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West’s policies sow seeds of internal
conflict
By Jim Lobe
Washington, DC, Dec. 17 (IPS)— A major new study is suggesting
that US policies on family planning and agricultural trade might contribute
to setting the stage for conflict in developing countries.
Released Wednesday by Population Action International (PAI), the report
calls on foreign policy and national-security officials to pay more
attention to demographic factors in preparing for future conflicts.
Based on a review of 25 years of scholarly research covering 180 countries,
the study concludes that a combination of high population growth, rapid
urbanization, and land or water scarcity appear to be the key ingredients
for upheaval in poor countries.
The 100-page report, “The Security Demographic: Population and
Civil Conflict After the Cold War,” focuses primarily on the so-called
“demographic transition” — the process by which the populations
of countries go from short lives and large families to longer lives
and smaller families.
Countries that advance through that transition are far less likely to
experience civil conflict, it concludes.
Costa Rica, Thailand and Tunisia, for example, have all made the transition
and are less vulnerable to internal conflict as a result, while countries
like Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and Nepal — all with disproportionately
high numbers of young adults, rapidly growing cities, and scarcities
in water and cropland — are far more likely to suffer conflict,
adds the report.
Besides the latter three, the report lists 21 other countries whose
demographics and resource scarcities point to future upheaval, most
of them in West Africa, East Africa, the Middle East and South Asia
— regions that largely overlap with US plans to beef up its military
assets in carrying out its “war on terror” and securing access
to key energy resources.
“There are many benefits to societies in shifting toward lower
rates of both birth and death, but the idea that the demographic transition
could actually reduce the risk of violent civil conflict is new to the
security community,” said Robert Engelman, vice president for research
at PAI, who co-authored the report.
“We were surprised by the strength and consistency we found in
the associations between population dynamics and civil conflict in the
last decades of the 20th century, and we’re predicting these associations
will be evident in the first decades of the 21st as well. That’s
a powerful concept for the future of global security in a frightfully
uncertain world,” he added.
The administration of US President George W. Bush, which is on record
as supporting many of the recommendations that follow from the report’s
analysis, such as investing in female education, might not be pleased
with some of the other conclusions.
While the administration has maintained relatively high levels of spending
for family-planning programs, anti-abortion forces have succeeded in
getting it to impose restrictions on how that money can be spent.
The result is that many international and local non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) and clinics that provide family-planning services are no longer
receiving US aid.
In addition, US farm subsidies supported by the administration, as well
as agricultural subsidies of other western governments, have reduced
global prices, making it impossible for millions of small farmers in
poor countries to compete, and thus forcing them off their lands and
into cities, fuelling rapid urbanization, according to development groups.
On average, according to the report, a decline in the annual birth rate
of five births per thousand people corresponded to a decline of about
five percent in the likelihood of civil conflict during the decade that
followed.
As countries have progressed through the “demographic transition,”
it adds, they became less vulnerable to internal upheaval. Thus, countries
that were in the earliest phase of transition were about eight times
more likely to experience conflict compared to those in the latest phase.
“While this association does not suggest direct causation,”
the report said, “the relationships found here are striking and
consistent.”
Demographically high-risk states might still be able to avoid conflict,
if other factors are present, suggests the study.
These factors might include the ease with which people can emigrate
to a nearby country — such as the immigration of Mexicans to the
United States; the sending of remittances earned by emigrants abroad
to family members back home; land reform, or creating new urban employment.
The demographic factors most closely associated with the likelihood
of civil conflict during the 1990s, according to the report, were a
high proportion of young adults (ages 15-29) and a rapid rate of urban
population growth.
The report found that countries in which young adults comprised more
than 40 percent of the adult population were more than twice as likely
as countries with lower proportions to experience conflict. In addition,
states with urban population growth rates greater than four percent
were about twice as likely to suffer conflict as countries with lower
rates.
Countries with low availability of cropland or renewable fresh water
were about 1.5 times more likely to experience civil conflict as those
in other categories, added the report.
While much recent literature has focused on water scarcities as a major
potential cause of both civil and inter-state wars, land scarcities
resulting from unequal distribution or the settlement of outsiders into
traditional ethnic homelands have been much more prominent in fomenting
recent civil conflicts, it said.
These kinds of factors — rapid urbanization, and per capita land
or water scarcity — are not the only ones that contribute to conflict,
PAI stresses. Non-demographic factors like historic ethnic tensions
and incompetent or arbitrary governance might also play an independent
role, or compound the risks of conflict for countries that are vulnerable
for demographic reasons.
The report also does not arrive at a definitive conclusion on whether
high death rates among working-age adults — a characteristic of
countries, mainly in southern Africa, with high HIV/AIDS infection rates
— also contribute to civil conflict, although it appears self-evident
that the loss of key professionals, the weakening of military and security
forces and the rising number of orphans would contribute to instability.
In addition to calling for greater support for family-planning programs
and female education that would accelerate the demographic transition
in poor countries, the report calls on the international military, intelligence
and diplomatic communities — including their US counterparts —
to use their influence to promote demographic transition in vulnerable
countries.
These communities, it adds, should also facilitate better access to
reproductive health services for refugees, civilians in post-conflict
situations and all military personnel; and promote full legal rights
and educational and economic opportunities of women and girls.
Cheney’s tough talking derails negotiations
with North Korea
By Hamish McDonald
Beijing, China, Dec. 22— The US and Chinese Presidents,
George Bush, and Hu Jintao, talked at the weekend after revelations
that hardliners in Bush’s Administration had derailed diplomatic
preparations for a new round of talks with North Korea over its nuclear
weapons.
The Saturday night phone talk came after US newspapers reported that
the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, a neo-conservative wielding unusual
powers in foreign policy, opposed the latest draft of a Chinese-initiated
plan for North Korea to freeze and dismantle its nuclear programs in
return for security guarantees and economic aid.
US State Department negotiators had submitted a reworked version of
the Chinese plan to a high-level meeting in Washington on Dec. 12, Cheney
had insisted that the document require North Korea to agree to “irreversible”
dismantling of its nuclear weapons programs and international verification.
The Knight-Ridder newspaper chain said a senior official had quoted
Cheney as telling the meeting: “I have been charged by the President
with making sure that none of the tyrannies in the world are negotiated
with. We don’t negotiate with evil; we defeat it.”
The re-emergence of the word “evil” and talk of defeat —
recalling Bush’s January 2002 speech linking North Korea with Iraq
and Iran in an “axis of evil” — is likely to make the
North Koreans even more distrustful of promising anything ahead of firm
guarantees from the US and its allies.
Cheney’s veto of the Chinese plan ended hopes of bringing US and
North Korean negotiators together again in Beijing this month, with
teams from China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. Diplomatic momentum
is unlikely to rebuild for some weeks, unless Bush’s phone talk
indicates a decision has been taken over Cheney’s head.
The official Chinese news agency Xinhua said North Korea had been discussed
along with Iraq, Taiwan, and bilateral relations. “The Chinese
side will continue maintaining close contact with the relevant parties
to facilitate the holding of the second Beijing six-party talks at an
early date and enable the talks to yield positive results,” it
quoted Hu as saying.
Even without Cheney’s words, the US stance was proving hard for
the North Koreans to swallow, insisting the Pyongyang government move
to dismantle its nuclear weapons without the formal security treaty
it had demanded, and well before any economic aid was even discussed.
After its draft was rejected, China called on Washington to be more
“flexible” and “realistic.”
On Saturday, Pyongyang’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said
North Korea would never give up its “nuclear deterrent” unless
its security was guaranteed and aid recommenced. It said it would disarm
only in return for a “simultaneous package solution.”
Meanwhile, the World Food Program said it will probably have to cut
off food aid to 3 million North Koreans next month due to a lack of
foreign donations. The UN agency’s chief, James Morris, said member
governments had donated only 60 percent of the food the agency needed
for its plan to feed 6.5 million of North Korea’s 23 million people.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
AIDS reduces life expectancy in Africa
by twenty years
By Maxine Frith
Dec. 19— The full scale of the devastation wreaked on Africa
by the AIDS epidemic was revealed in the World Health Organization [WHO]
annual report yesterday.
Life expectancy in some African countries has fallen by 20 years in
the past decade, mainly due to the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Child and adult mortality rates in more than a dozen sub-Saharan countries
have increased in the past 10 years, even as life expectancy in developed
countries is improving.
The WHO report uses a simple comparison to highlight the issue: a girl
born in Britain today can expect to live to 80.6 years. A girl born
in Sierra Leone is unlikely to make it past her 36th birthday.
Jong-Wook Lee, director general of the WHO, said: “These global
health gaps are unacceptable. A world marked by such inequities is in
very serious trouble.” Fourteen countries in Africa now have higher
child mortality rates than they did in 1990, the WHO says. Average life
expectancy in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Angola is now under 40, a trend which
the WHO calls a “major public health concern.”
It adds: “It is here [in Africa], where scores of millions of people
scrape a living from the dust of poverty, that the price of being poor
can be most starkly seen. Almost an entire continent is being left behind.”
Life expectancy has fallen by 20 years in Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland
and Zimbabwe — countries where up to a third of the population
is now HIV-positive. The life expectancy of Russians has also fallen
over the past 10 years, as their country’s health system has collapsed
and the AIDS epidemic hit millions of people. A boy born in Russia today
can expect to live for just 58 years.
One in three people in developing countries now dies before the age
of 60, adding to economic deprivation, as a generation has been in effect
wiped out by AIDS.
Only 5 percent of people in the developing world who need life-saving
antiretroviral drugs for HIV receive them, according to the report.
In Africa, 5,000 adults and 1,000 children die every day as a result
of HIV and AIDS, while around 30 million people on the continent are
infected with the virus. AIDS is now the leading cause of death in adults
aged 15 to 59.
More than a third of children in Africa are at higher risk of dying
before they reach adulthood than 10 years ago. A woman in Africa is
250 times more likely to die in childbirth than someone in Britain.
Dr. Lee added: “We need a clear set of priorities, a new set of
grand challenges. The next 12 months and beyond will be an acid test
of our collective moral commitment.”
Source: Independent (UK)
Delta violence classic example of ‘resource
war’
By Jim Lobe
Washington, DC, Dec. 17 (IPS)— Violence that has regularly
convulsed a key oil-producing state in Nigeria over the past six years
offers a “classic example of a ‘resource war’,’’
and is unlikely to be curbed in the absence of new elections and an end
to impunity, says a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The 29-page report, released here Wednesday, says the past year’s
violence in Delta State, which was greatly fueled by last spring’s
elections — denounced as fraudulent by international observers —
has resulted in hundreds of deaths and the displacement of thousands more.
Although private, ethnic-based militias were responsible for most of the
mayhem, dozens of people have also been killed by government security
forces, according to the report, “The Warri Crisis: Fueling Violence”.
“The people of the Niger Delta have suffered horribly from living
amid the source of Nigeria’s wealth,’’ said Bronwen Manby,
the report’s author. “And the perpetrators get away with these
crimes without even the faintest chance of being brought to justice.’’
The bloodshed also produced serious financial losses, both for the local
population and the rest of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation.
Forty percent of Nigeria’s oil — which earns well over 90 percent
of the country’s total export earnings — flows through Warri.
Fighting has forced the port to close there several times during the past
year.
Both the state and the country are also losing hundreds of millions of
dollars from illegal “oil bunkering’’, the practice of
siphoning off oil from pipelines outside the port into barges hidden in
the Delta marshlands, adds the report which endorsed recent proposals
by Shell that Nigeria’s oil exports be “certified’’
as coming from legitimate sources as one way to curb theft.
Illegally bunkered oil accounts for perhaps 10 percent of Nigeria’s
total oil production, or between $750 million dollars and $1.5 billion
dollars a year, and, in Delta State often the same interests and militias
control bunkering rackets.
The common denominator of both illegally bunkered oil and elections results,
HRW said, is control over the Delta State government, whose office-holders
often enjoy virtually unchecked control over resources and state security
forces.
Not only can incumbents get a leg up on rivals in the battle for illegally
bunkered oil, but they also reap major financial benefits from a 1999
law that, ironically, was designed to improve relations between oil-producing
states and the central government.
That law provides that 13 percent of the revenue from state oil production
will be returned to the state government — in Delta State’s
case, a major bonanza.
“Although the violence has both ethnic and political dimensions,’’
said Manby, “it is essentially a fight over the oil money —
both government revenue and profits of stolen crude.”
“Efforts to halt the violence and end the civilian suffering that
has accompanied it must therefore include steps both to improve government
accountability and to end the theft of oil.’’
But the interests involved are not just confined to the state; they also
have national connections. Last month, for example, three Lagos-based
journalists were arrested by police, detained for two days, and charged
with sedition and defamation for an article that alleged the country’s
vice president and President Olesegun Obasanjo’s national security
adviser were involved in large-scale theft of crude oil.
According to the report, the major contending forces in Delta State are
organized along ethnic lines. Three major groups claim Warri, the largest
town, as their homeland: the Itsekiri, a group of just a few hundred thousands
whose language is related to the much larger Yoruba to the west; the Urhobo,
which consists of several million people related to the Edo-speaking people
of Benin City; and the Ijaw, the largest single Delta group, whose 10
million people are spread out over several states.
The question of the “ownership’’ of Warri was already in
dispute in colonial times because it was linked to office holding at both
the local and state government levels.
In 1991, when Delta State was created, the Itsekiri, despite their relatively
small population, were recognized as the “true indigenes’’,
giving them a disproportionate advantage over the other two groups in
gaining certain offices and other perquisites, such as scholarship awards
and contracts with foreign oil companies.
This naturally raised the hackles of the other two groups. They have long
demanded the creation of new wards and local government areas that they
could then dominate, demands that began translating into violence in 1997,
as militias of the different ethnic groups raided villages or neighborhoods
inhabited by others, often killing scores of residents and forcing others
to flee.
The conflict also quickly involved foreign oil companies themselves, as
militia groups or local residents took over or occupied key oil installations
to press their grievances, often disrupting the flow of crude to off-shore
terminals and beyond.
Despite the violence and oil interruptions, the federal government has
failed to investigate the situation since 1997, and, when government security
forces were involved, they have either shot dead alleged assailants or
let them go, reportedly after the intervention of higher officials, according
to HRW.
The elections last April and May re-intensified the inter-ethnic conflict,
although, says the report, Ijaw militia members were particularly well
organized in attacking Itsekiri communities living in the creeks of the
mangrove forests, where much of the oil is found.
Federal government forces have also become more involved in the fighting,
according to the report, which noted several naval attacks on Ijaw villages.
Fighting became so great that oil companies like ChevronTexaco and Shell
were forced to close several facilities last March, and thousands of people
were displaced from their homes throughout the region, including in areas
that had previously been left alone.
In spite of the mayhem, the Nigerian government, adds HRW, has given little
if any assistance to those who have been displaced by the fighting, while
its security forces have not only failed to protect civilians but also
to carry out arrests, let alone prosecutions of those responsible for
the violence.
HRW also charged that the government’s efforts to negotiate an end
to the fighting have been “inadequate’’, even though military
and security officers have insisted publicly that a political solution
is the only way of resolving the conflicts.
At a minimum, it added, fresh elections should be held in Delta State
to ensure “equitable representation of all those living in the state
regardless of ethnic origin.’’
The Right rises across Europe
By Julio Godoy
Paris, France, Dec. 17 (IPS)— Recent elections and opinion
polls show that parties taking neo-fascist and racist positions are winning
substantial support all over Europe.
A new survey in France indicates that more than a fifth of voters support
the neo-fascist Front National (FN) led by Jean-Marie Le Pen.
The survey carried out by the Paris-based institute of political analysis
TNS- Sofres for the newspaper Le Monde showed 22 percent support for Le
Pen’s program for massive expulsion of immigrants, especially of
Muslims, of bringing back the death penalty, and defense of “traditional
values”.
The survey confirms the FN as the third major party after the right-wing
Union for a Popular Movement of President Jacques Chirac, and the Socialist
party.
Coming shortly before local elections in 22 regions next March, the survey
suggests that the FN has good chances to win at least three regions. The
regions are administrative units that take on autonomous roles such as
economic planning, environmental protection, and promotion of local economy.
The opinion polls suggest that Le Pen could win the election in the important
south-eastern region Provence-Alpes-C- te-d’Azur with some 20 million
voters.
The FN also appears to be a favorite in the north-eastern region Alsace,
a traditional right-wing extremist stronghold at the border with Germany
and Switzerland. Le Pen’s party could also win the first round in
Ile de France around Paris.
The survey says 30 percent of voters would find a FN candidate acceptable
for presidency of a French region.
The results confirm that the relative success of Le Pen in the presidential
election in 2002 was not a freak event. Le Pen took second place with
17 percent of the vote in the first round and eliminated Socialist candidate
Lionel Jospin from the run-off.
Le Pen again won 17 percent of the vote in the second round but a big
majority saw Chirac through.
Le Pen, 75, is a former military officer. He has been in politics since
the 1950s. His party appeared in the 1970s, and reached notoriety for
its racist positions and then for its victories in regional elections,
especially in Alsace in the 1980s.
The survey shows that support for Le Pen and the FN has risen steadily
since 1999, especially among the youth.
The success of neo-fascist political parties is not a French phenomenon.
Right-wing extremists have risen to public office in Switzerland, Italy,
Austria, Denmark, and Portugal.
The two Swiss parliamentary chambers confirmed the election of right-wing
nationalist Christoph Blocher to the Federal Council Dec. 10. The seven-
member council rules the country.
Blocher, a 63-year old businessman, pledged during his campaign to fight
immigration and crime. His party, the Centrist Democratic Union (UDC)
won 27.7 percent of the vote in the parliamentary elections Oct. 19.
“Nationalism, fear of change, and hatred of foreigners are the ingredients
of this populism,” the newspaper Courier International said in a
report titled “Xenophobe populists have launched the conquest of
Europe”.
The paper published a map of Europe in which only Sweden, Finland, Germany,
Ireland, Britain, and Spain appear free of significant neo-fascist influence.
In Italy, Austria and Denmark, openly racist politicians are or have been
members of ruling coalitions.
In Portugal a small party campaigning against immigrants and drug addicts
holds the right-wing government in place. Minister for defense Paulo Portas
has become a rising political star for his campaign against drug addicts,
immigrants, and criminality.
In Italy the leader of the neo-fascist Northern League, Umberto Bossi,
is minister for reform. In Denmark the conservative government has passed
tough laws against immigration under pressure from right-wing leader Pia
Kjaersgaard from the Party of the Danish People.
In Austria the neo-fascist Popular Party of Jörg Haider, who has
repeatedly expressed admiration for Nazi leader Adolph Hitler, is member
of the ruling coalition.
In Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium, neo-fascist politicians have become
influential figures in political debate.
In Belgium the overtly racist Vlaams Blok (The Flemish Block) is looking
for an alliance with established politicians for regional and European
elections in June next year.
“If the Flemish Block presents interesting political proposals, why
should we reject them on principle,” says Yves Leterme, leader of
the Flemish Christian Democratic Party (CD&V, after its Flemish name).
Others have said they will not respect the Charter for Democracy, a document
produced in 2000 to ban political coalitions with the Flemish Block.
The Liberal Party too has announced that it will follow a “policy
of exemplary firmness against foreigners.”
Laurent Arnauts, commentator with the Belgium daily Le Journal de Mardi
says “this readiness of politicians to co-opt the repulsive Flemish
Block program shows that it is contaminating the whole of society.”
In the Netherlands several leaders have emerged as heirs to the assassinated
right-wing extremist leader Pym Fortuyn. The Nieuw Rechts (New Right Party)
openly calls for a fight against Islam, and in defense of “national
identity”.
Led by former members of Fortuyn’s Leefbar Nederland party, the new
right is building relations with other European neo-fascist parties such
as the Northern League in Italy and the Vlaams Blok in Belgium.
Iraq weapons hunter to quit early as
hopes of
finding arsenal dwindle
By Julian Borger
Washington, DC, Dec. 19— The man leading the US hunt for
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction will leave his post prematurely in
the next few months amid dwindling expectations that there is anything
to be found.
David Kay, a former UN weapons inspector appointed by the CIA to head
the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) to hunt for the suspected arsenal that was
the US and British justification for the war, is on holiday in the US
and might leave before the ISG’s next interim report is due in
February, according to a report yesterday in the Washington Post.
One former UN colleague said Kay was under pressure to leave from his
wife, who was nervous about his safety. He had expected the search to
have brought results much quicker and had predicted he would be back
in the US by Christmas.
Another former colleague, however, said Kay was frustrated at the hemorrhage
of personnel and resources from the ISG to the counter-insurgency effort
in Iraq. A significant proportion of the group’s Arabic translators
have been diverted to interrogating suspected guerrillas, leaving the
ISG unable to interview officials and scientists who might have knowledge
of Saddam Hussein’s programs.
“This is a big blow to the administration, and it will signal the
effective end of the search for weapons of mass destruction,” said
Joseph Cirincione, a weapons expert at the Carnegie Endowment Institute
for Peace in Washington. “Some will continue looking but very,
very few expect there to be any significant finds at this point.”
A Pentagon official said he could not confirm Kay’s departure but
said that even if he left, the search for weapons programs would continue.
But the White House has not mentioned weapons of mass destruction as
a justification for the war in recent months, stressing the removal
of Saddm Hussein instead. In a television interview this week, President
George Bush appeared to deny there was a distinction between his pre-war
claims that Hussein had an arsenal of non-conventional weapons, and
his administration’s current argument that the regime was planning
to restart its weapons programs.
When a newscaster for ABC television, Diane Sawyer, reminded him of
claims of the “hard fact that there were weapons of mass destruction,
as opposed to the possibility that he could move to acquire those weapons,”
Bush asked: “What’s the difference?”
He added: “If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger.”
Asked what it would take to convince him that Hussein did not have weapons
of mass destruction, the president said: “Saddam Hussein was a
threat. The fact that he is gone means America is a safer country.”
“It’s unbelievable to me,” said David Albright, another
former UN inspector and a Washington expert on nuclear arms.
“He can’t possibly have meant it. Because it means we can
hit you if we don’t like you.
“The administration is redefining its meaning of having stockpiles
of weapons of mass destruction to thinking about acquiring large stockpiles.
His claims that there is no difference is disingenuous. But they’re
sticking with that position — that black is white.”
Kay’s first preliminary report to Congress in October conceded
the ISG had found only plans to acquire chemical and biological weapon.
Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defense Secretary, has continued to insist that
weapons will be found, pointing out that quantities could be hidden
in tiny bunkers around the country the same size as the pit where Hussein
was found.
Source: Guardian (UK)
Canada’s pension fund accused of
violating
landmine treaty
By Stephen Leahy
Brooklin, Canada, Dec. 20 (IPS)— Anti-war activists say
Canada’s national pension fund might be violating the global Mine
Ban Treaty that Ottawa championed by investing in US arms makers that
have manufactured landmines.
A report released by the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT) says
the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), a 64-billion-dollar fund to which workers
and employers contribute, invests in 15 of the world’s top 20 weapons
contractors.
Three of those firms, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and General Electric,
are listed in a report by the non-governmental organization (NGO) Human
Rights Watch (HRW) as having been involved in the making of anti-personnel
landmines.
Lockheed Martin, the world’s highest-ranking arms maker, still
produces components for CBU-89 “Gator” landmines, says COAT
coordinator Richard Sanders.
By investing in these companies, Canada is breaking the spirit, if not
the letter, of the highly acclaimed global Mine Ban Treaty, which is
now part of Canadian law, Sanders told IPS.
“It’s incredibly hypocritical,” he added.
By law, a portion of every Canadian’s earnings, along with matching
contributions from employers, is channeled into the CPP. While monthly
pension checks are issued at age 65, most of the money in the plan is
invested in stocks and real estate by an independent agency called the
CPP Investment Board.
“I’m not sure there’s proof of any breach, but we would
want to make sure Canada would be consistent with the spirit and letter
of the treaty,” said Paul Hannon, executive director of Mines Action
Canada (MAC), one of six NGOs that began the International Campaign
to Ban Landmines (ICBL) coalition in 1992.
ICBL won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.
Canada led the diplomatic effort to create the treaty and was the first
to sign on in Ottawa in 1997. Today, 141 states from every region of
the world have ratified the convention, making it the most successful
international agreement in recent decades, according to the ICBL.
While the treaty bans states from producing, stockpiling or transferring
landmines, it also prohibits any action “to assist, encourage or
induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a
state party under this convention.”
“We’re trying to create a new international norm that says
the use of these weapons is repugnant,” Hannon told IPS.
Investing in companies that make mines or their components should be
similarly stigmatized as repugnant he says – “we shouldn’t
invest in them.”
Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and General Electric remain on HRW’s
list as past and potential future suppliers of mines and mine components,
confirmed Mary Wareham, a senior advocate with HRW, also a partner in
ICBL.
However, the US government has not awarded any mine-production contracts
since 1997, Wareham says.
Washington has not signed the Mine Ban Treaty, and has not renounced
the weapons’ use. The US military currently has some 10 million
antipersonnel landmines in stock.
Even the appearance of a violation bothers Hannon.
Canada’s investment practices should not call into question the
country’s leadership role in the convention, he says. “It
could be used as a way to discredit the treaty.”
Hannon says it should not be difficult for the CPP board to screen potential
investments, nor would doing that jeopardize the fund’s earnings
potential.
But the three companies in question are respected and successful, counters
John Cappelletti, manager of communications and stakeholders at the
CPP Investment Board.
The CPP invests in legal, publicly traded companies in an effort to
maximize financial return, he added, basing those decisions solely on
financial information.
The legislation controlling the board prevents it from screening companies
on an ethical or moral basis, Cappelletti said.
In any case, such screens — generally termed “socially responsible
investing” (SRI) — would not be feasible because the plan
represents millions of Canadians with widely diverging viewpoints, he
added.
When asked about potential violations of international agreements like
the Mine Ban Treaty, Cappelletti said he would have to look into the
matter.
Screening weapons contractors from investments is quite easy to do,
according to Robert Walker, vice president of Ethical Funds, a Canadian
mutual fund company that manages 1.5 billion dollars in assets.
“It’s a complete red herring to say you couldn’t get
a consensus on which companies to exclude,” Walker told IPS.
Some US states are already doing it, and all pension funds in the United
Kingdom must reveal their SRI policies and criteria, he added.
“There’s no reason CPP investments couldn’t be consistent
with Canada’s public policy,” according to Walker.
Canadians would object if they knew how their pension monies are being
invested, he added.
The COAT report found investments of 2.5 billion dollars in at least
170 domestic and foreign military corporations.
CPP also invests in Altria, British American Tobacco and Japan Tobacco
Inc., the top three tobacco firms in the world.
Israeli invasion leaves 200 homeless
By Shaista Aziz
Dec. 15— The Israeli occupation army in Gaza has destroyed
22 Palestinian homes in the town of Khan Yunis, leaving about 200 people
homeless.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) based in the Gaza area
says the occupation troops entered the southern strip shortly after
midnight on Monday.
“Heavy military vehicles and helicopters covered by intense shelling
moved into the Khan Yunis refugee camp. During the operation, Israeli
forces totally demolished 18 houses and partially destroyed four others,
leaving around 200 people homeless,” said a spokesperson for the
organization.
Witnesses told Aljazeera.net the inhabitants of the houses destroyed
or damaged in the attack fled their homes when they heard the Israeli
military vehicles approaching the area.
“I had to gather my children and make them walk out in the middle
of the night. The children were scared and crying because of all the
noise from the tanks,” said Umar Ahmad, a resident of Khan Yunis.
“I don’t know why they had to do this. We are refugees; we
no longer have a home, as it has been destroyed by the army.”
Geneva Convention
The PCHR says the ongoing attacks against Palestinian civilians and
property by the Israeli occupying forces is unlawful and has no military
justification.
The Israeli army’s actions contravene the Fourth Geneva Convention,
and the collective punishment carried out by the army against Palestinian
civilians is also in breach of international humanitarian law.
International law states that an occupying force has to uphold the human
rights of an occupied group of people.
In October, the Israeli army launched a massive invasion of the Rafah
refugee camp and town near the Egyptian border. Eight Palestinians were
killed and nearly 15,000 people were made homeless when soldiers demolished
100 homes.
The invasion and devastation was condemned by the UN and European Union.
Harsh conditions
Non-governmental agencies and charities working in Gaza say the latest
invasion will make life more difficult for refugees in the camps and
add further pressure on agencies trying to provide humanitarian aid
in the region.
Fikr Shaltoot works for the charity Medical Aid For Palestinians(MAP)
and is based in Gaza City. She told Aljazeera.net that people there
were desperate.
“One of the major problems that we face in the south of Gaza is
that MAP is unable to access areas where we have established projects
such as mobile health clinics. Families are in dire need of food parcels,
but we can’t get to them. This latest invasion will make our work
more difficult.”
Army response
Israel said its soldiers destroyed several homes it claimed were used
as launching pads to fire mortars at the nearby Gush Katif Jewish settlement.
Earlier today Israeli soldiers shot and killed two unarmed Palestinians,
and were searching for a third in southern Gaza.
The army claimed that a group of six Palestinians approached a fence
in the northern Gaza Strip that separates the occupied Palestinian area
from Israel. The soldiers said they opened fire when the men tried to
break through the fence.
Palestinian security sources confirmed that two men had been killed
in the security zone east of Bait Hanun at about midnight.
The bodies had yet to be returned by the Israelis, the sources said,
adding that they were not known to belong to any resistance group.
Source: Aljazeera
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