Corporate slush funds for Baghdad
By promising the United Nations a threadbare role in the reconstruction of Iraq, and giving the World Bank and International Monetary Fund accounting oversight, the US managed to buy the world’s largest multilateral institutions into an incredible deal for private US interests.
On May 22, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1483, which ended sanctions and endorsed the creation of Development Fund for Iraq, to be overseen by a board of accountants, including UN, World Bank, and IMF representatives. It endorsed the transfer of over $1 billion (of Iraqi oil money) from the Oil-for-Food program into the Development Fund. All proceeds from the sale of Iraqi oil and natural gas are also to be placed into the fund.
The fund, controlled by US viceroy Paul Bremer, has swelled to $7 billion, thanks to a $3.1 billion contribution from the US Congress, and billions of dollars more in seized assets of the Iraqi government.
The Development Fund, derived from actual and expected Iraqi oil and gas sales, apparently will be used to leverage US government-backed loans, credit, and direct financing for U.S. corporate forays into Iraq. Some of the funds will finance reconstruction projects approved by viceroy Bremer. But other funds will also be used as collateral for projects approved by the US Export-Import Bank (ExIm), whose mission is not development or poverty alleviation, but rather the creation of US jobs and the promotion of American business abroad.
In other words, the US government is happy to provide credit to any US business wishing to do business in Iraq especially because the money comes from Iraq.
A corporate coalition, whose ranks include Bechtel and Halliburton, welcomed the Bush/Cheney administration’s moves to use Iraqi oil to benefit its membership. (Institute for Policy Studies)

US works toward securing Russian Oil resources
The US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a government agency, has approved a $130 million loan guaranty for the construction of an oil products export terminal on Russia’s Vysotsky Island, which is on the Gulf of Finland north of St. Petersburg.
The guaranty, and this week’s visit of U.S. energy officials to Murmansk in Russia’s north, are the result of an energy dialogue begun last year between the two countries to connect the American and Russian energy markets.
The guaranty was made to HBK Fund LP of Dallas, Texas, for a loan the fund will make to an indirect subsidiary of OAO LUKOIL, the leading oil producer in the Russian Federation.
The financing will cover the first two phases of the project including construction of rail links and upgrades, two tank farms and a marine jetty, and dredging in the Gulf of Finland to permit large oil ships to pass.
OPIC President and CEO Dr. Peter Watson said, “Insufficient transportation and storage capacity for exportable oil products has been a significant problem for Russian producers such as OAO LUKOIL. With the support of a US company, this project will enable OAO LUKOIL both to expand its export volume and substantially reduce its average transportation costs.”
Talks in Murmansk covered projected contracts on the import of Russian fuels into the United States, and the possibility of US investment in the construction of an oil link between West Siberia and Murmansk, the largest seaport in the Russian north.
The new pipeline is planned to have an initial capacity of 80 million metric tons of crude oil a year, which would increase to 120 million metric tons. (ENS)

US sends inB-52 to bomb Afghan guerrillas
The US military said on July 24 it had sent B-52 and Harrier planes to bomb guerrillas who rocketed a base in eastern Afghanistan while US, Italian, and Afghan troops hunted militants in a major new operation.
US military spokesman Colonel Rodney Davis declined to say whether contact had been made with anti-coalition forces since “Operation Warrior Sweep” was launched in Khost and Paktia provinces on July 22.
“We are aggressively seeking Taliban, Al Qaida, and other anti-coalition forces,” he said.
Davis did not reveal the scope of the operation, or say how many coalition troops were involved alongside 1,000 from the fledgling Afghan National Army, but said the operation was extensive and may go on for some time.
The US military describes the involvement of the Afghan National Army in Warrior Sweep as the 5,000-strong force’s first major combat operation.
Elsewhere in eastern Afghanistan, coalition troops responded with mortars and called in air strikes by a giant B-52 bomber and two AV-8 Harrier aircraft when two rockets landed near their base at Asadabad in Kunar province on the night of July 23.
The latest operation comes after suspected Taliban guerrillas have stepped up anti-coalition attacks, wounding nine coalition soldiers since July 18.
Afghan officials say such attacks have been mounted by Taliban fighters operating from Pakistan, an open backer of the group before joining the US-led “war on terror” in 2001. (Reuters)

Israel offers to ‘withdraw’ from unoccupied cities
Israel has announced new measures to improve the humanitarian situation of Palestinians, ahead of Ariel Sharon’s trip to Washington on July 29 for talks with US President George Bush.
Israel says it will “withdraw” from two more Palestinian cities in the West Bank and dismantle some roadblocks. However, the Israeli army’s “withdrawal” from Bethlehem four weeks ago was purely cosmetic, since soldiers were not inside the city, and did little to change the lives of Palestinians.
It appears that these new moves are designed to bolster the Israeli Prime Minister’s position before his talks withBush.
The announcement came after Bush’s talks with Sharon’s Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, on July 25, which were generally considered to have gone well for Abbas.
The new withdrawals are likely to follow the Bethlehem model. The Israeli army has been off the streets in the quieter Palestinian cities for months, only making periodic raids to arrest militants.
In Bethlehem the only change was that Palestinian police were allowed back on to the streets. The army continues to encircle the city. (Independent (UK))

Palestinian Boy, 4, killed at Israeli checkpoint
An Israeli soldier fired a machine gun that killed a four-year-old Palestinian boy and wounded two young girls on July 25 while all three were in a family truck at a military checkpoint on the edge of a West Bank village, the military and Palestinian witnesses said.
The army called the shooting an accident and expressed regret. After the shooting, angry residents of the village, Bartaa, threw stones at the soldiers.
It was the third time in four days that Israeli security forces had fatally shot unarmed Arabs at or near checkpoints.
The shooting occurred as the Kabaha family was returning home to Bartaa and its Mitsubishi truck was waiting in line at an Israeli checkpoint at the entrance to the village, in the northern West Bank, said Ali Kabaha, an uncle of the slain boy. As two soldiers approached the truck on foot, a soldier atop a nearby armored personnel carrier unleashed a burst of machine-gun fire, Palestinian witnesses said.
Mahmoud Kabaha, 4, was hit in the head and died instantly. A sister and a second girl, who was also a relative, were wounded, Mr. Kabaha said. The soldiers treated the two wounded girls, both about eight years old, and took them to an Israeli hospital, the military said.
Palestinian officials say Israel has more than 170 checkpoints in the West Bank, not only preventing Palestinians from entering Israel, but also often barring them from traveling between Palestinian towns. Israel says it needs the checkpoints to prevent Palestinian attacks. (NY Times)

Guatemalan president deploys army to keep order
President Alfonso Portillo ordered the army to restore order July 24 after a day that saw columns of black smoke rise over Guatemala City and a journalist die of a heart attack while running from a mob amid rallies by supporters and foes of a former dictator who wants to be Guatemala’s next head of state.
In a message broadcast by the country’s television and radio stations, Portillo announced the deployment of police and army troops to restore order on the streets of the capital.He also vowed to ensure that the general elections scheduled for Nov. 9 would take place in a free and democratic manner.The move came after violence broke out amid followers of retired Gen. Efrain Rios Montt, chairman of the ruling Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) and president of Congress, who is waging a court battle to be allowed to compete in the election to choose Portillo’s successor.
The disturbances led to the death of broadcast journalist Hector Ramirez, who succumbed to a heart attack while being chased by a mob of Rios Montt supporters. Meanwhile, two FRG partisans were killed and 20 others were injured in a traffic accident while on the way to join the demonstrations in favor of Rios Montt in the capital.
The pro-Rios Montt demonstration was called to protest his exclusion from the Nov. 9 presidential elections after UNE, a leftist opposition party, obtained an injunction blocking the former strongman’s candidacy.
Guatemala’s constitution includes a provision banning those who led coups or armed rebellions from seeking the nation’s highest offices, but Rios Montt had convinced a court that the ban should not apply to him because his successful 1982 coup predated the enactment of the current constitution. UNE, however, got the Supreme Court to issue a temporary injunction suspending the general’s candidacy.
Montt is blamed for some of the worst atrocities during the country’s 1960-96 civil war. (EFE)

Solomons intervention serves Australian big business
On July 21, the first contingent of some 155 Australian Federal Police (AFP) and 1500 Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel, including 200 combat troops, began departing for the Solomon Islands’ capital of Honiara. They will be supplemented by smaller contingents of troops and police from New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, and Papua New Guinea.
The dispatch of the ADF-AFP force followed a unanimous vote on July 17 by the Solomon Islands’ parliament — all of whose members are indirectly on Canberra’s payroll, since Australia provides most of the funding for the bankrupt Solomons government — to approve the intervention of the “multinational peacekeeping force.”
While the Australian media have given huge amounts of publicity to the ADF-AFP deployment to “restore law and order,” there has been little mentioned of the deployment to the Solomons of around 100 Australian civil administrators, headed by Nick Warner, a former ambassador to Papua New Guinea. These bureaucrats will take up key positions in the Solomons’ civil service and central bank, in effect putting them in control of the country.
Their mission was spelt out in the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s (APSI) June 10 report, Our Failing Neighbour — the blueprint for Canberra’s colonial-style takeover of the Solomons. It declared the Solomons to be a “failed state” which was “depriving Australia of business and investment opportunities that, though not huge, are potentially valuable.”
The ASPI report recommended that Canberra bureaucrats take over the running of the Solomons’ government departments in order to give them a “strong focus on stimulating private enterprise” — a continuation of the policy focus that has led to the Solomons’ present “failed” condition.
In his AFR article, Terry Brown pointed out that more than 90 percent of land in the Solomons is collectively owned by local tribes with “no system for legally registering this land with clear boundaries, genealogies, and land trusts. The result is an endless string of land disputes.”
Brown noted that the World Bank sees the solution to the land question in the Solomons as privatising more and more customary land, including its sale to foreign owners. (Green Left Weekly)