm to swing voters to the Left.
In a move apparently designed to identify Amram Mitzna’s opposition
Labor as the "Arafat" party — and to divert attention from
corruption scandals plaguing his own Likud Party — the Israeli Prime
Minister was scathing about a weekend call by the Palestinian leadership
for armed groups "to practice self-restraint" in the run-up
to voting on Jan. 28.
Arafat regularly condemns suicide bombings and other attacks on Israeli
civilians, and his officials say they cannot control Palestinian militant
groups.
Death toll rises
At least nine Palestinians and one Israeli are reported to have been killed
in a day of widespread violence in the Palestinian territories and Israel
on Jan. 11.
Two Palestinian infiltrators killed an Israeli in a village next to the
West Bank before they were killed. In a rare incident on the Israel-Egypt
border, Israeli soldiers shot and killed two infiltrators in the desert
south of the Gaza Strip.
The incidents also include an Israeli helicopter gunship attack that
Palestinians say mistakenly killed two teenagers in the Gaza Strip.
An Israeli helicopter fired a missile at a car believed to contain at
least two members of Hamas, the hard-line Palestinian group.
Palestinian witnesses said the car did carry two members of Hamas, identified
as Muhammad abu Shamalah and Raed al Attar, but said the missile, fired
by an Israeli Apache helicopter, hit two civilians instead.
According to those witnesses, the Israeli missile killed two teenage
boys, Mohammed Kawarea and Abed al Rahman al Najar, both unarmed civilians.
Israeli officials acknowledged that the missile had missed its target,
but said they could not confirm any casualties.
After two Palestinian suicide bombers killed 22 people in Tel Aviv on
Jan. 5, Israel decided to step up its offensive against Palestinian militants,
including the so-called "targeted killings" of suspects, a practice
the Palestinians denounce as assassinations and human rights groups criticize
as summary executions without trial.
More than 2,060 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of
the Palestinian uprising. in September, 2000. The Israeli death toll is
more than 720.
Israel seeks $12 billion from US
A delegation from Israel, the largest recipient of US foreign aid, has
sought $12 billion in assistance at a meeting with State Department and
White House officials last week, Israeli officials said.
The request, covering the next three to five years, exceeds the total
$11.6 billion budgeted last year by the US for all countries.
The request is to help Israel weather the Palestinian uprising and a
possible US war on Iraq.
Sharon’s office said Israel was asking for $4 billion in direct
assistance and $8 billion in loan guarantees.
Dov Weissglas, Sharon’s chief of staff, led the delegation, according
to Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
Israel receives about $3 billion a year in military and civilian assistance
from the US.
The US response is likely to be made public within a month before
the expected invasion of Iraq. The State Department spokesman, Richard
Boucher, has refused to talk about the negotiations, save for a passing
remark that "we always try to help our friends and allies to the
best of our ability".
Amongst the delegation to Washington was one of the former army officers
implicated in the 1982 Sabra and Chatila massacre of Palestinian civilians
in Lebanon.
Amos Yaron, who is now director general of the Israeli Ministry of Defense,
was the Israeli military commander in Beirut when Lebanese Phalangist
militiamen entered the refugee camps and slaughtered up to 1,700 Palestinian
refugees. Yaron ordered flares to be dropped over the camps, at the request
of the Phalange, and Israeli soldiers blocked the exits to prevent civilians
from leaving the area.
Sources: BBC News, Bloomberg News, The Guardian
(UK), Independent (UK), Inter Press Service, New York Times, Reuters,
Times (UK)
Map Courtesy CIA World Factbook
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Crisis
in Venezuela continues
Compiled by Nicholas Holt
Jan. 15 (AGR)— The crisis in Venezuela has continued as a strike
in the oil industry and other sectors of society entered its sixth week.
Ruling party legislators said Monday they will urge citizens to boycott
a February referendum on President Hugo Chávez’s rule if the
Supreme Court allows it to take place.
The opposition, led by the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers and the
Fedecamaras business association, is demanding Chávez resign and
call new elections if he loses the nonbinding referendum tentatively set
for Feb. 2.
Chávez has refused to step down, as the Venezuelan Constitution
allows for a recall vote halfway through a president’s term, which
in Chávez’s case would be August.
The opposition has said that is too late.
The Constituion could be amended by the national legislature to allow
for earlier elections, but Chávez has rejected that idea.
The National Election Council agreed to organize the referendum after
accepting an opposition petition signed by at least 2 million people.
But council members have said the vote might have to be postponed if the
government does not provide funds for it soon.
Foreign Minister Roy Chaderton has said the government would consider
providing funds for the vote if the Supreme Court upheld it.
On Tuesday, soldiers loyal to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez
siezed riot gear — including submachine guns and rifles — from
police in the capital city of Caracas where the mayor is allied with opposition
groups calling for Chávez’s resignation.
The government accuses police there of killing two Chávez supporters
during a melee two weeks ago.
"The metropolitan police cannot be above the law, above the executive,
above citizens," Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel told foreign
reporters. "We are trying to make them answer to the law. That is
why we seized their equipment and weapons."
Chávez has announced he will split the state owned oil monopoly
Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) into two parts to make the government
less vulnerable to labor conflicts, the energy minister announced on Jan.
7.
In a nationally televised speech, Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said
PDVSA (which owns the CITGO corporation) will have two centers of operation,
one in eastern Venezuela and one in the west.
He did not say how many of the 7,000 employees at the current PDVSA headquarters
will lose their jobs, but most are currently on strike. The government
has vowed to fire strikers.
Chávez has long said he wished to restructure the company, which
he has called a "state within a state."
"We need the PDVSA to be much more efficient…and not as an
oil enclave, but a company at the service of the nation," Ramierez
said. Bureaucracy in Caracas increases operating costs by $1 billion a
year, he added.
Company activity is seen as gradually picking up, but is still well below
normal. Crude output is estimated at around 400,000 barrels a day, compared
to the pre-strike levels of 3 million and exports, normally 2.5 million
a day, are at 500,000.
There are mixed reports on the durability of the strke. Although the
banking union Fetrabanca agreed to join the strike for 48 hours last week,
small and midsized businesses have reopened in the country’s mjor
cities and gasoline imports have returned traffic to the roadways.
However, the shelves of stores and groceries are sparsely filled.
On Jan. 10, Chávez announced that he had ordered the army to sieze
private food stocks and food production plants that have remained idle
as a result of the strike.
"[The army] must prepare to take control of the food factories and
stocks," he told thousands of cheering supporters in the town of
San Carlos, 200 kilomiters southwest of Caracas.
"I am prepared to take any action that has to be taken to guarantee
food distribution.
"I warn insensitive business leaders who are hoarding corn, bread
flour, rice: make no mistake with Hugo Chávez, because in keeping
with the constitution…and my duties as president, I will not let
the people die of hunger," he said.
Today, the creation of a group of countries friendly towards Venezuela,
including Brazil and the US, is slated to occur in Quito, Ecuador as heads
of state and other officials gather for the inauguration of Lucio Gutiérez
as Ecuador’s president.
The aim of the group will be to help find a way out of Venezuela’s
political crisis.
This could be the first measure of leadership strength, in the context
of the Western Hemisphere, between the US and Brazil, whose new president
is the leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the Workers Party.
Venezuelan officials have expressed suspicions about US intentions. "We
trust that the United States will not take a stand that will divide this
country into pro-Americans and anti-Americans," Foreign Minister
Chaderton said. "We want them to respect that this is a democratically
elected government."
Latin American experts say that the Bush administration has hurt its
credibility with Chávez by endorsing last year’s two-day coup
led by the military high command and powerful business interests (the
only nation in the Americas to do so) and by briefly joining the oposition’s
call for early elections this year.
Washington also shares PDVSA’s executives’ goals of busting
the quotas of the Organization of Petrolium Exporting Countries (OPEC),
of which Venezuela is a member, and even selling off the company to private
foreign investors.
The crisis in Venezuela is creating major new complications for the Bush
administration’s drive for war on Iraq by causing oil shortages that
would probably make a such a war more costly to the economy than once
anticipated.
Chávez retains enough support among the military, security services,
and irregular forces (as well as a hard-core following of 20-30 percent
of the population) that anything less than a full fledged military coup
attempt is unlikely to meet with much success. Unstated but understood
is the fact that opposition military figures are reluctant to launch a
coup if they are not guaranteed US backing.
Sources: Associated Press, BBC,
IPS, New York Times, STRATFOR, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Znet
back to top
Man
released from Guantanamo describes year-long imprisonment
Jan. 3— Mohammed Sanghir, a missionary preacher with the Tablighi
Jamaat, a non-political organization for the propagation of Islam with
several million adherents around the world, returned to his village in
Pakistan last November after more than a year’s imprisonment in the
US base at Guantánamo in Cuba.
The first Pakistani to be released, he still wears the green plastic
bracelet that bears his "American" ID: US 9PK 0001 43 DP, plus
his age (51), height, weight and a photograph.
Sanghir had been in Afghanistan around three months when war broke out
and he was taken prisoner in the chaos of the battle for Kunduz. "Together
with around 250 people, 50 of whom died," he was loaded into a container
to be taken to Uzbek leader General Rashid Dostom’s notorious Sheberghan
prison.
"They were screaming for water, they were banging their heads against
the walls and there, right there beside me, they died," says Sanghir
of his companions. After 45 days in Sheberghan "they turned us over
to some US soldiers who blindfolded us and took us by helicopter to Kandahar."
There he was interrogated.
"There was an American and a translator. They asked me where I was
from, why I was in Afghanistan, if I had links with al-Qaida, if I knew
people from al-Qaida, if I’d ever seen Osama bin Laden and if I’d
be able to recognize him."
After this one summary questioning, a doctor called for Sanghir. "He
took my fingerprints and one earprint," he said. Eighteen days later,
they came again.
"They shaved my head, my beard and my moustache, put a blindfold
over my eyes and put me in a tent where I waited for two or three hours
with some other people.
"Before they shaved us, an American woman who spoke a little Urdu
said: ‘We’re taking you to a place where you’ll have better
facilities and you’ll be more comfortable’."
The soldiers, he says, completely ignored his attempts to save his beard,
which has religious significance. "I protested physically, but they
weren’t having any of it and they just said, ‘It’s not
allowed’."
For the 22-hour flight to Cuba, Sanghir was tied to his seat, gagged,
blindfolded, and had earplugs in his ears.
"A woman gave us apples twice, and some bread and water," he
recalls. The arrival at the Guantánamo base was rough. "While
we still had our hands tied behind our backs and our eyes blindfolded,
I was thrown outside and beaten by some soldiers," Sanghir says.
He was to spend the next three and a half months, dressed in red overalls,
in a cage open to the winds, "to the millions of mosquitoes and to
the heat," and without even a minute’s privacy.
"We were like animals. If we were men, why put us in a cage? In
the beginning, they didn’t let us pray or speak to each other, but
after two days of hunger strike a superior officer came, allowed us to
pray and gave us half an hour for lunch.
"Twice a week they took us out to walk, and they gave us a clean
uniform once a week," Sanghir said, adding that a doctor was always
on hand. After three and a half months, he was transferred to a new, more
comfortable cage, with running water and a bathroom in the corner.
Over the ten months he spent at Guantánamo, Sanghir was interrogated
around 20 times.
"The questions were always the same, just presented in different
ways. First, they showed me photographs of members of al-Qaida to find
out if I knew them; then they asked me if there were any al-Qaida members
around me; they wanted to know if I’d met bin Laden and if I’d
be able to recognize him. The photos were of people who looked like Afghans
or Arabs."
Sanghir maintains he did not recognize anyone. The only people whom he
saw at Guantánamo -- "once, during a move" -- were Mullah
Abdul Salam Zaeef, the ex-Taliban ambassador to Pakistan handed over to
the US by Islamabad, "who looked very weak"; Khairallah Kwaiwa,
ex-governor of Herat, arrested in Chaman on the Afghan-Pakistan border;
Mullah Fazl, ex-commander of Kunduz; and another commander, Mullah Abdel
Raouf.
"One day, a new general came and said to me, ‘You’re going
to have some good news next week’," Mohammed said, recalling
his release. He is still shocked that not one US official expressed even
the slightest remorse at the year he had lost and the humiliation he had
suffered.
"They just said, ‘You are innocent’. No one apologized."
Sanghir plans to claim damages from the US. "At Guantánamo,
the soldiers told me I would get $400 for each month’s detention,
but I only got $100 when I arrived in Islamabad."
Sanghir makes his living using a machine for cutting wood, highly prized
in this isolated and mountainous region. "For a year, my family had
to borrow in order to survive, and now, how am I going to repay the money?"
he asks, indicating that his machine has rusted from lack of maintenance.
"What can I do against the United States? It is a great power,"
he says, resignedly, when asked how he feels about the Americans.
His fellow citizens, in this highly conservative region, are not always
so reserved. Painted in black on the wall of the village school, two Kalashnikovs
frame an unambiguous call to arms: "Jihad on those who deny the Quran."
Source: Index on Censorship
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BRIEFS
World on path to disaster, bomb pioneers
warn
The Bush administration is setting the world on a course toward nuclear
disaster, a founder of the nuclear deterrence policy said Thursday. 1995
Nobel peace laureate Professor Sir John Rotblat accused the US of developing
a policy which regards nuclear weapons as bad if in the possession of
some states or groups, but good if they were kept by the US for the sake
of "world security." He said, "By utilizing the tremendous
advances in technology for military purposes, the US has built up an overwhelming
military superiority, exceeding many-fold the combined military strength
of all other nations. It is claimed that this is necessary for world security,
but actually what such a policy amounts to is to rest the security of
the world on a balance of terror." (Guardian
UK)
Protesters arrested breaking into US
base in UK
Fifteen anti-war protesters, thought to be students from the Cambridge
area, were arrested Sunday after breaking into the US Airbase Mildenhall.
They were apprehended on the main runway after breaking through a perimeter
fence. Mildenhall and its sister base Lakenheath are two of the largest
US airbases outside the US mainland as well as regular targets for peace
demonstrators protesting the possible US-UK war on Iraq.
(Cambridge News)
India advised by security panel to scrap
no-first-use policy
The National Security Advisory Board (NSAB), the top body of security
experts that advises India’s National Security Council, has recommended
to the government that India should abandon its decades-old nuclear doctrine
of no-first-use. The NSAB advised that "India must consider withdrawing
from this commitment as the other nuclear weapon states have not accepted
this policy," and also suggested India should follow the US if America
begins a testing of nuclear bombs. Many fear India’s new policy will
heighten the tensions between the government and Pakistan, both of whom
claim Kashmir as their province in a lengthy and deadly on-going battle.
(Hindustan Times)
Mexico challenges US on death penalty
cases
Mexico filed a complaint against the US in the International Court of
Justice Thursday charging American officials with violating the rights
of all 54 Mexicans on death row in the US and asking their executions
be commuted to life in prison. Mexico argued the US violated the Vienna
Convention on Consular Relations which guarantees people access to their
country’s diplomatic missions when accused of a crime in a foreign
country. Most of the death-row inmates did not have Spanish-speaking lawyers
which Mexico has said it would furnish in retrials. "It is the difference
between life and death," said the Mexican Foreign Ministry lawyer
who filed the complaint.
A US government official said the sheer numbers of Mexicans incarcerated
in the US would make honoring the Convention impossible. Mexico fears
the US is setting a bad example that other countries will follow which
could also have grave consequences for US citizens arrested in foreign
countries. (Washington Post)
Mauritius court declares anti-US protest legal
A Mauritian Supreme Court Justice declared on Friday that the police had
acted outside the law in banning a demonstration against the free trade
policies and war-mongering of the US and ordered the police to authorize
the planned Jan. 15 demonstration. The protest in this West African nation
is timed to coincide with the opening of the neo-liberal Agoa Ministerial
Forum in Mauritius which President Bush has called "a roadmap for
how the US and Africa can tap the power of markets to improve the lives
of our citizens." (www.allAfrica.com)
Anti-globalization rally caps Asian Social Forum
A mammoth 40,000 strong anti-globalization rally on Tuesday marked the
end of the Asian Social Forum (ASF) in Hyderbad, India. The ASF, the first
attempt at a regional Asian link with the anti-globalization World Social
Forum held yearly in Brazil, coincided with the neo-liberal Partnership
Summit, where some four billion dollars worth of investment deals were
expected to be signed. One of the organizers said, "It is tempting
for many of the participants in the rally to stage a Seattle-like situation,
but we have restrained them." A well-known sociologist stated, "I
like the chaos. This is how a people’s forum should be…like
a fair." (IPS)
Anti-NAFTA farmers hold talks with government
Organizations of peasant farmers in Mexico are holding talks with the
government in search of a national agreement to rescue the country’s
farm sector, amidst a climate of impatience and division among rural groups.
Rural activists complain that the new North American Free Trade Agreement
provisions that lifted Mexican tariffs on imports of nearly 80 agricultural
products from the US as of Jan. 1 will be fatal to Mexico’s farmers,
due to the competition with heavily subsidized US farm goods. (IPS)
Arab boycott of US consumer goods spreads
An informal Arab boycott of US goods, in protest over US support of Israel,
has been slowly gathering pace around the Middle East over the past two
years. Islamic clerics denounce the US at Friday prayers; well-known scholars
give impetus to the boycott; students rally in many cities; and hundreds
of leaflets and emails in support circulate through the population. Some
US companies have reported a drop in Middle Eastern sales between 25 and
40 percent as US goods are replaced with European and Asian ones. The
boycott is an extension of the 1961 Arab boycott against Israel.
(Guardian UK)
Families of Sept. 11 victims hold vigil
On Jan. 8, relatives of victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks visited
a Baghdad shelter bombed during the Gulf War where more than 400 civilians
burned to death in 1991. Peaceful Tomorrow, an anti-war group formed by
victims’ families of Sept. 11, visited Iraq on a six-day peace mission
trying to help stop the new war the US may to unleash on Iraq.
(Reuters)
Protesters seize cathedral in El Salvador
On Jan. 8, some 20 masked protesters calling themselves the "People’s
Youth Bloc" occupied the metropolitan cathedral in San Salvador and
announced they would not leave until the government negotiates a solution
with striking medical workers of the Salvadoran Social Security Institute.
The occupation took place as activists from the Citizen Alliance Against
Privatization were blocking highways throughout El Salvador to reject
any privatization of health services. The protesters left the cathedral
Jan. 10 after meeting with a government official and a human rights worker.
They were neither identified nor arrested.
(Weekly Update on the Americas)
Farmers’ tractor protest in Dublin
Thousands came from all over the country but only three hundred tractors
were allowed to enter Dublin Friday as farmers brought their protest over
low incomes to the Irish government’s doorstep. The Irish Farmers’
Association says 20,000 farmers have been driven off their land in the
past decade due to falling earnings. They have called on the government
to raise prices for milk, beef, and grain, increase tax refunds, and deliver
a proper agro-environmental package. (Guardian
UK)
IRA warns of peace process ‘threat’
Ireland’s Unionists want the Irish Republican Army (IRA) to disband,
while the IRA leadership has said the Northern Ireland peace process is
"under threat." The IRA also accused both the British Government
and Unionists of trying to impose "unacceptable and unrealistic"
demands on republicans. However, in a New York statement, the group said
it remained committed to a just and lasting peace. The primary responsibility
for restoring confidence in the process lies with the British government.
The IRA statement comes as Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams prepares to
meet Prime Minister Tony Blair in London on Thursday to discuss the deadlocked
peace process. (BBC)
French opposition to war on Iraq rises
In France, public opposition to war in Iraq has risen in the face of fears
that President Jacques Chirac is preparing troops for military action.
Three new opinion polls show that more than 70 percent of French citizens
oppose war with Iraq, even if the United Nations sanctions it. Military
sources said France is preparing 15,000 troops for a new Gulf war. Chirac’s
statements about the possible war are contradictory and vacillating. In
the past few months, there have been numerous anti-war rallies throughout
France. (IPS)
Iraq war would quash efforts to fight
AIDS
A United Nations (UN) special envoy on AIDS warned Wednesday that a war
against Iraq would eclipse humanitarian efforts around the world, and
29.4 million Africans with the disease would be among those suffering
the most. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria is
vastly underfunded even though it has entreated wealthy governments for
funds to fight disease. The war with Iraq will only divert much-needed
resources to war games instead of saving lives.
"What is required is a combination of political will and resources,"
said the UN representative for AIDS in Africa. "You will forgive
me for the strong language. But…the time for polite, even agitated
entreaties is over. This pandemic cannot be allowed to continue, and those
who watch it unfold with a kind of pathological equanimity must be held
to account. There may yet come a day when we have peacetime tribunals
to deal with this particular version of crimes against humanity."
(Los Angeles Times)
IMF cuts disputed clause from debt plan
The International Monetary Fund, bowing to strenuous objections from banks
and investors over its proposed "bankruptcy" system for indebted
countries, unveiled a proposal last week that omits one of the plans most
controversial features. The IMF dropped the mechanism that would block
creditors from suing to recover their money for a certain period after
a country has suspended payments on its debts. That move marks a partial
retreat form earlier proposals that were aimed at giving countries legal
protections from creditors similar to those available to companies and
individuals in the US and many other nations. Although some experts said
the IMF appears to be watering down its plan in significant ways, fund
officials said they had concluded that these "standstill" provisions
aren’t necessary because of other protections the plan provides to
countries. (Washington Post)
Iraq links cancer to uranium weapons
Iraq has experienced a dramatic rise in child cancers, leukemia, and birth
defects in recent years. Iraqi medical authorities and growing numbers
of American activists blame the US weapons containing depleted uranium
(DU) that were used in the 1991 Gulf War and the 1998 missile attacks
on Baghdad and other major cities. They also assert such munitions, also
used by US forces in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Serbia in smaller quantities,
may be a cause of Gulf War diseases, elusive maladies that have affected
50,000 to 80,000 Gulf War veterans. The Pentagon says studies it has sponsored
have found no evidence that DU causes serious illnesses, while many international
medical experts remain on the fence, citing the lack of definitive scientific
evidence on the issue. (San Francisco Chronicle)
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