Elsewhere Today 450
Aljazeera:
Pakistan crackdown intensifies
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2007
16:13 MECCA TIME, 13:13 GMT
Lawyers say that they will field a former judge as a candidate against Pervez Musharraf in presidential elections due on October 6 amid continuing political unrest.
Wajih-udin Ahmad, a former supreme court judge, is the only person so far standing against Musharraf as the general seeks a second five-year term in office.
The president is to be elected in a vote by parliament.
The development comes amid the dismissal by the supreme court of two legal challenges to Musharraf's re-election bid and the arrest by riot police of dozens of agitating opposition activists on Monday.
However, the court is still weighing five other petitions arguing that Musharraf's dual role as army chief and president is illegal and that he is ineligible to seek another five-year term.
Musharraf, who took power in 1999, has said he will step down from the army soon after the election if he wins, a move that has sparked protests by the opposition.
Separately from politicians, Pakistan's lawyers have opposed Musharraf since he suspended Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the country's chief justice, on March 9.
Chaudhry was later reinstated by the supreme court.
Lawyers' choice
Munir Malik, the supreme court bar association president, said outside the court on Monday: "We have nominated Wajih-udin Ahmad, he is a very respected judge and he will be our candidate for president."
He said Ahmad would be proposed and seconded by other lawyers, but did not disclose who they were.
Ahmad would likely file his nomination papers on Thursday, the deadline for doing so, he said.
On Sunday, police arrested more than a dozen opposition leaders, saying they want to prevent further protests against Musharraf's re-election.
Officers started arresting political figures on Saturday night and continued into Sunday, taking 14 people in total.
The United States embassy in Pakistan on Sunday called the arrests "extremely disturbing" and urged authorities to release the opposition figures.
The expression of concern is a rare step from Washington, which normally limits criticism of Pakistan, a key ally in the so-called war on terrorism.
The embassy statement said the US wanted Pakistan to succeed as a "moderate, modern democratic country led by the choice of the Pakistani people."
"We do not endorse particular candidates or parties."
Sharif supporters
Most of those taken belong to the party led by Nawaz Sharif, the exiled former prime minister.
The supreme court ruled that Sharif could return to contest elections, but when he did so nearly two weeks ago, the authorities put him on a plane to Saudi Arabia.
The chairman of Sharif's faction of the PML-N, Raja Zafar-ul-Haq, and acting chief, Javed Hashmi, were among those arrested.
Hussain Ahmed, a central leader of the religious alliance, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, was also taken.
"They want to crush every voice of dissent," Hashmi said.
"They have confined me for 30 days, but we will continue to raise our voice for the rights of the people of Pakistan, for democracy and against military dictatorship.
"They want power by the use of force, not by the power of the ballot."
Hashmi, who was freed by the supreme court in August after serving three years in jail on sedition charges, said that his lawyer would challenge the "illegal detention" in court.
Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad, reported on Sunday that Hashmi and several other members of the oppostion had been held under police guard at a parliamentary residence.
The guards were not permitted to allow any of those detained to leave. They were allowed to receive visitors.
Hyder later said that Hashmi had been transferred to a permanent jail.
"Hashmi ... has reportedly been taken to a jail in Rawalpindi. That shows the determination of the government to move against the opposition in a very strong way," Hyder said.
Arrest orders
Ahsan Iqbal, spokesman for the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), who is wanted by Pakistani police and currently in hiding, told Al Jazeera that many of the wanted opposition members were planning on going to court on Monday to "cancel government orders for their arrests".
He described the arrests as "cowardly", and said the government was in a panic over the opposition plan to resign en masse from parliament once Musharraf's nomination papers are accepted on September 29.
"They only strengthen our resolve and prove that this is a sham democracy," Iqbal said.
On Friday, an opposition alliance said its politicians would resign from assemblies on September 29 to deny the presidential vote legitimacy.
The parties said they would protest on the streets and have asked the supreme court to declare Musharraf ineligible to run for another presidential term.
Anti-Musharraf lawyers have said they would blockade Pakistan's election commission to prevent him from filing his nomination papers.
Pakistan showdown
March 2007
President Musharraf suspends Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, sparking riots across the country.
July 2007
Musharraf's handling of the Red Mosque siege in the capital comes under close scrutiny.
The death of more than 100 students was seen by some as a direct attack on Islam.
August 2007
Supreme court rules that Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister, has an "inalienable right" right to return to his country.
Sharif, who was ousted by Musharraf in a coup in 1999, is turned away at the airport.
September 2007
Failing support for Musharraf has forced him into negotiations with Benazir Bhutto, another former prime minister.
She vows to return to Pakistan after years in exile if Musharraf steps down as army chief.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/15B070CB-2CEB-428F-88ED-FCAB78BAB76B.htm
AllAfrica:
Children Caught in Crossfire in DRC
By Verna Rainers
allAfrica.com INTERVIEW
24 September 2007
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has warned in recent days that fighting in the eastern Congo is placing children in an increasingly vulnerable position – traumatized by displacement, losing schooling and now at risk of sexual exploitation and being recruited to join armed groups. UNICEF correspondent Sarah Crowe spoke to allAfrica's Verna Rainers in a telephone interview from Goma, North Kivu.
How many people are currently displaced in the region and how many have received help?
The UN and its partners have located 110,000 displaced persons and that's just the tip of the iceberg. There might be three times as many people who need help, but we have not been able to access them yet because they're in various areas that are very insecure and inaccessible as a result of the fighting.
We are very concerned about children's rights and the fact that children could be re-recruited into armed forces involved in the conflict. There's a strong possibility and already some evidence coming out that children are being re-recruited.
Can you give us an indication of the ages and gender of the children being recruited?
Not really, but [usually] between 12 and 17. A couple of weeks ago we saw a boy of 13... He had been shot and caught in the crossfire. In the camps there are not that many girls, but often there are some girls.
Do you agree that this issue has not been given that much attention?
I think it has got a lot of media attention. There are [a lot of] humanitarian organisations doing an enormous amount of work... but I think that the issue in the Congo is one that is easily forgotten.
What is happening to the UN's programme to reunite children with their families?
For now, not many children are being reunited with their families and communities for fear of being re-recruited.
What can the average person do from the outside?
Well I think that the best thing to do is be informed... It's a very complex crisis in the DRC and the whole Great Lakes region... This is an issue that requires the attention and the awareness of all the neighbouring countries. We also need support for the agencies that are here, not just financially, but in helping to find a solution.
Copyright © 2007 allAfrica.com. All rights reserved.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200709240086.html
AllAfrica:
FG, MEND in Fresh Face-Off
By Emma Ujah, Emma Amaize, Samuel Oyadongha, Jimitota Ononyume,
with agency reports, Abuja
Vanguard (Lagos) NEWS
24 September 2007
PRESIDENT Umaru Yar'Adua has directed security agencies to stop the incessant cases of hostage taking in the country forthwith. However, the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) has made fresh threats over the reported arrest of a militant, "Jomo Gbomo", in far away Angola.
The president who departed for the United States of America (USA) yesterday on an official visit was said to be unhappy that rather than abating, hostage taking had spread from the South-South to the South-East.
However, confusion still pervaded the air yesterday over the reported arrest of Jomo Gbomo, leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), in Angola.
Although some sources said it was Jomo himself that was arrested, a MEND statement signed by "Jomo Gbomo" said it was "one Henry Okah" described as "a silent player in the Niger Delta struggle" and one other that were arrested.
On the President's directive on arresting hostage taking, sources said: "Mr. President gave very clear directives on this matter and we have gone back to meet to re-strategise on the most effective approach to resolving the problem permanently."
The Federal Government, sources said, was determined to halt the menace before Christmas as a well articulated measure is being put in place to make hostage taking unattractive to the criminals involved in it.
The meeting came to the conclusion that ransom payment was one of the most frustrating issues that came up.
"If you pay a ransom, then you turn it into a big business but when employers and families of hostages cooperate with security agencies, and we all say, no to ransom, then the perpetrators would have a rethink before undertaking such a dangerous venture," sources said.
It was gathered that those genuinely involved in the agitation for a better deal for the Niger Delta were not the ones involved in the criminal acts but some other people who were merely taking advantage of the struggle.
MEND on Henry Okah's arrest
Meanwhile, MEND yesterday shed light on the arrest of one Henry Okah in Angola. Although it could not be authenticated if the arrested Okah was the same Jomo Gbomo, MEND in an online statement signed by "Jomo Gbomo" described the former as a silent player in the Niger Delta struggle and part of the on-going peace process.
Alleging that the arrested Okah was framed by the Nigerian government in collaboration with some oil majors notably Chevron which have always seen his position as uncompromising, the group said its commanders and fighters were watching the unfolding conspiracy closely, warning that "there will be unpleasant and dire consequences if this matter is not handled with fairness."
The statement reads: "On Monday, September 3, 2007 at about 1400hrs Angola time, two Nigerians were arrested at the Luanda airport on their return to South Africa from a business trip where they had gone to enquire about the purchase of a fishing trawler. One of the individuals, Henry Okah, a silent player in the Niger Delta struggle and part of the on-going peace process, was framed by the Nigerian government in collaboration with some oil majors, notably Chevron, who have always seen his position as uncompromising.
"According to Henry's account, they were led away from their hand luggage under the pretext that the checked-in luggage had to be searched for excess foreign currency leaving Angola. By the time they returned, officials claimed they found some alleged incriminating literature written in Portuguese, a language none of the men speaks inside Henry's hand luggage.
"On the two court appearances following the arrest, the judge threw the case out for lack of merit. After this frame-up failed, another case was quickly manufactured, this time that he should be repatriated to Equatorial Guinea to face charges of sponsoring a failed coup attempt. This we consider ludicrous considering he was never declared wanted by that government or even the Interpol before this time. Henry Okah is not aware that there was even a coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea.
"The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta wishes to serve as a warning to those behind this plot that a repeat of the Ken Saro Wiwa type set-up will fail this time around. For the sake of the on-going peace process, the Nigerian security agencies, the multinational oil and construction companies and their local and foreign collaborators should not take actions that will jeopardise the peace process and take us back to an era everyone is moving away from.
"Commanders and fighters of MEND are watching the unfolding conspiracy closely. There will no doubt be very unpleasant and dire consequences if this matter is not handled with fairness."
A report yesterday said the arrested man had been extradited to Equatorial Guinea where he could likely stand trial on allegation of sponsoring a coup attempt. This is coming after an Angolan judge reportedly threw out the case for lack of merit.
But some leaders of MEND who were contacted on the arrest, yesterday, were very cautious in their response with one of them saying: "I don't know yet whether it is actually Jomo Gbomo that was arrested, and moreover, Jomo Gbomo is not the name of any real human being, it was a pseudonym, which we used to send our email messages to media houses in particular.
"The real Niger Delta militants have ceased hostilities since the past few months and that was why the Federal Government granted Presidential amnesty to us. I expect, therefore, that nobody should be arrested, whether he is Jomo Gbomo or not on the account of militant activities in the Niger Delta because we have all decided to put our house in order."
Another MEND activist told Vanguard: "We have not spoken since first the week of this month when we heard about the arrest because we are not very sure of the information. You know that some people are using the name of the MEND to do many things and we have called on them to retrace their steps but they refused. So, we have been watching them and I cannot say now that this Jomo Gbomo you are talking about is the one representing us in the past, even though, we had warned him several times to stop acting on our behalf.
"We have been waiting for him since and he had been invited to many of our meetings that were called to explore ways of cooperating with the present Federal Government to restore peace to the Niger Delta but he did not attend the meetings. So we can't really say anything for now but if he is the one, I don't think the Nigerian government should be talking about granting amnesty to militants on one hand, and arresting them in another breath. You can see why we are not sure yet until we have authentic information," he said.
Evah confirms Jomo Gbomo's arrest
National Coordinator of the Ijaw Monitoring Group (IMG), Comrade Joseph Evah, yesterday, said it was Jomo Gbomo that was arrested in Angola by security agents in that country.
Comrade Evah in a statement said the allegation of security sources in Nigeria that Jomo Gbomo was negotiating an arms deal to continue to fight the Federal Government of Nigeria was false.
According to him, "every department of the Ijaw struggle has decided to lay down their arms to negotiate through peaceful means with the Federal Government since our son, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, has been elected Vice President to find solution to the Niger Delta poverty, darkness and slavery and, therefore, no Ijaw will go outside the agreement to plan more arm conflict.
"But if our oppressors manipulate Jonathan in Aso Rock not to bring the desired development to the Niger Delta throughout his tenure in office, then the conflict will be worse than Sodom and Gomorrah," he said.
Evah said Jomo Gbomo was not arrested for arms deals and that the arrest was a set-up against one of the powerful voices against injustice in the Niger Delta.
Copyright © 2007 Vanguard. All rights reserved.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200709240112.html
AlterNet:
Iraq Sets the Stage for Possible U.S. War with Iran
By Peter Galbraith, The New York Review of Books and TomDispatch
Posted on September 24, 2007
[This essay appears in the October 11, 2007 issue of the New York Review of Books and is posted here with the kind permission of the editors of that magazine.]
1.
In his continuing effort to bolster support for the Iraq war, President Bush traveled to Reno, Nevada, on August 28 to speak to the annual convention of the American Legion. He emphatically warned of the Iranian threat should the United States withdraw from Iraq. Said the President, "For all those who ask whether the fight in Iraq is worth it, imagine an Iraq where militia groups backed by Iran control large parts of the country."
On the same day, in the southern Iraqi city of Karbala, the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, battled government security forces around the shrine of Imam Hussein, one of Shiite Islam's holiest places. A million pilgrims were in the city and fifty-one died.
The U.S. did not directly intervene, but American jets flew overhead in support of the government security forces. As elsewhere in the south, those Iraqi forces are dominated by the Badr Organization, a militia founded, trained, armed, and financed by Iran. When U.S. forces ousted Saddam's regime from the south in early April 2003, the Badr Organization infiltrated from Iran to fill the void left by the Bush administration's failure to plan for security and governance in post-invasion Iraq.
In the months that followed, the U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) appointed Badr Organization leaders to key positions in Iraq's American-created army and police. At the same time, L. Paul Bremer's CPA appointed party officials from the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) to be governors and serve on governorate councils throughout southern Iraq. SCIRI, recently renamed the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), was founded at the Ayatollah Khomeini's direction in Tehran in 1982. The Badr Organization is the militia associated with SCIRI.
In the January 2005 elections, SCIRI became the most important component of Iraq's ruling Shiite coalition. In exchange for not taking the prime minister's slot, SCIRI won the right to name key ministers, including the minister of the interior. From that ministry, SCIRI placed Badr militiamen throughout Iraq's national police.
In short, George W. Bush had from the first facilitated the very event he warned would be a disastrous consequence of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq: the takeover of a large part of the country by an Iranian-backed militia. And while the President contrasts the promise of democracy in Iraq with the tyranny in Iran, there is now substantially more personal freedom in Iran than in southern Iraq.
Iran's role in Iraq is pervasive, but also subtle. When Iraq drafted its permanent constitution in 2005, the American ambassador energetically engaged in all parts of the process. But behind the scenes, the Iranian ambassador intervened to block provisions that Tehran did not like. As it happened, both the Americans and the Iranians wanted to strengthen Iraq's central government. While the Bush administration clung to the mirage of a single Iraqi people, Tehran worked to give its proxies, the pro-Iranian Iraqis it supported - by then established as the government of Iraq - as much power as possible. (Thanks to Kurdish obstinacy, neither the U.S. nor Iran succeeded in its goal, but even now both the US and Iran want to see the central government strengthened.)
Since 2005, Iraq's Shiite-led government has concluded numerous economic, political, and military agreements with Iran. The most important would link the two countries' strategic oil reserves by building a pipeline from southern Iraq to Iran, while another commits Iran to providing extensive military assistance to the Iraqi government. According to a senior official in Iraq's Oil Ministry, smugglers divert at least 150,000 barrels of Iraq's daily oil exports through Iran, a figure that approaches 10 percent of Iraq's production. Iran has yet to provide the military support it promised to the Iraqi army. With the U.S. supplying 160,000 troops and hundreds of billions of dollars to support a pro-Iranian Iraqi government, Iran has no reason to invest its own resources.
Of all the unintended consequences of the Iraq war, Iran's strategic victory is the most far-reaching. In establishing the border between the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Empire in 1639, the Treaty of Qasr-i-Shirin demarcated the boundary between Sunni-ruled lands and Shiite-ruled lands. For eight years of brutal warfare in the 1980s, Iran tried to breach that line but could not. (At the time, the Reagan administration supported Saddam Hussein precisely because it feared the strategic consequences of an Iraq dominated by Iran's allies.) The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq accomplished what Khomeini's army could not. Today, the Shiite-controlled lands extend to the borders of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Bahrain, a Persian Gulf kingdom with a Shiite majority and a Sunni monarch, is most affected by these developments; but so is Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, which is home to most of the kingdom's Shiites. (They may even be a majority in the province but this is unknown as Saudi Arabia has not dared to conduct a census.) The U.S. Navy has its most important Persian Gulf base in Bahrain while most of Saudi Arabia's oil is under the Eastern Province.
America's Iraq quagmire has given new life to Iran's Syrian ally, Bashir Assad. In 2003, the Syrian Baathist regime seemed an anachronism unable to survive the region's political and economic changes. Today, Assad appears firmly in control, having even recovered from the opprobrium of having his regime caught red-handed in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. In Lebanon, Hezbollah enjoys greatly enhanced stature for having held off the Israelis in the 2006 war. As Hezbollah's sponsor and source of arms, Iran now has an influence both in the Levant and in the Arab-Israeli conflict that it never before had.
The scale of the American miscalculation is striking. Before the Iraq war began, its neoconservative architects argued that conferring power on Iraq's Shiites would serve to undermine Iran because Iraq's Shiites, controlling the faith's two holiest cities, would, in the words of then Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, be "an independent source of authority for the Shia religion emerging in a country that is democratic and pro-Western." Further, they argued, Iran could never dominate Iraq, because the Iraqi Shiites are Arabs and the Iranian Shiites Persian. It was a theory that, unfortunately, had no connection to reality.
Iran's bond with the Iraqi Shiites goes far beyond the support Iran gave Shiite leaders in their struggle with Saddam Hussein. Decades of oppression have made their religious identity more important to Iraqi Shiites than their Arab ethnic identity. (Also, many Iraqi Shiites have Turcoman, Persian, or Kurdish ancestors.) While Sunnis identify with the Arab world, Iraqi Shiites identify with the Shiite world, and for many this means Iran.
There is also the legacy of February 15, 1991, when President George H.W. Bush called on the Iraqi people to rise up against Saddam Hussein. Two weeks later, the Shiites in southern Iraq did just that. When Saddam's Republican Guards moved south to crush the rebellion, President Bush went fishing and no help was given. Only Iran showed sympathy. Hundreds of thousands died and no Iraqi Shiite I know thinks this failure of US support was anything but intentional. In assessing the loyalty of the Iraqi Shiites before the war, the war's architects often stressed how Iraqi Shiite conscripts fought loyally for Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War. They never mentioned the 1991 betrayal. This was understandable: at the end of the 1991 war, Wolfowitz was the number-three man at the Pentagon, Dick Cheney was the defense secretary, and, of course, Bush's father was the president.
Iran and its Iraqi allies control, respectively, the Middle East's third- and second-largest oil reserves. Iran's influence now extends to the borders of the Saudi province that holds the world's largest oil reserves. President Bush has responded to these strategic changes wrought by his own policies by strongly supporting a pro-Iranian government in Baghdad and by arming and training the most pro-Iranian elements in the Iraqi military and police.
2.
Beginning with his 2002 State of the Union speech, President Bush has articulated two main U.S. goals for Iran: (1) the replacement of Iran's theocratic regime with a liberal democracy, and (2) preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Since events in Iraq took a bad turn, he has added a third objective: gaining Iranian cooperation in Iraq.
The administration's track record is not impressive. The prospects for liberal democracy in Iran took a severe blow when reform-minded President Mohammad Khatami was replaced by the hard-line - and somewhat erratic - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in August 2005. (Khatami had won two landslide elections which were a vote to soften the ruling theocracy; he was then prevented by the conservative clerics from accomplishing much.) At the time President Bush first proclaimed his intention to keep nuclear weapons out of Iranian hands, Iran had no means of making fissile material. Since then, however, Iran has defied the IAEA and the UN Security Council to assemble and use the centrifuges needed to enrich uranium. In Iraq, the administration accuses Iran of supplying particularly potent roadside bombs to Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents.
To coerce Iran into ceasing its uranium enrichment program, the Bush administration has relied on UN sanctions, the efforts of a European negotiating team, and stern presidential warnings. The mismanaged Iraq war has undercut all these efforts. After seeing the U.S. go to the United Nations with allegedly irrefutable evidence that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons and had a covert nuclear program, foreign governments and publics are understandably skeptical about the veracity of Bush administration statements on Iran. The Iraq experience makes many countries reluctant to support meaningful sanctions not only because they doubt administration statements but because they are afraid President Bush will interpret any Security Council resolution condemning Iran as an authorization for war.
With so much of the U.S. military tied up in Iraq, the Iranians do not believe the U.S. has the resources to attack them and then deal with the consequences. They know that a U.S. attack on Iran would have little support in the U.S. - it is doubtful that Congress would authorize it - and none internationally. Not even the British would go along with a military strike on Iran. President Bush's warnings count for little with Tehran because he now has a long record of tough language unmatched by action. As long as the Iranians believe the United States has no military option, they have limited incentives to reach an agreement, especially with the Europeans.
The administration's efforts to change Iran's regime have been feeble or feckless. President Bush's freedom rhetoric is supported by Radio Farda, a U.S.-sponsored Persian language radio station, and a $75 million appropriation to finance Iranian opposition activities including satellite broadcasts by Los Angeles-based exiles. If only regime change was so easily accomplished!
The identity of Iranian recipients of U.S. funding is secret but the administration's neoconservative allies have loudly promoted U.S. military and financial support for Iranian opposition groups as diverse as the son of the late Shah, Iranian Kurdish separatists, and the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), which is on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations. Some of the Los Angeles exiles now being funded are associated with the son of the Shah but it is unlikely that either the MEK or the Kurdish separatists would receive any of the $75 million. U.S. secrecy - and that the administration treats the MEK differently from other terrorist organizations - has roused Iranian suspicions that the U.S. is supporting these groups either through the democracy program or a separate covert action.
None of these groups is a plausible agent for regime change. The Shah's son represents a discredited monarchy and corrupt family. Iranian Kurdistan is seething with discontent, and Iranian security forces have suppressed large anti-regime demonstrations there. Kurdish nationalism on the margins of Iran, however, does not weaken the Iranian regime at the center. (While the U.S. State Department has placed the PKK - a Kurdish rebel movement in Turkey - on its list of terrorist organizations, Pejak, the PKK's Iranian branch, is not on the list and its leaders even visit the U.S.)
The Mujahideen-e-Khalq is one of the oldest - and nastiest - of the Iranian opposition groups. After originally supporting the Iranian revolution, the MEK broke with Khomeini and relocated to Iraq in the early stages of the Iran-Iraq War. It was so closely connected to Saddam that MEK fighters not only assisted the Iraqis in the Iran-Iraq War but also helped Saddam put down the 1991 Kurdish uprising. While claiming to be democratic and pro-Western, the MEK closely resembles a cult. In April 2003, when I visited Camp Ashraf, its main base northeast of Baghdad, I found robotlike hero worship of the MEK's leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi; the fighters I met parroted a revolutionary party line, and there were transparently crude efforts at propaganda. To emphasize its being a modern organization as distinct from the Tehran theocrats, the MEK appointed a woman as Camp Ashraf's nominal commander and maintained a women's tank battalion. The commander was clearly not in command and the women mechanics supposedly working on tank engines all had spotless uniforms.
Both the U.S. State Department and Iran view the MEK as a terrorist group. The U.S. government, however, does not always act as if the MEK were one. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the U.S. military dropped a single bomb on Camp Ashraf. It struck the women's barracks at a time of day when the soldiers were not there. When I visited two weeks later with an ABC camera crew, we filmed the MEK bringing a scavenged Iraqi tank into their base. U.S. forces drove in and out of Camp Ashraf, making no effort to detain the supposed terrorists or to stop them from collecting Iraqi heavy weapons. Since Iran had its agents in Iraq from the time Saddam fell (and may have been doing its own scavenging of weapons), one can presume that this behavior did not go unnoticed. Subsequently, the US military did disarm the MEK, but in spite of hostility from both the Shiites and Kurds who now jointly dominate Iraq's government, its fighters are still at Camp Ashraf. Rightly or wrongly, many Iranians conclude from this that the U.S. is supporting a terrorist organization that is fomenting violence inside Iran.
In fact, halting Iran's nuclear program and changing its regime are incompatible objectives. Iran is highly unlikely to agree to a negotiated solution with the U.S. (or the Europeans) while the U.S. is trying to overthrow its government. Air strikes may destroy Iran's nuclear facilities but they will rally popular support for the regime and give it a further pretext to crack down on the opposition.
From the perspective of U.S. national security strategy, the choice should be easy. Iran's most prominent democrats have stated publicly that they do not want US support. In a recent open letter to be sent to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji criticizes both the Iranian regime and U.S. hypocrisy. "Far from helping the development of democracy," he writes, "U.S. policy over the past 50 years has consistently been to the detriment of the proponents of freedom and democracy in Iran.... The Bush Administration, for its part, by approving a fund for democracy assistance in Iran, which is in fact being largely spent on official institutions and media affiliated with the U.S. government, has made it easy for the Iranian regime to describe its opponents as mercenaries of the U.S. and to crush them with impunity."
Even though they can't accomplish it, the Bush administration leaders have been unwilling to abandon regime change as a goal. Its advocates compare their efforts to the support the U.S. gave democrats behind the Iron Curtain over many decades. But there is a crucial difference. The Soviet and East European dissidents wanted U.S. support, which was sometimes personally costly but politically welcome. But this is immaterial to administration ideologues. They are, to borrow Jeane Kirkpatrick's phrase, deeply committed to policies that feel good rather than do good. If Congress wants to help the Iranian opposition, it should cut off funding for Iranian democracy programs.
Right now, the U.S. is in the worst possible position. It is identified with the most discredited part of the Iranian opposition and unwanted by the reformers who have the most appeal to Iranians. Many Iranians believe that the U.S. is fomenting violence inside their country, and this becomes a pretext for attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. And for its pains, the U.S. accomplishes nothing.
3.
For eighteen years, Iran had a secret program aimed at acquiring the technology that could make nuclear weapons. A.Q. Khan, the supposedly rogue head of Pakistan's nuclear program, provided centrifuges to enrich uranium and bomb designs. When the Khan network was exposed, Iran declared in October 2003 its enrichment program to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), provided an accounting (perhaps not complete) of its nuclear activities, and agreed to suspend its uranium enrichment. Following the election of Ahmadinejad as president in 2005, Iran announced it would resume its uranium enrichment activities. During the last two years, it has assembled cascades of centrifuges and apparently enriched a small amount of uranium to the 5 percent level required for certain types of nuclear power reactors (weapons require 80 to 90 percent enrichment but this is not technically very difficult once the initial enrichment processes are mastered).
The United States has two options for dealing with Iran's nuclear facilities: military strikes to destroy them or negotiations to neutralize them. The first is risky and the second may not produce results. So far, the Bush administration has not pursued either option, preferring UN sanctions (which, so far, have been more symbolic than punitive) and relying on Europeans to take the lead in negotiations. But neither sanctions nor the European initiative is likely to work. As long as Iran's primary concern is the United States, it is unlikely to settle for a deal that involves only Europe.
Sustained air strikes probably could halt Iran's nuclear program. While some Iranian facilities may be hidden and others protected deep underground, the locations of major facilities are known. Even if it is not possible to destroy all the facilities, Iran's scientists, engineers, and construction crews are unlikely to show up for work at places that are subject to ongoing bombing.
But the risks from air strikes are great. Many of the potential targets are in populated places, endangering civilians both from errant bombs and the possible dispersal of radioactive material. The rest of the world would condemn the attacks and there would likely be a virulent anti-U.S. reaction in the Islamic world. In retaliation, Iran could wreak havoc on the world economy (and its own) by withholding oil from the global market and by military action to close the Persian Gulf shipping lanes.
The main risk to the U.S. comes in Iraq. Faced with choosing between the U.S. and Iran, Iraq's government may not choose its liberator. And even if the Iraqi government did not openly cooperate with the Iranians, pro-Iranian elements in the U.S.-armed military and police almost certainly would facilitate attacks on U.S. troops by pro-Iranian Iraqi militia or by Iranian forces infiltrated across Iraq's porous border. A few days after Bush's August 28 speech, Iranian General Rahim Yahya Safavi underscored Iran's ability to retaliate, saying of U.S. troops in the region: "We have accurately identified all their camps." Unless he chooses to act with reckless disregard for the safety of U.S. troops in Iraq, President Bush has effectively denied himself a military option for dealing with the Iranian nuclear program.
A diplomatic solution to the crisis created by Iran's nuclear program is clearly preferable, but not necessarily achievable. Broadly speaking, states want nuclear weapons for two reasons: security and prestige. Under the Shah, Iran had a nuclear program but Khomeini disbanded it after the revolution on the grounds that nuclear weapons were un-Islamic. When the program resumed covertly in the mid-1980s, Iran's primary security concern was Iraq. At that time, Iraq had its own covert nuclear program; more immediately, it had threatened Iran with chemical weapons attacks on its cities. An Iranian nuclear weapon could serve as a deterrent to both Iraqi chemical and nuclear weapons.
With Iraq's defeat in the first Gulf War, the Iraqi threat greatly diminished. And of course it vanished after Iran's allies took power in Baghdad after the 2003 invasion. Today, Iran sees the United States as the main threat to its security. American military forces surround Iran - in Afghanistan, Iraq, Central Asia, and on the Persian Gulf. President Bush and his top aides repeatedly express solidarity with the Iranian people against their government while the U.S. finances programs aimed at the government's ouster. The American and international press are full of speculation that Vice President Cheney wants Bush to attack Iran before his term ends. From an Iranian perspective, all this smoke could indicate a fire.
In 2003, as Trita Parsi's Treacherous Alliance shows, there was enough common ground for a deal. In May 2003, the Iranian authorities sent a proposal through the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, Tim Guldimann, for negotiations on a package deal in which Iran would freeze its nuclear program in exchange for an end to U.S. hostility. The Iranian paper offered "full transparency for security that there are no Iranian endeavors to develop or possess WMD [and] full cooperation with the IAEA based on Iranian adoption of all relevant instruments." The Iranians also offered support for "the establishment of democratic institutions and a non-religious government" in Iraq; full cooperation against terrorists (including "above all, al-Qaeda"); and an end to material support to Palestinian groups like Hamas. In return, the Iranians asked that their country not be on the terrorism list or designated part of the "axis of evil"; that all sanctions end; that the US support Iran's claims for reparations for the Iran-Iraq War as part of the overall settlement of the Iraqi debt; that they have access to peaceful nuclear technology; and that the US pursue anti-Iranian terrorists, including "above all" the MEK. MEK members should, the Iranians said, be repatriated to Iran.
Basking in the glory of "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, the Bush administration dismissed the Iranian offer and criticized Guldimann for even presenting it. Several years later, the Bush administration's abrupt rejection of the Iranian offer began to look blatantly foolish and the administration moved to suppress the story. Flynt Leverett, who had handled Iran in 2003 for the National Security Council, tried to write about it in The New York Times and found his Op-Ed crudely censored by the NSC, which had to clear it. Guldimann, however, had given the Iranian paper to Ohio Republican Congressman Bob Ney, now remembered both for renaming House cafeteria food and for larceny. (As chairman of the House Administration Committee he renamed French fries "freedom fries" and is now in federal prison for bribery.) I was surprised to learn that Ney had a serious side. He had lived in Iran before the revolution, spoke Farsi, and wanted better relations between the two countries. Trita Parsi, Ney's staffer in 2003, describes in detail the Iranian offer and the Bush administration's high-handed rejection of it in his wonderfully informative account of the triangular relationship among the U.S., Iran, and Israel, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States.
Four years later, Iran holds a much stronger hand while the mismanagement of the Iraq occupation has made the U.S. position incomparably weaker. While the 2003 proposal could not have been presented without support from the clerics who really run Iran, Iran's current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made uranium enrichment the centerpiece of his administration and the embodiment of Iranian nationalism. Even though Ahmadinejad does not make decisions about Iran's nuclear program (and his finger would never be on the button if Iran had a bomb), he has made it politically very difficult for the clerics to come back to the 2003 paper.
Nonetheless, the 2003 Iranian paper could provide a starting point for a U.S.-Iran deal. In recent years, various ideas have emerged that could accommodate both Iran's insistence on its right to nuclear technology and the international community's desire for iron-clad assurances that Iran will not divert the technology into weapons. These include a Russian proposal that Iran enrich uranium on Russian territory and also an idea floated by U.S. and Iranian experts to have a European consortium conduct the enrichment in Iran under international supervision. Iran rejected the Russian proposal, but if hostility between Iran and the U.S. were to be reduced, it might be revived. (The consortium idea has no official standing at this point.) While there are good reasons to doubt Iranian statements that its program is entirely peaceful, Iran remains a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its leaders, including Ahmadinejad, insist it has no intention of developing nuclear weapons. As long as this is the case, Iran could make a deal to limit its nuclear program without losing face.
From the inception of Iran's nuclear program under the Shah, prestige and the desire for recognition have been motivating factors. Iranians want the world, and especially the U.S., to see Iran as they do themselves - as a populous, powerful, and responsible country that is heir to a great empire and home to a 2,500-year-old civilization. In Iranian eyes, the U.S. has behaved in a way that continually diminishes their country. Many Iranians still seethe over the U.S. involvement in the 1953 coup that overthrew the government of democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and reinstated the Shah. Being designated a terrorist state and part of an "axis of evil" grates on the Iranians in the same way. In some ways, the 1979-1981 hostage crisis and Iran's nuclear program were different strategies to compel U.S. respect for Iran. A diplomatic overture toward Iran might include ways to show respect for Iranian civilization (which is different from approval of its leaders) and could include an open apology for the U.S. role in the 1953 coup, which, as it turned out, was a horrible mistake for U.S. interests.
While President Bush insists that time is not on America's side, the process of negotiation - and even an interim agreement - might provide time for more moderate Iranians to assert themselves. So far as Iran's security is concerned, possession of nuclear weapons is more a liability than an asset. Iran's size - and the certainty of strong resistance - is sufficient deterrent to any U.S. invasion, which, even at the height of the administration's post-Saddam euphoria, was never seriously considered. Developing nuclear weapons would provide Iran with no additional deterrent to a U.S. invasion but could invite an attack.
Should al-Qaeda or another terrorist organization succeed in detonating a nuclear weapon in a U.S. city, any U.S. president will look to the country that supplied the weapon as a place to retaliate. If the origin of the bomb were unknown, a nuclear Iran - a designated state sponsor of terrorism - would find itself a likely target, even though it is extremely unlikely to supply such a weapon to al-Qaeda, a Sunni fundamentalist organization. With its allies now largely running the government in Baghdad, Iran does not need a nuclear weapon to deter a hostile Iraq. An Iranian bomb, however, likely would cause Saudi Arabia to acquire nuclear weapons, thus canceling Iran's considerable manpower advantage over its Gulf rival. More pragmatic leaders, such as former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, may understand this. Rafsanjani, who lost the 2005 presidential elections to Ahmadinejad, is making a comeback, defeating a hard-liner to become chairman of Iran's Assembly of Experts for the Leadership (Majles-e Khobrgran Rahbari), which appoints and can dismiss the Supreme Leader.
At this stage, neither the U.S. nor Iran seems willing to talk directly about bilateral issues apart from Iraq. Even if the two sides did talk, there is no guarantee that an agreement could be reached. And if an agreement were reached, it would certainly be short of what the US might want. But the test of a U.S.-Iran negotiation is not how it measures up against an ideal arrangement but how it measures up against the alternatives of bombing or doing nothing.
4.
U.S. pre-war intelligence on Iraq was horrifically wrong on the key question of Iraq's possession of WMDs, and President Bush ignored the intelligence to assert falsely a connection between Saddam Hussein and September 11. This alone is sufficient reason to be skeptical of the Bush administration's statements on Iran.
Some of the administration's charges against Iran defy common sense. In his Reno speech, President Bush accused Iran of arming the Taliban in Afghanistan while his administration has, at various times, accused Iran of giving weapons to both Sunni and Shiite insurgents in Iraq. The Taliban are Salafi jihadis, Sunni fundamentalists who consider Shiites apostates deserving of death. In power, the Taliban brutally repressed Afghanistan's Shiites and nearly provoked a war with Iran when they murdered Iranian diplomats inside the Iranian consulate in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Iraq's Sunni insurgents are either Salafi jihadis or Baathists, the political party that started the Iran-Iraq War.
The Iranian regime may believe it has a strategic interest in keeping U.S. forces tied down in the Iraqi quagmire since this, in the Iranian view, makes an attack on Iran unlikely. U.S. clashes with the Mahdi Army complicate the American military effort in Iraq and it is plausible that Iran might provide some weapons - including armor-penetrating IEDs - to the Mahdi Army and its splinter factions. Overall, however, Iran has no interest in the success of the Mahdi Army. Moqtada al-Sadr has made Iraqi nationalism his political platform. He has attacked the SIIC for its pro-Iranian leanings and challenged Iraq's most important religious figure, Ayatollah Sistani, himself an Iranian citizen. Asked about charges that Iran was organizing Iraqi insurgents, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told the Financial Times on May 10, "The whole idea is unreasonable. Why should we do that? Why should we undermine a government in Iraq that we support more than anybody else?"
The United States cannot now undo President Bush's strategic gift to Iran. But importantly, the most pro-Iranian Shiite political party is the one least hostile to the United States. In the battle now underway between the SIIC and Moqtada al-Sadr for control of southern Iraq and of the central government in Baghdad, the United States and Iran are on the same side. The U.S. has good reason to worry about Iran's activities in Iraq. But contrary to the Bush administration's allegations - supported by both General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker in their recent congressional testimony - Iran does not oppose Iraq's new political order. In fact, Iran is the major beneficiary of the American-induced changes in Iraq since 2003.
[Note: This essay reviews Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States by Trita Parsi (Yale University Press, 361 pp., $28.00)]
Peter W. Galbraith, a former US Ambassador to Croatia, is Senior Diplomatic Fellow at the Center for Arms Control and a principal at the Windham Resources Group, a firm that negotiates on behalf of its clients in post-conflict societies, including Iraq. His The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End is now out in paperback.
© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/63348/
Asia Times:
Iran, Israel ratchet up tensions
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Sep 25, 2007
With so much talk of "red October" promising more fireworks instead of peace in the troubled Middle East, the world leaders gathering at the United Nations headquarters in New York would be excused for focusing on war prevention and peaceful settlement of Middle East conflicts, seemingly spiraling out of control on all fronts, particularly between Iran and Israel.
Trading barbs at last Friday's meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Israelis have once again accused Iran of telling lies about its nuclear program, with Iranian officials calling on the IAEA to dispatch inspectors to Israel, which remains a clandestine nuclear-weapons state beyond the purview of any international scrutiny of its program.
Israel's powerful friends in the US have exploited the controversy surrounding President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's request to lay a wreath at New York's Ground Zero to launch a virulent public campaign against him, with various dailies in the US bandwagoning together to attack Iran's president as a "lunatic" and "madman", among other names.
At the same time, France and the US have announced common cause against Iran, but not so Germany, which has distanced itself from Paris by stating that it will only back UN sanctions, and not any European Union sanctions, on Iran. This is definitely a setback for President Nicolas Sarkozy and his outspoken Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, the latter using his White House visit last week to wipe out any memory of once-proud French diplomatic independence from the United States.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino has lambasted Iran's latest statements against Israel, calling Tehran's pledge to strike back at Israel if attacked by the Jewish state as "totally unprovoked". Perino said, "I can't tell you why someone in Iran would say something like that about Israel. It's totally unprovoked and unnecessary."
One must wonder about the closed universe that White House officials such as Perino inhabit, since even a cursory look at the nearly daily threat of attacks on Iran by Israeli officials and pundits leaves no doubt that Iran's reaction has, indeed, been provoked by such threats.
Israel's threats against Iran
What is remarkable about this issue is the depth, extensiveness and consistent recycling of military threats against Iran, both veiled and unveiled, by the Israelis. Having convinced themselves, and a good part of the Western world, that Iran is about to reach the "point of no return" in its nuclear program, Israeli civilian and military leaders and their allies in the Israeli and US media have ratcheted up the threat of a military strike on Iran as a rational and feasible option.
This is in complete disregard for international law and the principles of the UN Charter, which forbids member states "from using the threat or use of force" against each other. (Incidentally, even a liberal paper such as Ha'aretz, on April 21, 2006, explicitly endorsed the idea of Ahmadinejad's assassination, arguing that "his elimination is likely to contribute more to stability than to detract from it".)
On June 9, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Saul Mofaz stated that "the military option is on the table". On January 21, 2006, Mofaz had stated publicly: "We are preparing for military action to stop Iran's nuclear program." His boss, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, told the press in April that "nobody is ruling out" a military strike on Iran by Israel, adding: "It is impossible perhaps to destroy the entire nuclear program, but it would be possible to damage it in such a way that it would be set back years ... it would take 10 days and involve the firing of 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles."
Olmert's foreign-policy speeches are increasingly filled with blunt threats against Iran, continuing a trend. Last October 19, Olmert was quoted by the Israeli press as stating that Iran will have a "price to pay" for its nuclear program and Iran's leaders "have to be afraid" of the actions that Israel might undertake against Iran's nuclear program.
Regarding the latter, a clue was given by Moshe Ya'alon, former Israeli chief of military staff, in an address to the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC, in which he spelled out some of the details of the "Israeli military option" on Iran. These include extensive use of "bunker busting" bombs purchased from the US for the specific purpose of demolishing Iran's nuclear targets.
The Israeli attitude makes some sense in the context of a report in the US magazine Newsweek on Monday that US Vice President Dick Cheney had considered provoking an exchange of military strikes between Iran and Israel to give the US a pretext to attack Iran.
The magazine said that David Wurmser, who had served since 2003 as Cheney's Middle East adviser before leaving recently, said Cheney had mulled the idea of pushing for limited Israeli missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz to provoke Tehran into striking back. The Iranian reaction would then give Washington a pretext to launch strikes against military and nuclear targets in Iran, Newsweek reported.
Iran's stern reaction to Israel's blunt military threats can hardly be dismissed as "totally unprovoked and unjustified". Following the same perverse logic, any Iranian missile fired at Israel in response to Israeli carpet-bombing of Iran's facilities would also be deemed "outrageous" or "unprovoked".
This is a recipe for disaster, particularly if right-wing presidential hopefuls such as former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who has called for Israel's inclusion as a North Atlantic Treaty Organization member, get their wishes. There would be potential dire ramifications for NATO in the event of Israel joining and dragging the Western alliance into an unwanted conflict in the Middle East, in light of Israel's tensions with its Arab neighbors and the collective security provisions of NATO.
NATO is already in sufficient trouble, seeing how its eastward expansion has caused a backlash on the part of China and Russia, who have banded together to thwart its expansion through their military pact within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and Israel's membership in NATO would only translate into much greater hostility against NATO in any part of the Muslim world, such as Afghanistan, where NATO has gained a foothold. One thing is sure, any NATO siding with Israel in its Middle East conflicts with a Muslim state will further alienate the sizable Muslim population of Europe, which yearns for an even-handed European Union policy toward the Middle East.
But instead of a balanced approach, the victory of right-wing, staunchly pro-Israel Sarkozy in France has heralded a new anti-Arab, anti-Muslim drift in European politics that ironically goes against the wealth of interdependencies between Europe and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' Middle East.
Concerning the latter, the US has called on Turkey to seek alternative sources of energy instead of importing gas from Iran, which is then funneled to other parts of Europe. Turkey's leaders have rebuffed the call. It remains to be seen whether India, which is also under pressure to forfeit the "peace" pipeline (from Iran to Afghanistan and then on to Pakistan and India), will do the same, or cave in to Washington's pressure and make a mockery of its post-independence political identity and membership in Non-Aligned Movement. Indian leaders who are currently entertaining the United States' request to back away from economic deals with Iran must be asking why Europe is not exerting the same pressure on Turkey.
But Iran is the "enemy", as this tense moment in international politics shows.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.
Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/II25Ak03.html
Clarín:
La leyenda del gran escritor
ROBERTO BOLAÑO: GENIO Y FIGURA
Por momentos parece que el fervor de sus fans en toda América latina excede incluso los límites de una pasión. Roberto Bolaño, muerto a los 50 años, tiene todas las condiciones para ser considerado el gran escritor latinoamericano contemporáneo. ¿Pero lo es? Aquí, qué piensan Isabel Allende, Darío Jaramillo, Fernando Vallejo, Fogwill, Alberto Fuguet y 39 autores jóvenes reunidos hace poco en Colombia.
HECTOR PAVON
22.09.2007 | Clarin.com | Revista Ñ
La palabra leyenda viene de legenda, que en latín significa "lo que debe ser leído". Hay consenso, un acuerdo de masas lectoras, un dogma, que sostiene que Roberto Bolaño es una leyenda y que debe ser leído.
También circula una certeza: Bolaño, el fallecido escritor chileno, multiplica sus lectores en forma permanente. Quienes lo leen se transforman en seguidores y suelen pasar al estadio de fans como si esa estrella a alcanzar fuera un Jim Morrison (muy escuchado por Bolaño). Y aunque sus restos hayan sido cremados y sus cenizas arrojadas al Mediterráneo, la procesión de sus fieles marcha constante y segura en busca de sus secretos, de nuevos poemas y cuentos como los que se publicaron recientemente. Van en busca de un Bolaño que tal vez no exista pero que se construye, destruye y reconstruye en sus miradas, lecturas y relecturas. Bolaño era chileno pero se reconocía como un autor latinoamericano. Hoy podría ser un escritor del mundo, su letra ya se tradujo al inglés y se vende de forma notoria en Estados Unidos, la meca de la venta literaria masiva; su voz y su imagen es reproducida al infinito en youtube.com; documentales, ensayos, tesis y monografías lo reviven en medios de comunicación y universidades. El fenómeno marcha.
"Con la muerte de Bolaño empieza una leyenda", dijo Enrique Vila Matas. Esa leyenda está viva. Repiquetea por el mundo entero. Pero sería más justo decir que recién comienza, que el efecto Bolaño está subiendo la curva y que todavía se lee por primera vez, todavía se está descubriendo. Su muerte temprana a los 50 años esperando un hígado fue el primer renglón de la construcción de un mito al que Bolaño contribuyó casi de forma directa. Murió el 14 de julio de 2003, en el hospital Valle de Hebrón de Barcelona. Pasó diez días en coma sufriendo por una complicación hepática mientras esperaba en vano un trasplante. Dejó textos terminados para su publicación y otros inconclusos. Estaba preocupado por el futuro económico de su mujer y sus hijos. Entre esos papeles quedaban cinco textos que por un acuerdo entre editor y familia dieron origen a la tremenda novela llamada 2666, en la que llevó al extremo su capacidad imaginativa y fabuladora en torno de un personaje que retoma la figura del escritor desaparecido, en este caso, Benno von Archimboldi y donde también se exhibe el horror del feminicidio de Ciudad Juárez, México, donde las mujeres suelen ser presa de caza. Gracias a la buena relación entre los familiares y el editor de Anagrama Jorge Herralde, este año llegaron a la Argentina los textos encontrados y reunidos en El secreto del mal y La universidad desconocida (Anagrama). También llegaron, caros pero imperdibles, ejemplares de poesía reeditados como Los perros románticos y Tres (Acantilado).
En El secreto... hay relatos aparentemente sin terminar, ensayos, referencias y algunas admiraciones sobre la literatura argentina y una mirada irónica sobre Evita y Perón puesta en boca de V. S. Naipaul. Allí denosta a Osvaldo Soriano, relativiza a Roberto Arlt y se rinde ante Jorge Luis Borges, Ricardo Piglia, Osvaldo Lamborghini, César Aira, entre otros. Dice: "De estas tres líneas más vivas de la literatura argentina, los tres puntos de partida de la pesada, me temo que resultará vencedora aquella que representa con mayor fidelidad a la canalla sentimental, en palabras de Borges. La canalla sentimental, que ya no es la derecha (en gran medida porque la derecha se dedica a la publicidad y al disfrute de la cocaína y a planificar el hambre y los corralitos, y en materia literaria es analfabeta funcional o se conforma con recitar el Martín Fierro) sino la izquierda, y que lo que pide a sus intelectuales es soma, lo mismo, precisamente que pide a sus intelectuales, que recibe de sus amos. Soma, soma, soma Soriano, perdonáme, tuyo es el reino. Arlt y Piglia son punto y aparte. Digamos que es una relación sentimental y que lo mejor es dejarlos tranquilos. Ambos, Arlt sin la menor duda, son parte importante de la literatura argentina y latinoamericana y su destino es cabalgar solos por la pampa habitada por fantasmas. Allí sin embargo, no hay escuela posible. Corolario. Hay que releer a Borges otra vez".
La conquista de E.E.U.U.
"Nocturno de Chile es lo más auténtico y singular: una novela contemporánea destinada a tener un lugar permanente en la literatura mundial". El elogio era de Susan Sontag y fue ella misma quien, en una rueda de prensa en Oviedo, en ocasión de recibir el Premio Príncipe de Asturias 2003, cargó contra los "falsos escritores", los "escritores mercenarios", y por el contrario dijo: "De lo que he leído en los últimos años, me gusta mucho Roberto Bolaño. Es una pena que haya muerto tan joven. Escribió mucho y estaba empezando a ser traducido al inglés, pero le quedaba tanto por escribir..."
Bolaño desembarcó en Estados Unidos con varios títulos. Los detectives salvajes (The savage detectives) se editó este año en EE.UU. traducido por Natasha Wimmer. El periodista francés Jean Francois Fogel dice que al llegar este año a las librerías estadounidenses, la apreciación sobre Bolaño parece definitiva. Eso es así, especialmente, tomando en cuenta el extenso artículo del The New Yorker. Una de las palabras clave que utiliza la revista es "infrarrealistas", el nombre del grupo poético de Bolaño en su etapa mexicana. "Cuando los yankees se preocupan del infrarrealismo (de manera global el mundo nota el exceso de realismo en la manera gringa de actuar) no se puede negar que pasa algo", dice Fogel en su blog. Daniel Zalewski, el periodista del The New Yorker termina afirmando: "es un estilo que se merece su propio nombre: modernismo visceral". Fogel agrega: "La culpa del mundo hispanohablante es tener al producto Bolaño sin tener al servicio de marketing para vender el producto. Los ingenuos latinos hablaban de libros, los maestros del comercio proponen otra cosa: 'modernismo visceral'. Con este nombre, se va a vender como pan caliente." Con Los detectives... Bolaño ganó el Premio Herralde de novela 1998 y un año después el Rómulo Gallegos.
Alex Abramovitch, en The New York Times, confirma de manera indirecta la nueva definición del escritor chileno en otra larga reseña. Recupera el término "realismo visceral" que utiliza el autor en su novela para señalar: "Los realistas viscerales tienen altas aspiraciones, pero Bolaño es demasiado pegado a la realidad para ablandarse". James Wood -crítico, profesor de Harvard y editor de The New Republic- escribió un ensayo publicado en The New York Times con el título "The Visceral Realist", en el que se refiere a la edición de The Savage Detectives como el momento en que Bolaño deja de ser un autor de culto en los Estados Unidos y se vuelve una necesidad compartida por cada vez más lectores. "Hasta hace poco", escribe Wood, "había incluso algo, un código masónico en la manera en que el nombre de Bolaño pasaba de boca en boca entre los lectores de este país". Luego añade: "Este fabulador chileno, maravillosamente extraño, a la vez un realista enraizado y un lírico de lo especulativo, que murió en 2003 a los cincuenta años de edad, ha sido reconocido ya desde hace algún tiempo en el mundo hispanohablante como uno de los más grandes e influyentes escritores modernos".
El hecho de penetrar las fronteras estadounidenses ha sido fundamental y le dio actualidad a la letra de Bolaño. También hay que notar que se trata de un escritor muerto y eso permite armar no una leyenda sino varias. También hay realidades: siete traducciones al inglés en tránsito y, entre ellas, probablemente 2666. "Entonces, echamos una visceral bienvenida al Bolaño nuevo, conquistador del territorio gringo", concluye Fogel.
La eterna búsqueda
Roberto Bolaño nació en Santiago de Chile en 1953 y creció en ciudades diversas como Los Angeles, Valparaíso, Quilpué, Viña del Mar y Cauquenes. Con 13 años, se trasladó con su familia a México donde su principal refugio era la biblioteca pública de Ciudad de México. No terminó el colegio, tampoco entró en la universidad. Paradójicamente, hoy existe la cátedra Roberto Bolaño en la universidad Diego Portales de Santiago de Chile.
1973, cae la Unidad Popular de Salvador Allende. Bolaño vuelve a su país después de un largo viaje en ómnibus, a dedo y en barco con la idea de unirse a la resistencia contra la dictadura pinochetista. Muy pronto lo detienen en Concepción y lo liberan luego de ocho días gracias a la ayuda de un compañero de estudios en Cauquenes que se encontraba entre los policías que lo habían detenido. Años después diría que no tiene nada que decirle a Allende, que "los que tienen el poder (aunque sea por poco tiempo) no saben nada de literatura, sólo les interesa el poder".
En su regreso a México junto con el poeta Mario Santiago Papasquiaro (inspiración para modelar a Ulises Lima en Los detectives salvajes) fundó el movimiento poético infrarrealista, que, surgido en tertulias del Café La Habana, se opuso con furor a los pilares hegemónicos de la poesía mexicana y también al establishment literario (con Octavio Paz como figura preponderante). Bolaño y Papasquiaro se destacaron por su poesía cotidiana, disonante y con elementos dadaístas.
"Se podría sostener que el infrarrealismo lo determinó como escritor de la misma forma que el alejamiento de la corriente le permitió iniciar su carrera como novelista. México para él fue central, porque lo determinó como escritor (...) el México nocturno, el México de las calles, del habla cotidiana, de un destino quebrado y a veces trágico, y el humor lo cautivaron. No es casualidad que sus dos más grandes novelas las haya centrado en México, Los detectives salvajes y 2666", comentó el narrador Juan Villoro.
Tiempo después emigró a España, a Barcelona, donde ya vivía su madre. Vendimiador en verano, vigilante nocturno de un camping en Castelldefels, vendedor en un almacén, lavaplatos, camarero, estibador en el puerto, basurero, recepcionista, fueron sus actividades hasta que se convirtió en escritor de tiempo completo. También fue buen ladrón de libros, cuando no los podía pagar.
En 2004, un año después de su muerte, obtuvo el premio Salambó a la mejor novela en castellano, por 2666. El jurado del premio se refirió a la novela ganadora, como "el resumen de una obra de mucho peso, donde se decanta lo mejor de la narrativa de Roberto Bolaño". Una novela que "contiene mucha literatura, que supone un gran riesgo y lleva al extremo el lenguaje literario" de su autor.
Bolaño estalla en Internet. Hay miles de blogs literarios que dedican parte o su totalidad a homenajear y discutir su obra. Los detectives salvajes y Estrella distante son las obras preferidas por los cyberlectores. Muchos de ellos, lectores profusos, trazan una línea de continuidad y buscan conexiones entre Los detectives... y Rayuela de Julio Cortázar o Adán Buenosayres de Leopoldo Marechal. Los foros rescatan no sólo su calidad literaria, sino también el eterno camino en busca de personas perdidas, amores, esencias y territorios de los personajes de Los detectives..., Estrella distante, o 2666.
Santificado en el presente, Bolaño fue en vida un personaje que solía fustigar a sus enemigos literarios. Despreciaba de frente. Sobre la autora de Paula dijo: "Me parece una mala escritora simple y llanamente, y llamarla escritora es darle cancha. Ni siquiera creo que Isabel Allende sea escritora, es una 'escribidora'". Allende le devolvió: "Eché una mirada a un par de (sus) libros y me aburrió espantosamente". Cuando murió Bolaño agregó: "No me dolió mayormente porque él hablaba mal de todos. Es una persona que nunca dijo nada bueno de nadie. El hecho de que esté muerto no lo hace a mi juicio mejor persona. Era un señor bien desagradable".
"Skármeta es un personaje de la televisión. Soy incapaz de leer un libro suyo, ojear su prosa me revuelve el estómago", calificó Bolaño. Por su parte, el ex colombiano Fernando Vallejo aseguró que la prosa de Bolaño es demasiado simple, plana, elemental, "del tipo yo Tarzán, tú Chita". A esta lista se sumó el poeta colombiano Darío Jaramillo: "Bolaño es mago de un solo truco, retorcido (como un remolino), adornado truco, pero siempre igual a sí mismo. Es ahí cuando uno puede ver con nitidez la diferencia entre la pobreza -maquillada- y la difícil y maravillosa sencillez."
Bolaño tuvo otro altercado con su paisana Diamela Eltit. Ella lo invita a cenar a su casa; después él publica en Ajoblanco una crítica despiadada contra su menú y contra su anfitriona. Eltit: "«ése es un tema sobre el cual yo prefiero restarme. En parte porque ahí pasó algo absurdo, hipermagnificado. Bolaño está muerto; yo prefiero no decir una palabra sobre alguien que ha muerto".
Javier Cercas, autor de Soldados de Salamina, texto en el que Bolaño cumple un papel, sostiene que hay dos leyendas en torno al escritor chileno. Una, es la que construyeron los otros, sus lectores, sus fans y otra, la del mismo autor. Ambas leyendas no se ajustan a la realidad, pero la que escribió Bolaño tiene la inmensa ventaja de que es, en cierto sentido, "más verdadera que la verdad, mientras que la otra es en lo esencial mentira o una mentira forjada con ingredientes de la verdad, que es la forma más cabal de la mentira. La leyenda que Bolaño construyó en sus libros vivirá muchos años, o eso es lo que yo creo; la que han construido los otros se esfumará pronto, o eso es lo que yo espero".
El escritor español suma hechos en favor de la construcción mítica del recuerdo de Bolaño: murió joven; murió en el mejor momento de su carrera; murió dentro de cierta propensión mitómana del medio literario (con una cuota de hipocresía) de hablar bien de los muertos, entre otros elementos. "La historia de la literatura, como la otra, abunda en ejemplos de este tipo de canonización tras una muerte prematura, así que no hay de qué sorprenderse, al menos en lo que se refiere a este punto; en lo que a otros se refiere no ocurre lo mismo -dice Cercas-. Nada permitía presagiar, por ejemplo, que el mismo hombre que escribió La pista de hielo escribiera sólo tres años más tarde Estrella distante, y seis años después Los detectives salvajes; que entre 1996 y 2003, año de su muerte, escribiera lo que escribió entra de lleno en el terreno de lo asombroso".
Todavía hay que dejar reposar su literatura para poder discernir si la obra de Bolaño sobrevivirá al paso del tiempo y a la de sus lectores fans que califican su obra entera como magistral, casi sin matices, todas en el mismo nivel de calidad. Muchos de sus nuevos y jóvenes lectores se asoman con ansias de investigar sobre su vida, y también muchos se desilusionan al encontrar una vida breve donde la intensidad está puesta en la literatura que superó ampliamente a su vida real. Hoy la única discusión posible gira en torno a las altas calificaciones que generan sus libros. La única pregunta que se permite hacer en esta iglesia pagana es si Bolaño es genial o extraordinario.
En la última entrevista que dio Bolaño, a la periodista Mónica Maristain de la revista Playboy de México, puso en aviso a los obsecuentes. Ella le preguntó: "¿Qué dice de los que piensan que Los detectives salvajes es la gran novela mexicana de la contemporaneidad?". El contestó: "Lo dicen por lástima, me ven decaído o desmayándome en las plazas públicas y no se les ocurre nada mejor que una mentira piadosa, que por lo demás es lo más indicado en estos casos y ni siquiera es pecado venial".
Copyright 1996-2007 Clarín.com - All rights reserved
http://www.clarin.com/suplementos/cultura/2007/09/22/u-00611.htm
Guardian:
Monks versus generals
Tom Fawthrop
September 24, 2007
Not since 1988 has the 45-year rule of the generals in Burma faced such a determined challenge. Daily processions of saffron-clad monks, a sit-in at a police station, and a nationwide network of protesting bonzes calling for democratic change has jolted the junta.
Today, the Alliance of All Burma Monks invited ordinary citizens to join them in the streets from the first time and more than 30,000 demonstrated in the capital, Rangoon.
The demonstrations now into their eighth day were triggered by a doubling the price of oil. The average citizen of Rangoon can no longer even afford a bus home. One-third of the children under the age of five suffer malnutrition. Millions have been reduced to only one meal a day. The tragedy of Burma is fast approaching African dimensions of deprivation created by an oriental despotism..
After independence Burma, along with the Philippines, led South-East Asia in literacy, education and development - far ahead of Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. But since the military coup staged in 1962 by General Ne Win, a potentially wealthy country with abundant natural resources, including oil and natural gas, has slithered backwards under the guidance of a totally inept, kleptocratic and brutal junta.
On Saturday, 10,000 monks made a procession in Mandalay. In towns across the country they have come out on to the streets braving the dictatorship and challenging the state of fear that has ruled for decades. Other protests are quickly nipped in the bud, activists carted off to jail, and routinely tortured. Many have died in custody.
In Rangoon, the monks fearlessly swept past the police barricades around the house of Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and leader of the persecuted opposition party the National League for Democracy, who has been held under house arrest ever since her election victory in 1990. She held an impromptu meeting with the monks and joined them in prayers. "The Lady" - as everyone calls her - remains the one great hope for a new Burma.
A potent feature of the protests has been the declaration by the monks' union of "patam nikkujjana kamma" - a boycott of alms from members of the military regime, or simply overturning their bowls instead of collecting food. One young monk justified this ban on the armed forces as equivalent to excommunication in the Christian church. This sanction includes a refusal to conduct funeral and weddings services and a ban on other Buddhist ceremonies for members of the military.
Attempts by the generals to curry favour with temples to offer alms, and donate handsome gifts to senior abbots have failed to win the blessing of the majority of monks.
Monks were prominent against British colonial rule in this predominantly Buddhist country. Two well-known monks, U Wisara and U Ottama, were imprisoned by the British for their nonviolent resistance, and U Wisara died in jail after a hunger strike lasting 166 days.
In August 1988 monks helped to inspire a peaceful uprising against the regime that came close ousting it, but the generals recovered and ordered all-out suppression of pro-democracy crowds in the street.
In Burma the chances of any so-called "velvet revolution" as happened recently in the Ukraine and in parts of Eastern Europe appears to be highly unlikely. In 1988, besieged by massive popular protests, the generals ordered their troops to shoot unarmed demonstrators in their thousands.
Since 1988 bloodbath the generals have massively expanded their army and security services, and switched the capital from Rangoon to the obscure ultra-secure town of Naypyitaw, well-protected from the people that they rule. They have never deviated from their iron-fisted determination to cling on to power despite international lobbying for dialogue with the opposition - intimidated but never silenced.
But after the military, it is the Buddhist monks who represent the most important institution in Burma today - revered by almost everybody. Are we heading for another showdown? The civilian population has enthusiastically cheered the stand taken by the monks but remains wary of what happened in 1988.
If massive bloodshed is to be averted, the EU, Buddhist countries and South-East Asian nations all need to act now, putting human rights before trade, and to act in respect the heroism of buddhist monks in Burma. With the junta still a little rattled by these rolling demonstrations of defiance there is a rare window of opportunity for the world to help the Burmese people. If the EU and Burma's neighbours were to speak with one voice, warning the regime against another 1988, it could make a difference.
Sanctions can only work where there is an overwhelming consensus of nations about the pariah status of a regime. South Africa under apartheid was the classic example. Just as the Zimbabwe disaster should be on the conscience of Africa, so Burma is the special responsibility of South-East Asian nations (Asean). The generals need to be told that more atrocities will result in punishment: to kick them out of Asean; a suspension of all tourist links. And it is above all the voice of Asian countries - Asean, India and China - that should be heading efforts to avert a disaster.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tom_fawthrop/2007/09/
monks_versus_generals.html
Internazionale:
Una potenza in declino?
Pensare che l'America possa essere all'infinito una potenza egemone è un'illusione
David Rieff
Internazionale 711, 20 settembre 2007
A Washington si fa un gran parlare del consenso bipartisan sulla politica estera che c'era ai tempi della guerra fredda e che oggi è in crisi. Ma nonostante le aspre polemiche sull'Iraq o sulla "guerra al terrorismo", c'è ancora un principio fondamentale della politica estera americana che è sempre bipartisan.
E cioè che gli Stati Uniti continueranno a essere l'unica superpotenza del mondo, il garante della sicurezza internazionale e del commercio mondiale. Questa tesi poggia su due presupposti.
Il primo è che nessun paese e nessuna alleanza tra stati sembra voler sfidare l'egemonia statunitense o avere i mezzi per farlo. La Cina ha interessi soprattutto regionali, mentre l'Unione europea è ancora troppo divisa e debole per costruire una forza militare temibile. Quanto alla Russia, il calo demografico e l'eccessiva fiducia nelle sue risorse energetiche le impediranno di avere un ruolo centrale sulla scena internazionale.
Il secondo presupposto è che il mondo ha bisogno degli Stati Uniti e apprezza il ruolo che svolgono. Gli Usa forniscono quelli che gli esperti di politica estera chiamano "i beni globali": custodiscono la stabilità politica ed economica del mondo, garantiscono un ordine mondiale capitalistico-democratico e, in virtù della loro potenza militare, fanno da gendarme del mondo in caso di emergenza.
La tesi vale quel che vale, ma è significativo che a sostenerla siano soprattutto analisti politici e funzionari governativi statunitensi. Dalla pax romana passando per la pax britannica fino all'odierna pax americana, gli imperi hanno sempre giustificato la propria potenza sostenendo di non servire solo i propri interessi, ma di fare il bene comune.
Questa fiducia si ritrova oggi in personalità americane di tutte le idee politiche, da Barack Obama a Rudy Giuliani. Sembrano tutti convinti che senza la leadership dell'America il mondo diventerebbe più pericoloso, anarchico e povero. Se così fosse, allora l'unica minaccia seria all'egemonia statunitense potrebbe venire dal popolo americano, che potrebbe stufarsi di sostenere il suo paese in questo ruolo.
E se quelli che credono a questa tesi non fossero osservatori equilibrati della scena mondiale? Se fossero caduti nello stesso autoinganno in cui si cullava la classe dirigente britannica prima della Grande guerra, convinta che il suo impero fosse indispensabile per la stabilità mondiale e che avrebbe resistito a qualsiasi sfida?
Visti i precedenti storici, si può dire che amor proprio e imperialismo procedono mano nella mano. Ma l'analisi storica dimostra anche un'altra cosa: gli imperi sono transitori e ognuno dura meno del precedente. Se l'impero romano durò più di 700 anni, l'impero britannico è durato poco più di 300 anni in India e meno di un secolo in buona parte dell'Africa.
E con le sfide economiche che gli Stati Uniti hanno di fronte oggi, la loro egemonia rischia di essere molto più breve.
Gli americani non ci credono. Ma nei prossimi decenni l'America dovrà adattarsi a un mondo multipolare in senso geoeconomico, via via che la Cina e l'India riprenderanno il ruolo centrale che svolgevano cinquecento anni fa nell'economia globale.
Pensare che possa continuare all'infinito a essere una potenza egemone in termini geopolitici, non è un'analisi razionale ma un'illusione. Forza economica e forza politica sono sempre andate di pari passo.
Visto che nessuno nega che gli Stati Uniti vivranno un declino economico relativo, l'unico modo per credere che anche la geopolitica non diventerà multipolare è illudersi che gli Usa possano in qualche modo sfuggire a una delle poche leggi ferree della storia. Ma questa non è più analisi: è fede. Ancor di più dopo che la guerra in Iraq ha mostrato i limiti della potenza militare americana.
Con questo, non voglio negare che gli Stati Uniti continueranno a essere una delle potenze più importanti del pianeta. Voglio solo dire che poiché l'America è diventata una nazione debitrice non potrà continuare per molto a essere il paese che prima detta, e poi garantisce, le regole.
In ogni caso, le istituzioni internazionali create dopo la seconda guerra mondiale si stanno sgretolando, e dopo oltre sessant'anni è normale: tutti sanno che quelle strutture devono essere ripensate.
Ma invece di cullarci nell'illusione che gli Stati Uniti continueranno a essere l'unica superpotenza, dovremmo darci una politica estera intelligentemente "egoistica", cioè fare il possibile per plasmare secondo le nostre priorità più urgenti le norme internazionali che governeranno i rapporti tra gli stati una volta che il secolo americano – com'è inevitabile – sarà finito.
L'alternativa è percorrere la strada seguita dai britannici prima del 1914, immaginando che il nostro assetto politico ideale sia perfetto anche per il resto mondo, e quindi destinato a valere per sempre. La scelta che abbiamo di fronte non è tra un secondo secolo americano e l'anarchia, ma tra un mondo multipolare in cui gli Stati Uniti abbiano un ruolo importante e un secolo antiamericano.
***
David Rieff sarà presente al Festival di Internazionale a Ferrara, che si svolgerà dal 5 al 7 ottobre.
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Jeune Afrique: De nouvelles pluies
entravent l'accès aux victimes des inondations
AFRIQUE - 23 septembre 2007 - par AFP
Les inondations ont fait près de 300 morts et environ 1,5 million de sinistrés dans une vingtaine de pays en Afrique, où de nouvelles pluies ralentissaient dimanche les secours, alors que les appels à l'aide humanitaire commençaient à susciter des réponses.
"Nous avons eu une courte période sans pluie de trois jours mais il pleut sans interruption depuis 24 heures et cela rend les routes inaccessibles", a déclaré dimanche à l'AFP Musa Ecweru, ministre chargé de l'aide humanitaire et des réfugiés en Ouganda, un des pays les plus affectés par les inondations.
Selon le gouvernement ougandais, les pluies diluviennes ont fait 18 morts, laissé 500.000 personnes sans abri ou dépendantes de l'aide humanitaire et détruit les récoltes et stocks vivriers dans plusieurs zones. Kampala a déclaré l'état d'urgence le 12 septembre.
De nouvelles pluies entravent le travail des sauveteurs et retardent l'envoi de l'aide humanitaire également au Kenya, pays voisin, où "6.000 personnes étaient totalement isolées" dimanche, d'après la Croix-Rouge locale. Quinze personnes y ont été tuées et au moins 25.000 déplacées en raison des inondations depuis août.
La furie des eaux a également provoqué une situation de catastrophe en Afrique de l'Ouest, région en majorité sahélo-saharienne plus habituée à la faiblesse des pluies.
Récoltes détruites, provisions perdues, infrastructures abîmées... Toutes les conditions sont réunies pour "exacerber la précarité de la situation sanitaire et de la sécurité alimentaire" dans la zone, a prévenu l'Organisation mondiale de la Santé (OMS).
Selon l'OMS, on compterait 500.000 sinistrés dans 12 pays ouest-africains affectés par les inondations, confrontés à des risques accrus de paludisme et de maladies diarrhéiques.
La situation est jugée particulièrement préoccupante au Burkina Faso, au Togo et au Ghana.
Daniel Moro, paysan ghanéen de Nayagina (90 km au nord d'Accra) a perdu, en quelques semaines, ses trois habitations, ses champs, ses biens et s'est réfugié dans un établissement scolaire. Comme d'autres sinistrés, il assure n'avoir rien perçu de l'aide d'urgence de 48 millions d'euros (67 millions de dollars) annoncée par les autorités.
Au Mali, 9 morts, 17 blessés et plus de 41.500 sans-abri ont été recensés par le gouvernement, qui a indiqué avoir dépensé "plus de 2 milliards de FCFA (plus de 3 millions d'euros)" pour assister les sinistrés.
Le Togo a annoncé un bilan de 20 morts, 60 blessés et 66.000 personnes affectées, tandis que l'Algérie a dénombré 13 morts, dont huit membres d'une même famille emportés dans la crue d'un oued à M'Sila (centre-est). Plusieurs hameaux y demeuraient sous les eaux.
Près de 300 morts et des dizaines de milliers de sans-abri ont été dénombrés au total dans 18 pays, dont la Mauritanie, le Niger, l'Ethiopie, le Kenya et le Soudan qui est, avec l'Ouganda, l'un des plus durement touchés.
Les appels à l'aide et à la solidarité lancés par certains Etats ont été appuyés vendredi par des organisations humanitaires internationales.
La Fédération internationale de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge a exhorté à une mobilisation "massive" en faveur des sinistrés, tandis que le bureau de la coordination des affaires humanitaires de l'ONU demandait une aide d'urgence de 29 millions d'euros (41 millions de dollars) pour 300.000 sinistrés.
Ces appels ont commencé à susciter des réactions dès vendredi.
Les Pays-Bas ont annoncé le déblocage de 11 millions d'euros, le même montant a été promis par l'Union européenne et le Canada doit octroyer 3 millions de dollars (2,13 millions d'euros).
Ces inondations "sont un signal d'alarme", a estimé le commissaire européen au Développement et aux Affaires humanitaires, Louis Michel. "Chaque nouvelle catastrophe souligne le danger auquel le monde - et plus particulièrement les pays en développement et les petits Etats insulaires -, fait face à cause du changement climatique", a-t-il ajouté.
http://www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/article_
depeche.asp?art_cle=AFP91807denousnoita0
Mail & Guardian:
Nigerian militant group announces end to ceasefire
Edward Harris | Lagos, Nigeria
24 September 2007
A Nigerian militant group whose attacks have slashed crude production in Africa's oil giant apparently announced an end to its voluntary ceasefire and vowed a fresh campaign of violence in the restive southern petroleum region.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta denied persistent rumours and press reports that its leader had been arrested in Angola, saying in an emailed statement sent to journalists on Sunday that the news was a Nigerian government disinformation campaign.
The group had announced a voluntary ceasefire after the May inauguration of President Umaru Yar'Adua, saying it would allow time for negotiations. But the militants called off the truce on Sunday, saying talks had failed.
Starting from midnight on Sunday, "we will commence attacks on installations and abduction of expatriates. There will be no forewarning of these attacks but a statement will follow soon after," the group said.
Other statements have been sent from the email address used by the militant spokesperson in recent days with a tone and writing style not typical of the normal email writer - indicating either that the email account had been hacked or that there was a split in the group's leadership.
While Sunday's missive appeared similar to past communiqués, it could not be confirmed whether the normal spokesperson, who uses the pseudonym Jomo Gbomo, was the writer of the statement.
That writer has gained credibility during nearly two years of attacks by announcing impending operations that were then carried out as advertised, or supplying photos of hostages, or details that could be authenticated, after the attacks.
On Saturday, another email from the same address that was clearly written by another person said that a top leader of the group - a reputed arms dealer many suspect to be the prime force behind the fighters - had been arrested in Angola.
But Nigerian officials contacted repeatedly by the Associated Press never confirmed the news, and press reports of the man's arrest citing security officials gave no named sources. Nigerian government officials weren't available on Sunday for comment.
The group, known by its acronym Mend, launched its campaign of kidnapping expatriate workers and sabotaging oil installations nearly two years ago, cutting Nigerian output by nearly one quarter.
The group said it would halt hostilities to allow Yar'Adua's fledgling administration to negotiate a long-term solution to the woes of the Niger Delta, where angry inhabitants say government corruption and underdevelopment has left them in poverty despite their natural bounty.
"The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta [Mend], is committed to the fight for justice and ultimately the emancipation of the people of the Niger Delta," the group said in its statement on Sunday.
"We will not sit back and allow our birthright to be exchanged for a bowl of porridge."
Sapa-AP
http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/
breaking_news__africa/&articleid=320072
Página/12:
Así se calienta la reforma venezolana
GANA LAS CALLES EL DEBATE SOBRE CAMBIAR LA CARTA MAGNA
Por un lado, los seguidores de Chávez se manifiestan a favor de la reforma constitucional hacia un socialismo del siglo XXI. Por el otro, una oposición dividida se moviliza y hace foros. La iniciativa propone, entre otros puntos, crear nuevas formas de propiedad.
Lunes, 24 de Septiembre de 2007
Los barrios y plazas de Caracas respiran la efervescencia de las asambleas públicas. Aunque parezca mentira, chavistas y antichavistas discuten públicamente la reforma constituyente que tendrá un referéndum en diciembre. La reducción de la jornada laboral, la eliminación del latifundio, de los monopolios y la creación de nuevas formas de propiedad son algunos de los 33 artículos a modificar con los que el gobierno se ganó las calles y la iniciativa política. Aunque la oposición está dividida, quiere recuperar terreno perdido y algunos sectores se movilizaron anteayer contra la reforma, mientras el oficialismo hacía un acto multitudinario. En tanto, la principal central sindical del país, la Unión Nacional de Trabajadores (UNT), intenta profundizar el proceso político abierto hacia el “socialismo”.
“No vamos a permitir desestabilización. ¡Que no vengan a decir que el gobierno de Chávez no acepta la protesta! No. Protesten. Pero esta Constitución ellos no la respetan un carajo. Votaron contra ella en 1999. ¿Cómo es que ahora esta Constitución es buena y dicen que no es necesario aprobar la reforma?”, dijo anteayer el ministro del Poder Popular para las Relaciones Interiores y Justicia, Pedro Carreño, según la oficialista Radio Nacional de Venezuela (RNV).
Frente a una marea roja, integrada por trabajadores del ministerio, consejos comunales y comunidades organizadas, Carreño lideró el acto de juramentación de los Comités de Defensa del proyecto de Reforma Constitucional (RC) celebrado en la plaza La Candelaria, en la ciudad de Caracas. “Tenemos una Constitución y existen enemigos históricos de los procesos liberadores de los pueblos”, denunció Carreño a la oposición que, según él, busca generar caos para evitar el referéndum mediante protestas sobre servicios públicos o la inseguridad, informó RNV.
Las palabras del ministro hacían referencia a los grupos opositores, como el Comando Nacional de la Resistencia (CNR), asociado a la derecha que gobernó Venezuela durante la llamada Cuarta República, y la Alianza Bravo Pueblo (ABP), que anteayer marcharon con una baja convocatoria hacia la sede de la cartera de Carreño para rechazar la reforma y la inseguridad, informó el diario opositor El Universal. Sin embargo, una orden municipal y un cordón de efectivos de la Policía Metropolitana les impidieron llegar al ministerio.
La oposición ya no es la misma desde que perdió la capacidad de movilización que tenía en 2002 y 2003, en gran parte por el fuerte apoyo que tiene el presidente venezolano Hugo Chávez. Por eso ahora los opositores realizan foros y mantienen un perfil bajo en los espacios públicos. “No está planteada una movilización”, aseguró a Página/12 una fuente de Fedecámaras, la asociación empresarial más importante de Venezuela que apoyó la asonada militar que derrocó a Chávez el 11 de abril del 2002.
Según una encuesta publicada ayer por el Instituto Venezolano de Análisis de Datos (IVAD), un 40,6 por ciento de 1200 consultados dijo que votará a favor de modificar la actual Constitución, frente a un 22,5 por ciento que la rechazará en las urnas. De los 33 cambios propuestos por Chávez a la Carta Magna de 350 artículos que él mismo impulsó y logró aprobar tras llegar al poder en 1999, el derecho a la Seguridad Social para trabajadores como taxistas, servicio doméstico y vendedores informales es respaldado por un 90,8 por ciento de la población, seguido de la reducción de la jornada laboral a seis horas desde las ocho actuales, apoyada por un 70,6 por ciento.
Entre los principales actores sociales que apoyan parte de las reformas destaca la UNT, la central sindical que hoy con más de 1.200.000 afiliados defendió al líder bolivariano cuando sufrió el efímero golpe del 2002 y luego el paro petrolero patronal organizado por Fedecámaras y la otra central gremial, la CTV, que concluyó en febrero del 2003. “La reforma que el presidente hace demuestra que estamos en un proceso de cambios, una situación revolucionaria cada vez más profunda, en la que él recoge a su manera lo que el pueblo y los trabajadores vienen desarrollando a través de luchas y movilizaciones para terminar con la explotación y el imperialismo”, dijo a Página/12 Orlando Chirino, coordinador nacional de la UNT y dirigente de la principal corriente sindical, Ccura, de izquierda.
Sin embargo, Chirino se manifestó en contra del método para reformar la Constitución reivindicando la necesidad de que todo el pueblo discutiera el contenido en su totalidad –no sólo 33 artículos– a través de mecanismos más democráticos que el llamado “parlamentarismo de calle”. “Si vamos al socialismo, deberíamos ir a una asamblea popular libre y soberana con delegados de trabajadores, campesinos, comunidades, estudiantes, integrantes de las fuerzas armadas, que sea superadora de la asamblea constituyente que se fundamenta en una persona un voto”, propuso el sindicalista de 58 años y con más de cuatro décadas de experiencia gremial, requerido desde distintas regiones del país para actividades y conflictos.
El contenido del proyecto gubernamental, señaló el líder sindical, también presenta límites. “No se inscribe en una perspectiva socialista. No se cuestiona para nada la propiedad capitalista. El fruto del trabajo y los excedentes que producimos los trabajadores y trabajadoras seguirá siendo apropiado por una minoría de empresarios o en el mejor de los casos por un Estado desde el punto de vista capitalista”, indicó en referencia al artículo 115 que crea cuatro nuevas formas de propiedad, entre ellas la mixta, dejando intacta la privada. Otro problema, dijo Chirino, es que la nueva normativa permitiría de ahora en más que las multinacionales tengan potestad sobre el suelo, el subsuelo, áreas marítimas y todos los recursos naturales mediante las empresas mixtas.
Detrás de la reforma, el coordinador de la UNT percibe el apoyo de sectores empresariales a algunos artículos. Según Chirino, el presidente de Fedecámaras, José Manuel González, agradeció en su momento al vicepresidente de la República, Jorge Rodríguez, por comprometerse a respetar la propiedad privada sobre los medios de producción. Asimismo, José Agustín Campos, presidente de la Confederación de Agricultores y Ganaderos de Venezuela (Confagan), se pronunció en agosto en una rueda de prensa a favor de la reforma presentada ese mes por el mandatario venezolano, informó el canal oficialista Vive TV, de Venezuela. Elementos importantes a respaldar, señaló Campos, son los concernientes al reordenamiento territorial, al establecimiento de seguridad social para los trabajadores independientes y a la reducción de la jornada laboral a seis horas.
Entre sus preocupaciones, la UNT teme que la creación del fondo de estabilidad social y la disminución del horario laboral –dos medidas que la central apoya– tengan efectos contraproducentes. “Así se puede estar legitimando la exclusión de millones de compatriotas que no gozan de empleo digno y que ahora van a tener el beneficio de un subsidio, cuando lo que se trata es de que el Estado y la Constitución garanticen pleno empleo en condiciones dignas”, alertó Chirino al explicar que el seguro social no implicará una previsión social completa. “No se aclara que la reducción de la jornada no implica reducción salarial ni aumento de la explotación. Espero que no signifique concesiones a los empresarios en materia de impuestos y responsabilidad social como ha sucedido lastimosamente en Francia”, advirtió.
Informe: Juan Manuel Barca.
© 2000-2007 www.pagina12.com.ar|Todos los Derechos Reservados
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elmundo/4-91898-2007-09-24.html
The Independent: Suu Kyi greets protesters
as Burma's junta faces biggest test in 20 years
By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent
Published: 24 September 2007
In a remarkable show of defiance Burmese monks and nuns yesterday led 20,000 demonstrators through Rangoon in the largest protest against the country's military regime for almost two decades.
A day after hundreds of monks had walked to the house of the imprisoned democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, thousands more returned to the streets in a show of numbers not seen since the pro-democracy marches of 1988. Back then the regime responded with a brutal crackdown, killing thousands of civilians and monks. While yesterday's march ended peacefully, it was clear that the authorities had increased security in the city and the monks and the other marchers were refused access to Ms Suu Kyi's house when they tried to repeat Saturday's extraordinary meeting.
"Aung San Suu Kyi has not been seen in public since 30 May 2003, when her convoy was attacked by [government-sponsored] thugs," said Mark Farmaner of Burma Campaign UK. He was speaking after Ms Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), appeared at the gates of her home on Saturday, where she is under house arrest.
"By visiting her the monks are putting their spiritual authority behind the democracy movement. It is a strong message of unity," Mr Farmaner added.
Yesterday's march followed a week of demonstrations by monks in Rangoon and in a number of other cities which have re-energised the country's pro-democracy movement. Burma experts say that with many of the democracy activists having been seized and arbitrarily detained by the authorities earlier this summer, the monks could be the catalyst for persuading more ordinary citizens to take to the streets and confront the military.
The crucial issue now is how the authorities will respond to this threat to their rule, a threat underlined by the statements of several of the Buddhist monks who said they would not end the marches and demonstrations until the regime had been ousted. One group of monks chanted the slogan: "Our uprising must succeed."
Until now, the authorities appear to have been remarkably restrained, allowing the monks to march and allowing them to visit Ms Suu Kyi's house in University Avenue, close to the site of the recently completed US embassy complex. But while the authorities are aware that any action taken against the monks would incite widespread public anger, they also appeared to make clear yesterday that they would not allow the demonstrators too much latitude.
Police set up barbed wire barricades at the end of the road leading to her house and there were two lines of police with a truck and fire engine standing by when the marchers arrived. About 400 people, led by monks, tried to pass but the authorities blocked their passage. Witnesses said two monks stepped forward to try to negotiate with the police but were turned away. The monks briefly prayed before walking in another direction, after which the crowd began to disperse. They were carrying a large yellow banner which read: "Love and kindness must win over everything."
Ms Suu Kyi, 62, a Nobel laureate, has spent much of the past 17 years either in jail or under house arrest. Her latest term of incarceration dates from May 2003 when her convoy was attacked and about 100 of her supporters killed.
She lives at the house in univeersity Drive with two other women – a senior member of the NLD and her daughter – and their only regular visitors are a doctor who visits them for a morning every two weeks and the person who takes them their food. Their provisions are taken in every day by a young member of the NLD who is thoroughly searched and who hands over the food while being supervised by the police.
With the world finally taking notice of what is happening in Burma, activists inside the country believe the international community must act if change is to come about. They have long called for the UN Security Council to take up the cause of the country's pro-democracy movement, calls that have been blocked by Russia and China.
But the next couple of weeks is poised to see a flurry of diplomatic and political activity. The UN's special envoy Ibrahim Gambari is expected to visit Burma in the first two weeks of October when he will request permission to meet Ms Suu Kyi, having been granted permission on his two previous visits. He will report back to the Security Council.
There is also speculation that Britain could announce an increased aid package for Burma as early as this week, possibly by Gordon Brown in his speech to the Labour Party conference today.
In the US, the only country with comprehensive sanctions against Burma, Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, reiterated Washington's opposition to the regime, saying the Bush government was "watching very carefully" the democracy demonstrations.
"The Burmese people deserve better. They deserve the right to be able to live in freedom, just as everyone does," she added.
The wave of demonstrations that began this summer were held specifically to protest against a sharp rise in prices that has left ordinary people ever more desperate. Bus fares doubled overnight after an unexplained increase in fuel prices.
The protests against soaring inflation tapped into a deep well of unhappiness. While the majority of Burmese may be too terrified to speak out in public, in private they voice widespread dissatisfaction with the government yet wonder what they can do to change this. A Rangoon taxi driver summed things up by saying: "The government controls everything. We can do nothing, we cannot do anything. People are afraid of jail."
In 1990 Ms Suu Kyi secured an overwhelming victory in an election organised by the military regime. However, on seeing the results, the junta refused to recognise the result and launched a new crackdown against the democracy movement.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2993289.ece
The Nation:
Blackwater: Hired Guns, Above the Law
by JEREMY SCAHILL
[posted online on September 21, 2007]
Editor's Note: This is an edited transcript of the prepared testimony of Jeremy Scahill before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, September 21, 2007.
My name is Jeremy Scahill. I am an investigative reporter for The Nation magazine and the author of the book Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. I have spent the better part of the past several years researching the phenomenon of privatized warfare and the increasing involvement of the private sector in the support and waging of US wars. During the course of my investigations, I have interviewed scores of sources, filed many Freedom of Information Act requests, obtained government contracts and private company documents of firms operating in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. When asked, I have attempted to share the results of my investigations, including documents obtained through FOIA and other processes, with members of Congress and other journalists.
I would like to thank this committee for the opportunity to be here today and for taking on this very serious issue. Over the past six days, we have all been following very closely the developments out of Baghdad in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of as many as 20 Iraqis by operatives working for the private military company Blackwater USA. The Iraqi government is alleging that among the dead are a small child and her parents and the prime minister has labeled Blackwater's conduct as "criminal" and spoke of "the killing of our citizens in cold blood." While details remain murky and subject to conflicting versions of what exactly happened, this situation cuts much deeper than this horrifying incident. The stakes are very high for the Bush administration because the company involved, Blackwater USA, is not just any company. It is the premiere firm protecting senior State Department officials in Iraq, including Ambassador Ryan Crocker. This company has been active in Iraq since the early days of the occupation when it was awarded an initial $27 million no-bid contract to guard Ambassador Paul Bremer. During its time in Iraq, Blackwater has regularly engaged in firefights and other deadly incidents. About 30 of its operatives have been killed in Iraq and these deaths are not included in the official American death toll.
While the company's operatives are indeed soldiers of fortune, their salaries are paid through hundreds of millions of dollars in US taxpayer funds allocated to Blackwater. What they do in Iraq is done in the name of the American people and yet there has been no effective oversight of Blackwater's activities and actions. And there has been absolutely no prosecution of its forces for any crimes committed against Iraqis. If indeed Iraqi civilians were killed by Blackwater USA last Sunday, as appears to be the case, culpability for these actions does not only lie with the individuals who committed the killings or with Blackwater as a company, but also with the entity that hired them and allowed them to operate heavily-armed inside Iraq-in this case, the US State Department.
While the headlines of the past week have been focused on the fatal shootings last Sunday, this was by no means an isolated incident. Nor is this is simply about a rogue company or rogue operators. This is about a system of unaccountable and out of control private forces that have turned Iraq into a wild west from the very beginning of the occupation, often with the stamp of legitimacy of the US government.
What happened Sunday is part of a deadly pattern, not just of Blackwater USA's conduct, but of the army of mercenaries that have descended on Iraq over the past four years. They have acted like cowboys, running Iraqis off the road, firing indiscriminately at vehicles and, in some cases, private forces have appeared on tape seemingly using Iraqis for target practice. They have shown little regard for Iraqi lives and have fueled the violence in that country, not just against the people of Iraq but also against the official soldiers of the United States military in the form of blowback and revenge attacks stemming from contractor misconduct. These private forces have operated in a climate where impunity and immunity have gone hand in hand.
Active duty soldiers who commit crimes or acts of misconduct are prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the court martial system. There have been scores of prosecutions of soldiers- some 64 courts martial on murder-related charges in Iraq alone. That has not been the case with these private forces. Despite many reports-some from US military commanders-of private contractors firing indiscriminately at Iraqis and vehicles and killing civilians, not a single armed contractor has been charged with any crime. They have not been prosecuted under US civilian law; US military law and the Bush administration banned the Iraqi government from prosecuting them in Iraqi courts beginning with the passage of Coalition Provisional Authority Order 17 in 2004. The message this sends to the Iraqi people is that these hired guns are above any law.
US contractors in Iraq reportedly have their own motto: "What happens here today, stays here today." That should be chilling to everyone who believes in transparency and accountability of US operations and taxpayer funded activities- not to mention the human rights of the Iraqis who have fallen victim to these incidents and have been robbed of any semblance of justice.
The Iraqi government says it has evidence of seven deadly incidents involving Blackwater. It is essential that the Congress request information on these incidents from the Iraqi authorities. What we do know is that in just the past nine months, Blackwater forces have been involved with several fatal actions. Last Christmas Eve, as Katy mentioned, an off-duty Blackwater contractor allegedly killed a bodyguard for the Iraqi Vice President. Blackwater whisked that individual out of the country. Iraqi officials labeled the killing a "murder" and have questioned privately as to why there has apparently been no consequences for that individual. Blackwater says it fired the individual and is cooperating with the US Justice Department. To my knowledge no charges have yet been brought in that case.
This past May, Blackwater operatives engaged in a gun battle in Baghdad, lasting an hour, that drew in both US military and Iraqi forces, in which at least four Iraqis are said to have died. The very next day in almost the same neighborhood, the company's operatives reportedly shot and killed an Iraqi driver near the Interior Ministry. In the ensuing chaos, the Blackwater guards reportedly refused to give their names or details of the incident to Iraqi officials, sparking a tense standoff between American and Iraqi forces, both of which were armed with assault rifles.
The actions of this one company, perhaps more than any other private actor in the occupation, have consistently resulted in escalated tension and more death and destruction in Iraq-from the siege of Fallujah, sparked by the ambush of its men there in March of 2004, to Blackwater forces shooting at Iraqis in Najaf with one Blackwater operative filmed on tape saying it was like a "turkey shoot" to the deadly events of the past week.
Colonel Thomas Hammes, the US military official once overseeing the creation of a new Iraqi military, has described driving around Iraq with Iraqis and encountering Blackwater operatives. "[They] were running me off the road. We were threatened and intimidated," Hammes said. But, he added, "they were doing their job, exactly what they were paid to do in the way they were paid to do it, and they were making enemies on every single pass out of town." Hammes concluded the contractors were " hurting our counterinsurgency effort."
Brigadier General Karl Horst, deputy commander of the 3rd Infantry Division said of private security contractors, "These guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff. There's no authority over them, so you can't come down on them hard when they escalate force.... They shoot people, and someone else has to deal with the aftermath. It happens all over the place." Horst tracked contractor conduct for a two month period in Baghdad and documented at least a dozen shootings of Iraqi civilians by contractors, resulting in six Iraqi deaths and the wounding of three others. That is just one General in one area of Iraq in just 60 days.
The conduct of these private forces sends a clear message to the Iraqi people: American lives are worth infinitely more than theirs, even if their only crime is driving their vehicle in the wrong place at the wrong time. One could say that Blackwater has been very successful at fulfilling its mission-to keep alive senior US officials. But at what price?
It is long past due for the actions of Blackwater USA and the other private military firms operating in Iraq-actions carried out in the names of the American people and with US tax dollars-to be carefully and thoroughly investigated by the US Congress. For the Iraqi people, this is a matter of life, and far too often, death. In the bigger picture, this body should seriously question whether the linking of corporate profits to war making is in the best interests of this nation and the world. I would humbly submit that the chairs of relevant committees in both the House and Senate use their power of subpoena to compel the heads of the major war contracting companies operating on the US payroll in Iraq to appear publicly before the American people and answer for the actions of their forces. I am prepared to answer any questions.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071008/scahill0921
ZNet | Israel/Palestine:
The war on Gaza's children
by Saree Makdisi;
Los Angeles Times; September 23, 2007
An entire generation of Palestinians in Gaza is growing up stunted: physically and nutritionally stunted because they are not getting enough to eat; emotionally stunted because of the pressures of living in a virtual prison and facing the constant threat of destruction and displacement; intellectually and academically stunted because they cannot concentrate - or, even if they can, because they are trying to study and learn in circumstances that no child should have to endure.
Even before Israel this week declared Gaza "hostile territory" - apparently in preparation for cutting off the last remaining supplies of fuel and electricity to 1.5 million men, women and children - the situation was dire.
As a result of Israel's blockade on most imports and exports and other policies designed to punish the populace, about 70% of Gaza's workforce is now unemployed or without pay, according to the United Nations, and about 80% of its residents live in grinding poverty. About 1.2 million of them are now dependent for their day-to-day survival on food handouts from U.N. or international agencies, without which, as the World Food Program's Kirstie Campbell put it, "they are liable to starve."
An increasing number of Palestinian families in Gaza are unable to offer their children more than one meager meal a day, often little more than rice and boiled lentils. Fresh fruit and vegetables are beyond the reach of many families. Meat and chicken are impossibly expensive. Gaza faces the rich waters of the Mediterranean, but fish is unavailable in its markets because the Israeli navy has curtailed the movements of Gaza's fishermen.
Los Angeles parents who have spent the last few weeks running from one back-to-school sale to another could do worse than to spare a few minutes to think about their counterparts in the Gaza Strip. As a result of the siege, Gaza is not only short of raw textiles and other key goods but also paper, ink and vital school supplies. One-third of Gaza's children started the school year missing necessary textbooks. John Ging, the Gaza director of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, whose schools take care of 200,000 children in Gaza, has warned that children come to school "hungry and unable to concentrate."
Israel says that its policies in Gaza are designed to put pressure on the Palestinian population to in turn put pressure on those who fire crude home-made rockets from Gaza into the Israeli town of Sderot. Those rocket attacks are wrong. But it is also wrong to punish an entire population for the actions of a few - actions that the schoolchildren of Gaza and their beleaguered parents are in any case powerless to stop.
It is a violation of international law to collectively punish more than a million people for something they did not do. According to the Geneva Convention, to which it is a signatory, Israel actually has the obligation to ensure the well-being of the people on whom it has chosen to impose a military occupation for more than four decades.
Instead, it has shrugged off the law. It has ignored the repeated demands of the U.N. Security Council. It has dismissed the International Court of Justice in the Hague. What John Dugard, the U.N.'s special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories, refers to as the "carefully managed" strangulation of Gaza - in full view of an uncaring world - is explicitly part of its strategy. "The idea," said Dov Weisglass, an Israeli government advisor, "is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not make them die of hunger."
Saree Makdisi is a professor of English literature at UCLA and the author of "Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation," forthcoming from Norton.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=13864
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