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US-backed warlords big threat to Afghan
elections
By Jim Lobe
Washington, DC, Sept. 30 (IPS) — Insufficient security
forces and a lack of election observers, combined with regional warlords
backed by the United States, continue to threaten the upcoming presidential
election in Afghanistan, says a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Local citizens feel the warlords pose a greater threat to their safety
than forces of the former ruling Taliban, which was ousted by US soldiers
after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, adds the report
by the US-based group.
Remnants of the Taliban, which harbored the al-Qaida terrorists who
committed the US attacks, have remained in hiding in Afghanistan’s
remote mountainous regions and recently carried out a number of deadly
attacks.
The 52-page HRW report, ‘The Rule of the Gun: Human Rights Abuses
and Political Repression in the Run-Up to Afghanistan’s Presidential
Election,’ says the international community, and countries of NATO
(the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in particular, should vastly
increase the number of troops in Afghanistan to ensure security for
the elections.
It also complains that there are far too few international observers
to monitor polls and give confidence to voters that their ballots will
be secret than are needed.
“Amazingly, because of the inadequate forces, current security
plans for the presidential election include the use of deputized warlords
of factional forces to guard polling stations — the very people
Afghans say they’re most afraid of,” the report noted, adding
that US officials closely involved with election preparations “appear
to be complacent,” believing “democracy is now on the horizon.”
It adds that continuing human rights abuses are fuelling a pervasive
atmosphere of repression and fear in many parts of the country, and
that voters in many regions do not appear to understand the ballot or
have faith in its secrecy, particularly in the face of pressure from
militia factions.
“The warlords are still calling the shots,” said Brad Adams,
HRW’s Asia director. “Many voters in rural areas say the militias
have already told them how to vote, and that they’re afraid of
disobeying them. Activists and political organizers who oppose the warlords
fear for their lives,” he added in the report.
The document, which was released just nine days before the election,
echoes many of the same complaints and concerns voiced by a number of
other human rights, development and women’s groups in recent weeks.
The main contenders in the election feature the favorite of the administration
of US President George W. Bush, interim Afghan President Hamid Karzai,
his former education and information minister, Yonus Qanooni and a dozen
less competitive figures. Among them are at least three warlords, such
as General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who kicked off his campaign with a giant
rally in his hometown Shibarghan, in the northern, predominantly Uzbek,
part of the country.
US officials have reportedly tried to persuade Qanooni, an ethnic Tajik
from the Panjshir Valley, the stronghold of the Northern Alliance that
led the drive to oust the Taliban, to withdraw and join a new unity
government under Karzai, a member of Afghanistan’s largest ethnic
group, the Pashtuns, who also constitute the ethnic base of the Taliban.
In addition to these efforts, Washington, which has more than 10,000
US troops in the country, is also trying to prevent Taliban forces and
its allies from disrupting the election, especially in the Pashtun regions
of the south and southeast, where they have carried out deadly attacks
aimed at election workers and officials.
While the HRW report agrees the Taliban pose a threat of further violence
in the days leading to the election, voters and political organizers
interviewed by the group across Afghanistan said armed local factions,
many of them supported by Washington and condoned by the Karzai government,
pose the most significant threat to a democratic process.
“The reality is that most Afghans involved in politics on the ground
are primarily afraid of warlords and their factions, much more than
they’re afraid of the Taliban,” said Adams, who, like other
rights activists, has been particularly frustrated by the failure of
the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which is led and
manned primarily by soldiers of the European and North American nations
of NATO, to extend its presence beyond Kabul into the countryside and
other important towns and cities.
“For a long time there has been widespread agreement that elections
cannot be successful unless additional international security forces
are deployed and warlord militias are disarmed. If Afghanistan is a
priority of the international community, where are the troops?”
asked Adams.
Intimidation and control by warlords and the Taliban are not the only
threats to the election’s legitimacy, according to HRW.
Its staff has confirmed several flaws in the voter-registration process,
including multiple registrations. Afghan and UN officials have claimed
that some 10.5 million people have registered, including more than four
million women, but HRW, echoing a recent report by the International
Crisis Group (ICG), has concluded the total is significantly less if
the multiple registrations are subtracted.
Factions have used force, intimidation and deception to collect thousands
of voting cards from civilians, according to the report, which concluded
that tens of thousands of women were induced to register more than once
after being told the cards entitled them to certain benefits, such as
food rations.
Warlords have also used intimidation and harassment against Afghan journalists
and potential candidates for next year’s parliamentary and local
elections.
The report applauded Karzai’s recent sidelining of some warlords,
most significantly, Ismail Khan, the governor of the western city of
Herat. But it called for the president and his government to intensify
such efforts and refrain from any deal making that could further entrench
warlord rule.
Washington and NATO should increase cooperation with ISAF and expand
troops levels to ensure security throughout the country, according to
the report, which said the United States in particular should clarify
its strategy in Afghanistan to make the protection of human rights its
primary goal.
“The current strategy of supporting both the central government
and regional and local warlords who resist accountability to Kabul undermines
the creation of democratic institutions and the rule of law,” according
to the report, which added that Washington must stop supporting abusive
faction leaders.
A long wait for justice for victims of
violence
By Yensi Rivero
Caracas, Venezuela, Sept. 30 (IPS) — Almost every day this
month, 22-year-old Linda López has appeared before the TV cameras
and newspaper photographers, showing all of Venezuela her disfigured
face, her missing lower lip, the gap where several of her teeth were
knocked out.
López was found in a near coma in a Caracas apartment three years
ago. She had come to the capital from the countryside, looking for a
better life. Instead, she became a tragically eloquent symbol for a
troubling statistic: 74.5 percent of Venezuelan women between the ages
of 20 and 40 suffer some form of gender-based violence, according to
reports from non-governmental organizations.
Today, three years later, Linda is back in the news. She is staging
a hunger strike outside the Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice to demand
a speedier trial against the man accused of victimizing her, Luis Carrera
Almoina, who is facing charges of rape, torture, kidnapping and attempted
murder.
“Linda’s case is emblematic, but there have been many other
occasions when battered women have been presented to the public to raise
awareness in the fight against violence against women,” IPS was
told by Magdalena Valdivieso, director of the Centre for Women’s
Studies (CEM) at Central University.
López was found bound and gagged on Aug. 19, 2001 in an apartment
owned by Almoina, after being held there against her will for four months.
In addition to the bruises, cuts and burns covering her body, she suffered
multiple internal injuries after being repeatedly raped and beaten by
her aggressor. She has undergone surgery nine times already, and still
needs several more operations.
As well as being a particularly extreme example, López’s
case is one of the very few that have actually gone to court, according
to state agencies and NGOs, because most women do not dare to report
the abuse they suffer.
Reports from the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) estimate that
one in every three women in the world is a victim of gender-based violence,
while one in four is subject to some form of sexual aggression by her
partner, according to Mary Peñuela of the Venezuelan state-run
National Women’s Institute (Inamujer).
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that around the world, gender-based
violence results in more death and disability among women aged 15-44
years than cancer, malaria, traffic injuries and war combined. Seventy
percent of female murder victims are killed by their husbands or partners.
In 2003, there were 8,520 cases of violence against women reported in
Venezuela. Of that total, 42.75 percent were cases of psychological
violence, while 37.61 percent corresponded to physical abuse, according
to a CEM report. “However, these different forms of violence are
often combined,” noted Gioconda Espina, a researcher at the center.
“Sometimes psychological abuse is discovered when women are in
therapy for other reasons,” Espina commented to IPS.
Rosmary, a 40-year-old cleaning woman, is a prime example of the way
that violence has almost come to be viewed as “normal” in
Venezuela.
“My husband would never dare to hit me again,” she told IPS.
“One time we were fighting because I hadn’t ironed his pants,
and he kicked me. So I turned around and slapped him in the face, but
I accidentally hit my little girl too, because he was holding her. But
anyway, I’m still with him, because I don’t think it was something
worth breaking up over.”
Much more serious incidents have come to light as a result of the publicity
given to López’s case. Earlier this month, in a shantytown
on the outskirts of Caracas, a man doused his wife with gasoline and
set her on fire, causing severe burns to her chest, throat and face.
The woman only reported the attack because she felt her life was in
danger.
“In the majority of cases we have seen, women only report abuse
when they have suffered really serious injuries, or when it has become
a matter of saving their lives,” Espina explained.
While violence against women is not limited to domestic violence, in
79 percent of the cases reported in Venezuela, the abuse has been committed
by the victim’s husband or partner.
“My husband always kept a sharpened machete close by, and threatened
to kill me if I tried to leave him,” reported a middle-aged woman
introduced to IPS by Inamujer.
Violence against women is not limited to any one socio-economic class.
“There are victims of violence in all social strata and professions,
from doctors and members of the military to women with no education
at all. Some of them are from the upper social classes and don’t
want to leave their husbands because they don’t want to lose the
social status or economic security they get from the marriage,”
explained Marisol De La Rosa, a specialist in gender-based violence.
At the same time, however, conditions of extreme poverty can often serve
to “trigger” violence, as can alcohol abuse and unemployment.
“But the underlying problem is cultural,” De La Rosa told
IPS.
As for the men who perpetrate the violence, studies conducted by the
CEM reveal that in 74.7 percent of cases they are between the ages of
25 and 55 and have at least a primary school education, although 61
percent have not completed secondary school.
Women’s rights organiations have seen an increase in the number
of charges filed against men for domestic violence.
“We don’t know if there has been an increase in domestic violence,
but there has definitely been an increase in the number of women who
report the abuse. Women are clearly becoming more aware of their rights,”
Valdivieso noted.
Unfortunately, even when abused women do press charges, they still face
tremendous legal obstacles, something that has been amply illustrated
in the case of Linda López.
“Linda’s case has demonstrated the serious shortcomings of
the justice system and the laws,” said Valdivieso, who cited the
example of “precautionary measures.”
These measures, which are established in the country’s domestic
and family violence law, are essentially restraining orders issued by
the court to protect victims of abuse.
One year ago, however, the attorney general petitioned to have these
measures eliminated, allegedly based on the need “to respect the
presumption of innocence and prevent the violation of the right to defense”
of the accused.
“We have called on the Supreme Court to urgently adopt a decision
that is favorable to women, because without precautionary measures,
things will become even worse” for the victims, stressed Valdivieso.
According to De La Rosa, “The one positive thing that has come
out of all of this is that all the different organizations are finally
joining forces and working together, like in other countries.”
In the meantime, Linda López continues to wait for the courts
to bring her alleged attacker to justice, without further delays.
September a bloody month for US troops
in Iraq
Compiled by Patrick Byrne
Oct. 6 (AGR) -- September was one of the deadliest months
for US troops in the 18-month-old war in Iraq, and the death toll
for the first time has risen four straight months. At least 76 US
troops were killed this month, reflecting a steady increase in US
deaths since the United States transferred sovereignty to the interim
Iraqi government headed by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi on June 28,
officially ending the occupation. Forty-two US troops were killed
in June, 54 in July and 66 in August.
Two powerful car bombs have killed at least 16 people and injured
dozens more in Baghdad. In the first blast, a car blew up near the
entrance to the heavily fortified Green Zone, close to an Iraqi security
forces recruitment post, killing at least 10 people and wounding 70.
The second exploded as a US military convoy was passing along a main
road on the east side of the Tigris river. At least four people were
killed and a dozen wounded.
The most bloody attack in Baghdad was a double bomb attack on a US
convoy. “Initial reports is that it was a multiple vehicle-borne
improvised explosive device attack in the same vicinity of western
Baghdad,” said Col. Jim Hutton of the US 1st Cavalry Division.
A policeman at the scene said he had counted at least 33 bodies and
said about 50 people were wounded.
In Abu Ghraib, a car bomber drove into a US military checkpoint near
the mayor’s office and a police station. A doctor spoke of 60
people injured.
Elsewhere on the outskirts of Baghdad, insurgents fired a rocket Sept.
30 at a logistical support area for coalition forces, killing one
soldier and wounding seven.
In the southern city of Basra, a British military convoy came under
attack, leaving two soldiers dead. The deaths bring the tally of British
soldiers killed in combat in Iraq to 25. At least two Iraqi bystanders
were also injured in the attack.
US forces launched a series of strikes in Fallujah this week, killing
15 Iraqis and wounding 25 others in what US military authorities are
calling a precision strike targeting a house being used by followers
of Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to plan attacks against US-led forces.
“Significant secondary explosions were observed during the impact
indicating a large cache of illegal ordinance was stored in the safe
house,” the statement said. Witnesses said two houses were flattened
and four others damaged in the strike. At least four Iraqis were killed
-- including two women and one child -- and eight wounded. Two more
people, a man and his wife, were killed and two injured when a tank
opened fire at a house in the city’s southern suburbs. The army
has been at pains to discredit consistent reports from doctors and
residents that women and children have been killed or wounded in repeated
air strikes on Fallujah in recent weeks. “The last bombing targeted
a residential area and casualties were all civilians,” said Mahmud
al-Jarisi, Fallujah city commissioner.
US ground forces have not entered Fallujah since April. Residents
say US tactics have made enemies of people in Fallujah, tracing the
town’s animosity toward US forces to April 2003, when US troops
shot dead at least 13 unarmed protesters.
“I supported the arrival of the US forces in the hope that we
would live in freedom and prosperity,” one Falluja rebel said.
“I have never regretted anything in my life as much as I regret
welcoming the Americans.” He says he joined the insurgency after
US forces detained him without charge for four months in Abu Ghraib.
Meanwhile, fresh strikes have been launched on the Baghdad suburb
of Sadr City, a Shiite Muslim-dominated area in the eastern part of
the capital. On Oct. 4, up to five people were killed and 46 wounded
when US warplanes bombed parts of the suburb.
Elsewhere, US and Iraqi government forces said on Sunday they had
secured about 70 percent of the city of Samarra, after a two-day assault
in which more than 125 insurgents had been killed and 88 detained.
In one of the biggest operations since the invasion of Iraq, 3,000
US troops fought their way into the city, opening the way for 2,000
Iraqi soldiers. The US insisted that the estimated 125 people killed
in the storming of the city were all insurgents. Doctors and local
people reported women, children and the elderly among the dead. Of
the 70 dead brought to Samarra General Hospital since fighting erupted,
23 were children and 18 were women. An Iraqi minister said 37 insurgents
had been captured in the assault. One US soldier was killed and four
wounded.
Reports say residents of Samarra are too afraid to venture out. Witnesses
in the center of the city have spoken of American snipers shooting
at anyone who appeared on the streets. With roads to cemeteries blocked
off, many are being buried in their front yards. Some residents left
Samarra Sunday by floating down the Tigris River, waving white flags
from boats.
Iraq’s interim government continued to focus largely on the military
success, saying that the offensive that returned Samarra to government
control could be repeated in other cities where insurgents have operated
with virtual impunity. Iraqi government and US forces declared that
they had “pacified” the rebel stronghold of Samarra, and
stated that other “no-go” enclaves such as Fallujah would
be recaptured before national elections due in January.
But a leading Sunni Muslim religious group blasted the Samarra operation
calling it a “massacre” and warned the interim government
that its US-influenced strategy will plunge the country into more
chaos.
“Who is going to respect elections paved by the blood of Iraqis
and built on their skulls?” asked Sheikh Mohammed Bashar al-Faidi,
spokesman for the respected Committee of Muslim Scholars.
There also appeared to have been discord over the military action
between members of the US-sponsored Iraqi interim government. The
Interior Minister, Falah Naqib, echoed the American line that no civilians
had been killed and only “bad guys and terrorists” had suffered.
Local people in Samarra claimed that many of the insurgents the Americans
were targeting had escaped before the attack, and civilians had borne
the brunt of the casualties. Of 70 bodies brought into Samarra General
Hospital, 23 were children and 18 women, said Abdul-Nasser Hamed Yassin,
a hospital administrator.
Governor Hamed Hamud al-Qaissy warned on Sept. 30 that new fighting
risked plunging surrounding towns into violence. Qaissy had said that
local Iraqi officials were close to brokering a US return to Samarra,
while the leader of a Samarra political association was also stunned
by the offensive. “We were in talks with Prime Minister Iyad
Allawi about the situation in Samarra including reaching an agreement
to allow Iraqi forces to enter the city. We were surprised by this
military offensive.”
Although US military operations supposedly are coordinated with Iraqi
leaders, the US’s increasing reliance on air attacks drew criticism
Sept. 28 from the US-backed interim Iraqi president. Drawing a parallel
between US tactics in Iraq and Israeli actions in the Palestinian
territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, President Ghazi Ajil
Yawer said the US strikes were viewed by the Iraqi people as “collective
punishment” against towns and neighborhoods.
Sources: Al-Jazeera, Associated Press,
BBC, Independent (UK), LA Times, Washington Post
Soaring oil prices line pockets or
force belt tightening in Latin America
By Humberto Márquez
Caracas, Venezuela, Oct. 1 (IPS) — Soaring oil prices,
reaching $50 a barrel, are lining the pockets of several countries
in Latin America and the Caribbean, forcing others to tighten their
belts — and reminding everyone that regional energy integration
remains a distant dream.
Venezuela, the world’s fifth largest oil exporter with sales
of between two and 2.5 million barrels per day, will take in extra
revenues of at least $5.5 billion this year. But in Central America,
“the high price of oil is destroying our economies,” Salvadoran
President Tony Saca recently complained.
The Venezuelan and Salvadoran situations illustrate the radically
different impact of the skyrocketing international price of oil on
net energy exporters and importers, an imbalance that Latin America
and the Caribbean have few mechanisms to correct.
The present crisis “is an opportunity to revive accords aimed
at energy integration, which should start with alliances between the
region’s oil companies and a shoring up of the badly weakened
Latin American Energy Organization,” Francisco Mieres, with the
Central University graduate program of studies on the oil economy,
told IPS.
Throughout the region, national budgets, stock market activity, production
costs, inflation, consumption, employment and gross domestic product
growth have all been affected by oil prices that are twice as high
as they were a year ago.
Mexico, the world’s eighth biggest oil producer, which depends
on petroleum for one-third of its export revenues, has already been
able to transfer $1.2 billion in funds to state governments based
on windfall oil profits, since its exports are fetching $40 a barrel.
(On the other hand, the cost of Mexico’s imports of natural gas
from the United States is also steadily increasing.)
Central American, Caribbean countries rely on trade pacts to offset
oil crisis
But worries about the future and the long-term outlook are a luxury
that the governments of Central America and the Caribbean cannot afford
to entertain, because they are too busy focusing on survival and emergency
measures like energy rationing, the closure of offices and factories,
fuel price hikes and restrictions on the use of air conditioners and
official cars.
Companies in Nicaragua fear a drop in consumption levels, businesses
in Honduras are worried about rising costs for the factories in their
maquiladora industries — duty-free zones for the assembly of
exports, and companies in the Dominican Republic are anxious about
a drop in the flow of tourists due to power outages and the higher
cost of airline tickets, which have been driven up by the rise in
fuel prices.
In Cuba, whose thermoelectric plants run on extra heavy national crude,
the government announced scheduled blackouts of up to six hours a
day in Havana and other cities, restrictions on running air conditioners,
and the temporary closure of 118 factories.
The price of gasoline rose this week in Panama to $2.33 per gallon,
as costly as the most expensive gasoline in the United States.
Since 1980, 10 countries of Central America and the Caribbean have
benefited from the San Jose Pact, through which Mexico and Venezuela
sell them a total of 160,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil, divided
in equal parts. The countries enjoy preferential payment facilities,
as well as the possibility of recuperating up to 20 percent of what
they spend on oil through the Pact in the form of long-term loans
for development projects. Algeria and Libya, two of Venezuela’s
partners in OPEC, have similar schemes through which they supply oil
to their neighbors in Africa.
Three years ago, Venezuela also created the Caracas Accord to export
80,000 bpd of oil on preferential terms to Caribbean nations, mainly
Cuba, which receives 53,000 bpd through that mechanism.
South America: alliance urged to strengthen region’s global
position
In South America, the high oil prices have had the heaviest impact
on non-oil producing nations like Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
The price of gasoline in Chile, which stands at 90 cents a liter,
increased three percent over the past week. The retail price of gasoline
in Uruguay averages over a dollar a liter; the government is considering
yet another hike, which would be the fourth so far this year. And
just as Argentina did, Paraguay is seeking to negotiate with Venezuela
an agreement to import 20,000 bpd of gasoil, with payment facilities,
in exchange for exports to Caracas of 300 tons a month of beef, as
well as oil and soybeans.
South America’s giant, Brazil, is riding high, since it produces
1.75 million bpd of oil, which nearly covers domestic demand of 1.85
million bpd. Next year the country should achieve self-sufficiency,
if the state-owned oil company Petrobras continues to find new deposits.
Argentina, meanwhile, produces two times more hydrocarbons than it
consumes.
For the countries of the Andean Community trade bloc — Bolivia,
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela — all of which have major
deposits, the high prices present an opportunity for increased revenues
as well as a chance to inject new life into oil and gas industry investment
projects.
Colombian Energy Minister Luis Mejía urged investors to carry
out prospecting work on land as well as in the new concession areas
off the country’s coast in the Caribbean Sea, citing an “urgent
need to reverse” a problematic situation.
“We are consuming our reserves faster than we can replace them,
and we cannot afford to lose our self-sufficiency,” said Mejía.
Colombia produces 520,000 bpd and consumes around 300,000. But it
would like to extract up to 700,000 bpd to keep up export revenues.
Ecuador, which produces 510,000 bpd, raised its production goal for
January to 527,000, and is negotiating projects that would add another
43,000 bpd. The state oil monopoly Petroecuador will take in a total
of around $4 billion in oil revenues this year. The price of Ecuadorian
crude is close to $30 a barrel, 12 dollars higher than the price on
which the budget was planned.
In Peru, transport unions are upset over probable increases in fuel
prices, and are demanding that President Alejandro Toledo expedite
sales of gas from the Camisea gas fields to bring down the cost of
fuel.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is urging an alliance among
South America’s state-run oil companies that would involve agreements
on exploration, production, marketing and supplies of oil and natural
gas.
On Friday, Venezuela’s oil monopoly PDVSA is opening an office
in Buenos Aires to promote the creation of Petrosur, a projected alliance
that will be favored by Venezuela’s admission to the Southern
Common Market (Mercosur) trade bloc — Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay
and Uruguay — as an associate member.
“But with respect to oil strategy, producer countries, starting
with the members of OPEC, continue to put a priority on their relations
with the consumer nations of the industrialized North and largely
ignore the South,” said Mieres.
Elie Habalián, a former Venezuelan representative to OPEC,
remarked to IPS that “a country like Venezuela should weave oil
alliances with its Latin American neighbors, and reserve a considerable
part of output for the markets of Latin America.”
“Any integration project in Latin America aimed at overcoming
poverty and advancing development requires energy. And self-sufficiency
is perfectly possible for the region,” said Habalián.
How Cheney’s firm routed $132
million to Nigeria
By Solomon Hughes and Jason Nisse
Oct. 3 — A lawyer, based in offices in a run-down part
of north London, worked with three British executives from the US
construction group Halliburton to pay at least $132 million in “unjustified”
fees to contacts in Nigeria.
These payments, many of which occurred when Halliburton was being
run by Dick Cheney, now the American Vice-President, helped a consortium
including the US group to win a $12 billion contract to build a gas
terminal at Bonny Island in Nigeria.
In court documents submitted to a French corruption investigation,
Halliburton has admitted it paid $132 million to Jeffrey Tesler, a
UK lawyer. Tesler’s firm, Kaye Tesler, is based on a run down
high street in Tottenham, north London.
Tesler would not return calls but his French solicitor admits Tesler
received the money, which he said was for advisory and other legitimate
fees.
The construction of the Nigerian plant was carried out by a consortium
called TSKJ, made up of Technip of France, Snamprogetti of Italy,
Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root and the Japan Gas
Corporation. After an internal investigation, Halliburton submitted
notes of meetings to the French judge showing that Tesler was reappointed
by the consortium in 1999 at Halliburton’s insistence.
Richard Northmore, a sales manager for MW Kellogg, a Halliburton subsidiary
based in Greenford, Middlesex, England signed contracts with Tesler
for the consortium, according to testimony seen by The Independent
on Sunday. Syed Nasser, MW Kellogg’s legal director, also acted
as counsel to the TSKJ consortium, approving Tesler’s role. Bhaskar
Patel, a sales and marketing vice-president who works in the Leatherhead
office of Kellogg Brown & Root, also worked with Tesler. Northmore
and Nasser referred inquiries to Halliburton in the US. Patel, who
is understood to be an Africa expert, did not return calls.
A Halliburton spokesman confirmed that staff at Kellogg had been in
contact with Tesler. “The members from TSKJ unanimously approved
of Tesler,” she said. “The appointment could have been blocked
by one of the members refusing to sign the minutes, and clearly this
did not happen.”
Evidence given by Halliburton to the French inquiry reveals that between
1996 and the present day, it paid $132.3 million to Tesler, more than
half of which came after 1999. A letter from French investigators
to the Nigerian authorities, asking for co-operation in the case,
says that Tesler’s commissions “appear completely unjustified.”
For its part, Halliburton has fired one senior executive, Jack Stanley,
who it said received improper payments from Tesler. Stanley had been
appointed to his senior role at Halliburton by Cheney when he was
chief executive between 1995 and 2000.
Revelations about the central role of Halliburton in the deal may
force the UK’s Export Credit Guarantee Department to withdraw
its support from a £133m loan made last year to MW Kellogg.
ECGD said it supported the loan on the basis that it was a “subcontractor
to the consortium and financial arrangements were not their responsibility,”
but it was maintaining a “watching brief” on the French
investigation.
Susan Hawley of the Corner House, a development watchdog critical
of the ECGD’s attitude to corruption, said: “If the ECGD
was serious about stopping corruption, it would by now have demanded
a full explanation from MW Kellogg as to its involvement in this case,
and conducted an audit of its books.”
Source: Independent (UK)
Briton claims he witnessed troops
kill Afghan prisoners
Compiled by John Lapp
Oct 6. (AGR) — A Briton being held at Guantanamo Bay
saw US military interrogators kill two detainees at a US base in
Afghanistan, he said in a letter, details of which were being released
by his lawyers earlier this week.
Moazzam Begg made the claim in an uncensored letter that was released
to his legal team by US officials -- something his lawyers have
described as an “oddity”.
Begg is one of four Britons being held at the US prison camp at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Prime Minister Tony Blair has personally asked
President George W. Bush to free the British detainees.
Begg’s handwritten letter, dated July 12, 2004, described mistreatment
he suffered while in detention at the US military base in Bagram,
Afghanistan, according to BBC radio, which said it had obtained
a copy of the letter.
Although former detainees have alleged that they suffered extensive
abuse and torture at Bagram in Afghanistan and Guantánamo,
mail from the camp is heavily censored.
It is unclear why the Pentagon has cleared a document, which makes
such strong allegations of abuse.
“During several interviews, particularly though not exclusively
in Afghanistan, I was subjected to pernicious threats of torture,
actual vindictive torture, and death threats amongst other coercively
employed interrogation techniques,” Begg wrote.
“The said interviews were conducted in an environment of generated
fear resonant with terrifying screams of fellow detainees facing
similar methods. In this atmosphere of severe antipathy towards
detainees was the compounded use of racially and religiously prejudiced
taunts.
“This culminated in my opinion with the deaths of two fellow
detainees at the hands of US military personnel, to which I myself
was partially witness.”
Begg also wrote that he had been held in solitary confinement since
February 2003, and that whenever he had signed any documents during
his detention, he had done so under duress. He denied any involvement
with al-Qaida or any “synonymous paramilitary organization.”
Begg was arrested by Pakistani agents at his home in Islamabad and
handed over to the US, who held him at Bagram in Afghanistan for
a year and transferred him to Guantánamo Bay in February
last year.
“I am a law-abiding citizen of the UK and attest vehemently
to my innocence before God and the law of any crime, though none
has ever been alleged,” he said.
The US military is already looking into at least three deaths in
US custody in Afghanistan, dating back to December 2002. It has
yet to release the results of any of the investigations.
The Pentagon said torture was prohibited at Guantánamo Bay
and that all “credible allegations” of abuse were investigated,
but would not elaborate on whether it considered Begg’s claims
to be “credible.”
It added: “The United States operates a safe, humane and professional
detention operation at Guantánamo that is providing valuable
information in the war on terror.”
Still, a CIA contractor has been charged in the United States with
using a flashlight to beat a prisoner who later died in the eastern
town of Islamabad in June 2003.
Interrogations don’t prevent terrorism
Prisoner interrogations at Guantánamo Bay have not prevented
a single terrorist attack, according to a senior Pentagon intelligence
officer who worked at the heart of the US war on terror.
Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Christino, who retired last June after
20 years in military intelligence, says that President George W.
Bush and US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have “wildly
exaggerated” their intelligence value.
Christino’s revelations, to be published this week in Guantánamo:
America’s War on Human Rights, by British journalist David
Rose, are supported by three further intelligence officials. Christino
also disclosed that the “screening” process in Afghanistan,
which determined whether detainees were sent to Guantánamo,
was “hopelessly flawed from the get-go.”
For six months in the middle of 2003 until his retirement, Christino
had regular access to material derived from Guantánamo prisoner
interrogations, serving as senior watch officer for the central
Pentagon unit known as the Joint Intelligence Task Force-Combating
Terrorism (JITF-CT). This made him responsible for every piece of
information that went in or out of the unit, including what he describes
as “analysis of critical, time-sensitive intelligence.”
Bush, Rumsfeld and Major General Geoffrey Miller, Guantánamo’s
former commandant who is now in charge of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq,
have repeatedly claimed that Guantánamo interrogations have
provided “enormously valuable intelligence,” thanks to
a system of punishments, physical and mental abuse and rewards for
co-operation, introduced by Miller and approved by Rumsfeld.
Earlier this year, three British released detainees, Asif Iqbal,
Shafiq Rasul, and Rhuhel Ahmed, revealed that they had all confessed
to meeting bin Laden and Mohamed Atta, leader of the Sept. 11 hijackers,
at a camp in Afghanistan in 2000. All had cracked after three months
isolated in solitary confinement and interrogation sessions in chains
that lasted up to 12 hours daily.
Eventually, MI5, the British Security agency, proved what they had
said initially - that none had left the UK that year. The disclosures
come on the eve of a House of Lords appeal on the fate of the foreign
terrorist suspects held without trial in British prisons.
Sources: AP, BBC, Guardian (UK), IslamOnline.net,
The Observer (UK)
Tense truce between coca farmers
and army
By Franz Chávez
La Paz, Bolivia, Oct. 1 (IPS) — Coca farmers and their
families are calmly but closely keeping an eye on the camps of soldiers
sent to destroy their crops in the Isiboro Sécure nature
reserve, in the central Bolivian state of Cochabamba.
A violent clash between the two groups on Sept. 27 left one farmer
dead and 15 people wounded, including four soldiers.
Coca is the raw material used to make cocaine, although the plant’s
leaves have been used by local indigenous communities for centuries
for medicinal and other purposes.
Lawmaker Evo Morales, the leader of Bolivia’s coca growers,
managed to get the government to agree to postpone the eradication
of the coca crops for four days, and to pay compensation to the
family of the campesino (peasant farmer) killed in the clashes.
Nevertheless, he called for the resignation of Government Minister
Saúl Lara.
Campesino leader Fidel Tarqui called the actions of a joint task
force that destroyed coca crops on the nature reserve a “provocation.”
Witnesses to the morning’s clash on Sept. 27 told IPS that
dozens of campesinos have since remained at a cautious distance
from the military encampment, keeping a watch on the movements of
the soldiers stationed there.
The coca farmers had also blocked all of the roads leading into
the area, making it impossible for fresh supplies of food and ammunition
to reach the soldiers.
The agreement reached between Morales and President Carlos Mesa
at a meeting on Sept. 29 included the withdrawal of the coca growers
from the area, but sources say they have yet to leave, and instead
this tense standoff has ensued.
In the meantime, local radio stations reported on Sept. 30 that
coca farmers’ representatives have denounced the continued
destruction of crops in areas outside the “conflict zone.”
Campesino groups have demanded the withdrawal of the soldiers sent
to destroy the crops, and according to Morales, the government “will
study the possibility” of meeting their request.
Isiboro Sécure National Park is located 155 miles from the
city of Cochabamba, the departmental capital.
Coca farmers moved into the park when their crops in other parts
of the region (known as the Chapare) were destroyed by the government
over the past few years.
At one time there were 118,000 acres of coca fields in Chapare,
but the joint eradication efforts of police and military forces
have reduced the growing area to around 20,000 acres, of which 12,000
acres fall within the limits of the Isiboro Sécure reserve.
According to the government, there are a total of 45,000 acres of
illegal coca crops in Bolivia. The other 25,000 acres are in the
Yungas region of the western department of La Paz.
Bolivian law permits the cultivation of 30,000 acres of coca for
traditional purposes. The plant’s leaves are chewed or brewed
as tea by the local population, as well as being used in the ceremonies
of the Aymara Indians.
Before entering politics, Morales, the leader of the Movement Towards
Socialism (MAS) party, first rose to prominence as a spokesman for
the coca farmers movement. He was elected to the Bolivian Congress
in 1997, but was expelled in 2002 by the ruling coalition majority
over alleged human rights violations committed during protest demonstrations.
In the general elections held later that same year, however, Morales
came close to being elected president, losing in a run-off vote
to Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. His party also managed to win
enough seats to become a major force in Congress.
Morales then went on to play a key role in mobilizing opposition
to the government’s plans to export natural gas. The massive
demonstrations that resulted forced Sánchez de Lozada to
resign on Oct. 17, 2003.
He is now the leader of the 34 MAS members of Congress, who have
backed various initiatives undertaken by the current president,
Mesa.
This has given Morales greater bargaining power to defend the coca
growers and keep up opposition to the plans to destroy their crops
— a strategy that has strong support from the US.
Shortly after the violent confrontation on Sept. 29, Minister Lara
announced that an investigation would be conducted into the death
of campesino Choque Cruz. He also said that the government wants
to resolve the conflict with coca growers through dialogue.
Through the mediation of Augusto Siles, the representative of the
ombudsman’s office in the Chapare region, two military helicopters
transported the wounded to medical facilities in Cochabamba.
The secretary general of the Permanent Assembly on Human Rights,
Guillermo Vilela, sent a letter to Mesa expressing concern over
the recent violence and asking for every effort to be made to restore
calm.
He also called for an end to the forced eradication of coca fields,
and recommended that a solution be jointly sought by the government
and farmers organizations.
If any further acts of violence were to take place, however, Vilela
said he would denounce them to international organizations.
For his part, the secretary general of the Bolivian Episcopal Conference,
Monseigneur Jesús Juárez, declared, “In a democratic
process like the one underway in Bolivia, violence must be banished.”
Spain moves into the vanguard on
homosexual rights
By Alicia Fraerman
Madrid, Spain, Oct. 1 (IPS) — Spain will join the ranks
of the first countries in the world to grant homosexual couples
the same legal rights as heterosexuals if a new bill approved by
the Spanish cabinet Oct. 1 is passed by parliament.
The draft law, which apparently has the necessary votes for approval
in the legislature, would go into effect in early 2005, granting
equal rights to same-sex couples in areas like marriage, adoption,
inheritance, work, alimony and social security coverage.
Once it passes into law, the bill approved by the cabinet of socialist
Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero will put
Spain among the handful of countries and provinces in the world
where same-sex marriage is legal, like the Netherlands, Belgium,
Canada’s three most populous provinces, and the US state of
Massachusetts.
Although the Oct. 1 announcement by Spain’s first Vice-President
María Teresa Fernández de la Vega was expected, it
triggered an outburst of praise from activists and trade unions,
as well as complaints, with the Roman Catholic Church raising the
loudest objections.
“This law will grant legal recognition to something that is
already a reality,” Enriqueta Chicano Jávega, president
of the Federation of Progressive Women, told IPS. She called those
who criticize the government’s position “hypocrites,”
since homosexual unions exist in practice, as do adoptions by gay
and lesbian couples.
Although today children are adopted by only one of the members of
a same-sex couple, in reality the child is raised by both parents,
she noted.
“The question here is to make our laws reflect every aspect
of that reality, which already exists in the couple, and between
the couple and the adopted child,” said Fernández de
la Vega.
Beatriz Gomera, president of the Association of Gays and Lesbians,
said the daughter she has been raising “in absolute normality”
and who has carried her last name for the past seven years will
also be formally adopted by her partner when the law is passed.
Fernández de la Vega pointed out in a press conference that
“there are already thousands of children in Spain with homosexual
parents.”
She also said that “more than 50 studies show that children
raised by homosexual parents are no different” than those raised
by heterosexual couples. “There is no evidence that shows that
homosexual fathers or mothers are worse parents or do a worse job
raising their children” than heterosexuals.
Polls show that “a majority of people in Spain believe that
the well-being of the child, independently of the sexual orientation
of the parents, must be the primary concern in adoptions,”
she added.
But sources with the Catholic Church told IPS that the secretary
and spokesman of Spain’s bishops conference, Juan Antonio Martínez,
is preparing a strategy and actions to send out a “clear, specific
message” against homosexual marriage.
The Spanish Family Forum (FEF), which links organizations that defend
the traditional conception of marriage and family, has already launched
a petition drive to collect the 500,000 signatures needed to introduce
a popular initiative in parliament aimed at blocking homosexual
marriages.
Last week, when members of the governing Socialist Party (PSOE)
said the marriage law was on its way to being modified, Spanish
Cardinal Julián Herranz, a member of Opus Dei and president
of the Vatican Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, called
the new measure “lay fundamentalism” and said it ran counter
to the democratic concept of the lay state.
The head of the bishops conference, Cardinal Antonio María
Rouco, told journalists Oct. 1 that homosexual marriage “does
not reflect true marriage.”
Asked for their views, PSOE leaders referred this journalist to
the speech given by Zapatero when he was sworn in as prime minister
on Apr. 15.
On that occasion, Zapatero stated that “Homosexuals and transsexuals
deserve the same public consideration as heterosexuals and have
the right to freely live the lives that they have chosen.
“As a result we will modify the Civil Code to recognize their
equal right to marriage with the resulting effects over inheritance,
labor rights and social security protection.”
The center-right Popular Party (PP), which governed until April
and is now the main opposition force, agrees that civil unions,
whether homosexual or heterosexual, should be legalized and regulated,
but wants the right to adopt to be specifically left out.
PP spokesman José María Michavila criticized the cabinet’s
decision Oct. 1 and accused the government of failing to engage
in dialogue.
Until a little over a quarter of a century ago, during the dictatorship
of Francisco Franco (1939-1975), homosexuality was banned by law.
Today, according to a survey carried out in June by the governmental
Sociological Research Centre (CIS), 68 percent of respondents believe
homosexual couples should have the same rights as heterosexuals.
CIS estimates that four million people in Spain, or around 10 percent
of the population, are gays or lesbians.
Most political parties, trade unions and civil society organizations
support the new draft law.
The Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT), one of the two main
trade union federations, immediately came out in favor of the bill
on Oct. 1.
UGT secretary of youth and social policies, Marta Robledo, said
that putting homosexual couples on an equal legal footing as heterosexual
couples will be “a major achievement” in terms of guaranteeing
the civil rights of Spaniards.
Lessons for providing adequate schooling
in Africa
By Joyce Mulama
Bergen City, Norway, Oct. 1 (IPS) — Various African
governments received a stinging rebuke this week for failing to
live up to promises to improve children’s education in their
countries.
This took place at a conference held Sept. 29 in Bergen City, southern
Norway, which brought together 70 education specialists from Africa,
Europe, and Asia. Governments, civil society, and donor agencies
were represented at the meeting, entitled Quality in Education for
All.
The conference was organized by the Center for International Education
at Oslo University College, with the help of the Norwegian ministry
of foreign affairs and the World Bank.
Kenyan officials were criticized for neglecting education in rural
areas, some of which lack even the most basic of facilities.
“The government is very good in providing lip service to its
electorate [but] all you have to do is walk in the rural areas and
see the situation for yourself. There are schools there with few
or no teachers at all,” Penina Mlama, executive director of
the Nairobi-based Forum for African Women Educationalists, told
IPS.
“How will these pupils learn if there are no teachers?”
she asked. Mlama’s remarks come in the wake of media reports
decrying the situation at a school in north-eastern Kenya, where
two teachers were discovered to be managing about 2,500 pupils.
Government has acknowledged that teachers are concentrated in cities
and towns -– but claims that its attempts to deploy them to
remote areas have been opposed by certain teachers’ organizations.
“Last year, we started a program where teachers were to be
taken to rural areas, but there has been resistance by some teachers.
Nevertheless, we are being very tough on this, and we are going
to stand firm,” Kilemi Mwiria, Kenya’s assistant minister
of education, said in an interview with IPS.
“By the end of this year, the exercise should be complete,”
he added. “There is no way pupils can continue suffering just
because teachers do not want to work in certain areas.”
Mwiria cited the introduction of free primary education early last
year as evidence of his government’s commitment to education.
As a result of this initiative, 1.3 million children who were previously
denied access to schools have been enrolled.
However, the program has also experienced its fair share of teething
problems, such as teacher and classroom shortages. Certain schools
have more than a hundred pupils to a class, while others are forced
to teach students in morning and afternoon shifts. Some children
even find themselves being taught outdoors, irrespective of weather
conditions.
Various education observers claim that one of the keys to addressing
these problems is providing more incentives for people to join and
remain in the teaching profession. However, teachers’ salaries
already consume about 80 percent of Kenya’s education budget
-– which accounts for 30 percent of the national budget, according
to Mwiria.
At first glance, neighboring Tanzania appears to have done a better
job in attracting people to the teaching profession. Reports indicate
that the government has increased the number of schools in the country
from 11,654 in 2000 to 13,689 -– and that 8,000 houses have
been built to accommodate teachers under the Primary School Development
Plan.
However, certain delegates at the Bergen City conference dismissed
these figures as misleading.
“They are…painting a rosy picture which is completely
different [on] the ground. It is a fact that there are no schools
in the rural and hard-to-reach areas. The education gap between
rural and urban areas is so wide,” Titus Tenga, a Tanzanian
who is assistant professor at the Center for International Education,
told IPS.
Other education initiatives highlighted at the conference included
Burkina Faso’s drive to increase enrollment through teaching
students in their home languages – rather than French.
While governments claim some success with this program, sub-Saharan
Africa continues to have one of the lowest school enrollment rates
in the world.
According to the Paris-based Association for the Development of
Education in Africa, 35 percent of the 115 million children around
the globe who are not in school live in sub-Saharan Africa.
The deficiencies in education policies of African governments come
even though many have committed themselves to pursuing the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs), which include a pledge to have universal
primary education in place by 2015.
The eight MDGs were adopted by world leaders in 2000, at the Millennium
Summit of the United Nations in New York. The goals provide a framework
for tackling poverty and under-development, by dealing with matters
such as education, maternal mortality, environmental degradation
and hunger.
A good many African governments are also signatories to the Dakar
Framework for Action that was adopted at the World Education Forum
-– held in the Senegalese capital in April 2000. This document,
‘Education for All: Meeting our Collective Commitments’,
also commits world leaders to achieving universal primary education
by 2015.
In addition, delegates to the forum pledged to achieve equal enrollment
of girls and boys by 2005 -– this in acknowledgement of the
fact that girls continue to be discriminated against as far as access
to education is concerned.
In part, this stems from the fact that parents may have a traditional
view of the position of men and women in society, and see schooling
as inessential for girls’ future roles as wives and mothers.
The AIDS pandemic has also created a situation where many girls
are forced to abandon their schooling in order to take care of ailing
parents or orphaned siblings.
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