back to top

Palestine facing expansion of Israeli occupation

Compiled by Liz Allen

Aug. 11 (AGR) — Israel reopened the crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip on Aug. 6, allowing 4,000 Palestinians to return home, three weeks after they were stranded on the wrong side of the border.

The Israeli army closed the Rafah entry point, which is the only route Gazans can take to leave or re-enter the strip, with an army spokesperson claiming that the terminal was closed because militants were planning to tunnel under it and blow it up.

However, no tunnel was found.

Many of the Palestinians stranded in Egypt were returning from medical treatment and were forced to camp in tents or sleep on the floors of the terminal.

The announcement of the reopening coincided with a meeting between the Middle East envoy for the US national security agency, Eliot Abrams, and the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon. Abrams is believed to have added his voice to international criticism of Israel’s closure of the border, which Palestinians see as another act of collective punishment unrelated to security issues.

Also, on Aug. 2 Israeli occupation troops shot dead four Palestinians, including an elderly woman in Gaza in two separate attacks. The first attack was on the Khan Yunis refugee camp where tanks and helicopters fired into the camp. The second attack occurred in the northern part of Gaza, when Israeli forces gunned down three Palestinians they alleged were approaching a Jewish settlement.

What remains in Beit Hanoun

The Palestinians of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip began to count the cost of a month-long Israeli invasion as Israeli troops pulled out on Aug. 5.

More than 42,000 olive, citrus and date trees had been uprooted, according to the local council. Altogether, 4,405 acres of orchards, vineyards and vegetable fields were flattened.

Officials accused the army of demolishing 21 houses and damaging a further 314. Five factories and 19 wells were also destroyed. They said the loss could reach as high as $128 million.

The Israelis said they went in to stop Hamas militants firing rockets at Sderot, a town of 24,000 across the border inside Israel.

The Israeli media reported Aug. 5 that Mousa Arafat, the Palestinian security chief, had met secretly with his Israeli counter-part to try to stop the firings. But the people of Beit Hanoun have lost faith in their leaders.

Three Palestinian ministers set up a tent there yesterday to assess the damage but were ordered to leave by five gunmen. “We didn’t see you when the Israeli army was destroying Beit Hanoun,” one of them shouted through a megaphone. “Go away. We don’t want you here.” As the locals applauded, the ministers left.

Plans halted, plans proposed

On Aug. 9 Sharon halted plans to build more than 1,000 new homes in West Bank settlements.

The Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, reported that the halt may be a temporary one, while the expansion plans are re-examined.

Haaretz also stated that Sharon wanted to review the location of new houses to ensure they were in existing built-up areas.

Under international law, all settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are considered illegal, though Israel disputes this.

Haaretz also cited a government source as saying this would meet a deal with the US that settlement growth would be frozen, as stated in the “roadmap” peace plan.

On Aug. 6 Israel announced plans for thousands of homes in a new settlement near Jerusalem. The proposed settlement, on 3,750 acres of West Bank land, would be sited between Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim and provide a bridge between them.

The settlement would ring Palestinian east Jerusalem, making it impossible for east Jerusalem to be the capital of a Palestinian state.

Dror Etkes, the director of Settlement Watch, a group which monitors settlement activity, said there were “massive infrastructure works” between Ma’ale Adumim and Jerusalem, and to the east of Ma’ale Adumim.

Palestinian suffering

Some two million Palestinians were living on less than 2.1 euro a day, a poverty rate of 63 percent, in mid-2003, according to a United Nations report released July 30. ESCWA said the World Bank had described the recession in the Palestinian territories as “one of the worst in modern history.”

“Most economic and social data show marked deterioration of living conditions for the Palestinian people, including new forms of dispossession and destruction of private and public assets of all kinds.”

Israel has occupied the West Bank and Gaza since 1967. ESCWA said Israel’s extra-judicial killings or attempts killed 349 Palestinians between October 2000 and March 2004, including 137 bystanders.

Between December 2002 and December 2003 ESCWA said 785 Palestinians were killed and 5,130 injuries recorded. Since September 2000, 512 Palestinian children were killed. ESCWA said 946 Israelis had been killed or injured since September 2000.

“The sustainable option for addressing the current economic and social deprivation lies in lifting the occupation of the Palestinian territory, as well as the Syrian Golan.”

Sources: Al-Jazeera, BBC, Guardian (UK), Independent (UK), Reuters

back to top

Attacks continue in Sudan

Compiled by Willy Rosencrans

Aug. 11 (AGR) — Sudan has continued its denials that genocide is taking place against black communities in Darfur; on Aug. 9 the European Union (EU) agreed. Well-documented attacks on villages by both government forces and the Janjaweed, or Arab horseback militia, are ongoing, however, and conditions for the country’s 1.2 million estimated refugees are worsening as the civil war rages between government and rebel armies; an estimated 50,000 have already been killed.

The EU’s Pieter Feith, returning from western Sudan, said on Aug. 9 that “it is clear there is widespread, silent and slow killing going on, and village burning of a fairly large scale,” but this did not amount to genocide.

That same day the Sudanese foreign minister said: “The maximum of our estimation for those who died until now doesn’t exceed 5,000... Those who say 30,000 or 50,000 [as reported by the UN], we challenge them to get us their names, their tribes, and their graves where they are buried.”

Meanwhile, Sudan has carried out fresh helicopter attacks in Darfur while militia forces attacked refugees trying to escape, the UN said.

“Fresh violence today [Aug. 10] included helicopter gunship bombings by the Sudanese government and Janjaweed attacks in South Darfur. The violence has already led to more displacement,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. “Janjaweed attacks on internally displaced persons in and around IDP settlements continue to be reported in all three Darfur states.”

Civilians have previously said Sudan used helicopters and other military aircraft to attack villages in Darfur.

And, in a new report titled “Empty Promises: Continuing Abuses in Darfur, Sudan,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that instead of disarming the Janjaweed militias in accordance with a July 30 UN resolution, Khartoum had begun incorporating them into police and other security forces that could be used to secure proposed “safe areas” for displaced civilians.

“The Sudanese government insists that it is taking significant measures, but the continuing atrocities in Darfur prove that Khartoum’s claims simply aren’t credible,” HRW’s Peter Takirambudde said. “If the government were serious about wanting to protect civilians, it would welcome a greater international presence.”

“Incorporating the Janjaweed militias into the security services and then deploying them to protect civilian ‘safe areas’ is the height of absurdity,” Takirambudde said. “In many rural areas and small towns in Darfur, government forces and the Janjaweed militias continue to routinely rape and assault women and girls when they leave the periphery of the camps and towns.”

It cited an incident in July when a group of women and girls were stopped at a Janjaweed militia checkpoint in West Darfur. According to HRW, the militia told them that “the country belonged to the Arabs now and, as they were there without permission, they would be punished.” All the women were then beaten, and six girls aged 13 to 16 raped, the report said.

Meanwhile, human rights group Amnesty International (AI) said civilians in Darfur are being routinely imprisoned or harassed by Sudanese authorities for talking to foreigners, including US Secretary of State Colin Powell and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, about the conflict in the remote western area bordering Chad.

One woman said she was imprisoned several times and routinely harassed after she translated for a recent visiting group of foreign diplomats.

“Nineteen security officers jumped down from two trucks and threatened me with weapons,” said the woman, who was too frightened to give her name. “They took me back to the headquarters and threatened me saying that they had scorpions and snakes and accusing me of mistranslating for the diplomats.”

AI counted at least 50 people arrested, including 15 men detained after Powell’s June 30 visit; the authorities have also detained tribal leaders who had warned villagers not to return to their villages until it was safe.

International condemnation prompted Sudan to sign a “Plan of Action for Darfur” with the United Nations. The plan gives Sudan 30 days to set up safe areas in the existing refugee camps and densely populated towns in Darfur so that civilians can get food and water and resume farming without fear of attack.

Under the plan, safety areas will be linked by security corridors. Sudanese police will set up fortifications and checkpoints around the areas; there was no mention in the plan of police being recruited from the Janjaweed. Both rebels and government forces are to cease military activity, according to the plan.

The African Union (AU) said on Aug. 8 that rebels and the government had agreed to talks mediated by Nigerian president on Aug. 23 to find a political solution to end the conflict.

But both groups, the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), said on Aug. 10 that they had told the AU they wanted to participate in deciding the time and place of negotiations but had not been consulted.

“Generally we have no objections to Nigeria because it was we who suggested Nigeria originally,” a JEM spokesman said. “But the procedure they have done is not the right way.”

Sudan is also pressuring refugees to return to their villages by disbanding camps because crowding is creating ideal conditions for outbreaks of cholera and other diseases. The Kalma refugee camp, for example, shelters an estimated 100,000 people in crude shacks of canvas, clothing, sticks and leaves; two weeks ago there were only 26,000. When the rains come, Kalma and other camps will become swamps of human and animal excrement. Refugees, especially children, are already at increased risk of disease due to malnutrition.

Kalma is at least receiving some little aid from international agencies, which face near-impossible hurdles in accessing the camps with food and medical supplies. In other camps, such as Otash, where 45,000 men, women, and children are gathered, the Sudanese government has banned such aid in its effort to drive refugees back to what is left of their homes.

70-year-old Hamid Mohammed, blind and starving, cared for by his wife, sat in their shelter fingering a frayed photograph of their family. Both their sons have been killed; their daughter is far away with her husband.

“I cannot see them,” he said, “but I can feel their faces. I’m glad they’re not here. This is a cursed place.”

Sources: Agence-France Presse, AP, Guardian (UK), Human Rights Watch, Independent (UK), Integrated Regional Information Network, Reuters, Xinhua

back to top

World Bank still says yes to oil, gas projects

By Jim Lobe

Washington, DC, Aug. 4 (IPS)— After a longer-than-expected meeting Aug. 3, the executive board of the World Bank Group (WBG) gave general approval to a management plan to continue investing in oil, gas, and mining projects despite the recommendations of an independent review.

The Extractive Industries Review (EIR) commissioned by the World Bank in 2000, was headed by Emil Salim, the former Indonesian environment minister. It called for an immediate halt to WBG’s support for coal projects and a four-year phase-out of its lending for oil projects in poor countries.

On Aug. 3, the WBG’s 24 executive directors, representing the Bank’s 184 member-countries, agreed to a management response to the EIR pending a further “refine[ment]” of some provisions bearing on several issues, including poverty reduction and local participation in mining and energy-related projects, according to a Bank statement issued after the meeting.

Most important, however, the board backed up the management’s determination to continue investing in oil, gas, and mining projects in developing nations while only gradually increasing its portfolio for renewable-energy and energy-efficiency projects which the EIR had recommended be increased by as much as $500 million a year.

“The harsh reality is that some 1.6 billion people in the developing nations still do not have electricity, and some 2.3 billion people still depend on biomass fuels that are harmful to their health and the environment,” Bank president James Wolfensohn told reporters after the meeting.

“That underscores the need for our continued but selective engagement in oil, gas, and coal investments,” he stressed, noting that the Bank will give greater emphasis in its lending to extractive industries on how these projects can more effectively reduce poverty.

He also announced that the WBG will review with the board on an annual basis, progress it is making toward several goals in its extractive industry portfolio, including poverty reduction, improved governance and increased transparency in host countries.

The World Bank chief promised greater participation by local communities in the design and implementation of future projects, and increases in lending for renewable-energy and energy-efficiency projects by about 20 percent annually over the next five years.

Reaction from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), particularly those that had favored the original EIR recommendations, are sharply negative.

They hit out at the vagueness with which the management’s plan had treated the issue of poverty reduction which is supposed to be the WBG’s core mission.

“By largely ignoring the [EIR’s] recommendations, the Bank’s management has ensured that the poverty pipeline will continue to flow,” Keith Slack, Oxfam’s Extractive Industries policy advisor told IPS.

“The Bank’s unwillingness to change means that this process will likely result in precious little for the poor communities affected by oil and mining projects around the world. Despite its mandate to reduce poverty, the Bank has been unable to demonstrate that its extractive projects have actually done this,” he pointed out.

The reaction from environmental groups was much the same.

“The World Bank has ignored the EIR recommendations and endorsed business as usual,” said Jon Sohn of Friends of the Earth (FoE). “The EIR called for an ‘extreme energy makeover,’ but the Bank has opted for a cheap pedicure. It has missed a historic opportunity to bring its lending more in line with its mission to alleviate poverty.”

Launched three years ago, the EIR was designed to address a series of questions about the generally poor record that extractive industries have compiled in many developing countries.

NGOs had also become increasingly concerned about the environmental impacts of such projects both locally and in their contribution to global warming which, according most scientists, is accelerated by emissions from fossil fuels, particularly oil, coal and gas.

The WBG — which includes the World Bank: its soft-loan affiliate, the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which provides loans and other support to the private sector, and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) — has long been a major backer of extractive-industry projects in developing countries.

While it has provided on average only about $1 billion a year in lending to that sector over the past decade, its backing for such projects — through co-financing, advisory services, or in surance or other guarantees — still acts as a powerful magnet for private capital that would otherwise be reluctant to invest.

After three years of wide-ranging consultations with civil society, local communities, extractive-industry executives, governments, and Bank staff, the EIR commission headed by Salim issued an unexpectedly sweeping and critical report that urged the WBG to get out of the coal business, phase out its involvement in oil-related projects by 2008, impose tight social and environmental conditions on mining projects, and increase lending for renewable-energy and energy-efficiency projects manifold.

These recommendations were greeted with enthusiasm by environmental, human rights, and development NGOs, but with undisguised horror from big oil and mining companies, and the private banks that underwrite their projects. Developing-country governments, particularly those that rely on extractive industries as a major source of export earnings, also expressed strong reservations.

Responding to the EIR in June, WBG management thanked Salim and his colleagues for their work and rejected the most sweeping proposals. Instead, it said it would pursue a “more selective” approach to extractive projects that would put greater emphasis on reducing poverty and promoting project transparency. It was that response that the executive board endorsed Aug. 3.

For one EIR consultant who asked to remain anonymous, the WBG’s reaction was all too typical of its approach to other outside reviews.

“The Bank has really developed to an art form high-minded ways of saying that the [EIR’s] conclusions are misguided; everything is this way for a reason, and much as we all want a better world, we are already doing about as much as can reasonably be expected,” he said, adding that the Bank’s past record, particularly in reducing poverty, invited skepticism about its ability to follow through.

“The surprising thing is that while there has been a lot of big talk about how these industries do or don’t reduce poverty, the Bank has, until very recently, done almost nothing to find out the answer, at least in any rigorous or objective way.”