Elsewhere today (370)
Aljazeera:
Lebanon summit fails to agree truce call
Wednesday 26 July 2006, 16:47 Makka Time, 13:47 GMT
A 15-nation summit in Rome has failed to reach agreement on calling for an immediate ceasefire in southern Lebanon.
Before the talks, Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, had urged the Rome conference to back an "immediate cessation of hostilities" between Israel and Hezbollah forces.
But a joint declaration read after the conference fell short of Annan's request, instead pledging to work with "urgency" for a truce.
The declaration, read by Massimo D'Alema, the Italian foreign minister, expressed the international community's "determination to work immediately to reach with utmost urgency a ceasefire to put an end to the current hostilities".
A ceasefire to end the bloodshed in the region "must be lasting, permanent and sustainable," he said.
Deliberate attack
Earlier, Annan had criticised Israel over what he said was a deliberate attack that killed four UN observers in southern Lebanon.
"The death and destruction we have witnessed in the past two weeks including yesterday's tragic killing of UN peacekeepers compels this conference to send a strong message and to speak with one voice," he said.
"A temporary cessation of hostilities would offer crucial hours and days for essential humanitarian tasks," said Annan.
That view had been rejected by the US and Britain, who believe the conditions are not yet right for a lasting ceasefire.
Neither Israel or Hezbollah and its allies Syria and Iran, were invited to the conference co-chaired by Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, and Italy.
"We are tired of conferences that lead nowhere. We have seen too many of them: Madrid, Oslo, Camp David, Wye Plantation and others," Hussein Haji Hassan, a Hezbollah spokesman, told an Italian newspaper.
Compensation
During the conference, the Lebanese prime minister said Israel should be forced to pay compensation for damage caused by military strikes on the country's infrastructure.
Fuad Saniora also called on Wednesday for a prisoner exchange supervised by the Red Cross as part of a plan to resolve the crisis.
"Israel cannot go on indefinitely disregarding international law. It must be made to pay and we shall commence legal proceedings and spare no avenue to make Israel compensate the Lebanese people," he said.
The Lebanese government said that 2.07 billion dollars worth of damage had been caused by Israeli attacks during the crisis.
The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, told a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that he wanted to establish a security zone between one and two kilometres wide on the Lebanese side of the border to stop Hezbollah fighters firing rockets at Israel, the Israeli media reported.
Thirteen Israeli soldiers were killed in clashes in a southern Lebanese town, Aljazeera said.
Israel's war against Hezbollah has killed at least 418 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians. At least 42 Israelis have also died.
Agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F752D82E-1119-4E6E-94E4-C85819478C0A.htm
allAfrica: Petroleum Liberalisation Falters
as Dar Loses Patience With Spiralling Fuel Prices
By WILFRED EDWIN
The East African (Nairobi) NEWS
July 25, 2006
Tanzania appears set to roll back the liberalisation of its petroleum sector as the new government of President Jakaya Kikwete grapples with protracted rises in consumer oil prices.
Pump prices, which have been increasing for months, have continued to behave unpredictably even after Finance Minister Zakia Meghji recently removed value added tax on petroleum products.
In her recent budget speech, the minister said she had removed VAT on petroleum products in order to reduce consumer prices.
Frustrated that the move by the minister has not achieved the desired effect, the rhetoric against oil companies by key government spokesmen and opposition leaders has become more and more strident, culminating in the announcement by the Minister for Energy and Minerals, Dr Ibrahim Msabaha, that the government had decided to allow the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) to resume importing oil.
The oil-importing business in Tanzania has been a private sector affair since 1999, when the government withdrew the parastatal from the business.
As of last week, petrol prices had reached a high of Tsh1,440 ($1.3) per litre in Dar es Salaam and Tsh1,500 ($1.4) per litre in the hinterland, in the Lake Zone region.
Speaking in parliament, Mr Msabaha argued that the return of TPDC to oil marketing would ensure adequate supply and stable prices.
The minister also announced that the government would closely monitor the operations of oil companies and take unspecified action against those failing to adhere to government policy.
He warned that the government would take measures against major oil companies to ensure that they abide by a directive to adjust prices in line with the waiver of VAT.
Lately, oil-marketing companies have been in the spotlight, being criticised for operating cartels and undermining the government policy of liberalisation.
But the secretary general of the Tanzania Oil Marketing Companies Association (TOMC), Bartholomew Massili, argued that stable prices can only be achieved through efficient marketing systems and good performance.
"The coming in of the TPDC alone is not enough to guarantee stable prices," he told The EastAfrican.
Tanzania imports a total of 1.5 million cubic metres of petroleum products per annum.
Until 2000, the industry was heavily regulated, operating under a regime where TPDC had the monopoly of supplying all crude oil and petroleum product requirements.
Oil companies purchased the products from TPDC in accordance with their market share, while consumer prices were fixed by the government.
The sector was deregulated in two phases. Beginning 1997, partial liberalisation was effected, during which TPDC continued to import crude oil - which was refined and sold to the oil marketing companies.
At the same time, the oil companies were allowed to import some refined petroleum products to meet their own needs.
The sector was fully liberalised in January 2000 when oil marketing companies were given the freedom to import petroleum products as they wanted, and to set retail prices on a competitive basis.
Although prices are no longer controlled, the parameters used in pricing oil products are similar for all players, making it easy to determine the margins being enjoyed by each marketing company.
Making pricing even more predictable is the fact that the oil marketing companies in the country share several facilities including the jetties and storage depots and are subjected to similar taxes.
For instance, Tanzania has only one major inlet for petroleum products imported into the country - the Kurasini Oil Jetty, with a capacity of handling 1.8 million metric tonnes of product per year.
The devaluation of the Tanzania shilling and high taxes are among the major factors contributing to high consumer prices in the country.
VAT, particularly, has been a major cost-push factor because it was levied on top of two other taxes - namely, excise and fuel levy.
For a long time now, oil companies have been arguing that VAT chargeable on petroleum products be made a fixed amount instead of a percentage in order to avoid continuous increases in the cost of fuel whenever the international prices went up.
The idea of liberalising the petroleum sector would appear to have been influenced by the International Monetary Fund.
As far back as July, 1999, the then finance minister Daniel Yona made a pledge to the fund in a "letter of intent" that the government would liberalise the sector.
The divestiture of the country's oil refinery, the Tanzania-Italy Petroleum Refinery (Tiper), also came about under pressure by the World Bank, which argued that it was no longer competitive.
According to Mr Yona, certain private investors had wanted to operate the refinery. In fact, a draft Cabinet paper had been prepared for Cabinet to approve the deal.
But as it turned out, no responses were received by the deadline time.
Currently, the Ministry of Energy and Minerals is responsible for regulation of the sector. The Petroleum (Conservation) Act regulates importation, trading storage, transportation, distribution and use of petroleum products in the country.
Copyright © 2006 The East African. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
http://allafrica.com/stories/200607250388.html
Asharq Al-Awsat:
Q & A with Robert Fisk
By Sanaa al Jack
25/07/2006
Beirut, Asharq Al-Awsat- Destined to be a witness to Lebanon is recent past, Robert Fisk is the “oldest” foreign correspondent in the Middle East, with over 30 years of first-hand experience covering conflicts in the region. A permanent resident of Beirut, Fisk reported on the Lebanese civil war, the Israeli invasion in 1982, the Iranian revolution and the first and second Gulf wars. It is impossible to ignore Fisk’s anger at the west and his conviction that the policies of western governments are responsible for a lack of true democracy in the Middle East. A journalist and an analyst, Fisk has written several reference books on the region.
Asharq al Awsat interviewed Fisk after he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the American University of Beirut, a few days before Israel attacked Lebanon .
Q: Do you find any deficiencies in the way western journalists write about the Middle East? Is this due to political or professional reasons? Do you feel you are distinguished from them because you live in Beirut?
A: I used to be a correspondent of The Times here and then The Independent. The method used in reporting is no longer, what it used to be. Newspapers are no longer required anymore to provide written information but visual information. The Editor in Chief wants coverage to be supplemented by the opinions of influential people. In Gaza, for example, the correspondent can relay a clear picture of the fear of bombing and explosions and not have to be contented with the official statements of both parties in the conflict. However, in many cases, we find that foreign journalists come to the region, investigate the situation and interview people, but when they write, they only include the opinions of the political authorities in their countries.
Q: Does this mean that journalists reporting on the field should include their opinions in their coverage?
A: It is easy to say that you reflect your own views in the article. But the issue is not related to your opinion but to the ideas that are formed on the field and from the situations we sense. The presence of a correspondent in a coverage area has a reason, not just enjoying the moderate climate of Middle Eastern countries. For example, when I was in southern Lebanon, I was eager to inform my readers of the situation of people there.
Q: Do you believe that journalists also play the role of historians?
A: In a way, yes. Many journalists say that it’s important to keep a card in our pocket. I say we should preserve history. If we, for example, go back to last century, between 1918 and 1920, we find in documents that the British, when they came to Baghdad , did not see themselves as an occupation force but as a liberation force. They bombed Falluja and Najaf and wrote that “terrorists” has infiltrated Iraq through the Syrian border. History repeats itself and the journalist who hasn’t read this information will not understand what’s happening today in Iraq . This is why I stay in the region to follow events and understand what is happening.
Q: Do you find yourself professionally the prisoner of events in the Middle East ? Does this coverage reflect an objective view?
A: I cover what happens in the region. When I started covering the Lebanese war in 1975, I never thought I would go to southern Lebanon and follow the details of the Israeli occupation and continue for 15 years. I am pessimistic about the situation. Iraq is moving to this unknown and the Palestinian state is a corpse that isn’t permitted to live.
Q: Do you notice that when you blame western policies for the situation in the Middle East, in your writing, this can be interpreted as supporting Arab regimes?
A: After the WW1, the United States sought to make the Middle East, from Morocco to the Persian Gulf, democratic. But the European powers didn’t want to lose its control over the region and so divided it to enable it to control it easily. They incited neighboring countries against one another and encouraged them to protect themselves. They also sold them weapons. Jamal Abdul Nasser, for example, was accepted in Britain until he decided to nationalize the Suez Canal. Then, he became “the Mussolini of the Nile”.
Q: You use your own terminology in your writing. For example, you avoid using the term “terrorism”. Why?
A: Because this word is the key to justifying US foreign policy. It’s enough to use for evil to become present and true questions to be abandoned. Journalists should ask: Why is terrorism happening? But this question means that the one posing it is the enemy of US policy and democracy and a supporter of violence. But it is elementary to ask this question before any other, in order to cover any event or carry out an investigation. We notice that, after September 11, the only acceptable question is: How did the event take place, when and what are the methods used and how is responsible? But the question, why, is now forbidden. No one answers it, despite it being the most important question. If we want to be more in-depth in our analysis, it is enough to go back to the big US newspapers, before the invasion of Iraq, to see that it only reported one point of view, that of the White House. Today, the situation has slightly returned to normal and US newspapers have starting asking questions about US foreign policy.
Q: Why did you leave The Times newspaper and join The Independent?
A: On 3 June 1988, an Iranian Airbus plane was bombed by the Americans and all its passengers were killed. The American excuses weren’t convincing. I gathered information on the incident, made sure it was correct and included all the details that prove the US was responsible for this tragedy. I then sent an article on the issue to The Times. However, the article wasn’t published in the first edition and was censured when it was published in the second edition. When I found out about this, I handed in my resignation and applied to join The Independent. Six months later my application was accepted and I joined the newspaper to find that former colleagues had already preceded me.
Q: Why did you choose The Independent? What distinguishes it?
A: Perhaps the name is its main distinguishing feature. We have a trustworthy Editor in Chief. We don’t have to please any politicians or officials when we work. We can cover events and tragedies objectively. We can carry out investigations form anywhere around the world. We can also write analyses and opinions freely.
Q: What distinguishes the writer from the journalist in your work?
A: They are one person. There’s no difference. The content of the work is the most important.
Q: Before we started the interview, you said you had a bad relationship with the internet. Why? Do you consider that journalism is restricted to being in close contact with people away from technology?
A: I think the internet steals the journalist’s time and deprives him of working with people and books that give clear information that is easily archived. Many times, they call me from the newspaper’s library to ask me about information that might be available in my archive. The internet lacks this precision and the person searching can be submerged with detrimental information that might result in mistakes. This is why I tell those gathering information about me in the internet: it’s not me. This is an internet man who bears no relation to the real me. Instead of searching the internet for information or references, I prefer to go to the field and speak to people and obtain my information from them.
Q: Your books are taught in Lebanese schools. How did you become a reference on the region? What do Lebanese and Arab journalists need to achieve to reach this level?
A: It is not fair to evaluate Lebanese and Arab journalists. The circumstances are different and are related to the degree of freedom in each Arab country. In Lebanon , for example, there is a lot of freedom; in Kuwait too. The situation is difference in other countries and Arab newspapers based in London have a much wider scope. This is why I can’t judge Arab journalism in an absolute way. As for why my books arte taught, it’s because I am a Middle East specialist. Other than that, I am a normal person doing their job.
Q: Do you think Arabs can improve their image in the media?
A: In order to confront the propaganda, those speaking in the name of Arabs should be fluent in English, in order to reach the Western public. If we follow television, these days, we notice that the Israeli spokesman is very fluent in English and chooses expressions and terms that serve the idea he wants to convey. But the Palestinian spokesman, unfortunately, isn’t fluent enough to reflect positively on his cause.
Q: You interviewed Osama bin Laden three times between 1994 and 1997. How do you remember him?
A: It’s true and he asked to meet me after the September 11 attacks but I was unable to reach him in Afghanistan because of the US raids at the time. He mentioned me in one of his interviews before the US presidential elections. Like all people, he has changed over the years. He matured a bit but didn’t have any experience of world politics. Imagine that he told me he expected a civil war in the United States . I laughed at the time. But he knows very well how to address the Arab world. He knows he can move millions of Arabs.
Nowadays, the problem is no longer bin Laden but al Qaeda, an organization bigger that can’t be summed up in one person. I met, once, Palestinians from al Qaeda. They were on their way to Iraq . One of them told me his family didn’t like bin Laden but did not object to him going to defend Islam. This is why it’s not important if bin Laden is loved or not; he is no longer a person or the president of a party for them. He is an ideology in itself. The cause is the absence of democracy. If there was democracy in the Arab world, Osama bin Laden would not have continued to exist.
Q: How would you describe the current events in Lebanon ?
A: Death, massacres and violence, this is its name. Al Qaeda is al Qaeda and has its own members. When we use the term terrorism and suffice ourselves with it, we fall into an endless ocean and can no longer sea terra firma.
Q: Do you think of retiring? Where do you see yourself retiring?
A: Before this interview, I finished an article on wartime cinema in the Middle East . I didn’t like the Lebanese film “Another Day” but I liked “Paradise Now”. When I retire, I will write movie scripts. I believe the cinema has an amazing ability to reach the public, more than newspapers and television. I am currently very interested in it.
http://www.robert-fisk.com/
Asia Times:
Diplomatic roads lead to Damascus
By Jim Lobe
Jul 27, 2006
WASHINGTON - Mocked just months ago as a fool and a lightweight compared with his legendarily shrewd father, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad appears increasingly to have become the "go-to guy" in resolving the two-week-old war between Hezbollah and Israel.
While neo-conservatives and other hardliners in the administration of US President George W Bush ruled out any thought of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's traveling to Syria - or of even inviting its officials to attend Wednesday's multilateral conference on Lebanon in Rome - the notion that Washington will have to deal with Damascus is gaining steam, even among some influential hawks.
"Come back, Bashar ..." was the headline of a column by Edward Luttwak in the neo-conservative Wall Street Journal's editorial page, in which he argued that Damascus should be invited back into Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah, even if that meant the "recognition of Syrian suzerainty" over its smaller neighbor.
"Let's be friends with Syria" was the title of a second article appearing in the right-wing National Review by contributing editor James Robbins on Monday, in which he, too, argued for a rapprochement with Damascus as part of a "new international alignment in the Middle East" of Sunni-led states against Iran.
"Syria is the linchpin of the equation," he wrote. "Bashar Assad should be offered the same deal as [Libyan leader] Muammar Gaddafi - basically stop doing things that annoy us, get rid of your [weapons of mass destruction] and missile programs and you can be our friend. And it is good to be our friend, particularly if you are a dictator seeking to avoid regime change."
That Syria will indeed prove pivotal to resolving the ongoing violence one way or another has become increasingly accepted in the US over the past week as it became apparent that Israel will not come close to achieving its initial war aim of dismantling Hezbollah as a fighting force once and for all.
Not only has the Shi'ite militia proved much stronger and more resourceful than either Israeli or US analysts had anticipated, but its resistance and fighting spirit - coupled with the destructiveness of Israel's offensive - have bolstered its popular support throughout the Arab world and even among some non-Shi'ite groups in Lebanon, according to virtually all independent reporting.
"Israel is losing this war," said Ralph Peters, a staunch pro-Israel columnist and military expert with the neo-conservative New York Post. "Israeli miscalculations have left Hezbollah alive and kicking."
To some hawks like Peters, as well as Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, the answer lies in a major Israeli ground invasion to clear out Hezbollah infrastructure and militants from southern Lebanon.
But the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, haunted by the disastrous Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon between 1978 and 2000, appears reluctant to consider this option, unless it can be combined with the insertion of a "robust" international force capable of confronting and disarming Hezbollah that would enable Israel to retreat back behind its border.
With Israel unwilling to attack Damascus itself and unable to crush Hezbollah - and the Lebanese army both unable and unwilling to take it on - the only alternative appears to be the intervention of such a "robust" international force that Rice had been pushing before she traveled to the region on Sunday.
But with the US itself unwilling to contribute troops to such a force, most US analysts believe it unlikely that the United Nations or even the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which is already struggling to meet its current commitments in Afghanistan, can put together an operation that can do much more than what the existing, largely ineffective UN monitoring force (UNIFIL) already does, particularly if a still "alive and kicking" Hezbollah opposes its deployment.
"Another and larger UNIFIL, which would do nothing effective against Hezbollah while freezing the Israeli army in its tracks, would be much worse than useless," said Luttwak.
In that context, the only power capable of curbing Hezbollah, if only by slowing or stopping the transit of equipment from Iran that it needs to sustain itself as a fighting force, is Syria. Indeed, as pointed out by Luttwak, Damascus, as Hezbollah's main ally in Lebanon until it was forced to withdraw its 30,000 troops under international pressure last year, is likely to be the only power capable of persuading Hezbollah to disarm and "follow the political path".
Even before Rice set out for the region, the US administration appears to have understood Syria's pivotal position in bringing the current crisis to an end. But what it has clearly been unable to decide is how best to get Damascus to cooperate.
Some believe that only sticks - and particularly harsh ones - will work.
Hardline neo-conservatives, such as former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle and his colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute, have called for Washington to encourage Israel to carry its war against Hezbollah into Syria - presumably to persuade it to cut off Hezbollah and even, if possible, to realize a long-held dream of theirs - to overthrow Assad's Ba'athist regime.
But that option appears to have been firmly rejected by Olmert, who, like many others in Israel's policy elite, concluded some time ago that Assad was preferable to anyone who might replace him, particularly in light of what has happened in Iraq since the US ousted Saddam Hussein.
"Any political vacuum would almost surely be filled by the same sort of extreme Islamists now embittering the lives of Iraqis," said Aiman Mansour, an analyst at Israel's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies.
Others argue that Syria is in such a strong bargaining position that only carrots, and very big carrots at that, can induce its cooperation. This indeed was the message presented to Bush and Rice by Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal at a White House meeting on Saturday in which he argued that weaning Syria from its alliance with Iran and Hezbollah was critical to any regional effort - one that already includes US allies Jordan and Egypt - to contain a far more dangerous Iran.
In this view, Washington made a major error last year in insisting, against the advice of the Sunni Arab states, on a precipitous withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon and Damascus' diplomatic isolation.
That position is now echoed by a number of other commentators, including some, such as liberal interventionist New York columnist Thomas Friedman, who strongly supported Lebanon's "Cedar Revolution" but now argue that Damascus must be recruited for the escalating confrontation with Iran.
"To me, the big strategic chess move is to try to split Syria off from Iran, and bring Damascus back into the Sunni Arab fold. That is the game-changer," wrote Friedman last week. "What would be the Syrian price? I don't know, but I sure think it would be worth finding out."
Luttwak, who has long viewed Iran as the greatest threat faced by Israel and the US, believes the price will be steep - including, of course, "recognition of Syrian suzerainty over Lebanon" and thus a major rollback of the Cedar Revolution - but worth it for the sake of Washington's regional strategy.
It might be "tremendously embarrassing" to the Bush administration to agree to such a price, but there is little alternative, he noted.
(Inter Press Service)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HG27Ak04.html
Asia Times:
An accident waiting to happen
By Ian Williams
With the Israeli bombing of a United Nations camp and the killing of four UN peacekeepers, we really do seem to be in a "deja vu all over again" phase. Already UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is under attack for condemning the "apparently deliberate targeting by Israel Defense Forces [IDF] of a UN observer post".
It is reminiscent of the trouble his predecessor Boutros Boutros-Ghali got himself into last time the Israelis tried shock and awe on Lebanon in 1996, when he failed to suppress a report that said pretty much the same thing about the IDF shelling of the UN post in Qana, which killed some 106 Lebanese civilians.
It is worth remembering that of all UN secretaries general, Annan has done most to end Israel's isolation in the organization and maintained the closest relations with Israel's friends in the United States. In the end, however, he is also a head who sets great store by protecting UN staff, and so the palpable anger of his statement is entirely understandable.
"This coordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long-established and clearly marked UN post at Khiyam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by [Israeli] Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that UN positions would be spared Israeli fire. Furthermore, General Alain Pellegrino, the UN force commander in south Lebanon, had been in repeated contact with Israeli officers throughout the day on Tuesday, stressing the need to protect that particular UN position from attack."
So to accept that it was yet another accident presupposes a level of incompetence or insubordination in the Israeli army that should see some serious courts-martial, but never does.
So what could be the motive? It is clear that there are many in the IDF with a profound contempt for the UN and all it stands for, and who would not shed many tears at such an accident. It may also rankle that the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has, in the dearth of Western reporters from much of south Lebanon, provided independent corroboration of many incidents of IDF attacks on civilians. One only has to think of the fate of the USS Liberty in 1967 [1] for being in a position to observe what the IDF was up to.
And, most sinister of all, there are many Israelis - including the government only a few days ago - who do not want an international force between them and their targets in Lebanon, who would have no great scruples about bombing a UN compound "accidentally on purpose".
This time, the "collateral damage" is not just four dead UN personnel. The bombing scotches any realistic chance of a reinforced UN or multinational peacekeeping force - which it is worth remembering that Israel itself opposed until a few days ago, and which the war party in Israel sees as a potential obstacle to their attempts to emulate Ariel Sharon's disastrous invasion in 1982. (See Israeli peace group's Gush Shalom's ad in Ha'aretz at the end of the article.)
Already, while many countries have endorsed the general idea of putting foreign troops on the Lebanese side of the border, there has been a complete lack of specific volunteers - for the understandable reasons that the attack on Khiyam now so forcibly demonstrates.
The Fijians and Ghanaians make lots of money out of providing peacekeepers for UNIFIL and seem to think weekly humiliation by the Israelis and Hezbollah is worth it. There are few serious military powers that would tolerate sending their troops for IDF target practice, let alone Hezbollah attacks. And who knows, if any were so bold as to put in contingents, they may well stand up to Israeli incursions as well.
Some Israel supporters are already arguing that the bombing could not have been deliberate because it was a public relations disaster for Israel. Excuse me, but only an American or Israeli commentator could say that. Manifestly, for the rest of the world, the whole Israeli campaign is a PR disaster, with massive majorities even in Tony Blair's Britain regarding the Israeli attack as a massively disproportionate reaction, let alone how Israel's assault is turning Hezbollah into the toast of the Third World.
There is some added piquancy that both the Lebanese and Iraqi prime ministers (until this week at least champions of the new democratic Middle East) are condemning Israel's assault.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's statement that it was "too early" for a ceasefire, when only 500 were dead and countless more dismembered, should go down with Madeleine Albright's since-regretted statement that the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children as a result of sanctions was "a price worth paying".
Since Annan is already going at the end of the year, which puts him beyond reach of US Ambassador John Bolton's veto, we can but hope that he will not be browbeaten by Rice, Bolton or President George W Bush, but will use the sacrifice of the UN observers to shame the Security Council into demanding an immediate ceasefire.
And who knows, while he is still angry, he may wish to remind them that Israel was defying UN Resolution 242 (Israel to remove itself from territories acquired in the 1967 war) for many decades before Resolution 1559 (free and fair presidential election in Lebanon without foreign interference and all remaining foreign forces to withdraw from Lebanon), and that it has to be a crucial foundation for any peace settlement for the region.
Back to 1982
Then: The war was prepared well in advance.
This time: The same.
Then: We went to war only to protect "the peace of Galilee".
This time: We go to war to protect Haifa and Afula, too.
Then: We waited for a provocation (the attempt on the life of Israeli ambassador to Britain Shlomo Argov). This time:We waited for a provocation (the capture of two soldiers).
Then: "We shall advance only 40 kilometers in order to eliminate the Katyushas."
This time: "We shall advance only a few kilometers in order to eliminate the rockets."
Then: Ariel Sharon acted behind the back of the cabinet.
This time: Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and army chief of staff Dan Halutz act behind the back of the ministers.
Then: We destroyed Lebanon.
This time: We are destroying Lebanon.
Then: Only the Palestinian Liberation Organization profited from the war. A few years later they returned to Palestine.
This time: Only Hezbollah will profit from the war. Its prestige in the Arab world increases every day.
Then: We were stuck in the quagmire for 18 years.
For how long shall we be stuck this time? The question is posed by Gush Shalom of the Israeli Peace Block in a large advertisement published in Ha'aretz newspaper on Wednesday.
Note
1. During the Six Day War between Israel and the Arab states, the intelligence ship USS Liberty was attacked for 75 minutes in international waters by Israeli aircraft and motor torpedo boats. Thirty-four men died and 174 were wounded.
Ian Williams is author of Deserter: Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans and His Past, Nation Books, New York.
Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HG27Ak02.html
Clarín: La cumbre en Roma cerró
con un tibio pedido de alto el fuego en Oriente Medio
En el documento final, la comunidad internacional expresó su determinación a trabajar en una salida al conflicto. Pero no exigió una tregua en el corto plazo. También se analizó el eventual envío de una fuerza multinacional a la frontera bajo el mandato de la ONU.
Clarín.com, 26.07.2006
Los países participantes en la Conferencia internacional sobre el Líbano celebrada hoy en Roma pidió que se autorice de forma urgente "una fuerza internacional bajo el mandato de la ONU" para dar asistencia a la población libanesa y exigió a Israel la creación de un "corredor humanitario" para asistir a las víctimas. También expresó el deseo de poner "un alto el fuego duradero".
Así consta en documento final del encuentro, en el que los participantes expresan su determinación de trabajar inmediatamente para lograr un alto el fuego que debe ser "duradero y permanente". En una conferencia de prensa al término de la reunión, el ministro italiano de Exteriores y anfitrión de la conferencia, Massimo D'Alema, transmitió el compromiso de los participantes a "dar ayuda humanitaria inmediata al pueblo libanés".
D'Alema también anunció que los asistentes al encuentro han alcanzado un acuerdo para convocar "lo antes posible" una conferencia internacional de los países donantes para abordar la situación en Líbano. En la misma rueda de prensa, el secretario general de la ONU, Kofi Annan, insistió en la importancia de "encontrar un marco político de entendimiento", y subrayó la necesidad de "implicar a Irán y Siria" para la resolución del conflicto. También apoyó el envío de una fuerza internacional "que ayude a estabilizar el Líbano y al Gobierno del Líbano, a preparar su tropas y extender su autoridad en el territorio".
Por su parte, la secretaria de Estado de EE.UU., Condoleezza Rice, coincidió en que Siria también tiene "responsabilidad" a la hora de solucionar a la crisis, e insistió en que este país debe respetar las resoluciones de la ONU que establecen el respecto de la soberanía e independencia política de Líbano.
Rice agregó que Arabia Saudíta y Jordania, presentes en la conferencia de Roma, pueden tener a su vez "un importante papel" en la resolución del conflicto. También apoyó la creación de una fuerza internacional "bajo mandato de la ONU" para contribuir al restablecimiento de la paz y facilitar la asistencia humanitaria.
Copyright 1996-2006 Clarín.com - All rights reserved
http://www.clarin.com/diario/2006/07/26/um/m-01240681.htm
Clarín: Siguen los combates en Bint Jbeil
y Hezbollah volvió a lanzar misiles contra Haifa
Según la televisión árabe, alrededor de 10 soldados israelíes murieron en los enfrentamientos por el control del principal bastión de la guerrilla proiraní en el sur del Líbano. Los cohetes en la tercera ciudad de Israel dejaron seis heridos. Es el 15º día de conflicto.
Clarín.com, 26.07.2006
Los soldados de la infantería israelí y los militantes de Hezbollah mantenían duros enfrentamientos por el control de la ciudad de Bint Jbeil, considerada el principal bastión de la guerrilla shiíta y proiraní en el sur del Líbano. Al mismo tiempo, nuevos cohetes disparados por los guerrilleros impactaron en la ciudad de Haifa.
Según emisoras árabes, entre 9 y 12 soldados israelíes murieron hoy en los enfrentamientos registrados en la "capital" de Hezbollah. El Ejército israelí reconoció que hubo heridos y la radio de Israel informó que "al menos 10 soldados" fueron alcanzados por disparos, aunque no especificó si hubo muertos.
Portavoces israelíes mencionaron también un "importante número de bajas" entre los militantes de Hezbollah. Un vocero de la guerrilla proiraní admitió que las trpas de Israel ya tomaron algunos puntos de la ciudad, aunque aseguró que el centro todavía sigue en poder del grupo shiíta.
Mientras, Israel siguió golpeando desde el aire el sur del Líbano atacando a cerca de medio centenar de objetivos, incluyendo "edificios que pertenecen a Hezbollah" y áreas desde donde la guerrilla dispara sus misiles contra territorio israelí.
Nuevos cohetes de la guerrilla shíta impactaron en la ciudad de Haifa y en los alrededores de las de Tiberiades y Safed. Según fuentes médicas, en la primera de las tres hubo por lo menos seis heridos como consecuencia de las explosiones, uno de los cuales sufrió lesiones de gravedad cuando un cohete impactó contra el taxi que manejaba.
Funcionarios israelíes rechazaron las afirmaciones hechas ayer por el líder de Hezbollah, jeque Hassan Nasrallah, quien anunció que su organización dispararía misiles contra objetivos situados al sur de Haifa y sostuvo que Israel ya había planeado su "guerra" hace varios meses y utilizó el secuestro de dos soldados como pretexto.
Copyright 1996-2006 Clarín.com - All rights reserved
http://www.clarin.com/diario/2006/07/26/um/m-01240685.htm
Guardian:
Annan: Israel bombed UN base for hours
· UN chief proposes joint investigation
· No sign of ceasefire agreement
· Aid agencies criticise Blair
Staff and agencies
Wednesday July 26, 2006
The UN general secretary, Kofi Annan, today accused the Israeli military of carrying out a sustained bombing of the UN base on the Lebanon-Israel border that culminated in the killing of four unarmed monitors.
Mr Annan said he had suggested to the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, that they carry out a joint investigation into the events that led to the shelling of the "well-established and well marked" Unifil (UN interim force in Lebanon) post in the town of Khiyam.
"I spoke to Mr Olmert and he definitely believes it was a mistake and has expressed his deep sorrow, " Mr Annan told a press conference in Rome.
"But the shelling started in the morning and went on until after 7pm. You cannot imagine the anguish of the unarmed men and women peacekeepers who were there."
According to a detailed timeline of the incident provided by an unidentified UN officer and reported by CNN, the first bomb exploded around 200 metres from the post at 1.20pm (11.20am BST) yesterday.
Unifil observers then telephoned their designated contact with the Israeli military, who assured them the attacks would stop. In the following hours, nine more bombs fell close to the post, each one followed by a call to the Israeli military, the UN officer said.
The main Unifil base in the town of Naqoura lost contact with the post at 7.40pm, seemingly the time when the post received a direct hit.
The UN office in Naqoura could not be contacted today.
The four monitors came from Austria, Canada, China and Finland. The Chinese foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing, said today he was saddened by the news and that it showed "we should try harder to call on the parties to be restrained and to be calm and restore the peace process of the Middle East immediately".
The 2,000-strong Unifil force, which sits on the Israel-Lebanon border, has suffered dozens of attacks and direct hits in two weeks of conflict. Israel is suspicious of the force and wants it beefed up with an international stabilisation force involving up to 20,000 troops.
Earlier Mr Olmert telephoned Mr Annan to express his "deep regrets" over the deaths of the UN monitors, the Israeli prime minister's office said.
Mr Annan said last night the air strike was "apparently deliberate" and other UN officials said the attacks on the UN bunker had continued during a rescue effort. Dan Gillerman, Israel's UN ambassador, reacted furiously to Mr Annan's comments last night, describing them as "premature and erroneous".
The deaths of the monitors cast a shadow over today's meeting in Rome, where foreign ministers gathered to discuss the two-week-old Israeli-Lebanese crisis.
The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, were among the ministers attending the talks in Rome, which ended with no clear indication of when a ceasefire would be achieved.
Meanwhile, at least nine Israeli soldiers were killed in heavy fighting with Hizbullah guerrillas in south Lebanon today, Arab television stations said.
Al-Jazeera said nine soldiers were killed in Bint Jbeil, while Al Arabiya television said at least 12 soldiers were killed there.
Israeli forces encircled the southern Lebanese town yesterday, with one commander describing it as the "capital of Hizbullah". The Israeli army said yesterday that it had killed up to 30 Hizbullah fighters as it aimed to dismantle Hizbullah command posts there and destroy rocket launchers.
The prime minister was today facing mounting pressure to endorse calls for an immediate ceasefire amid claims that his position and that of the Bush administration were putting civilian lives at risk.
Aid agencies, religious groups and the public sector union, Unison, wrote an open letter to Tony Blair condemning his refusal to back the UN's demands for a ceasefire.
The letter - signed by 14 organisations including Amnesty International, Christian Aid and the Muslim Council of Britain - warns that the UK government is diluting calls for peace. "
By failing to back the UN and call for an immediate ceasefire, the UK government has reduced the impact of international calls for an immediate halt to the violence," the letter says.
Mr Blair's official spokesman said the prime minister was engaged "almost on an hourly basis" in trying to secure support for a stabilisation force and was ready to take "heat" from critics. The government hoped to secure "broad agreement in principle" in Rome to the idea of a stabilisation force, the spokesman told reporters.
Israeli warplanes bombed 100 targets in southern Lebanon yesterday and one family of seven civilians was killed. More than 400 Lebanese have been killed in total.
Hizbullah yesterday fired some 70 rockets into northern Israel, killing a 15-year-old girl. More than 40 Israelis have died in the violence, including 18 who have been killed by rockets.
This morning, more Hizbullah rockets hit three areas of northern Israel, seriously injuring one person, medics said. The rockets fell in Haifa, Carmiel and Kiryat Bialik, where one person was seriously wounded, the medics said. It was not immediately clear if there were more injuries.
Meanwhile, a Jordanian military plane landed at Beirut's international airport this morning to evacuate people seriously wounded in the conflict.
Airport officials said the aircraft was the first jet to land at Beirut's airport since July 13, when Israeli warplanes bombed its runways and forced it to close. Israel said yesterday it would allow planes carrying humanitarian aid to land in Beirut. Jordan has a peace treaty with Israel.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1830397,00.html
Guardian:
Iran warns the west: ignore us at your peril
Tehran predicts summit failure as UN observers die in Israeli airstrike
Simon Tisdall and Ewen MacAskill
Wednesday July 26, 2006
Iran warned the west yesterday that attempts to broker a Lebanon peace deal at today's Rome summit are destined to fail and it predicted a backlash across the Muslim world unless Israel's military forces were immediately reined in.
Senior government officials said the exclusion from the summit of Iran, Syria and their Lebanese ally Hizbullah meant that no lasting settlement was possible.
Hamid Reza Asefi, the foreign ministry spokesman in Tehran, said: "They should have invited all the countries of the region, including Syria and Iran, if they want peace. How can you tackle these important issues without having representatives of all countries in the region?"
The Rome conference is to be attended by the US, Canada, Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Turkey, Russia, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, as well as the UN and the World Bank. It is due to publish a statement setting out the broad outlines of a possible deal, including the injection of a muscular international stabilisation force which Hizbullah rejected yesterday. But the mood in Rome was soured last night when an Israeli air strike hit a UN monitoring post in south Lebanon, killing four UN peacekeepers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland. Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, immediately demanded that Israel investigate the direct hit that he said was "apparently deliberate".
"This coordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long established and clearly marked UN post ... occurred despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert," Mr Annan said. Israel expressed regret, and promised an investigation, but denied it had targeted the post.
Fears that the conflict could spread across the region intensified yesterday. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, a normally placid US ally, warned that "if the option of peace fails as a result of Israeli arrogance, then the only option remaining will be war, and God alone knows what the region would witness in a conflict that would spare no one".
Tony Blair's official spokesman, confronting criticism that the prime minister had failed to call for an immediate ceasefire, insisted he had been working "on a daily, almost hourly basis" for more than a week on the details of a Rome deal.
Responding to yesterday's Guardian ICM poll reflecting widespread unease over the closeness of Mr Blair to George Bush, the spokesman said the findings were contradictory, wanting him to distance Britain from the US while demanding he use his influence on the US to bring about a ceasefire.
The ceasefire, a prisoner exchange and the new international force are expected to comprise the main elements of the Rome deal. The US is also thought to be ready to offer Lebanon the return of the contested Shebaa farms region occupied by Israel since 1982 as part of the package.
But Iran claims that no amount of western effort can bring a breakthrough, with key parties shut out of the negotiating room. A senior Iranian official, speaking by phone from Tehran, said: "Iran and Syria should be involved [in peace negotiations], not because they are sponsors of Hizbullah, but because they are regional powers. If Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt are involved, then Iran and Syria should be as well, if they are looking to be successful."
The official added that a continuing failure to halt the fighting and reach a just settlement would "certainly spark a backlash" across the Muslim world. He said that public opinion was increasingly outraged by the destruction of Lebanon.
Last night, Hizbullah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said his group's missiles would start hitting targets deeper into Israel, and warned he would not accept a "humiliating" ceasefire. Another Hizbullah leader hinted that the group had not expected such a ferocious response from Israel, as previous border incidents have usually played out in low-key fashion.
The US, Britain and Israel blame mainly Iran and, to a lesser extent, Syria for the bloodshed in Lebanon, claiming they supply missiles and money to Hizbullah and say that Iran is seeking to deflect attention from UN moves to take punitive action over its nuclear programme.
But Iranian and Hizbullah officials say they suspect Israel's action against Hizbullah is part of a wider US-inspired tactic. Mr Nasrallah said the US-Israeli "assessment" had identified obstacles to their vision of a "new Middle East" and had set out to eliminate them. He said Israel had been looking for a pretext to launch an offensive; the abduction of two of its soldiers two weeks ago gave it the perfect excuse.
Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said UN inaction was not helping. "Upon hearing the slightest criticism against the Zionist regime, they issue dozens of resolutions. But now, 13 days after that regime's massive attack against Lebanon, using most fatal weapons, they even refrain from asking for a truce," he said.
Britain has been criticised for aligning itself too closely with the US, and last night the Foreign Office was looking into a report that a British airport was used as a staging post last weekend by US planes transporting bunker busting bombs to Israel. "If the Americans have done something wrong, then we will raise it with them," a spokesman said of the report in the Daily Telegraph.
An official involved in preparations for the summit lowered expectations for the Rome meeting: "It's going to be a talking shop," he said.
He added: "Iran and Syria are definitely protagonists and people will need to speak to them as this goes on. But this meeting will not find the silver bullet."
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1830139,00.html
Guardian:
'Save us,' she screamed as another shell landed
Suzanne Goldenberg in Tibnin, Lebanon
Wednesday July 26, 2006
It is their feet that tell their story. They are bloody, swollen and bandaged after carrying them over mountains and under rocket barrages as Israel's war against Hizbullah erased the lives behind them.
In their villages lay ancestral houses crushed by bombs, family heirlooms abandoned mid-flight, the elderly and the frail, and of course the dead, their bodies trapped beneath the rubble. All that belonged to the past now.
The awful present was here in Tibnin General Hospital, a modest facility even in ordinary times, whose doors yesterday opened on a vision of hell: as many as 1,600 desperate and terrified refugees caught up in Lebanon's deepening humanitarian crisis.
They were men, women, children and newborn babies, forced to abandon their homes as the frontline drew nearer, and stranded in this hospital for days. There was no running water or electricity, no doctors or medicines, little food and even less hope.
They had walked here over hills shuddering beneath Israeli air strikes. Some were barefoot. Others were shellshocked. Some barely managed to enter this world; five babies have been born prematurely at the hospital since the beginning of the war, the Lebanese Red Cross said.
The hundreds here are the most wretched of this war: too poor or unwilling to flee when the first waves of refugees washed up from south Lebanon. The only destination open for them was the darkness of this hospital cellar, barely relieved by a few flickering candles.
And they still aren't safe. Tibnin lies 7km from the town of Bent Jbail, a Hizbullah redoubt a couple kilometres north of the border that is now encircled by Israeli troops. Minutes after our arrival, two artillery shells slammed into the hillside below the hospital. A woman screamed: "Save us". A man yelled at the crowd to calm down, and then a surge of human flesh carried both of them inside. Another shell landed, and then two more.
The roads leading to Tibnin are scored with craters from Israeli air strikes, and in several of the neighbouring villages at least one house has been flattened by an Israeli bomb, carrying a tonnage capable of blowing out the shutters of shops several hundred metres away.
But it was nothing compared to what Kamal Mansour left behind. A farmer from the eastern village of Aaitaroun, which lies barely 2km from the Israeli border, he had been determined to stay in his home despite the increasing intensity of the air war.
But by yesterday morning he could take no more. "They hit us very aggressively," he said. "They didn't leave a single house standing, and there are still people there, buried under the rubble."
He gathered his children - nine of them - and began the trek to safety, carrying the smallest ones on his shoulders. There was no other way out. In this time of war, transport is at a premium: the fare to Tyre has risen to $100 (£54) per person, or $250 for a car. That was inconceivable for Mr Mansour. "We had no gas and no car. Whoever had a car and could leave had already left."
Hala Abu Olaya, a dental secretary from Bent Jbail who lived with her mother and two sisters, also had no car. As the war wore on, the women were forced to flee to four different houses in succession in the besieged town. None offered any real safety. "First they destroyed our house. We left with only the clothes on our back," she said. "We ran to one house, and the bomb fell in front of the door, so we had to escape that house too. Then we ran away to another house. But then that house got bombed."
By the time she arrived in Tibnin, Ms Abu Olaya had been wearing the same clothes for 14 days. Her mother and sisters were no longer with her. "I have nothing now," she said.
For Ali Hourani, a stonemason, also from Bent Jbail, flight offered the cruellest of choices: his ageing parents or his five children. At 82, his father, who has diabetes, was in no condition to flee, nor was his mother, who is 75.
"We spent 10 days under bombs, and it was as if we had died 100 deaths," he said. "No one cared about us. No one asked about us."
As Israeli forces moved deeper into the town, seizing houses on its outskirts, Mr Hourani arrived at his decision. Leaving his parents behind in their home, he took his children out over the hills. He also carried the guilt with him. "There are still a lot of people in the village," he said. "Please help us to get them. We are desperate to get them out. They are injured and old."
In Tibnin hospital, the circumstances are no less desperate. The only supply route is from the coastal town of Tyre via ambulances belonging to the Lebanese Red Cross. The volunteer medics estimate that they can bring in 500 packets of Arabic bread, and 100 cans of tinned fish per trip. It's just about enough for one meal a day.
It can't come too soon for Yusuf Baydoun, 78, who spent 21⁄2 hours walking here over the hills in socks and plastic bath sandals.
"They were bombing all the time," he said. "It was very bad. I thought my heart was going to stop."
Mr Baydoun managed to bring out his wife and two daughters. But he too left people behind. In the ruins of his home, hit by the Israeli forces on Monday night, lay the bodies of his two maids: one Ethiopian, one Sri Lankan. The women were asleep when Mr Baydoun's home was attacked. "It is very sad," he said. "It was not their war."
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1830206,00.html
Jeune Afrique: Une violente manifestation
de l'opposition dispersée à Kinshasa
RD CONGO - 25 juillet 2006 – AFP
Une violente manifestation de partisans de l'opposant congolais Etienne Tshisekedi, hostiles à la tenue des élections prévues dimanche en République démocratique du Congo (RDC), a été dispersée mardi dans les quartiers est de Kinshasa, a constaté un journaliste de l'AFP.
Quelque 500 militants de l'Union pour la démocratie et le progrès social (UDPS) ont violemment frappé plusieurs passants et journalistes, lancé des pierres contre les forces de l'ordre et systématiquement arraché et brûlé les banderoles de candidats à la présidentielle et aux législatives.
Avant même le début de la marche, qui avait été autorisée par le gouvernorat de Kinshasa, les jeunes manifestants avaient commencé à détruire les posters électoraux, scandant "Pas d'élections au Congo le 30 juillet sans Tshisekedi", "aucun bureau de vote ne sera ouvert le 30 juillet!".
L'UDPS d'Etienne Tshisekedi boycotte le processus électoral depuis son lancement en juin 2005 et n'a présenté aucun candidat aux élections.
Partis de Kingasani vers 10H30 GMT, un quartier populaire bordé par la grand route menant à l'aéroport international de la capitale, les manifestants ont été dispersés en fin de matinée par la police, à moins d'un kilomètre du point de départ de la marche.
Pendant plus de deux heures, les jeunes militants de l'UDPS ont crié des slogans hostiles aux étrangers et traité le président Joseph Kabila et le vice-président Azarias Ruberwa de "Rwandais" et le vice-président Jean-Pierre Bemba de "traître". Tous trois sont candidats à la présidence.
La nationalité congolaise du président Kabila, qui a vécu longtemps en exil en Tanzanie et en Ouganda, a été plusieurs fois mise en doute par certains de ses adversaires.
Azarias Ruberwa, Tutsi congolais et chef d'une ex-rébellion soutenue par le Rwanda pendant la dernière guerre en RDC (1998-2003), est considéré par de nombreux Congolais comme un étranger. Quant à Jean-Pierre Bemba, homme d'affaires devenu chef d'une rébellion soutenue par l'Ouganda, il est accusé d'être "un traître" par les militants de l'UDPS "parce qu'il travaille avec des étrangers".
"Si Kabila est proclamé président de la République, tous les étrangers seront brûlés à Kinshasa", a lancé un jeune militant à des journalistes étrangers.
Après un premier jet de grenades lacrymogènes, les manifestants ont commencé à caillasser les voitures de particuliers et ont tenté d'ériger des barricades en travers du boulevard.
Les agents de la Police d'intervention rapide (PIR), qui encadraient la marche, ont reçu le renfort d'une unité de la garde présidentielle qui a tiré en l'air à plusieurs reprises, dispersant définitivement la marche.
En début d'après-midi, la situation était de nouveau calme et la circulation avait repris normalement.
© Jeuneafrique.com 2006
http://www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/article_depeche.asp?
art_cle=AFP44146uneviasahsn0
Jeune Afrique: Violences politiques:
un mort et six blessés à Bassam
CÔTE D'IVOIRE - 25 juillet 2006 – AFP
Des affrontements entre "jeunes patriotes", fervents partisans du président ivoirien Laurent Gbagbo et militants de l'opposition ont fait au moins un mort et six blessés mardi à Bassam, localité balnéaire située à une trentaine de km d'Abidjan.
Des renforts de police et de gendarmerie ivoiriennes sont arrivés mardi à Bassam (à 30 km d'Abidjan) pour mettre fin aux violences.
Un journaliste de l'AFP qui se trouvait à Bassam a vu le cadavre d'un jeune homme tué par balle, et a constaté la présence d'au moins six blessés à l'hopital dont deux par balle et quatre par arme blanche.
Le père de la victime a indiqué à l'AFP que le jeune homme s'appelait Franck Williams Edoukou Da Silva, et qu'il "venait d'obtenir son BTS".
Les affrontements ont opposé des militants de l'opposition au président Gbagbo à des "jeunes patriotes" venus d'Abidjan dans la matinée à bord d'un bus, pour perturber le processus d'identification de la population, selon de nombreux habitants interrogés par l'AFP.
La tension en milieu d'après midi était encore très palpable à Bassam où les magasins étaient fermés et le marché déserté.
Ces nouvelles violences autour du processus d'identification interviennent au lendemain d'un discours du Premier ministre de transition, Charles Konan Banny, qui a décidé de maintenir la première phase dite des "audiences foraines", en dépit des violences qui ont fait au moins deux morts et 38 blessés ce week-end à Divo (centre).
Selon des témoins, les "patriotes", armés de gourdins et de machettes, ont voulu interrompre la réunion visant à identifier les gens qui s'étaient présentés nombreux dans la matinée, mais les jeunes de la ville, connue aussi sous le nom de Grand Bassam, ont réagi.
Un groupe important d'entre eux s'est rassemblé devant le siège du Conseil général tenu par le Front populaire ivoirien (FPI - parti présidentiel) mais les gardes appartenant à une société privée de sécurité ont tiré sur les manifestants, ont ajouté ces témoins déplorant la passivité des forces de l'ordre qui ne sont pas intervenues.
Un hélicoptère des Forces de défense et de sécurité (FDS, loyalistes) a survolé la ville côtière à plusieurs reprises.
Un journaliste de l'AFP a également vu des groupes de policiers qui restaient inactifs en dépit de l'agitation dans les rues de Bassam, municipalité tenue par le Parti démocratique de Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI, opposition).
Le processus d'identification, dont la première phase très controversée a été lancé le 17 juillet, a été émaillé de nombreuses obstructions et violences qui ont fait remonter la tension dans ce pays coupé en deux depuis la tentative de coup d'Etat contre le président Laurent Gbagbo en septembre 2002.
Connu dans le pays sous le nom "d'audiences foraines", il est destiné à identifier les populations afin de leur fournir des pièces d'identité et de réviser les listes électorales.
Les partisans de M. Gbagbo, qui avaient paralysé Abidjan le 19 juillet, craignent que le processus ne permette à des non-Ivoiriens de grossir l'électorat de l'opposition --notamment dans le Nord tenu par la rébellion-- dans la perspective des élections générales, dont la présidentielle, qui doivent être organisées avant le 31 octobre.
© Jeuneafrique.com 2006
http://www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/article_depeche.asp?
art_cle=AFP61246violemassab0
Mother Jones:
Cluster Bombs, Condi's Terms, Invasion Plans...
A Selective Roundup of News Stories on the Conflict.
Updated Daily.
Mother Jones Washington Bureau
July 25 , 2006
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Fierce Fighting in the South: Israel claims to have sealed off Hezbollah stronghold, is determined to fight on. Media reports say it is preparing for occupation of southern Lebanon.
** Rice says she's sorry, but...
** "Israel is determined to continue on in the fight against Hezbollah," said Israeli PM Ehud Olmert. "We will not hesitate to take severe measures against those who are aiming thousands of rockets and missiles against innocent civilians for the sole purpose of killing them.
Occupation Plans: Israeli Military Prepares Plan for Occupation of Southern Lebanon
Getting the Indians Out
Israelis Using chemical weapons?
Cluster Bombs?
Behind the Fighting: Israel’s Quest for more Water
** Long Standing Plans to Seize the Litani River within Lebanon
Chronology of war
News Resources in the Region
Some "official" web sites:
Israel Defense Forces
[Note: Very current information on Israeli military actions.]
Israel Minstry of Foreign Affairs
[Current info about the conflict]
U.S. Embassy in Lebanon
Iran
Palestinian National Authority - State Information Service
[The Palestinian Authority's State Information Service includes a link to the Authority's International Press Centre with news on conflict.]
Syrian Arab News Agency
Blogs, papers, magazines in the region:
First some Lebanese blogs:
Chris Allbritton
[Blog of Time correspondent and freelancer Chris Allbritton, who's been living in Beirut for the last six months or so. He's good.]
Siege of Lebanon
BBC producer in Lebanon
Cold Desert
URShalim
Lebanese Newspapers and Magazines:
Daily Star - Lebanon
Monday Morning
Beirut News
Israeli blogs:
Treppenwitz
[popular Israeli blog]
Fundamentally Freund
Orthodox Anarchist
Israellycool
Israeli Newspapers:
Jerusalem Post
Haaretz
Yedioth Ahronoth
http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2006/07/war_in_the_middle_east.html
Página/12:
Israel sitió un bastión de Hezbolá
SE CUMPLIO UN MES DEL SECUESTRO DEL SOLDADO ISRAELI EN GAZA
Israel redobló los bombardeos sobre Beirut, matando a siete libaneses y a dos observadores de la ONU. También sitió Bint Jebel, donde 20 milicianos y un jefe murieron en combate. La guerrilla atacó Haifa, causando un muerto, y Rice se reunió con Olmert y Abbas.
Miércoles, 26 de Julio de 2006
Ayer se cumplió el día 31 de la guerra de Medio Oriente, pero la situación sigue igual. Israel redobló los bombardeos en Beirut y sitió la ciudad de Bint Jebel, el principal bastión de la milicia chiíta Hezbolá en el sur del Líbano, mientras continuó los bombardeos en la Franja de Gaza, donde realiza una ofensiva desde hace un mes, después de que el 25 de junio militantes palestinos capturaron a un soldado israelí. La diplomacia también siguió su curso, pero sin éxito. De visita en Israel y los territorios palestinos, la secretaria de Estado norteamericana, Condoleezza Rice, aseguró que es tiempo de un “nuevo Medio Oriente” sin violencia, llamó a un cese del fuego permanente, pero no pidió a Israel que detenga la ofensiva, como reclama la mayor parte de la comunidad internacional.
En el día 14 de la ofensiva en el Líbano, al menos cuatro grandes explosiones se escucharon en el sur de Beirut, y los canales de televisión mostraron imágenes de una densa nube de humo que se elevaba por sobre las zonas atacadas. La aviación israelí bombardeó en seis ocasiones el barrio de Haret Hreik, donde se encuentra el cuartel general del Hezbolá, y el ejército israelí anunció la muerte del jefe militar de ese grupo fundamentalista en el sur de Líbano, Abus Jar, durante un enfrentamiento en el sector de Maroun al Ras, cerca de la frontera.
Israel siguió avanzando en el frente terrestre y tomó otra ciudad libanesa. El ejército israelí informó que fuerzas de infantería, apoyadas por aviones y vehículos blindados, sitiaron la localidad de Bint Jebel, el principal bastión de Hezbolá, clausuraron sus accesos y tomaron varias casas de los suburbios. Sin embargo, aclararon que los combates continuaban. Un vocero militar israelí afirmó que entre 20 y 30 milicianos de Hezbolá murieron en los combates en Bint Jebel, pero no explicó si se suman o incluyen a los diez que el ejército dijo haber matado el lunes. El grupo islamista desmintió esa información y dijo que sólo dos de sus milicianos murieron ayer en combates, pero no precisó dónde ni cuándo.
Además de buscar avanzar en su ofensiva, Israel anunció ayer que las tropas de su país establecerán una zona de seguridad libre de Hezbolá en el sur del Líbano que ocuparán hasta la eventual llegada de una fuerza multinacional, una vez logrado un cese de hostilidades con el grupo islamista. “En este momento estamos empeñados en construir una nueva franja de seguridad de nuestras fuerzas, con capacidad de fuego hasta la llegada de otras fuerzas que deberán ocuparla”, dijo el ministro de Defensa, Amir Peretz.
Los ataques siguieron también en otras ciudades. Siete civiles, tres de ellos miembros de una misma familia, murieron en un bombardeo israelí contra dos casas en la localidad de Nabatiye, en el sur del Líbano. Hezbolá no se quedó de brazos cruzados y volvió a lanzar cohetes contra Israel, especialmente a la ciudad de Haifa, en ataques que provocaron un muerto y 25 heridos.
Entre los muertos de ayer no se contaron sólo soldados o civiles, sino también personal de Naciones Unidas. La ONU confirmó la muerte de dos observadores militares pertenecientes a la Fuerza Interina del organismo (Unifil) y la desaparición de otros dos, que presumiblemente estén muertos, por un ataque aéreo israelí en la base de observación de la localidad de Khiam, en el sur del Líbano. El secretario general Kofi Annan expresó su consternación por el ataque. “Estoy conmocionado y profundamente desolado por el ataque deliberado de las Fuerzas de Defensas Israelíes contra un puesto de observación de la ONU”, declaró Annan, quien pidió una exhaustiva investigación sobre el hecho. “Hago un llamamiento al gobierno de Israel a que lleve a cabo una investigación sobre este incidente perturbador y exijo que detenga cualquier otro ataque dirigido a posiciones y al personal de la ONU”, afirmó el secretario general.
La diplomacia también tuvo su espacio ayer, ya que la secretaria de Estado norteamericana, Condoleezza Rice, se reunió por separado con los mandatarios de Israel, Ehud Olmert, y de la Autoridad Palestina (AP), Mahmud Abbas. “Es tiempo de un nuevo Medio Oriente. Es tiempo de decir a aquellos que no quieren un Medio Oriente distinto que nosotros prevaleceremos, ellos no”, dijo Rice en Jerusalén, donde insistió en la necesidad de alcanzar un alto el fuego permanente en la región que permita una paz estable y duradera. La jefa de la diplomacia norteamericana respaldó sin embargo la ofensiva bélica israelí en Líbano y en los territorios palestinos, mientras rechazó la petición de Abbas de que forzara un alto el fuego inmediato. Por su parte, el premier israelí reafirmó que su país continuará con la ofensiva que lanzó en el Líbano contra Hezbolá el 12 de julio, después de que ese grupo islamista mató a ocho soldados israelíes y capturó a otros dos.
La gira diplomática que Rice comenzó el lunes en el Líbano precede a la conferencia internacional de Roma del llamado Grupo del Líbano, integrado por Francia, Reino Unido, Italia, la Unión Europea, Estados Unidos, Egipto y el Banco Mundial, que se celebrará hoy. Asimismo, está prevista la participación del secretario general de la ONU, de delegaciones de varios Estados de Medio Oriente, incluido el propio Líbano, y delegaciones ministeriales de España, Alemania, Rusia, Canadá y Turquía. El objetivo de esa conferencia es buscar soluciones a la crisis humanitaria en el Líbano y una fórmula de acuerdo para proponer a las partes implicadas en el conflicto.
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La guerra virtual de los bloggers de Medio Oriente
Las páginas de Internet creadas por cientos de israelíes, palestinos y libaneses cuentan una historia más íntima que la difundida por los medios.
Miércoles, 26 de Julio de 2006
Cientos de libaneses, palestinos e israelíes encontraron en los blogs –páginas de Internet personales– una forma de contar al mundo cómo viven la guerra. Sin embargo, estos sitios se terminaron convirtiendo en algo mucho mayor. Muchos bloggers –las personas que crean los blogs– los utilizan para contar lo que los grandes medios de comunicación internacionales no quieren decir. Otros, seguramente sin haberlo previsto, construyeron foros, en los que personas de todo el mundo intercambian críticas, mensajes de solidaridad y experiencias personales. “¿Cuál es la diferencia entre el conflicto libanés-israelí de 1982 y el actual?,” se preguntó un libanés en un blog dedicado a la situación en Medio Oriente. “Esta vez el mundo podrá saber lo que estamos viviendo,” respondió.
Los blogs han conseguido lo que la diplomacia no pudo: que las dos partes dialoguen. Casi contradiciendo la lógica nacionalista que motoriza la ofensiva israelí, Shachar, que se identificó como un soldado israelí designado a la frontera en The Lebaneses Bloggers, se solidarizó con los civiles libaneses. “Les envío mis mejores deseos desde aquí y espero que ustedes y sus familias sean fuertes,” publicó en el blog. En el mismo foro, un blogger libanés, Suha, pedía que cesaran las víctimas en la ciudad israelí de Haifa. “Los libaneses están cansados de este conflicto, tan cansados como los israelíes”, agregaba. Aunque estas declaraciones no son mayoritarias en los foros israelíes o libaneses, sí permiten conocer la otra cara de estas dos sociedades, que distan mucho de lo que muestran los medios de comunicación –empeñados en limitar el conflicto a las posiciones de Hezbolá y de la derecha expansionista israelí–.
A muchos, los blogs les permiten mantener un vínculo con el mundo, en un momento en que la sensación de aislamiento es cada vez mayor. En lebanonheart blogs.blogspot.com, un libanés explicó su necesidad de seguir escribiendo, más allá de quién lo lea. “Estoy empezando a sentirme cansado. Sin embargo, todavía creo que escribir sirve de algo... Generalmente, las personas gritan durante la primera y la segunda semana del conflicto. Después, comienzan a hablar sobre ello; después a susurrar. Unas semanas más tarde, el silencio prevalece. Espero que podamos seguir gritando; si sirve para algo o no no es importante. Gritar es para nosotros un remedio contra la insensibilidad que podría adueñarse de nuestras mentes y nuestras emociones, actualmente muy expuestas a imágenes sonidos, gritos y opiniones”, relató el libanés, que prefiere no publicar su nombre.
Algo similar pensó un israelí al crear el blog Life from an Israeli Bunker (vida desde un bunker israelí). El joven se dedicó a relatar cómo todos los días debe refugiarse ante los incesantes bombardeos a su ciudad, Haifa. Allí, junto a unas 20 personas, pasa cada vez más tiempo evitando los katyushas lanzados por Hezbolá. En la crónica del día de ayer, describió una de las tantas escenas “surreales” de estos últimos días. Luego de las sirenas de la mañana, todos han vuelto al bunker. No hay nada para hacer, excepto escuchar la radio. Suena una canción de Marilyn Monroe y la gente comienza tímidamente a bailar y cantar. En ese mismo momento, dos cohetes son lanzados desde el Líbano y poco después caen cerca del refugio. La canción se interrumpe y el locutor anuncia: “Dos cohetes cayeron en espacios abiertos, sin víctimas. Pasaremos una o dos canciones y después, Dios quiera, los liberaremos. Manténganse a salvo”.
Por primera vez, las víctimas de una guerra pueden contar sus propias historias, sin tener que someterse a las miradas de los medios de comunicación. Los bloggers no hablan de resoluciones de Naciones Unidas ni discuten los resultados de las negociaciones entre las potencias. Cuentan cómo se destruyeron sus casas o cómo intentan superar el dilema entre el miedo y los deseos de huir, y el amor a su país y sus compatriotas. “Fue realmente una noche muy dura. ¿Qué puedo contarles? Aquello que no van a saber y aquello que les será ocultado”, comienza una de sus crónicas Rasha, una libanesa que lleva un diario en www.bonk.com.ar/tp.
Informe: Laura Carpineta.
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¿De quién es el siglo XXI?
Por Immanuel Wallerstein*
Miércoles, 26 de Julio de 2006
En 1941, Henry Luce proclamó que el siglo XX sería el siglo americano. Desde entonces, la mayoría de los analistas estuvo de acuerdo con él. Por supuesto, el siglo XX fue más que un siglo estadounidense. Fue el siglo de la descolonización de Asia y Africa. Fue el siglo del florecimiento, como movimientos políticos, del fascismo y el comunismo. Fue el siglo tanto de la Gran Depresión como de la increíble expansión, sin precedentes, de la economía-mundo durante los 25 años posteriores al final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
No obstante, fue el siglo americano. Estados Unidos se convirtió en la potencia hegemónica incuestionable en el período 1945-1970 y modeló el sistema-mundo a su parecer. Estados Unidos se tornó el productor económico principal, la fuerza política dominante, el centro cultural del sistema-mundo. En resumen, Estados Unidos fue el dominador del escenario, por lo menos durante un tiempo.
Ahora, Estados Unidos está en visible decadencia. Más y más analistas comienzan a decirlo abiertamente, pese a que la línea oficial del establishment estadounidense lo niegue vigorosamente, al igual que cierta porción de la izquierda mundial que insiste en que la hegemonía de esa nación continúa. Pero los realistas con claridad de pensamiento, en todas partes, reconocen que la estrella estadounidense va atenuando su luz. La cuestión que subyace a todos los pronósticos serios es entonces, ¿de quién es el siglo XXI?
Por supuesto, estamos apenas en 2006, y tal vez es pronto para responder a esta cuestión con algún sentido de certeza. No obstante, los líderes políticos de todas partes hacen cálculos en torno de dicha respuesta y formulan sus políticas en concordancia. Si replanteamos la cuestión y simplemente nos preguntamos cómo podría verse el mundo, digamos en 2025, podremos quizá ser capaces, por lo menos, de decir algo inteligente.
Básicamente hay tres series de respuestas a la cuestión de cómo se verá el mundo en 2025. La primera es que Estados Unidos gozará de un último vigor, un resurgimiento de su poder, y continuará dominando el gallinero en ausencia de algún contendiente militar serio. La segunda es que China desplazará a Estados Unidos como la superpotencia mundial. La tercera es que el mundo se tornará en la arena de un desorden multipolar anárquico y relativamente impredecible. Examinemos la plausibilidad de cada una de estas tres predicciones.
¿Estados Unidos a la cabeza? Hay tres razones para dudarlo. La primera es una razón económica. La fragilidad del dólar estadounidense como única reserva cambiaria en la economía-mundo. El dólar se sostiene ahora por las masivas infusiones de compra de bonos que hacen Japón, China, Corea y otros países. Es muy poco probable que esto continúe. Cuando el dólar se desplome dramáticamente, incrementará momentáneamente la venta de bienes manufacturados, pero Estados Unidos perderá su control de la riqueza del mundo y su habilidad para expandir el déficit sin una seria sanción inmediata. Los niveles de vida caerán y habrá un influjo de nuevas monedas de reserva, incluidos el euro y el yen.
La segunda razón es militar. Afganistán y especialmente Irak han demostrado en los últimos pocos años que no es suficiente contar con aviones, barcos y bombas. Una nación debe también contar con una gran fuerza terrestre que venza la resistencia local. Estados Unidos no cuenta con una fuerza así, y no tendrá ninguna, debido a razones políticas internas. Como tal, está condenado a perder tales guerras.
La tercera razón es política. Las naciones por todo el mundo están llegando a la conclusión lógica de que ahora pueden desafiar políticamente a Estados Unidos. Tomemos el ejemplo más reciente: la Organización de Cooperación de Shanghai, que reúne a Rusia, China y a cuatro repúblicas del Asia central, está por expandirse para incluir a India, Paquistán,Mongolia e Irán. Este último país fue invitado en el mismo momento en que Estados Unidos intentaba organizar una campaña mundial contra el régimen iraní. El Boston Globe llamó a esto, correctamente, “una alianza anti Bush” y un “viraje tectónico en la geopolítica”.
¿Surgirá China como cabeza hacia 2025? Es muy cierto que China lo está haciendo muy bien en lo económico, expande su fuerza militar considerablemente, y comienza a jugar un serio papel político en la región, más allá de sus fronteras. China sin duda será más fuerte en 2025; sin embargo enfrenta tres problemas que debe remontar.
El primer problema es interno. China no es estable políticamente. La estructura de un solo partido tiene a su favor la fuerza del éxito económico y el sentimiento nacionalista. Pero enfrenta el descontento de alrededor de la mitad de la población, que se siente relegada, y el descontento de la otra mitad por los límites de su libertad política interna.
El segundo problema se refiere a la economía-mundo. La increíble expansión del consumo en China (junto con el de India) cobrará su cuota en la ecología mundial y en las posibilidades de acumulación de capital. Muchos consumidores y muchos productores tendrán severas repercusiones en los niveles de ganancia mundiales.
El tercer problema yace en los vecinos de China. Si ésta lograra la reintegración de Taiwan, ayudara a arreglar la reunificación de las Coreas y llegara a conciliarse (psicológica y políticamente) con Japón, tal vez habría una estructura geopolítica unificada en Asia oriental que podría asumir una posición hegemónica.
Los tres problemas pueden remontarse, pero no será fácil hacerlo. Y las probabilidades de que China pueda remontar estas dificultades para 2025 son inciertas.
El último escenario es aquel de anarquía multipolar y de fluctuaciones económicas desordenadas. Dada la incapacidad de mantener un viejo poder hegemónico, la dificultad de establecer uno nuevo y la crisis mundial de la acumulación de capital, este tercer escenario parece ser el más probable.
* Sociólogo e historiador estadounidense, autor, entre otros trabajos, de El moderno sistema mundial, Economía del mundo capitalista y Raza, nación y clase.
De La Jornada, de México. Especial para Página/12.
Traducción: Ramón Vera Herrera
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The Independent:
Rice’s Lebanon plan is mired in self-delusion
By Robert Fisk
Wednesday,26 July, 2006
QLAYA, Southern Lebanon: The battle for Southern Lebanon is on an epic scale but from the heights above Khiam, the Israelis appear to be in deep trouble. Their F-16s turn in the high bright sun - small silver fish whose whispers gain in volume as they dive - and their bombs burst over the old prison where the Hezbollah are still holding out; but beyond the frontier, I can see livid fires burning across the Israeli hillside and the Jewish settlement of Metullah billowing smoke.
It was not meant to be like this, 13 days into Israel’s assault on Lebanon. The Katyushas still streak in pairs out of Khiam, white contrails that thump into Israel’s hillsides and border towns. So is it frustration or revenge that also keeps Israel’s bombs falling on the innocent? In the early hours of yesterday morning, a tremendous explosion woke me up, rattling the windows and shaking the trees outside and a single flash suffused the western sky over Nabatea. The lives of an entire family of seven had just been extinguished.
And how come – since this now obsesses the humanitarian organisations working in Lebanon – that the Israelis bombed two ambulances in Qana, killing two of the wounded inside and wounding the third civilian for the second time in a day. All the crews were injured – one with a piece of shrapnel in his neck – but what worried the Lebanese Red Cross was that the Israeli missiles had clearly pierced the very centre of the red cross painted on the roof of each vehicle. Did the pilots use the cross as their aiming point?
The bombardment of Khiam has set off its own brushfires on the hillside below Qlaya, whose Maronite Christian inhabitants now stand on the high road above like spectators at a 19th century battle. Khiam is – or was – a pretty village of cut stone doorways and tracery windows but Israel’s target is the notorious prison in which – before its retreat from Lebanon in 2000 – hundreds of Hezbollah members and in some cases their families were held and tortured with electricity by Israel’s proxy South Lebanon Army militia.
This was the same prison complex – turned into a ‘Museum of Torture’ by the Hezbollah after the Israeli retreat that was visited by the late Edward Said shortly before his death. More important, however, is that many of the Hezbollah men originally held prisoner here were captives in cells built deep underground below the old French mandate fort. These same men are now fighting the Israelis, almost certainly sheltering from their firepower in the same underground cells in which they once languished, perhaps even storing some of their missiles there.
In Marjayoun next to Qlaya – once the SLA’s headquarters – Lebanese troops are desperately trying to prevent Hezbollah guerrillas using the streets of the Greek Catholic town to fire yet more missiles at Israel.
Seven-man army patrols are moving through the darkened alleyways of both towns at night in case Hezbollah brings yet more Israel bombs down on our heads.
In war, all one’s senses are quickened. Dawn, birds, music, flowers acquire a new meaning. A family is still living in the little villa opposite my house and I watched a woman at dusk, picking vegetables in her garden for supper, ignoring the howl of Israeli aircraft in the sky above her and the sinister changes in air pressure from their bombs.
In Beirut, one observes the folly of western nations with amusement as well as horror but sitting in these hill villages and listening to how US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to reshape Lebanon is clearly a lesson in human self-delusion.
According to American correspondents accompanying Ms Rice on her visit to the Middle East, she is proposing the intervention of a Nato-led force along the Lebanese-Israeli border for between 60 and 90 days to assure that a ceasefire exists, the deployment after this of an enlarged Nato-led force throughout Lebanon to ensure the disarmament of Hezbollah, and then the retraining of the Lebanese Army before it too deploys to the border.
This plan – which like all American proposals on Lebanon is exactly the same as Israel’s demands - carries the same depth of delusional conceit as that of the Israeli consul-general in New York who said last week that ‘most Lebanese appreciate what we are doing’.
Does Rice think the Hezbollah want to be disarmed, albeit it under the terms of UN Security Council resolution 1559? By Nato? Wasn’t there a Nato force in Beirut which fled Lebanon after a group close to the Hezbollah bombed the US marine base at Beirut airport in 1983, killing 241 US servicemen, and dozens more French troops a few seconds later? Does anyone believe that Shia Muslim forces will not do the same again to any Nato "intervention" force. The Hezbollah have been waiting and training and dreaming of this war for years, however ruthless we may regard their actions. They are not going to surrender the territory they liberated from the Israeli Army in an 18-year guerrilla war, least of all to Nato at Israel’s bidding.
The problem, surely, is that the United States sees this bloodbath as an "opportunity" rather than a tragedy, a chance to humble Hizballah’s supporters in Tehran and help to shape the "new Middle East" of which Rice spoke so blandly yesterday. In fact it will more likely to prove to be Syria’s attempt to humble Israel and the United States in Lebanon.
Of course, the Hezbollah have brought catastrophe to their co-religionists. All the way down the Bekaa Valley to Southern Lebanon, the long, dangerous, bomb-cratered roads I had to travel to reach Qlaya were deserted save for cars driven by panicking men, crammed with families, trailing white sheets out of the windows in the forlorn hope – after all the Israeli air attacks on civilians – that this would provide them with protection.
The only civilian walking these frightening roads was a goatherd, shepherding his animals around the huge craters. Talking to him, it emerged that he was almost stone deaf and could not hear the bombs. In this, it seemed, he had a lot in common with Condoleezza Rice.
http://www.robert-fisk.com/
The Independent:
A War Crime?
By Robert Fisk
25 July, 2006
They are in the schools, in empty hospitals, in halls and mosques and in the streets. The Shia Muslim refugees of southern Lebanon, driven from their homes by the Israelis, are arriving in Sidon by the thousand, cared for by Sunni Muslims and then sent north to join the 600,000 displaced Lebanese in Beirut. More than 34,000 have passed through here in the past four days alone, a tide of misery and anger. It will take years to heal their wounds, and billions of dollars to repair their damaged property.
And who can blame them for their flight? For the second time in eight days, the Israelis committed a war crime yesterday. They ordered the villagers of Taire, near the border, to leave their homes and then - as their convoy of cars and minibuses obediently trailed northwards - the Israeli air force fired a missile into the rear minibus, killing three refugees and seriously wounding 13 other civilians. The rocket that killed them is believed to have been a Hellfire missile made by Lockheed Martin in Florida.
Nine days ago, the Israeli army ordered the inhabitants of a neighbouring village, Marwaheen, to leave their homes and then fired rockets into one of their evacuation trucks, blasting the women and children inside to their deaths. And this is the same Israeli air force which was praised last week by one of Israel's greatest defenders - Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz - because it "takes extraordinary steps to minimise civilian casualties".
Nor have the Israelis spared Sidon. A heap of rubble and pancaked walls is all that is left of the Fatima Zahra mosque, a Hizbollah institution in the centre of the city, its minaret crumbled and its dome now sitting on the concrete, a black flag still flying from its top. When Israeli warplanes came early yesterday morning, the 75-year-old caretaker had no time to run from the building; he died of his wounds hours later. His overturned white plastic chair still lies by the gate. The mosque is unlikely to have been used for military purposes; a school belonging to the Hariris, Sidon's all-powerful Sunni family, stands next door; they would never have allowed weapons into the building.
Not that Hizbollah - which killed two more Israeli civilians with their rockets in Haifa yesterday - have respected Sidon, whose population is 95 per cent Sunni. They tried to fire Iranian-made missiles at Israel from the seafront Corniche and from beside the city slaughterhouse last week. On both occasions, residents physically prevented them from opening fire.
The multimillion-dollar Hariri Foundation - created by the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated last year - has helped 24,000 Shia refugees out of the south and on to Beirut but its generosity has not always been happily received. One group of refugees sheltering in a technical school in Meheniyeh punched and taunted Hariri workers. Elsewhere, the foundation's staff have been cursed by fleeing families. "They are telling us that we are working for the Americans and that this is why we are taking them out," said Ghena Hariri - Rafik's niece and a Georgetown graduate. "It is something that drains our energy. We are working 24 hours a day and at the end of the day they curse us. But I feel so sorry for them. Now they are being told by the Israelis to leave their villages on foot and they have to walk dozens of kilometres in this heat."
It's not difficult to see how this war can damage the delicate sectarian framework that exists in Lebanon. One group of Shia families - housed in a school in the Druze mountains of the Chouf - tried to put Hizbollah's yellow banners on the roof and members of Walid Jumblatt's Druze Popular Socialist Party had to tear them down. Their act may have saved the refugees' lives.
Yet many of the Shia in this beautiful Crusader port have learnt how kind their Sunni neighbours can be. "We are here - where else can we go?" Nazek Kadnah asked as she sat in the corner of a mosque which Rafik Hariri built and dedicated to his father, Haj Baha'udin Hariri. "But they look after us here as their brothers and sisters and now we are safe."
These sentiments provoke some dark questions. Why, for example, can't these poor people be shown the same compassion from Tony Blair as he supposedly felt for the Muslims of Kosovo when they were being driven from their homes by the Serbs? These thousands are as terrified and homeless as the Kosovo Albanians who fled to Macedonia in 1998 and for whom Mr Blair claimed he was waging a moral war. But for the Shia Muslims sleeping homeless in Sidon there is to be no such moral posturing - and no ceasefire suggestions from Mr Blair, who has aligned himself with the Israelis and the Americans.
And what exactly is the purpose of driving more than half a million people from their homes? Many of these poor people sit clutching their front-door keys, just as the Palestinians of Galilee did when they arrived in Lebanon 58 years ago to spend the rest of their lives as refugees. Yes, the Shia Muslims of Lebanon probably will go home. But to what? A war between the Hizbollah and a Western intervention force? Or further bombardment by the Israelis?
The Sidon refugees now have 36 schools in which they can shelter - but they are the lucky ones. Across southern Lebanon, the innocent continued to die. One was an eight-year-old boy who was killed in an Israeli air raid on a village close to Tyre. Eight more civilians were wounded when an Israeli missile hit a vehicle outside the Najem hospital in Tyre. And during the morning, one of Lebanon's journalists, Layal Nejib, a photographer for the magazine Al-Jaras whose pictures were also transmitted by Agence France Press, was killed in her taxi by an Israeli air strike near Qana, the same village in which 106 civilians were massacred in a UN base by Israeli artillery shells in 1996. She was only 23.
In her marble-walled home above Sidon, Bahia Hariri - Ghena's mother, the sister of the murdered former prime minister and a local member of parliament - sat grim-faced, scarcely controlling her fury. "We are in this terrible situation but we haven't any window to resolve this situation," she said. "Rafik Hariri is no longer with us. The international community is not with us. Who is with us? God. And the old Lebanese. And the Arab world, we hope, will help us. The only resistance we can show is to be a united Lebanon. But we have only a small margin in which to dream."
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
http://www.robert-fisk.com/
ZNet | Mideast
This is not Dunkirk. This is Munich
by Robert Fisk; July 25, 2006
How brave our warships looked at dawn. Spread over the pale blue Mediterranean, bristling with cannons and machine guns and missiles, it was an armada led by the destroyer HMS Gloucester and the USS Nashville and York and the sleek French anti-submarine frigate Jean-de- Vienne. They represented Us, those ships upon which the Lebanese stared with such intensity yesterday. They represented our Western power, the military strength of our billion-dollar economies. Who would dare challenge this naval might?
It was, our journalists told us, to be the greatest evacuation since Dunkirk. There it was again, the Second World War. And it was another cruel lie which the Lebanese spotted at once. For these mighty craft had not arrived to save Lebanon, to protect a nation now being destroyed by America's ally, Israel, Lebanon whose newly flourishing democracy was hailed by our leaders last year as a rose amid the dictatorships of the Arab world. No, they were creeping through the dawn after asking Israel's permission to help their citizens to flee. These great warships had been sent here by Western leaders (Jacques Chirac excepted) too craven, too gutless, too immoral, to utter a single word of compassion for Lebanon's suffering.
Even Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara could only condemn Hizbollah for attacking the Israelis last week - yes, of course, Lord Blair, they did indeed "start this", as our Foreign Secretary never ceases to say - without mentioning Israel's savage killing of more than 300 Lebanese civilians. No, those ships I watched steaming into Beirut port yesterday did not represent Dunkirk. They represented Munich.
Even the newspaper and television stories managed to avoid the reality. As our Jolly Tars helped the elderly on board and US Marines landed very briefly - or "stormed the beach", to quote the Associated Press's imperishable report - to protect their ship, television crews hunted through the crowds of refugees for suitable pictures. Their problem, of course, was that almost the entire evacuation is of Lebanese who happen to hold dual citizenship. Cameras moved inexorably towards the very few blue-eyed men and blonde ladies of the "kith and kin" variety, anyone in fact who didn't look remotely like most of the rest of the refugees. It was pathetic. Even while we are betraying the Lebanese, we tried not to film the lucky few who could escape on our ships.
Of course, there are various kinds of escape, and one of the most adept of political Houdinis is His Excellency Mr Jeffrey Feldman, the US ambassador to Lebanon. In the past few hours, he had to listen - in person - as the Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, desperately appealed for a ceasefire to end the destruction of Lebanon by the Israeli air force. "Is the value of human life in Lebanon less than that of the citizens of other countries?" Mr Siniora asked. "Can the international community stand by while such callous retribution by Israel is inflicted on us?" Answer: yes.
Now all this presented Mr Feldman with a little problem. This was the same Mr Feldman, remember, who was heaping laurels on Mr Siniora and his democratically elected government last year for its "cedar revolution", for throwing the Syrian army out. But if he were to praise Mr Siniora's speech condemning Israel, Mr Feldman would, no doubt, be summoned back to the State Department in Washington and dispatched to the US embassy in Ulan Bator. So what was he to say when asked for a comment on Mr Siniora's speech? It was, Mr Feldman said, "articulate and touching". Articulate - as in "he-knows-how-to-string-the-words-together" - and touching, as in "sad".
Now to the Department of Home Truths. Mr Siniora did not mention the Hizbollah. He did not say he had been powerless to stop its reckless attack on Israel last week. He didn't want to criticise this powerful guerrilla army in his midst which had proved that Syria still controls events in this beautiful, damaged country. And he did not dare criticise Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah's leader, whom Israel tried to assassinate a few hours later by dropping a massive bomb on what it called a "bunker" in Beirut's southern suburbs, an explosion which physically shook the entire city. Untrue, cried the Hizbollah. It was the building site for a new mosque.
Ho hum. One has to say that it was indeed a building site that was hit and a few of the unfinished walls appeared to be of Islamic design. But on closer inspection, it did also have a very big basement. A very big basement indeed. "Well," as one colleague put it to me, "I suppose even mosques have basements, but..."
Quite so. For no one takes anything at face value these days. And that applied to President Bush's promise to ask Israel to stop destroying any more of Lebanon's infrastructure. It was an eloquent gesture. And no doubt touching. But there isn't much of Lebanon's infrastructure left to destroy.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=10636
ZNet | Israel/Palestine
More to Lebanon War than Meets the Eye
by Ramzy Baroud; July 24, 2006
At first glance, history seems to repeat itself in Lebanon, where a lengthy cold war is intermittently interrupted by an extreme show of violence as traditional players quickly sprint into action, stacking their support behind one party or the other.
News headlines remind us of past conflicts such as that of 1978 – when Israel illegally occupied parts of Lebanon – and 1982 – when Israel unleashed a full scale invasion and most deadly campaign against its small neighbor to the north, killing tens of thousands, mostly civilians.
But the unreserved significance of the ongoing conflict has more to do with Israel's military ambitions – not necessarily colonial, but rather strategic - than with Hizbollah's ability to strike deep into Israel.
Let's examine the bigger picture, starting well before Hizbollah's daring capture of two Israeli soldiers in cross border fighting, which unfortunately, at least as far the media is concerned, is the solitary provocation that sparked the current conflict. (A San Francisco Chronicle investigative report by Matthew Kalman - Israel Set War Plan More Than a Year Ago, July 21, 2006 – sheds more light on Israel's intent to carry a three-week bombardment of Lebanon as early as 2000.)
For years, Israel's strategic objective has been to break up the Syria-Lebanon front – to isolate Syria and meddle as always in Lebanon's affairs – while diminishing whatever leverage Iran has in Lebanon through its support of Hizbollah.
As I argued in the first chapter of my book: the Second Palestinian Intifada, Israel's military defeat in Lebanon and its army's abrupt exit in May 2000, has espoused what became increasingly known as "the spirit of resistance" among Palestinians and Lebanese alike. Israel has proved once and for all to have serious military shortcomings, and Hizbollah – an organization that was comprised mostly of the relatives of Israel's victims in the invasion of 1982 and subsequent years- was the single entity that exposed those limitations.
Thus, Israel upgraded its use of violence to unprecedented degrees during the Palestinian uprising of September 2000 – months after the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon- to send a clear message that their military travesty in Lebanon will not be repeated elsewhere. Moreover, despite its insistence that it left Lebanon for good, Israel never departed from its original military goal of destroying Hizbollah or meddling in Lebanese affairs.
Then there was the American attack on Iraq in March 2003 - clearly a highly dangerous military adventure – which was lauded by Israeli and pro-Israeli neo-conservative ideologues in Tel Aviv and in Washington as prudent and indispensable involvement, that would further cement Israel's security and the US strategic objectives in the Middle East – thoughtlessly considered one and the same.
The Iraq war was anticipated to be a 'cakewalk', which would be followed – according to various neo-cons documents available on the web – by a regime change in Syria and Iran, respectively. Though both countries have proved unequally vital in the US so-called 'war on terror', Israel views both as imminent and ominous threats, for only these countries, after the collapse of the Iraqi military front, still possess real armies and potential military threats. Of course, such a claim, at least in the Syrian case, is highly questionable.
Bogged down in Iraq in an impossible war, it became clear that the US military is simply incapable of taking on more of Israel's foes. According to Israel's friends in the US Congress and media – and they are plentiful – the mission was not accomplished. This explains the growing neo-con intellectual insurgency against the administration, accusing it of 'mishandling' the Iraq conflict and failing to appreciate the gravity of the Iran threat. While President Bush is relentless in his anti Iran and Syria rhetoric, it's becoming more transparent that a full invasion of Iran, or even Syria are now in the realm of wishful thinking.
With American military ambitions slowly dying out in the dust of the battlefield in Baghdad and Ramadi, Israel is growing utterly frustrated. Why? On one hand, despite the intense pressure on Syria to abandon Lebanon – as it did – Hizbollah's military and political influence hardly faded, as Israel has hoped for an immediate overhaul of the political map of Lebanon and the dismantling of Hizbollah. Even worse, a movement that is parallel to Hizbollah in many ways in Palestinian and Arab psyche, Hamas, was on the rise, this time – ironically - as part of the US advocated democratic reforms campaign in the Middle East.
Hamas’ advent to power in January 2006, was followed by a less decisive Israeli election that brought to power a questionable coalition, whose prime minister and defense minister are known for having no military browses, a major diversion from Israel's traditional politics. In other words, the new Israeli government had a great deal to prove on the battlefield to receive much needed validation at home.
Similar to its political pressure on Lebanon and Syria – using Washington as a conduit- Tel Aviv took on Hamas: a suffocating economic siege, an international smear campaign and a diplomatic blockade – using Washington, but also corrupt ex-Palestinian officials to achieve its goals. That too has failed terribly, which prompted military strikes against Gaza, killing scores and wounding hundreds, mostly civilians. In a rare diversion from its political leadership, the Hamas militant wing responded by capturing an Israeli solider at the border, vowing to only release him if all Palestinian women and children in Israeli jails are set free.
As far as Israel and the US administration – and much of the Western media – are concerned, Hamas provoked the Israeli military wrath that followed, the killing and wounding hundreds of innocent people and destroying what it has spared in past onslaughts. While Arab governments carried on with business as usual, Hizbollah – who must've know that an Israeli military campaign against Lebanon was inevitable any way – decided to take the initiative by opening a war front on Israel's northern border in the least comfortable times for the Israeli military, with the hope to relieve some of the pressure on Palestinians. Whether it miscalculated or not is another story.
Neither Syria nor Iran asked Hizbollah to start a new war on Israel, though I can imagine that both will likely attempt to reap its benefits in case Hizbollah manages to survive the Israeli onslaught, which is, according to US analyst, William Lind, a victory in itself.
Israel doesn't want to occupy Lebanon, but is keenly interested in destroying Hizbollah, thus sending a clear message to Iran that it is next. It also wants to broaden the Middle East conflict to force the US into an uninvited showdown with Iran and Syria. Expectedly, the US is providing 100 percent political, military and financial cover to Israel's adventurism in Lebanon, but will it go further?
Hizbollah cannot lose if it wishes to survive as a formidable political force in Lebanon. If Hizbollah is disarmed, it is feared that Israel will go back to its full scale meddling in Lebanese affairs, isolating Syria even further, and gaining a strategic battle in its looming showdown with Tehran.
Tragically, Israel's military adventurism and the US reprehensible backing of Israel's endless quest for regional domination has so far seen the death and wounding of thousands of innocent Lebanese civilians, and the destruction of a nation that has barely recovered from past Israeli wars, to once again collapse under the rubble of a new one.
-Ramzy Baroud is a US journalist. He is the author of The Second Palestinian Uprising: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle, published by Pluto Press in London, available in the US from the University of Michigan Press, and everywhere from Amazon.com. He is also the editor of PalestineChronicle.com.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=10635
ZNet | Israel/Palestine
Lebanon between Truth and Justice
by Khatchig Mouradian; July 24, 2006
I'm for truth, no matter who tells it.
I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against.
Malcolm X
On July 12 2006, fighters from the armed wing of the Lebanese political party Hizbollah launched a cross-border attack on Israel killing and injuring a number of Israeli soldiers and capturing two. The operation was dubbed “True Promise”; months ago, Hizbollah had promised in public to capture Israeli soldiers to exchange them with Lebanese prisoners languishing in Israeli jails, some for more than 25 years.
The very day the soldiers were captured, Sayyed Hassan Nasralla, the secretary-general of Hizbollah, declared that there was no intention on his part to start a full-scale confrontation, and that the only way to free the Israeli soldiers was through indirect negotiations leading to an exchange.
Israel, however, immediately launched a wide-scale military campaign, dubbed “Just Reward,” to free the two soldiers. Hizbollah first retaliated by shelling military positions in Israel’s north and, eventually, as the Israeli Army started bombing Lebanese infrastructure and targeting civilians, Hizbollah started shelling civilian targets as well.
Israel has thus far “justly rewarded” the three runways and fuel depots of Beirut International Airport, all its seaports, most highways and roads connecting various parts of the country as well as those leading to Syria, tens of bridges in Lebanon’s south and east, factories, trucks, ambulances, TV transmission installations, thousands of buildings and houses. More than 360 civilians have been, again, “justly rewarded” by getting slaughtered, and more than a thousand received lesser “rewards” by being sent to hospitals and some 700 thousand (an estimated 15 percent of the country's population) have been “rewarded” with refugee status. President Bush said that Israel had the right to defend itself and, to date, the US has blocked all attempts by the international community to put a ceasefire in place. Hizbollah, in turn, has tried to impose what the Arab media and experts are calling a “balance of terror” by bombing northern Israel --most notably the port city of Haifa-- and causing a number of deaths and injuries among Israeli soldiers and civilians.
While United Nations relief coordinator Jan Egeland was saying that Lebanon was suffering a “major” humanitarian crisis and that Israel was violating “international humanitarian law,” the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, heading to the region on July 23, did not seem to be in a rush. “We have to be certain that we are pushing forward to the new Middle East, not going back to the old one,” she said.
What started as an operation to liberate the 2 Israeli soldiers (if one is naïve enough to believe that) is now a US supported war to forge a “new Middle East.” If this renovation is anything in the same breath as the “Greater Middle-East” plans that are being implemented from Afghanistan to Iraq to the Palestinian territories, then Lebanon has just started to walk down the long road that the Bush administration sees as that of freedom, democracy, and security, and, if the country is lucky enough, three years from now, it will be as free, democratic and safe as, say, Iraq and Afghanistan are today.
What needs to be done? Attempts to wipe out, or even defeat Hizbollah, are in all probability doomed to fail. With the degree of “pinpoint accuracy” the Israeli army is displaying, the entire Lebanese people will be cleansed much before the rooting out of Hizbollah.
Implementing UN Security Council resolution 1559 and disarming Hizbollah by force are doomed to fail as well. Whether the US administration, the West in general, some “moderate” Arab states, and even many in Lebanon like it or not, Hizbollah has a broad grassroots support in not among the Shiites, the largest minority in Lebanon, but also among some Christian, Druze, and Sunni Muslim political circles, who are extremely angry at Washington’s overall pro-Israeli bias, and at the fact that the Bush administration is ignoring the UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, which were declared to be at the core of the international initiative launched in Madrid in 1991.
Any initiative to solve the immediate crisis in Lebanon must involve an exchange of prisoners between Lebanon and Israel (and probably in the Palestinian territories as well), Israel’s handing down of the maps of landmines that the Israeli army had planted in southern Lebanon before its withdrawal in 2000, and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Shebaa farms-- which, according to the Lebanese government and Hizbollah, is Lebanese soil. Even after all that, it is an illusion to believe that a comprehensive and lasting solution can be achieved without finding a true and just solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Khatchig Mouradian is a Lebanese-Armenian writer, translator, and journalist. He is an editor of the daily newspaper Aztag, published in Beirut. He can be contacted at khatchigm@gmail.com
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=10634
posted by attilav at 18:47
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