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Bush administration seeks to expand US
military in Colombia
By Elanor Starmer
May 12— Last month the George W. Bush administration announced
plans to deepen US involvement in Colombia by doubling the number of
US troops and private military contractors stationed there. The move
came in the midst of an energetic public-relations campaign by the US
State Department and the Colombian government. Both administrations
attempted to paint US policy in Colombia as an assured success. However,
statistics show a stable presence of cocaine on the US market, and there’s
evidence of continued ties between members of the Colombian military
and brutal right-wing paramilitary groups.
Four years ago the US Congress voted overwhelmingly to pass a $1.3 billion
aid package known as Plan Colombia. The support of moderate Democrats
and Republicans hinged on a number of safeguards included in the legislation,
which they hoped would keep the United States out of the “quagmire”
of Colombia’s internal conflict. Congress has restricted the number
of US troops and private military contractors, or mercenaries, allowed
on the ground to 800 total and limited their mission to anti-drug efforts,
legislating that no intelligence, training, or equipment be used to
assist Colombia in its war against left-wing insurgents. Congressional
supporters also promised that the US commitment in Colombia would last
no more than five years.
Human rights groups, drug reformers, and some members of Congress warned
repeatedly that military aid would pour fuel on the flames of the long
and brutal conflict involving the Colombian government forces, right-wing
paramilitary allies, and left-wing insurgents. Many critics, including
current House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, also argued that attacking
drug production at the lowest level of the supply chain — the poor
farmers who grow drug crops in Colombia’s rural areas —was
an inhumane approach that would ultimately prove futile.
Despite these grave concerns, Plan Colombia was signed into law. The
Republican congressional leadership touted it as a reasonable policy
that was limited in scope but which would help bring an end to America’s
drug problem. Following September 11th, however, the policy began to
transform. The Bush administration and congressional allies broke promise
after promise made in 2000, and skepticism of the policy grew in Congress.
In the spring of 2002 the Bush administration expanded the US mission
in Colombia beyond anti-drug efforts arguing that US aid should be used
to help Colombia fight a “unified campaign against narcotics trafficking,
terrorist activities, and other threats to its national security.”
It earmarked some $600 million for the cause. This year Colombia is
slated to receive over $500 million in US aid — the majority of
it military and police assistance.
The Bush administration now argues that more force is needed to make
progress in the joint campaign against drugs and terrorism in Colombia.
In a recent visit to Washington, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe proposed
—“Plan Colombia II” — a second phase of US assistance
that could last another 5 years. Bush administration officials applauded
the idea.
The proposal to lift the troop cap, announced by President Bush last
month, would increase the number of US personnel allowed in Colombia
to 800 soldiers and 600 mercenaries — nearly double the current
limit established by Congress.
Lifting the cap would mean devoting additional resources and manpower
to a failed policy.
Approving additional US military assistance would send all the wrong
messages to a war-torn Colombia. It implies that the conflict can be
solved by force, effectively squelching civil society and sporadic government
attempts to engage in a negotiated peace process with armed groups.
As the war accelerates, thousands more Colombian civilians will lose
their lives in the crossfire. Committed to a military solution, the
US government could be forced to request ever-increasing levels of troops
and funding when the conflict proves more enduring than anticipated.
Support and training for the Colombian armed forces also puts the United
States firmly on the side of a military with a brutal history and a
proven reluctance to reform. According to the United Nations, direct
human rights violations by the Colombian military increased last year,
and even the US State Department admits that Colombia has failed to
break ties with the paramilitaries. Rather than reduce aid pending an
improved human rights record, the United States has turned a blind eye
to abuses and continued to provide aid.
The result has been grave for many Colombian civilians, particularly
Afro-Colombian communities, trade union leaders, and human rights defenders.
Those who speak out against abuses by the military or discuss collaboration
between the Colombian armed forces and paramilitaries are routinely
labeled as being sympathetic to the guerrillas, and targeted with threats
and attacks. According to international observers such as Witness for
Peace, paramilitary presence in areas with a high level of Colombian
military activity — notable among them the departments of Putumayo
and Arauca, two epicenters of US involvement — has increased dramatically
since 2000.
The last few years have shown that military aid feeds a vicious cycle
of human rights abuses and killing, while the drug trade simply takes
on new, more virulent forms and issues such as poverty, unequal land
distribution, and a political system that excludes poor and rural communities
must be addressed as Colombia looks toward a better future.
Source: Interhemispheric Resource Center
(IRC)
Thousands protest paramilitary presence
in Venezuela
Compiled by Greg White
Asheville, North Carolina, May 18(AGR) — Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez addressed an expansive crowd during a mass rally in Caracas
on May 16. Thousands of Chavez supporters draped in national colors
marched through the streets of Caracas to protest the alleged coup plot
uncovered last week.
The rally came a week after authorities arrested 88 people described
as Colombian paramilitaries holed up on property belonging to a key
opposition figure.
Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said the number of paramilitaries
and people arrested linked to the plot uncovered last week had now risen
to 120, out of 130 believed to be implicated. Eight active-duty Venezuelan
military officers allegedly linked to the plot have been arrested.
“This march is in response to the conspiracy mounted by the Colombian
oligarchy and the North American empire, but we will defeat them,”
Rangel said.
President Chavez announced at the rally that his government would establish
“people’s militias” to counter what he called foreign
interference after the alleged coup plot Caracas claims was financed
by Washington. He also said he would boost the strength of Venezuela’s
armed forces as part of a new “anti-imperialist” phase for
his government.
Chavez denied he was starting an arms race, but said he wanted to avoid
fresh conspiracies. He said the nation’s 100,000 reservists were
not enough to counter a plot, and announced he had recalled retired
military officers to duty.
Several opposition leaders, former defense ministers, and media personalities
have stated that the case of the paramilitaries is “a show mounted
by Chavez” to draw attention away from the opposition’s attempt
to hold a recall referendum for the president before August.
According to government reports, there are hundreds of Colombian paramilitaries
in Venezuela. Defense Minister Gen. Jorge Garcia Carneiro said that
there are probably “around 500 paramilitaries” in Venezuela.
But he did not clarify whether they were all taking part in the subversive
activities revealed by the government since last week.
Gen. Melvin Lopez, the secretary of the national Defense Council, said
Colombia’s right-wing paramilitary umbrella, the United Self-Defense
Forces of Colombia (AUC), has “cells” in seven of Venezuela’s
23 states: along the border with civil war-torn Colombia, in the central
part of the country, and in the east.
“They have been making their way [into the country] gradually,
saying they’re going to work on an estate belonging to some Venezuelan,
and they have been equipping themselves with weapons, with the complicity
of some state governments, taking advantage of the heavy flows of vacationers
during Easter Week” in early April to escape notice, said Lopez.
The official blamed AUC for last December’s killings of seven members
of the Venezuelan National Guard in several incidents in the southwestern
border state of Tachira.
The Ezequiel Zamora Campesina (Peasant Farmer) Federation says Colombian
hired killers were responsible for the deaths of rural activists and
human rights defenders in the border region. Around 60 human rights
and rural activists have been murdered in western Venezuela by forces
loyal to the ranchers in the region in the past four years, according
to Vice President Rangel.
During a press conference with Venezuela’s foreign press corps
on May 14, President Chavez presented the pictures and names of the
leaders of the paramilitary group that was captured last week in a farm
on the outskirts of the country’s capital.
The main leader of the group is Jose Ernesto Ayala Amado, known as “Comandante
Lucas,” and is also one of the leaders of the AUC, in the Colombian
state of Norte de Santander.
Of the Colombians arrested, 28 had previously completed military service
in Colombia.
According to Venezuelan intelligence, on the day that the men were arrested,
they were part of an advance force of paramilitaries that was getting
ready to receive weapons to launch an attack on a National Guard base
and the government palace, with the aim of killing President Chavez
and unleashing a clash between military forces.The Colombians were wearing
Venezuelan army uniforms, but were unarmed, with the exception of one
of the leaders, who carried a pistol.
Chavez lashed out at the head of the US army Southern Command, Gen.
James Hill, who he called “an imperialist general,” and accused
Colombian army chief Gen. Martin Carreno of being “an adversary
of this government” and of “brazenly lying.” He also
said a right-wing “Miami-Bogota-Caracas” network was behind
the paramilitary incursion.
Chavez has demanded that the Bush administration withdraw its officers
from Venezuelan bases where they serve as military liaisons. The president
of the National Electoral Council has also threatened to expel foreign
election monitors for supposedly being partial to the opposition groups
seeking Chavez’s ouster.
Commenting on the recent arrests in a nationally broadcast speech last
week, President Chavez said the captured Colombians “are just the
tip of the iceberg of an invasion of Venezuela.”
Sources: Agence France Presse, Inter Press
Service, New York Times, Venezuelanalysis
‘We are everywhere’ says
shadowy pro-democracy group
By Wilson Johwa
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, May 10 (IPS)— “When they were
interrogating me, they kept asking about ‘Zvakwana!’,”
says activist Gorden Moyo, describing his recent detention by security
officials in Zimbabwe. “I told them I don’t know what it’s
about.”
Moyo is one of several campaigners and opposition party members who
have been questioned about this underground pro-democracy movement,
whose Shona name means “enough.” Also referred to in Ndebele
as “Sokwanele!,” the organization has Zimbabwean authorities
scratching their heads in exasperation.
Its central message is that the 24-year rule of President Robert Mugabe
should come to an end – this after four years of increasingly
repressive governance in the Southern African country. Zimbabwe has
been in political and economic turmoil since 2000 when veterans of
the independence war and other militants began occupying white-owned
farms in a state-sanctioned campaign.
Parliamentary elections held in 2000 and the presidential poll of
2002 were both marred by political violence, much of it directed against
the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Zimbabwe now finds
itself in the grip of food shortages, triple-digit inflation and soaring
unemployment.
At present, demonstrations and other forms of public protest are restricted
by legislation – ideal conditions, some would say, for the emergence
of an underground democracy movement.
During the past year, news of Zvakwana! has spread via word of mouth
after internet surfers spotted its web site (www.zvakwana.com). This
quotes Polish writer Ryszard Kapuscinski: “The indispensable
catalyst is the word, the explanatory idea. Uncontrolled words —
circulating freely, underground, rebelliously, uncertified —
frighten tyrants.”
Amongst other things, the site also provides “Activist tips”
that include pointers on how to deal with riot police, “Organize
yourself in pairs. Keep an eye out for your partner at all times.
Make sure that you know their personal details and who to contact
in the event that they are hurt or arrested,” and tear gas “Stay
calm and focused...When your body heats up [from running or panicking,
for example], irritation may increase.”
Zvakwana! describes itself as a “non-partisan, non-profit group
of...volunteers and visionaries – [who are] working to keep Zimbabweans
informed about...civic campaigns and public meetings and events.”
It also claims to have “an activist wing that engages in non-violent
civic actions.”
The group appears unconcerned that Zimbabwean officials could burrow
beneath the anonymity of the internet to find out who its organizers
are.
“The regime is fighting so many fires...that they do not have
the resources to find all their detractors,” said the body in
response to questions posted on its web site by IPS.
One of the “non-violent civic actions” that Zvakwana! is
claiming credit for was carried out before the Independence Day celebrations
on Apr. 18. Some activists spray painted lamp posts and the sewage
pipe along Tongogara Road in the capital – Harare – which
Mugabe normally uses to travel to the National Sports Stadium, where
the celebration was held.
The activists also painted a Zvakwana! slogan, “Get UP Stand
UP,” on turnstiles and walls at the stadium. “There was
so much graffiti,” says the group, that “the regime couldn’t
repaint it before Mugabe’s trip, so he had to take a different
route!”
Another gimmick focuses on inserting messages of defiance into matchboxes,
which are then distributed.
Zvakwana! has even come up with a 15-track compact disc (CD) (the
‘Get UP Stand UP’ compilation) to promote its cause. The
CD, featuring ‘Get Up Stand Up’ by Bob Marley, can be ordered
free of charge. South African singer Hugh Masekela’s “Change,”
which implores long-standing African leaders, particularly Mugabe,
to “say goodbye” is also included on the album. It comes
with Zvakwana!’s “revolutionary condoms” bearing the
campaign logo, a black “Z” inside a yellow background.
In its e-mail interview with IPS, the group also claims to have distributed
hundreds of copies of a British Broadcasting Corporation documentary
on the camps where Zimbabwean youth are allegedly being trained to
form a paramilitary force that can be deployed against government
opponents. Authorities claim the camps are simply training grounds
where a sense of national pride is instilled in young men and women.
As CDs and videos don’t come cheaply, these claims beg the question
of who is financing Zvakwana!. When asked about this, the group said
it was “a locally sponsored campaign in all respects. Pro-democracy
groups and supporters are putting their money towards creating positive
change in Zimbabwe.”
So far, Zvakwana! appears to be enjoying some success in providing
“nuisance value.” Police have stepped up efforts to locate
those masterminding the campaign, with spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena
recently telling a weekly paper that “These people...have been...spreading
material and literature aimed at inciting members of the public to
lawlessness.” He added that officials would be “interested
in talking to them.”
Officers have questioned local artist Leonard Zhakata, who has a song
featured on the CD. Three weeks ago another man, who wanted to be
identified only as “Mehluli,” was picked up by police who
were looking for those who had painted yellow hand prints, an emblem
used by the opposition, across Bulawayo. The authorities suspected
a link between the hand prints and Zvakwana! graffiti – although
the group denies any association between the two.
A friend of Mehluli’s also had his home searched for the incriminating
yellow paint. “I think these guys don’t know what they looking
for,” he told IPS, requesting anonymity. “They are just
fishing in the dark.”
Zvakwana! says it will continue using alternative, non-violent means
in its campaign: “The regime can look for us, but we are everywhere.”
With government last week ordering the closure of yet another newspaper,
The Tribune, the space in which Zimbabweans can express themselves
has been restricted still further. The fact that Zvakwana! has no
office building, no spokesperson or known campaign leader gives it
an elusiveness which, given current conditions, is a highly valuable
commodity.
Manmohan Singh to be India’s first
Sikh premier
May 19 — The father of India’s economic
reforms, Manmohan Singh, has been designated prime minister after
Sonia Gandhi rejected appeals to take the job.
Singh, a 71-year-old Sikh who will be India’s first non-Hindu
prime minister, immediately pledged to turn the world’s largest
democracy into an economic model that “makes new opportunities
available to the poor.”
President Abd al-Kalam, the ceremonial head of state, invited Singh
on May 19 to replace the government of Hindu nationalist premier Atal
Behari Vajpayee after a tumultuous day following Gandhi’s decision
not to be prime minister.
Gandhi, the Congress party president who engineered the upset victory
by targeting Indians left out of the country’s surging economic
growth, said “the government will be safe in the hands of Mr
Singh.”
Italian-born Gandhi had faced a virulent campaign by Hindu hardliners
against her foreign roots and family pressure not to become prime
minister.
Her husband Rajiv Gandhi and mother-in-law Indira, who had both served
as premier, were assassinated.
Oxford-trained economist
Singh, an Oxford-trained economist and former official of the International
Monetary Fund, ended decades of protectionism as finance minister
in the last Congress government from 1991 to 1996.
“We have always said that economic reforms with emphasis on human
elements will continue,” Singh said.
“We will give to the world and to our people a model of economic
reforms which adds to the process of development to bring new opportunities
for the poor and downtrodden,” Singh said, standing alongside
Gandhi at the British-built presidential palace in central New Delhi.
The Bombay Stock Exchange, which had crashed after Gandhi and Singh’s
communist-backed coalition defeated the market-friendly government,
rallied up 2.65 percent on expectations the economy would be in safe
hands under Singh.
“The father of India’s reform program rising to the prime
ministership would be very positive from the standpoint of the market,”
said PK Basu, head of Robust Economic Analysis.
Political support
“But I would caution against excessive euphoria since Doctor
Singh as an economic reformer is well regarded, but his abilities
as a political manager are untested.”
With backing from leftists and regional parties, Singh will enjoy
a solid majority of 325 seats among the 539 members of parliament
elected so far, according to a Press Trust of India tally.
The Communist Party of India, which has pledged support to a Congress-led
government coalition, said the overriding concern was to stop Hindu
nationalists from returning to power and it would support Singh.
“He is one of the most decent persons, a knowledgeable economist
and I will opt for him any time over any person in the Bharatiya Janata
Party,” said communist Somnath Chatterjee.
Source: Al Jazeera
India’s stock market suffers biggest crash
in years
India’s stock market crashed on May 17 in one of the biggest
falls in years, prompting regulators to suspend trading as investors
remained wary about the economic policies of the incoming communist-supported
government in New Delhi.
The benchmark index of the Bombay Stock Exchange, the Sensex, opened
sharply lower and tumbled further to 4516.6 points, in an 11 percent
drop in the first 20 minutes of trading, forcing the stock market
regulator to halt trading at stock exchanges across the country.
The market dived on fears that the Congress party, set to form a new
government after ousting the ruling National Democratic Alliance in
national elections last week, may slow down privatization of state-run
companies and undo market-friendly policies to appease leftists, whose
support is crucial for a parliamentary majority. (AP)
US ‘strategically losing’
in Iraq
Compiled by Shane Perlowin
May 19 (AGR) — Deep divisions are emerging at the top
of the US military over the occupation of Iraq, with some senior officers
saying the United States is facing the prospect of casualties for
years without achieving its stated goal of establishing a free, democratic
Iraq.
Their major worry is that the United States is not winning the support
of Iraqis.
Major General Charles H. Swannack Jr., the commander of the 82d Airborne
Division who spent much of the year in western Iraq, said he thinks
that at the tactical level at which fighting occurs, the US military
is winning. But when asked whether he thinks the United States is
losing, he said, “I think strategically, we are.”
Army Colonel Paul Hughes, who last year was the first director of
strategic planning for the US occupation authority in Baghdad, said
he agrees with that view and noted that a pattern of winning battles
while losing a war characterized the American failure in Vietnam.
The United Iraqi Scholars Group — which appointed a 16-strong
leadership panel — has vowed to boycott any political group set
up by the United States and called for a stronger army than the small
force envisioned by the US-led occupation authority.
After a five-hour conference, attended by 500 Iraqis from across the
political spectrum, the group said its agenda was based on “legitimate
resistance to end the occupation” and keeping Iraq united.
It deemed all laws passed or to be enacted under the yoke of occupation
“illegal” and demanded an end of occupation as soon as possible.
The new body, grouping Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, pressed for sidelining
the US-appointed Governing Council and called for a meeting with UN
envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.
Sheikh Jawad al-Khalisi, a senior Shiite scholar who will head the
group, said it wanted the handover of power to Iraqis on June 30 “done
under the umbrella of the UN and not the Coalition Provisional Authority.”
Meanwhile, fighting continues in Shia cities across Iraq in what US
occupation forces now admit is a “minor uprising” by forces
loyal to the radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
There were renewed clashes close to two major shrines in the Shia
holy city of Karbala, as anger grew across the Shia world over damage
to the Shrine of Imam Ali in nearby Najaf during fighting on May 14.
US forces are risking a fearsome backlash from Iraq’s Shia with
their offensive. The shrine was damaged during Saddam Hussein’s
brutal suppression of the Shia revolt in 1991. Even as they are being
compared to Saddam by ordinary Iraqis for the abuses in Abu Ghraib
prison, US forces risked being compared to the former dictator on
another front.
As US forces fought the Shia forces of al- Sadr in the south, they
broke into the Sunni Abu Hanifa mosque in Baghdad May 15.
Amid moves by Shia and Sunni leaders to come together against the
occupation, US forces have chosen to attack both at the same time.
US soldiers sealed off the Abu Hanifa mosque in the Al-Adhamiya district
of Baghdad May 15 just as heavy fighting between US forces and the
Mehdi militia of al-Sadr raged throughout southern Iraq.
They damaged several doors and threw copies of the Koran on the floor
while conducting a search.
Kassem, a 54-year-old grandfather who works as a guard at the mosque
said a US soldier hit him on the forehead with the butt of an M-16
rifle. “When I fell to the ground they kicked me,” he said.
“They came to humiliate the people of Islam. Why else? We have
no guns here, no mujahedeen. They want to destroy the Islamic religion.”
US forces withdrew within an hour after failing to find any weapons,
or the person they had told guards they were searching for.
In Nasiriyah, Italian officials had to be evacuated from their base
as it came under attack from Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia. Six Italian
troops were injured. Two Iraqi fighters were killed and 20 wounded.
Suspected Mehdi Army militiamen fired a mortar shell at British forces
in Basra overnight, but missed. They hit a civilian home and killed
four Iraqis, including two-year-old twin girls.
Three Iraqi women working for the occupation authority were killed
in separate incidents yesterday. Two died when a minibus carrying
them came under fire in Baghdad. A third, who worked as a translator,
was killed when gunmen burst into her home in the restive Sunni city
of Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad.
Gunmen attacked a US-run civilian convoy in Iraq’s western desert
and some personnel are unaccounted for, US officials said May 18.
Iraq’s oil minister said a weekend pipeline bombing had temporarily
cut petroleum exports by 30 percent.
A mortar attack on a US military base north of Baghdad killed four
Philippine workers. The victims were employed at Camp Anaconda near
Balad.
In Samarra, another town north of Baghdad, about 20 gunmen raided
a police station the night of May 18, and the seven police inside
fled. The attackers then detonated a bomb that destroyed the building
and two police cars.
In other news, UK troops have killed Iraqi civilians including an
eight-year-old girl when they were under no apparent threat, Amnesty
International has claimed.
The human rights group claims in “many” cases the deaths
of civilians caused by UK troops had not been investigated.
Amnesty wants an independent civilian-led investigation into all alleged
killings in Iraq.
The head of the Iraqi Governing Council was killed May 17in a suicide
car bombing as he waited in his vehicle at a US-controlled checkpoint.
Abdel-Zahraa Othman, a Shia Muslim, who was most widely known as Izzadine
Saleem, was one of eight Iraqis killed in the blast.
Saleem was the highest-ranking Iraqi official to be killed during
the US-led occupation.
A previously unknown Iraqi group said it had carried out the attack.
Sources: Independent (UK), Associated
Press, Washington Post, Aljazeera, BBC, IslamOnline.net, Agence France
Presse, Reuters, Guardian (UK)
Palestinian homes demolished; Israelis
rally for peace
Compiled by Bob Strott
May 19 (AGR) -- The Israeli cabinet has vowed to step up
military operations in Gaza, 18 hours after the largest Israeli
anti-war demonstration in four years backing withdrawal from the
occupied strip of land and a return to the negotiating table.
The big weekend rally marked the re-emergence of the left-wing Israeli
peace movement, marginalized for most of the last four years, as
it joined forces with moderate centrists in the biggest display
of anti-war sentiment since the beginning of the intifada more than
three and half years ago.
But Israel has said it will intensify its military assault on the
Gaza strip, only hours after more than 100,000 people rallied in
Tel Aviv to demand that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon follow through
on his pledge to withdraw Jewish settlers from the territory.
The defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, told the weekly cabinet meeting
that the army would work to “create a new reality” along
the border between Gaza and Egypt, where the UN has said the army
destroyed about 200 Palestinian homes in the Rafah refugee camp
after seven soldiers were killed in the area last week.
A total of 13 soldiers have died in the Gaza strip since May 18
-- some of the worst casualty figures inflicted on the Israeli army
during the present intifada.
While Mofaz said the fighting was part of the “war on terror”
and vowed not to retreat, the army has clearly been shaken by the
scale and effectiveness of Palestinian resistance just as it believed
it had broken the back of Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s command
structure.
The army went out of its way to insist that the operation was limited
to the task of finding the remains of the soldiers killed on May
12, and had nothing to do with “speculation” about a government
program of house destruction in Rafah to widen the security zone
around the border patrol road where several soldiers were killed
when their troop carrier was blown up.
Since the outbreak of fighting in September 2000, the Israeli military
has razed 1,026 houses in Rafah and damaged 767, local officials
say.
The destruction of houses since the beginning of the intifada, three
and a half years ago, has led to more than 17,000 Palestinians losing
their homes, UN relief workers said.
The army chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Moshe Ya’alon,
said the destruction would continue despite an international outcry,
including stiff criticism from the White House of demolitions that
left more than 1,000 Palestinians homeless on May 14.
“Hundreds of Palestinian houses along the Israel-Egypt border
have been targeted for demolition,” Gen. Ya’alon said,
according to Israel Radio.
In addition to leveling rows of buildings on the edge of the zone,
Israeli officials are considering a proposal to carve a deep moat
through the area and flood it to block arms smugglers, a political
source told Reuters.
The cabinet’s hard line was reiterated the morning after the
rally in favor of pulling Jewish settlers and the army out of the
Gaza strip.
The protest was called to demand that Sharon keep to his pledge
to withdraw from Gaza despite losing a referendum on the issue in
his Likud party last month.
The rally’s organizers, led by the opposition Labor party,
said recent polls showed a hardening of public support for the withdrawal
since the deaths of the 13 soldiers.
Rallying under the slogan, “The majority has decided. Leave
Gaza, start talking,” the organizers said twice as many people
attended the rally as had voted in the Likud referendum to reject
the pullout or had joined a right-wing demonstration in support
of the settlers.
Evocative of the popular agitation which encouraged the withdrawal
from southern Lebanon four years ago under Ehud Barak, the spirit
of the meeting on May 15 perhaps owed more to the memory of Yitzhak
Rabin, assassinated by a Jewish fanatic in 1995 in this very square
after he rallied support for the Oslo accords. Shimon Peres, the
former prime minister and present Labor leader, told the rally:
“The demonstration we’re holding tonight is not a demonstration
of the left. It is a demonstration of the majority.” 80% of
Israelis back a Gaza pullout, while only 1% have voted to reject
it.
Referring to the outcome of last month’s referendum in which
100,000 Likud members voted by six to four against Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon’s plan to disengage from Gaza, Peres said the
country could not be held hostage by a mere one percent of the population.
“We come here to say tonight: this minority, this one and only
per cent, will not send us back to the wars, to the bloody path.”
Sources: The Guardian, Independent
Digital (UK) Ltd., Al Jazeera
Sanctions unlikely to hurt Syria
By George Baghdadi
Damascus, Syria, May 17 (IPS)— The limited sanctions
imposed on Syria are unlikely to do it much harm, or the US much
good.
As Damascus condemned President George W. Bush’s implementation
of the Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration
Act (SALSA, as it has come to be called), analysts agree the sanctions
are largely symbolic.
After months of saber-rattling, Bush chose only the minimum sanctions
under SALSA. They include a near ban on US exports to Syria other
than food and medicine, and a requirement that US banks sever ties
with the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria.
The hesitation reflects the US dilemma in dealing with Damascus.
On the one hand, Washington wants to punish Syria for its alleged
support of Palestinian radical groups like Hamas and its alleged
failure to stop infiltration of anti-US elements into Iraq. On the
other hand, Syria has cooperated significantly with the United States
against al-Qaida.
Analysts say the long-threatened sanctions will not affect the economy
directly because sanctions of sorts have been in place for years
because Syria is on the US ‘black list’ of states sponsoring
terrorism. Trade between the US and Syria is a modest $300 million
a year, but several US companies are developing Syria’s oil
and gas sectors.
Bush did not ban US investments in Syria. Between 300 and 400 US
companies have representative offices in Syria, according to the
US embassy in Damascus. These include IT firms such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard,
Dell and Compaq.
Syria now markets all of its crude oil, including that produced
by foreign companies, through state marketing company Sytrol. This
company has a 25 percent stake in a Petro-Canada led proposal to
develop natural gas in Syria that also involves several US companies.
“It will be more psychological,” Syrian economic expert
Nabil Sukkar told IPS. But he acknowledged that “the sanctions
could scare off some companies and have a negative impact on the
inflow of investments at a time when Syria has launched an economic
modernization program.”
There is little trade that could be affected. Only one percent of
Syrian exports go to the United States compared to almost 60 percent
to the European Union (EU). Only five percent of imports are from
the United States, says Sukkar.
Europeans could be looking at new business opportunities because
of the sanctions. Spain has invited President Bashar Assad early
June, and a high-level EU trade delegation will travel to Syria
this weekend to improve cooperation in exporting oil and gas to
Europe.
“First, the sanctions are unjust and unjustified,” said
information minister Ahmad Al-Hassan. “Second, they will have
little effect on our country, because we do not have strong trade
relations with the United States. Still, we will try to make agreements
with European, Japanese and Asian companies and reinforce our relationships
with them.”
The 22-member Arab League has said the embargo would only harden
Arab opinion against the United States. The organization said in
a statement that the sanctions would “add to the sour feelings
in the region and will raise more questions among Arab people”
about US plans for the region.
“At least the situation is clearer now and we know what to
expect,” said a Damascus businessman dealing extensively with
US companies. “At present, the sanctions impact Syria much
more politically than economically, placing it in the enemy camp.”
The sanctions under SALSA also provide for a ban on non-existent
Syrian flights to the United States except those chartered by the
Syrian government for official business. Diplomatic ties remain
intact.
A defiant President Bashar Assad has said he would not bow to US
demands to expel Palestinian militant groups. He refuted charges
by the Bush administration that his country has weapons of mass
destruction and is allowing foreign fighters to move across the
border into Iraq.
In a 90-minute meeting with US editors following the sanctions order,
Assad recognized his country would eventually need US help in winning
back territory Syria lost to Israel in the 1967 Mideast war.
“Of course, we cannot abandon our occupied lands and the United
States has an important role,” Assad said. But he pointed out
that this was not a priority for the United States.
“The sanctions would hurt American interests more than the
Syrian interests,” Mohammed Aziz Shukri, professor of international
law at Damascus University told IPS. “Frankly speaking, we
couldn’t care less about these sanctions. We are expecting
the worst from this administration — we expect more than the
sanctions.”
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