Elsewhere Today (417)
Aljazeera:
Arabs lift Palestinian financial blockade
Monday 13 November 2006, 8:39 Makka Time, 5:39 GMT
Arab countries have agreed to lift the financial blockade on the Palestinians after the US vetoing of a draft United Nations resolution condemning the recent Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Amr Moussa, the Arab League secretary-general, said at a meeting of the organisation in Cairo on Sunday: "There will be no compliance with any restriction imposed ... The Arab banks have to transfer money [to the Palestinians].
"Our message is loud and clear to those who take unfriendly positions against Arabs."
The US and European-led imposition of economic sanctions, along with an Israeli refusal to release revenues it collects on the Palestinians behalf, have severely damaged the Palestinian economy and have led to protests by civil servants who have gone unpaid for months.
Arab banks have not transferred funds to the Hamas-run Palestinian Authority amid concerns of incurring US-led penalties.
'Terrorist organisation'
The US and European Union list Hamas as a terrorist organisation and take steps against those who transfer funds to such groups.
Kuwait's foreign minister said his country would send $30 million to the Palestinians, and Bahrain said the Arab countries would begin contacting international financial institutions to get the money transferred.
"There will no longer be an international siege," Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, Bahrain's foreign minister, said.
Mohammed Awad, secretary-general of the Palestinian cabinet, said at least $52 million would be ready for immediate transfer and would go to paying salaries.
Awad said: "Most banks follow their governments. They must remove the blockade."
Sanctions
It was not immediately clear if Arab banks would immediately begin transactions on Monday after the decision or if sanctions would be imposed if they did.
Arab foreign ministers also called for a peace conference to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "according to international resolutions and the principal of 'land for peace'."
The Arab League wants Hamas to endorse a 2002 initiative that calls for peace in exchange for land seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war - the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israel's foreign ministry, said he was not aware of the conference proposal but he said Hamas could not be a party to talks with Israel unless it met the international community's stipulations.
"A multilateral conference doesn't make Hamas legitimate," Regev said. "What makes Hamas legitimate is accepting the international benchmarks."
Israeli offensive
The US, Europe and Israel demand that Hamas recognise Israel, renounce violence and abide by existing agreements between Israel and Palestinians.
The Arab League ministers also decided to ask the UN General Assembly to hold a special session to discuss the situation in the Palestinian territories.
The draft UN resolution would have condemned a recent Israeli offensive in Gaza that has killed more 50 people and also demanded that Israeli troops pull out of the territory.
The resolution, sponsored by the Gulf state of Qatar, also criticised the Israeli tank shelling of a home in Beit Hanoun on Wednesday in which seven children and four women were killed as they slept.
John Bolton, US ambassador to the UN, said the Arab-backed resolution was "biased against Israel and politically motivated".
The offensive was part of a larger military operation carried out by Israel in June after Palestinian fighters captured an Israeli soldier and killed two others in a cross-border raid.
Agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/46E9AA45-460C-4269-B979-52DD5458E781.htm
allAfrica:
Niger Delta - Army, Militants Hold Dialogue
By Samuel Oyodongha and Jimitota Onoyume, Port Hartcourt
Vanguard (Lagos) NEWS
November 13, 2006
IN a rare attempt at ending frequent hostilities in the Niger Delta, the Army, weekend, began dialogue with the militants. However, speaking in Port Harcourt, the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant-General Owoye Andrew Azazi, said the meeting was not borne out of cowardice.
According to the Chief of Army Staff, the initiative became necessary following the increasing level of crimes in the region committed under the guise of fighting for the Niger Delta
He said it was true that the region had suffered gross neglect under past political leadership in the nation but hostage-taking, attack on flow stations, killing of soldiers, etc, were not the appropriate ways to seek redress.
General Azazi said he had heard of calls by youths in the area for de-militarisation of the region, adding that it would not be possible because the army had a constitutional responsibility in the area. He, however, pledged that the army under his command would be friendly while discharging its responsibilities.
Some of the youths who spoke sought the release of Asari-Dokubo as a major step towards peace in the region. They said his continued incarceration had given room for all kinds of crimes to be committed in the region under the guise of seeking his release. They expressed hope that the release would bring an end to hostilities in the region.
They also called for the involvement of youths in providing security for barges just as they maintained that some of the violence so far witnessed in the area were provoked by military men deployed in the region. According to them, these soldiers rather than being friendly attempted to maltreat them.
They also enjoined the Federal Government to prevail on multinational oil firms in the area to respect MoU signed with host communities.
Militants in fresh attack
Meanwhile, Niger Delta militants launched a fresh attack yesterday, this time on the Klough Creek Flow Station in the Ekeremor local government area of Bayelsa State belonging to the Italian oil giant, Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC), holding hostage an unspecified number of workers. Three speedboats were also seized by the invaders.
Although it could not be ascertained which group launched the attack, it was gathered that about 70 heavily armed youths invaded the facility located in the deep swamp of Ekeremor on the Atlantic fringe of Bayelsa State in the early hours of yesterday with little resistance from the military operatives on guard.
Rampaging armed gunmen had penultimate week invaded and shut down the same facility after overpowering the security men on guard only to withdraw after a four-day siege following the intervention of the state government through the deputy governor, Mr Peremobowei Ebebi who led a delegation to the creek.
However, another group launched a surprise attack on the highly fortified Tebidaba flow station in the Southern Ijaw flank of the state last Monday and is still occupying the facility.
Tension had heightened in the troubled creeks of the state over alleged plan by militants to step up attack on oil installations especially those belonging to the Italian Eni group on account of what sources described as the "accumulated grievances" against the company.
A number of the company employees including local and expatriates as well as security personnel were said to be on duty when the militants struck and are currently being held hostage at the flowstation.
The invaders were also said to have seized no fewer than three speedboats belonging to the embattled company, which has come under massive attack in recent times.
The coordinator of the state vigilance outfit, the "Bayelsa Volunteers", Chief Joshua Benamiesia who spoke to Vanguard in Yenagoa decried the action of the militants, stressing that it came as surprise to all peace-loving Bayelsans.
Chief Benamiesia who said no group or community had claimed responsibility for the attack, however, noted that everything humanly possible would be done to stem the tide in the creek which, according to him, is causing Bayelsa and the Ijaw nation image problem.
Lamenting the action of the youths, he warned that government might be compelled to resort to the use of force as against the current approach of dialogue.
The state Commissioner of Police, Alhaji Hafiz Ringim could not be reached but an official of the company who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed the incident.
Militants in fresh strategy
Meanwhile, Niger Delta militants under the auspices of Joint Revolutionary Council (JRC) have said their anger would no longer be restricted to oil and gas companies following the refusal of the Federal Government to release Asari Dokubo.
The militants said in a statement issued weekend that they would continue to adopt grim measures to press for the release of Dokubo, but failed to state what the grim measures were.
They said: "We have refused to be driven to adopt very grim measures to press on our point for the release of Dokubo Asari from the gallows of the Nigerian state.
"We have refused to fire rockets at government convoys. We have allowed the ruling general enjoy his stay in Rivers and Bayelsa states. We have thus far allowed those who conspired to keep Dokubo Asari in jail roam around our states and region peacefully. We have allowed them dream up high political challenges. It shall come to pass that our anger will no longer be directed at the oil and gas companies.
"Desperate situations demand desperate measures. At this point, we lack the ability to maintain restrain," they said.
Copyright © 2006 Vanguard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
http://allafrica.com/stories/200611130873.html
AlterNet:
The War Crimes Case Against Donald Rumsfeld
By Marjorie Cohn, AlterNet
Posted on November 13, 2006
As the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives and were on the verge of taking over the Senate, George W. Bush announced that Donald Rumsfeld was out and Robert Gates was in as Secretary of Defense. When Bush is being run out of town, he knows how to get out in the front of the crowd and make it look like he's leading the parade. The Rumsfeld-Gates swap is a classic example.
The election was a referendum on the war. The dramatic results prove that the overwhelming majority of people in this country don't like the disaster Bush has created in Iraq. So rather than let the airwaves fill up with beaming Democrats and talk of the horrors of Iraq, Bush changed the subject and fired Rumsfeld. Now, when the Democrats begin to investigate what went wrong, Rumsfeld will no longer be the controversial public face of the war.
Rumsfeld had come under fire from many quarters, not the least of which was a gaggle of military officers who had been clamoring for his resignation. Bush said he decided to oust Rumsfeld before Tuesday's voting but lied to reporters so it wouldn't affect the election. Putting aside the incredulity of that claim, Bush likely waited to see if there would be a changing of the legislative guard before giving Rumsfeld his walking papers. If the GOP had retained control of Congress, Bush would probably have retained Rumsfeld. But in hindsight, Bush has to wish he had ejected Rumsfeld before the election to demonstrate a new direction in the Iraq war to angry voters.
Rumsfeld's sin was not in failing to develop a winning strategy for Iraq. There is no winning in Iraq, because we never belonged there in the first place. The war in Iraq is a war of aggression. It violates the United Nations Charter which only permits one country to invade another in self-defense or with the blessing of the Security Council.
Donald Rumsfeld was one of the primary architects of the Iraq war. On September 15, 2001, in a meeting at Camp David, Rumsfeld suggested an attack on Iraq because he was deeply worried about the availability of "good targets in Afghanistan." Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill reported that Rumsfeld articulated his hope to "dissuade" other nations from "asymmetrical challenges" to U.S. power. Rumsfeld's support for a preemptive attack on Iraq "matched with plans for how the world's second largest oil reserve might be divided among the world's contractors made for an irresistible combination," Ron Suskind wrote after interviewing O'Neill.
Rumsfeld defensively sought to decouple oil access from regime change in Iraq when he appeared on CBS News on November 15, 2002. In a Hamlet moment, Rumsfeld proclaimed the United States' beef with Iraq has "nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil." The Secretary doth protest too much.
Prosecuting a war of aggression isn't Rumsfeld's only crime. He also participated in the highest levels of decision-making that allowed the extrajudicial execution of several people. Willful killing is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, which constitutes a war crime. In his book, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, Seymour Hersh described the "unacknowledged" special-access program (SAP) established by a top-secret order Bush signed in late 2001 or early 2002. It authorized the Defense Department to set up a clandestine team of Special Forces operatives to defy international law and snatch, or assassinate, anyone considered a "high-value" Al Qaeda operative, anywhere in the world. Rumsfeld expanded SAP into Iraq in August 2003.
But Rumsfeld's crimes don't end there. He sanctioned the use of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, which are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and thus constitute war crimes. Rumsfeld approved interrogation techniques that included the use of dogs, removal of clothing, hooding, stress positions, isolation for up to 30 days, 20-hour interrogations, and deprivation of light and auditory stimuli. According to Seymour Hersh, Rumsfeld sanctioned the use of physical coercion and sexual humiliation to extract information from prisoners. Rumsfeld also authorized waterboarding, where the interrogator induces the sensation of imminent death by drowning. Waterboarding is widely considered a form of torture.
Rumsfeld was intimately involved with the interrogation of a Saudi detainee, Mohamed al-Qahtani, at Guantánamo in late 2002. General Geoffrey Miller, who later transferred many of his harsh interrogation techniques to Abu Ghaib, supervised the interrogation and gave Rumsfeld weekly updates on his progress. During a six-week period, al-Qahtani was stripped naked, forced to wear women's underwear on his head, denied bathroom access, threatened with dogs, forced to perform tricks while tethered to a dog leash, and subjected to sleep deprivation. Al-Qahtani was kept in solitary confinement for 160 days. For 48 days out of 54, he was interrogated for 18 to 20 hours a day.
Even though Rumsfeld didn't personally carry out the torture and mistreatment of prisoners, he authorized it. Under the doctrine of command responsibility, a commander can be liable for war crimes committed by his inferiors if he knew or should have known they would be committed and did nothing to stop of prevent them. The U.S. War Crimes Act provides for prosecution of a person who commits war crimes and prescribes life imprisonment, or even the death penalty if the victim dies.
Although intending to signal a new direction in Iraq with his nomination of Gates to replace Rumsfeld, Bush has no intention of leaving Iraq. He is building huge permanent U.S. military bases there. Gates at the helm of the Defense Department, Bush said, "can help make the necessary adjustments in our approach." Bush hopes he can bring congressional Democrats on board by convincing them he will simply fight a smarter war.
But this war can never get smarter. Nearly 3,000 American soldiers and more than 650,000 Iraqi civilians have died and tens of thousands have been wounded. Our national debt has skyrocketed with the billions Bush has pumped into the war. Now that there is a new day in Congress, there must be a new push to end the war. That means a demand that Congress cut off its funds.
And the war criminals must be brought to justice - beginning with Donald Rumsfeld. On November 14, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild, and other organizations will ask the German federal prosecutor to initiate a criminal investigation into the war crimes of Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials. Although Bush has immunized his team from prosecution in the International Criminal Court, they could be tried in any country under the well-established principle of universal jurisdiction.
Donald Rumsfeld may be out of sight, but he will not be out of mind. The chickens have come home to roost.
Marjorie Cohn, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, is president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists. Her new book, Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law, will be published this spring by PoliPointPress.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/44213/
AlterNet:
Israeli 'Massacre' Overshadowed by U.S. Elections
By Uri Avnery, AlterNet
Posted on November 13, 2006
"Thank God for the American elections," our ministers and generals sighed with relief.
They were not rejoicing at the kick that the American people delivered to George W. Bush's ass this week. They love Bush, after all.
But more important than the humbling of Bush is the fact that the news from America pushed aside the terrible reports from Beit Hanoun. Instead of making the headlines, they were relegated to the bottom of the page.
The first revolutionary act is to call things by their true names, Rosa Luxemburg said. So how to call what happened in Beit Hanoun?
"Accident," said a pretty anchorwoman on one of the TV news programs. "Tragedy," said her lovely colleague on another channel. A third one, no less attractive, wavered between "event," "mistake" and "incident."
It was indeed an accident, a tragedy, an event and an incident. But most of all it was a massacre. M-a-s-s-a-c-r-e.
The word "accident" suggests something for which no one is to blame - like being struck by lightning. A tragedy is a sad event or situation, like that of the New Orleans inhabitants after the disaster. The event in Beit Hanoun was sad indeed, but not an act of God - it was an act decided upon and carried out by human beings.
Immediately after the facts became known, the entire choir of professional apologists, explainers-away, sorrow-expressers and pretext-inventors, a choir that is in perpetual readiness for such cases, sprang into feverish action.
"An unfortunate mistake … It can happen in the best families … The mechanism of a cannon can misfunction, people can make mistakes … Errare humanum est … We have launched tens of thousands of artillery shells, and there have only been three such accidents. (No. 1 in the Olmert-Peretz-Halutz era was in Qana, in the Second Lebanon War. No. 2 was on the Gaza seashore, where a whole family was wiped out.) But we apologized, didn't we? What more can they demand from us?"
There were also arguments like "They can only blame themselves." As usual, it was the fault of the victims. The most creative solution came from the deputy minister of defense, Ephraim Sneh: "The practical responsibility is ours, but the moral responsibility is theirs." If they launch Qassam rockets at us, what else can we do but answer with shells?
Ephraim Sneh was raised to the position of deputy minister just now. The appointment was a payment for agreeing to the inclusion of Avigdor Liberman in the government (in biblical Hebrew, the payment would have been called "the hire of a whore," Deut. 23:19). Now, after only a few days in office, Sneh was given the opportunity to express his thanks.
(In the Sneh family, there is a tradition of justifying despicable acts. Ephraim's brilliant father, Moshe Sneh, was the leader of the Israeli Communist Party, and defended all the massacres committed by Stalin, not only the gulag system, but also the murder of the Jewish Communists in the Soviet Union and its satellites and the Jewish "doctors plot").
Any suggestion of equivalence between Qassams and artillery shells, an idea which has been adopted even by some of the peaceniks, is completely false. And not only because there is no symmetry between occupier and occupied. Hundreds of Qassams launched during more than a year have killed one single Israeli. The shells, missiles and bombs have already killed many hundreds of Palestinians.
Did the shells hit the homes of people intentionally? There are only two possible answers to that.
The extreme version says: Yes. The sequence of events points in that direction. The Israeli army, one of the most modern in the world, has no answer to the Qassam, one of the most primitive of weapons. This short-range unguided rocket (named after Izz-ad-Din al-Qassam, the first Palestinian fighter, who was killed in 1935 in a battle against the British authorities of Palestine) is little more than a pipe filled with homemade explosives.
In a futile attempt to prevent the launching of Qassams, the Israeli forces invade the towns and villages of the Gaza Strip at regular intervals and institute a reign of terror. A week ago, they invaded Beit-Hanoun and killed more than 50 people, many of them women and children. The moment they left, the Palestinians started to launch as many Qassams as possible against Ashkelon, in order to prove that these incursions do not deter them.
That increased the frustration of the generals even more. Ashkelon is not a remote poverty-stricken little town like Sderot, most of whose inhabitants are of Moroccan origin. In Ashkelon there lives also an elitist population of European descent. The army chiefs, having lost their honor in Lebanon, were eager - according to this version - to teach the Palestinians a lesson, once and for all. According to the Israeli saying: If force doesn't work, use more force.
The other version holds that it was a real mistake, an unfortunate technical hitch. But the commander of an army knows very well that a certain incidence of "hitches" is unavoidable. So-and-so many percent are killed in training, so-and-so many percent die from "friendly fire," so-and-so many percent of shells fall some distance from the target. The ammunition used by the gunners against Beit-Hanoun - the very same 155mm ammunition that was used in Kana - is known for its inaccuracy. Several factors can cause the shells to stray from their course by hundreds of meters.
He who decided to use this ammunition against a target right next to civilians knowingly exposed them to mortal danger. Therefore, there is no essential difference between the two versions.
Who is to blame? First of all, the spirit that has gained ground in the army. Recently, Gideon Levy disclosed that a battalion commander praised his soldiers for killing 12 Palestinians with the words: "We have won by 12 to 0!"
Guilty are, of course, the gunners and their commanders, including the battery chief. And the general in charge of the Southern Command, Yoav Gallant (sic), who radiates indifference spiked with sanctimonious platitudes. And the deputy chief of staff. And the chief of staff, Dan Halutz, the air force general who said after another such incident that he sleeps well at night after dropping a one-ton superbomb on a residential area. And, of course, the minister of defense, Amir Peretz, who approved the use of artillery after forbidding it in the past - which means that he was aware of the foreseeable consequences.
The guiltiest one is the Great Apologizer: Ehud Olmert, the prime minister.
Olmert boasted recently that because of the clever behavior of his government "we were able to kill hundreds of terrorists, and the world has not reacted." According to Olmert, a "terrorist" is any armed Palestinian, including the tens of thousands of Palestinian policemen who carry arms by agreement with Israel. They may now be shot freely. "Terrorists" are also the women and children, who are killed in the street and in their homes. (Some say so openly: The children grow up to be terrorists, the women give birth to children who grow up to be terrorists.)
Olmert can go on with this, as he says, because the world keeps silent. Today the United States even vetoed a very mild Security Council resolution against the event. Does this mean that the governments throughout the world - America, Europe, the Arab world - are accessories to the crime at Beit Hanoun? That can best be answered by the citizens of those countries.
The world did not pay much attention to the massacre, because it happened on U.S. election day. The results of the election may sadden our leaders more than the blood and tears of mothers and children in the Gaza strip, but they were glad that the election diverted attention.
A cynic might say: Democracy is wonderful, it enables the voter to kick out the moron they elected last time and replace them with a new moron.
But let's not be too cynical. The fact is that the American people have accepted, after a delay of three years and tens of thousands of dead, what the advocates of peace around the world - including us here in Israel - were saying already on the first day: that the war will cause a disaster. That it will not solve any problem, but have the opposite effect.
The change will not be quick and dramatic. The United States is a huge ship. When it turns around, it makes a very big circle and needs a lot of time - unlike Israel, a small speedboat that can turn almost on the spot. But the direction is clear.
Of course, in both new houses of Congress, the pro-Israeli lobby (meaning: the supporters of the Israeli Right) has a huge influence, perhaps even more than in the last ones. But the American Army will have to start leaving Iraq. The danger of another military adventure in Iran and/or Syria is much diminished. The crazy neoconservatives, most of them Jews who support the extreme Right in Israel, are gradually losing power, together with their allies, the crazy Christian fundamentalists.
As former Prime Minister Levy Eshkol once said: when America sneezes, Israel catches cold. When America starts to recover, perhaps there will be hope for us, too.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/44211/
AlterNet:
Electronic Voting Was Rife with Errors on Nov. 7
By Brad Friedman, Computerworld
Posted on November 13, 2006
ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE SLAYS NINE
Terrorizes Florida in Thrill-Kill Rampage
That headline was from a satirical column written by Andy Borowitz published last Monday, the day before Tuesday's midterm elections. Unfortunately, given the post-election coverage by some of the nation's leading media - or at least their headline writers - it seems that only an event such as a Diebold voting machine becoming "unmoored from the floor and...trampling everyone and everything in its path," as Borowitz wrote, would qualify as anything more than a "glitch," "hiccup," "snag" or "snafu."
"Voting System Worked, With Some Hiccups," declared the AP headline on Wednesday. "Polling Places Report Snags, but Not Chaos," echoed The New York Times. "Hiccups"? "Snags"? Try telling that to the thousands of voters around the country who were unable to simply cast a vote last Tuesday because new, untested electronic voting machines failed to work. Monumentally. Across the entire country.
"Not Chaos"? Apparently the Times headline writers failed to check with the folks in Denver who were lined up around the block for hours to vote. They didn't even bother to read the Denver Post article headlining the problem as a "Voting Nightmare" during the day on Tuesday and quoting voter Lauren Brockman saying, "We will not get to vote today," after he had shown up before work to vote at 6:45 a.m. at the Botanic Gardens only to wait on line for an hour before giving up.
They didn't check with Bill Ritter, the Colorado gubernatorial candidate, who had to wait almost two hours to vote, or with Sean Kelley, a Denver resident, who said to the Post, "I can't believe I'm in the United States of America," before he gave up and went home without voting after waiting three hours in line when electronic machines broke down. Despite an emergency request, the courts in Colorado refused to allow the city's new consolidated "Election Centers" to remain open for extra hours that night.
Similar problems led to slightly more responsible officials ordering polls to be kept open longer than scheduled in at least eight other states due to voting machine problems. In a Times story published the day before (which apparently the headline writers of the previously mentioned piece failed to read), it was reported that in Illinois "hundreds of precincts were kept open ... because of late openings at polling places related to machine problems" and in Indiana "voting equipment problems led to extensions of at least 30 minutes in three counties."
Other states where polls remained open late due to the inability of legally registered voters to vote when they showed up earlier in the day include Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Indiana and Ohio.
But the list of problems and, yes, meltdowns is still pouring in from around the country. My in-box has been beyond readability since polls opened on Tuesday morning, and my ability to keep up had already been near the breaking point in the weeks prior just from similar reported disasters that occurred with these failing, flipping and flimsy machines during the early voting period in Florida, Arkansas, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, Texas and California, just to name a few.
On Election Day, the Electronic Frontier Foundation had received about 17,000 complaints on its toll-free hot line by 8 p.m. Common Cause received 14,000 calls by 4 p.m. John Gideon at VotersUnite.org performed the herculean task of logging as many news reports as he could in a searchable online database of reported election problems that day.
The nation dodged a significant bullet when George Allen conceded in his Virginia Senate race Thursday. Had he not chosen to do so, America would have found itself smack-dab in the middle of another Florida 2000 crisis with the balance of Congress depending on voting machines that offer absolutely no way to recount ballots to achieve any form of accuracy or clarity in the race. The battle of the forensic computer scientists trying to figure out what happened would have been another long national nightmare.
But that didn't happen, so everything's cool. Right?
We dodged another bullet when Sen. Rick Santorum conceded. Earlier in the day, he and the Pennsylvania Republican Party sent a letter to the secretary of the commonwealth demanding that voting machines in 27 counties be impounded after they received reports of touch-screen votes flipping from the Republican candidate to his Democratic opponent.
Imagine, by the way, if Democrats had taken such a responsible position to impound machines every time votes were reported to have flipped from Democrat to Republican - certainly the more commonly reported occurrence on Tuesday. There wouldn't be a voting machine left in the country. It's a pity the Democrats haven't figured that out. Yet.
They're so delighted to have won anything they haven't stopped to realize they might have taken 40 seats in the House instead of just 30 had they bothered to fight for an accountable, secure, transparent electoral system and instructed their candidates to concede nothing until every vote was counted, verified and audited for accuracy.
And still, the Times and AP headline writers - who seem to have failed to read the stories they were headlining, given that each outlined a litany of such meltdowns - believe there's nothing to be concerned about.
18,000 votes seems to have vanished into thin air via ES&S iVotronic touch-screen machines (no paper "trails," much less countable paper ballots ) in Sarasota County, site of Florida's 13th U.S. Congressional District contest between Vern Buchanan and Christine Jennings. There's currently a 368-vote difference between them, but there's no paper to to examine to figure out what may have gone wrong and explain how a 13% undervote rate was found in only in that race.
On the very same ballot above that race, the gubernatorial contest had only a 2.6% undervote rate. A hospital board election below it had only a 1% undervote rate. On absentee ballots for the Jennings/Buchanan race, the undervote rate was just 1.8%. Some of the 120 complaints from touch-screen voters that came into the Herald Tribune on Tuesday are published on the newspaper's site.
18,000 undervotes. In Florida. With no paper ballots to go back and check to see if all of those voters simply chose not to vote in that race for some inexplicable reason. Faith-based voting in a race that Florida election officials in the secretary of state's office have said they have no plans to investigate.
Good thing the balance of the U.S. House doesn't hang on that race. Or a presidential election. But why worry about something like that? After all, a mere 18,000 disappeared votes on an electronic voting machine in a single county in Florida could never affect the outcome of a national presidential race. (Again, for the sarcasm-impaired: Right.)
In San Diego, thousands of hackable Diebold voting machines were sent home for three weeks prior to the election with poll workers (most of them apparently high-school teenagers hired by the county's registrar of voters, Mikel Haas) on "sleepovers." As Princeton University demonstrated, a hotel mini-bar key and just 60 seconds of unsupervised time with a single machine is just about all a single person would need to steal votes from every machine in the county. Nobody would ever be able to prove it. Thus, there is no basis for confidence in any reported results from any election this year in San Diego County. 50th Congressional District candidate Francine Busby has, so far, appropriately refused to concede despite the wide margin being reported in her race from the tainted, effectively decertified voting machines Haas disgracefully used for the first time this year across the entire county.
In Orange County, Calif., voters were turned away without being able to vote at all when machines failed to work and there were not enough paper ballots for voters to cast their votes. Many reportedly opted to vote on Chinese and Vietnamese ballots when English emergency paper ballots had run out (in places where they even had paper ballots to chose from), just so they could exercise their franchise. Many voters were simply told to "come back later," when poll workers hoped the machines would be working again.
It is not yet a felony in the United States of America to turn a legally registered voter away from the polls without allowing him to cast a vote. But it damned well should be.
Victoria Wulsin currently trails Jean Schmidt by less than half a percentage point in their Ohio 2nd Congressional District race for the U.S. House. Wulsin has also appropriately refused to concede until every vote is counted, accounted for and verified. But a recount will rely on both the same hackable Diebold AccuVote TSx touch-screen machines used in San Diego and the same ES&S optical scan machines that were found to have mistabulated at least nine Republican primary races in Pottawatomie County, Iowa, last June.
Ten other House races still remain "too close to call." Many of them will rely on "results" reported by inaccurate, unreliable, untested electronic voting machines.
Fortunately, the balance of the House doesn't rest on any of those races either, so all is well.
When Warren Stewart of the nonpartisan VoteTrustUSA.org noted a number of Voting Machine Company apologists - from the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission's Paul Degregorio to California's unelected secretary of state, Bruce McPherson, to the Election Center's Doug Lewis and ElectionLine.org's Doug Chapin - joining the "everything's fine" crowd, he noted:
They agree that the election went "better than expected," "relatively smoothly," with "isolated problems," "just a few glitches," "minor issues," "no major problems."
So, with multi-hundreds of news reports of election problems across the country - a fraction of the problems that actually occurred - you have to wonder what a meltdown would have to look like.
What would it look like, indeed?
I guess before the voting machine company flunkies and Times and AP headline writers would notice, it would have to look like Borowitz' "Diebold Rampage" scenario. Though even that would likely have a predictable ending...
The touch-screen terror then cut a swath of death and destruction across the state, despite attempts by the state police to apprehend it.
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush appeared on television later in the day to urge calm, telling residents, "Clearly, Florida's electronic voting machines are still very much a work in progress."
At the White House, spokesman Tony Snow did not directly address the issue of the voting machine's deadly rampage, choosing instead to make general remarks about the electoral process.
"This administration remains steadfast in its support of free and fair elections," he said, adding, "in Iraq."
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/44217/
Asia Times:
Halloween came late in Washington
By Spengler
Nov 14, 2006
Every so often I visit the family crypt of the Wittelsbacher dynasty in Munich's Frauenkirche, to make sure that the former kings of Bavaria are still there. They give every appearance of being dead, but deceased undesirables have a way of showing up at inconvenient moments - for example, former US secretary of state James Baker III. Like King Saul conjuring the spirit of the prophet Samuel, President George W Bush has conjured the undead of his father's administration, namely the Baker-Hamilton "Iraq Study Group". Samuel's ghost told Saul in effect (I Kings 28), "You're toast," and the unfortunate president will hear the same message from his new defense secretary, Robert M Gates, and the rest of his fellow spooks.
The sina qua non of a ghost is that it is condemned for eternity to reenact the delinquencies of its past life. That is just what we should expect from Robert Gates. As chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Soviet desk during the early 1980s, Gates shared the consensus academic view that the Soviet economy was strong and stable. A prosperous Russia, he reckoned, would respond rationally to management by carrot and stick. Fortunately for the United States, then-CIA director William Casey recruited outsiders such as journalist Herbert E Meyer, and listened to them rather than to Gates. [1]
If the Soviet economy was crumbling, some leftist commentators object, what justified the Reagan administration's military buildup of the 1980s? The answer is that a failing empire is far more likely to undertake dangerous adventures than a successful one. That was true of the Soviet Union, whose 1979 invasion of Afghanistan threatened US power at the moment of its greatest vulnerability. It is equally true today of Iran, which faces demographic implosion and economic ruin during the next generation.
Baker, Gates and their Iraq Study Group will report to President Bush next week. Judging from press leaks and the public record, they will propose a ghastly misevaluation of Iran, identical in character to their misevaluation of the Soviet Union a generation ago. As widely reported, they will propose to "engage Iran"; but for what object should Iran be engaged?
Iran can be persuaded to abandon nuclear-weapons development if it feels secure against external threats, according to a Council on Foreign Relations study that Gates co-authored in 2004 with former president Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski. [2]
Never mind that Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the only country to threaten Iran's borders in a generation, has been neutralized. Gates and Brzezinski insist, "Given its history and its turbulent neighborhood, Iran's nuclear ambitions do not reflect a wholly irrational set of strategic calculations." The clerical regime believes it requires nuclear weapons, Gates-Brzezinski insist, because of the threat from the United States. Here is the key paragraph of the 2004 document:
The elimination of Saddam Hussein's regime has unequivocally mitigated one of Iran's most serious security concerns. Yet regime change in Iraq has left Tehran with potential chaos along its vulnerable western borders, as well as with an ever more proximate US capability for projecting power in the region. By contributing to heightened tensions between the Bush administration and Iran, the elimination of Saddam's rule has not yet generated substantial strategic dividends for Tehran. In fact, together with US statements on regime change, rogue states, and preemptive action, recent changes in the regional balance of power have only enhanced the potential deterrent value of a "strategic weapon". [3]
In other words, the Bush administration's threats against Tehran are not a response to Iran's nuclear ambitions, but rather the cause of Iran's nuclear ambitions, according to the sages of the Carter and the Bush Sr administrations. It is a peculiarly self-referential argument, but not a new one, for that is just how the "realists" viewed the Soviet Union in 1981.
It is true that Iranian policy is rational. It is silly to allege that Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad makes policy on the premise that the imminent reappearance of the 12th Imam will bring about the end of the world as we know it. Iran's policy is quite rational, but in a very different way than Gates and Brzezinski imagine: facing prospective ruin, it wants to conquer the entire oil belt of the Middle East, from Azerbaijan to the northwest coast of Saudi Arabia. I explained why in Demographics and Iran's imperial design (September 13, 2005).
As noted, the Soviet section of the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence failed miserably in its mission during the Cold War when Gates was in charge. Why the man ever had another job offer speaks volumes about the character of bureaucracies. The Soviet Empire of 1979-82 was all the more dangerous for its infirmity. If Russia had succeeded in breaking Europe's political will and harnessing European industry to its own decrepit industrial machine, the communist economy might have managed its problems quite well. That was the thrust of Russian policy, which sought to intimidate the Germans into the status of vassal state.
Few who were not participants know how close the United States came to losing the Cold War. The point-spread for victory in the Cold War strongly favored the Soviet Union in European salons. President Ronald Reagan's core group of advisers - Alexander Haig, William Casey, Richard Allen and William Clark - believed that one side or another would achieve victory during the 1980s. Either the Soviet Union would intimidate America's allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and emerge stronger, or the Soviet Union would collapse by the end of the decade. Ultimately America's ability to mount a huge military buildup while the civilian economy prospered was the decisive fact.
The 1980s presented an unstable world in which the illusionary equilibrium of the Cold War would come to a crashing end. But that is not how Gates saw it. The US academic consensus, as well as the Foreign Service and intelligence community, could not imagine such a grand rupture of stability. They projected their own desire for stability - the stability of career and social status - on to the world around them, with potentially disastrous results. They swam in the fishbowl of incremental change and petty tradeoffs. Confronted with evidence that great events and challenges lay before the United States, they could not read the writing on the wall, and refused to believe it once the characters were interpreted for them.
Why can't the "realists" make sense of reality, even when it clamps its jaws firmly upon their posteriors? Why is it that the king's magicians never seem to be able to read the fiery script on the wall? Belshazzar's magi could not read the words "Mene, mene, tekel, uparsin"; the king of Babylon had to call in an outside consultant, namely Daniel. By then it was too late.
The answer to the conundrum is that knowledge is existential. That is, we cannot easily imagine a world in which we will not exist because the world has no use for us. Self-styled power brokers of the James Baker ilk have no place in the world when power asserts itself in its naked form and there is nothing more to broker. The realists fancy themselves the general managers in a world of hierarchy, status and security. Replace these with insecurity and chaos, and there no longer is any need for such people.
Reading the confidential correspondence of Europe's leaders just before World War I, one observes that Franz Joseph of Austria, Wilhelm II of Germany, and Nicholas II of Russia could not conceive of the calamity about to befall them. On the eve of mobilization, they remained blind and deaf to the dangers at their doorstep (Why war comes when no one wants it, May 1, 2006). They evinced not stupidity - for they were clever and cultured men - but rather hysteria. The world shortly was to have no use for them, and it was beyond their capacity to imagine a world in which they did not exist. Rene Descartes was misguided to write, "I think, therefore I am." Most of us do not require a logical proof of our own existence; those who do require it have little interest in logic. More relevant is the converse: "I am, therefore I am willing to think." Past the limits of our potential existence, thought will not carry us.
The ghosts of defunct European monarchies mingle with the shades of failed policy in Washington. Who you gonna call? Not the neo-conservatives, whose effort to turn the sow's ear of Middle Eastern politics into the silk purse of democracy has not a shred of credibility remaining. The Reagan administration did not win the Cold War by proposing regime change in Moscow, but by humiliating Russian power to the point that its will to fight evaporated. There is no one to interpret the fiery letters on the wall. For the past five years I have counseled the United States to learn to live with the chaos that it can do nothing to prevent. No matter: Americans will learn, late and at cost, the way they always do.
Notes
1. For the CIA's account of the debate over the Soviet economy, click here .
2. Iran: Time for a New Approach (pdf file).
3. Ibid, p 23.
Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HK14Ak01.html
Asia Times:
Iraq calls for bitter medicine
By Ehsan Ahrari
With the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld as US secretary of defense, focus has shifted to the bipartisan Iraq Study Group led by former secretary of state James Baker and former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton. The ISG will soon recommend a different course for the US in Iraq.
President George W Bush and his national-security team were to meet with the ISG on Monday, even as Democrats, fresh from their success in last week's mid-term election, are demanding a "bold change" in course on Iraq and even an early withdrawal of troops.
Josh Bolten, Bush's chief of staff, has conceded that "we [US] clearly need a fresh approach". Exactly what this will be is not yet clear, but engaging Iran and Syria to help stabilize Iraq is regularly mentioned as an "unofficial" aspect of consensus of the ISG.
This is all very well, but Bush, despite accepting that his Republican Party received a "thumping" from voters last Tuesday, has yet to show any inclination to do anything that does not suit his persistent views of staying put in Iraq, no matter the cost. Even the confirmation of former Central Intelligence Agency director Robert Gates as Rumsfeld's successor is not likely to change anything unless Bush shows a willingness to accept a radical departure on Iraq.
Rumsfeld's unpopularity within military circles and among critics of the US invasion of Iraq was so intense that he, instead of Bush, was envisaged by many as the ultimate face of the war. Rumsfeld's powerful personality and abrasive style combined with his conviction that he alone had the right idea of what US military transformation should look like created a high degree of ill-will and malice toward him.
Thus his perceived failure in Iraq was the chief reason he instantly became a highly expendable commodity after the elections. But the fact is that the Iraq war remains the responsibility of two people - Vice President Dick Cheney and Bush, in that order.
It was Cheney who played a crucial role in conveying the sense of urgency to Bush about toppling Saddam Hussein. It was Cheney who convinced Bush of a "linkage" between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Cheney's "experience" in foreign affairs seemed to overwhelm the much less experienced Bush.
Bill Clinton had also entered the White House with minimal experience in world affairs: his predecessor George H W Bush once said, "My dog knows more foreign policy than Clinton." However, Clinton quickly learned the intricacies of foreign affairs and stamped his mark on the direction of US policy. The younger Bush, however, appears to have been led by Cheney, who remains as steadfast as ever on Iraq.
So despite the appointment of Gates, the chances are slim that unless there is a perceptible change of heart on the part of President Bush, the new defense secretary is not likely to be effective in overseeing a course change on Iraq.
Gates nevertheless has a spectrum of policy issues to consider. On one extreme is the perspective that the US should stay put in Iraq. However, the Democratic sweep of the House of Representatives and the Senate show that such an option is now unacceptable. That is the easy part. The hard question is, what is acceptable? That leads to another issue - finding solutions by engaging Iran and Syria.
This has always been anathema to Cheney and Bush, and even if they bury their dislike for Tehran and Damascus, they will have to offer both countries a lot of carrots.
For instance, Iran would certainly want bilateral dialogue covering a multitude of highly contentious strategic issues, including its uranium-enrichment program. The only way Iran will abandon its nuclear program is if Washington offers it a comprehensive package of security guarantees, technology transfer and nullification of all legislation aimed at bringing about regime change. It is difficult to imagine that Bush would be willing to offer this. So Iran's chances of going along with the US, especially in stabilizing Iraq, are slim to none.
Similarly, Syria would want the proactive backing of the US in initiating negotiations with Israel with a view to getting back the Golan Heights. In principle, Bush should not have too much of a problem accepting this. However, Syria would also want to have some room to maneuver in Lebanon, which might be more problematical.
One also has to keep in mind Israel's role in any potential US engagement with Iran or Syria. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was due in Washington on Monday for talks with Bush. Iran, Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are high on the agenda. In a recent interview, Olmert warned the US against a "premature pullout" of Iraq. He also expressed hope that the US would rein in President Mahmud Ahmadinejad of Iran: "President Ahmadinejad is a man who is ready to commit crimes against humanity, and he has to be stopped," Olmert was quoted in the media as saying.
With Olmert around, the work of the ISG and Gates is cut out for them.
Another issue relates to Gates putting pressure on Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to abolish Shi'ite militias. This cannot be done unless the current unity government is dissolved, as Maliki depends heavily on the goodwill and political support of Muqtada al-Sadr and Abdul Aziz Hakim, influential heads of the Shi'ite militias the Mehdi Army and the Badr Organization, respectively. Maliki cannot afford to alienate them and still expect to survive as premier.
Maliki promised on Sunday to reshuffle his cabinet after calling legislators disloyal and blaming Sunni Muslims for sectarian violence. Whether he has the will - or ability - to take on Muqtada's men in the cabinet is doubtful.
Another issue Gates will have to give a long and hard look at relates to building up the Iraqi security forces. Maliki recently said the US military should pull back into bases and let the Iraqi army take control of security. He predicted that his army could end violence "within six months if left alone to do the work".
The Americans certainly don't agree with this assessment, and even Maliki's defense minister has questioned the feasibility of such a move, given the poor record of Iraqi forces as a capable and reliable fighting force.
Before Gates' confirmation hearings start, he is likely to immerse himself in behind-the-scenes discussions with top Democrats to see what is acceptable in view of Bush's preferences regarding Iraq. He will also rely heavily on the reduced number of moderate Republicans for advice. However, in the final analysis, Bush and Cheney will have to be convinced that they must accept even the most unpopular policy options. One option would be to set target dates for the reduction and even withdrawal of US forces.
To date, Bush and Cheney have had a free hand over Iraq. Now they will have to view some of the issues raised above, no matter how unpalatable they might be.
Ehsan Ahrari is the CEO of Strategic Paradigms, an Alexandria, Virginia-based defense consultancy. He can be reached at eahrari@cox.net or stratparadigms@yahoo.com. His columns appear regularly in Asia Times Online. His website: www.ehsanahrari.com
Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HK14Ak02.html
Guardian: Democrats increase
pressure on Bush for phased troop withdrawal
· Senior senators call for timetable for US exit
· White House admits need to change failing strategy
Ed Pilkington in New York
Monday November 13, 2006
The newly emboldened Democrats stepped up pressure on the Bush administration for a change of course in Iraq yesterday, with two leading members of the party calling for a phased withdrawal of US troops to begin in four to six months.
With the Democrats set to take control of both houses of Congress in January following last Tuesday's midterm rout of the Republicans, the search for a fresh approach to the Iraq war is rapidly gathering pace. The idea for a timetable for withdrawal was floated by leading Democrats likely to head two of the most powerful Senate committees, the armed services and foreign relations committees.
Carl Levin, the putative chairman of the armed services committee, told ABC television that the Iraqi people could not be saved from themselves. George Bush "will change course if we can put some bipartisan pressure on him".
The US presence in Iraq was not open-ended, he said. Mr Levin proposed a timetable for withdrawal coupled with an international conference on the future of the country. "We need to begin a phased redeployment of forces from Iraq in four to six months."
Joseph Biden, a likely presidential candidate in 2008, who is expected to chair the Senate committee on foreign relations, said he backed the idea.
Though Mr Bush retains control of policy over Iraq and could theoretically ignore them, he has stressed his willingness to listen to the Democrats and has spent the past five days emphasising his intention of forging a climate of bipartisanship. He has also signalled his clear intention of rethinking Iraq by replacing Donald Rumsfeld with the less hawkish Robert Gates as defence secretary.
The White House chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, told CNN that the president was prepared to make "course adjustments" and admitted bluntly that the current strategy was not working. "Nobody can be happy with the situation in Iraq right now ... It's clearly time to put fresh eyes on the problem."
However, asked later by ABC to respond to the idea of a phased redeployment, Mr Bolten replied: "I don't think we are going to be receptive to a notion that there is a fixed timetable to pull out as that could be a true disaster for the Iraqi people."
Much now hangs on the report of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel led by James Baker, who served as secretary of state under George Bush senior. The report could be presented to the White House and Congress as early as next month.
Members of the panel will meet Mr Bush today along with the vice-president, Dick Cheney, and the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice. It has been reported that the 10-member panel is exploring the possibility of talks with both Iran and Syria, and is also attaching importance to the Middle East crisis as a running sore behind the conflict in Iraq.
Mr Bolten was asked yesterday about the option of opening discussions with Iran and Syria. He said all the Baker recommendations would be considered, but added: "Our problem with Iran and Syria has not been a lack of communication, but a cooperation problem. Iran and Syria are meddling in Iraq in a very unhelpful way."
The US military is also engaged in its own review of strategy led by the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Peter Pace. General John Abizaid, the head of the US military in the Middle East, has been brought on to the review and is charged with coming up with recommendations for improving strategy. In August Gen Abizaid went out on a limb when he told a Senate committee that Iraq was in danger of descending into civil war.
The Baker commission is likely to be pulled in opposite directions over the issue of troop deployments. Some analysts argue that the current US force of 145,000 needs to be reinforced in order to stabilise Baghdad before any withdrawal is contemplated; others think the numbers should be reduced as soon as possible.
Senator John McCain, a leading Republican contender for the 2008 presidential race, argues for more not fewer troops. He told NBC yesterday that reinforcements should be sent to establish safe areas. "I believe that a withdrawal, or a date for withdrawal, will lead to chaos in the region, and most military experts think the same thing. I believe that there are a lot of things that we can do to salvage this, but they all require additional troops."
The Pentagon says about 2,848 members of the US military have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003. At least 21,419 have been wounded.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1946435,00.html
Guardian:
Lebanon crisis grows as sixth minister quits
Staff and agencies
Monday November 13, 2006
Lebanon's political disarray deepened today as the last minister allied to the pro-Syrian Hizbullah movement resigned from the cabinet.
The exit of Yacoub Sarraf, the environment minister, followed the resignation of five Shia ministers at the weekend over their demands for effective veto power in the government.
"As I can't find myself part of any constitutional authority that lacks representation from a whole religious sect ... I herewith tender my resignation from the government," Mr Sarraf, a Christian, said in his letter to the prime minister, Fouad Siniora.
The Hizbullah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, last month said he wanted a greater influence in the government in order to stop the anti-Syrian majority giving in to a renewed "American-Israeli demand" to disarm his movement following this summer's war with Israel.
Mr Nasrallah demanded one third of the 24 cabinet seats, prompting some ministers to accuse Hizbullah of seeking veto rights in order to protect Syria from prosecution after the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.
Senior Syrian security officials have been widely blamed for the killing, but Damascus denies involvement. A UN commission investigating the assassination has implicated senior Lebanese and Syrian security officials.
The anti-Syrian majority coalition has accused Hizbullah of carrying out a Syrian-Iranian plan to overthrow the western-backed government and foil efforts to set up a UN-sponsored tribunal to try Mr Hariri's killers.
Hizbullah denies trying to obstruct the Hariri tribunal, saying it had agreed to it but wanted to discuss the details.
The assassination of Mr Hariri led to mass protests against Syria. Under international pressure, Syria ended a 29-year military presence in Lebanon last April, and anti-Syrian politicians swept to victory in ensuing elections.
The demand by Hizbullah for effective veto power over key decisions would effectively reverse the election results.
Lebanon's political crisis has been deepened by the failure to form a government of national unity, raising the prospect of street confrontations that would damage efforts to recover from the devastating war with Israel.
Hizbullah yesterday said it would stage peaceful street protests as part of a campaign to press demands for better representation in government for its allies, especially the Christian opposition leader, Michel Aoun.
Anti-Syrian leaders have pledged counter-demonstrations, sparking fears of violence at a time of rising tension between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/syria/story/0,,1946786,00.html
Guardian:
Hundreds of thousands raped in Congo wars
Chris McGreal in Goma
Monday November 13, 2006
Hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been raped over the past decade by soldiers, rebels and ethnic militias in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The scale of the assaults has become increasingly evident over recent months as growing numbers of women have emerged for treatment with the reduction in fighting ahead of presidential elections, and because medical workers have been able to reach areas in the east of the country long cut off by conflict.
The survivors have given accounts of villages subjected to repeated assaults in which many women and girls were serially raped and men killed.
Although there are no comprehensive statistics, in one province alone, South Kivu, about 42,000 women were treated in health clinics for serious sexual assaults last year, according to statistics collected by the human rights group, Global Rights.
While rape has been a product of many conflicts, its scale and systematic nature in eastern Congo has led some human rights groups to describe it as a "weapon of war" used to punish communities for their political loyalties or as a form of ethnic cleansing. On occasions men and boys have also been raped.
Doctors and women's groups working with the victims say the attacks are notable not only for their scale but also their brutality.
Among those receiving treatment in the relative safety of the town of Goma in eastern Congo is a woman from Kindu who was repeatedly raped in May 2005 but was only able to reach a hospital for treatment earlier this year.
The 54-year-old woman, bent double over a stick after surgery to save her womb, said her village first came under attack from a group of Mai Mai, an ethnic militia recognisable by a preference for wearing animal skins and amulets believed to give magical powers.
"There were Mai Mai in the area. They came in the morning and raped me, two of them.
That didn't disturb me so much after what happened later," she said. "In the afternoon five men came into the house. They told my husband to put three kinds of money on the table: dollars, shillings, francs. But we didn't have any of that kind of money. We are poor. We don't even know what dollars look like. So they shot him. My children were screaming and so they shot them. After that they raped me, all of them."
As she lay bleeding the attackers thrust the barrels of their guns into her vagina.
The woman identified the second group of armed men as members of the interahamwe, the extremist Hutu militia that fled into Congo 12 years ago after leading the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda. The interahamwe used rape as a tool of genocide, telling women that they would bear Hutu children and that would be the end of the Tutsis. Thousands still hide out in the forests of eastern Congo.
The Doctors On Call Service (DOCS) hospital in Goma has seen close to 4,000 women for rape over the past four years. One in four required major surgery. More than a third are under 18. "They really come with very bad wounds," said Justin Paluku, a doctor. "For example some have their vaginas pulled out. Most of them have been raped by four, five or six or even 10 men. A village will be attacked and all the women are raped. They kill the men and rape the women."
Immaculee Birhaheka, head of a women's rights group in Goma, Paif, said those women who make it to hospital are just a fraction of those attacked. "It's impossible to know how many women have been raped in the war but it is hundreds of thousands," she said.
Some human rights groups are calling for the leaders of groups responsible for the tide of rape to be brought before the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
One militia leader, Thomas Lubanga, founder of the Union of Congolese Patriots, went on trial before the the ICC last week for the forced recruitment of child soldiers, although his troops were also involved in the systematic rape of civilians.
Mrs Birhaheka says the Congolese authorities must act where the international court does not. Her women's rights group was at the forefront of a campaign that persuaded the DRC parliament to pass a new tougher law on rape earlier this year.
"There have already been 10 prosecutions in Goma under the new law, some were soldiers and some civilians," she said. "Before it was the women who were regarded as the criminals and condemned. That's changing. Now at least there is a recognition that rape is a crime."
Special report
Congo
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/congo/story/0,,1946904,00.html
Guardian:
Into Africa
Jim Giles
November 13, 2006 03:45 PM
Asked about the prospects for the climate change talks in Nairobi, a British official said last week that there was minimal chance of substantial progress. Instead, delegates will be sizing up others' positions and listening, as he put it, to "mood music".
That sounds incredibly lax. You don't have to buy into some recent apocalyptic press reports to accept the seriousness of the threat from climate change. It's hugely unlikely, for example, that "most of the surface of the globe will be rendered uninhabitable within the lifetimes of most readers of this article". But it's mainly the timetable that is wrong with that statement. It's still the case that carbon emissions, if left unchecked, will eventually wreck the planet.
Despite that, there is no point in raging against the low expectations of the British diplomats in Nairobi. The time simply isn't right. No one knows exactly what line the United States will take in the future. The Democrats have previously been less opposed to the Kyoto Protocol than the Republicans, but only marginally so. Anyway, neither party knows how the current division of power between the White House and Congress will play out. There is no chance of laying the foundations for a future climate change pact while the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases is in political limbo.
But that isn't necessarily bad news. Delegates in Nairobi could make a big difference by focusing on the needs of the continent that is hosting the negotiations. Africa has been promised much under Kyoto, but has so far received very little. When developed nations fund clean energy projects in poorer countries, something that earns them the right to make less stringent emission cuts at home, they usually opt to invest in China. None of the 400 projects approved so far are in poorer African nations (geographical breakdown here). Another Kyoto mechanism that could help Africa - a fund designed to help nations adapt to climate change - is currently frozen because of arguments about who should distribute the money.
Both problems could be fixed in Nairobi. All that is needed is for Britain and other developed nations to integrate thinking on climate change with their development agendas. The main reason that African nations aren't attracting money for clean energy projects is straightforward: they struggle to fund energy projects of any kind, clean or otherwise. If aid money was distributed with the Kyoto rules in mind that might change.
The adaptation fund could also be liberated if it were tied to a development agenda. African nations don't like the current plans for handing out the cash, as the body charged with the job - the Global Environment Facility - is seen by them as too slow and too focused on international impacts. So why not tie the funds into existing development mechanisms, such as the funds distributed by the World Bank? The bank has many faults, but it deserves some praise for its recent thinking on environmental issues. African nations also know the bank and are used to working with it.
Neither move will stop the relentless rise of greenhouse gases. A new version of Kyoto that involves the United States, China and India is needed for that. But agreement on issues that matter for Africa would make Kyoto more solid and more just. When it comes to the complex job of reinventing the protocol, which is really a task for the next meeting, that solidity will be important. If African nations have been listened to and are properly committed, the far more difficult job of getting richer and more recalcitrant nations on board will be made a little easier.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jim_giles/2006/11/jim_giles.html
Guardian:
A matter of life and death
Africa will be hit hardest by climate change. Our campaign to plant a billion trees can inspire individuals to make a difference
Wangari Maathai
Monday November 13, 2006
In many developing countries environmental problems are relegated to the periphery because they do not appear to be as urgent as other issues.
However, a clearer understanding of environmental issues shows that they are a matter of life and death and should be a priority.
We cannot survive without clean drinking water, food and pure air. Environmental concerns are not a luxury in Africa.
Africa is home to the Sahara desert in the north, and the Kalahari desert in the south. Desertification is contributing to the expansion of these deserts.
Africans rely on primary resources, especially agrarian land, rivers and forests. When rivers dry up, soil erosion takes place and the land loses its fertility. Africans, more than any other people, will be hit very hard by the impact of climate change.
The ratification of the Kyoto protocol and the steps that are being taken to implement it are commendable. However, on some issues there has not been adequate agreement on the best way to move forward.
We feel very strongly that many developing countries can benefit from an emissions trading scheme. In Africa, the scheme could support initiatives such as planting trees.
Tree planting does not require a great deal of money or technology; it requires the mobilisation of citizens to plant trees and nurture them.
The experience we have had in the Green Belt Movement for the last 30 years shows that it is possible to mobilise millions of individual citizens in every country to plant trees, prevent soil loss, harvest rain water and practice less destructive forms of agriculture.
Deforestation is on the increase across Africa. The UN recommends forest cover of least 10%, but in Kenya it is less than 2%. Reforestation and conservation programmes are two ways in which Africa can help face the huge challenge of climate change.
It is important to educate citizens on the need to protect trees, especially indigenous mountain forests, which are sources of water and biological diversity. Through the Green Belt Movement we have learned that when local communities understand the link between trees and their own livelihoods, they are more likely to protect them.
I believe that positive steps will be taken at the UN climate change conference in Nairobi this week. The meeting will help to raise awareness of climate change across the world. It will create momentum for the next part of the process of tackling climate change.
Commitments will be made at the end of the conference and although not every government will follow through, some will.
There will also be commitments made on other levels: individual citizens, corporations, cities and municipalities will take action. This action will cumulatively make a difference.
Political leadership is important and that is why we call on all governments to come on board. However, it is also important to get citizens involved because in the end, it will be citizens who force their governments to make tangible commitments.
The Green Belt Movement can help by enlarging our tree planting campaigns. This is not an excuse for developed countries to continue their emissions. Carbon offsetting is a mechanism that is needed to support work in developing countries and assist the developed countries to reduce their carbon emissions.
Forests play a major role as carbon sinks. We must assist people and governments to rehabilitate and protect the standing trees and vegetation. We need incentives including employment opportunities in forestry.
I believe the Billion Tree Campaign is wonderful because everyone can get involved - individuals, institutions, corporations and governments. It's time for everyone to take action and support initiatives that can make a difference.
· Wangari Maathai is founder of the Green Belt Movement and the 2004 Nobel peace prize laureate
www.greenbeltmovement.org
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/conservation/story/0,,1946825,00.html
Jeune Afrique: Calme précaire à Kinshasa,
sous haute surveillance de l'ONU et de l'Eufor
RD CONGO - 12 novembre 2006 – AFP
Kinshasa était dimanche sous haute surveillance de soldats de l'ONU et de la force européenne Eufor, au lendemain d'un samedi meurtrier dans le quartier administratif de la capitale de République démocratique du Congo (RDC).
Kinshasa attend désormais avec anxiété la publication des derniers résultats partiels du second tour de la présidentielle du 29 octobre entre le président sortant Joseph Kabila et le vice-président Jean-Pierre Bemba. Le dépouillement, jusqu'ici, donne une confortable avance à M. Kabila.
Mi-août, à quelques heures de la publication des résultats du premier tour, les troupes des deux candidats s'étaient affrontées au coeur de la capitale. On avait compté au moins 23 morts en trois jours.
Samedi, quatre personnes - dont trois civils touchés par des balles perdues - ont été tuées dans des tirs qui ont retenti pendant près de trois heures à la mi-journée dans la commune de la Gombe (nord de Kinshasa), près de la résidence officielle de M. Bemba.
Ces violences ont impliqué des policiers, des soldats affectés à la garde de M. Bemba et des jeunes des rues, dont certains étaient encadrés par des hommes du vice-président en civil, selon des sources sécuritaires congolaise et occidentale.
Dimanche matin, comme convenu la veille au cours d'une réunion entre représentants des deux candidats, de l'ONU, de la force européenne Eufor et des forces de sécurité congolaises, plus aucun militaire de M. Bemba n'était visible devant sa résidence officielle, où la Mission de l'ONU en RDC (Monuc) a renforcé sa présence.
"Nous avons déployé 12 APC (blindés légers) autour de la résidence. La Monuc assure seule la sécurisation et tous les hommes de M. Bemba sont cantonnés" à l'intérieur de la résidence, a déclaré à l'AFP le porte-parole militaire de la Monuc, le lieutenant-colonel Stéphane Lescoffit.
Aux abords du cimetière de la Gombe, à une centaine de mètres de la résidence, une dizaine de gardes de M. Bemba ont toutefois été associés à la surveillance du secteur avec une quarantaine de militaires des Forces armées de RDC (FARDC), membres des nouvelles brigades de l'armée.
Ce dispositif mixte, mis en place samedi soir, est destiné "à rassurer tout le monde", a expliqué à l'AFP un officier occidental. "On a voulu associer les hommes de Bemba à la sécurisation du secteur pour faire descendre la pression".
"La réunion (de samedi) n'a rien donné, rien de concret. Il va bien falloir faire quelque chose", a estimé un autre diplomate, expliquant que le problème de la garde de M. Bemba, même cantonnée, continuait de se poser.
Le vice-président disposerait d'environ un millier d'hommes à Kinshasa, des militaires échappant totalement à la chaîne de commandement des FARDC.
Pour un officier occidental, rien ne sera réglé "tant qu'on aura 1.000 hommes en armes en plein coeur de Kinshasa, avec la peur au ventre, la peau au bout de leur fusil et aucune porte de sortie".
"Il y a une haine très forte entre les forces en présence" (les hommes de M. Bemba, la police et la garde présidentielle, estimée à plus de 5.000 hommes à Kinshasa, ndlr), a-t-il ajouté.
"C'est très calme ce matin", a-t-il reconnu, ajoutant que la situation pourrait se dégrader rapidement à Kinshasa où la population, majoritairement pro-Bemba, est "instrumentalisée depuis des semaines, convaincue qu'il va gagner" les élections.
Dimanche à la mi-journée, les habitants de la Gombe rentraient chez eux d'un pas tranquille, après la messe.
Dans le quartier du cimetière, où les tirs les plus nourris ont résonné samedi, vendeurs de pain et de journaux attendaient leurs clients habituels, déplorant unanimement les violences de la veille.
© Jeuneafrique.com 2006
http://www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/article_depeche.asp?
art_cle=AFP74806calmerofuel0
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Arrollador
Por Michael Moore*
Lunes, 13 de Noviembre de 2006
Amigos: ¡Lo hicieron! ¡Lo hicimos! Lo imposible sucedió: una mayoría de norteamericanos ha removido sólida y convincentemente al partido de Bush del control de la Cámara de Representantes, y los republicanos también han sido expulsados, milagrosamente, de la dirección del Senado de Estados Unidos. Esto sucedió porque el pueblo estadounidense quería dejar dos cosas claras como el agua: terminar esta guerra y evitar que Bush haga más daño a este país que amamos. De eso se trató esta elección. De nada más. Sólo eso. Y es un mensaje que ha conmocionado a Washington, y ha enviado un mensaje de esperanza alrededor de este mundo aquejado de problemas.
Ahora comienza el verdadero trabajo. A menos que les estemos encima a estos demócratas para que hagan lo correcto, harán lo que hacen siempre: echar las cosas a perder a lo grande. Ayudaron a Bush a empezar esta guerra y ahora deben tratar de reparar el daño hecho.
Pero tomémonos un día para regocijarnos y deleitarnos en una rara victoria para nuestro lado, el lado que no cree en invasiones no provocadas de otros países. Este es su día, amigos. Ustedes han trabajado duro para ello. No puedo decirles lo orgulloso que estoy de contarlos a todos ustedes como parte de una mayor corriente norteamericana que ahora ocupamos. Gracias por todo el tiempo que dedicaron a conseguir los votos necesarios. Algunos de ustedes han estado en esto desde las grandes manifestaciones de febrero del 2003, cuando tratamos de parar la guerra antes de que empezara. Sólo entre el 10 y 20 por ciento del país estuvo de acuerdo con nosotros. ¿Se acuerdan lo solitario que fue eso? ¡Incluso hubo gente que fue abucheada! Ahora, el 60 por cierto del país está de acuerdo con nuestra posición. Ellos son nosotros y nosotros somos ellos. Qué sentimiento agradable, extraño y esperanzador.
Por primera vez en nuestra historia, una mujer será la presidenta de la Cámara de Representantes. El intento de prohibir todo tipo de aborto en el estado conservador de Dakota del Sur fracasó. Se aprobaron leyes para aumentar el salario mínimo. Se eligieron demócratas para ocupar los bancas de Tom Delay y Mark Delay. El congresista de Detroit, John Conyers JR, será el presidente de la comisión de Justicia de la Cámara baja. El gobernador demócrata de Michigan le ganó al CEO de Amway. El pequeño pueblo que está cerca de donde vivo, en Michigan, votó por los demócratas por primera vez. Y así sigue la lista. Las buenas noticias continuarán en los próximos días. Disfrútenlas. Y úsenlas para lograr que el Congreso finalmente escuche a la mayoría.
Si quieren hacer algo hoy, envíen un e-mail o una carta a los senadores y al congresista que los representa, y díganles, de forma clara, qué significó la elección: el fin de la guerra y no dejar que George W. Bush se salga con la suya con sus brillantes ideas.
¡Felicitaciones otra vez! Ahora busquemos unas propuestas centrales para los demócratas, para que hagan el trabajo para el que los votamos.
Suyo en la victoria (¡para variar!),
Michael Moore
* De http://www.michaelmoore.com
© 2000-2006 www.pagina12.com.ar|República Argentina|Todos los Derechos Reservados
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elmundo/subnotas/76105-24562-2006-11-13.html
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Ponen presión al repliegue de Irak
LA OPOSICION PIDE QUE LA RETIRADA EMPIECE DE CUATRO A SEIS MESES
Los demócratas quieren resucitar la agencia federal independiente que combate la corrupción en la reconstrucción del país ocupado. Tras la derrota republicana en las legislativas, el tema Irak está en el tapete. Ayer, el premier iraquí exigió un recambio del gobierno.
Por Rupert Cornwell*
Desde Washington, Lunes, 13 de Noviembre de 2006
Cuando falta más de un mes y medio para hacerse cargo del Congreso, los demócratas ya adelantan cómo atacarán la estrategia del gobierno en Irak. Varios senadores le pusieron fecha a la retirada de tropas y afirmaron que presentarán un proyecto para aprobar este pedido. “La primera tarea es cambiar la dirección de la política en Irak”, explicó el senador demócrata Carl Levin, quien anticipó que el repliegue comenzaría entre cuatro y seis meses. Además, los nuevos demócratas en ascenso quieren resucitar la agencia federal independiente que combate el fraude, el mal uso y la corrupción dentro de la reconstrucción de Irak, como parte de una nueva iniciativa del Congreso para investigar a la administración Bush.
La resolución para un repliegue temprano, que no sería vinculante pero significaría una fuerte presión para Bush, también es apoyada por los senadores demócratas Joseph Biden, un posible presidenciable, y Charles Schumer. Levin ya había presentado en junio pasado en el Senado una resolución que pedía el repliegue de las tropas en Irak. En esa ocasión, sólo logró 40 de los 100 votos de esa Cámara. Pero luego de las elecciones es muy probable que la historia sea distinta. No sólo porque serán mayoría, sino que además sus voces tendrán más peso. Levin previsiblemente se convertirá en el presidente del Comité de las Fuerzas Armadas del Senado, y Biden en presidente del Comité de Relaciones Exteriores.
La iniciativa para reactivar la agencia que monitorea los fondos de la reconstrucción se hizo pública en Estados Unidos cuando en Irak se vivía otro día de violencia e inestabilidad política. En total, 58 iraquíes y tres soldados estadounidenses murieron y cien personas resultaron heridas. Además, volvieron a aparecer cadáveres en la capital. La violencia comenzó ayer cuando un atacante suicida mató a 35 personas en un atentado contra un centro de reclutamiento de la policía en Bagdad. Mientras tanto, en el plano político, el primer ministro Nouri al Maliki demandó una amplia reorganización del gobierno, que ha demostrado ser incapaz de poner un punto final a la violencia y de rescatar al país de la crisis económica.
Se espera que los demócratas impulsen esta nueva propuesta en los próximos días. La medida restauraría la Oficina del Inspector General Especial para la Reconstrucción de Irak. Creada en marzo de 2004, la oficina, dirigida por el jefe inspector David Bowen, ha auditado gastos por miles de millones de dólares desde la invasión, descubriendo docenas de casos de mal uso de fondos –muchas veces exponiendo la falta de veracidad de las declaraciones triunfantes de la administración con respecto a la reconstrucción, y avergonzando a la Casa Blanca.
Meses atrás, por ejemplo, informó que KBR, una empresa subsidiaria de ingeniería de Halliburton, el grupo petrolero dirigido entre 1995 y el año 2000 por el vicepresidente Dick Cheney, había sistemáticamente intentado esconder los detalles de sus contratos. Otra investigación reveló cuántas de las 14 mil armas enviadas por Estados Unidos al gobierno iraquí habían desaparecido –y posiblemente hayan terminado en manos de los rebeldes–. Ya alcanzaron los 25 procesamientos, cuatro de ellos con condenas.
Gracias a sus esfuerzos, Bowen y su oficina con 55 funcionarios también han logrado fomentar la desilusión pública con respecto a la guerra y al escenario posterior. Irak se ha hundido de a poco en la violencia sectaria y en la anarquía, y su economía ha ido de mal en peor, a pesar de la enorme infusión de fondos norteamericanos para la reconstrucción –calculada en 38 mil millones de dólares desde la invasión de 2003.
Ayer sólo trajo más malas noticias. El ataque al centro de reclutamiento fue sólo el más mortal de una serie de ataques dentro y alrededor de Bagdad, en los que más de una veintena de personas murieron. La policía también continúa buscando a más de 50 personas que habían sido secuestradas el sábado en Yusifiya, en el sur de la capital, después de una emboscada en la que murieron otras doce personas.
Mientras tanto, los cambios en el gobierno pedidos por Maliki podrían provocar aún más incertidumbre, especialmente en los ministerios clave, como Defensa y e Interior. Ambos han demostrado ser los menos capaces, al no poder dar seguridad y controlar a las milicias que funcionan con gran libertad en Irak. La difusión de la iniciativa demócrata llegó en la víspera de la reunión entre el presidente George Bush y el Irak Study Group, el comité bipartidario que analiza la situación en Golfo, dirigido por el secretario de Estado de su padre, James Baker. Se espera que antes de fin de año tenga lista sus sugerencias, con una nueva política para Irak.
La próxima presidenta de la Cámara de Representantes, Nancy Pelosi, y otros importantes dirigentes demócratas han adelantado que no intentarán iniciar un impeachment contra Bush, ni buscarán volver a estudiar los errores de Inteligencia previos a la guerra. Pero la nueva mayoría tiene amplios poderes para indagar sobre los errores de administración que siguieron a la ocupación. También se espera que los demócratas pidan sesiones para discutir el controversial programa de escuchas de Bush, el trato y el proceso judicial de los sospechosos de terrorismo, y la tardía respuesta al huracán Katrina. Los enfrentamientos con la administración serán muchos y ya empezaron con el rechazo a la candidatura de John Bolton para representar al país en las Naciones Unidas.
* De The Independent de Gran Bretaña. Especial para Página/12.
© 2000-2006 www.pagina12.com.ar|República Argentina|Todos los Derechos Reservados
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elmundo/4-76105-2006-11-13.html
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Para alejar la idea de la muerte
EL ESCRITOR KAZUO ISHIGURO, SU OBRA, SU BUSQUEDA, SUS REFLEXIONES
Kazuo Ishiguro nació en Japón, pero fue llevado a Inglaterra a los seis años. Hoy es uno de los mayores escritores en lengua inglesa. Fue consagrado con Los restos del día, llevada al cine con la recordada actuación de Anthony Hopkins. En esta entrevista repasa sus novelas, revela sus miedos y confiesa su amor por Borges, el tango y el fútbol argentino.
Por Carlos Alfieri
Lunes, 13 de Noviembre de 2006
–Al director de cine taiwanés Ang Lee le preguntaron en 1995, cuando se estrenó su película Sentido y sensibilidad, cómo un chino como él había captado tan profundamente el espíritu de Inglaterra y el de la novela de Jane Austen. El respondió que no le había costado mucho, porque la sociedad china de la que procedía era tan ritualista y formalista como la inglesa. ¿Ha encontrado usted similitudes análogas entre la sociedad japonesa y la británica?
–No sé con precisión la edad que tiene Ang Lee, pero me parece que tiene los mismos años que yo...
–Sí, exactamente.
–Y bien, pienso que no se trata tanto de sociedades formalistas parecidas. A partir de mi generación, todos hemos crecido leyendo los mismos libros, viendo las mismas películas, respirando una cierta atmósfera cultural globalizada, por lo que ya no debería llamar la atención a nadie que alguien de origen chino como Ang Lee, o japonés como yo, pueda escribir sobre otros temas supuestamente ajenos a su cultura de origen. También existen hoy muchos directores de cine latinoamericanos que realizan películas en Europa, cuyas historias, en general, se desarrollan en este continente. Justamente un cineasta brasileño, Fernando Meirelles, ha dirigido El jardinero fiel, adaptación de la novela de John Le Carré que ocurre en Africa. Hoy vivimos en un mundo en que tanto escritores como directores de cine se sienten confiados en la realización de este tipo de obras, digamos, internacionales. La confianza en uno mismo es la clave para abordarlas. A veces, la gente está intimidada por la superficie social de una realidad aparentemente diferente, pero lo que cuenta son las historias que se alojan en el interior de cada persona, que suelen ser menos disímiles.
–Una poco afortunada película norteamericana de Michael Bay, La isla, especie de fábula futurista, guarda en su argumento –y digo sólo en su argumento– un asombroso parentesco con el de su última novela, Nunca me abandones. ¿Ha visto ese filme o se lo ha comentado alguien?
–No, no lo he visto, pero oí hablar de él justo cuando había acabado mi novela y estaba a punto de publicarse. Lo que usted me comenta también lo refirió un crítico de The New York Times, que relacionaba mi libro con esa película y con una obra teatral de Carol Churchill, porque abordaban un tema análogo. El periodista destacaba como un rasgo muy interesante que las tres obras hubiesen aparecido casi al mismo tiempo. Y claro, yo creo que cada vez veremos más películas, libros y producciones artísticas de todo tipo que traten el tema de los clones, de los androides, porque son temas que cada vez circulan más en nuestro mundo a causa de la evolución de las ciencias. Pero no sólo por eso: constituyen una magnífica oportunidad para los escritores de formular en nuevas circunstancias las preguntas que siempre inquietaron a la literatura, como qué es el alma humana, cuál es la esencia del ser humano, incluso la relación del hombre con Dios, que es un planteamiento que había desaparecido de la literatura contemporánea, y que ahora regresa pero en una atmósfera más secular. También Michel Houellebecq utiliza en su última novela a clones que narran su historia.
–Su novela Los restos del día fue llevada al cine por James Ivory, y el resultado fue una película admirable. Ahora se habla de la adaptación cinematográfica de Nunca me abandones. A través de su propia experiencia, ¿qué ve de bueno y qué de malo en las relaciones entre literatura y cine?
–Yo he trabajado también como guionista cinematográfico, y eso me permite, de alguna manera, situarme en la perspectiva de los cineastas. Posiblemente algunos de mis colegas no estarán de acuerdo con lo que voy a decir, pero pienso que lo único importante es si la película es buena o no. No creo que todo el equipo que realiza un film inspirado en una novela –director, guionista, etcétera– se tenga que preocupar demasiado por ser fiel al libro original. Sinceramente, para mí esto no es tan importante. Muchas veces la mejor manera de hacer una gran película es ser muy fiel al libro que se adapta, pero otras veces no, todo lo contrario, hay que partir de un punto de vista radicalmente opuesto. Es un error pensar que la adaptación de una novela al cine es una especie de traducción, como de una lengua a otra. No es eso sino una nueva creación.
–Desde su primera novela, Pálida luz en las colinas, su escritura suele presentar una superficie tersa, diáfana, debajo de la cual laten los horrores más atroces. ¿Cree que la tensión entre formas narrativas que podríamos caracterizar como apacibles, distantes, y el desasosiego abismal de lo que narran es uno de los logros centrales de la literatura del siglo XX, en el que Kafka fue su genio indiscutible?
–No creo que se pueda generalizar y atribuirle a esta forma de narrar el carácter de rasgo central de la literatura contemporánea. Pienso, por ejemplo, en dos escritores de mi generación, Salman Rushdie y Martin Amis, que no practican para nada este procedimiento literario. Tal vez sea una cuestión de temperamento. Creo que esa característica se puede encontrar en todas las épocas y en todas las generaciones, y no sólo en la literatura sino en todas las artes: en el jazz, pongamos por caso, en Charlie Parker y Miles Davis.
–Tengo la sensación de que su libro Los inconsolables marca una ruptura en esa prosa de controlada placidez que acabo de mencionar, y que algún crítico irreflexivo pudo calificar de realista. Con esta novela estalla un estilo más desenfrenado, fantástico, disparatado, laberíntico. Pero en sus obras posteriores la narración recupera las formas que la habían caracterizado antes. ¿Fue un experimento fallido el de Los inconsolables?
–Me gusta pensar que cada libro es un proyecto individual, y que la forma de narrar que adopto coincide con ese proyecto. En Los inconsolables intenté analizar el pasado de una persona de una forma diferente. Cuando recordamos el pasado solemos hacerlo a partir del hallazgo en el presente de determinados elementos que se asemejan a cosas ya vividas. Tomé como modelo la forma en que soñamos. Lo que me choca cuando soñamos es que con frecuencia aparecen acciones del pasado que quedan completamente enganchadas y mezcladas con imágenes del presente. Por ejemplo, veo aquí en el hotel la imagen del recepcionista y se me queda grabada, pero luego, cuando sueño, esa imagen ya no corresponde al recepcionista sino a alguien mucho más importante para mi vida que viene del pasado. Con esta metodología traté en Los inconsolables de llegar a los recuerdos de otras personas. Y en este libro experimenté con las posibilidades narrativas que podría desplegar en otras obras. Pero en general, cuando tengo un proyecto de novela, trato de escoger la forma narrativa más simple que sea adecuada para ese libro.
–Su novela Los restos del día fue considerada por muchos como perfecta. Todo indica que Nunca me abandones la sigue en ese camino de perfección. ¿Son sus dos libros que más lo satisfacen?
–No necesariamente. Además, encuentro muy sospechoso esto de la perfección. A mí me gustan los libros que se abren a algún peligro, que se abren a los demás. Pero de todos modos estoy muy contento de recibir esos cumplidos... aunque también me intimida que me digan que he escrito un libro perfecto, porque después de eso no querré saber lo que seguirá... Es como para no escribir más. El libro considerado menos “perfecto” de los míos, Los inconsolables, fue sin embargo muy importante para mí, porque me abrió nuevos campos como escritor.
–¿Se puede decir que la impotencia, la imposibilidad de asumir una vida distinta, que tan bien ejemplifica el mayordomo Stevens de Los restos del día, es la preocupación fundamental de su literatura?
–Creo que la gente sólo puede cambiar su vida un poquito. En Stevens se ve a alguien que de una forma muy dolorosa intenta empezar a cambiar su visión del mundo e incluso la de su propia vida. Pero la parte triste es que él, como todos los hombres, comprueba que es muy limitada la parte que puede cambiar. Algo que siempre me ha llamado la atención es el contraste que existe entre la experiencia de un país y la de una persona. Un país puede aprender de sus muchos errores, y así puede surgir una generación nueva que los corrija, pero el tiempo vital de una persona es tan restringido que no le permite esa posibilidad de cambio. En mis primeros libros trataba de retratar personajes que vivían en un mundo que cambiaba muchísimo, entre la Primera y la Segunda Guerra Mundial, y al final ellos asumían que esos cambios eran positivos para la comunidad, pero que para ellos ya no representaban nada.
–En Nunca me abandones, los chicos del internado de Hailsham son “especiales”, deberán realizar unas enigmáticas “donaciones” y después “completar” algo que no se sabe bien qué es. Un cuidadísimo repertorio de eufemismos designa su realidad. No cuesta nada establecer el paralelismo con nuestra época, plena de eufemismos como “flexibilización laboral” o “guerras humanitarias”. ¿Ya vivimos todos en Hailsham?
–Bueno, al escribir esta novela yo pensaba esencialmente en los eufemismos que rodean al envejecimiento y la muerte. Todos empleamos una gran cantidad de eufemismos para maquillar y alejar de nosotros la idea de la muerte. En realidad, lo que intenté explicar es el viaje que hacemos desde la adolescencia a la edad madura. Naturalmente, en este caso se trata de un viaje muy extraño, porque para estos niños el recorrido se limita a los treinta años de edad. Pero igual, de alguna manera, quería retratar los estadios que atravesamos desde la adolescencia hasta la edad adulta. Así que utilicé los eufemismos que podemos emplear nosotros para hablar de las enfermedades o la vejez.
–En cierto modo, Nunca me abandones se disfraza de novela de ciencia-ficción, y de internados ingleses, y de terror, así como Cuando fuimos huérfanos lo hacía de novela de detectives. ¿Le encanta jugar con los géneros para dinamitarlos y expandirlos?
–En los casos concretos de Los restos del día y Cuando fuimos huérfanos era muy consciente de los géneros que evocaban; por ejemplo, en el personaje del mayordomo Stevens recordaba la imagen del mayordomo en las novelas de P. G. Wodehouse a modo de trampa, quería engañar con esa imagen, y en Cuando fuimos huérfanos es evidente que jugaba con las novelas de detectives. Pero confieso que en Nunca me abandones no, entre otras cosas porque la ciencia-ficción no es un género que me atraiga demasiado, y tampoco esperaba que mis lectores estuvieran familiarizados con él. En cambio, cuando escribí Los restos del día era consciente de que todos mis lectores sabían lo que era una novela con un mayordomo, y con Cuando fuimos huérfanos obviamente sabía que todo el mundo conocía perfectamente lo que era una novela de detectives. Pero en Nunca me abandones me sentí como forzado a utilizar la ciencia-ficción, porque era la única manera de poder narrar la historia que yo quería desarrollar. En el primer intento que hice de escribir la novela, los chicos no eran clones. Yo tenía la idea del libro en la cabeza hacía más de quince años, y entonces me sentía muy presionado por el tema de las armas nucleares, pero sentía que así la historia no funcionaba. Cuando vi clarísimo que los chicos tenían que ser clones es cuando se me abrió la dimensión verdaderamente trágica de la historia: una generación de seres humanos sin padres, sin familia, sólo creados para servir a otras personas, y cuyas vidas serían muy cortas, no por el peligro de una catástrofe nuclear sino porque así estaban programadas desde un principio. Así es como entré en el territorio de los clones y de la biotecnología. Es como si hubiera llegado a un país por accidente –el país de la ciencia-ficción– sin conocer las costumbres y las leyes de ese país.
–Muchos críticos hicieron excesivo hincapié en que con este libro incursionaba en la ciencia-ficción, pero yo no lo veo así: puedo entender la vida breve de los clones como una metáfora de la fugacidad de la existencia humana en general.
–Desde luego, desde luego. Ese es el corazón de mi libro.
–¿Mantiene viva la lengua japonesa? ¿Lee literatura de su país? Si es así, ¿qué escritores de ese ámbito le interesan especialmente?
–Nunca he podido leer en japonés, pero sí en cambio he visto muchas películas japonesas –particularmente de la década de 1950: Ozu, mi preferido, Kurosawa...–, que es para mí una manera de acceder directamente a la cultura de mi país de origen.
–¿Conoce el cine de Takeshi Kitano?
–Sí, claro. Me interesan mucho las películas de Kitano. En cuanto a escritores, me atrae Murakami. Pero en conjunto, no me motiva demasiado lo que está pasando en Japón: me parece demasiado violento y extraño.
–A pesar de que no lee japonés, ¿cree que le ha influido en algo la cultura nipona?
–Sin duda, tengo una notoria influencia de la cultura japonesa, en especial del cine, en mis primeros trabajos. Y los recuerdos de mi niñez en Japón influyeron en mis primeros textos.
–¿Qué autores le proporcionaron las experiencias más intensas de lectura y a qué edad?
–Mi primer fervor literario transcurrió de los nueve a los doce años, en que leí todas las novelas de Sherlock Holmes. Le diré más: incluso ahora, cuando releo lo que he escrito, detecto algunos rastros de los libros del famoso detective de Conan Doyle. Después, a los diecinueve o veinte años, me apasioné con Dostoievski. Tal vez es difícil encontrar la influencia de Dostoievski en mis novelas, pero de joven me poseyó por completo. En mi primera época de escritor, el autor que más gravitó sobre mí fue Marcel Proust. Cuando escribía mi primer libro lo hacía casi como un guión de cine, con muchísimo diálogo (porque en esa época también escribía guiones de cine), pero entonces leí a Proust y decidí que mi camino literario tenía que ir por otro lado. Esa manera de escribir a partir de un narrador que apela a sus recuerdos, a lo que tiene guardado en su memoria, y que va involucrando a otras personas, es una influencia muy clara de Proust. Una vez dicho esto, debo confesar que no me gusta especialmente Proust. Por momentos lo encuentro muy snob y muy aburrido (risas).
–Sé que usted es un gran admirador de Astor Piazzolla y del tango. ¿Le interesa también la literatura argentina?
–Sé que a partir de la publicación de una entrevista que me hizo una periodista argentina he quedado sacralizado en ese país como “el fanático” de Maradona, el tango y Astor Piazzolla (más risas). Desde entonces me llueven invitaciones para visitar Argentina... Y sí, me gusta mucho el fútbol argentino, pero no sólo Maradona; también he admirado mucho a Mario Kempes. En cambio debo decirle que, por desgracia, apenas he leído literatura argentina, excepto Borges, naturalmente. Borges, a quien leí cuando empecé a escribir, es para mí una de las figuras fundamentales, con Kafka y Beckett, que han escrito desde fuera del realismo.
© 2000-2006 www.pagina12.com.ar|República Argentina|Todos los Derechos Reservados
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/dialogos/21-76108-2006-11-13.html
Página/12:
Una de terror
Por Rodrigo Fresán
Desde Barcelona, Lunes, 13 de Noviembre de 2006
UNO Por un lado están las películas gore (ésas con chicas de tetas grandes aullando en mataderos abandonados, esas con ojos desorbitados saltando de sus órbitas, esas con cabezas cortadas a hachazos y no-muertos devorando los cerebros de los inminentes ex vivos) y por otro está la película de Gore (ésa con el hombre “aburrido” que gobernó a la sombra del “divertido” Bill Clinton, ése al que sus asesores recomendaron besar con ardor a su esposa durante la campaña para generar algo de calentamiento global en su figura, ese que prefirió rechazar la ayuda de su carismático socio durante su campaña presidencial, ese que se supone perdió aquellas elecciones tan raras del 2000, ese que hoy se presenta sonriendo con un “Yo solía ser el próximo presidente de los Estados Unidos”. El curso de la vida de Al Gore –alguna vez eminencia gris de los demócratas en el poder y hoy eminencia verde de los ecologistas en la contra– es casi digno de una novela de Philip Roth: Gore sería un muy buen interlocutor para Nathan Zuckerman, alguien que sabría contarle una historia muy interesante para la confección de otra Pastoral americana: la vida y la obra de un tipo que, en algún momento, se dio cuenta de que ser político (incluso político en el poder) no alcanza, no sirve, no funciona.
DOS La película documental “protagonizada” por Al Gore y que por estos días se estrena en buena parte de un planeta contaminado se titula Una verdad incómoda, tiene un poster donde el humo de una fábrica se convierte en la espiral de una huracán al que ya alguien le pondrá nombre cortito y pegadiza y es, básicamente, una conferencia. Poco y nada de montaje efectista y nada de la demagogia narcisista de Michael Moore. Cabe suponer que Una verdad incómoda –100 minutos de duración ordenados y dirigidos por Davis Guggenheim– es nada más y nada menos que una versión ni muy aumentada ni muy corregida de las ya habituales conferencias y alertas que de un tiempo a esta parte viene ofreciendo por todo el mundo, ante jóvenes expectantes y empresarios contaminantes, el alguna vez vicepresidente de esa potencia mundial hoy orgullosa del papelón de negarse a firmar los papeles del Protocolo de Kioto. En Una verdad incómoda, Gore se la pasa hablando, viajando, explicando gráficos y cifras y aportando data caliente que produce escalofríos en el que la recibe ahí, sentado en la oscuridad todavía más oscura de una sala de cine, sintiendo cómo el pochoclo se vuelve pasta sin sabor en la boca y preguntándose en cuánto ha contribuido uno –ese pochoclo, ese calor, esa computadora encendida en repose– a este fin del mundo en cámara lenta, a este efecto especial sin prisa ni pausa, a este film que no es gore pero sí catástrofe, en el que se ha convertido nuestra cada vez menos existente existencia.
TRES Sería gracioso –sería humorísticamente negro– que al comienzo de Una verdad incómoda se leyese aquella leyenda verdadera de Based on a true story. Porque lo que aquí se cuenta –lo que aquí se advierte– es verdad más allá de las discrepancias y matices entre especialistas o las certezas del novelista Michael Crichton, quien asegura que todo el asunto no es más que delirios trasnochados de ecologistas románticos. Lo importante, para mí, de esta película no pasa tanto por la denuncia de quienes son los grande malos de la película sino los pequeños delincuentes y los millones de extras a los que se nos pide, casi se nos ruega, que hagamos algo al respecto y que aprovechemos los últimos diez años que nos quedan para revertir el curso de los acontecimientos antes de que se fundan los cables, se apague la luz bajo los rayos de un sol de voltaje cada vez más alto, se venga el diluvio horizontal de las crecidas y el verbo respirar se convierta en el más irregular de todos. Una verdad incómoda no les moverá un pelo a los que se hincan de rodillas ante un Bush ardiente pero sí al menos pondrá los pelos de punta por poco más de hora y media a aquel que se siente más allá de todo derretimiento. Gente como el joven escritor norteamericano Jonathan Franzen. A partir de sus categóricos pronunciamientos en cuanto a cómo debe ser o no ser la Gran Novela Americana, cabía pensar que Franzen no era de las personas más inteligentes; pero el autor de Las correcciones va todavía más lejos en los ensayos autobiográficos contenidos en el recién aparecido The Discomfort Zone. Allí, Franzen afirma que, habiendo decidido que no tendrá hijos, a él no tiene por qué preocuparle el calentamiento global y que, también, le irritó profundamente la demanda constante de ayuda para las víctimas del Katrina. Podrá argumentarse –algunos lo han hecho y hasta celebrado– que semejantes incorrecciones políticas son un gesto de honestidad porque, a la hora de la verdad, a nadie le importa nada de lo que sucede más allá de los metros cuadrados del ecosistema que supo conseguir. Mucho menos a un escritor. Pero aun así, la supuesta gracia y la sonrisa cínica (como el pochoclo antes mencionado) se vuelven inconvenientes en la boca y se comprende que con ciertas cosas no se jode porque estamos jodidos.
CUATRO Y uno no es tan ingenuo (u oxigenadamente puro) como para pensar que todo aquel que vea Una verdad incómoda saldrá de allí convertido en uno de esos personajes de videoclip de Diego Torres (ese Palito new age) que, ante el evangélico paso del cantante, deja de ser un cretino y se vuelve súbitamente bueno. No. Nada de eso. De hecho, hasta la figura de Gore –quien meses atrás posó en la portada de Vanity Fair junto a George Clooney y Julia Roberts, adalides de una supuesta “nueva revolución americana verde”– produce cierta erosión. Pero sí se puede ver Una verdad incómoda con la misma voluntariosa inquietud con las que, cuando éramos niños, en tiempos de Guerra Fría y no de Paz Caliente, contemplamos cosas como Recuerdos del futuro, aquella que nos hacía creer que los dioses fueron astronautas y que las pirámides eran arquitectura alien. Es decir: si nos tragamos eso por un rato, más nos vale masticar esto por un tiempo. Y sacar conclusiones. Y comprender que la culpa es nuestra, del hombre, del único animal que caga donde vive y tropieza todas las veces que haga falta con la misma piedra.
Escribo todo esto durante viciado otoño español que se niega a dejar de ser un vicioso veranito zombie, el mismo día en que el agujereador de ozono Bush y sus sicarios pierden la supremacía en el Congreso. Pero a no alegrarse. Los políticos siempre serán marcianos y poco y nada va a cambiar salvo el hecho de que –como escribió alguien el otro día– de aquí a un tiempo todas las primeras planas de todos los diarios y todas las aperturas de todos los noticieros serán, siempre, noticias meteorológicas. Y –¿por fin?– siempre darán en el clavo, en los clavos de esta Tierra cada vez más parecida a un ataúd: mal tiempo desmejorando por la tarde y empeorando por la noche y mejor no hablemos del día después de mañana.
© 2000-2006 www.pagina12.com.ar|República Argentina|Todos los Derechos Reservados
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/contratapa/13-76100-2006-11-13.html
The Independent:
Lebanon faces new crisis after walkout by Hizbollah
By Robert Fisk in Beirut
Published: 13 November 2006
The Shia, the largest community in Lebanon, are no longer represented in the Lebanese government. It could be just part of Lebanon's bloody-minded politics - or it could be a most dangerous moment in the history of this tragic country.
At the weekend, the Hizbollah and the Amal movement walked out of the Lebanese body politic, splitting apart the gentle, utterly false, brilliantly conceived (by the French, of course) confessional system that binds this tortured nation together. There will be demonstrations by Hizbollah to demand a government of "national unity", which means that Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, winner of the so-called "divine victory" against Israel this summer, insists on another pro-Syrian administration in Lebanon.
For a world which has decided to support Lebanon's "democracy", this is grave news. The resignation of five cabinet ministers, two from Hizbollah and three from Amal, cannot bring down the government (which needs eight ministers to resign in order to destroy it), but it means that the largest religious community is no longer officially represented in government decision-making. The Hizbollah are warning of demonstrations which could tear the country apart.
The stakes? The international tribunal which is supposed to try those responsible for the murder of the former prime minister Rafik Hariri last year, and the possibility that the national "unity" which Hizbollah demands would create a cabinet which could become, once more, Syria's creature in Lebanon.
It's not that simple, of course - nothing in Lebanon is - but it's enough to frighten the democratically elected cabinet of Fouad Siniora, Hariri's friend and confidant, and - even more - the Americans who supported "democracy" in Lebanon and then cared nothing for it during this summer's Israeli bombardment of the country.
What prompted this extraordinary crisis at a time when thousands of foreign troops are still pouring into Lebanon to secure a peace which looks ever more self-destructive by the day? Clearly, the tribunal is one element. On Friday, the UN presented Mr Siniora with the terms of the court which would try suspects in the Hariri murder, men who will probably turn out to be intelligence agents of President Bashar Assad's regime in Damascus. The Lebanese President, Emile Lahoud, the most faithful friend of Mr Assad, has already said he needs further time to study the UN recommendations - ho hum, his Lebanese opponents say - before he will sanction a cabinet meeting tomorrow to allow parliament to vote on the UN proposals.
Mr Siniora - an economist friend of Hariri and no warlord - has now said that he will not accept the resignations. He is waiting for Nasrallah's lads to return to the cabinet, well aware that their continued absence - however legal the cabinet remains - will tear the country apart.
The Christians probably account for fewer than 30 per cent of the Lebanese population, and the Sunnis - who largely support them through the leadership of Hariri's son, Saad - create a majority which the Shia cannot outnumber. But Syria and Iran - the armourers of the Hizbollah - are waiting to see what the United States will offer them before cooling the Lebanese oven.
Marwan Hamadi, the minister of communications, said yesterday that talks could be held to bring the Shia back into the government. The Beirut conference between Saad Hariri's 14 March movement - the date marks the huge pro-democracy rally last year that followed his father's murder - broke down on Saturday.
Mr Hariri's bloc holds a majority in parliament, but the formal Christian rebel-general Michel Aoun - whose supporters are already wearying of his electoral alliance with the Hizbollah - says that the cabinet is not representative. He wants three of his loyalists in the government.
Either way, the Christians and the Sunni Muslims of Lebanon are now being torn from their Shia co- religionists. Rival street protests between Christians and Sunnis on the one hand, and Shia on the other, can scarcely be pursued when most of the Lebanese army - a re-formed force of some integrity - are mostly Shia. Bad news indeed.
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1963613.ece
posted by attilav at 20:34
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