Zapatistas emerge from the shadows
By Diego Cevallos
Mexico City, Mexico, July 25 (IPS)— The leftist Zapatista
National Liberation Army (EZLN), has emerged from the shadows after
two years of near silence to announce structural changes and new actions
that “not everyone is going to like.”
In four communiqués issued during the past week, the EZLN, based
in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, which took up arms in 1994
but has not engaged in violence since, appears to be aiming at reconquering
space in the Mexican political arena, something that will not be easy,
say observers.
The Zapatistas invited their supporters to attend an Aug. 8 celebration
at one of its so-called “aguascalientes,” enclaves in the
Chiapas jungles used as political and cultural centers.
The celebration will mark the closure of those centers, where the last
few years have seen numerous meetings between the EZLN and civil society.
“Something new” will be announced then, the result of long
debates within the guerrilla organization, said Zapatista spokesman
Subcomandante Marcos in one of the communiqués.
Marcos said the aguascalientes were being eliminated because they had
begun to draw non-governmental organizations (NGOs) — of local
and international origins — that sought to make dubious donations
and to force development projects on the local indigenous population,
an attitude that the EZLN defined as the “Cinderella syndrome.”
What the Zapatistas want is political collaboration to ensure recognition
of indigenous people’s rights and to promote the “construction
of a new world, in which many worlds coexist, where hand-outs and pity
form part of science fiction novels — or of a forgettable and dispensable
past,” wrote Marcos, who has not appeared in public in the past
few years, and never without his trademark ski mask.
“The death of the aguascalientes is also the death of the ‘Cinderella
Syndrome’ of some ‘civil societies’ and the paternalism
of certain national and international NGOs…The Zapatista communities
will no longer receive leftovers nor will they allow projects to be
imposed upon them.”
The EZLN has remained on the sidelines of Mexico’s political agenda
since March 2001, after the guerrilla commanders led a convoy from Chiapas
to Mexico City to demand approval of laws benefiting indigenous groups.
The legislation was passed, but it was a weak version of the original
bill, and the Zapatistas rejected it outright.
Since then the guerrillas, who have refused to renew peace talks with
the government after they broke down in 1996, issued statements about
certain local and international matters, but they did not have much
impact and some came under fire from groups that previously had declared
unconditional support for the EZLN.
This low profile maintained by the EZLN and Marcos, after having spent
several years in the Mexican and international media spotlight, came
during the government of Vicente Fox, the first president in seven decades
who is not from the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party).
With the end of the PRI governments, which ruled Mexico uninterrupted
since 1929, the EZLN, comprised mostly of Indians, saw its role as an
opposition voice diminished. The Zapatistas had thrived on promoting
political initiatives and mobilizations in favor of democracy and indigenous
rights.
In 2001, most political analysts agreed that Fox had benefited from
convincing the Zapatistas to leave the Chiapas jungles, where they had
enjoyed a romantic and idealist image, and engage with the institutional
political arena, thus accepting its rules and limitations.
Fox says he has kept the door open for the EZLN to return to the peace
dialogue whenever it wants. But the guerrilla group has said it will
not negotiate until the original version of the bill on indigenous rights
is passed.
The Zapatistas, who at their peak were considered a reference point
for the “fight against neo-liberal economics” and against
the dominant model of globalization, remained silent on all local and
international events related to those issues in the past several months.
“It was to be expected that the EZLN would look for a new course
of action to reclaim its struggle and its position, but it won’t
be easy because the local political agenda today is focused on other
actors,” José Trinidad, a social movement researcher at
the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM), told IPS.
In one of the communiqués issued this week, Marcos wrote that
the Zapatistas were “even angry with those who sympathize with
their cause. Because they do not obey. When they are expected to speak,
they are quiet. When they are expected to be quiet, they speak. When
they are expected to lead, they fall behind. When they are expected
to follow, they head in another direction.”
“In other words, they are not to anyone’s liking. And they
do not seem to care much. What they are worried about is their own heart,
so they follow the path that it tells them,” added the EZLN leader
in a long text, with its usually literary bent, also containing reflections
on the history of the Zapatistas since they emerged in the 1980s.
“Regardless, one can be assured that what [the Zapatistas] do or
say from now on is not going to please many. Furthermore, as the ‘Sup’
[Marcos himself] says, the Zapatistas’ specialty is to create problems
and then see who solves them.”
Given the tone of the statements Marcos made this week, noted Trinidad,
“it can be interpreted that the EZLN will attempt new strategies
to leave the shadows, but one can be sure that they will continue to
shun violence.”
Thanks to a law on peace and dialogue enacted in 1994, the EZLN has
remained in the Chiapas jungles since then without launching attacks.
The group, which experts estimate to include fewer than 5,000 people,
mostly poorly armed, is considered by many to be the voice of the ten
million Indians in Mexico, the poorest social group in this country
of 100 million people.
“Marcos is a page from the past,” said Demetrio Sodi in January,
legislative deputy of the leftist opposition Democratic Revolutionary
Party (PRD), which previously had thrown its support behind the EZLN.
The Mexican Senate’s Commission on Indigenous Affairs this week
withdrew recognition of the EZLN and of Marcos as interlocutors in the
debate on the implementation of the legal reforms on indigenous rights
approved in 2001.
The matter will be discussed “directly with the institutional authorities”
of the indigenous peoples, announced commission member Luisa María
Calderón, senator for the ruling National Action Party (PAN).
Frightening rumors leak out about sons
held in Israeli cells
By Chris McGreal
Deheisha, West Bank, July 25— Israel’s security
system sucked 15-year-old Mohammed Najaar behind the barbed wire of
its labyrinth of detention camps nine months ago. For weeks the boy’s
desperate father heard only disturbing fragments about his son. A former
prisoner told Hassan Najaar that his child had been held in solitary
confinement for more than a month; another claimed the boy had been
hung upside down and interrogated.
Finally, a lawyer told Najaar that a military judge had ordered Mohammed’s
continued detention on accusations that even his lawyer is not permitted
to know. He has not heard any of this directly from his son because
the Israeli authorities refuse to allow him to see or write to him.
“We were told through other prisoners who were released that Mohammed
was held in solitary confinement for 45 days in a row, that he was treated
very badly,” he said. “They say he was singing all the time.
It’s a sign of hallucinations.
“I was really worried about him, but you can’t visit prisoners
until the Shin Bet [Israeli security service] has finished its interrogation,
and it says it hasn’t finished yet.”
Mohammed Najaar is one of about 6,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli
jails, including 350 children, whose continued detention has surfaced
as the principal obstacle on the “road map” to peace.
The Israeli government is offering to free a few hundred of the thousands
of detainees, for now at least, but not those with “blood on their
hands.” Talks between the two prime ministers in Jerusalem this
week degenerated into a shouting match over the fate of the prisoners.
“People feel very strongly about the prisoners,” said Diana
Buttu, a lawyer with the Palestinian negotiating team. “They are
really symbolic of Israel’s occupation.”
Mock trials
“We have statistics that 20 percent of the Palestinian population
has been in prison or detained by the Israelis. There’s hardly
anyone not touched by it. Then there’s the sense of injustice.
Palestinians are often tortured in prison. There are no visitation rights.
And if there is a trial, it’s a mock trial,” Buttu said.
The bulk of the prisoners have never been tried and many are not even
told the accusations against them. Just 1,461 have been convicted of
any crime — some of atrocities against civilians which the Israelis
use to justify their sweeping security laws. The Israeli human rights
organization B’Tselem says many are locked up for their political
views. “Security is interpreted in an extremely broad manner, such
that non-violent speech and political activity are considered dangerous,”
it said.
Mohammed Najaar is one of about 800 people held without charge under
“administrative detention” — a system used when there
is not enough evidence to take a case to court. Detentions can be renewed
every six months by a military judge. Some detainees have been held
for more than a decade.
The army came for Mohammed and his 17-year-old brother Mahmoud at 3am
one morning last November. Their family — including an 18-month-old
baby — was given one minute to get out of the house in Deheisha
and into the freezing winter night.
“Do you know the feeling when you are asleep and someone bursts
in and you are staring at this face covered in camouflage paint?”
Najaar said. “It was a shock, like seeing ghosts.”
The soldiers refused to give a reason for the arrests of Mohammed and
Mahmoud. Four days later Najaar heard through a Palestinian prisoners’
organization that the elder of the two was in a prison in the Negev
desert. But it took him two months to find out that Mohammed was being
held at Etzion detention camp.
Mohammed was finally able to see a lawyer, Tamar Pelleg-Sryck, in January.
She confirms that the boy was held in solitary confinement for 45 days.
She does not know if he was physically abused, as some prisoners have
told his father, but believes he is suffering psychological torture.
“Think of yourself at age 15, pulled out of home and put in a terrible
place,” she said. “He’s not well. He treats me just like
a grandmother in the questions he asked. He seems like a child compared
to the other people his age. It’s very cruel.”
Pelleg-Sryck says the army still refuses to reveal the accusations against
Mohammed. She was able to glean that they are based on information from
a single detained Palestinian who under interrogation confirmed that
he knew the boy and that he had shown an interest in joining the armed
struggle.
Pelleg-Sryck considers that to be flimsy evidence, and is particularly
outraged that interrogators have not asked Mohammed’s older brother
about it.
Mahmoud has been charged with a range of crimes, including stone throwing,
attempting to make a bomb, and membership of a banned organization.
But Mohammed remains in limbo. When in May he turned 16 years old —
the age at which Israeli military law regards him as an adult —
he was brought before a military judge who extended his detention for
six months. He was moved to Ofra detention camp near Ramallah and interrogated
for a further ten days.
Najaar said his son had described the interrogation to a third party
who passed it on. “The Israelis said, ‘Just say you made a
mistake,’ but he refused. He said he hadn’t done anything.
The interrogator provoked him, ‘Have you ever been fucked anywhere,
kid?’ This is very shocking for us,” Najaar said.
Israeli officials decline to discuss specific cases, but defend administrative
detention by pointing out that the US is doing much the same in Guantanamo
Bay.
“Every country that has to cope with the phenomenon of terrorism
has found it has had to use administrative detention,” said an
Israeli government legal adviser, Daniel Taub. “It is one of the
tools in the fight against terrorism, because intelligence is a major
weapon, and sometimes it is necessary to keep it secret.”
Source: Guardian (UK)
Warning of toxic aftermath from uranium
munitions
By Anthony Cardinale
July 22— The American use of depleted uranium munitions
in both Persian Gulf wars has unleashed a toxic disaster that will eclipse
the Agent Orange tragedy of the Vietnam War, a former top Army official
said Monday evening.
Former Maj. Douglas Rokke, who was director of the Army’s depleted
uranium project, spoke to 125 people at the Buffalo & Erie County
Historical Society. The Champaign, IL, science professor was brought
here by the Western New York Peace Center.
“I am a warrior,” the 54-year-old Vietnam War veteran began.
“The sole purpose of war is to kill and destroy. There are no winners.”
Dressed in sneakers, blue jeans, and a red polo shirt, Rokke fit the
image of an animated science professor, hair tousled, adjusting his
glasses and eager to impart his findings to the next generation.
If what he says is true, students will soon have yet another chapter
of heartbreaking history to study in the schools.
Called to active duty in 1990, Rokke said, he was assigned to develop
procedures for cleaning up uranium contamination after “they decided
to use depleted uranium munitions” in the war to expel Iraq from
Kuwait.
“They didn’t tell anybody what they were doing. Why would
they? Depleted uranium munitions are the ultimate weapon. Each round
fired by an Abrams tank [represents] ten pounds of solid uranium-238.
The purpose of war is to kill and destroy.”
Rokke said his team in the gulf blew up vehicles and structures with
these munitions and then tested the wreckage for radioactive contamination.
He said they found that uranium dust is so fine that it acts like a
gas, seeping through the tiny pores of protective masks.
The United States blew up Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq, in Kuwait, and on the Saudi Arabian border in the first gulf
war, Rokke said. As a precaution, American personnel were inoculated
before entering the field, but “we were told not to record it,
and it’s not in the soldiers’ medical records.”
Uranium munitions were also used during the recent war in Iraq, he added.
“It’s like playing darts,” he said, “except you’re
playing with ten pounds of solid uranium and it catches fire immediately.
You lose nearly 40 percent of the round in uranium dust. It contaminates
air, water, and soil for all eternity.”
Rokke said an “infamous memo” from the Los Alamos National
Laboratory in New Mexico on Mar. 1, 1991, warned of the “impact
on the environment” of depleted uranium rounds and suggested that
they “may become politically unacceptable.” Today he interprets
the memo as “a direct order to lie.”
The memo from Los Alamos — where the first atomic bombs were developed
and tested during World War II — prevented the military from acknowledging
the danger of these munitions, Rokke said.
“The United States used 375 tons in Gulf War I,” Rokke said.
“My orders were to take care of US casualties and vehicles”
that had been hit by “friendly fire.”
“Myself and my team members started to get sick almost immediately.
It started with respiratory problems, then rashes.”
But the procedures developed by his team were never implemented, Rokke
said, despite a military order of June 1991 to treat these personnel.
Recalling a wounded friend who suffered tumors where uranium shrapnel
had been left in his body, he said the authorities found “no compelling
evidence” of a connection and refused to authorize removal of the
shrapnel or special treatment.
In his own case, Rokke added, his body has six times the amount of uranium
that usually requires medical care but has received no help or advice
from the government.
“The technology of war is out of control,” Rokke concluded.
“We don’t have the ability to clean it up [or] treat it. I’m
a warrior, but my conclusion is that war is obsolete. A US Department
of Veterans Affairs report says over 221,000 of our sons and daughters
are on permanent disability and over 10,000 dead - one-third of our
Gulf War I force. And they’re coming back sick right now.”
Source: Buffalo News
Australia: opposition mounts to free
trade deal with US
By Bob Burton
Canberra, Australia, July 23 (IPS)— The prospect
of a free trade agreement between the United States and Australia, which
would give corporations the right to sue governments over regulations
and could reduce trade with Asia, is drawing opposition from free-trade
supporters and community groups alike.
The convenor of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network (AFTINET),
Dr. Pat Ranald, is alarmed at the prospect of governments coming under
challenge from corporations, arguing that state rules adversely affect
trade and must therefore be set aside.
“If an Australia-US Free Trade Agreement is to include provisions
similar to those of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA),
the almost inevitable outcome will be a reduction in the capacity of
all levels of Australian government to regulate,” she submitted
to an Australian Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade on Wednesday
morning.
The proposed free trade deal — scheduled to be completed by the
end of the year — was made a high priority for the two governments
when Australian Prime Minister John Howard met with US President George
W. Bush at his ranch in Texas in May.
This week, approximately 100 US and Australian trade negotiators are
meeting in Hawaii to exchange their wish lists for the proposed agreement.
But some say the idea of a US-Australia deal could reinforce perceptions
in the Asia-Pacific that the region is being left at a time when Australia
needs to cultivate ties with the countries in its own region.
Ross Garnaut, a supporter of multilateral free trade deals and economics
professor at the Australian National University Research School of Pacific
and Asian Studies, believes that a bilateral deal with the United States
could sour relations within the Asia-Pacific region on issues such as
preventing terrorism, for instance.
“There is a danger that at this time, when more than ever we need
trust and cooperation across the civilizations of the world to defeat
the scourge of terrorism, that we will entrench important divisions
in the international community in our region,” he told an Australian
Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade on Tuesday.
The most optimist economic assessment on the proposed free trade deal
estimated a $2.5 billion annual gain to Australia, but only if the most
protected US agricultural sectors — beef, dairy, and sugar industries
— were completely liberalized.
Garnaut believes there could be major adverse economic impacts if Asian
governments respond by excluding Australia from regional trade agreements.
“In our region there is a danger that we will end up not tomorrow,
over time, with a division down the Pacific with us being part of a
bloc with the United States but with most of East Asia having discriminatory
arrangement amongst themselves that leaves us out,” Garnaut added.
“That will obviously have horrific economic consequences for us,
[but the] economic consequences are much smaller for the US and Europe,”
Garnaut said.
Dr. Dorothy Broom, senior fellow at the National Center for Epidemiology
and Population Health (NCEPH), told the committee that an agreement
may force the opening of markets to products that the state has endeavored
to be careful about, such as tobacco products.
“It would be paradoxical, in our view, if the effect of a trade
agreement was cheaper cigarettes and more expensive pharmaceuticals
but both of these are likely outcomes,” she said, saying that this
free trade concerns may eclipse health concerns and undermine the country’s
health care system.
Broom and other public health academics from NCEPH warned in their submission
to the committee that “free trade entails the potential to challenge
and ultimately dismantle the current cornerstones of Australian health
provision.”
Of particular concern is the pressure from the drug industry in the
United States and Australia to challenge key provisions of the Pharmaceutical
Benefits Scheme (PBS), an Australian government program that regulates
and subsidizes pharmaceuticals.
“However, because the PBS is a system of government regulation
and subsidy, it flies in the face of the principles that underpin trade
agreements such as GATS,” they warned.
They urged senators to ensure that the PBS should be declared ”off
limits” in any free trade agreement. Without the PBS to control
prices for new drugs, they warned, the cost of prescription drugs would
increase to more closely match the costs in the United States, which
are as much as 250 percent higher than in Australia.
“We do not want to see Australia develop health care like that
in the United States, which has among the worst medical services arrangements
in the developed world,” they wrote in their submission to the
inquiry.
At a media briefing earlier, Australian chief trade negotiator Stephen
Deady revealed that this week’s meeting would see each side table
its formal offers.
While Australia is focusing on seeking gains to the US market for the
farm sector, there will be no discussion of the US government reducing
subsidies to domestic producers. “The primary focus of bilateral
free trade agreement negotiations is market access; other aspects of
the US support arrangements for agriculture are beyond the scope of
FTA negotiations,” Deady said.
Even farming trade groups, initially the strongest lobby pushing a free
trade agreement, are nervous about the proposed trade deal.
Ben Fargher, the senior policy manager on trade for the National Farmers
Federation (NFF), warned the committee they would “strenuously
and publicly oppose any approach, and outcome, which compromises the
interests of Australian agriculture.”
What exactly is up for negotiation between the two governments is not
clear so far.
Of the secrecy that surrounds the negotiations, the executive director
of the Public Health Association, Pieta Laut, said: “I think this
is clever politics but basically it is a means of advancing what is
a potentially unpopular policy...without the benefit of democratic debate,”
she told the committee on Tuesday afternoon.
Bloody US raid in Baghdad leaves Iraqis
furious
Compiled by Eamon Martin
July 30 (AGR)— Obsessed with capturing Saddam Hussein,
American soldiers on Sunday, July 27, turned a botched raid on a house
in the Mansur district of Baghdad into a bloodbath, opening fire on
scores of Iraqi civilians in a crowded street and killing up to 11,
including two children, their mother, and crippled father. At least
one civilian car caught fire, cremating its occupants.
The facts are clear: US forces threw an incomplete cordon around a house
they were targeting, and then shot up several cars which unwittingly
penetrated it. Caked pools of blood and a bullet hole in the window
of Baghdad’s al-Sa’ah restaurant are the only remaining signs
of the raid.
Outraged residents insist the soldiers fired indiscriminately at the
passing cars.
“They didn’t know the Americans were here. They were normal
civilians and wanted to go home,” one witness said. “[US soldiers]
opened fire right away.”
A soldier at a nearby hospital said the bodies of five people had been
brought in from the scene of the raid, including a boy in his early
teens.
“All these things are making people hate the Americans,” said
Muhammad, a Mansur resident. “In the beginning, all the Iraqi people
welcomed the Americans, but now the Americans have built a wall between
themselves and the Iraqi people.”
Residents who witnessed the shooting said about 75 US soldiers poured
into the area in the early evening, blocking off the main street but
failing to prevent innocent motorists straying into the fire zone from
quiet side streets.
Witnesses said soldiers opened fire from atop a Humvee armored vehicle
at the first car that neared their position. Moments later they raked
a second car with gunfire as well.
“It was indiscriminate firing,” one witness said as others
nodded in agreement and pointed out the bullet hole in the window of
the restaurant.
Flying bullets also hit the gas tank of a parked car, setting it and
another car ablaze. In minutes, the shooting was over and the soldiers
withdrew.
“They just left,” one resident said. “Then the Iraqi
firemen came to put out the fires.”
The only official US comment so far has been the remark that “if
you cross a roadblock, we assume you mean to do harm.”
A Toyota Corona being driven by a man named Mazin, who was disabled
and walked with the aid of a cane, arrived in the area. His wife was
in the passenger seat and his teenage son in the back. If he had turned
left out of the small lane that led to their house, they might all still
be alive.
Instead, Mazin made the mistake of turning right towards the roadblock.
A bullet from the spray of shots fired at the car blew off the right
half of his head.
The intensity of the shooting was evident from the condition of the
Toyota, which had at least two dozen bullet holes in its front and rear
windshields.
Another victim, who was in a red Mitsubishi Pajero landcruiser, was
not even driving towards the roadblock. Instead, he had been traveling
on a main road more than 150 yards away when he slowed down to see what
the commotion was. Two bullets hit him in the chest.
“We consider the Americans now as war criminals,” said Mahmoud
al-Baghdadi, a 32-year-old baker. “They claim to be fighting terrorism,
but they cannot defend freedom by killing disabled people.”
Yaqdan Kadhem, a waiter, said that before he had felt sympathy for the
Americans, but now he supported the escalating attacks on US troops.
“Until now I was against Saddam Hussein, but now I hate the Americans
for what they did yesterday.”
Sources: Guardian (UK), Independent (UK), New York Times,
Reuters
Argentine ‘angel of death’
may finally stand trial
By Viviana Alonso
Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 25 (IPS)— The most
notorious military officials of Argentina’s last dictatorship (1976-1983)
are facing the possibility of extradition to Spain to stand trial on
charges of human rights crimes.
Prospects for extradition have increased following the annulment Friday
of a decree that barred such extraditions.
Alfredo Astiz, known as the “angel of death,” Antonio Pernías,
Antonio Bussi (mayor-elect of the northern city of Tucumán) are
some of the dictatorship-era officers who were taken into custody on
arrest orders issued Thursday by an Argentine federal judge in compliance
with a request from Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, via Interpol
(international police).
Already serving time for other human rights crimes are former dictators
Jorge Videla and Emilio Massera, former general Carlos Suárez
Mason, and navy officer Jorge “Tigre” Acosta.
These men headed the Argentine dictatorship and the armed forces personnel
who engaged in the so-called “Dirty War” in which as many
as 30,000 people are believed to have been killed, including about 9,000
people who disappeared and have never been found.
The officials are on the list of 46 people sought by Spain’s courts
for crimes of torture, genocide, and terrorism.
Astiz narrowly escaped extradition on two previous occasions. He faced
prosecution in Italy for the kidnappings in 1976 of Angela Maria Aieta
and in 1977 of Giovanni Pegoraro and his pregnant daughter Susana. He
faced prosecution in France for the murder of two French nuns. The Swedish
government may also prosecute him for the kidnapping and murder of a
15 year-old girl. The father of the girl, Dagmar Hagelin, was compensated
several years ago for her apparent murder by Astiz.
The extradition request can follow normal procedures this time thanks
to the annulment signed Friday by President Néstor Kirchner,
reversing Decree 1581 issued by his predecessor, Fernando de la Rúa,
that barred extradition of Argentine military officials to other countries
to be tried for human rights crimes committed during the 1976-1983 dictatorship.
The government decision, which had been announced several days ago,
was finalized one day after judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral ordered the
arrest of 45 military officers and one civilian.
Just hours after the arrest list was made public, one of the “wanted
men,” former coast guard petty officer Juan Antonio Azic attempted
suicide by shooting himself in the mouth. He is in serious condition
at the Navy Hospital.
Azic had been identified and accused of human rights crimes by Spanish
survivors of the Navy Mechanics School (ESMA), a torture center of the
Argentine dictatorship.
One of Azic’s victims, Carlos Lordkipanidse, recounted how the
officer had tortured him with electrical shocks at ESMA, where he was
being held with his wife and their 20-day-old son. Azic threatened to
kill the baby if the parents did not provide the information he wanted.
Human rights activist Estela Carlotto, head of the Association of Grandmothers
of the Plaza de Mayo, said the annulment of the decree is an important
step towards justice, “but we must see what actions are taken.”
Government sources said they would rather that these crimes be tried
by Argentine courts, which would require the Supreme Court of Justice
to declare unconstitutional what are known as the “full stop”
and “due obedience” laws, enacted by the Raúl Alfonsín
government (1983-1989), effectively granting amnesty to most of the
military involved in the dictatorship.
In reaction to the repeal of Decree 1581, Justice Minister Gustavo Beliz
said that it puts an end to legislation that “conferred special
treatment” upon military officers and which implied “interference
by the executive branch in the judiciary’s activities.”
But human rights organizations are leery, saying that the restitution
of powers to the Argentine judiciary is no guarantee that the dictatorship-era
officers will finally be brought to justice.
Upon his return from a two-day state visit to the United States, Kirchner
decided to repeal Decree 1581, paving the way for judge Canicoba Corral’s
order to go beyond mere arrest to extradition of the 46 sought for trial
in Spain.
From now on, instead of being rejected outright, extradition requests
from other countries presented to the Foreign Ministry will be passed
on to the appropriate judicial bodies to be considered on a case-by-case
basis.
But Canicoba Corral pointed out that according to the law on extraditions:
“In the end it is the executive branch that decides, because the
law gives the government the authority to determine whether or not it
will hand over the military officers.”
Filipino troops mutiny
By John Aglionby
July 28— The financial heart of the Philippines capital
was turned into a surreal conflict zone for 20 hours yesterday after
marines surrounded a glitzy shopping center that had been taken over
and wired with explosives by some 300 junior officers demanding the
resignation of the government.
Following a barrage of pleas from their wives, mothers, and girlfriends,
the mutineers left the Gloriana complex in Manila’s Makati district,
and returned to their barracks without a shot being fired.
Even the loyal generals hinted they might pardon the renegade troops,
such was the sympathy for their grievances. But the president, Gloria
Arroyo, who described the outcome as “a triumph for democracy”
scotched such ideas.
“They will be investigated and their cases will be disposed of
in accordance with the articles of war,” a relieved and ebullient
Arroyo told a press conference last night. “They have not asked
and they shall not be given special treatment.”
She did, however, order her military commander, General Narciso Abaya,
to “immediately restore normalcy in the military,” a clear
reference to the mutineers’ demands.
These included the resignation of the president, her defense minister,
Angelo Reyes, the police chief, Hermogenes Ebdane Jr, and the military’s
intelligence chief, Brigadier General Victor Corpuz.
Other complaints from the troops were poor pay and conditions.
The officers, many of whom are decorated veterans of the decades-long
war against Muslim separatists in the southern islands, sought to play
the role of underdog heroes standing up to government villains in the
continuous live television coverage propaganda war.
They claimed Arroyo and her military commanders had sold arms to rebel
groups, had staged terrorist attacks on mosques, and were planning a
series of “incidents” in the capital to justify declaring
martial law and perpetuate the president’s tenure in office, which
is scheduled to end next year.
Arroyo refuted all the allegations and the mutineers presented no compelling
evidence to justify their claims, before dismantling the web of booby
traps they had installed around the complex.
But for Arroyo, one of the United States’ most stalwart supporters
in fighting terrorism, the incident will have been embarrassing and
might yet inflict irreparable political damage. Her first test will
be today’s annual state of the nation address, parts of which were
being hastily rewritten last night. Some observers said the mutiny was
staged by Arroyo’s political rivals seeking to destabilize her.
She is also struggling to repair her image after one of the region’s
most infamous bomb-makers, the Indonesian Islamist Rohman al-Ghozi,
and two other convicted terrorists walked out of a high-security prison
within the national police headquarters compound a fortnight ago.
Coups, attempted coups and rumors of coups are fairly commonplace in
the Philippines but Arroyo, who replaced Joseph Estrada in January 2001
after he was ousted in a military-backed people-power uprising, had
thus far escaped unchallenged. That changed at the end of last week
when armored personnel carriers were ordered to defend the presidential
palace in the wake of reports that junior troops were mounting an insurrection.
The president ordered their arrest after some 300 went missing with
their weapons. Some had reported to their superiors by text message
that they were “going underground.”
Manila’s state of alert was raised to triple red on Saturday but
just after midnight the rebels sneaked past the patrols and into the
Gloriana.
It backs on to the Oakwood residences, popular with diplomats and expatriates
and for several hours dozens of foreigners, including the Australian
ambassador, were held hostage. They were all released unharmed.
By this stage thousands of marines had surrounded the area and at one
stage they oddly went up to the mutinous guards, shook hands and exchanged
banter.
One of the young officers, a navy lieutenant, said he was only seeking
to “win a moral victory.” “I’m risking everything,
my life,” he said. “But the risk is worth it to raise what
we want.”
Arroyo initially talked tough, ordering the men to surrender by 5pm
local time. “You have already stained the uniform,” she said.
“Do not drench it with dishonor.”
But as the day went on, with both sides calling press conferences to
retain the upper hand, the government’s position softened. Its
deadline was extended once and then indefinitely.
This tactic appeared to work as at first 17 and then some estimated
two dozen rebels surrendered. The mood of the day was encapsulated by
these men being hugged by their superior officers rather than manacled.
Sources: Guardian (UK)
Montreal says: ‘No one is illegal’
Complied by Shawn Gaynor
July, 29 (AGR)— On Sunday in Montreal, prior to the
arrival of WTO trade ministers, over 2,000 people participated in a
“No One is Illegal Demonstration” to defend the rights of
free movement and refuge status for populations from less privileged
countries.
The march featured denunciations of various US policies, particularly
the war it launched in Iraq, calls for more aboriginal rights, and chants
of “long live the intafada,” the Palestinian uprising against
Israel.
A group of young women, their faces painted black, protested the lack
of availability of HIV-AIDS drugs in Africa.
The protesters were escorted by a large number of Montreal Police on
motorcycles and bicycles.
Andrea Langlois, “We’re prepared to face police repression
because that’s what we have to deal with every time we take to
the streets in peaceful protest.”
Sophie Harkat, whose husband, Mohammed Harkat, was deemed a security
threat and ordered deported to his native Algeria, denounced the policies
of Immigration Canada.
“My husband will be executed if he is deported,” she told
the marchers.
“Canadians need to know what is happening in their country; they
need to know there are secret trials taking place.”
Sources: Montreal Indymedia, Thunderbay Indymedia
Montreal confronts WTO ‘mini-ministerial’
Compiled by Shawn Gaynor
July, 29(AGR)— In Montreal this week another World
Trade Organization (WTO) “Mini-Ministerial” meeting took place,
where the worlds top trade representatives met to prepare for the full
WTO meeting Sept. 10-14 in Cancun, Mexico.
High on the agenda was discussion about agricultural issues, where three
divergent camps have developed: the European Union, the Untied States,
and the third world.
The sides remained far apart on the “three pillars” of the
negotiations – domestic supports, export subsidies, and market
access.
In addition, the EU is pressing for a fourth pillar on “geographical
indications” that would bar foreign producers from selling food
products using European place names.
The EU has drawn up a preliminary list of 36 food and drink brand names,
including Parma ham, Bordeaux wine, Roquefort cheese, and Champagne
that it says deserve protection.
A spokesman for EU Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler described the US-EU
farm trade talks as “difficult,” and over 400 Mexican farmers
organizations have vowed to oppose the Cancun meetings.
Larry Brown, secretary-treasurer of the National Union of Public and
General Employees, along with representatives from: the Canadian Labour
Congress, Sierra Club, the Canadian Environmental Law Association, Polaris
Institute, Quebec Federation of Labor, and other groups, participated
in a “bull-pit” session Monday with Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi,
director general of the WTO, and Pierre Pettigrew, Canada’s international
trade minister.
Participants engaged in a pointed discussion with the global trade leaders,
expressing their disagreement with the erosion of environmental and
labor laws worldwide as a result of WTO agreements.
However, outside the meetings was the real “bull-pit” of anti-globalization
activism .
Protesters woke up early for a 6:30am “snake march” through
Montreal, winding from street to street towards the Sheraton Hotel,
were the meetings were being held.
The police had set up a perimeter of riot police and barricades around
the hotel, closing off several blocks to traffic.
“A handful of demonstrators removed plywood from a construction
site to stop pursuing police vans. And police, searching for a justification,
moved in,” said Yves Engler, who had come to oppose the WTO.
Protesters were corralled in, and after an initial baton charge by police,
escaped through an un-guard ally way.
After the police attack, windows were smashed at the GAP, Burger King,
an Army recruiting center, and the Bank of Montreal. The Israeli consulate
was also graffitied.
The Gap has been targeted internationally by activists for its labor
practices.
Police said some protesters hurled projectiles at police, parked cars,
and shops including golf balls and steel ball bearings.
Away from where the rioting had occurred, Montreal activist Jaggi Singh
was providing media with interviews.
About a dozen police converged and apprehended him.
He has been charged with “using a megaphone” during Sunday’s
demo in violation of his parole conditions.
There were other reports of police snatches later in the day, many characterized
as “abductions.” Medics were targeted in snatch style arrests.
Frustrated police, who were unable to apprehend many protesters at the
nnake march, turned their attention to an assembly of protesters some
distance from the area were several hundred protesters were peacefully
assembled on the private property of a sympathetic Montreal bookstore.
The location was a publicized “green,” or peaceful zone, where
there was to be a child friendly environment, workshops and popular
education against the WTO.
Riot police surrounded the area and mass arrested everyone in the area.
Montreal police said 236 protesters in all were arrested.
Charges include “participating in an illegal demonstration.”
Prior to the WTO mini-ministerial, both Canadian finance minister Pierre
Pettigrew and Montreal’s chief of police have provocatively declared
the “anti-globalization” movement dead.
The following day Municipal Court judges released some of the detainees
on condition they not take part in protests.
Others were fined $200 and ordered to stay away from the area of the
WTO meetings until tomorrow.
Amir Khadir, a member of the Union des Forces Progressistes and one
of the detainees released yesterday said, “I feel very sad that
in a democratic society, repressive forces use these tactics to deprive
citizens of experiencing freedom of expression.”
Of the remaining 11 people who were arrested, six were fined, two were
released unconditionally, two were detained and will appear in Municipal
Court, and one, Jaggi Singh, was detained and will appear in Quebec
Court today to face three counts of violating bail conditions.
One Montreal activist said prior to yesterday’s arrests there had
been over 1,200 political arrests in the last three years.
Sources: Montreal Gazette, Montreal Indymedia, Quebec
City Indymedia, Rueters, Thunderbay Indymedia
Civil war in Liberia rages; US offers
token assistance
Compiled by Willy Rosencrans
July 30 (AGR) — Two months of bloody civil war in
Liberia have left the capital city of Monrovia disease-ridden and in
ruins. Widespread demands for an international peacekeeping mission
to restore peace to the war-torn West African country have not been
met due to US and other nations’ fear of heavy casualties.
“The country is basically destroyed,” and its only hope is
for the international community to quickly send more money and soldiers,
said Jacques Klein, the UN special representative to Liberia, on July
24. One million Liberians out of a population of 3.2 million are now
displaced and 300,000 have fled the country; 200,000 civilians have
been killed over the last 14 years of warlord-turned-president Charles
Taylor’s reign.
The civil war pits two rebel armies, Liberians United for Reconciliation
and Democracy (LURD) and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL),
against Taylor and his forces. Taylor is wanted for war crimes in Sierra
Leone.
‘Looting, raping, and killing’
Mortar shells crashed into the US embassy grounds and a school packed
with refugees July 25. Both sides in Liberia’s war have accused
the other of shelling the capital, and it was not clear who was behind
the barrage. Shelling devastated the central and diplomatic districts
again on July 27 and has continued through July 30.
Monrovia’s residents have pleaded for US deployment over the last
two months. Three waves of attacks have killed hundreds in the capital.
About 1.3 million residents hang on, gripped by hunger, thirst, epidemics,
and fear.
“All of the patients in JFK Hospital in Monrovia will die this
week - they have no food, no water, and no medicine,” said Wilson
Tarpeh, a Liberian businessman and newspaper publisher who has been
in contact with physicians there, on July 30.
Thousands of Liberians staged a peace rally in Monrovia that same day,
urging rebel forces to remain in position and protect them until peacekeepers
arrived. They gathered in an area controlled by LURD, taking advantage
of an afternoon lull in fighting.
Sekou Fofana, a senior LURD member, said the marchers had presented
a memorandum stating “that the last two times we retreated, Taylor’s
renegade soldiers went on a violence spree, looting, raping and killing.”
Taylor has retreated to his mansion by the sea, his forces battling
to block insurgents from crossing bridges into downtown. Diplomats and
relief workers say Taylor’s forces consist of little more than
a band of poorly disciplined fighters defending central Monrovia and
a few isolated towns in the interior. In an attempt to curb lawless
behavior by government troops, military commanders publicly executed
four soldiers for looting and raping on July 26.
The port city of Buchanan, 60 miles southeast of Monrovia, fell to MODEL
on July 28, as Gbarnga, a city 110 miles north, was being taken by LURD.
Government and rebel forces have battled for control of Buchanan since
then. Buchanan is the only port other than Monrovia by which food can
be shipped into the country.
US continues to hedge
Pressure has been heavy on the US to help stabilize Liberia, which was
founded by freed American slaves resettled there by the American Colonization
Society in 1822. It has served US economic and political interests ever
since, especially with the establishment of Firestone’s rubber
tree plantation there – the largest in the world – and its
use by the US as a Cold War spy base.
It has also been alleged that the US has tacitly supported LURD by financing
and training the armed forces of neighboring Guinea, which aids the
rebel group.
West African leaders have announced they would send two Nigerian battalions,
up to 1,300 men, ahead of what would eventually be a 3,250-member force
to separate the warring sides. The Nigerian vanguard is supposed to
arrive Aug. 2, but UN officials said disputes over funding and logistical
support could cause further delays.
An advance inspection team of Nigerian military commanders and others
flew into Monrovia from Ghana aboard a military plane on July 30 to
assess conditions there.
At a UN Security Council meeting July 24, the US pledged $10 million
to support the international force. But when the question of a possible
troop commitment came up, US ambassador John Negroponte said: “We
are not in a position to make a commitment at this time. We are not
ruling it out. We are just not ruling it in.”
That same day he also stated: “My understanding is that the decision
in principle has been made. …We’ve decided to provide the
material support that I just mentioned to you, the $10 million.”
$10 million is enough to pay for only a few days of any substantial
mission.
US President George W. Bush has ordered three US warships to the Liberian
coast; they are due to arrive between Aug. 1 and 4, carrying about 2,000
Marines who, it has been repeatedly stressed, may not actually be deployed.
The Taylor administration’s welcome of Bush’s announcement
was grudging.
“We have always recognized that the United States is the superpower
of the world and their presence in the international peacekeeping force
in Liberia might make things easier to disarm the rebels,” said
Vaanii Paasawe, Taylor’s spokesman. “We are only surprised
that, as a democracy itself, the United States could play the role it
has in Liberia” – a reference to US demands that Taylor step
down before foreign troops arrive.
Taylor is reconsidering an earlier and well-publicized pledge to resign.
Liberia is still of strategic importance to the US. West Africa might
well emerge as a major supplier to the US of oil and, especially, natural
gas. An increased supply of natural gas is a cardinal part of Bush’s
energy program. That in turn would mean carrying frozen natural gas
across the ocean on special liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers and
building ports and processing stations. This is a highly controversial
venture because an LNG explosion, either accidental or deliberate, would
be devastating.
Any sort of regular LNG tanker operations across the Atlantic from West
Africa to the East Coast inevitably would be accompanied by vastly increased
military operations in the sea and air to protect the fuel from terrorist
attacks.
Sources: Washington Post, Human Rights Watch, AP, Reuters,
Agence France Presse, Village Voice, Independent (UK), Guardian (UK),
International Herald Tribune, IRIN
