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Rwanda ‘black box’ turns up
in UN drawer
By David Usborne
New York, New York, Mar. 13 — An embarrassed United Nations(UN)
was struggling to defend itself yesterday following the discovery that
a data recorder, that may have come from an aircraft shot down in 1994
while carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, had been hidden
in a locked drawer in New York for 10 years. Called a “first class
foul-up” by UN secretary general Kofi Annan, the affair surfaced
after questions were put to UN officials earlier last week by reporters
from Le Monde newspaper of France. The world body initially responded
by ridiculing the suggestion it had the recorder. But, by Mar. 11, it
found itself performing a humiliating about-face. The chief UN spokesman,
Fred Eckhard, confirmed a recorder that could have come from the aircraft
had been found in a drawer in the Air Safety Unit of the UN, in a building
across the road from its New York headquarters. He further admitted
it had apparently never been opened, nor its tapes analyzed. The downing
in April 1994 of the Falcon 50 aircraft bearing Rwandan President Juvenal
Habyarimana, who was from the Hutu tribe, and Burundian leader Cyprien
Ntaryamira, triggered 100 days of carnage in Rwanda. The Hutus accused
the Tutsis of ordering the missile attack. With the rest of the world
standing by, an estimated 500,000 people died in the ensuing genocide,
almost all of them Tutsis.
Le Monde, which says it has seen the results of a six-year report into
the plane crash by French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, lambasted
the UN for incompetence. It said the failure of the body to analyze
the black box and make it available to the French judge was an “unbelievable
blunder” and a “scandal with consequences that are hard to
assess.”
The results of the Bruguière probe, initiated at the request
of the families of the French crew of the aircraft, have not yet been
officially handed over to the government in Paris. But Le Monde said
it contains harsh criticism of the UN. “In Judge Bruguière’s
investigation, the references to inaction, even obstruction, by the
UN are numerous,” it asserted. The report allegedly pins ultimate
responsibility for the downing of the aircraft on Paul Kagame, who is
now Rwanda’s president but was then the leader of the Rwandan Patriotic
Army. The Rwandan government has called the claim “baseless and
shameful.”
Eckhard said it appeared that, at the time the black box first arrived
in New York, experts in the Air Safety United concluded it was in such
“pristine condition” it could not have come from the downed
Falcon. But apparently they failed to tell their superiors of the recorder’s
existence. “You make quick judgments and move on to the next thing,”
he suggested. “It appears in the judgment of these air safety experts,
this black box was not linked to a crash and they set it aside.”
While saying there remained no evidence that the box indeed came from
the fateful crash, Eckhard said steps were being taken to have it assessed
and analyzed as soon as possible by outside experts. Meanwhile the UN’s
Office of Internal Oversight would “look into exactly what happened,”
he added. “From what I have picked up, it sounds like a real foul-up,
first-class foul-up,” Annan told reporters. “I don’t
think there’s been any attempt to cover-up.”
Source: Independent (UK)
Iraqi Governing Council skeptical of
renewed UN role in Iraq
Compiled by Bud Howell
Mar. 16 (AGR)— Four Americans - three identified as
Larry and Jean Elliott of Cary, NC and Karen Watson of Bakersfield,
CA — working for the International Mission Board of the Southern
Baptist Convention were killed Monday in northern Iraq following an
attack on their car by gunmen in Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city.
The group was found by an off-duty Iraqi police officer who took the
two survivors of the initial attack to a hospital, where one later died.
Visiting Iraq to work on a water purification project, the missionaries
were traveling without military escort. The attack was echoed the following
day, when two relief workers from Germany were shot dead south of Baghdad.
Such attacks have raised fears that Iraqi militants are increasingly
targeting foreign civilians.
The latest civilian deaths occurred less than four months from the date
America’s status as occupier of Iraq is scheduled to end and make
way for a sovereign Iraqi government to have authority to impose restrictions
on the presence of US forces in Iraq. But US and British leaders say
they expect few practical aspects of the occupation to change anytime
soon, with plans already in place for continued US occupation through
2005.
Though little is clear about the shape of the new interim administration
or whether the June 30 date for the handover of power will be met, it
is speculated that military control will likely fall under a US-headed
joint command. Officials said plans are afoot to put an American four-star
general at the head of the command, with another general heading operations.
“That is the scheme which is being planned at the moment,”
a senior British official said on the condition of anonymity. “The
Americans will announce it when it is all ready.”
“At this point, we’d be negotiating with ourselves, because
we are the government,” said a top US military official in Baghdad,
also speaking on condition of anonymity.
And while US forces are said to be preparing to turn sovereignty over
to an Iraqi government – one not elected by the Iraqi people —
several Iraqi leaders are now balking at allowing the United Nations
to return to a post-Saddam Iraq. Pointing to the failures of a team
of UN experts who recently visited Iraq to help schedule early elections,
several members of the Iraqi Governing Council say they are reluctant
to give the UN a significant role either in helping to prepare the Iraqi
government to stand on its own or in readying the country for nationwide
elections.
Intifad Qanbar, a spokesman for Pentagon-backed council member Achmed
Chalabi, said that while the UN’s new role in Iraq ought to be
allowed on a limited basis, “there is a track record that shows
the UN is not efficient in these things. We cannot have anyone overseeing
or managing this Iraqi process from outside Iraq.”
UN officials, including Secretary General Kofi Annan, have said that
they will return to Iraq only if invited to do so. The suspicion with
which the UN is regarded by many Iraqis dates from the time of Saddam
Hussein, when the UN stood by the global economic sanctions and “oil
for food” program led by the US and British governments, an action
that for a decade deprived critical food and medical supplies to Iraqis.
Adding to tensions regarding UN involvement, the top occupation official
for Iraq announced last week the closing of 16 of the 19 border crossings
on Iraq’s 900-mile frontier shared with Iran. The announcement
reportedly triggered a Mar. 13 gunfire exchange between US troops and
Iranian border guards. Detailed accounts of the exchange were scarce,
with no word of causalities.
A US spokesman said the sweeping new border closures are designed to
monitor terrorist activities from Iran and other bordering states. But
others see the measure as a rebuke to the Iraqi Shiites who depend on
the spending of thousands of Iranian pilgrims who cross daily into Iraq
to visit the Shiite Shrine cities of Karbala and Najaf. In the Iraq-Iran
War of the 1980s and after the first Gulf War in 1991, the US refused
to support the Shiites in their uprising against Saddam Hussein.
The conflict reflects a new pressure point for the US-led occupation,
as many Iraqis remain eager to embrace their Shiite brothers and sisters
in Iran. Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesman for the US-appointed Iraqi Governing
Council said the policy ran counter to Iraq’s interest and would
be reversed once Iraq gains sovereignty. “This is the problem:
You have an occupying power that looks after its own interests,”
said Qanbar. “Sooner or later we will have our sovereignty and
we will want to have long and friendly relations with Iran.” Washington
has kept Iran in isolation since the 1979 revolution that ousted the
US-backed Shah of Iran and the holding of its entire Tehran embassy
staff hostage for more than a year.
Troops rotated, American death toll surges
Three US soldiers died in bomb attacks north and west of Baghdad Wednesday
and Thursday and a fourth soldier died at a combat hospital on Sunday
from injuries suffered in a blast in Baghdad that morning, the Pentagon
said. Hours later, a newly arrived US National Guard soldier was killed
when the convoy he was traveling in was hit by a bomb attack west of
the capitol. A roadside bomb killed three American soldiers from the
newly arrived 1st Armored Division and wounded another during a patrol
Saturday night in Baghdad, a Coalition spokeswoman said. The identities
of those killed Saturday and Sunday had not been released, but the Pentagon
has identified those killed earlier in the week: Joe Dunigan Jr. of
Belton, Texas and Christopher Hill of Ventura, CA died Thursday when
their vehicle was hit by an explosive west of Baghdad, and Bert Hoyer
of Ellsworth, Wisconsin was killed Wednesday when a bomb hit a convoy
in Baqubah.
The latest deaths brought to 564 the number of US service members who
have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq. Homemade
and roadside bombs have become the biggest killers of US military personnel
in Iraq.
On Sunday, six members of an Iraqi family were killed and four children
wounded when their village north of Baghdad was fired upon, an incident
local witnesses blame on US troops. Soldiers reportedly had heard people
shooting into the air on Saturday to celebrate a wedding and had fired
back from their tanks, though the US military said it had no information
about an incident in the village.
“The first shell landed in a nearby shop, and the next one inside
the house. Two children were blown into pieces,” said family member
Bashir Ata Allah Salih. Doctors at a hospital in nearby Baquba said
a sixth person died from injuries on Sunday. The previous day, hundreds
mourned the death of Haidar al-Qazwini, brother-in-law of a Shiite council
member, who was killed in a bomb blast at his clothing shop.
Meanwhile, national security advisor Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld stand by their assertions that Iraq posed an “imminent
threat” to the United States. This public stance, reiterated in
a Mar. 13 interview with Rumsfeld aired on CBS’ “Face the
Nation,” remains despite recent admissions by both the CIA director
and the US’s top Iraq weapons tracker that no weapons of mass destruction
appear to have existed at that time. Rumsfeld contends he believed that
illicit weapons might still be found: “He could have hidden…enough
biological weapons in the hole that we found Saddam Hussein in to kill
tens of thousands of people. So it’s not as though we have certainty
today.”
Sources: Agence France Presse, Aljazeera.Net
Associated Press, BBC, Financial Times (UK), Guardian (UK), Los Angeles
Times, New York Times, Washington Post
US blocks protocol for ‘neglected’
rights
By Gustavo Capdevila
Geneva, Switzerland, Mar. 5 (IPS)— Economic, social and
cultural rights are the pariahs of international human rights legislation
and will continue to be relegated to the second order, mostly due to
US obstructionism, say activists.
The Washington delegation on Masr.5 blocked a proposed agreement to
grant economic, social, and cultural rights the same status as civil
and political rights.
A working group created by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
ended two weeks of sessions without achieving consensus on drafting
an optional protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social,
and Cultural Rights.
There is no mechanism in the international arena for legally requiring
full recognition of these rights, nor those included in the Convention
on the Rights of the Child.
In contrast, a “complaints mechanism” is in place for the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the conventions
against race discrimination and torture and on the elimination of discrimination
against women.
The US delegation said that the fundamental differences that persist
in the working group prevented it from approving the conclusions and
recommendations presented by chairwoman Catarina de Albuquerque, human
rights expert from Portugal.
The fact is that the United States does not form part of the Covenant
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights because it has yet to ratify
the treaty established in 1966 by the United Nations.
Taking a similar stance, even though it has not even signed the Covenant,
is Saudi Arabia, which alongside the United States has taken the offensive
against the Portugal-led initiative to draft a protocol.
“We are disappointed in the lack of balance in the panelists chosen
to make presentations to the working group. We have mostly heard from
panelists who have expressed a single opinion, that of the necessity
for a complaints mechanism,” said the US delegation.
In some of their presentations, the experts went beyond their mandate,
proposing “a more drastic approach, such as a world court for human
rights,” according to the US representatives.
The idea of drafting an optional protocol to the Covenant “is one
whose time is not yet ripe,” they said.
But the non-governmental American Association of Jurists (AAJ) says
just the contrary, that this procedure has become “imperative”
in order to counteract the creation of “world scale corporate law”.
Alejandro Teitelbaum, AAJ representative in Geneva, said this corporate
law denies the fundamental principal of equality before the law and
establishes exorbitant privileges for the transnational consortiums,
responsible, he said, “for most of the violations of economic,
social, and cultural rights.”
Another civil society organization, the International Commission of
Jurists (ICJ), warned that if the optional protocol is not proposed
for economic, social, and cultural rights, it would undermine recognition
of the universality, interdependence, indivisibility, and interconnection
of all human rights.
In the human rights doctrine the idea of unifying the two covenants
— on civil and political rights, and economic, social ,and cultural
rights — is gaining ground.
Originally, the plan was for a single pact that would make binding the
provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the
UN on Dec. 10, 1948.
The distinction between the two covenants emerged during the Cold War,
an era that was not very propitious for maintaining the two sets of
rights as equals, said members of the Portuguese delegation.
It does not make sense that there continue to be human rights of first
and second order, they told IPS. The top category is civil and political
rights, because they have a committee with the authority to process
complaints.
But in the 1960s, there was a great deal of stigma when it came to collective
rights — which is what economic, social, and cultural rights are,
to a large extent — said a source from the Portuguese delegation,
the main sponsor of the optional protocol initiative.
For this reason, there were two covenants, which had qualitative differences,
because the civil and political rights were immediately applicable,
while the economic, social, and cultural rights were of a gradual nature
and defined as “aspirations,” said the source.
Some of the leaders of the industrial world, such as the United States,
Britain, Canada, and Australia, have reservations about the latter “programmatic”
rights, which are seen as objectives rather than as legal obligations.
The United States maintains that they are not even rights, but only
national policies, commented a Latin American diplomat in Geneva.
Nevertheless, there are other industrialized countries that back Portugal
and encourage the drafting of a protocol to the Covenant. The European
Union, which usually acts as a bloc on matters of human rights, is divided
on the Portuguese initiative.
Amongst the developing countries, the majority supported the position
laid out by India and the African bloc, which would condition progress
in creating a complaint mechanism on policies for international cooperation
and resources to ensure recognition of the rights in question.
If cooperation funds are not increased, it is unlikely that poor countries
“will put a noose around their necks and applaud a protocol that
is going to jeopardize them,” the Latin American source told IPS,
speaking on condition of anonymity.
The bloc of Latin American and Caribbean countries in the working group
supported Portugal’s initiative and the proposal of renewing the
group’s mandate in order to begin drafting the optional protocol.
Albuquerque said she would personally take the proposal to the UN Commission
on Human Rights, which is to hold its annual sessions in Geneva, from
Mar. 15 to Apr. 23.
Frustration rises in South Korea after
impeachment vote
By Ahn Mi-Young
Seoul, South Korea, Mar. 15 (IPS) — Shame, frustration,
and anger are coming to the fore among many South Koreans in a country
divided after the Mar. 12 impeachment vote in Parliament against President
Roh Moo-Hyun.
In a raucous session in Parliament, opposition lawmakers forcefully
suspended Roh’s power a year into his five-year term — in
a way that critics say represents an abuse of a mechanism meant to protect
democratic systems and sharpens divisions between conservatives and
liberals, left and right.
Since the Mar. 12 vote, South Koreans have been gathering to protest
the Parliament’s move -- and hoping that the Constitutional Court,
which must rule in the coming six months if the impeachment was valid
- will nullify the vote.
Over the weekend, more than 50,000 rallyists gathered near the US Embassy
to speak out against the vote, officially taken to respond to charges
by his political foes that Roh had indulged in “illegal campaigning’’
by calling for support his parliamentary faction ahead of the April
parliamentary elections. “Frankly, I am not supporting President
Roh, but I am here because I feel so furious and betrayed by the [opposition]
leaders’ unilateral use of force to dispel a weak president —
who might be a little disappointing but has a mandate from the people,’’
said Kang Young-Sik, 35, who joined a candlelit demonstration Friday.
On Friday evening, about 130,000 people packed the Yoido Plaza, where
the National Assembly is located, holding candles to signify their protests.
A similar protest was held Saturday.
But next to these anti-impeachment crowds, a dozen conservative groups
held placards saying “Welcome the Impeachment. Save our Nation
from North Korea’s Nuclear Threat”. The reference to North
Korea was meant as a criticism of what some say is Roh’s weak position
on the North’s nuclear development program.
Roh had campaigned and won on a platform of more rapprochement with
North Korea and a more independent foreign policy vis a vis the US government,
Seoul’s traditional ally. He also counted on young voters for the
bulk of his electoral support, in contrast to the main opposition group
Grand National Party.
In the December 2002 polls, Roh garnered 49 percent of the vote while
his conservative opponent got 47 percent -- reflecting a split that
has now been thrown into the open.
A joint survey Friday of 878 South Koreans by KBS TV and Media Research
found 69.6 percent of these respondents to be against impeachment. A
total of 28.6 percent of those polled were in favor of it.
“The lawmakers’ impeachment is a shameful reversal of the
nation’s 17-year drive toward a transparent society and prosperous
democracy,’’ said Park Jin-Do, a law professor at Chungnam
National University.
The impeachment - the first in South Korea’s history -- has triggered
more fury than favor for opposition lawmakers, who control three-quarters
of seats in the National Assembly, and voted on Friday by 193 to two
in favor of impeachment. Many believe the vote was an apparent attempt
to gain ground in the Apr. 15 election.
The tussle erupted in mayhem at the National Assembly on Friday, with
television cameras capturing scenes of lawmakers wrestling and hurling
things at each other. “When I saw the scene, I felt that the clock
of our history was being turned back to the dark past of the authoritarian
regimes in the 1970s and 1980s, against which we fought so hard,’’
said 42-year-old Kang Jin-Chull, adding that last week’s vote represented
a dictatorship of numbers.
Among the other reasons opposition lawmakers cite for impeachment are
charges that Roh received bribes during the 2002 presidential election
and incompetence in turning around the economy.
“If President Roh deserves impeachment because of political funds
[that he illegally received], then how about these opposition lawmakers?’’
argued Park Jin-Do, a law professor at Chungnam National University.
“Everybody would smile, because we know these opposition politicians
had received a lot more [than Roh].’’
For others, what is frustrating about the political fracas is how elected
lawmakers, meant to represent South Korea’s citizens, are using
their power without their consent — for their own political aims
— to kick out a president that the majority elected in 2002.
“I am sick and tired of politicians,’’ said Suh Min-Kyong,
who owns a food store in central Daejon city. “We’ve elected
these lawmakers to care of our economy, but they are squandering most
of their time in political games over past bribes and corruption.’’
The South Korean economy grew 3 percent in 2003, but this expansion
has mostly been driven by the export of semiconductors, digital consumer
products and, automobiles. There is little sign of a significant upturn
for its slumping economy.
“I wish our lawmakers would seriously debate North Korea’s
nuclear issue [instead]. I wish they would care about four million of
the mostly young credit delinquents. I wish they could talk more about
how to create jobs for young people and how to bolster the sagging economy,’’
said Byun Hee-Jae, planning team leader for BreakNews media.
In the wake of the impeachment vote, the approval rate for the Uri party
has surged to 34 percent, higher than the two major opposition parties
that posted 22 percent and 6.3 percent respectively, according to the
KBS-Media Research survey of Mar. 12.
The surge of pro-Roh approval represented the first rise from the continuous
drop of his approval to 30 percent in recent weeks, down from 60 percent
when Roh was elected in December 2002.
This has prompted concern in some quarters that Roh’s political
rivals, many of them wary of his more liberal stance, may try to postpone
the April vote to head off his popularity.
“I hope that won’t happen. If that happens, there would be
[another] serious setback in the nation’s drive toward democracy,’’
said professor Park Jin-Do, of Chungnam University.
Train attacks lead to pro-war government’s
defeat in Spain
Compiled by Willy Rosencrans
Mar. 17 (AGR) — Ten bombs tore apart three commuter trains
in morning rush hour Madrid on Mar. 11, three days before that country’s
general elections. Two hundred were killed and nearly 1,500 injured
in the worst such attack in Europe in 15 years and the worst ever in
Spanish history.
The incumbent Popular Party (PP), which made Spain a major European
supporter of the US’s invasion of Iraq despite widespread popular
opposition, reacted by distorting the facts around the disaster for
campaign purposes; general outrage led to its election day defeat and
a victory for the Spanish Socialist Worker’s Party (PSOE), which
opposes the war.
The events do not bode well for other US allies who support the war.
Al-Qaida, the likeliest suspect of the bombings and the group behind
the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the US, has threatened all nations participating
in what it refers to as the “coalition of the willing,” and
war has divided electorates all over the Europe. New polls show that
a majority of Italians and Dutch want to follow Madrid’s example.
‘Ministries of Disinformation’
For more than two days after the attacks, Interior Minister Angel Acebes
and others repeatedly blamed the Basque separatist movement Euskadi
ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Liberty, or ETA). The ETA, fighting
for an independent Basque state bordering Spain and France, has killed
nearly 850 people since 1968 (though killings have fallen from 23 in
2000 to three in 2003) and is on European Union and American terrorist
lists.
The country’s newspapers and the state-run TV station followed
the government’s lead. Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar personally
called the top editors of Spain’s major dailies twice on the day
of the attacks, first to insist that the ETA was responsible and later
to acknowledge that other avenues were being investigated but that he
discounted them.
That afternoon several foreign correspondents in Spain received phone
calls from a woman who identified herself as an official from the government
palace, pressing them to focus on the ETA.
Meanwhile, according to one report, Foreign Minister Ana Palacio issued
a memo to Spanish ambassadors exhorting them to “use any opportunity
to confirm ETA’s responsibility … thus helping to dissipate
any type of doubt that certain interested parties may want to promote.”
The memo apparently referred to the upcoming Mar. 14 elections. Aznar’s
PP has taken a tough stance against the Basque movement and has tried
to portray the PSOE as being soft on terrorism; the center-right party
stood to take the elections if the ETA were responsible.
But evidence and international intelligence pointed to al-Qaida. This
was a political liability for an administration which has given political
and military support (including 1,300 troops) to the US-led invasion
of Iraq despite a pre-war poll showing 83 percent of respondents opposed
the invasion.
A van was found shortly after the bombings containing seven detonators
and an Arabic-language tape of readings from the Koran. That same day
a newspaper received an e-mail purporting to be from Abu Hafs al-Masri
in the name of al-Qaida claiming responsibility for the bombings.
The day before elections five men with possible links to “extremist
Moroccan groups” were arrested in connection with the bombings.
On election day a video was found in which a man identifying himself
as al-Qaida’s military spokesperson in Europe says the attacks
were revenge for Spain’s “collaboration with the criminals
Bush and his allies.”
Demonstrations backfire
On the evening of the attacks Aznar called for demonstrations to be
held the following day. The call was answered by an unprecedented 12
million people – two million in Madrid alone – who took to
the streets on Mar. 12 both to mourn and to protest, defying the cold,
a heavy rain, and media censorship of voices critical of government.
“Spanish television was broadcasting footage of the demonstrations
in Madrid, lingering on images of signs that read ‘An Entire Nation
and Only One Flag,’ but never showing the placards reading ‘No
to War, Yes to Peace,’” according to Spanish journalist Lucia
Etxebarria.
Etxebarria also said the newspaper El Mundo refused to publish an article
in which she criticized the government’s ETA hypothesis, even though
the daily had specifically commissioned the story.
Despite the media blackout it appeared there was a general awareness
of the political implications of an al-Qaida attack.
“If it’s al-Qaida, the government will wait until after the
elections to say it, because it will put their votes at risk,”
said Elena, a psychology student. “I know people who say they’ll
change their vote if it’s al-Qaida, because the government didn’t
pay attention to their clamor not to go to war.”
That evening the ETA issued a statement denying responsibility for the
attacks – the first time the group has issued such a statement
in its over 30 year history.
On Mar. 13 demonstrators began to focus explicitly on the Aznar administration.
Following the government’s announcement of the five arrests, protestors
gathered by the thousands outside PP headquarters in Madrid, Barcelona,
and other cities, shouting slogans like “Don’t manipulate
our dead!” and banging pots and pans in the style of anti-war protests
during the invasion of Iraq last year.
More than 5,000 crowded around Madrid’s PP office, shouting “This
is a dictatorship!” and “Before we vote, we want the truth!”
Some demonstrators were beaten by riot police.
The PP’s candidate for prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, turned up
to denounce the demonstrations.
“It is illegal and illegitimate,” he said. He had declared
earlier that he had a “moral conviction” that the ETA was
responsible.
Voters sweep socialists to victory
Hours before the polls opened on Mar. 14 people were lining up to vote
or gathering in the streets to protest against the government. In a
repeat of the previous evening, thousands went to the doors of the Madrid
office of the PP shouting “Liars, liars!” and “We want
the truth!,” while Rajoy denounced them.
“Terrorists aim at destroying our open society,” said Foreign
Minister Palacio, whose office had refused to comment about her leaked
memo. “I’m confident that Spanish people know that voting
in general elections is the strongest sign of democracy.”
10.5 million people voted, the highest turnout since the restoration
of democracy after the death in 1975 of fascist dictator Francisco Franco.
The PSOE’s Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero defeated the PP’s
Rajoy, and the socialists won 163 seats in the 350-seat Congress.
Zapatero said that Spain’s 1,300 troops in Iraq “will return
home” by June 30 -– the date the United States has promised
to hand power over to an Iraqi provisional government -– as he
had promised before the elections. Only the US surrendering control
of Iraq to the UN, he said, would change his decision.
“The war in Iraq was a disaster; the occupation of Iraq is a disaster,”
he said after the elctions. He also said US President George W. Bush
and British Prime Minister Tony Blair needed to engage in “self-criticism.”
“You can’t bomb a people just in case” they pose a perceived
threat, he said. “You can’t organize a war on the basis of
lies. … Wars such as that which has occurred in Iraq only allow
hatred, violence, and terror to proliferate.”
President Bush called Aznar the following day to thank him for his “support,
his friendship, and his strong leadership.” He then called Zapatero
to let him know that, among other things, the Spanish people were in
his prayers.
They did not discuss Iraq.
Sources: Agence France Presse, Associated
Press, The Australian, IPS, MSNBC, NBC, New York Times, Reuters, Sunday
Herald (Scotland), Washington Post
Threat of demolition looms in ‘Africa’s
largest slum’
By Joyce Mulama
Nairobi, Kenya, Mar. 10 (IPS)— When the World Social Forum
took place in India during January, Kenyan activists who attended the
event pledged to highlight their country’s housing crisis. This
issue has hit the headlines again now, with the planned demolition of
buildings in one of Nairobi’s poorest areas.
Since last December, authorities have been pulling down structures built
along railway and power lines, on the grounds that this property was
illegally allocated for development. Some of the first structures to
go were mansions worth millions of Kenyan shillings - many of them owned
by key members of the government under former President Daniel Arap
Moi.
Now, the bulldozers have come to Kibera, a shanty town which is home
to about 700,000 poverty-stricken people. It is often referred to as
Africa’s largest slum.
The first phase of demolitions in Kibera took place in mid-February.
About 9,600 people have been left homeless — and the sight of families
sleeping outdoors has become a familiar one according to Dalmas Owino,
Chairperson of the Kibera Rent and Housing Forum.
Slum dwellers claim that the February demolition caught them unawares,
as they had not received any notice from government. Officials have
now given them 40 days (from Feb. 29) to vacate illegal premises before
the second phase of the operation is carried out. Several residents
have approached the court to have that deadline extended.
“Some of us have been here for over thirty years. Our children
and grandchildren have grown up here and we know no other home. Is it
really possible for such a person to move within days?” asks Joachim
Ngugi, who lives in Kibera.
“It is not that we are refusing to move, but surely the government
should give us more time? It should also let us know where we are going
to from here.”
If the demolitions go ahead, they will leave about 190,000 additional
people homeless. Human rights campaigners say this has particularly
dire implications for AIDS orphans.
“It is a fact that the government has a right to reclaim its property,
but it should go slow and consider vulnerable groups like the orphans
who have nowhere else to go. These orphans are victims of the effects
of HIV/AIDS, who before anything else need shelter,” says Mike
Arunga, Head of Information at the East Africa branch of the Shelter
Forum. His organization works towards policies that promote decent shelter
for the poor.
The situation of Leah Kanini is a case in point. After having lost her
parents to AIDS-related illnesses, she took on the responsibility of
caring for her five siblings. The 15-year-old sells peanuts to support
the household.
On Feb. 16, Kanini returned home to find the family’s shack flattened
by a government bulldozer. When IPS spoke to her this week, she was
feeding the other children in a makeshift room, with walls made from
pieces of cloth. “I do not know what to do, I do not know where
to go,” she said, her voice bitter.
A recent study by the Kenyan office of the African Medical and Research
Foundation (AMREF) showed that a third of the people who took AIDS tests
at an AMREF counseling center in Kibera were HIV-positive.
Research carried out in 2002 by PACT Kenya, a community development
organization, found that infection rates in the shanty town were as
high as 40 percent. The United Nations Joint Program on HIV/AIDS and
the World Health Organization put national HIV prevalence in Kenya at
9.4 percent.
Many are placing the blame for Kibera’s crisis firmly at the door
of the government, which they accuse of failing to plan for rapid population
growth in the 1980s.
“During this time, the country’s population growth rate was
four percent, one of the highest in the world. Informal settlements
like Kibera became inevitable,” says Arunga.
The UN Human Development Report for 2003 says that 23 percent of Kenyans
live below the poverty line of a dollar a day. In light of this, a shack
in Kibera is the only option available to many. It costs about eight
dollars a month to rent a tiny mud-walled dwelling in the shanty town.
Sanitation services are over-stretched, or non-existent.
Human rights campaigners say the government should have consulted the
residents of Kibera before formulating their demolition plans.
“These demolitions are very unfortunate and have adverse effects.
They involve the very core of people’s lives and these people have
a right to know of government’s intentions so that they [can] plan
their lives,” observes Olita Ogonjo, a Program Officer at the Maji
na Ufanisi (Water and Development) organization.
Maji na Ufanisi has joined the Kenya Human Rights Network in calling
on the government to make arrangements for relocating people who have
lost their homes. But, these pleas are falling on deaf ears.
“We are not resettling anyone. They will have to move, whether
they go to court or not. It is a well known fact that building on road
reserves, by-passes, under electricity lines, and near railway lines
is completely illegal,” Samuel Mugo, Chief Public Relations Officer
for the Ministry of Roads and Public Works, told IPS.
“There is no meeting that will take place between the government
and residents. They have been served with a notice and they better obey
it before action is taken,” he warned.
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