|
Beheaded man’s father blames US
Military
By David Rennie
May 12 — The killing of Nick Berg, the American telephone
engineer beheaded by Islamic militants in Iraq, triggered a political
storm last night as the murdered man’s father blamed the Bush administration
for the circumstances that led to his death.
Michael Berg, an avowed opponent of the war in Iraq, said his son might
still be alive if the US military had not taken him into custody for
13 days in late March.
Berg said he believed that if the 26-year-old had not been detained
so long he might have been able to leave the country while conditions
were more stable.
Nick Berg had traveled to Iraq as a freelance telecommunications entrepreneur
intending to help rebuild communications antennae, but was detained
by Iraqi police at a checkpoint in Mosul, amid confusion as to what
he was doing in the area.
He was later passed to the US military, who finally freed him after
his parents sued the federal government for his release on Apr. 5. Berg
said his son had been held without a lawyer and was not allowed to make
telephone calls.
The Berg family, from West Chester in Pennsylvania, were told of the
gruesome video images of their son’s killing by an Associated Press
reporter yesterday afternoon.
Berg’s father, brother, and sister collapsed in a tearful embrace
in their front yard. The family already knew their son was dead. His
mutilated body was found in Baghdad on Saturday.
“I knew he was decapitated before,” Berg said. “That
manner is preferable to a long and torturous death. But I didn’t
want it to become public.”
Berg said his son had been a Bush supporter, and looked at the war “as
bringing democracy to a country that didn’t have it.” The
Bergs described their son as an idealist who had traveled before in
the Third World, including Kenya and Ghana, where he had spent $877
on a brick press for an impoverished village.
Last night in a statement read by a neighbor the Bergs described their
son as “a great kid” and said they were “devastated”
by their loss.
Earlier they complained that federal officials had been unhelpful as
they struggled to find out where their son was. They last heard from
their son on Apr. 9, when he said he was going to come home via Jordan.
Even before news broke of Berg’s murder, Republican members of
Congress and conservative media commentator, were expressing outrage
at what they called the irresponsible and unpatriotic leaking of a secret
military report into the abuses, and the publication of photographs
of prisoner assaults.
It has already emerged that Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the
joint chiefs of staff, had warned CBS television that broadcasting the
Abu Ghraib images might endanger the lives of soldiers and hostages.
Gen Myers succeeded in convincing CBS to hold off on broadcasting the
images for two weeks, after he urged them not to inflame world opinion
during the tense siege of Fallujah.
There is already a significant slice of Middle American opinion that
was impatient with talk of suffering Iraqis, arguing that the detainee
abuse paled next to the attacks on US forces and hostages.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Some hired guns in Iraq have war crimes
pasts
By Louis Nevaer
May 3 —When a suicide bomber parked a van disguised as
an ambulance in front of the Shaheen Hotel in the Karadah neighborhood
of Baghdad on Jan. 28 and blew himself up, he killed four people and
wounded scores of others.
He also blew the lid off a dirty little secret of the Coalition Provisional
Authority: due to its “outsourcing” of privatized security
services, the CPA has put terrorists, mercenaries, and war criminals
on the payrolls of companies contracted by the Pentagon.
After the Shaheen Hotel blast, departmental spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa
of South Africa’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that one of the Westerners
killed was South African Frans Strydom. Four of the wounded were also
South African nationals, including Deon Gouws, who sustained serious
injuries. News that Strydom and Gouws were in Iraq sent shockwaves throughout
South Africa. In front of the South African Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, both men were granted amnesty after confessing to killing
blacks and terrorizing anti- Apartheid activists, acts that can only
be called crimes against humanity.
In Iraq, Strydom and Gouws were employed by Erinys International, a
security firm based in the United Kingdom. Erinys Iraq, the subsidiary
of Erinys International, was awarded a two-year, $80 million contract
in August 2003 to protect 140 Iraqi oil installations. Erinys has been
awarded subcontracts to protect American construction contractors, including
San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp.’s partners and Halliburton’s
subsidiary Kellogg, Brown, and Root.
“It is just a horrible thought that such people are working for
the Americans,” said Richard Goldstone, former chief prosecutor
of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former
Yugoslavia and Rwanda, speaking to European reporters last month.
Strydom was a member in the Koevoet, Afrikaner for “Crowbar,”
an outlaw group that paid bounty for the bodies of blacks seeking independence
during the 1980s. The Koevoet terrorized blacks in Namibia and northern
South Africa for more than a decade. Hundreds of deaths are attributed
to its members. More notorious is Gouws’ past. A former police
officer, Gouws was a member of the notorious Vlakplaas death squad that
terrorized blacks under Apartheid. Only after South Africa established
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Col. Eugene de Kock, a
former death-squad leader who supervised Gouws, applied for amnesty,
did the activities of the Vlakplaas come to light. Gouws faced a choice:
repent by confessing, or be charged with crimes. He applied for amnesty,
confessing on his application for absolution to killing 15 blacks and
firebombing the homes of “between 40 and 60 anti-Apartheid activists.”
There are an estimated 1,500 South Africans employed by security contractors
in Iraq, according to the South African foreign ministry. Many used
their backgrounds as mercenaries during Apartheid to bolster their credentials.
After being pardoned but ostracized in South Africa, “Where are
these men expected to go?” asked Judge Goldstone. Erinys International
refused to comment on the matter.
The role of civilians contracted to work in Iraq was relatively unknown
to most in the United States until four American security contractors
met grisly deaths in Fallujah in March. While the vast majority of individuals
contracted for security work may be honest, hardworking professionals,
the desperate search for manpower is allowing criminals to join their
ranks.
“At what point do we start scraping the barrel?” Simon Faulkner,
the CEO of Hart, a respected British security company, asked recently
in the New York Times. “Where are these guys coming from?”
Not only Apartheid-era terrorists are finding opportunities in Iraq.
Prior to the US-led war, Saddam Hussein hired over a dozen Serb air-defense
specialists — at the reported cost of $100,000 a month — to
devise a mobile radar system that would protect Iraq’s air defenses
from attack. Many were wanted for their paramilitary activities during
the Balkan Wars in Europe.
Upon the American takeover of Iraq, some of these Serbs remained behind,
selling their services to the highest bidders, including security firms
under contract to provide protection for employees of Blackwater USA
and Titan Corporation of San Diego. They have now been joined by some
of their compatriots, who had been working for the Pentagon for several
years in Afghanistan. “The Bush administration is so eager to avoid
responsibility for order in Afghanistan that they’ve outsourced
to mercenaries the work of protecting Afghan President Hamid Karzai,”
Dave Marash reported in the Washington Monthly in March 2003.
Karl Alberts, a South African pilot, recently prepared to travel to
Iraq. Before he left he was arrested and charged with mercenary activities
in Ivory Coast in 2002 and 2003. But for every Alberts who fails to
make it to Baghdad, others succeed. Though their numbers are relatively
few, the harm these men can do to an occupation government desperately
seeking support from the Iraqi people is enormous.
Source: Pacific News Service
Coup attempted in Venezuela
By Philip Stinard
May 9 -- In Venezuela an official Ministry of Communications
& Information (MINCI) press release this afternoon states: “Fifty-six
people, presumed Colombian paramilitaries, were captured on a ranch
located in sector La Mata, El Hatillo, belonging to Democratic Coordinator
leader Robert Alonso, according to state channel Venezolana de Television
(VTV).”
In a joint operation between the National Guard, the Military Intelligence
Directorate (DIM), the State Political & Security police (DISIP)
and the Scientific, Penal & Criminal Investigations Division (CICPC),
they “captured more than 53 uniformed Colombian paramilitaries,
who in addition to receiving arms, were to be mobilized to different
parts of the country,” according to DISIP Commissioner Miguel
Rodriguez Torres. Rodriguez affirmed that several dissident military
personnel of Altamira served as leaders in these activities.
According to VTV journalist Darvin Romero Montiel, “all of the
detainees have Colombian accents.” He explained that, according
to one of the detainees, 130 paramilitaries had been brought from
Colombia clandestinely to be trained for more than a month at the
ranch. They were to be taken next Monday to an area near a military
installation, which they were to attack in order to steal arms. The
arms were to be distributed 15 days later to 1,500 men trained in
Colombia to destabilize the country, with the ultimate goal of overthrowing
the Venezuelan government.
Some managed to escape: Rodriguez also learned that approximately
80 of these paramilitaries had escaped the security forces, which
means that “it’s important that the communities of La Mata,
Sabaneta, Turgua, El Hatillo, and Baruta be on alert, because these
men are highly dangerous Colombian paramilitaries trained for war,
and in their desperation to escape, they could be capable of committing
any act. Citizens should stay in their homes and should inform the
security forces about any of these people they see in their neighborhood.”
The description of the presumed paramilitaries is: Men between 20
and 25 years of age, with short military haircuts. They can be carrying
bags with military uniforms inside. Some could be black. “There
are three women, one of them nicknamed ‘China’ for her physical
appearance, 16 years of age. They are dangerous because of the situation
they are in.”
Altamira rebel military personnel involved: “We know exactly
who are the leaders of all of this; they are retired military personnel
from Plaza Altamira lead by general Felipe Rodriguez, and a group
of civilians whom we have completely identified. We are waiting for
the Attorney General’s orders to begin search and capture operations.”
“We have spoken with some of the detainees who have already been
identified as Colombian paramilitaries, and they have told us of some
of their activities while they were in this camp, such as the punishment
they received when they tried to escape.”
All of the people were dressed for combat, and had Colombian accents,
according to VTV. “They are going to be treated as a subversive
group with all the force of the law,” confirmed Rodriguez.
On the other hand, it was learned that Robert Alonso, owner of the
ranch and brother of the well-known Cuban actress and singer Maria
Conchita Alonso, has been accused of being one of the coordinators
of the violent opposition protests (guarimbas) that took place at
the end of February and the beginning of March.
Source: Vheadline News
Caribbean states turn to OAS to probe
Aristide ouster
By Peter Richards
Port of Spain, Antigua, May 7 (IPS) — No doubt aware
of the influence of the United States and France within the United
Nations, Caribbean nations are adopting a new strategy in their quest
for an independent probe of how Haiti’s first-ever democratically
elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was ousted from office
Feb. 29.
At the conclusion of their two-day Caribbean Community (CARICOM) meeting
in Antigua this week, the leaders announced they are no longer interested
in pursuing the matter before the United Nations, but are instead
looking to forward their concerns to the Organization of American
States (OAS).
“We had made, as CARICOM, an overture to the UN seeking that
the matter be ventilated there. Unfortunately, because of the structure
of the UN, you either had to have approval of the United Nations General
Assembly, the Security Council or, thirdly, the secretary-general,”
Trinidad and Tobago Foreign Minister Knowlson Gift told a news conference
Thursday.
“If any single one of those various layers offered any objection,
the matter was going to die right there,” Gift said, no doubt
articulating the leaders’ view of Paris and Washington’s
positions within the Security Council.
Both nations are permanent members of the council with the power to
veto motions. A Caribbean diplomat at the United Nations previously
told IPS the region’s nations were under “tremendous pressure”
not to publicly push for the investigation.
Aristide, who was flown from Haiti on a US plane, maintains he was
kidnapped at the behest of Washington and Paris.
University of the West Indies political scientist Neville Duncan says
CARICOM’s new approach is a good one.
“The choice of the OAS is a choice that says this is still initially
a hemispheric matter and before one goes to the global body one should
exhaust remedies within the hemispheric framework first, and I think
that is a sensible position to take,” he told reporters by telephone
from Jamaica.
“My problem with it is that it has taken them (CARICOM) this
long to decide, because after a while we had begun to feel that they
did not want to go forward with a decision to seek a proper investigation.
But at least I am glad to see that they are going to proceed with
it.”
Antigua and Barbuda Foreign Minister Harold Lovell will present the
region’s case to the OAS Permanent Council once all CARICOM governments
have endorsed it.
CARICOM’S request calls for the chairman of the Permanent Council
to convene a meeting to discuss the situation in Haiti with a view
to invoking Article 20 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. It
provides for an assessment of the situation “in the event of
an unconstitutional alteration of the constitutional regime that seriously
impairs the democratic order in a member state.”
The OAS has already signaled its intention to consider the request
from CARICOM, “like all other requests in the organization,”
says its deputy secretary general, Luigi Einaudi.
But Einaudi told the Barbados-based Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC)
that the interim Haitian administration in Port-au-Prince might have
a head start on CARICOM after itself invoking sections of the charter.
Interim Haitian Prime Minister Gerard Latortue might have “understood
the spirit of the situation” by invoking sections of the charter
in “requesting OAS support for a set of elections he believes
Haiti has to hold in the course of the next year,” he added.
In an address to the OAS Permanent Council on Thursday, Latortue not
only urged Caribbean governments to support his new administration,
but also called on them to back an initiative for fresh elections
in 2005.
“Haiti is a member of CARICOM and proposes to continue being
a member,” Latortue said. “In this key moment of its history,
my country needs all of you. May the misunderstandings be left behind.”
CARICOM leaders will decide at their annual summit in Grenada in July
whether to support the elections and recognize Haiti’s interim
administration, even as they continue to publicly denounce the manner
in which Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest, was removed from
office.
But the claim of Aristide, who was first flown to the Central African
Republic, has been denied by the United States and France. Washington
has also urged CARICOM to recognize the Latortue administration.
In mid-March, Aristide flew to Jamaica to, he says, visit with his
children. He was to have left last week, but there is some dispute
as to whether he will now go into exile in South Africa.
One regional diplomat says the Haitian crisis presents CARICOM with
an opportunity to show its ability to successfully help resolve issues
in its own backyard.
Suriname Ambassador Albert Ramdin, who is also an advisor to OAS Secretary
General Cesar Gaviria, told an Inter-American Dialogue forum at the
OAS on Wednesday that the regional body is pursuing efforts to end
the crisis even though “there is no fixed set of rules and guiding
principles in the political, legal and operational structures of the
Caribbean Community on how to respond to conflicts.”
In that vein, he argued, the crisis should not be seen “as a
formal response to the request for assistance from a sister nation
in the community.”
CARICOM has pledged to send troops to Haiti but not as part of the
UN mission expected to take over from a multinational, US-led force
Jun. 1. Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Patrick Manning said last
week the troops will be under the command of a Caribbean national.
The regional body has also not yet delivered aid to its devastated
member state, although leaders have said repeatedly that an assistance
program would be geared toward helping the Haitian people.
Einaudi stressed that the interim administration in Port-au-Prince
must spare no effort to guarantee the effective participation of all
of Haiti’s political forces in next year’s elections.
“There can be no place in the national task of reconstruction
for groups armed outside the law or convicted criminals. These are
fundamental principles on which we (the OAS) are prepared to work,”
he said.
Warm Jamaican welcome contrasts with
US blockade
By Dionne Jackson Miller
Kingston, Jamaica, May 6 (IPS) — Nearly 500 Haitians
fleeing violence and turmoil in their country have made the precarious
journey in small, often over-crowded boats across the 160 kms of ocean
separating Haiti from Jamaica since a political crisis erupted there
in February.
When the boats appear off Jamaica’s east coast, usually at the
parish of Portland, they are often pulled to shore by local fishermen
and their passengers welcomed by community members before they are
turned over to the authorities.
In contrast, US residents rarely see the Haitian refugees bound for
their shores — their worn vessels are stopped by US Coast Guard
ships at sea and the asylum-seekers returned to Haiti — a process
known as interdiction — in violation of international law.
The policy was spelled out by US President George W. Bush on Feb.
25, as a violent rebel uprising swept from Haiti’s north toward
the capital Port-au-Prince, and fearful residents started fleeing
the Caribbean island.
“We will turn back any refugee that attempts to reach our shore,
and that message needs to be very clear as well to the Haitian people,’’
announced Bush.
The US Committee for Refugees (USCR) described the statement as, “the
first time in more than 50 years that the US has flagrantly rejected
the legal and ethical obligation to protect refugees.”
The policy has resulted in Washington returning 1,948 Haitians to
their homeland in 2004, as of Apr. 26, already an increase over the
1,490 intercepted at sea in all of 2003, according to the Coast Guard.
USCR’s Director of Communications Steven Forester says Haitian
refugees long settled in the United States, some with US-born children,
also face similar drastic measures.
About three thousand asylum-seekers who arrived in the United States
by plane in the 1980s and ’90s (known now as “airplane refugees”)
are at risk of being deported because they were not included in a
law — thanks to a drafting error — designed to regularize
Haitian refugees who arrived before 1996, he explained in an interview.
Some “airplane refugees” have already been deported.
A bill has been introduced in the US Senate that would give the “airplane
refugees” the same status as other Haitians who arrived by sea
during the same period.
Yet according to the USCR, nearly 30,000 Haitians have asylum claims
pending in the United States. Many of them have been detained indefinitely,
“often in harsh conditions,” as part of the government’s
deterrent policy.
Refugee advocacy group Church World Service is urging supporters to
write Bush requesting that Haitian refugees be granted Temporary Protected
Status (TPS).
That would “permit Haitians, presently in the United States,
to reside here and qualify for work authorization for 18 months. It
would thus guarantee their safety until there is political stability
and an end to the armed conflict in that country,” says the group’s
website.
After they land in the parish, the refugees are processed by immigration
officials, examined by medical staff, provided with translators, and
transported to designated shelters. Existing shelters are now full,
and the government has been equipping facilities better suited for
the indefinite stays that might lie ahead for the asylum-seekers.
The Jamaican government has stressed that it has no choice but to
accept the refugees, in accordance with its obligations under the
1951 Refugee Convention.
But Jamaican Prime Minister Percival Patterson has said repeatedly
that there is more to his administration’s position than legal
obligations, often referring to Haitians as his “brothers and
sisters” and saying that he could not, in good conscience, turn
away anyone seeking safe harbor and protection from persecution.
Ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has been in Jamaica
since March. He and Jamaican officials stress the stay is temporary,
and rumors have Aristide — who continues to insist he was kidnapped
Feb. 29 in a plot orchestrated by the United States and France —
taking permanent exile in South Africa, though Pretoria has not confirmed
that.
Columnist John Maxwell of Jamaica’s ‘Sunday Observer’,
whose writings have been severely critical of the Bush administration’s
actions towards Haiti, describes the US stance toward Haitian refuges
as “not civilized.”
“The world has always recognized that there are people you have
to give sanctuary to, people fleeing from persecution,” he said.
“We have been doing that for years, I can’t understand why
the US thinks there can be a difference between Cubans escaping and
Haitians escaping.”
The United States continues to welcome most asylum-seekers fleeing
communist-run Cuba.
Vote over, but not much optimism
about future
By Anna Martelino
Manila, Philippines, May 10 (IPS) — The voting for
president and vice president of the Philippines ended on Monday,
but not too many Filipinos believe that their ballots can, or will,
send the country on a new, more hopeful beginning.
Some voters said they went to the polling booths thinking about
which of the five presidential candidates would do less damage to
the country — rather than who would be best for its 80 million
people.
“More than before, I scrutinized my list of candidates this
time. It was sad, but I chose less for the person I believed in,
but against the person I didn’t want to win,’’ Hans
Moran, a teacher and member of the De La Salle religious congregation,
said after voting on Monday.
The mood of skepticism in this South-east Asian country well known
for its raucous, colourful politics - the election featured a motley
mix of candidates for more than 17,000 positions - was also reflected
in remarks by commentators, analysts, and media.
“Do not go out and vote if you think the elections are already
over,’’ wrote Conrado de Quiros in the English-language
‘Philippine Daily Inquirer’ newspaper, referring to media
reports and surveys showing that the presidential race had narrowed
down to incumbent President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and actor Fernando
Poe Jr.
These polls reported that Arroyo was likely to win about 37 percent
of the vote, versus Poe’s 30 to 31 percent.
“If you think your vote is wasted on the good and decent because
he or she has ‘no chance to win’, then don’t vote
at all,’’ De Quiros pointed out.
“To vote is a duty to vote as best you can, it is not an obligation
to vote as worst as you can,’’ he argued. “The only
vote that is wasted is the one you throw at the feet of the undeserving
because he or she ‘will win anyway’. The undeserving will
win, but you won’t.’’
But for many of the more than 43 million eligible voters, their
choices have narrowed down to Arroyo and Poe as the candidates with
the only real chances of winning.
The estimated voter turnout on Monday was 75 percent, according
to Commission on Elections official Rex Borra. Likewise, some 65
percent of more than 300,000 overseas Filipinos who had registered
to vote were estimated to have cast their ballots, officials said.
With talk that one presidential candidate, Raul Roco, has cancer
and amid wariness by voters in this majority Catholic country about
a Christian evangelist candidate, Eddie Villanueva, who does not
subscribe to their traditional views, there was a realignment of
support in the final weeks leading to the end of the 90-day campaign
period on May 8.
In an interview, Rafael Lopa, president of the independent Pulse
Asia polling group, said that many supporters of Roco - who many
progressives had backed - shifted to Arroyo on the eve of the May
10 vote, thinking that he would not win anyway. Previously, support
for Roco was eating into Arroyo’s bid.
Likewise, a fifth candidate, senator and ex-police chief Panfilo
Lacson, had been taking supporters away from Poe.
Efforts to get the opposition candidates to agree on a common candidate
were futile, bolstering Arroyo’s chances. “It’s the
opposition who suffers from there being too many candidates (in
the race),’’ Lopa explained.
The narrowing of choices to Arroyo or Poe took the enthusiasm out
of voters who say they are tired out by the din and promises made
by candidates -- and what actor or political figure backed them
-- rather than real platforms.
“With so many movie stars around, it was more of a personality
and image elections, than one on real platforms for the good of
the country,’’ Moran added, looking back at the poll campaign.
He was referring to how candidates pulled out appearances with actors
and actresses - many of whom themselves ran for seats in the Senate
and House of Representatives as well as local posts - toward the
end of the campaign.
Arroyo herself got endorsements from comedians and actors, including
talk-show host Kris Aquino, daughter of former President Corazon
Aquino.
Other actors joined the camp of Poe, who was backed by impeached
ex-president Joseph Estrada and the popular comedian Dolphy, known
as the “king of Philippine comedy.”
Arroyo’s record as president since 2001, when she took over
after the ouster of her predecessor Joseph Estrada on corruption
charges, has been widely been perceived as lacklustre.
Apart from the fact that she suffers from the lack of an elected
mandate, the Philippines’ poverty incidence remains at more
than 30 percent.
But at least, according to business people that IPS spoke to, the
business sector “knows how to deal with’’ Arroyo,
and would rather not introduce an unknown factor like Poe, a high-school
dropout with no political experience.
“This election is special because of the rivalry between GMA
and FPJ,’’ Paolo Mercado, a first-time voter said, using
Arroyo’s and Poe’s initials respectively. “I can’t
believe that even after (impeached) Estrada, people would still
consider a candidate like Poe.’’
But the choices are not really much, even between the two, according
to critics like Sen Joker Arroyo, who calls the options for Monday’s
vote a choice between “a corrupt and a stupid candidate’’,
referring to Arroyo and Poe respectively.
Meantime, the poll booths, many of them littered with sample ballots
outside, have closed down as of Monday afternoon.
After an eventful campaign, Filipinos are bracing themselves for
an equally bruising counting period - traditionally marked by hostility,
charges of cheating, and probably, deaths.
The canvassing of votes, a laborious process that involves the use
of public schoolteachers who mark votes by hand on blackboards or
paper, is expected to take weeks, if not months.
Meantime, “few Filipinos are expecting dramatic changes in
their lives, no matter who wins in today’s elections,’’
said the Monday editorial of The Philippine Star newspaper.
Asked what difference the poll - the third since democracy returned
to this country after the 1986 popular uprising - would make, Maya
Bernardo, a professor at De La Salle University, said: “It’s
up to you. Elections merely mirror a unique version of our democracy.’’
Pentagon withdraws leaflet linking
aid to information on Taliban
By Ewen MacAskill
May 6 — The US-led coalition in Afghanistan has distributed
leaflets calling on people to provide information on al-Qaida and
the Taliban or face losing humanitarian aid.
The move has outraged aid organizations who said their work is independent
of the military and it was despicable to pretend otherwise.
Medécins Sans Frontières, the international medical
charity which passed the leaflets to the Guardian, said the threat
endangered aid workers. Fourteen aid workers were killed in Afghanistan
last year and 11 so far this year.
The Taliban claimed responsibility yesterday for the murder of two
British security staff and their Afghan translator from the London-based
crisis management company Global Risk Strategies, which is employed
by the UN to help prepare for national elections scheduled for September.
After examining the leaflets yesterday Britain and the US said they
had been a mistake and it was not their policy to link aid with
military operations in that way. The decision to distribute the
leaflets had been made at a local level, they said.
Last night the Pentagon said it would instruct forces in the field
and those on future training courses not to repeat the mistake.
Joseph Collins, deputy assistant secretary at the Pentagon, said:
“I have seen the leaflets in question.”
While they were no doubt well-intentioned, they do not reflect US
policy. The United States does not condition humanitarian assistance
on the provision of intelligence. “We will instruct forces
in the field to be careful not to portray assistance as a reward
for the provision of intelligence.”
The US has stepped up operations along the southern border with
Pakistan over the past few months in an effort to counter a resurgence
of the Taliban and to try to smoke out Osama bin Laden.
The leaflets were distributed by US forces in Zabul province, which
borders Pakistan and where the Taliban have regained control of
several districts.
One of the leaflets, showing an Afghan carrying a bag of provisions,
reads: “In order to continue the humanitarian aid, pass over
any information related to Taliban, al-Qaida or Gulbuddin organizations
to the coalition forces.”The latter reference is to the renegade
warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is believed to have allied himself
with the Taliban.
MSF, which provided medical services in hospitals in the city of
Kandahar and nearby town Spin Boldak and in neighboring refugee
camps, said it was appalled by the leaflets.
Kenny Gluck, its director of operations, said he did not know whether
the leaflets technically breached international law but said they
contravened the spirit of the law.
He said it was dangerous enough for aid workers in southern Afghanistan
without being linked to the military in this way.
”We have to go back to the population and say ‘This is
not how we work’,” he added.
The White House would like to capture bin Laden before the presidential
elections in November. The suspicion is that he is in hiding in
the tribal areas of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan.
Pakistan protested to the US yesterday following an incursion by
US troops into its territory on Sunday to hunt suspected al-Qaida
or Taliban militants.
Mullah Sabir Momin, a Taliban commander, contacted Reuters by satellite
phone yesterday to claim responsibility for the murder of the two
Britons and their translator in Mandol district, in Nuristan province
in the north-east.
“The two British non-believers and their Afghan translator
were killed by the Taliban because the Taliban are killing all locals
and foreigners who are helping the Americans to consolidate their
occupation of Afghanistan,” he said.
Pentagon was forced to withdraw the leaflet linking aid to information
on Taliban.
Global Risk Strategies issued a statement in London confirming that
two employees, both British, had been killed. Lutfullah Mashal,
a spokesman for the Afghan interior ministry, said the bodies were
discovered by local authorities.
Source: Guardian (UK)
Amnesty seeks tougher stand on trafficking
By Stefania Bianchi
Brussels, Belgium, May 10 (IPS) — Amnesty International
is calling on the European Union to step up its financial and legal
support for the fight against trafficking in women in Kosovo.
The human rights organization is urging the European Union (EU)
to ensure that women and girls are protected under its crisis management
and peacekeeping engagements.
The call follows the release of the Amnesty report “So does
that mean I have rights? - Protecting the human rights of women
and girls trafficked for forced prostitution in Kosovo.” The
report details the suffering of women who are trafficked and forced
into prostitution in the country.
The report released in Brussels May 10 reveals that trafficked women
and girls are exposed to human rights abuses including “abduction,
deprivation of liberty, and denial of freedom of movement, torture
and ill-treatment, including psychological threats, beatings, and
rape.”
Kosovo has become a major destination country for women and girls
forced into prostitution following deployment of an international
peacekeeping force in July 1999.
The organization found that in addition to women trafficked into
Kosovo from outside, predominantly from Moldova, Bulgaria, and Ukraine,
increasing numbers of Kosovar Albanians — the majority of them
believed to be minors — are being internally trafficked.
Other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) also report that some
Kosovar Albanian women and girls are now being trafficked into EU
countries.
According to Amnesty, Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, has some
200 bars and brothels where sex can easily be bought, whereas in
1999 this figure was just 18.
It says that women are smuggled across borders and are sold for
between $60 and $4,100.
Most are from Eastern Europe. Many are locked in dark rooms. Their
passports are taken away, they are undernourished and are denied
access to medical treatment, the report says.
Kosovo’s borders with Serbia, Albania, and Macedonia are said
to facilitate smuggling and organized crime.
The report says that the international community running Kosovo
is doing little to prosecute the men responsible for the abuses.
“It is outrageous that the very same people who are there to
protect these women and girls are using their position and exploiting
them instead — and they are getting away with it,” Amnesty
said.
Kosovo has been under de facto UN rule since deployment of North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) peacekeepers in the summer of
1999.
There are more than 20,000 NATO peacekeepers, UN police and other
international officials in the country, where prostitution is illegal.
More than 36,000 soldiers from EU nations are serving as members
of the Kosovo Force (Kfor).
Amnesty says that these officials now “constitute 20 percent
of those using the services of trafficked women and girls”
and “generate a significant part of the industry’s income.”
Kfor and UN personnel are immune from prosecution in Kosovo, but
this immunity can be waived by a special order. However, this has
only happened twice since 2002.
The report says that “with clients including international
police and troops, the girls and women are often too afraid to escape,
and the authorities are failing to help them.”
Even after women and girls have escaped their traffickers or been
rescued by the police, “many trafficked women and girls are
subsequently vulnerable to violations by law enforcement, criminal
justice, and other agencies,” the report says.
“Some may have been themselves arrested and imprisoned for
prostitution, or status offences, and denied access to the basic
rights of detainees,” the report says. When they are arrested,
Amnesty says many women are not allowed access to lawyers.
Amnesty is demanding that the EU and its member states address the
“root causes” of trafficking and protect the rights of
the women and girls involved in the process.
It adds that the women should be given the right of redress and
repatriation.
“Given the EU’s strategic importance in Kosovo, Amnesty
International calls on the EU to do more, both financially and legally,
to help fight the deplorable practice of trafficking in women and
girls, which is occurring right on the doorsteps of the EU,”
said Dick Oosting, Director of Amnesty’s EU office.
“Women and girls are being trafficked out of Kosovo into EU
countries including Italy, the Netherlands, and the UK,” he
added in a statement. “More needs to be done at EU level to
prevent trafficking, as well as protect the victims, whose rights
are frequently left unprotected by the law.”
|
