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Peace talks held up by roadblocks
By Chris McGreal
Jerusalem, Aug. 18— Efforts to keep the Middle
East “road map” peace process on track hit a snag last night
when an agreement to transfer control of four West Bank cities to the
Palestinian Authority fell apart at the last minute.
Despite vigorous US pressure to ensure that the recent increase in violence
does not undermine the process, the Israelis and Palestinians broke
off the talks yesterday without agreeing on the pact.
The essence of the deal was for Israel to hand control of Jericho and
Qalqilia to the Palestinian Authority this week, followed by Ramallah
and Tulkarm in a fortnight.
President George W. Bush’s special envoy, John Wolf, engaged in
several days of arm-twisting to secure a breakthrough and avoid a further
escalation of violence after Israel’s killing of Hamas and Islamic
Jihad activists and the first suicide bombings since the ceasefire began
seven weeks ago.
“The meeting between the two sides ended without agreeing on a
timetable for the withdrawal from Palestinian cities, because the Israeli
side insisted on keeping the military roadblocks,” said Elias Zananiri,
the spokesman for Palestinian security chief, Mohammed Dahlan.
“The Israeli side has raised some security issues to justify keeping
these roadblocks which we believe will make the withdrawal cosmetic.”
Israel wants to maintain its roadblocks to keep an eye on the movements
of extremists and prevent suicide bombers slipping into its cities.
In accordance with the road map, Israeli troops pulled out of parts
of the Gaza Strip and Bethlehem last month.
The plan requires a gradual Israeli withdrawal to the positions it held
before the outbreak of fighting, and a Palestinian crackdown on militants.
Dahlan has said he can not clash with the militants, for fear of setting
off internal fighting.
The West Bank withdrawal has been criticized by some members of Ariel
Sharon’s cabinet. Uzi Landau, from Sharon’s Likud party, accused
the prime minister of encouraging terrorism.
Earlier, Dahlan balked at accepting responsibility for security in Qalqilia
until the Israelis tore down the 30-foot concrete wall around the city.
“Dahlan did not want to be seen as a prison guard,” a Palestinian
official said. “Dahlan feared that people in Qalqilia would think
he was tacitly endorsing the wall.”
Wolf stepped up the pressure after two Israelis were killed by suicide
bombings last week.
One was by a renegade faction of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah, the other
by Hamas, in retaliation for the killing of two of its commanders in
Nablus — an act which Hamas said breached the ceasefire.
The Israelis acted with restraint after the bombings. But many feared
that the violence would increase after the army killed the Islamic Jihad
commander in Hebron, Ahmed Sidr, on Thursday.
The Israeli army said Sidr was resisting arrest while planning new bomb
attacks, but his killing was interpreted as revenge for the death of
the Israeli military commander in Hebron in an attack by Islamic Jihad
last year.
Israel’s withdrawal from Ramallah would lift the siege from Arafat’s
compound and leave Hebron, Nablus and Jenin as the largest cities occupied
by Israel 18 months after its tanks surged back into the West Bank.
On Aug. 19 there were signs of progress after the Israelis backed away
from their demand that Dahlan lock up 400 Palestinian men wanted for
killing Israelis as part of an operation to disarm and disable “terrorist
organizations.”
Source: The Guardian (UK)
Britons admit to al-Qaida link in plea
bargain
By Severin Carrell
Aug. 17— Two Britons held at Guantanamo Bay have admitted
supporting al-Qaida in a plea bargain deal to secure a short sentence,
their lawyers have revealed.
Moazzam Begg and Feroz Abbasi, named by President George W. Bush last
month as two of six detainees facing trial, are believed to have agreed
to plead guilty under duress after prolonged interrogation and segregation
at Camp Delta, Cuba.
Clive Stafford Smith, their British-born lawyer in the United States,
told The Independent on Sunday the six men were selected to face a
military tribunal only because they would admit to supporting terrorism
and Osama bin Laden. The Pentagon wanted its first trials to be quick
and successful, he said.
“They have to agree to plead in order to get this far,”
Stafford Smith added. “The US wants to have a few guilty pleas,
so they’re not going to designate people for trial until they’ve
agreed to plead guilty — so you can take it as read that Begg
and Abbasi have pleaded guilty.”
Louise Christian, the London-based solicitor acting for Abbasi, who
is from Croydon, south London, and was captured in Afghanistan in January
2002, confirmed she had been told her client had agreed to a deal. “That’s
what I’m hearing as well,” she said.
Reports in the US suggested both men were being “rewarded”
with a quick trial because they had revealed more details about al-Qaida
and the Taliban, after months of refusing to co-operate.
Their parents have reacted with dismay to these disclosures, which follow
reports in Australia that David Hick, an Australian convert to Islam
among those “designated” by Bush for trial last month, had
also agreed a plea bargain.
Azmat Begg, whose son Moazzam was arrested by the CIA in Islamabad,
Pakistan, in February 2002, said he believed his son had been repeatedly
tortured to secure a confession. Suggestions that his son really was
a terrorist, he said, were “absolute rubbish” and based on
interrogations without any lawyer present. He added: “We’ve
written dozens of times and received no reply. If he’s alive and
able to, why hasn’t he replied?”
Christian said that Zumrati Juma, Abbasi’s mother, was “distressed”
by the development. After reports that he has suffered a nervous breakdown
and attempted suicide, Juma is now anxiously waiting to see a US psychiatric
report on her son given to the Foreign Office three weeks ago. Christian
said ministers would not release it until “embarrassing” details
about his capture and interrogation were deleted from it.
However, Whitehall sources believe the Pentagon’s plea bargaining
deal is now in doubt after Tony Blair personally intervened with Bush
last month, following a legal and political outcry about the proposed
tribunals.
The White House ordered Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defense Secretary, to
suspend the prosecutions and open negotiations with Lord Goldsmith,
the Attorney General, about the treatment of the two Britons —
ending 18 months of non-cooperation and obstruction by the Pentagon.
The Pentagon’s most senior lawyer, William Haynes, flew to London
last week for a third meeting to discuss making further concessions
on the cases of Begg and Abbasi and the repatriation of seven other
Britons at Camp Delta still held without charge.
Pentagon officials now say plea bargains with Begg and Abbasi will be
agreed to only after they are formally charged. But the Pentagon has
also said both men can now have civilian defense lawyers, suggesting
they will be advised to plead not guilty.
Gareth Peirce, Begg’s British lawyer, said the entire US process
was illegitimate.
“This is all a complete violation of Geneva Convention rights for
combatants or of any defendant in a criminal case,” she said. “All
of this is illegal from start to finish.”
Source: Independent (UK)
Row over Vatican order to conceal
priests’ sex abuse
By Owen Bowcott
Aug. 18— A confidential order issued by the Vatican 40
years ago instructing Roman Catholic bishops to conceal cases of sex
abuse is set to reignite controversy over the church’s treatment
of suspect priests.
The document, “On the Manner of Proceeding in Cases of the Crime
of Solicitation,” and bearing the seal of Pope John XXIII, threatened
those who spoke out about the inquiries with excommunication.
Distributed to senior clerics all over the world in 1962, it was discovered
in the Vatican’s archives by a Texan lawyer pursuing cases on
behalf of American victims of abuse by Catholic priests.
Its authenticity is accepted by the Catholic church in England and
Wales but its relevance to modern procedures for dealing with incidents
of abuse is disputed.
The 69-page document, written by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, deals
primarily with any priest who “tempts a penitent... in the act
of sacramental confession... towards impure or obscene matters.”
But it also covers related aspects of this “unspeakable crime”
and even mentions “sex with brute animals.”
Bishops who received the order were instructed to pursue these cases
“in the most secretive way... restrained by a perpetual silence.”
Everyone involved, including the alleged victim, was sworn “to
observe the strictest secret, which is commonly regarded as a secret
of the Holy Office... under penalty of excommunication.”
The “worst crime” is defined as “any obscene external
deed, gravely sinful,” carried out by a cleric “with a person
of his own sex.” The document is described as “strictly
confidential” and not to be published.
The discovery comes as the head of the Catholic Church in England
and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, faces accusations
of covering up allegations of child abuse when he was Bishop of Arundel
and Brighton.
The US lawyer who found the document, Daniel Shea, said: “It
proves there was an international conspiracy to hush up sex abuse
issues.”
Richard Scorer, a British lawyer who acts for children abused by Catholic
priests, told the Observer: “We always suspected that the Catholic
church systematically covered up abuse and tried to silence victims...
Threatening excommunication to anybody who speaks out shows the lengths
the most senior figures in the Vatican were prepared to go to prevent
the information getting out.”
Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor has been criticized for not reporting
to the police in the 1980s an allegation of abuse against a priest
in his diocese, Michael Hill, who was later convicted of abusing nine
children. Last month he was told he would not face any charges.
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