Elsewhere today (376)
Aljazeera:
Israel renews Beirut strikes
Thursday 03 August 2006, 12:34 Makka Time, 9:34 GMT
Israeli warplanes have resumed strikes in Lebanon, a day after Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets at Israel in its largest attack to date.
Israeli jets fired on the battered outskirts of the Lebanese capital as well as on the country's northern border with Syria, the southern border with Israel and in the eastern Bekaa Valley on Thursday.
Witnesses said at least four explosions reverberated through Beirut on Thursday as missiles hit Dahieh, a suburb that has been repeatedly shelled by Israel since fighting began three weeks ago.
It was the first air raid against the Lebanese capital's southern suburb in almost a week.
The strikes came in the wake of Hezbollah's rocket attack on the Israeli town of Afulah, its deepest hit in Israel so far.
Hezbollah said it fired more than 300 rockets into Israel on Wednesday, as fierce fighting raged on the border. Israeli officials said 210 had been launched.
Israeli jets also bombed roads and bridges near Lebanon's northern border with Syria overnight, Lebanese radio said.
It was the second attack in the area in 24 hours, and a bridge linking the zone to the northern port of Tripoli was destroyed.
In the Bekaa Valley, some 75km to the south east of Beirut, witnesses said Israeli jets fired two missiles that hit a road overnight.
Taibeh deaths
An Israeli missile hit a house in the Lebanese border village of Taibeh killing a family of three, Lebanese security officials said.
The missile crashed into the two-story house of Hani Abdo Marmar killing him instantly along with his wife and daughter.
The three victims were still buried under the rubble of their house, which was flattened, witnesses said.
Taibeh, which is less than 5km from the Israeli border, has been the scene of fierce fighting between Hezbollah guerrillas and Israeli ground troops for several days.
Israeli casualties
One US-born Israeli was killed as he fled for a bomb shelter in Kibbutz Saar, a communal farm near the northern border town of Nahariya, on Wednesday.
Nineteen Israeli civilians have died during rocket attacks in the last three weeks.
One Israeli soldier was killed and four others wounded near the border village of Aita al-Shaab on Wednesday, the Israeli army confirmed early on Thursday. The death brought to 37 the number of Israeli troops killed in 23 days of fighting.
At least 643 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians, and 56 Israelis have been killed in the conflict so far.
The US-based watchdog Human Rights Watch said that the bodies of 28 people killed in an Israeli air strike on the Lebanese village of Qana had been recovered and 13 people were missing. The official Lebanese toll is 54.
An Israeli military inquiry into the attack on Qana admitted a mistake had been made, but said that Israel did not know that there were civilians in the building.
Baalbek raid
The upsurge in rocket attacks followed a raid by on a Hezbollah-run hospital near Baalbek by Israeli troops in helicopters.
The army said five suspected Hezbollah fighters were seized, but Hezbollah said only civilians were taken.
Aljazeera's correspondent in Beirut said the raid was aimed at seizing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
At least 13 civilians were killed when Israeli warplanes hit Jammaliyeh, a village near Baalbek, and six died in air strikes elsewhere in the Bekaa Valley, security sources said.
A Lebanese army soldier was also killed and two were wounded in an Israeli airstrike on their post in the south, the army said.
Resolution talks
Meanwhile, the United States, France and Britain hope for a United Nations Security Council resolution within a week that would call for a truce and perhaps bolster existing UN peacekeepers until a more robust force can be formed, UN officials said.
But diplomatic moves to swiftly end the fighting have been beset by splits between the United States and France, mentioned as leader of the new force, over the timing of a ceasefire.
In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel would fight on until an international force reaches south Lebanon - even though no country has volunteered to send troops in the absence of a truce and a durable ceasefire agreement.
Olmert called for an international combat force to implement a UN resolution calling for Hezbollah to be disarmed, saying Israel had already destroyed much of the group's military power.
Israel is expanding the ground war in southern Lebanon, where some 10,000 troops are battling Hezbollah fighters.
Aljazeera + Agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C7EAF8F1-20DB-421E-86EF-0F5CD679CF69.htm
allAfrica: $700 Million Abacha Loot
Fully Repatriated - Swiss Govt
By Collins Edomaruse And Funmi Peter-Omale, Abuja
This Day (Lagos) NEWS
August 2, 2006
The $700 million stashed away in Swiss banks by the late Head State, General Sani Abacha, and his family "have now been fully" repatriated back to the Nigerian Government, the Swiss Government said yesterday.
The country's Ambassador to Nigeria, Dr. Pierre Helg, disclosed this at a cocktail commemorating the 715th Anniversary of the Swiss Confederation in Abuja last night.
In the words of the Ambassador, "I am pleased to note that the bilateral relations are again at their best. Some will remember that last year we had ups and downs with the restitution of the Abacha funds. But today, the whole of this money is back in Nigeria and, also thanks to the constructive and very friendly visit of President Olusegun Obasanjo to Switzerland last April, everything is over and I see on both sides a fruitful spirit of cooperation."
Helg noted that another $7 million was, however, being held in an account of an unnamed Nigerian who had employed the services of a good lawyer to prove that the money was honestly earned.
"The total of the amount is known to everybody, it was $700 million, out of that about one percent is still frozen in a bank account which is in the hand of a Nigerian, that is about $7 million, which he says is for the Abacha family, which they say, they could prove that it was honestly earned. So 99 percent had been repatriated so far."
According to him, 'the last repatriation was made in February 2006 and it was only a few millions, but then everything matters."
He said with the rekindled mutual trust being developed between the two countries, new Swiss investors, especially in the area of special services were coming to Nigeria.
"New Swiss investors are coming, namely in the sector of services, which I regard as a tribute paid by our private operators to the current economic reforms initiated by the President Obasanjo and his team."
He expressed his government's commendation for what he described as "tremendous efforts presently undertaken in Nigeria to consolidate democracy, promote transparency and improve the functioning of the country. No doubt, Nigeria is promised to a bright future.
The Ambassador noted that since her foundation in 1291, Switzerland has gone through many civil wars, tensions and hot discussions on her future. 'But since 1815, inspite of our diversity in terms of languages, cultures, mentalities and origins-currently, 21 percent of our inhabitants are foreigners-things and people have been more or less under control and our neutral country has enjoyed uninterrupted peace."
Helg stated that the country had a flourishing direct democracy with countless popular referendums every year upon all possible issues. He stressed that because of an inclusive type of democracy, the Switzerland had democratically refused so far to join the European Union.
The incidence of looting of public money and stashing it in western financial institutions is a global problem and developing /developed countries as well as international organizations are at a loss on how to stemor control the phenomenon. Heads of States such as "Baby Doc" Duvalier of Haiti, Ferdinand Marcos of Philippines, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, and President Suharto of Indonesia are the most publicized culprits of this global crime. It has been estimated that hundreds of billions of dollars have been expatriated both by these persons and lesser known figures and the consequences have been grave since citizens of the countries in which the practice occurs are bereft of developmental amenities as a result of stealing public money. President Sani Abacha, the late Nigerian Head of State, has however joined the league of the biggest culprits of this crime, as a source put the estimated amount he and his cronies stole at between twelve to sixteen billion dollars.
General Sani Abacha ruled Nigeria from December 1993 to May 1998 until he suffered a heart attack, which put a stop to his penchant for stealing public money and stashing them in Western banks. He rose from humble beginnings and became the Nigerian Defense Minister under the regime of another suspected looter of public funds, President Ibrahim Babangida when General Ibrahim Babangida relinquished power in August 1993; he put in place an interim government, which had as head Chief Ernest Shonekan, with Abacha retaining his portfolio as Defense Minister. Some months later Sani Abacha maneuvered himself to the number one spot, having forced Ernest Shonekan to hand over power on the pretence that hw was going to install a civilian administration.
Instead of doing this, General Sani Abacha eliminated all threats or those whom he perceived as threats as he commenced to perpetuate himself on the seat of power. As head of state, he made corruption and stealing the basis of the Nigerian political economy and those close to his wheeling and dealing, friends and relatives, became benefactors of his dubious schemes. He ran the Nigerian treasury and economy like a personal estate and to protect the estate, the political fortunes of the nation had to be subordinated to his whim. By 1997, he had conceptualized an elaborate self succession plan and this meant using money direct from the Nigerian Central Bank to hire marabouts, settle hangers-on such as traditional rulers and politicians, many of whom went home with expensive car gifts for simply agreeing to keep him on as then nation's leader.
Copyright © 2006 This Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
http://allafrica.com/stories/200608020187.html
Arab News:
Bahrain Papers Blast UK Embassy
Mazen Mahdi, Arab News
Thursday, 3, August, 2006 (09, Rajab, 1427)
MANAMA, 3 August 2006 — Newspapers in Bahrain criticized a letter yesterday from the British Embassy here which they interpreted as a request to stop publishing pictures of destruction and suffering in Lebanon.
News of the request which was made in a written statement issued by the British Charge d’Affaires Stephen Harrison broke yesterday morning after some of the newspapers revealed that their editors had received it.
The English version of the letter that was provided by the embassy quoted Harrison as saying: “We all wish to see an end to the horrific photos of destruction on your front pages over the past week.”
The British Embassy denies that this comment was a request for local media to censor themselves.
“We did not call for the pictures to stop, we strongly believe in the freedom of the press,” said a British Embassy spokeswoman who did not want to be cited by name.
Harrison had distributed a statement from the British Embassy in order to clarify Britain’s stance on the Middle East crisis. “You should not mistake lack of visibility for lack of action or intention on the UK’s part. The UK will continue to play its major role in bringing a speedy end to the conflict in Lebanon, for which we are all praying fervently,” it added.
While the statement may have been expressing hope that diplomacy would result in “fewer horrific photos,” Bahraini editors interpreted this comment as a direct request for them to censor themselves by not publishing photos of war crimes.
Bahrain’s independent daily Al-Waqt responded to the letter with a page one column that went shoulder-to-shoulder with a large picture of a Palestinian woman holding a poster of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. Above the picture was the headline: “To the British Embassy: Stop the aggression and we’ll stop publishing the pictures.” The column called on Britain to take a more active role in bringing about a cease-fire.
“We were hoping that Britain would ask for the aggression to stop and not to request us to stop publishing pictures that show the aftermath of that aggression which Harrison himself described as horrific,” the newspaper said. “We ask that Britain distance itself from the position of the US, which we consider an accomplice in the Israeli crimes and that they bring about a cease-fire according to human standards, not according to Israeli goals”.
The newspaper also criticized the UK for blocking the EU call for an immediate cease-fire following their meeting in Brussels.
“Mr. Harrison we will not stop publishing the pictures. This is the least we can do. It’s more proper to ask Israel to stop the slaughter,” the newspaper said.
Akhbar Al-Khaleej, the oldest of Bahrain’s six Arabic daily newspapers, responded to the letter with a headline in red that said: “Britain Refuses to Stop the Aggression”.
The newspaper carried a large picture of an elderly Lebanese woman carrying some of her belongings on her back as she walked by destroyed homes as part of a main page report that held Britain responsible for blocking the EU proposal for an immediate cease-fire.
The pro-government daily Al-Watan criticized the letter, which it printed on the front page inside a picture of Lebanese children walking on the remains of their homes with the comment, “these are the victims the British Embassy does not want us to write about”.
The paper in its sub-headline sarcastically quoted a famous Arabic saying: “He punched me and cried, and complained before I did”.
A British Embassy spokeswoman said that the letter only went out locally to Bahraini press to clarify the British position.
“We had been visited by several MPs and a lot of inquires had been made on where we stand, that is why the letter has been sent to clarify our position,” she said.
Harrison in his letter had asked that the newspapers not confuse UK policy with the policy of the US with regard to Lebanon, saying that the UK has been active diplomatically behind the scene to bring the war to an end.
Citizens and expatriates across Saudi Arabia criticized the British Embassy letter.
“Such moves can be construed as biased. After all, the media are projecting all that’s happening in Lebanon,” said C.J. Shahjahan, director business development at the Jeddah-based Batterjee Group of Industries. “This is a human tragedy. Any censorship will only encourage the perpetrator. The press is duty bound to project such tragic situations whenever and wherever they occur.”
“Britain is a champion of press freedom and I’m shocked to see the British Embassy making a move to restrict the press,” said Mohammad Alghamdi, a Saudi businessman.
“The Bahraini editors are fully justified in interpreting the letter as a direct interference. These are war crimes and the ground reality has to be projected in the media,” said Salim Qureshi, a physician.
— With input from K.S. Ramkumar
Copyright: Arab News © 2003 All rights reserved.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=85965&d=3&m=8&y=2006
Clarín: Sigue la calma en Cuba,
con silencio oficial e incógnitas sobre la salud de Fidel
La isla comenzó con tranquilidad el tercer día desde la delegación del poder de Castro en su hermano Raúl, que continúa sin aparecer en público. El líder cubano recibió muestras de apoyo del régimen norcoreano.
Clarín.com, 03.08.2006
Cuba amaneció con calma en su tercer día desde la delegación del poder de Fidel Castro en su hermano menor, Raúl, que continúa sin aparecer en público y en un hermetismo absoluto. También sigue sin haber parte médico formal sobre el estado del líder cubano, que recibió muestras de apoyo del régimen norcoreano.
Los mensajes tranquilizadores de sus allegados en el gobierno cubano son hasta ahora las únicas noticias que se tienen sobre el estado de salud de Castro, a falta de informes médicos que describan su situación.
Hoy, a diez días del cumpleaños número 80 del referente máximo de la política en la isla centroamericana, el líder norcoreano Kim Jong Il le envió un mensaje de apoyo.
El mandatario asiático dijo que se sintió "conmovido" al conocer la noticia de la enfermedad del cubano, indicó la agencia oficial norcoreana KCNA, recibida en Seúl.
"Conmovido al conocer que usted sufrió una operación a causa de una súbita enfermedad, le expreso mi simpatía profunda y mi apoyo", escribió el líder norcoreano a Fidel.
Y agregó: "Espero de todo corazón que recobre su salud lo más pronto posible para que pueda continuar con éxito la gran responsabilidad que le ha confiado la revolución y el pueblo cubanos".
Corea del Norte y Cuba figuran entre los pocos países en el mundo que siguen leales públicamente al comunismo y tienen estrechas relaciones diplomáticas desde 1960. De hecho, Fidel Castro fue muy amigo del ex líder norcoreano Kim Il Sung, el padre de Kim Jong Il que falleció en 1994.
Los últimos datos deslizados por sus colaboradores sobre el estado de Castro se conocieron ayer. Según el presidente del Parlamento cubano, Ricardo Alarcón, el presidente de Cuba está "perfectamente consciente" y "de muy buen humor", después de la operación quirúrgica a la que fue sometido el martes.
Sin embargo, el titular del Parlamento reconoció, en una conversación con el grupo noticioso norteamericano Democracy Now, que Castro estará "obligado a tomar un período de descanso" después de la operación.
Copyright 1996-2006 Clarín.com - All rights reserved
http://www.clarin.com/diario/2006/08/03/um/m-01245568.htm
Clarín:
Hezbollah continuó con su ofensiva en el norte de Israel
La milicia shiíta lanzó hoy 23 cohetes en la misma zona donde ayer descargó una cifra récord de misiles, que dejaron un muerto y 16 heridos. Por su parte, el ejército israelí reforzó sus tropas en el sur del Líbano con el envío de brigadas adicionales.
Clarín.com, 03.08.2006
Hezbollah siguió hoy sus ataques con cohetes, lanzando al menos 23 proyectiles contra el norte de Israel, informó una portavoz militar. Por su parte, la Fuerza Aérea israelí volvió a bombardear durante la noche suburbios de la capital libanesa, Beirut, después de una suspensión de 48 de sus ataques aéreos.
Además, Israel reforzó sus tropas en el sur del Líbano con el envío de dos brigadas adicionales. Esto lleva el número de efectivos en la zona a alrededor de 10.000. La misión de las tropas es empujar hacia el norte a las milicias pro iraníes de Hezbollah y establecer una "zona tapón" en la frontera entre el Líbano e Israel.
Ayer, como nunca antes desde el inicio de esta guerra, una lluvia de por lo menos 220 misiles, según la fuente que se consulte, cayó en el norte de Israel desde Tiberíades hasta la costa del Mediterráneo causando la muerte de un hombre y una veintena de heridos.
El ataque fue de magnitud tal que desde la ruta hacia Kyriat Shmona, por donde circulaba este enviado ayer al mediodía, se pudieron escuchar en un momento las explosiones muy fuertes y en sucesión de los cohetes que golpeaban sobre los cerros, cerca de la autopista.
El camino, que en varios tramos estaba congestionado porque la gente se animó a salir luego de 48 horas de virtual ausencia de Katiushas, pasa por una zona de cerros bajos. En sus laderas se veían numerosas columnas de humo como chimeneas y manchas negras, que es la huella que deja el cohete al golpear y desintegrarse. En esa zona no hay refugios y es imposible detectar la llegada del misil, por lo que la única recomendación es no detenerse. Las sirenas, entre tanto, sonaban en todas las ciudades norteñas y se exigía a la gente no abandonar los refugios.
Copyright 1996-2006 Clarín.com - All rights reserved
http://www.clarin.com/diario/2006/08/03/um/m-01245553.htm
Harper's Magazine:
The American Raj Requires Instability
Posted on Wednesday, August 2, 2006.
Originally from The Providence Journal,
Monday, July 31, 2006. By John R. MacArthur
If you're having trouble understanding why America has been sitting on its hands while Israel devastates Lebanon and Hezbollah fires missiles at Haifa, I refer you to the fall of 1990, when American diplomacy attained a new level of cynicism in its dealings with the Arab world.
The summer of that year was the time of “coalition building” before the first Gulf War, when George Bush the First was rounding up local military support for the impending effort to drive Saddam Hussein's army from Kuwait. This was entirely unnecessary from a tactical standpoint, but for P.R. purposes, the George H.W. Bush administration thought it would be useful to send Arabs into battle against other Arabs and thus diminish the suspicion that ousting Saddam was just another spat over oil.
How noble it sounded at the time: a grand alliance worthy of World War II, all in the name of freeing what that President Bush pretended was a tiny beacon of liberty, snuffed out by the evil Hitler impersonator to the north.
Well, it was hard enough to argue that Kuwait was authentically free or democratic, but Bush and his sales manager, Secretary of State James Baker, were also trying to peddle an even more absurd proposition: that Syria, then run by the ruthless killer Hafez Assad—a tyrant in nearly every respect the equal of his rival Ba'athist Saddam—made a suitable partner in this magnificent enterprise of liberation and human rights.
To acquire Assad's support, John Kelly, U.S. assistant secretary of state and former ambassador to Lebanon, was dispatched to Damascus, where he met with the Syrian president, on Aug. 13. Kelly told me last week that he “was pushing on an open door,” since Assad detested Saddam and had “already probably told the Saudis he would send troops,” in exchange for “generous compensation” (a sum in the billions of dollars, according to U.S. News and World Report).
On Aug. 21, 1990, in a statement redolent of irony, Syria announced it was contributing soldiers to defend Saudi Arabia from invasion, because “the Gulf region should not be left to the foreigners.” Then, on Oct. 13, Assad's army—already occupying large parts of Lebanon since 1976—attacked areas in and around Beirut to overthrow the nominal president of Lebanon, the anti-Syrian Christian Gen. Michel Aoun.
For the United States, the quid pro quo was understood. On Oct. 16, Nora Boustany reported in The Washington Post that the Bush administration had tacitly agreed to the Syrian coup de grace that had removed Aoun and installed a more complaisant Christian, Elias Hrawi, as the new, also nominal, Lebanese president.
An aide to Hrawi, wrote Boustany, said that the United States had essentially told Hrawi and the Syrians: “We will not give you a green light, but you are a legitimate government we recognize, and we understand any step you may have to take. If you succeed, we will congratulate you. If the battle is prolonged, we will have to express our regret over the continued violence in Lebanon. If you fail, we will not condemn the action but call on the Lebanese to resort to dialogue to sort out their differences.”
And what about Israel, then occupying the southern edge of Lebanon? “Israel will not interfere as long as Syria does not approach south Lebanon or threaten Israel's security interests.”
I cite these passages because they are such crystalline illustrations of realpolitik: the true language of American “diplomacy.”
For the record, State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler issued a classic non-denial denial, insisting that the United States had not given “a green light” to Syria. When asked if America had given a red light, she said, “We did not give them any lights.”
Maybe not, but such unprincipled scheming is typical not of a peace-loving republic but of the old British Empire, which in fact is the role the United States selected for itself when Her Majesty's Government began its humiliating withdrawal from colonial domination of the Mideast, in 1947. A neo-imperial foreign policy is bad enough for its hypocrisy, aimed as it is at maintaining the old European game of divide and rule. But even worse is that it backfires so often, and so unexpectedly. When a government loses the habit of meaning what it says—or of saying anything with meaning—all kinds of hell are liable to break loose.
An example is when U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie met with our then-ally Saddam Hussein on July 25, 1990, in Baghdad. Saddam was up in arms about what he called illegal cross-border oil drilling by the Kuwaitis. Glaspie told Saddam that “we have no opinions on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.” Perhaps assuming, quite plausibly, that he had a “green light” from his chief sponsor, Saddam invaded Kuwait eight days later.
But in realpolitik, one tyrant's “green light” is another tyrant's misunderstanding. Upon Glaspie's return to the United States, she told The New York Times, “[O]bviously, I didn't think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take all of Kuwait.” So would just a little bit of Kuwait have been all right?
I'm not suggesting that U.S. cynicism is the exclusive cause of the fighting. Real politics (as opposed to realpolitik) inside Lebanon and Israel are also feeding the carnage. But America's “passionate attachment” to Israel and Saudi Arabia, and to divide-and-rule, does makes it harder to stop the bloodshed, since almost no U.S. politician dares challenge either Israel's claim of moral superiority or the financial power of the Saudi royal family—which somehow never uses its leverage to help the Palestinians. (It's so much easier for rich Arabs to blame the Israelis for everything than to share the wealth.)
And given history like the 1990 alliance with Syria, not to mention today's occupation of Iraq, how can anyone consider the United States an honest broker in a potential cease-fire?
Following President Aoun's removal, Lebanon became a virtual colony of Syria. Meanwhile, Hrawi, Aoun's successor, disarmed most of the militias in Lebanon except Hezbollah—the one most useful to his masters in Damascus. Yet Secretary of State Baker could shamelessly say, back in 1990, that “our policy cannot and never will be amoral” when he was pressed on Syria's atrocious human-rights record.
Now we're left with the Syrian Assad's successor, his son Bashar (a killer in his “cruel tyrant” of a father's mold but “not as skillful” a politician, says former diplomat Kelly) and Bush's son George (a straightforward fool) to deal with the mess.
Kelly still believes that the United States could be a broker, “for lack of anyone else” with sufficient power. But to succeed, he told me, the George W. Bush administration would “need credibility with more than one party”—Israel, whose “massive retaliation” is “excessive and counter-productive.”
It isn't only, said Kelly, that “collective punishment doesn't work.” Israel had also kidnapped Lebanese citizens—“bad guys,” to be sure—with the stated intention of holding them for “trade bait” in future prisoner exchanges. Moreover, said Kelly, “to hit the Christian-owned Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. is stupid, since it was so anti-Hezbollah.”
I think Kelly is too optimistic about America's standing in the world. Like the British and French colonial officers who created the modern Mideast (to better exploit its oil and land), the American Raj prefers permanent instability and just the right amount of communal warfare.
A sad thing for Kelly—who by coincidence flew out of Beirut at 2 a.m. the morning the Israelis started bombing. “It's amazing how well the city was rebuilt,” he said. “They had an elected government, the Syrian army was gone, and then Hezbollah blew everything up, [miscalculating] that they could get a prisoner swap with Israel.”
Yes, they did. But America provided a lot of the gun powder.
John R. MacArthur is the publisher of Harper's Magazine.
This is The American Raj Requires Instability by John R. MacArthur, originally from Monday, July 31, 2006, published Wednesday, August 2, 2006. It is part of Columns by John R. MacArthur, which is part of Features, which is part of Harpers.org.
Written By
MacArthur, John R.
Permanent URL
http://harpers.org/jrm-american-raj-2006080229394.html
Harper's Magazine:
Ethiopian Generals and Somali Warlords
The Bush Administration's Dubious Allies in the Horn of Africa
Posted on Wednesday, August 2, 2006. By Ken Silverstein
Add Ethiopia to the list of countries cashing in on their cooperation with the Bush Administration's “war on terrorism.” Two weeks ago, with the world's attention focused on the Israel–Hezbollah war, several thousand heavily-armed Ethiopian troops tiptoed into neighboring Somalia. Their mission was to halt the advance of a radical Islamic group that already controls most of the country and to provide support for the weak transitional government based in Baidoa. It's not clear if the Ethiopian army's move into Somalia had the tacit approval of the Bush Administration, but the U.S. certainly did not ardently oppose its intervention.
The Islamic militia is mustered in the mullah-led Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which the United States characterizes as a Taliban-style movement with ties to Al Qaeda. In June the UIC drove a U.S.-supported coalition of more secular (but nasty) warlords from Mogadishu, Somalia's capital.
The warlords had marketed themselves as the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism, and had received money and assistance from the CIA. “Everybody is playing the counterterrorism card on the Bushies,” said one former intelligence officer who has followed the situation. “All you have to do is say 'counterterrorism,' like this silly alliance in Somalia, and you'll be given guns, money, and trucks. It's becoming a sick joke.”
Like the Somali warlords, Ethiopia has proved adept at the game. Following the 9/11 attacks, the country emerged as a key American ally in the Horn of Africa. The Pentagon has a large base in neighboring Djibouti and has worked closely with the Ethiopian military, conducting joint exercises and keeping a watchful eye on events in the region, especially in Somalia.
In December of 2002, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi met with President Bush in the Oval Office. The White House lauded the two leaders as “friends and allies of America, [who] have joined in global war on terror.”
But Zenawi is no Nelson Mandela. His government is accused by human rights groups of widespread torture, extrajudicial killings, and arbitrary political imprisonment. Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index ranks Ethiopia 137th out of 158 countries.
In March of 2005, the opposition was running strong in the early returns of a general election, at which point Zenawi's ruling coalition abruptly declared victory and canceled the remaining count. As foreign observers cried foul, people took to the streets of Addis Ababa in protest. Zenawi sent in troops, including sharpshooters, and when the protest was over, 42 demonstrators were dead. In addition, the Ethiopian military has been implicated in a number of bloody attacks on the Anuak, a large ethnic group who live near the Sudanese border.
There's also trouble in Southern Oromiya Province, where violence broke out this spring between the Guji and Borena clans. When the Ethiopian government, keen to secure access to the potential income stream from a gold mine in the Borena Zone, put the mine under the control of the Guji, a group it has historically favored in the region, fighting ensued, and the government aided the Guji. Sources in the region said that the violence continues and that the province is now in the throes of a major humanitarian crisis. More than 100,000 people are reported to have fled their homes.
But it's not likely that the Bush Administration will take too tough a stand against Zenawi's policies now that Ethiopia is an ally in the war on terrorism. “The last five years have been among the most feeble in the history of U.S. diplomacy in Africa,” says John Prendergast, a former State Department official now with the International Crisis Group. “[American] policy towards Africa is totally directed by the Pentagon and by concerns over terrorism, nothing more.”
This is Ethiopian Generals and Somali Warlords by Ken Silverstein, published Wednesday, August 2, 2006. It is part of Washington Babylon, which is part of Harpers.org.
Written By
Silverstein, Ken
Permanent URL
http://harpers.org/sb-ethiopian-generals-200608024848.html
Jeune Afrique: Partis et médias mis en garde
sur la manipulation de résultats partiels
RD CONGO - 2 août 2006 – AFP
La communauté internationale a mis en garde mercredi médias et acteurs politiques sur la manipulation de résultats partiels des élections de dimanche en République démocratique du Congo, où des candidats dénonçaient des fraudes tandis que d'autres anticipaient leur "victoire".
Le Comité international d'accompagnement de la transition (Ciat) en RDC, qui regroupe notamment les ambassadeurs des cinq pays membres permanents du Conseil de sécurité de l'Onu, s'est dit préoccupé par "l'exploitation abusive par certains médias et acteurs politiques de résultats partiels et incomplets des élections".
Le chef de la Mission de l'Onu en RDC (Monuc), William Swing, a fermement mis en garde les médias congolais et "autres acteurs" contre la "tentation" d'annoncer la victoire de candidats ou de formuler des accusations de fraude avant même l'annonce des résultats.
Depuis la tenue des scrutins présidentiel et législatifs, les premiers scrutins libres et pluralistes en plus de 40 ans dans l'ex-Zaïre, plusieurs candidats (de petits partis) à la présidence ont dénoncé des "fraudes" massives, essentiellement en faveur du sortant et favori Joseph Kabila.
Mardi, le vice-président Azarias Ruberwa a même exigé un nouveau vote "dans tous les bureaux" concernés selon lui par ces "fraudes".
Parallèlement, plusieurs chaînes de télévision privées, appartenant à des candidats, ont diffusé des résultats partiels dans certaines villes ou provinces, en les présentant comme significatifs d'une tendance nationale.
C'est notamment le cas de chaînes acquises au vice-président Jean-Pierre Bemba et à Joseph Kabila, qui ont clamé la victoire de leurs poulains respectifs.
La CEI et de la Haute autorité des médias (Ham) ont dénoncé dans un communiqué commun "des violations flagrantes de la loi électorale en matière de publication des résultats", que seule la CEI est habilitée à donner, avant leur proclamation officielle par la Cour suprême de justice (CSJ), chargée des contentieux.
Selon des résultats partiels portant sur moins de 10% de l'électorat diffusés mardi soir par la radio Okapi, parrainée par l'Onu, Kabila serait largement en tête dans l'est du pays, tandis que Bemba s'affirmerait dans l'ouest et serait en tête dans la capitale Kinshasa.
"Dans l'intérêt supérieur de la nation, il faut résister à la tentation de proclamer unilatéralement et précipitamment sa victoire et résister à la tentation de proclamer la fraude avant même que la CSJ et la CEI n'aient fini leur travail", a martelé M. Swing.
Depuis Bruxelles, la commissaire européenne aux Relations extérieures, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, a appelé mercredi "à la responsabilité de l'ensemble des candidats et leurs militants pour maintenir un climat de calme et de sérénité indispensable dans les prochains jours et tout au long du processus".
La presse de Kinshasa s'est fait mercredi l'écho des mêmes inquiétudes. "Le danger est devant nous. La population s'étant comportée dignement, elle attend de toutes les parties (...) le même comportement responsable et digne", affirmait Le Potentiel (proche de l'opposition).
Les résultats des 50.000 bureaux de vote du pays étaient mercredi en cours d'acheminement vers les 62 centres locaux de compilation de la CEI, où ils seront consolidés avant publication. Les résultats seront annoncés par la CEI d'ici le 20 août et proclamés officiellement le 31 août par la CSJ.
De leur côté, les observateurs nationaux comme internationaux continuaient à saluer la mobilisation massive des électeurs congolais, tout en relevant des irrégularités.
Les 226 observateurs de l'Union africaine, de la Communauté économique des Etats de l'Afrique centrale (CEEAC) et de l'Afrique du Sud ont ainsi relevé des "incidents et les irrégularités", mais aucun "de nature à entacher la crédibilité des deux scrutins". La Fondation Carter (58 observateurs), comme l'Organisation internationale de la francophonie (28), ont rapporté des "irrégularités" liées à l'inexpérience et à des problèmes logistiques.
La Mission d'observation électorale de l'UE n'a déploré que des "incidents mineurs", refusant de se prononcer sur les accusations de fraude avant d'avoir pu analyser les rapports de ses 300 observateurs.
© Jeuneafrique.com 2006
http://www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/article_depeche.asp?
art_cle=AFP75256partisleitr0
L’Unità:
Libano, Israele avanza al sud
Siniora: «Sono 900 i morti»
D'Alema: Israele sta sbagliando
Il bilancio delle vittime in Libano in tre settimane di offensiva israeliana contro i guerriglieri Hezbollah ha raggiunto la cifra di 900 morti. Un milione gli sfollati, un quarto dell'intera popolazione del paese. Lo ha detto il premier libanese Fuad Siniora. E questo nonostante che sia calato il bilancio delle vittime del bombardamento israeliano su Cana: sarebbero 28, non 52 come era stato inizialmente indicato. Inoltre, i danni inflitti al Libano dai bombardamenti ammontano ormai a circa 2,5 miliardi di dollari, ma le fonti ufficiali precisano che si tratta di un bilancio che tiene conto solo dei danni materiali e affermano che la ricostruzione potrebbe richiedere oltre due anni.
L´esercito israeliano sta conducendo intanto operazioni militari in 11 città e villaggi del sud del Libano, per la maggior parte vicini al confine con lo Stato ebraico. I quasi 10.000 i soldati israeliani impegnati nell'offensiva terrestre stanno cercando di stabilire «una zona di sicurezza» di circa sei o sette chilometri. I militari, comunque, si sono detti convinti dell'esistenza nell'area di numerose sacche di resistenza della guerriglia Hezbollah. Circa il 25% dei razzi lanciati dal movimento radicale sciita contro Israele proviene proprio dall'area che l'esercito con la stella di David sta cercando di controllare. La tv Al Jazeera, da parte sua, afferma che le truppe israeliane fanno fatica ad avanzare. Ma Israele prosegue anche i bombardamenti attorno a Tiro e questa notte ha ripreso i bombardamenti su Beirut, a quanto hanno annunciato mezzi di comunicazione e testimoni, secondo i quali è stata colpita la roccaforte di Hezbollah a Dahieh, nella periferia sud di questa capitale.
In questo clima il premier Olmert ha rilasciato una intervista a numerosi media internazionali mostrandosi scettico sulle possibilità di dialogo con Damasco e Teheran e confermando anche la sua posizione rispetto ai palestinesi: «Abu Mazen è un gentiluomo, una persona garbata, ma il governo palestinese è controllato da Hamas. E Hamas non è un partner accettabile per i negoziati». Olmert ribadisce che le truppe israeliane «non smetteranno di combattere fino a quando la forza internazionale non verrà dispiegata sul terreno». E questa forza internazionale dovrà essere dotata «di vere unità combattenti».
La Striscia di Gaza
Israele non dimenticano nemmeno il fronte sud, la Striscia di Gaza. Sono sette i palestinesi uccisi durante un'incursione dell´esercito: tra le vittime vi è anche un bambino di dieci anni. Ventinove altre persone sarebbero state ferite, tra cui un altro bimbo di 8 anni, che versa in gravi condizioni. Più di cinquanta carri armati e bulldozer, protetti dall'aviazione israeliana, sono penetrati per un chilometro e mezzo nella Striscia e si sono attestati in un villaggio vicino all'aeroporto di Rafah, al confine con l'Egitto. Secondo fonti militari israeliane, nell'operazione sono stati uccisi un miliziano di Hamas e uno della Jihad islamica; soldati israeliani stanno setacciando una per una abitazioni palestinesi della zona, alla ricerca del soldato rapito lo scorso 25 giugno. Durante l'incursione un missile è caduto vicino a un ospedale, provocando tre feriti civili.
Pubblicato il 03.08.06
© l'Unità.
http://www.unita.it/view.asp?IDcontent=58619
Mother Jones:
Justice Comes for Charles Taylor
The butcher of Liberia is finally going to be held accountable. Maybe.
By Joshua Hammer
July/August 2006 Issue
A few weeks before the escape, recapture, and extradition of Charles Taylor, the murderous former leader of Liberia, I’m in the bullet-pocked legislature on Monrovia’s Capitol Hill, meeting with his ex-wife, Jewel Howard-Taylor. The destitute capital is ecstatic over the recent election of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, its citizens engaged in a mass public exorcism, celebrating their release from the demons of the recent past. But Howard-Taylor, who has just been sworn in as a senator from Bong County, the former base of Taylor’s forces, is still hoping that her ex-husband, who’s spent the last three years in exile in Calabar, Nigeria, will resurrect himself. “Go to Calabar,” she urges me, as her senatorial aides busily decorate her new office with a bright orange carpet, a framed portrait of Jesus, and gold and turquoise wing chairs. “He wants to talk to the press. There are all these allegations against him, and he can’t even say, ‘I didn’t do that.’ He’s very frustrated.”
Howard-Taylor is an energetic woman who set up charities and women’s organizations in Monrovia while her then-husband was plundering the country, and who has been building a life apart from Taylor since separating from him two years ago. (The cause of the rift may have been Taylor’s insistence on having other wives.) But Howard-Taylor remains one of her ex-husband’s most loyal defenders, and has suffered the consequences: In 2004, the United Nations froze her assets abroad and banned her from traveling outside of Liberia. “I didn’t buy arms, I’m not an ex-combatant. It’s illegal what they’re doing,” she says. “We have an eight-year-old daughter, and I can’t go with her when she visits her father in Calabar. This is nothing but a political gimmick.”
Howard-Taylor insists her ex-husband is the victim of powerful international players, including the Bush administration, which was pressuring President Johnson Sirleaf and Nigerian leader Olusegun Obasanjo to work together to hand over Taylor to a U.N. war crimes tribunal, the Special Court for Sierra Leone. She glosses over the sordid facts of Taylor’s résumé. How, as Liberia’s most powerful warlord in the early and mid-1990s, he commanded an army of drug-addled child soldiers, the Small Boys Units, who engaged in a savage campaign of rape, looting, and killing. How, during his 1997 presidential campaign, terrified Liberians took to the streets chanting, “He killed my ma, he killed my pa. I’ll vote for him!” How, before fleeing into exile in Calabar in August 2003, Taylor provided weapons to Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF), limb-chopping teenage rebels who maimed and murdered tens of thousands during Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war. “We did the best we could have done under very difficult circumstances,” Howard-Taylor tells me. “Of course there were shortcomings in Taylor’s government. I’m hoping he’ll be given a chance to explain his story.”
A FEW DAYS LATER, I’m sitting in the back of a taxi on a hilltop overlooking the Calabar River, six miles north of the Gulf of Guinea. Far below I can see a picturesque cluster of rusty-roofed houses, some of which date to the 16th century, when the port was the center of West Africa’s slave trade. Just up the road is the Cross River State governor’s residence, where Taylor has been playing tennis with a Nigerian trainer two afternoons a week. And 200 yards away, the tile roof of Taylor’s villa peeks out from behind a cement-block wall. The compound has a garden with mango and date palm trees and a parking lot filled with sport utility vehicles, a Mercedes, and a black Jaguar with tinted windows. One building houses one of Taylor’s wives, another is home to two dozen teenage girls, supposedly the orphaned daughters of Taylor’s comrades killed during Liberia’s civil war. “He showed up with 27 of them when he arrived three years ago,” says Anietie Ben-Akpan, a local Nigerian journalist, as we draw closer to the residence. “When they arrived, we were shocked to see all of them. What he does with them nobody knows.”
Ben-Akpan gets out of the car, walks toward a Nigerian naval compound across from Taylor’s house, and confers with a guard at the gate. Moments later he returns. “Taylor is at home now, and so are Taylor’s girls,” he says. Then two uniformed Nigerian policemen appear. “You there!” one shouts. “What do you want here?”
“Let’s go!” Ben-Akpan shouts to our panic-stricken driver, who takes off with a screech of his bald tires. Ben-Akpan, it turns out, was arrested at this spot three months earlier, interrogated for half an hour, and let go with the warning: “Don’t try it again.”
CHARLES GHANKAY TAYLOR, now 58, was an accused embezzler facing extradition to his native Liberia when he and four other prisoners escaped from a Massachusetts prison in 1985. The other prisoners were quickly recaptured, but Taylor made his way to Libya, where he began organizing a rebel force to overthrow Liberian president Samuel Doe, his former mentor. One of Taylor’s backers in those days, ironically, was Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a former finance minister who’d fled Liberia after narrowly avoiding execution by Doe. “We believed that Taylor offered hope because of what he said about ending tyranny, ending bloodshed,” she told me. “But he betrayed everybody.” In 1989 Taylor and a hundred ragtag rebels, the National Patriotic Front, entered Liberia from Ivory Coast and fought their way to Monrovia. Doe was tor°©tured to death the next year by a breakaway rebel faction; Liberia fell into civil war and carnage largely perpetrated by forces loyal to Taylor, a born-again Baptist who, when asked about the killings committed by his men, told a BBC reporter that “Jesus Christ was accused of being a murderer in his time.”
A 1996 peace agreement between Liberia’s factions ended the conflict; a presidential election was held the following year. Taylor, who hinted he’d resume the war if he lost, swept to victory with 75 percent of the vote; Johnson Sirleaf, who’d returned from exile to challenge him, came in a distant second. Once in power, Taylor looted Liberia’s timber, rubber, and mining industries; set up death squads that picked off political opponents; and allied himself with Foday Sankoh, a former army corporal and wedding photographer whom Taylor met in Libya and who went on to found the RUF. In a deal to seize control of Sierra Leone’s diamond mines, the U.N. Special Court’s indictment charges, Taylor provided the RUF with “financial support, military training, personnel, arms [and] ammunition.” RUF rebels hacked off the arms, legs, and noses of suspected government supporters, including women and children; during three weeks in January 1999 alone, 8,000 civilians in Freetown were butchered and 30,000 were raped. The indictment accuses Taylor and the RUF of forming a “joint criminal enterprise” that engaged in “unlawful killings, abductions, forced labour, physical and sexual violence, use of child soldiers, looting and burning of civilian structures.” Not long after the indictment was handed down, in August 2003, Taylor fled to Nigeria, and President Obasanjo refused to hand him over unless asked to do so by a duly elected head of Liberia.
A MONTH AFTER I leave Calabar, President Johnson Sirleaf formally requests Taylor’s extradition to the Special Court. “The man is very worried, but he’s calm, and there’s no sign of packing yet,” Ben-Akpan tells me when I call him in Calabar. “He seems to know that he’s going to leave. He’s been on the cell phone around the clock. And he has repaired all his cars that were broken down—eight or nine of them—probably to sell them before he goes.”
A few days later, as Taylor supporters in Monrovia threaten “bloodshed and chaos” if he’s arrested, Nigeria announces that Liberia is free to take custody of Taylor—a ploy that effectively buys him time to escape. On March 27, Taylor and a small number of aides slip away under cover of darkness and drive more than 1,000 kilometers to a remote border crossing with Cameroon. Though reminiscent of Taylor’s 1985 escape, this time his period of liberty doesn’t last long. Nigerian border guards arrest Taylor, who was traveling in a Range Rover with diplomatic license plates and two sacks full of U.S. dollars. He is handcuffed, taken to a military barracks, flown by presidential jet to Monrovia with a contingent of troops, then transported by U.N. helicopter to the Special Court in Freetown, Sierra Leone. On April 3, three years after his indictment, a subdued Taylor pleads not guilty to 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. David Crane, the former chief prosecutor for the Special Court, tells me that Taylor’s capture represents “a great victory for international justice."
Yet immediately there are indications that Taylor’s prosecution may prove to be as protracted and problematic as his extradition. Days before Taylor’s escape, Desmond de Silva, then the tribunal’s chief prosecutor, assured me that, once in Freetown, Taylor would be well guarded, citing “a company of Mongolian troops who came in from Baghdad” and “a quick reaction force of Irish and Swedish troops who are in Liberia at the moment.” He added, “One way or another, there will be a sufficient military presence here to ward off any immediate threat to the court, either by his presence or an assault made by his assistants against us.”
But within a day of Taylor’s capture, the U.S. State Department calls for moving Taylor’s trial to The Hague, and that same day, the president of the Special Court sends a request to this effect to the Dutch government, saying that “stability in the region” would be threatened if the trial were held in Freetown. Many judicial experts and regional experts concur, citing the continued combustibility of Sierra Leone and Liberia. The Dutch agree, so long as the United Nations furnishes a Security Council resolution authorizing the transfer and a holding cell and courtroom at either the International Criminal Court or the Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and so long as another nation commits to imprison Taylor if he’s found guilty. But likely contenders Austria and Sweden have already refused to do so, throwing the move in doubt.
Meanwhile, the battle over Taylor’s future quickly escalates into a clash over Africa’s capacity to judge its own. Critics accuse the African Union of being all too willing to strip the Special Court of its mandate just as it is preparing for the biggest challenge of its existence. A senior official with the U.N. tribunal for Sierra Leone told the International Justice Tribune that “an African head of state being tried in Europe is highly offensive on a symbolic level.” Taylor chimes in, claiming that his transfer to The Hague would derail his chances of a fair hearing. And thus far, no move has been made to hold Taylor accountable for any crimes committed in his own country.
Still, wherever Taylor ends up facing his accusers, the reverberations of his prosecution are likely to be profound. He’ll be the first head of state in Africa to stand trial for war crimes. African dictators have been put on notice that they can’t enjoy impunity for crimes committed while in office, nor count on countries that gave them refuge. (Welshman Ncube, a Zimbabwe opposition leader, tells me that, should his party win the presidency in 2008, it will extradite former Ethiopian dictator Haile Mengistu, sheltered by Robert Mugabe since 1991.)
In Liberia, meanwhile, Taylor’s arrest is being met with joy and trepidation. Testimony is certain to expose the misdeeds of many powerful figures. Taylor used the millions he stole from the country’s timber, rubber, and mining industries to bankroll cronies in the 2005 elections, including Adolphus Dolo, formerly known as General Peanut Butter, one of Taylor’s top field commanders, who won a senate race in Nimba County; and Speaker of the House Edwin Snowe, Taylor’s former son-in-law, whom human rights groups accuse of looting millions from Liberian Petroleum Refinery Corp. Any attempt to prosecute them by the Johnson Sirleaf government could provoke a new outbreak of violence. In Liberia’s Lofa County, Taylor “has a battalion-sized group of soldiers standing by,” says former U.N. prosecutor Crane. “It’s a triple-canopy forest up there, and if they don’t want to be found, they won’t be found.” The 16,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force deployed across Liberia, says Crane, “is a well-led group, but they can’t go in there.”
Unless and until Taylor is convicted, safely imprisoned, and forgotten by the rebels of West Africa, nobody is going to rest easy. “Having fought his way to power, Taylor could do so again,” says Rep. Edward Royce (R-Calif.), who led the bipartisan congressional effort to pressure Nigeria to surrender Taylor. Royce recalls the words Taylor uttered upon fleeing Liberia, in his own aircraft, back in August 2003: “God willing, I will be back.”
Joshua Hammer is the author of A Season in Bethlehem: Unholy War in a Sacred Place.
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/
2006/07/justice_comes_for_charles_taylor.html
New Statesman:
Blood on his hands
John Kampfner
Monday 7th August 2006
Blair knew the attack on Lebanon was coming but he didn't try to stop it, because he didn't want to. He has made this country an accomplice, destroying what remained of our influence abroad while putting us all at greater risk of attack. By John Kampfner
At a Downing Street reception not long ago, a guest had the temerity to ask Tony Blair: "How do you sleep at night, knowing that you've been responsible for the deaths of 100,000 Iraqis?" The Prime Minister is said to have retorted: "I think you'll find it's closer to 50,000."
No British leader since Winston Churchill has dealt in war with such alacrity as the present one. Back then, it was in the cause of saving the nation from Nazism. Now, it is in the cause of putting into practice the foreign policy of the simpleton. During his nine years in power, Blair - and in this government it is he, and he alone - has managed to ensure that the UK has become both reviled and stripped of influence across vast stretches of the world. In so doing, he has increased the danger of terrorism to Britain itself.
Israel's assault on Lebanon is, in many respects, as disastrous as the war in Iraq. But at least then the pre-war hubris and deceit were played out in parliament and at the UN. This latest act of folly took place suddenly, with only the barest of attempts to justify it to global public opinion. And it stems from the core Middle East problem: the decades-old conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians.
I am told that the Israelis informed George W Bush in advance of their plans to "destroy" Hezbollah by bombing villages in southern Lebanon. The Americans duly informed the British. So Blair knew. This exposes as a fraud the debate of the past week about calling for a ceasefire. Indeed, one of the reasons why negotiations failed in Rome was British obduracy. This has been a case not of turning a blind eye and failing to halt the onslaught, but of providing active support.
Blair, like Bush, had no intention of urging the Israelis to slow down their bombardment, believing somehow that this struggle was winnable. Israel has a right to self-defence, but it could have responded to the seizure of its soldiers, and to the rocket attacks, by the diplomatic route. That would have ensured greater sympathy. Now, growing numbers in Israel itself realise that military action will bring no long-term solution.
Even if the guns fall silent for a while, the damage has been done. This is the score sheet so far: roughly 800 deaths; shocking images of the slaughter of children in Qana; no clear Israeli military advance. And the transformation of Hezbollah from an organisation on the periphery of Lebanese politics into an object of admiration across the Arab world. But it is even worse than that. Is the assumption that civilians are legitimate targets if they do not flee certain areas any different from the principles that underlay the US war in Vietnam? Blair and Bush have given their blessing to the forced displacement of a large population, in violation of the guiding principles of the UN Commission on Human Rights.
Lebanon will now provide a rich source of inspiration to radical Islamists in their distorted quest for martyrdom. Senior Whitehall sources involved in the fight against terrorism are gravely concerned about the consequences of the Prime Minister's failure to condemn Israel's actions. The intelligence services say it is too early to tell whether Lebanon has already contributed to radicalisation in the UK; they work from the assumption that it will, like Iraq and Afghan istan. This is not in any way to justify or suggest equivalence, but it is surely the duty of a leader to produce a risk assessment of his actions. If Blair is prepared to put Britain in greater danger, he has to persuade its citizens that he is doing so for good reason.
Blair, at his rhetorical best in front of friends in California, appears in no mood for self-doubt. "I have many opponents on the subject," he told Rupert Murdoch's elite gathering at Pebble Beach on 30 July. "But I have complete inner confidence in the analysis of the struggle we face." Either he is delusional, or he has no choice but to say what he says. One close aide recalls that when the Prime Minister was preparing a foreign-policy speech in his Sedgefield constituency in 2004, a year after the invasion of Iraq, he considered a mea culpa of sorts, but changed his mind, asking his team: "Do we want headlines of 'Blair: I was wrong' or 'Blair: I was right'?"
Whatever he may think alone at night, the Prime Minister is locked in a spiral of self-justification for his actions in Iraq, his broader Middle East policy and his unstinting support of Bush. His speech in Los Angeles on 1 August was spun as a rethink. If so, it is too little, too late. Historians reflecting on the Blair-Bush "war on terror" that followed the attacks of 11 September 2001 would be right to see it as a joint venture. Ultimately, his US policy is his foreign policy. It has, by his own admission, underpinned his every action.
But one part of the jigsaw that Blair claimed to be vital was never put in place. The "road map", drawn up in 2002 by the quartet of the US, EU, United Nations and Russia, has remained the best hope for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, yet it was never implemented, because Bush didn't really believe in it. If Blair felt so passionately about it, and if his public silence did win him the influence inside the White House that he claims to have, he could and should have stood up and been counted on that issue, if on no other. Instead, he meekly accepted American inaction. The horrific events of the past three weeks can be traced in large part to that failure. Blair's exhortations to his American audience at least to consider the Palestinian issue were lamentable.
Before taking office in 1997, Blair travelled light on foreign policy. Saddam Hussein's chemical gassing of 5,000 Kurds at Halabja in 1988 passed him by: unlike dozens of other MPs, he didn't bother to sign a motion condemning it. Once in power, and frustrated at the pace of reform in domestic politics, Blair seized upon the theory of "humanitarian interventionism" that grew out of anger over inaction, first in Bosnia and then Rwanda. His decision to back military action in Kosovo reflected that thinking, and led to tension with Bill Clinton over America's reluctance to commit ground forces.
Banalities of "good and evil"
Having spent a month in Rwanda in 1994, seeing attacks take place, I need no persuading that inaction can be as hideous as action. Sometimes it is right to fight, but - as Blair should know from his Chicago speech of 1999, in which he set out the principles of humanitarian intervention - the outcome is what matters. When I began work on my book Blair's Wars, I tried to give the Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt, until I realised, on speaking to many people who worked closely with him, how simplistic and impressionable he was.
Now, as Blair hides behind banalities about "good and evil" and the familiar, crude definitions of "terrorism", his ministers look on helplessly. They talk openly to journalists - in the "you can print it, but just don't name me" deal that is the coward's life at Westminster - of Blair's "Bush problem". Shortly before MPs left for their summer break, one senior member of the cabinet accosted me in the corridors of the Commons, and asked: "How much further up their arses do you think we can go?" I suggested that this was more up to him than to me.
At least over Iraq someone resigned. This time, ministers do nothing. Their private complaints have no moral or political value, because they will not stop Blair. Under cabinet rules of collective responsibility, they are endorsing the Israeli assault.
Blair's survival in power is no longer a game of cat-and-mouse with Gordon Brown; it is no longer a question of Labour's ability to stave off the Conservatives. It is far more serious than that.
A record of conflict: the death toll from wars Britain has fought under three prime ministers
Tony Blair
71,617 deaths
9 years in power
Iraq war (2003-)
115 UK troop deaths 30,000 Iraqi troop deaths (estimate by Gen Tommy Franks in Oct 2003) 39,460-43,927 civilian deaths (Iraq Body Count)
Afghanistan (2001-)
16 UK troop deaths (as of 1 August 2006)
1,300-8,000 direct civilian deaths (Guardian estimate). Unknown Taliban deaths
Sierra Leone (2000-2002)
1 UK troop death 25 foreign troop deaths (at least)
Nato bombing of Serbia (1999)
No UK troop deaths. Unknown Serbian troop deaths 500-1,500 civilian deaths (according to Human Rights Watch/Nato estimates)
Operation Desert Fox (1998)
200-300 Iraqi deaths (based on UN estimate)
John Major
22,316 deaths
7 years in power
Gulf war (1991)
16 UK troop deaths 20,000-22,000 Iraqi troop deaths 2,300 civilian deaths (according to the Iraqi government)
Margaret Thatcher
1,013 deaths
11 years in power
US bombing of Libya from UK bases (1986)
100 Libyan deaths
Falklands war (1982)
255 UK troop deaths 655 Argentinian troop deaths 3 Civilian deaths
The figures do not take into account the estimated 350,000 Iraqis who died as a result of sanctions between 1991 and 2003 - under John Major and Tony Blair.
Blair's body count is probably underestimated here because there are no figures for Taliban and Serbian military deaths.
Estimates for Iraqi deaths range between 30,000 and 300,000. The official Bush estimate is 30,000 deaths. Iraq Body Count estimates between 39,460 and 43,927, although it admits this is far below the real total, as the database counts only reported deaths. A Lancet report in 2004 estimated 100,000 deaths, although one of the authors says the total could be 300,000.
Research: Daniel Trilling
This article first appeared in the New Statesman.
http://www.newstatesman.com/200608070017
Página/12:
Israel profundizó su ofensiva en el Líbano
HEZBOLA LANZO 200 MISILES Y GOLPEO A 70 KM DE LA FRONTERA
La guerra alcanzó su máximo pico de intensidad. Israel intensificó los bombardeos y ocupó posiciones en el Líbano a lo largo de la frontera siria, destruyó un hospital y capturó a siete guerrilleros. Un misil de Hezbolá impactó en Beit Shean y otro mató a un civil cerca de Nahariya. También murieron un soldado israelí y otro del ejército libanés.
Por Robert Fisk*
Desde Beirut, Jueves, 03 de Agosto de 2006
Un ataque a un hospital, la matanza de toda una familia libanesa, la captura de cinco hombres de Baalbek y un nuevo número de muertos civiles – 468 hombres mujeres y niños– marcaron el 22º día de la última guerra de Israel contra el Líbano. Los israelíes declararon que soldados helitransportados habían capturado a importantes líderes de Hezbolá, aunque uno de ellos resultó ser un almacenero local de Baalbek. En un pueblo cerca de la ciudad, los ataques aéreos israelíes mataron al hijo y al hermano del alcalde y a cinco niños en su familia.
La batalla del Líbano se estaba descontrolando rápidamente anoche. Las tropas del ejército libanés abandonaron muchos de sus puestos y los diplomáticos europeos les advertían a sus colegas que los milicianos estaban tomando sus posiciones. Se informó que hasta ocho mil tropas del ejército israelí cruzaron la frontera anoche, en lo que fue divulgado como un avance militar hacia el río Litani. Pero se necesitarían muchos más soldados para asegurar un área tan grande en el sur del Líbano.
Los israelíes enviaron paracaidistas para atacar un hospital en Baalbek financiado por Irán con la esperanza de capturar a combatientes heridos de Hezbolá, pero después de una batalla de una hora, capturaron solamente a cinco hombres a quienes el premier israelí, Ehud Olmert, llamó “una buena caza”. La operación sugiere lo que Hezbolá ha estado diciendo todo este tiempo sobre el propósito de la campaña israelí: intercambiar prisioneros y canjear combatientes de Hezbolá por los dos soldados israelíes capturados en la frontera el 12 de julio.
Hezbolá siguió disparando más de doscientos cohetes sobre la frontera israelí, matando a un israelí e hiriendo a 21, mientras la artillería israelí disparaba proyectiles hacia el Líbano a razón de uno cada dos minutos. Por primera vez, un cohete de Hezbolá impactó en Cisjordania, así como en la ciudad israelí de Beit Shean, el cohete de más alcance disparado hasta ahora. Un soldado israelí murió en combate cerca de la frontera.
Pero Occidente parece incapaz de ponerle fin a una guerra que claramente está abrumando tanto a Hezbolá como a los israelíes. Hezbolá tiene obviamente muchos más cohetes de lo que creían los israelíes –no hay ciudad en el norte de Israel que esté a salvo de su fuego– y el ejército israelí aparentemente no tiene un plan para derrotar a Hezbolá como no sea la vieja e inútil política de ocupar el sur del Líbano. Si Hezbolá planeó esta campaña con meses de anticipación –y si los israelíes hicieron lo mismo–, entonces ninguno de los dos le da lugar a la diplomacia. Los franceses sabiamente dijeron que ellos conducirán una fuerza de paz al sur del Líbano sólo después de un cese de fuego. Y con seguridad, no dejarán que sea un ejército liderado por la OTAN. Francia ya tiene una compañía de 100 soldados en la fuerza de la ONU en el sur del líbano, cuyo comandante es francés, pero París –después de ver el caos en Irak– no se hace ilusiones sobre los ejércitos occidentales en Medio Oriente.
Ayer, afuera del destrozado hospital Dar al Hikman en Baalbek, había dos automóviles quemados y una minivan acribillada a balazos. El hospital, que incluye un número de aparatos de cardiología de origen británico, estaba vacío cuando comenzó el ataque israelí y fue parcialmente destruido durante el combate.
El ejército libanés, que ha tratado de permanecer fuera del conflicto –Dios sabrá lo que se supone que tienen que hacer sus 75.000 soldados–, fue atacado nuevamente por los israelíes, quienes ayer dispararon un misil contra un automóvil que ellos declararon que llevaba a un líder de Hezbolá. Estaban equivocados. El soldado que viajaba en el automóvil murió instantáneamente, uniéndose a las otras once tropas libaneses de una unidad logística muertas hace dos semanas en un ataque aéreo israelí y que fueron proclamados “mártires” por el gobierno.
El obsceno número de muertos de esta última guerra es el siguiente: 508 civiles libaneses, 46 guerrilleros de Hezbolá, 26 soldados libaneses, 36 soldados israelíes y 19 civiles israelíes. En otras palabras, Hezbolá está matando más soldados israelíes que civiles y los israelíes están matando a muchos más civiles libaneses que guerrilleros. La Cruz Roja libanesa encontró 40 civiles muertos más en el sur del país en los últimos dos días. Muchos de ellos hubieran podido sobrevivir si hubieran recibido asistencia médica.
* De The Independent de Gran Bretaña. Especial para Página/12.
Traducción: Celita Doyhambéhère.
© 2000-2006 www.pagina12.com.ar|República Argentina|Todos los Derechos Reservados
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elmundo/4-70852-2006-08-03.html
Página/12:
Casi nada cambió con Raúl en el poder
FIDEL CASTRO CONTINUA GRAVE, PERO AFIRMAN QUE ESTA CONSCIENTE Y ALERTA
El gobierno provisional cubano, liderado por el hermano menor del Comandante, otra vez optó por el bajo perfil. El que habló fue el presidente del Parlamento, encargado del parte médico. Hubo actos en fábricas y una manifestación en el Parque Central.
Jueves, 03 de Agosto de 2006
Un nuevo día de calma y de “reafirmación revolucionaria” en Cuba. Muchas de las escenas del martes se repitieron ayer. Actos en las fábricas y una nueva manifestación multitudinaria en el Parque Central en la capital reafirmaron que nada ha cambiado ni cambiará con Raúl Castro en el poder. El encargado de informar ayer sobre el estado de salud de Fidel fue el presidente del Congreso cubano, Ricardo Alarcón. En una entrevista a una radio estadounidense, aseguró que se reunió con él ayer y que lo encontró “perfectamente consciente”. En el segundo día sin Fidel en el gobierno, la oposición más moderada de la isla se comprometió a mantener el clima de tranquilidad y pidió que se aproveche el traspaso para realizar algunas reformas.
Como el comunicado de Fidel del martes, las declaraciones de ayer de Alarcón tranquilizaron a los impacientes cubanos. “Está perfectamente consciente. Fue una muy buena conversación, como siempre. Hablamos durante media hora de muchas cosas que están ocurriendo en el mundo y del impacto que tuvo su anuncio”, explicó el líder parlamentario a la radio estadounidense Democracy Now. Alarcón aseguró que Fidel había pasado por una operación complicada y que estaba en el período normal de recuperación. “Está muy vivo y muy alerta, muy interesado por lo que está pasando en el mundo y en torno a él”, destacó el dirigente cubano, que utilizó la entrevista para negar los rumores que circulaban por Estados Unidos –especialmente en Miami– sobre la muerte de Fidel.
El gobierno provisional cubano, con Raúl Castro a la cabeza, otra vez optó por el bajo perfil y no hizo declaraciones ni hubo apariciones públicas. Las manifestaciones en las calles y en los lugares de trabajos estuvieron nuevamente a cargo del Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC) y de organizaciones sociales y sindicales. Como sucedió el martes, miles de cubanos se reunieron en pequeños grupos en las fábricas, o en una multitud como la que copó el Parque Central de La Habana, y pidieron por la pronta recuperación de su líder. El lunes a la noche, Fidel Castro anunció que sufría un problema intestinal grave y que tendría que ceder sus funciones a su hermano menor, Raúl, por tres o cuatro semanas, hasta que se recuperara. En los actos de ayer también se reafirmó la lealtad a la Revolución y, en consecuencia, al nuevo gobierno provisional.
Ante el temor a posibles acciones de los sectores opositores, los sindicatos han movilizado, desde el martes, una guardia obrera para custodiar edificios importantes como escuelas y fábricas. La activación de este sistema de seguridad se complementó con la mayor presencia policial en las calles. En medio de este clima de tensión, se aproxima una de las pocas fechas al año en que la oposición sale a manifestarse. Todos los 5 de agosto, dirigentes opositores conmemoran el aniversario de los disturbios y protestas que se adueñaron del Malecón en La Habana en 1994. Tres días después del anuncio de Fidel de su enfermedad, la oposición más moderada en la isla habló e instó a asegurar la estabilidad a través de “transformaciones sociales”. La Iglesia Católica de Cuba, la única institución además del PCC que tiene presencia en toda la isla, habló por primera vez sobre la supuesta transición. Raúl Dagoberto Valdez, uno de los directores de la revista católica Vitral, declaró que espera que con la toma de mando de Raúl se pongan en marcha reformas “prudentes”. Estos grupos opositores concuerdan en que el traspaso de poder no sólo llevará a algún tipo de reformas, sino que será irreversible.
A pesar de la calma que parece reinar en la isla, no todo sigue igual. El gobierno decidió ayer cancelar el carnaval de La Habana, la fiesta más antigua y popular que se realiza todos los años en la capital. Todo sigue igual en la isla, aseguran el gobierno y los cubanos fieles al régimen. Sin embargo, los temores a que la situación cambie se vuelven cada vez más difíciles de disimular.
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Página/12:
Climas
Por Juan Gelman
Jueves, 03 de Agosto de 2006
La segunda matanza de Qana –37 niños, 15 de ellos discapacitados, de un total de 60 civiles libaneses muertos por misiles norteamericanos que disparó la fuerza aérea israelí el pasado 30 de julio– ha provocado un giro notorio en el ambiente internacional: antes, “... todos los políticos, especialmente (el primer ministro) Ehud Olmert, estaban sorprendidos de cuánto el mundo nos quería”, señala Nehemia Shtrasler en el diario Ha’aretz de Tel Aviv (1-8-06). Ahora –agrega el columnista– “hay odio hacia Israel en todo el mundo... no ha conseguido aplastar a Hezbolá y, lo que es peor, ha fortalecido la posición que éste ocupa en Líbano y en el mundo árabe, que presencia cómo una pequeña organización guerrillera ha logrado enfrentar resueltamente a las poderosas Fuerzas de Defensa de Israel (FDI) y ha causado serias pérdidas a la población civil israelí. Es un precedente peligroso”. Shtrasler no explica de qué.
El clima, sin embargo, no ha cambiado en EE.UU. y tampoco desde luego en Israel. La Casa Blanca ha impedido que el Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU expresara su condena a la matanza de Qana: en la declaración del caso, el organismo apenas la “deplora” y no falta quien propone que se lo rebautice con el nombre de “Consejo de Inseguridad”. El presidente Bush expresa su “esperanza de paz para los niños y las niñas del mundo... especialmente en Medio Oriente” (AP, 30-7-06), pero se niega a promover el cese del fuego: al parecer, para que los niños del mundo tengan paz, no ha muerto el número necesario todavía, especialmente en Medio Oriente.
El 82 por ciento de la opinión pública de Israel apoya sin fatigas la escalada de las FDI y la matanza de Qana no ha cambiado en nada esa postura. La decisión de Tel Aviv de cesar sus bombardeos durante 48 horas para investigar la matanza nunca fue puesta en práctica y no sólo por la presión de los militares (El País, 1-8-06): casi todos los medios israelíes la criticaron acerbamente. Se puede leer en un artículo de Ben Caspit que publicó el tabloide Ma’ariv: “No dudamos ni pedimos disculpas ni nos ablandamos. Si desde Qana continúa el lanzamiento de cohetes a Israel, seguiremos bombardeando Qana. Hoy, mañana y pasado mañana. Allí, allá y en todas partes. Los niños de Qana hoy podrían dormir tranquilamente en sus casas si los mensajeros de Satán no se hubieran apoderado de su tierra y convertido en un infierno la vida de nuestros niños”. Los niños muertos en Qana se vieron obligados a dormir en un sótano. Los niños de Israel se ven obligados a dormir en bunkers. Es la paz que W. Bush desea para los niños, en especial de Medio Oriente.
El Consejo Rabínico Yesha, que representa sobre todo a los colonos de los asentamientos ilegales en los territorios palestinos ocupados, justificó así la matanza de Qana: “Según la ley judía, en tiempos de batallas y de guerra, no existe la palabra ‘inocente’ para el enemigo” (www.ynet.news.com, 30-7-06). Se ignora dónde está escrita esa ley, el Consejo no dice en qué libro sagrado la encontró, pero si existiere, no se comprende bien por qué luego se queja de que “todas las discusiones sobre la moral cristiana están debilitando el espíritu del ejército y de la nación (israelíes) y nos están costando la sangre de nuestros soldados y civiles”. Para el Consejo sí hay inocentes, pero no en todas partes.
“Israel se está hundiendo en una estridente atmósfera nacionalista y la oscuridad lo cubre todo”, explica el columnista Gideon Levy en el diario israelí Ha’aretz (30-7-06). Agrega: “Se echan a perder los frenos, se ha intensificado la insensibilidad y la ceguera que ha caracterizado a la sociedad israelí en los últimos años”. Señala que nadie se siente tocado por la devastación del Líbano –“los que quieren saber cómo se encuentra Tiro (a consecuencia de los bombardeos de la fuerza aérea israelí) tienen que ver canales extranjeros”–, y menos por lo que está sucediendo en Gaza con la ofensiva de las FDI en represalia por la captura de un soldado israelí: “Los hospitales de Gaza está llenos de niños quemados pero ¿a quién le importa?”. A W. Bush, claro que no.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, diseñador de la estrategia de dominio mundial que EE.UU. aplica hoy (The Grand Chessboard - American Primacy and it’s Strategic Imperatives, Basic Books, Nueva York, 1997), acaba de opinar en un foro de la New American Foundation (www.thewashingtonnote.com, 25-7-06): “Odio decir esto, pero voy a decirlo. Pienso que lo que están haciendo ahora los israelíes, por ejemplo en Líbano, es en la práctica, en la práctica –tal vez no en la intención– una matanza de rehenes. Una matanza de rehenes. Porque cuando se mata a 300 personas, 400 personas, que nada tienen que ver con las provocaciones de Hezbolá, y esto se hace en la práctica deliberadamente y con indiferencia por la magnitud del daño colateral, se está matando a rehenes con la esperanza de intimidar a los que se quiere intimidar. Y lo más probable es que no se los intimide. Simplemente se los ultraja y se los convierte en enemigos permanentes cuyo número no cesará de crecer”. Algo asombra este parecer en boca de quien fuera asesor de seguridad nacional de Carter, asesor de inteligencia exterior de Reagan, copresidente de la junta de seguridad nacional que asesoraba a Bush padre y, en particular, gran amigo de Israel.
© 2000-2006 www.pagina12.com.ar|República Argentina|Todos los Derechos Reservados
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/contratapa/13-70856-2006-08-03.html
The Independent:
Help save the children, victims of war
By Kim Sengupta
Published: 03 August 2006
A huge number of the victims of this war - the dead, the maimed and the dispossessed - are children. The figures are stark.
Of the 615 people so far confirmed dead, Save The Children says that almost half are children. They make up one third of the 3,225 injured, and about 45 per cent of the nearly one million Lebanese refugees are under the age of 18, according to Unicef.
But despite the shocking images and the harrowing accounts of suffering, there is an acute shortfall of money raised for the children caught up in the conflict. They need help now.
The Independent and Save the Children are launching an appeal for the children of Lebanon (see below), for urgent food, medicine and clothing desperately needed as the violence continues to escalate.
The UN and aid agencies say it is unclear why so many casualties in this particular war are children. Some have been victims of mass killings, such as the 37 who died in the Israeli bombing raid in Qana at the weekend that claimed 60 lives.
The disproportionately high death toll among children may be due to the fact that Lebanese families in the south of the country, the scene of the fiercest fighting, are traditionally large. It is also perhaps because of demographics - 30 per cent of the population of Lebanon are under 18.
The high rate of killings and injuries among the young are also said to be due to the fact that they tend to huddle together during the bombing and shelling.
Like the old, the children are the hardest hit by the lack of basic sustenance. They are also simply too young to make the long journey on foot to escape the combat zone. Children have been discovered left to look after younger brothers and sisters in place of dead or wounded parents.
Amelia Bookstein, the head of humanitarian policy at Save the Children, said: "Children who are wounded, separated from their families, or traumatised, may be too frightened or unable to leave their homes."
Anis Salem, a Unicef official, said: "Families with four, five and six children are seeking shelter together. Inevitably, a high proportion of children are killed. We estimated even before Qana that 30 per cent of the deaths were children. But it is a very fluid situation and that figure can quickly become redundant."
Save the Children stresses that just £1 will buy candles and matches for a family; £10 will help provide adequate hygiene for a child and £50 will pay for food for a family in the short term. But international agencies say the public response has been surprisingly slow to appeals for funds.
Toby Porter, the emergencies director for Save the Children, said: "We have raised, for example, one eighth of the money raised for the second Java earthquake. One reason for this may be that the political anger over what is happening in Lebanon has overshadowed humanitarian concerns. The controversy over what has happened is hiding the human problems.
"Or it could be that people are rather weary of the Middle East problem because it seems so insurmountable. The fact remains, however, that we have a major crisis with children there at the moment."
Exposure to daily turbulence - the sight and sound of explosions, watching the deaths of people they know - has inevitably left scars on young minds. Parents talk of little girls and boys having nightmares, clinging to them out of fright.
Rania al-Ameri, a child psychologist, pointed out: "It is hardly a surprise that these children are being traumatised. They are seeing things people of their age simply will not see in Europe and America. And this is not something that is short term. These effects will last a long time."
There are other long-term problems.
Even after hostilities cease, many families will have nowhere to go back to with their homes shattered. Schools have been destroyedor are being used to house the displaced. Thousands face the prospect of spending months - perhaps years - in refugee camps. Despite Israeli assurances of a safe passage, the UN and charities are finding it extremely difficult to deliver aid to the south, past Tyre.
As well as the dispossessed in Lebanon, 150,000 have crossed into Syria, a country which already shelters 300,000 Palestinian refugees and 450,000 Iraqis who fled the US-led invasion of that country.
With no prospect of an immediate ceasefire, aid organisations are resigned to the situation getting even worse. They fear the brunt of the suffering will continue to be borne by children.
Donate by visiting www.savethechildren.org.uk/independent or call our free emergency donation line 0800 8148 148
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1211289.ece
The Independent:
Entire Lebanese family killed in Israeli attack on hospital
Robert Fisk
Published: 03 August 2006
An attack on a hospital, the killing of an entire Lebanese family, the seizure of five men in Baalbek and a new civilian death toll - 468 men, women and children - marked the 22nd day of Israel's latest war on Lebanon.
The Israelis claimed that helicopter-borne soldiers had seized senior Hizbollah leaders although one of them turned out to be a local Baalbek grocer. In a village near the city, Israeli air strikes killed the local mayor's son and brother and five children in their family.
The battle for Lebanon was fast moving out of control last night. Lebanese troops abandoned many of their checkpoints and European diplomats were warning their colleagues that militiamen were taking over the positions. Up to 8,000 Israeli troops were reported to have crossed the border by last night in what was publicised as a military advance towards the Litani river. But far more soldiers would be needed to secure so large an area of southern Lebanon.
The Israelis sent paratroopers to attack an Iranian-financed hospital in Baalbek in the hope of capturing wounded Hizbollah fighters but, after an hour's battle, got their hands on only five men whom the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, later called "tasty fish". The operation suggests what Hizbollah has all along said was the purpose of the Israeli campaign: to swap prisoners and to exchange Hizbollah fighters for the two Israeli soldiers who were captured on the border on 12 July.
Hizbollah continued to fire dozens of missiles over the border into Israel, killing one Israeli and wounding 21, with Israeli artillery firing shells back into Lebanon at the rate of one every two minutes. For the first time, a Hizbollah rocket struck the West Bank as well as the Israeli town of Beit Shean, the longest-range missile to have been fired so far. Yet still the West seems unable to produce an end to a war which is clearly overwhelming both Hizbollah and the Israelis.
Hizbollah obviously has far more missiles than the Israelis believed - there is not a town in northern Israel which is safe from their fire - and the Israeli army apparently has no plan to defeat Hizbollah other than the old and hopeless policy of occupying southern Lebanon. If Hizbollah had planned this campaign months in advance - and if the Israelis did the same - then neither side left room for diplomacy.
The French have wisely said they will lead a peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon only after a ceasefire. And to be sure, they will not let this become a Nato-led army. France already has a company of 100 soldiers in the UN force in southern Lebanon, whose commander is himself French, but Paris, after watching the chaos in Iraq, has no illusions about Western armies in the Middle East.
Outside the shattered Dar al-Hikma hospital in Baalbek yesterday stood two burnt cars and a minivan, riddled with bullet-holes. Hizbollah, it seems, fought the Israelis there for more than an hour. The hospital, which includes several British-manufactured heart machines, was empty when the Israeli raid began and was partly destroyed in the fighting.
The Lebanese army, which has tried to stay out of the conflict - heaven knows what its 75,000 soldiers are supposed to do - was attacked again by the Israelis yesterday when they fired a missile into a car which they claimed was carrying a Hizbollah leader. They were wrong. The soldier inside died instantly, joining the 11 other Lebanese troops proclaimed as "martyrs" by the government from a logistics unit killed in an Israeli air raid two weeks ago.
The obscene score-card for death in this latest war now stands as follows: 508 Lebanese civilians, 46 Hizbollah guerrillas, 26 Lebanese soldiers, 36 Israeli soldiers and 19 Israeli civilians.
In other words, Hizbollah is killing more Israeli soldiers than civilians and the Israelis are killing far more Lebanese civilians than they are guerrillas. The Lebanese Red Cross has found 40 more civilian dead in the south of the country in the past two days, many of them with wounds suggesting they might have survived had medical help been available.
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1211295.ece
The Independent:
The Truth of Blair's 'Urgent Diplomacy'
Stand by for an "increase" in the "urgency" of diplomacy - and for more women with their skin torn open by cluster bombs.
By Robert Fisk
I dropped by the hospital in Marjayoun this week to find a young girl lying in a hospital bed, swathed in bandages, her beauty scarred for ever by some familiar wounds; the telltale dark-red holes in her skin made by cluster bombs, the weapon we used in Iraq to such lethal effect and which the Israelis are now using to punish the civilians of southern Lebanon.
And, of course, it occurred to me at once that if George Bush and Condoleezza Rice and our own sad and diminished Prime Minister had demanded a ceasefire when the Lebanese first pleaded for it, this young woman would not have to spend the rest of her life pitted with these vile scars.
And having seen the cadavers of so many more men and women, I have to say - from my eyrie only three miles from the Israeli border - that the compliant, gutless, shameful refusal of Bush, Rice and Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara to bring this bloodbath to an end sentenced many hundreds of innocent Lebanese to death. As I write this near the village of Blat, which has its own little list of civilian dead, it's quite clear that many more innocent Lebanese are being prepared for the slaughter - and will indeed die in the coming days.
What was it Condoleezza Rice said? That "a hasty ceasefire would not be a good thing"? What was Blair's pathetic excuse at the G8 summit? That it was much better to have a ceasefire that would last than one which might break down? Yes, I entirely understand. Blair and his masters - we shall give Rice a generic title to avoid the obvious - regard ceasefires not as a humanitarian step to alleviate and prevent suffering but as a weapon, as a means to a political end.
Let the war last longer and the suffering grow greater - let compassion be postponed - and the Lebanese (and, most laughably, the Hezbollah) will eventually sink to their knees and accept the West's ridiculous demands. And one of those famous American "opportunities" for change - ie for humbling Iran - will have been created.
Hence, in the revolting words of Lord Blair's flunky yesterday, Blair will "increase the urgency" of diplomacy. Think about that for a moment. Diplomacy wasn't urgent at the beginning. Then I suppose it became fairly urgent and now this mendacious man is going to "increase" the urgency of diplomacy; after which, I suppose, it can become super-urgent or of "absolutely" paramount importance, the time decided - no doubt - by Israel's belief that it has won the war against Hezbollah or, more likely, because Israel realizes that it is an unwinnable war and wants us to take the casualties.
Yet from the border of Pakistan to the Mediterranean - with the sole exception of the much-hated Syria and Iran, which might be smothered in blood later - we have turned a 2,500-mile swath of the Muslim world into a hell-disaster of unparalleled suffering and hatred. Our British "peacekeepers" in Afghanistan are fighting for their lives - and apparently bombing the innocent, Israeli-style - against an Islamist enemy which grows by the week. In Iraq, our soldiers - and those of the United States - hide in their concrete crusader fortresses while the people they so generously liberated and introduced to the benefits of western-style democracy slash each other to death. And now Lord Blair and his chums - following Israeli policy to the letter - are allowing Israel to destroy Lebanon and call it peace.
Blair and his ignorant Foreign Secretary have played along with Israel's savagery with blind trust in our own loss of memory. It is perfectly acceptable, it seems, after the Hezbollah staged its reckless and lethal 12 July assault, to destroy the infrastructure of Lebanon and the lives of more than 400 of its innocents. But hold on a moment. When the IRA used to cross the Irish border to kill British soldiers - which it did - did Blair and his cronies blame the Irish Republic's government in Dublin? Did Blair order the RAF to bomb Dublin power stations and factories? Did he send British troops crashing over the border in tanks to fire at will into the hill villages of Louth, Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal? Did Blair then demand an international, Nato-led force to take over a buffer zone - on the Irish, not the Northern Ireland side, of the border?
Of course not. But Israel has special privileges afforded to no other civilized nation. It can do exactly what Blair would never have done - and still receive the British Government's approbation. It can trash the Geneva Conventions - because the Americans have done that in Iraq - and it can commit war crimes and murder UN soldiers like the four unarmed observers who refused to leave their post under fire.
And what of the Hezbollah, faithful servants of Syria and Iran, and its leader Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, God's first servant, perhaps, but that of Damascus and Tehran a close second? I have long believed that its attack across the Israeli border was planned months in advance. But I've now come to realize that Israel's assault on Lebanon was also planned long in advance - as part of the American-Israeli project to change the shape of the Middle East. The idea that Nasrallah is going to kneel before a Nato general and hand over his sword - that this disciplined, ruthless, frightening guerrilla army is going to surrender to Nato - is a folly beyond self-delusion.
But Blair and Bush want to send a combat force into southern Lebanon. Well, I shall be there, I suppose, to watch its swift destruction in an orgy of car and suicide bombings by the same organization that yesterday fired another new longer-than-ever range missile that landed near Afula in Israel.
The Lebanese government - democratically elected and hailed by a US administration which threw roses at its prime minister after the US state department claimed a "cedar revolution" - has just caught the Americans off guard, producing a peace package to which the Hezbollah has reluctantly agreed, starting with an immediate ceasefire. Can Washington ignore the decision of a democratic government? Of course it can. It is encouraging Israel to continue its destruction of the democratically elected Hamas government in Gaza and the West Bank.
So stand by for an "increase" in the "urgency" of diplomacy - and for more women with their skin torn open by cluster bombs.
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
http://www.robert-fisk.com/
The Nation:
Israel's Dependency on the Drug of Militarism
by Robert Scheer
[posted online on August 2, 2006]
Those who mindlessly support Israel, right or wrong, from President Bush on through the cheerleaders in Congress and the media, betray the security of the Jewish state. They are enablers who have encouraged Israel's dependency on the drug of militarism as a false escape from the difficult accommodations needed to bring peace to the Middle East.
For too many pundits and politicians, bombing just seems so much simpler -- until, as happened in Qana, Lebanon, on Sunday, those bombs blow up to your nation's disgrace, slaughtering scores of innocents, whose only crime was to be in the crossfire. The alternative to such excessive violence--an authentic peace process--had been supported by every American president since Harry Truman. Yet it was abruptly abandoned, indeed ridiculed, by the Bush administration, which bizarrely believes it can re-create the Middle East in a more U.S.-friendly form. The president has framed this process with a simplistic good-versus-evil template, which has the Christian West and Jewish Israel on an unnecessary collision course with the Muslim world.
Israel foolishly jumped at the tempting opportunity presented by Bush, who believes all the complex issues dividing the Middle East can be neatly summarized as the choosing of sides in a playground game called "the post-9/11 war on terror."
"The current crisis is part of a larger struggle between the forces of freedom and the forces of terror in the Middle East," Bush said Monday. "When democracy spreads in the Middle East, the people of that troubled region will have a better future." Apparently, Bush is unclear on the fact that Lebanon's prime minister -- elected after the country's celebrated "cedar revolution" -- has condemned the uncritical support provided by the United States for Israel since this conflagration began. Or that Hezbollah is an important part of that democratic government because of its popularity among the Shiite Muslims of southern Lebanon. Bush's neoconservative foreign-policy cabal argued that troublesome regimes, such as that of Saddam Hussein, could be easily transformed into pliable, West-leaning democracies. Instead, the opposite has happened. Throughout the region, elections hyped by Bush have turned out to be a vehicle for the expression of religion-fueled rage against Israel and its U.S. sponsor.
Even the elected leaders in "liberated" Iraq are denouncing Israel and the United States. On Monday, the Iraqi prime minister appeared at a memorial service in which he and other speakers condemned Israel. Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, the most important leader in post-Hussein Iraq, broke from his usually circumspect public statements to denounce this "outrageous crime," while Moqtada al Sadr, leader of the country's most powerful militia and a key parliamentary bloc, railed against "the ominous trio of the United States, Israel and Britain, which is terrorizing Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and other occupied nations."
Meanwhile, Israel, with U.S. support, has ignored what it had learned through its occupation of Palestinian territories and previous disastrous attempts to subdue Lebanon: Compromise from a position of strength is more effective than seeking a pyrrhic total victory. Not only has each attempt to crush local resistance begat more radical and disciplined enemies, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, but the likelihood of rage-fueled "blowback" is exponentially increased.
"There's going to be another 9/11, and then we're going to hear all the usual claptrap about how it's good versus evil, and they hate us because we're good and democratic, and they hate our values and all the other material that comes out of the rear end of a bull," London Independent correspondent Robert Fisk told interviewer Amy Goodman of the radio program "Democracy Now!" after watching dozens of children's corpses being stuffed into plastic bags or wrapped in rugs.
It is true that the Israeli withdrawals of the past half-decade, nearly complete in the case of Lebanon and cynically minimal in the Palestinian territories, did not resolve all the disputes or stop all violence. Yet the abandonment of the peace process and the renewed reliance on bombs will prove far more costly for Israel. Long after Bush is gone from office, Israel will be threatened by a new generation of enemies whose political memory was decisively shaped by these horrible images emerging from Lebanon. At that point, Israelis attempting to make peace with those they must coexist with will recognize that with friends such as Bush and his neoconservative mentors, they would not lack for enemies.
Copyright © 2006 The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060814/israel_militarism
The Nation:
Dreams Deferred in Lebanon
by ANNIA CIEZADLO
[posted online on August 2, 2006]
Dateline: Beirut
Before the war, a thousand years and just three weeks ago, you could always find Ali Fahs at the Saturday morning farmer's market in downtown Beirut. A wiry, gap-toothed farmer with a limp and a leathery smile, Ali makes the most delicious pickled eggplant in all of Lebanon. How do I know it's the best? Well, I tasted it, but if I hadn't he would have told me so himself. Ali is a master of mouneh, the Lebanese art of preserving food for the winter, but he's also a genius at the art of commerce.
"This market, it needs a big mind," Ali told me once not long ago, taking me aside with a conspiratorial air. "And you can make a big money."
"How?"
He paused, weighing whether to divulge his trade secrets. "You find the thing that nobody has it, and you charge a big price," he said, holding up a forefinger. "For example, sea plants; nobody here has them." Crinkling into a triumphant smile, he leaned over, tapped his bony chest and revealed, "But I have them."
He's a consummate salesman, Ali, capitalism incarnate. He reminds me of Anthony Quinn in Zorba the Greek, when he shouts something like, "Do you or do you not want to be a goddamned capitalist?"
Ali definitely wants to be a goddamned capitalist. Until three weeks ago, his dream was to sell enough mouneh so that he could move to California and open up a gas station. "Last night, I had a dream," he sighed to me one Saturday morning, his eyes aglow. "I was in California. I had a gas station; it was all mine. It was so beautiful."
Why California? "Because it is the basket of America," he replied, with earnest longing. "Just like Lebanon is the basket of the Middle East."
That was Lebanon: the basket of the Levant, a land of bread and honey, where Song of Solomon's fig tree putteth forth her green figs. In that long-ago Lebanon, there were farmer's markets and world- famous wineries. There were luxuries like pistachio madeleines and wild cherries, and the olive oil this fall was going to be the best crop in seven years. You could even find that indicator species of First World privilege, organic food.
In that long-lost Lebanon, Ali was the king of Souk El Tayeb. In Arabic, where there's no contradiction between delicious and nutritious, tayeb means both good as in yummy, and good as in good for you. So Souk El Tayeb is the Tasty Market, more or less. Founded by Kamal Mouzawak, the doyen of Lebanon's Slow Food movement, the souk had zaatar, wild thyme mixed with sesame and spices; burghul, cracked wheat; fresh labneh and laban, yogurt thick and thin; and a million other good things. And you could buy any kind of mouneh--fruit, cheese and vegetables, dried, pickled, honeyed or suspended like jewels in glowing green olive oil.
Kamal and his souk were part of a culinary revolution. The goal was to reclaim Lebanon by peaceful means--especially the south, parts of which were occupied by Israel from 1978 to 2000. In the south, where most of the population is Shiite like Ali, Hezbollah is the biggest employer in town. So the healthier the south was financially, went the thinking, the less dependent people would be on Hezbollah. It was working, too: Grizzled old farmers were learning advanced agricultural techniques from young graduate students. French buyers were sniffing around, talking up big-euro deals for importing organic Lebanese food. Shiites from the south of Lebanon were beginning to realize they could make a living at things like beekeeping and mouneh and olive oil production.
That Lebanon died three weeks ago. Today, missiles dropped by Israeli warplanes have cut off the south from the rest of the country. Cherry and lemon and pomegranate orchards are shriveling and dying for lack of water. Farmers are slaughtering their chickens and cattle and lambs because they can't feed them. And people are dying, too--not just from bombs, but also because those bombs have shattered the bridges and highways that brought them water, food and fuel. With apologies to von Clausewitz, this war is the violent extinction of commerce by any means.
Thanks to the bombings, Ali is trapped in Jibsheet, a small village in the south. Reuters describes it as a "Hezbollah stronghold," and it probably is. But that doesn't mean it's not full of women, children and 47-year-old farmers who once dreamed of pumping gas in the Golden State.
When I called Ali to see if he was OK, he'd been trapped in his house for fifteen days. During that time, he'd been writing a manifesto, an open letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice. Did I want to hear it?
"Olmert, Bush and Condi Rice, there is no difference," he read. "In the name of democracy, you are killing the children, and innocent people. And destroying all means of life and humanity. Instead of stopping the war, you put oil on the fire. You send funds and deliver bombs to kill more and more innocent people. Under your forged democracy, you know, and we know, the main reasons for this war is the New Middle East Plan."
He stopped, interrupting himself. "All this war, just for that!" he exclaimed, outraged. "They want to make the Middle East new, to be in Israel and America's hands."
You hear this a lot in Lebanon these days. When Condoleezza Rice described the death of Lebanese civilians as "the birth pangs of a new Middle East," I don't think she really thought through how that would sound in Lebanon. Or maybe she just didn't care.
"--And to Olmert," he resumed, "you don't have except one way to find an exit from this hell." I could hear paper rustling as he spoke.
"Will you print that in your newspaper?" he asked me. "Of course, you will correct my English. I didn't complete it yet, but I would like to write more. I would like to make something--I am fifteen days at home, I cannot even work."
I asked him if he had enough food and water, if he and his family were going to be all right.
"I am professional in food," he reminded me with dignity. "I have labneh, I have laban, I have everything. You can keep it a long time."
Of course! I had forgotten Ali's metier. What's a little siege to a maker of mouneh? And so until this war ends, Ali and his family will be living off his mouneh, food meant to last through winter or war, eating away the stock he hoped would take them to California.
"In the mountains, we have food enough for two months," he said with pride. "We have zaatar, we have burghul; we can live for two months."
God willing, I told him, it won't be that long. But I have my doubts.
Copyright © 2006 The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060814/dreams_deferred_in_lebanon
posted by attilav at 15:59
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— Из туристического бюро?Бринкерхофф уже пожалел, что не дал ей спокойно уйти домой. Телефонный разговор со Стратмором взбесил ее. После истории с «Попрыгунчиком» всякий раз, когда Мидж казалось, что происходит что-то подозрительное, она сразу же превращалась из кокетки в дьявола, и, пока не выясняла все досконально, ничто не могло ее остановить.
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