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New Golan Heights settlement plan
derails peace talks
By Justin Huggler
Jerusalem, Jan. 1— In another blow to the prospects of
peace in the Middle East, the Israeli government has approved plans
to double the number of Jewish settlers living in the occupied Golan
Heights within three years.
The details of the $56 million project to expand settlements on the
Golan Heights emerged yesterday, just weeks after Syria’s President,
Bashar Assad, called for new peace talks with Israel. The settlement
project could now put any talks in jeopardy. “The goal is for Assad
to see from the windows of his home the Israeli Golan thriving and flourishing,”
the Israeli Agriculture Minister, Yisrael Katz, who is responsible for
the new scheme, said yesterday.
“The government resolution is a response to the initiative posed
by Syria, which on one hand announces that it is interested in peace,
and on the other hand openly supports Palestinian terror,” he told
the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
But Israeli officials close to the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, tried
to play down Katz’s comments, insisting the new project was planned
before President Assad’s comments, and was not a reaction to them.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War.
The area has been under occupation ever since. Unlike the West Bank
and Gaza Strip, which were also captured in 1967, Israel has since annexed
the Golan Heights and claims they are part of Israel. The annexation
is considered illegal and not recognized by governments around the world.
Syria has consistently said that it will only make peace with Israel
if all the occupied Golan Heights are returned. The Golan is populated
by several thousand Druze — an offshoot of Islam — many of
whom consider themselves Syrians living under Israeli occupation. But
thousands of Jewish settlers have also moved to the Golan since the
Israeli occupation, just as thousands have settled in the West Bank
and Gaza to stake a claim to the land as Israeli.
The aim of the new settlements plan for the Golan is to establish an
Israeli presence on the ground ahead of any peace talks with Syria,
said Yedioth Ahronoth, which revealed the existence of the project.
“The Golan is ours and we do not intend to give it up,” Katz
told the newspaper. “It is time to put the Golan on the map as
part of Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel.”
Syria called the plan a “flagrant expression of opposition to peace.”
It “blocks the way to any inclination or initiative to push matters
in the direction of achieving a just and comprehensive peace in the
region,” a government spokesman was quoted as saying by the official
Syrian Arab News Agency.
It appeared that Katz had broken ranks with Israeli government ministers
— and angered Sharon — by speaking so openly about the project.
“This was not intended as a message to Syria. This program has
been misused and slanted and twisted, taken out of context for internal
political purposes,” said a government spokesman close to the Prime
Minister. Other government sources were quick to disown Katz’s
statements.
Government spokesmen denied Yedioth Ahronoth’s report that nine
new settlements were planned in the Golan, and said that only existing
settlements would be expanded. Most of the money to finance the scheme
is to be raised from the private sector and the project also includes
plans to develop tourism in the Golan.
“Sharon and his government have revealed another stage in their
road-map for liquidating peace in the region,” said Dalia Itzik,
an Israeli opposition Labor Minister of Parliament. “After strewing
mines in the negotiations with the Palestinians, it is time to mine
the road to negotiations with Syria,” she said.
Source: Independent (UK)
Zapatistas celebrate ten years of armed
struggle
By Forrest Morrow
La Realidad, Mexico, Dec. 31 (AGR)— Hundreds gathered to
celebrate the new year, which commemorated 20 years of organized resistance
by indigenous communities and 10 years of an armed struggle, born of
the 1994 Zapatista uprising. Facing skepticism that the movement is
fizzling out, EZLN supporters relished in accomplishments of the past
while gazing optimistically into the future.
“We must move forward,” said Comandante Tacho, his voice being
broadcasted on Radio Insurgente from some clandestine post in the distant
jungle. One of the foremost figures in the Zapatista military council,
he went on to say that they could not rely on negotiations with the
federal government, rather take measures to care for their own communities.
La Realidad lies in the heart of eastern Chiapas, headquarters to a
stretch of Zapatista controlled communities nestled along the western
border of the Lacandon jungle. Such communities have been declared autonomous
since the 1994 uprising, and continue to remain as secured areas. Visitors
are granted only limited access, while government officials are prohibited
to enter.
When asked if they ever had trouble with the Mexican military (who occupy
two bases on either side of the quaint mountain valley), a man we will
call “Oscar” gave a smile, signifying his reluctance to say
too much.
“No,” he began slowly. “They cannot bother us here,”
vaguely hinting that the towns were still well-guarded.
Apart from a very real military stand-off, the community itself was
quite tranquil on the eve of their own anniversary. As night fell, town
members came together with an assortment of visitors from around the
world, all decending on a central arena lit by strands of dangling light
bulbs. Dancing to marimbas in a light drizzle, indigenous Tojolobales
and foreigners alike waited for the “Zapatista hour.”
“We are here to help communicate the message of the Zapatista Movement,”
begins Angel Vasquez Martinez, a middle aged man who is a representative
of the Collectivo Zapatista in Mexico City. The group, about 30 strong,
represented such diversity that has helped to make the indigenous rebellion
popular. “The Proyecto Zapatista includes people who work in factories,
offices, schools, and the in countryside.”
In this way, the movement has gained support from organizations in many
different countries. This sense of global solidarity has inspired other
human rights movements to join in the fight, waging a communication
war fit for the 21st century.
“There are many of us who struggle with similar problems all over
Mexico,” Juan Espinoza, a 22 year old student from Michoacan, said
of his northerly home state. “We come here to have a voice, because
Zapatismo is the voice of all people.”
Although those in attendance seemed to emit a steadfast optimism for
the future of the EZLN and its communities, many feel the movement has
lost its momentum.
“Zapatismo is dead,” explained Federico Hernandez, General
Director for the newspaper, La Cañada Oaxaqueña, his vision
for the future seeming bleak.
“In reality, these indigenous communities are not prepared to take
charge of such sophisticated economic projects introduced during negotiations
with the federal government. The ideals behind their motive actually
protagonize the Zapatista Movement.”
This feeling was most definately resonant in popular Mexican media.
Proceso, a news journal from Mexico City, released a special edition
issue for January; the front cover pictured a masked man pointing his
rifle at the sky, the title reading: 1994-2004 The Grand Illusion.
Far away from such skepticism, the muddy streets of La Realidad lay
nestled in the folds of a mountainous landscape. All of the men and
women were instructed to arrange themselves in columns, forming a large
rectangle in the center of the arena. Donned with ski masks and red
bandannas to cover their faces, the mass waited for the official stroke
of midnight.
At the far corner of the crowd, two men in black masks and cowboy hats
sent large rockets streaming into the sky using nothing more than their
hands. The booms that followed echoed throughout the valley, as if there
really were a war going on in the distance.
“Viva El Ejercito Zapatista Liberacion National!” they yelled.
“Viva Emiliano Zapata! Viva Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos!”
The resounding chants were followed by music, coming from a group of
young men with covered faces and guitars, who had walked from the nearby
community of Porvenir for the celebration.
“You don’t gain much being a Zapatista,” Compañero
“Victor” told a young Italian student who lives in Mexico
City. “But we must keep struggling, because we have a vision of
something great up ahead.”
On January 1, 1994, close to five thousand armed rebels overtook seven
municipal seats in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. The army was
almost entirely comprised of Tzeltal, Tojolobal and Chol indians, whose
attack had been organized to coincide with the passing of the North
American Free Trade Agreement. Multinational interests in Mexico’s
resources had aided the alteration of constitutional “ejido”
land rights, which posed a threat to traditional indigenous communities
who rely on land for survival.
Ten years later, the fight has evolved a unique character of its own.
Maintaining its resistence through eloquent communiques, the EZLN has
placed itself under the watchful eye of the world community, making
any agressive military action difficult for Mexico. In its entirety,
the EZLN is comprised almost entirely of indigenous people. Of those,
almost half are women.
Although it is such a short history, many feel it is one that it has
given its people an identity and source of pride.
“Look at our community,” exclaimed an older man. “Not
much of this was even here. You could only leave on horse because there
was no road.”
Something in the air seemed worthy of celebration.
In a Nov. 10 message sent out by Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, he
recounted the early years of the EZLN. The now-famed leader who smokes
a pipe through his black mask remembered their second anniversary celebration.
“There were songs and poems,” he began. “When it was
my turn, I told them — in a solumn speech, without any arguments
other than the mosquitos and solitude which surrounded us — that
one day there would be thousands of us, and that our word would go around
the world.”
Amidst the smoke of firecrackers and tune of guitars, it is hard to
believe that something here is dying.
US military prepares intervention in
Colombia
By Carlos Fazio
Jan. 3— Silently and without firing a single shot, the
Pentagon is consolidating the military occupation of Ecuador. The accelerated
installation of military bases and an espionage center, as well as the
training of elite counterinsurgent units, signal timely preparations
for an eventual launching of Plan Colombia’s second phase for the
first months of 2004: a multinational armed intervention against the
FARC and the ELN guerrillas.
The Manta naval and air base, located on the Pacific shore of Ecuador
and one hour flight from the Colombian border, is under the exclusive
jurisdiction of the US Armed Forces’ SouthCom (Southern Command).
Manta is an Air Force and Navy command center directing key mercenary
operations under contract to Cyncorp, a Pentagon private subcontractor,
conducting the installation of 3 substitute logistics centers (under
construction) in the provinces of Guayas, Azuay and Sucumbíos,
as well as, the militarization of the Ecuadorian police, receiving “anti-terrorist”
training by the FBI.
Visits to the Andean nation by General Wendell L. Griffin, SouthCom
Planning and Strategy Director and US special envoy for Western Hemisphere
Affairs, Otto Reich, seem to indicate that Washington is accelerating
preparations to unleash military skirmishes inside Colombian territory
and that Ecuador, with the subordinate authorization of President Lucio
Gutiérrez — a seasoned, retired colonel — will perform
a function similar to Honduras in Reagan’s war against the Sandinistas
in Nicaragua: that of a US aircraft carrier in an undercover war of
aggression.
Manta, center of regional espionage
The South Command, one of the five unified commands of the Pentagon,
covers an area of responsibility that includes 19 Latin American and
Caribbean countries, except French Guiana and Mexico (incorporated de
facto to the North Command). Between 1903 and 1999, SouthCom headquarters
was in the Panama Canal Zone. But by virtue of the Carter-Torrijos Agreement
(1977), the United States had to abandon Howard Base and a network of
government installations (intelligence teams, radars, and satellite
antennae) in the country on December 31, 1999 and transferred the South
Command to Miami, Florida.
As of 2000, the Pentagon designed a new sub-regional military control
scheme, through the so-called forward operational locations (FOL), utilizing
land and sea bases in Comalapa (El Salvador), Aruba, Curazao, and Manta.
The FOL were designed like centers of “strategic mobility”
and “decisive force” to be used in blitzkrieg attacks by rapid
deployment airborne forces.
In July of that year, the Manta military base became a main center of
electronic espionage in South America using Pentagon satellite technology.
US Orion C-130 spy planes take off from Manta on their daily missions.
Currently the base houses 162 American officers and 231 employees (almost
all former soldiers) of the Dyncorp multinational corporation based
in Reston, Virginia, the Pentagon’s headquarter.
A US enterprise with profits of 10 billion USD in 2002, Dyncorp is subcontracted
by the Pentagon for fumigating (illegal cultivations) under Plan Colombia.
But it is also in charge of logistic and administrative services (maintenance
and technical support of aviation) and offers computer technology services
at the base in Manta. According to Colonel Jorge Brito, Ecuadorian military
strategist, Dyncorp’s contractors’ in Colombia and Manta —
those who enjoy diplomatic immunity — are all part of espionage
activity. “They can carry out strategic and operational intelligence
activities by simply not wearing a uniform. I say operational activities
because they quietly displace themselves throughout the territory; strategic
because they can access data for military planning.”
The existence of a “confidential” covenant framework that
facilitates the execution of projects between Dyncorp and the Aeronautics
Industries Directorate of the Ecuadorian Air Force was publicly exposed
in November. According to military sources, cited by Quito’s El
Comercio newspaper, the covenant was not known by the National Defense
Council nor its minister. The situation would eventually reveal, the
existence of uniformed personnel influenced by Plan Colombia and the
Pentagon’s regional policy, within the class of local government
officialdom.
The controversial agreement, which bypassed local congressional approval,
accredits the soldiers of the South Command in Ecuador and the industrious
Dyncorp contractors, as members of the US diplomatic mission in the
country. Besides enjoying immunity, the Dyncorp workers do not pay fiscal
taxes or duties, use vehicles without plates and are to be judged by
American courts in case of legal problems.
The hot border of Putumayo and Sucumbíos
When General Wendell L. Griffin was in Ecuador on the 17, 18, and 19
of October, he visited Quito and Manta under strict security measures.
He was also transferred to New Loja, in Sucumbíos, where he was
greeted by Colonel Ernesto González, commander of the 19th Napo
Jungle Brigade. Once there, he put on a green camouflage uniform, and
greeted the leader of the IV Ecuadorian Army Division, General Gustavo
Wall, at the hot northern Amazon border that abuts with Colombia’s
Putumayo region, controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC-EP).
This past Sept. 5, Ecuador’s foreign minister, Patricio Zuquilanda,
signed a “secret agreement” with the US commercial attaché
in Quito, Arnold Chacón, offering the South Command the means
to build and manage three “storage centers” to serve populations
affected by natural disasters caused by “El Nino”. One will
be located in the province of Guayas, near the Pacific Ocean, another
in Azuay, The Andes, and the third in Sucumbíos.
According to former Ecuadorian ministers and congress persons, the agreement
is in violation of the nation’s constitution.
Miguel Morán, leader of the Tohalli movement, declared: “Ecuador
is already a US base; not only Manta. They inaugurated seven military
detachments in Amazonía and are now after key ports ...The construction
of the logistic centers is a smoke screen to conceal military activity.”
The role of Ecuador as a US aircraft carrier in the heart of Latin America,
with sights on the second phase of Plan Colombia, was strengthened after
the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in Washington and New York. Since
then, the number of security agencies, budget, soldiers and “contractors”
assigned to Ecuador by the US has dramatically increased. In 2001, Washington
assigned 2 million dollars to its embassy in Quito. Last year the figure
climbed to 25 million and 37 million in 2003. The police were one of
the main beneficiaries of an aid package described as “non-military”
assistance.
Washington counts on seven security offices in Ecuador: defense (DAO),
drug enforcement (DEA), military aid (MAAG), internal security, national
security (NSA), the US Agency for International Development (USAID)
and the Peace Corps. These last two have traditionally have been used
to protect the secret acts of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Added to all these agencies is the South Command, handling its activities
independently of all others.
Ecuador is now militarily “ready”. Its function will be key
if the White House’s objective is to regionalize the Colombian
conflict. As former Ecuadorian foreign minister, Alfonso Barrier, says,
“the conflict entered our territory through the window.” Barrier
has asked Ecuador’s president, Lucio Gutiérrez, to play
a more independent role from Washington. And he warns: “The United
States is not kind to those who demonstrate submission.”
Source: La Jornada
Anxiety as Kenya govt. starts evicting
squatters
Nairobi, Kenya, Jan. 3— Anxiety gripped thousands of people
settled or cultivating in Kenyan national forests as the country’s
Provincial Administration announced it would start evicting the squatters.
While many hoped for a reprieve from the government, some began uprooting
and harvesting their crops. Yet others vowed to resist any attempts
to evict them from the forests.
The Minister for Environment and Natural Resources, Dr. Newton Kulundu,
has indicated that there would be no relenting this time around.
He has directed that the eviction notice — which expired on Dec.
31, 2003 — must be enforced to the letter.
In Nakuru, thousands of peasants cultivating in forests started uprooting
their immature food crops and harvesting those that were ready.
Some farmers were busy harvesting green maize from their small pieces
of land in the forests.
But as a majority of farmers started preparing to move out, scores vowed
to resist any attempt to evict them.
They instead urged the government to give them time for their crops
to ripen.
Among the forests the East African Standard visited include Dundori,
Bahati, Molo, Elburgon, Mau East and West.
In Koibatek, farmers in Maji Mazuri Station vowed to stay put and will
today hold a meeting with their Minister of Parliament (MP), Musa Sirma,
to declare their stand.
In Dundori, the farmers braved a scorching sun to harvest their maize,
beans, potatoes, and cabbages.
Hundreds of acres of forest land contain the food crops which have yet
to mature.
Pick-up trucks and donkey carts loaded with sacks of maize and beans
traversed the expansive forests as farmers moved fast to cut down the
losses they are likely to incur.
Those opposed to the eviction said they would defy the directive since
they have yet to harvest their crops. They urged the government to give
them up to mid-2004 when the crops are expected to have matured.
They denied that they were responsible for the destruction of forests
as the ministry alleged.
The farmers claimed that it was the provincial administration that had
colluded with foresters and other government officers to destroy the
forests in most parts of the country.
Those in Dundori claimed that their MP, Koigi Wamwere, had assured them
that the government would give them time to harvest their crops.
Those farming in government forests in the North Rift region were yet
to move out following the expiry of the quit notice.
At Kaptagat Forest, which is the most cultivated in the region, some
farmers were harvesting maize but not because of the government notice.
“We are harvesting because we had planned to. I am not aware of
any notice,” Abraham Tarus, who has cultivated in the forest for
three years, said.
His neighbors, however, said they were aware of the notice as it was
communicated to them by the area chief.
Their plea, however, echoed those from other farmers: “They should
extend the deadline in consultation with us so that we can harvest all
our crops. This way, we will not incur any losses,” said Jane Sawe.
Her husband, Wilson Sawe, said they had 12 children who they had to
feed and educate through proceeds from the farm, and asked the government
to consider the decision to evict them.
“If it is preservation of trees, we can do it for the government
free of charge and be held responsible if they are felled,” he
said.
In other forests in Uasin Gishu, there was uncertainty as forest officials
were not evicting those settled in water catchment areas.
Western Provincial Commissioner, Hassan Noor Hassan, said the government
would use security personnel to ensure that all forest squatters leave.
Elsewhere, some 400 squatters in Madunguni Forest in Malindi District
were bracing themselves for eviction.
Coast PC Cyrus Maina said the decision to evict squatters in gazetted
forests was binding.
From Madunguni, area DC, Mohamed Maalim, said the government had placed
forests guards in Arabuko Sokoke and Madunguni forests to guard them
24 hours a day.
He said the major problem at Arabuko Sokoke Forest was illegal logging.
Kulundu visited Madunguni Forest last May to assess the damage done
by the invaders. He ordered that they be evicted.
Source: East African Standard
Iraq roundup: one week of occupation
news
Compiled by Eamon Martin
Jan. 6 (AGR)— A 5,000-gallon oil tanker erupted in flames
near a US military base in Iraq near Ramadi on Friday, Jan. 2. during
an attack on a convoy by a roadside bomb, a grenade and small arms fire.
Also that day, two soldiers were killed and three wounded just south
of Baghdad when a bomb was detonated as their patrol drove past. Meanwhile,
to the north of the city at a US base near Balad, one soldier was killed
and two were wounded by shrapnel in a mortar attack.
News of the attacks came a day after guerrillas shot down an OH-58 Kiowa
Warrior helicopter outside the town of Falluja, west of Baghdad. It
was the sixth US helicopter to be brought down by Iraqi insurgents since
October. A policeman who witnessed the crash said the helicopter was
hit by a missile before falling to the ground. One pilot was killed
and the other wounded.
The attacks coincided with the latest installment of Operation Iron
Grip, an ongoing effort to root out suspected insurgents in Baghdad.
The Army’s 1st Armored Division used AC-130s and A-10 “Warthog”
planes to bombard areas in the south of the city late into Friday night.
The sound of artillery, mortar bombs and fighter plane machineguns rattled
over the capital for several hours, but the military would provide no
details on the operation’s results.
The US bombardment followed a raid by American and Iraqi forces on a
Baghdad mosque that the US military said they suspected of being a hub
for criminal and “terrorist” activity. A US military spokesman
said explosives, detonators, hand grenades, assault rifles, and rocket
manuals were seized in the Thursday operation, and 32 suspects were
detained.
The raid provoked an angry reaction from more than 1,000 worshippers
at the Sunni shrine, who gathered after Friday prayers to denounce the
US occupation, chanting “Down with America.”
“American soldiers entered the mosque with their shoes on and with
machine guns in their hands,” the imam, Abdulsatar al-Janabi, told
Reuters, adding the raid had lasted five hours.
“They trampled on the holy Koran, beat up some of the worshippers
and stole computers and a donations box,” he said.
Al-Janabi denied the raid had netted much weaponry. “In every mosque
in Iraq we keep light guns for self protection,” he said. “They
claim it’s an arsenal of weapons, but it’s just for self protection.”
The night before the raid, a car bomb tore through a central Baghdad
restaurant just hours before the beginning of the new year, killing
eight people and injuring more than two dozen as a crowd of Iraqis and
foreigners gathered for a low-key holiday celebration.
More extended tours for thousands of soldiers
The US Army has decided to extend the tours of thousands of soldiers
in Iraq who were due to end their service or retire before their units’
return home, an army spokesman said this week.
To stem an exodus of personnel, the Army may prohibit additional soldiers
in crucial units from retiring, leaving when enlistment ends, or being
reassigned.
Army officials declined to say which or how many soldiers would be affected
when it expands its “stop-loss” program. Since it began instituting
the stop-loss orders two years ago, the Army has blocked the retirements
and departures of more than 40,000 soldiers, about 16,000 of them National
Guard and reserve members. Already, by preventing soldiers from leaving
the Army at retirement or the expiration of their contracts, military
leaders have breached the Army’s manpower limit of 480,000 troops
set by Congress. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee
last month, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, said the
number of active-duty soldiers had reached 500,000. Several lawmakers
questioned the legality of exceeding the limit by so much.
This week, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said that his country’s
troops would remain in Iraq for years, not months.
“I can’t say whether it’s going to be 2006/2007,”
he said. Subject to there being a “status of forces agreement”
between the new sovereign government of Iraq and the US/UK occupation
authority, he said it was a “fact” that troops would be there
for years. “It is not going to be months for sure,” Straw
added.
Iraq police chief says US Army gunned down family
The police chief investigating the deaths of an Iraqi family gunned
down in their car in northern Iraq said on Monday, Jan. 5, he was convinced
US troops were responsible.
Tensions have only been rising in Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein,
since the bodies of the family were found on a nearby highway on Saturday.
Occupation soldiers said the bodies were of a man, a woman and a child.
General Mazhar Taha al-Ganaim, police chief of Salahaddin province,
said four people were killed — two men, a woman, and a nine-year-old
boy.
A fifth man who survived and was taken to Tikrit hospital has told local
soldiers the car was fired on by a US Army convoy. Mazhar said he had
interviewed other witnesses and was “100 percent” sure this
was true.
“The civilian car tried to by-pass the convoy. Because they tried
to by-pass, [the army] opened fire,” Mazhar said, through an interpreter.
Under normal military rules, if US soldiers open fire they are supposed
to stop and investigate on the spot and report the incident immediately.
No such report has yet been made, Major Josslyn Aberle said.
The army has denied involvement.
US troops raid Kurdish party offices
On Jan. 3, US troops raided the offices of Kurdish parties in the oil-rich
city Kirkuk, where six people died in ethnic clashes last week, and
seized AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
One senior member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) was taken
into custody after the raids Saturday night, Sergeant Robert Cargie
of the 4th Infantry Division told reporters.
A KDP office and an adjacent office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
— the two key parties representing the Kurdish minority in Iraq
— were both raided, he said.
British soldiers ‘kicked Iraqi prisoner to death’
Eight young Iraqis arrested in Basra were kicked and assaulted by British
soldiers, one of them so badly that he died in British custody, according
to military and medical records.
Amnesty International has urged its members to protest directly to British
Prime Minister Tony Blair about the death of Baha Mousa, the son of
an Iraqi police colonel, and to demand an impartial and independent
investigation into the apparent torture of the Basra prisoners.
British military authorities have offered Mousa’s relatives $8,000
in compensation, providing they are not held responsible for his death,
but the young hotel receptionist’s family plans to take the UK’s
Ministry of Defense to court. His body was returned to them, covered
in bruises and with his nose broken, after he and seven colleagues were
arrested by British forces in Basra last September and held in military
custody for three days.
One of Mousa’s coworkers gave a frightening account of their ordeal.
Baha Mousa, he says, was tied and hooded and then repeatedly kicked
and assaulted by British troops, begging all the while to have the hood
removed because he could no longer breathe.
A death certificate provided by the British Army states that Baha Mousa
had died of “asphyxia.” A restricted medical document from
a British hospital says a surviving prisoner, Kifah Taha, suffered his
injuries “due to a severe beating.”
Mousa’s violent death left his two children orphaned.
US soldiers sent home for beating prisoners of war
Three American soldiers have been discharged after being found guilty
of viciously beating and harassing Iraqi prisoners of war, some of whom
were already injured, a US military spokesman said on Jan. 5.
Master Sergeant Lisa Girman, 35, was the most senior person in charge
during the incident at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq. She knocked a prisoner
to the ground and repeatedly kicked him in the groin, abdomen and head,
encouraging subordinate soldiers to do the same.
Another of the three, Scott McKenzie, 38, dragged a prisoner by his
arms across the ground and, holding his legs apart, encouraged soldiers
to kick him in the groin, abdomen and head. McKenzie then threw the
prisoner to the ground and stepped on his injured arm.
Timothy Canjar, 21, held a prisoner’s legs apart while others kicked
him in the groin, and violently twisted his already injured arm.
The three soldiers, all from Pennsylvania, have been sent back to the
US after months of investigations led to their administrative discharge.
Sources: Agence France-Press, Associated
Press, BBC, Guardian (UK), Independent (UK), Los Angeles Times, Reuters
UK feared Americans would invade Gulf
during 1973 oil crisis
By Owen Bowcott
Jan. 1— Ted Heath’s British government feared —
at the height of the 1973 oil crisis — that the White House was
planning to invade Saudi Arabia and the Gulf to secure fuel supplies,
according to Downing Street files released today.
Suspicions about Richard Nixon’s administration as it struggled
to shake free from the Watergate scandal, the documents show, were reinforced
when the prime minister was only belatedly informed of a worldwide nuclear
alert declared by the US.
The files, handed over to the National Archive in Kew under the 30-year
rule, expose a disturbing and acrimonious episode in “the special
relationship” between London and Washington.
In the aftermath of the Yom Kippur war, America blamed Britain for failing
to open its military bases. The defeated Arab nations then imposed an
oil embargo on the west.
The US Defense Secretary, James Schlesinger, told Britain’s ambassador
in Washington, Lord Cromer, “it was no longer obvious to him that
the US could not use force.”
Schlesinger had already clashed with Lord Carrington, the British Defense
Secretary. The ambassador’s interview was no more amicable. “Couthness
is not Schlesinger’s strong point,” he said in a cable to
London. “One or two of his remarks bordered on the offensive.”
But it was the substance of Schlesinger’s remarks which set alarm
bells ringing. “[One] outcome of the Middle East crisis,”
he told Lord Cromer, “was the [sight] of industrialized nations
being continuously submitted to [the] whims of under-populated, under-developed
countries, particularly [those in the] Middle East.
“Schlesinger did not draw any specific conclusion from this but
the unspoken assumption came through ... that it might not ... be possible
to rule out a more direct application of military force.”
A week later, in mid-November, Henry Kissinger, the US secretary of
state, warned that if the Arab oil embargo continued unreasonably and
in definitely, America would have to decide what counter-measures were
necessary.
In the grip of an international security crisis, Heath commissioned
a report — titled Middle East: Possible Use of Force by the United
States — from Percy Cradock of the joint intelligence committee.
The 22-page survey, delivered to the prime minister in December, warned
that the most likely US military action was the seizure of oil-producing
areas. Such a move might be triggered by a resumption of the Arab/Israeli
war and protracted oil sanctions.
“The United States might consider it could not tolerate a situation
in which the US and its allies were at the mercy of a small group of
unreasonable countries. We believe the American preference would be
for a rapid operation conducted by themselves to seize oilfields ...
The force required for the initial operation would be of the order of
two brigades, one for Saudi operation, one for Kuwait and possibly a
third for Abu Dhabi.
“The build-up would require the presence of a substantial US naval
force in the Indian Ocean, considerably more than the present force.
After the initial assaults ... two [extra] divisions could be flown
in from the USA.”
British bases such as that at Diego Garcia would probably have to be
used, Cradock observed. The Russians might well fly troops into the
region to defend the Arabs. US/Soviet confrontations were unlikely but
could not be ruled out.
“The greatest risk of such confrontations in the Gulf would probably
arise in Kuwait where the Iraqis, with Soviet backing, might be tempted
to intervene.” NATO allies, including Britain, would be pressed
to provide political and military support.
During the Yom Kippur war, in October 1973, Schlesinger had told Carrington
that: “The Americans had paid $25.5 for facilities in Diego Garcia
and might be expected to be allowed to use them.”
But it was the full-scale nuclear alert — declared on October 25
that year, supposedly in response to Soviet fleet movements in the eastern
Mediterranean — which most infuriated Ted Heath.
The prime minister, the documents reveal, only learnt about it from
news agency reports while in the Commons.
“Personally,” he told his private secretary Lord Bridges,
“I fail to see how any initiative, threatened or real, by the Soviet
leadership required such a worldwide nuclear alert.
“We have to face the fact that the American action has done immense
harm, both to this country and worldwide.”
Source: Guardian (UK)
Business boos anti-globalization forces
in the White House
By Jim Lobe
Washington, DC, Dec. 29 (IPS)— If anti-globalization radicals
really want to tear down the world capitalist system they might want
to go door-to-door next year on behalf of incumbent US president, George
W. Bush.
While Bush brags about his business experience and identifies with the
interests of wealthy US capitalists, a continuation of the policies
he has pursued since Sept. 11, 2001 threatens not only the US economy,
whose ballooning defense-driven federal deficit risks a potentially
disastrous collapse of the dollar.
But his insistence on effectively exempting the United States from the
rule of international law — commercial as well as human rights
law — also threatens the very foundation of the multilateral economic
system under which global corporate capitalism has prospered for more
than 50 years, according to a growing number of economic analysts.
For multinational corporations, which act as both the chief engines
and beneficiaries of the global system, the rule of law provides the
predictability they need to make investment decisions. Without it, countries
find it much more difficult to attract capital and benefit from global
trade and investment regimes.
Concern about Bush’s unilateralist policies and their relationship
to the global economic order was first voiced late in 2002 as it became
clear that he was determined to go to war on the basis of a new national-security
doctrine that featured pre-emptive military action.
Among those who expressed alarm at the time were a number of former
high-ranking policy makers, most notably Jeffrey Garten, currently dean
of the Yale School of Management.
“The big issue is disregard for international law,” he warned
in an article in Business Week magazine in an appeal to corporate executives
to weigh in against the administration’s course.
“The UN Charter places stringent limits on the right of self-defense,
saying that the unilateral use of force can be used only against imminent
threat of attack.”
“The danger is that once the US brazenly departs from international
treaties, it invites widespread cynicism about all global agreements
and opens the door to other nations’ flaunting them too,”
Garten argued at the time.
Unconstrained either by Congress, the UN Security Council or the captains
of finance and industry, Bush went to war, fuelling a new round of warnings.
“Uncertainty is anathema to investment and growth,” wrote
Business Week editorial page editor Bruce Nussbaum as US troops crossed
into Iraq from Kuwait, noting that the war’s possible consequences,
as well as the flaunting of international law, posed serious threats
to global confidence.
“Chief executives are beginning to worry that globalization may
not be compatible with a foreign policy of unilateral pre-emption,”
he went on.
“US corporations may soon find it more difficult to function in
a multilateral economic arena when their overseas business partners
and governments perceive America to be acting outside the bounds of
international law and institutions.”
Nor was Bush’s self-exemption from international law seen as the
only blow against global corporate interests. The administration’s
plans to privatize the Iraqi economy while awarding lucrative rebuilding
contracts to US companies also flew in the face of the interests of
a global capitalist system supposedly based on transparency and openness.
“American imperialism is, by definition, a retreat away from global
capitalism, a retreat from the invisible hand of markets in favor of
a more dominant role for the visible fist of governments,” argued
Paul McCulley, a managing director of PIMCO, the world’s largest
bond investment fund.
Indeed, the unabashed commitment to reward US companies (preferably
political contributors) in Iraq gave rise to fears about a new mercantilism
based ultimately on military (and hence government) power of the kind
that characterized European imperialism, as opposed to the creation
of an open global market in the war’s immediate aftermath —
fears that were fanned with the September collapse of the World Trade
Organization (WTO) Doha Round in Cancun.
Those fears reached their height earlier this month when Deputy Defense
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz announced that companies from countries that
did not support the war in Iraq — including some of Washington’s
closest allies — would be barred from bidding on some 18.6 billion
dollars in contracts for Iraq’s reconstruction, a decision that,
according to many trade experts, violates a WTO agreement on government
procurement.
The decision — announced the same day that Bush met with former
secretary of state James Baker to craft a strategy for persuading US
allies, including those whose companies were banned from bidding, to
forgive Iraq’s 220 billion dollar foreign debt — drew outrage
from affected governments, including France, Germany, Canada and the
European Union (EU).
“It is a bad idea because reciprocity is the foundation on which
trade depends,” said Steven Schooner, an expert on international
procurement law at George Washington University here. “When the
US closes its public procurement market to foreign companies, it empowers
foreign states to exclude companies from their public works projects.”
“I would expect most multinationals to cringe at the thought that
one government can decide by fiat to exclude from government procurement
entire swaths of the world,” said Charlene Barshefsky, US trade
representative under former president Bill Clinton, adding, “open
markets and free and fair access (are) ... the lifeblood of multinationals.”
Despite these concerns, Bush, who is running for re-election next November,
publicly backed the decision in a statement that must have sent chills
down the spine of multinational CEOs. Asked by a reporter if the ban
violated international law, Bush answered: “International law?
I better call my lawyer. He didn’t bring that up to me.”
The decision and Bush’s sarcastic reaction might actually have
finally galvanized the corporate world, or at least Baker — who
is far better attuned to the concerns of multinational companies than
anyone in the administration with comparable ties to the president.
Shortly after Wolfowitz’s announcement and just before Baker’s
first trip to Europe as Bush’s personal envoy for Iraq debt reduction,
the White House quietly told the Pentagon and the Coalition Provisional
Authority in Baghdad to indefinitely suspend contract awards for the
18.6 billion dollars.
According to Washington Post columnist Robert Novak, the administration
is actively considering lifting the ban.
Reversing the decision would be an important signal to multinational
corporations that Bush may indeed be inclined to temper his unilateralist
and nationalist tendencies in the interest of maintaining a multilateral
order that is friendly to corporate-led globalization.
But analysts like Garten are unlikely to take anything for granted.
“The business community ... is the only strong voice in this country
for continued globalization,” he told a Los Angeles audience last
month.
“We’re at a very tender point in globalization where we could
go forward with more opening, more trade and more of the things that
globalization has brought, or we can go backwards and the world could
very easily fragment into different blocs of countries, more nationalism,
more protectionism.”
United States firms in ‘military
takeover’
By Julio Godoy
Paris, France, Jan. 2 (IPS)— Increasing takeover of European
military industry by US companies is raising new concerns in France and
Germany.
The US investment fund KKR (Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co) bought the
German aeronautics firm Motoren und Turbinen Union (MTU) last month for
an estimated 1.8 billion dollars. The firm produces engines for the Eurofighter
aircraft. The company is also a leading supplier to the German federal
army (Bundeswehr).
MTU was acquired just days before the German government passed a new law
giving it the right to veto sale of strategic industries to foreign companies.
The law sets a 25 percent limit on foreign investment in defense companies.
The right-wing opposition party Christian Democratic Union called the
law “hostile” to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),
but Finance minister Wolfgang Clement said it “corresponds to similar
laws covering strategic sectors in France, the United States and Britain.”
The law was introduced after the US investment fund One Equity Partner
bought the manufacturing facilities at HDW, the world’s leading submarine
manufacturer in 2002. The US military firm Northrop Grumman was involved
in the takeover, German military specialists say.
The new legislation is due to be tested soon. The high-tech manufacturing
firm Siemens is planning to sell its military division Krauss-Maffei Wegmann
which manufactures tanks and armored vehicles. Several US firms are reported
to have shown interest in the proposed sale. US firms are stepping in
all over Europe. General Dynamics has over the past five years bought
military companies from Styers in Austria, Mowag in Switzerland and Santa
Barbara Blindados in Spain. All three were placed under a single management
in October last year.
The US firm tried also to take over Alvis, the British manufacturer of
armored cars. The move was blocked by the British firm BAE Systems.
“But as a result of the European acquisitions, General Dynamics now
has considerable influence over production of engines for the Leopard
armored car,” a French industry manager told IPS.
“The US military industry has been trying to get into this European
sector for years,” he said. “They are now establishing a cordon
around us.”
The next US step could be into SNECMA, the engines manufacturer at the
heart of French military industry. The French government is considering
privatization of the firm.
Jeffrey Inmelt, chief executive of the US giant General Electric (GE)
told the French newspaper Les Echos that he is “very interested”
in a share in SNECMA.
“The French company is of central strategic importance in the construction
of aircraft engines,” he said.
European industry is fragmented and therefore prone to acquisition by
big companies, says Dominique Gallois, defense expert with the newspaper
Le Monde. Industry must restructure itself to counter the corporate US
offensive, he says.
“One possibility is to set up a conglomerate like the European Aeronautics
Defense and Space (EADS) company,” Gallois says. The company supported
by the French, German, Spanish and British governments manufactures the
Airbus. EADS itself could bring together several European defense firms
under its wing, Gallois says.
Pascal Boniface, director of the French Institute for Strategic Studies
says European companies must enter into alliances to maintain their independence.
“After the second war against Iraq, the US government and its allies
in the military industry don’t want to see an independent and powerful
European counterpart,” Boniface told IPS. “That itself shows
that this industry is of strategic importance.”
Drug firms push unapproved fertility drugs
in India - activists
By Ranjit Devraj
New Delhi, India, Dec. 30 (IPS)— Lax drug regulations in
India are allowing drug companies to push unapproved fertility drugs and
to sneak in banned contraceptives that pose risks to women’s health,
activists here say.
“There is very little real regulation or transparency when it comes
to drug approvals and pharmaceutical companies are being allowed to play
around with women’s bodies,” said Sarojini (one name) of the
Sama Health Forum.
Sarojini and other activists recently made the shocking revelation that
the anti-malarial drug Quinacrine, banned for use as a contraceptive in
1998, has resurfaced in several parts of India through private practitioners.
“Quinacrine is not being distributed through the public health system
but through private practitioners and quacks,” she said. “But
the point is that these pellets are being distributed through a well-organised
network and the Drug Controller of India (DCI) is not doing anything about
it.” Activists also had to raise their voices in protest before the
government promised to investigate the systematic use of the anti-cancer
drug Letrozole as a pro-fertility drug. Its use as such has not been approved
by the DCI.
“We are examining the reports from the voluntary agencies —this
is a serious matter,” an official in India’s health ministry
said in an interview. Last week, Health Minister Sushma Swaraj announced
that the Mumbai-based, SUN Pharmaceuticals and Dabur (India) Ltd have
been served “serious warnings” to refrain from promoting Letrozole
pending its approval for use as a fertility drug.
“We have asked them to destroy all relevant promotional material
claiming its use in unapproved indications,” Swaraj said.
Letrozole, an original invention of the transnational Novartis, has been
approved in India for treating breast cancer. But doctors have been found
taking advantage of its ovulation-inducing properties to use it to improve
fertility in women.
Several doctors working in private clinics have even acknowledged publicly
that they have tested the drugs on infertile women — and were encouraged
to do so by representatives from the two Indian pharmaceutical companies.
The doctors, who asked not to be named for fear of legal action, said
they were unaware of legal implications and merely followed drug protocols
provided by the drug companies “in good faith.”
At least 400 women are believed to have used the drugs on a trial basis
by the doctors. These “research findings” have been circulated
by the drug companies at medical conferences as part of promotion material
that the government has now ordered destroyed. No notice of the misuse
of Letrazole and the illegal clinical trials were taken until they were
brought to public notice by an editorial in the independent and well-respected
“Monthly Index of Medical Specialties” (MIMS) in its September
edition. “Some Indian companies have promoted an expensive anti-cancer
agent — Letrozole — illegally to gynecologists for ‘improving’
fertility in females,” its editorial said.
“The drug is acknowledged to be toxic to embryo and fetus by the
original discoverer and drug regulators around the world, including the
US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA), the British Medicines and Healthcare
Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration
(TGA),” it added.
“The government should have initiated legal action against the pharma
companies and the doctors who took part in the trials,” Chandra Gulhati,
the editor of MIMS and a former drug consultant with the World Health
Organization, told IPS.
Gulhati said the Letrazole case indicated the ease with which pharmaceutical
companies flout drug laws in this country. “It is clearly unethical
for doctors to prescribe this drug for infertility.”
What is of concern to health activists like Navsharan Singh is that dangerous
drugs are being used on women who are never told of its side effects.
For instance, Singh said that Quinacrine continued to be used after its
ban in 1998 because “there are no real consequences for those who
ignore the ban, not even having to pay fines.” Singh’s group,
which interviewed 32 women sterilized with Quincarine, found that victims
were completely unaware that the method had been banned and had serious
health hazards.
“In fact, the providers assured the women that the procedure was
safe and that there would not be any problems,” she said.
‘Aid’ leads to bankruptcy in
Malawi,
Mozambique, & Kenya
Lilongwe, Malawi, Dec. 22— Used clothes, donated by European
and American consumers for “a good cause,” are turning into
a dubious industry that is believed to have cost more than 40,000 jobs
in Africa’s emerging textile industry. In Malawi, the country’s
leading textile company had to close down, and similar trends are seen
in Mozambique and Kenya.
Around the Western world, Western consumers put used clothes into “charity”
drop-in boxes, believing these will aid the poor. One of this drop-in
box operators is the controversial Danish organization Tvind, which
runs lucrative commercial operations under its cover name Development
Aid from People to People (DAPP).
Among Scandinavian trade unions, the operations of Tvind are increasingly
criticized as more of its practices are uncovered. Recently, Norway’s
main trade union (LO) advised against donating used clothes to Tvind
(locally known as UFF) because these clothes from Europe were “breaking
the back of the textile and ready-made clothing industry in Africa’s
poor countries.” According to the Norwegian union, “the biggest
textile company in Malawi had to close down because it could not compete
with the used clothes from Scandinavia.” Bankruptcies had also
been observed in Mozambique and Uganda and in Zambia, textile workers
have organized strikes to meet the threat.
In the Mozambican capital, Maputo, large quantities of used clothes
from Europe are sold at very low prices in the middle of the town quarter
where small and medium sized companies are running clothing workrooms,
trying to establish a local textile industry. Competition is uneven.
Tvind (locally known as ADPP) is reckoned to control more than half
the used clothes business in the country.
Only in Kenya, used clothes of a total value of 60 million euros are
imported each year, which, according to LO, makes it the country’s
seventh largest import category. Kenya’s emerging textile industry
subsequently faces serious backlashes.
Totally, the Scandinavian unions claim that more than 40,000 workers
in Africa have lost their jobs due to the under-priced imports of clothes
from the north. Only recently, seven big textile and ready-made clothing
companies have had to close in the region, leading to the loss of 15,000
jobs.
NorWatch, a group mapping Norwegian business practices in low cost countries,
expressed strong concern over Tvind’s (locally known as DAPP) operations
in Malawi. NorWatch observers, visiting the country, had observed how
Scandinavian used clothes companies “totally have monopolized the
textile market” in Malawi.
Business margins for Tvind/DAPP in Malawi are favorable, NorWatch found.
DAPP allegedly had managed to convince Malawian authorities their operations
had to be classified as development aid. Thus, the Danes had achieved
a special treatment from customs authorities, paying less than half
the import taxes paid by other textile importers.
Tvind however categorically rejects these critiques. The 30-year old
Briton Ann Thompson, running DAPP’s used clothes operations in
Malawi, says that her organization’s aim is “to improve people’s
living conditions by giving them the possibility to buy used clothes
and shoes at affordable prices.”
This is a strikingly strange motivation in Malawi, NorWatch researcher
David Stenerud says. “People have clothes,” he adds. “Indian
businessmen have run used clothes sales for decades and UFF [DAPP] clothes
aren’t even cheaper.” The group also criticized the quality
and hygiene of clothes exported to Malawi.
Also Jesper Pedersen, heading UFF’s Norway offices, claims all
these alleged problems are only constructed by journalists. “Mass
produced cheap clothes from China and Turkey are a bigger threat”
to jobs in Africa’s textile industry, Pedersen claims.
Although operating with large revenues, Tvind is still registered as
a charity organization in Norway. “We are constructing child care
organizations and schools for this money,” says Pedersen. Tvind
operates schools and child care centers in several continents.
However, these schools and centers are also the target of massive critiques.
In Europe and North America, Tvind often has been characterized as “a
secular cult,” allegedly brainwashing children and youths to become
willing disciples of the money-making organization.
Even in Africa and Latin America, DAPP’s schools and centers allegedly
produce neat revenues for the Tvind executive. In Malawi, government
is now probing activities of DAPP Malawi, following a call for help
by students of its Mikolongwe Vocational School.
The Malawian students accuse DAPP of “forcing them to work like
slaves with little time for learning,” Bright Sonani from Malawi
News recently reported. Further, scholarships and other funds meant
for Malawian students allegedly have been channeled to Denmark —
something authorities are looking into.
Also in Mozambique, where Tvind’s ADPP is running five teacher
training colleges (Escola de Professores do Futuro), there are allegations
of messing up teaching and works for Tvind. The “future teachers”
are also set to do construction works, agricultural works and other
work associated with Tvind’s operations.
As Tvind’s operations have become more known during the last years,
it has been met with increased resistance. In Sweden, its charitable
status has been withdrawn. In France, Tvind is officially classified
as a cult and was pursued by the French tax authorities for tax evasion.
In Britain, Tvind (here known as Humana) was closed following a fraud
investigation.
Tvind founder and alleged leader Amdi Petersen in 2001 was found to
be living in a multi-million dollar luxury apartment in Miami after
having been on the run from Danish police for over two decades. He is
now charged with fraud and tax evasion by Danish prosecution on account
of 25 million euros involving Tvind’s Humanitarian Fund. A sentence
is expected to be handed down late 2005.
Source: The (Lilongwe) Chronicle
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