Signatures against Chavez questioned

The political opposition in Venezuela officially presented three million signatures last Wednesday — backed by massive marches — to request a referendum on whether Pres. Hugo Chavez should remain in office. Venezuela’s constitution allows for such a referendum half-way through any elected official’s term, provided 20 percent of registered voters support one.

But questions surrounding the validity of the signatures and the make-up of the National Electoral Council, which would oversee the recall process, have cast the referendum into doubt. Chavez says he has “proof” that two of the three million signatures are from bank and phone lists electronically transferred en masse without consent from the individuals.

Venezuela’s prosecutor general does not consider the signatures valid and called the opposition’s move “a publicity show.” And while many are displeased with Chavez’s government, the opposition is not looking any better with its failed coup in April 2002 and the two-month general strike last winter that nearly paralyzed the country’s crucial oil industry.

Experts say the process of appointing a new Electoral Council will not be finished in time for a vote this year. (IPS)

US pullback brakes momentum

Washington’s removal of US marines from Monrovia to ships offshore will hurt the recovery of war-weary Liberia in both real and symbolic ways, say humanitarian and political experts.

Earlier this week, 150 soldiers that had been patrolling Monrovia since Aug. 14 returned to three ships stationed nearby, leaving about 100 troops behind to guard the US embassy and work with West African peacekeepers. President Bush said earlier this month the soldiers would leave Liberia by Oct. 1.

The marines had arrived in the city hours after the resignation of former president Charles Taylor, who kept his country plunged in war much of the past 14 years. Taylor’s exile to Nigeria also led rebels to quit the capital city.

Since the marines’ departure, reports have emerged of battles between government and rebel forces in different parts of the country with an unknown death toll. On Aug. 25, aid agencies reported that 3,000-4,000 civilians were fleeing their homes toward refugee camps in central Liberia due to fighting.

The US pullback is “a slap in the face to the UN and the whole peace effort,” said Robert Rotberg, of Harvard University. “It shows that the US doesn’t take it seriously.”

Caretaker President Moses Blah asked US Ambassador John Blaney to intervene with the rebels to extend the cease-fire to all parts of the country. Negotiators from the Liberian government and two rebel groups signed a peace pact in Ghana last week, which will see power transferred to a new interim leadership Oct. 14. (IPS)

Pakistanis fleeing US face tough test in Canada

Many Pakistanis fleeing a US immigration crackdown have crossed the border into Canada but activists say Pakistan’s new role as a partner in the “War on Terror” is making it easier for Ottawa to reject those refugee applicants.

“Before Sept. 11, Pakistan was under sanctions for human rights abuses. Now the west is…turning a blind eye to abuses,” said Ali Hasanie, head of a Montreal anti-racist group. He said Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board has rejected about 80 percent of Pakistanis who claim refugee status because they are Shia Muslim, a persecuted minority in their home country.

Ottawa, he adds, has accepted Pakistan’s promise that the claimants’ lives will not be in danger if they return. “That is not true,” Hasanie said. “Deporting people puts lives in danger.”

Anti-racist and pro-refugee groups say the approximately 400 Pakistanis seeking refugee status in Montreal and the 500 in Toronto will be criminalized for seeking political asylum as they face the systematic discrimination in Canada’s refugee system. (IPS)

US role in Iraq could cost $60b more

The US government will need to spend as much as $60 billion to support its military role in Iraq next year, according to government officials as well as analysts and economists. The funding would come on top of $62.6 billion that Congress approved in March. That installment, which analysts say should last until October, was intended to cover the cost of deploying and supplying about 140,000 troops in Iraq, as well as supporting a much smaller US force in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon has not provided details about anticipated spending to continue the occupation in 2004. The overall estimate of $50 to $60 billion comes from private institutions that specialize in defense-related issues.

The financial burden of stabilizing Iraq is expected to remain mostly with the US due to the Bush administration’s reluctance to share control of the occupation with foreign governments who opposed the war. It is not clear how much the US would save with the introduction of more foreign troops. (Boston Globe)

FARC launches air attack on Colombian leader

Guerillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) tried to assassinate Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and his wife, Lina, last week on a visit to the province of Antioquia. The guerillas fired on the couple’s helicopter with machine guns from nearby mountains. A US-supplied Blackhawk helicopter escort then drove the rebels further into the jungle.

The attack was the closest the rebels have come to killing Uribe since he took office. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Colombia the next day to discuss security issues. (Daily Telegraph UK)

Israel helped Amin to power

British foreign Office papers recently released point to Israel as having a heavy hand in the 1971 coup that brought Idi Amin to power in Uganda. The papers, including telegrams from the British High Commissioner in Uganda to London, explain why Israel would have any interest in a land-locked country in Central Africa. Israel was backing rebellion in southern Sudan as punishment for Sudan’s supporting the Arab cause in the Six-Day War.

The Israelis had helped train the new Ugandan army in the 1960’s. Shortly after Uganda won its independence, Amin was sent to Israel on a training course. When he became chief of staff of the new army, Amin supplied arms to the rebels in southern Sudan. The leader of Uganda at the time, Obote, wanted peace in southern Sudan. When Amin was sacked by Obote, Israel began to worry.

Israel then helped orchestrate the coup to keep Sudan in check. Once Amin was in power, his first foreign visit was to Israel toting an impressive shopping list of arms.

While the British may have had little to do with the coup, they welcomed Amin for removing Obote, an enemy of British affairs in southern Africa. Shortly after the High Commissioner was given the orders to “take quick advantage of any opportunity of selling arms,” Amin was invited for a state visit to London and dinner at Buckingham Palace. (Independent (UK))

Taliban gathers strength

A spate of clashes and attacks suggest the threat to coalition and government forces in Afghanistan is growing. US forces, aid workers, foreign peacekeepers, and government troops are all facing a rising threat in Afghanistan with no end in sight of the hit-and-run tactics of Taliban and al-Qaida militants operating from the border with Pakistan.

While hatred of US troops caused by aggressive search tactics, arbitrary arrests, and physical abuse is giving people in Afghanistan the sense of being under siege, there seems to be no shortage of young recruits willing to take up arms and join the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Reuters tells of an encounter with a small number of recruits from Pakistan who — whether for faith, money, or out of pure ignorance — recently joined the jihad declared by the Taliban against US-led foreign troops, aid workers, and their “helpers.”

The Taliban, and elements of al-Qaida it once sheltered, have been labeled the chief culprits for a wave of violence that has claimed at least 90 lives in the last two weeks. Turf battles and factional clashes are also to blame.

The Taliban drew its strength in the 1990’s from talibs — Islamic students — mostly in Pakistani religious schools called madrassahs. Despite promises by Islamabad to reform them, they are widely seen as a continuing source of militant Islamic teaching. (Reuters)

Detention center built to last

Twenty months after it opened as a short-term solution early in Bush’s “war on terrorism,” the hastily erected Camp Delta for “enemy combatants” will make a significant leap toward permanence with a new fifth phase.

Workers are also retrofitting a makeshift courtroom in case some of the 660 detainees from 42 countries, most of them suspected al-Qaida members or Taliban soldiers captured in Afghanistan, are tried before a military commission.

The developments suggest that the Bush administration is literally pouring concrete around its controversial policy of indefinitely holding alleged terrorists and supporters in legal limbo, without prisoner-of-war rights.

The new “Camp Five” will take three times longer to build than the four existing camps, which are made from wire mesh and metal atop concrete slabs, with chain-link fences and wood towers. (The Miami Herald)

Border problems over drug eradication

Human rights activists and environmentalists in Ecuador were surprised when Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said Ecuador had never asked Colombia to avoid aerial spraying of drug crops near the border and denied that the spraying posed a threat to human health. Colombia sprays illegal drug crops like coca with herbicides, as part of Plan Colombia, a mostly US-financed anti-drug and counterinsurgency strategy.

Former foreign minister Nina Pacari said she had specifically asked Colombia not to spray within 10 km of the border. Pacari resigned two weeks ago when the political arm of Ecuador’s powerful indigenous movement pulled out of the government of President Lucio Gutierrez.

Environmental and human rights organizations in both Ecuador and Colombia, as well as local officials in Colombia, have protested that the spraying destroys legal crops and affects the health of farmers and their livestock.

The Ecuadorian environmental organization Acción Ecológica, which has carried out studies in areas along the border after planes have fumigated coca crops in nearby Colombia, has documented skin and respiratory ailments among children, as well as dead livestock, which they say are a result of the high concentration of glyphosate used in the fumigation. (IPS)