Elsewhere Today 471
Aljazeera:
Thousands flee Kenya fighting
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 02, 2008
6:41 MECCA TIME, 3:41 GMT
Tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes amid post-election violence in Kenya that has claimed at least 300 lives.
Young men armed with machetes manned roadblocks on Wednesday as the world's major powers stepped up efforts to end the wave of tribal fighting sweeping the country.
John Kufuor, the African Union chairman, is due in Kenya on Wednesday for crisis talks with Kibaki.
The chaos has included the torching of a church packed with panic-stricken villagers in which dozens of people were killed.
Muddying the situation has been a statement by the head of Kenya's electoral commission that he did not know whether Mwai Kibaki, the incumbent president, had won the vote.
The same official had announced on Sunday that Kibaki narrowly beat out opposition rival Raila Odinga in the poll.
Wider repercussions
Mohammed Adow, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Nairobi, says the unrest is not only affecting Kenya but the regions of east and central Africa as a whole.
"Kenya is a regional hub and the port of Mombasa serves at least six countries in this region that are landlocked, including Uganda, southern Sudan and Rwanda.
"There are fuel and food shortages there. These are countries that depend on the port of Mombasa for everything that they import."
Adow said the AU envoy would try to convince both parties to form an all-embracing government of national cohesion, but given the bad blood between Kibaki and Odinga, such an outcome was unlikely.
Appeals for calm
Nevertheless, in a sign of increasing international involvement, Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state and David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, issued a joint statement urging Kenya's political leaders to call for a halt to the violence.
They were urged to engage in a political and legal process to resolve the crisis and ensure a "united and peaceful future" for Kenya.
On Tuesday, up to 50 children and adults belonging to the Kikuyu ethnic group and sheltering in a church near the western town of Eldoret were burnt alive by an angry mob in one of the worst incidents since the December 27 presidential elections.
Odinga and Kibaki both allege massive vote-rigging in the vote. The violence is the worst Kenya has witnessed since a failed 1982 coup.
With Kibaki belonging to the Kikuyu, Kenya's largest tribe, and Odinga to the second largest, the Luo, the violence has taken on a distinctly ethnic hue, with tit-for-tat killings and targeted arson attacks.
'Indescribable' violence
"What I saw was unimaginable and indescribable," Abbas Gullet, the director of the Kenyan Red Cross, said after visiting several of the worst hit areas of western Kenya on Tuesday.
"This is a national disaster,". From the area we visited today there are roughly about 70,000 [displaced]."
Aerial video footage taken by the humanitarian group showed hundreds of houses on fire, farms set ablaze and crude road blocks every 10km, manned by young men with machetes, rocks and bows and arrows.
Gullet said only those from "the right ethnic group" were allowed through the barricades.
Ugandan officials also reported hundreds of Kikuyu tribes people crossing the border from Kenya.
In Nairobi, slum areas were overrun by rioters burning down shops belonging to members of the Kikuyu tribe and looting anything from refrigerators to basic goods.
Most deaths have come from police firing at protesters, witnesses say, prompting accusations from rights groups and the opposition that Kibaki had made Kenya a "police state".
Conflicting views
Kibaki has said that all political parties should meet immediately and publicly call for calm, but Odinga told Al Jazeera that he would only talk to Kibaki if the president conceded defeat.
"This is a time for reconciliation, but there must be a basis for that reconciliation," he said on Tuesday.
"I am ready to talk to Mr Kibaki on condition that he is ready to admit before the people of Kenya that he lost the elections."
Raphael Tuju, Kenya's foreign minister, said that there was no reason for Kibaki to resign and problems with the election should be dealt with through the courts rather than through protests.
He said: "Whatever is to be done, whether we are going to have a re-run, that has to be decided in a constitutional way.
"You just don't decide because one of the parties is aggrieved, because one party complains, or one person complains, 'OK, you are not happy with the results of the election, let's have a re-run'."
Audit urged
EU monitors said the elections had "fallen short" of international standards and urged an independent audit of the results, increasing diplomatic pressure on Kibaki.
And Samuel Kivuitu, the head of Kenya's electoral commission, said he was pressured into quickly announcing Kibaki's election by his ruling party.
He did so despite appeals by EU vote monitors and the state-sponsored human rights commission to delay the announcement until a probe was carried out.
But Michela Wrong, an author and journalist, told Al Jazeera that that the fighting wasn't simply an ethnic split, but was really about the divisions between rich and poor.
She said: "That's the ugly surface of a much more profound split [but] there is a sense that this was an elitist government, it was a government that was really only interested in itself, in its own particular group.
"They were doling out jobs to their own people, all the key ministries were in the hands of that group but at the same time were ignoring the needs of the poor."
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/4D0C325C-2170-4E0B-BB34-AEAEACF6DE64.htm
AllAfrica:
Give Peace a Chance
The Nation (Nairobi) EDITORIAL
2 January 2008
This madness cannot be allowed to go on. Horrific tales continue to come out of the killing fields that have erupted after the close of the most contentious General Election ever held in Kenya.
The lowest point was recorded Tuesday when between 35 and 40 women and children seeking refuge in an Eldoret church were burnt alive. Those who tried to escape the inferno were hacked to death.
In Mombasa, 11 people, most of them from one family, were killed when a murderous mob locked them in a house and set it ablaze.
It gives urgency to the mediation efforts launched Tuesday by Commonwealth leaders to restore peace by opening negotiations between President Kibaki and Mr Raila Odinga on Kenya's political future. They must proceed in haste.
More reports of mass slaughter continued streaming in from Nakuru, Kisumu, Nairobi, Kapsabet, Homa Bay, Molo, Likoni, Kakamega and many other parts of the country.
By Tuesday, police said at least 178 people had been killed, and another 74,700 displaced. These must be extremely conservative figures and the toll must be much higher and certainly going to rise.
This is not a situation that will peter out on its own. Urgent intervention is required to save Kenya, which until now was regarded as one of the most stable democracies in Africa. If no urgent step is taken to arrest the killings, Kenya is bound to sink into the abyss and join the ranks of war-torn countries like Côte d'Ivoire, Somalia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and others which have experienced genocide on an unimaginable scale.
The bestiality which has been uncorked cannot be treated as a simple security and law and order issue. It needs the direct joint efforts of the principal political players whose duel for the presidency ignited everything.
It is gratifying to hear that both President Kibaki and his principal opponent, Mr Raila Odinga, say they are willing to talk in search of peace. Now we must move from mere declarations to actual engagement.
How critical our situation is can be gauged by the unprecedented interest the international community has shown in offering to facilitate dialogue aimed at ending the killings and bridging the political impasse.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has talked to both President Kibaki and Mr Odinga and offered to mediate. He has also urged the intervention of the African Union chairman, Ghanaian President John Kufuor, and to former Sierra Leonean President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah who headed the Commonwealth observer mission at the polls, to promptly intervene.
The African Union has also appealed for calm and asked our leaders to embrace dialogue and consultation to deal with the problems caused by the elections. The AU said it is also ready to assist.
These are not voices that can be disregarded. It was after meeting Mr Kabbah Tuesday that the president said he was ready for dialogue.
Since the opposition says it is also ready for dialogue, then it might be a simple matter to get both sides together. But not in a situation where the electoral outcome has led to brinkmanship that will be difficult to overcome.
In the first instance, both sides must drop any pre-conditions to talks if they agree that the most urgent objective is to end the bloodshed. It would be great if President Kibaki and Mr Odinga jointly visited the clash-hit areas to push the call for peace.
Part of a process
But that push for peace cannot come by itself. It will ultimately have to be part of a process that leads, first, to a resolution of the immediate political stand-off, and ultimately, the search for a long-term solution meant to ensure that the kind of ethnic rivalries that are a staple of Kenyan politics and the cause of bloodshed never recurs.
Considering the kind of ethnic and political polarisation witnessed, there is urgent need to welcome the services of an internationally-recognised mediator who will be acceptable to both sides.
If both sides agree that the violence must stop, then they must promptly start working together to restore peace and security in the troubled areas. But that can only be a part of what will be a long process.
The next stage would be to work out an amicable solution to the political impasse, even if it means establishing a government of national unity with representatives from both sides, or appointment of a caretaker government to run the country on an interim basis until the dispute over the election outcome is resolved, or fresh elections held.
Some might raise questions about the legality or constitutionalism of such proposals. But when a country is burning, what matters most is whatever can put out the fires.
The important thing, moreover, is that both sides recognise that they are jointly accountable for what is happening, and the Kenyan people look up to them to provide solutions.
This cannot be about one side saying it is the legitimate government and the other refusing to recognise it or demanding its resignation before any dialogue.
This is about saving the lives of innocent Kenyans who are dying in the most gruesome manner while their leaders continue to enjoy the comforts and luxuries paid for by the taxpayers.
Copyright © 2008 The Nation. All rights reserved.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200801020844.html
AlterNet:
Bhutto's Blood Is on Bush's Hands
By Shahid Buttar, AlterNet
Posted on January 2, 2008
When news first broke of the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, I sat in the living room of a judge in Islamabad, glued to the television with an off-duty doctor from the hospital where Bhutto was taken. While the nation and the world continue to reel from the violent death of a world-historical figure, relatively little attention has been paid to the central role of U.S. foreign policy in her demise.
A great many voices have commented on Bhutto's immense historical stature. Others have noted the tremendous loss her death represents to the people of Pakistan and its grave implications for the nation's democracy. Benazir Bhutto was a forceful champion for the downtrodden, the most effective international diplomat Pakistan has ever produced, and an inspiration to millions (and possibly even billions) of people stirred by her service as the Muslim world's first female head of state.
Allegations of corruption dogged Bhutto throughout her public service career, and the essentially hereditary ascension of her son to her party's leadership begs questions about its sincerity in seeking meaningful democracy. But Benazir Bhutto's untimely death renders those questions less relevant than the current leadership's attacks on democracy and the rule of law. Parvez Musharraf's administration has taken a sharp turn over the past year, destabilizing the country and severely undermining freedom of the press, judicial independence, individual liberties, and democratic transparency - all while relying on ongoing White House support.
Over the past year, Musharraf - known here as “Busharraf” on account of Washington's role in propping up his failing dictatorship - has presided over one of Pakistan's most turbulent periods in its 60-year history. While claiming to address extremism, he has instead eviscerated the nation's legal system, curtailed the media and hamstrung civil society, thereby destroying Pakistan's strongest (both institutional and cultural) defenses against fundamentalism. Having twice sacked the Supreme Court's popular and independent Chief Justice and jailed the leaders of the democracy movement, Musharraf has also imposed severe restrictions on the press that continue to stifle debate. In this environment, violence is all too predictable. And the enabling complicity of the U.S. should alarm all observers.
A host of competing theories attempt to explain Bhutto's assassination. The government predictably blamed al-Qaeda within a day, while offering a theory of her death described by BBC as “bizarre.”
Noting Bhutto's prior comments that “elements within the administration and security apparatuses . . . want me out of the way,” members of her family accused the government - either of killing her outright, or for complicity by notorious rogue elements within the government, or at least for offering inadequate security to her campaign - as Bhutto herself alleged before the fact. American authorities have reportedly begun investigating Pakistani special operations forces for their potential involvement.
Others blame Bhutto's husband, Asif “Mr. 10 Percent” Zardari, who plundered state coffers during her rule, allegedly ordered the 1985 and 1996 murders of her brothers in order to eliminate their potential political rivalry, and may have perceived opportunity in his wife's removal. In the wake of her assassination, he refused an autopsy that may have shed light on the cause and is now co-Chairman of the political party she once led.
But regardless of which theory may ultimately prove accurate, each possibility required (for cover, if nothing else) the aggressive presence of extremists in Pakistan - whom Musharraf harbored while duping the U.S. out of roughly $10 billion since 2001, of which allegedly half has been consumed by graft.
Before a brutal show of force at the Lal Masjid this summer possibly intended to impress western media clustered in Islamabad, Musharraf took a soft stance towards terrorism in Pakistan's anarchic tribal areas. He reached an agreement with tribal leaders, under whose noses Al-Qaeda rebuilt itself after being (first trained in the 1970s, and then more recently) expelled by the U.S. from Afghanistan. And Musharraf continues to shelter atomic scientist A.Q. Khan, whose work on nuclear weapons made him a national hero despite passing secrets to North Korea. All this from a military dictator hailed by President Bush as his “critical ally in the War on Terror.”
Earlier this year, opposition forces non-violently rose against Musharraf to challenge martial law. The White House inexplicably maintained its support for his regime, overlooking the subjugation of both the media and judiciary while pressing for elections that can not possibly reflect the preferences of the Pakistani people. Looming in just over a week, the elections are beset by accusations of pervasive bias and lack any pretense of freedom or fairness.
Bhutto returned to Pakistan this October, at the invitation of U.S. officials eager to shore up Musharraf's flagging dictatorship with the veneer of democratic legitimacy. She (and other members of the Pakistani opposition) endured multiple violent attacks in order to challenge Musharraf in the democratic arena, tolerating widespread accusations of early vote-rigging and politicized election administration, as well as restrictions on electioneering and media criticism of the dictatorship. Like Iraqi Kurds and Shiites slaughtered by Saddam Hussein when Bush's father failed to fulfill promises to support their revolution in the 1990s, she paid the ultimate price for answering the White House's call.
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice suggested that, “The way to honor [Bhutto's] memory is to continue the democratic process in Pakistan . . . .” But despite the younger Bush's rhetorical support for democracy abroad, the reality of his defending dictatorship both poisoned Pakistan's democratic aspirations and sealed Bhutto's doom. Whether at the hands of extremists or the Pakistani government - or, more likely, collusion among elements within them - Benazir Bhutto's blood stains George Bush's hands.
While recovering from the tumult of riots and looting across their country, and facing shattered hopes and an uncertain future, peaceful Pakistanis must also confront their increasing inability to influence events. Beset by terror and ruled by a dictator who derides the rule of law, the most Pakistanis can hope for is that candidates to restore sanity to the White House reverse America's catastrophic commitment to its incoherent and counterproductive course, and allow the country a chance at self-determination by suspending aid to Pakistan until its judges and journalists are once again free.
Shahid Buttar is a Pakistani-American lawyer, scholar, media activist, poet, hip-hop MC, and grassroots community organizer. He's currently traveling throughout Pakistan to conduct an independent investigation of events since the first removal of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhury in March, 2007. To read more articles or to listen to his music, visit www.ShahidButtar.com
© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/72055/
Arab News:
Despite ‘Good News’, Iraq Is Not OK
Ramzy Baroud, Aljazeera.net English.
Wednesday 2 January 2008 (24 Dhul Hijjah 1428)
In recent months we have been inundated by media reports bringing good news from Iraq, with countless testiminials to the great improvement in security enjoyed by the country in general and the Baghdad area in particular. This progress is attributed solely to the judicious ‘surge’ of US military presence, and the astute tactics enacted by occupation forces in a place that once personified despair and violence. Indeed, reports repeatedly point to the figure indicating that violence in Iraq has dwindled by 60 percent in the last three months.
BBC reporter in Iraq, Jim Muir, is one of the leading enthusiasts of the apparent miracle. In his report, ‘Is Iraq Getting Better?’ he indulges in over-generalized estimations which just happen to be shared by the US military.
“Over the past three months, there has been a sharp and sustained drop in all forms of violence. The figures for dead and wounded, military and civilian, have also greatly improved...People walk in crowded streets in the evening, when just a few months ago they would have been huddled behind locked doors in their homes. Everybody agrees that things are much better.”
Elsewhere, Muir goes further in discussing the role played by Sunni militias in bringing peace to Baghdad. He quotes a militiaman as saying, “At the beginning, people saw it as an occupation which had to be resisted. But then they saw that the Americans were working in the interests of the people.”
The BBC represents only a mild example in this charade, which is instilled mostly by the Bush administration and its allies in the military and in the mainstream media. It is mind-boggling how the latter could accept the so-called transformation from chaos to semi-order without any real questioning.
Meanwhile, there are a few sources of information regarding the violence resulting from the US invasion of Iraq. One of these is the US military itself, which keeps track of and publishes information pertinent to the violence only when it’s relevant to attacks on US installations and personnel. Confirming or denying these reports in their entirety is unattainable by any independent source. Considering the politicized nature of the US military public relation strategies, such reports should hardly attest to what is indeed unfolding in Iraq. Another source of information is the Iraq government and army. It’s no secret that those at the helm of both of these institutions are working under the command of the US military. Spokesmen for the Iraqi government coordinate their statements — with a few exceptions — to confirm those made by the latter.
It seems odd that the bulk — if not the entirety — of reports on the improvement in security are predicated principally on information released by the US military, Iraqi official sources or willing collaborates of both (conformist Shiite sources, tribal Sunni leaders). The latter group reportedly receive a monthly-imbursement for helping guard their areas against Al-Qaeda. Moreover, an estimated 80,000 Sunni fighters — many of whom were apparently insurgents fighting the US military — get paid $300 each to perform various guarding duties. What else do media ‘investigative’ reporters expect to hear from those who get paid to improve security in Iraq? Can they possibly discredit their own efforts, thus losing badly needed incomes? It’s interesting how the US military can now lend its trust to arming and funding the same people who were supposedly blowing up their vehicles a few months ago?
A third source of news is the implausibly huge number of statements made by various organizations in Iraq — some fighting the US and British forces, others fighting amongst themselves due to differences of ethnicity or agenda. Moreover, many of Iraq’s death squads were found to be no other than Al-Badr Brigades, the militant arm of some leading members of the Iraqi government. Much of the killing was also attributed to Al-Mahdi Army, based mostly in Baghdad’s Al-Sadr City. Internal politics and secretive dealings have contributed to the cessation of violence attributed to Al-Mahdi militias. The Iraqi Army and police are said to be assembled from these two large Shiite militants groupings, and much of the violence seems to be of their own making.
Isn’t possible that the US allies decided to cease their violence and ethnic cleansing in Baghdad to give the impression that President Bush’s genius ‘surge’ strategy has paid off, thus discrediting all of his detractors, both at home and abroad?
Is it not ingenious that the Iraq ‘success story’ is now, retrospectively, associating such upbeat and positive terminologies — security, peace, safety, hope — with a most sinister act, that of military invasion of a sovereign country and the subjugation of its people?
Why isn’t the media asking these questions instead of indulging in ‘good news which is likely to propagate and justify the unwarranted and humiliating occupation?
There are more sources that are closer to credibility than any of the ones above. Independent reports such as the survey of Iraqi households in the Lancet, estimating that by July 2006, 655,000 Iraqis died as a consequence of war. UK-based polling agency Opinion Research Business reached even a higher number, in September 2007, suggested that 1.2 million people might have died as a result of the war.
But no number can do justice to the hurt felt by Iraqi people, so many of whom perished by the firepower of their ‘liberators’.
On Dec. 28, 14 Iraqis were reportedly killed, and 64 others were wounded in a Baghdad square crowded with shoppers following the Friday prayer. I wonder if the many families that collectively share the latest tragedy in Baghdad will find some peace and comfort in the figures and statistics issued by the US military and disseminated cheerfully be the media. I wonder how the people of the bloody Tayaran Square would respond to the question: “Is Iraq getting better?”
Would any reporter even bother to ask them their thoughts?
Copyright: Arab News © 2003 All rights reserved.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=105222&d=2&m=1&y=2008
Asia Times:
Bhutto's death a blow to 'war on terror'
By M K Bhadrakumar
Jan 3, 2008
The German weekly Der Spiegel reported in mid-December that at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Allied Joint Force Command in Brunssum, the Netherlands, and at NATO military headquarters in Mons, Belgium, top-secret strategy games have been held about worst-case scenarios in Afghanistan.
That may turn out to be smart forward thinking. The computer simulations assumed that if the situation in Pakistan were to spin out of control, the Taliban would get a free run on the border regions with Afghanistan, and NATO's supply lines through Pakistan might be jeopardized.
In November, USA Today quoted Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell as saying that the US military was reviewing contingency plans in case unrest in Pakistan began to affect the flow of supplies for American troops fighting in Afghanistan. He underscored that the supply lines were "very real areas of concern", since three-quarters of the supplies for the 26,000-strong US military deployment in Afghanistan flowed via Pakistan by land and air. "Clearly, we do not like the situation we find ourselves in right now," Morrell commented.
Asked how long US commanders would take to switch to alternate supply lines, he responded he didn't know, but that "if we needed to have it done tomorrow, we would have it done tomorrow". The crucial question is whether that "tomorrow" has drawn dramatically closer with the assassination last week of former premier Benazir Bhutto.
One of the NATO strategy games apparently simulated the withdrawal of the troops from Afghanistan that had been cut off from supplies. Of course, no one expects such a contingency to develop - in the immediate term, at least. But anything now becomes possible. There is cause for deep anxiety when an acknowledged American area specialist and author like Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institute says it is "hard to be optimistic". He fears for Pakistan, visualizing that "separatism will increase, as will violent, extremist Islamism" and Pakistan will face a "fundamental crisis" within the next five years.
In many ways, it is a classic boomerang. With Bhutto's assassination, Pakistan, which became seriously destabilized by America's "war on terror", may be about to turn the heat on US and NATO troops in Afghanistan. According to Der Spiegel, senior NATO leaders fear that "Pakistan could very well descend into total chaos after the elections scheduled for January". (These have now been postponed until February.) NATO leaders assess that everything depends critically on President Pervez Musharraf "managing to retain his hold on power". If he doesn't, "the already half-heartened efforts by the Pakistani military leadership, permeated with Islamists, to stem Taliban and al-Qaeda activities in the Pashtun tribal regions could fail completely".
But Cohen, who is an authority on the Pakistani military, doubts whether the Pakistani generals any longer have the will to push back the Islamists. He adds, "What we do know is that there is a large 'alumni' association of former intelligence operatives, tolerated by the army and the intelligence services - or perhaps simply beyond their reach."
Troop surge in Afghanistan
The political dilemma of the George W Bush administration will be very acute in the coming weeks. On the one hand it will have to suspend all disbelief and earnestly work for Musharraf's continuance in power in the critical weeks ahead, while on the other hand it is intensely conscious that as long as he continues in power, Pakistan will remain a dysfunctional state.
At the same time, on a parallel track, Washington has to build up confidence in NATO capitals that Pakistan can be put on the road to recovery and that the campaign against the Taliban can gain traction, if only they showed the readiness to commit more troops for Afghanistan at this critical juncture.
The NATO summit meeting in Bucharest, Romania in April will be a crucial deadline for the Bush administration. The summit is expected to focus on Afghanistan. A troop surge in Afghanistan is most likely in the cards. The Washington Post reported (about the time Der Spiegel broke the news about NATO's strategy games) that as Iraq calms, Washington's attention is turning to Afghanistan. The report said that US commanders in Afghanistan are looking for several additional battalions of troops, helicopters and other resources.
But where will the additional troops come from? They could come out of a further drawdown of forces from Iraq, but this depends on whether the recent security gains in Iraq can be sustained with fewer US troops. The Bush administration has done some severe tongue-lashing of the US's NATO allies, who remain reluctant to commit additional troops. In early December, addressing the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, "I am not ready to let NATO off the hook in Afghanistan at this point." He referred critically to "our allies not being able to step up to the plate".
Washington's frustration is two-fold. On the one hand, it has limitations in augmenting troop strength in Afghanistan. At the same venue where Gates spoke, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, frankly admitted that the US military has limitations in what it can do in Afghanistan due to overstretch in Iraq. He said, "In Afghanistan, we do what we can. In Iraq, we do what we must. The war in Afghanistan is, by design and necessity, an economy-of-force operation. There's no getting around that ... Our main focus, militarily in the region and in the world right now, is rightly and firmly in Iraq."
On the other hand, NATO allies stubbornly refuse to pay heed to Washington's calls for increased troop contributions. European opinion is steadily turning against the war in Afghanistan. In Germany, the latest opinion polls, in December, indicated that half the population favored withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. The same is the case in Canada. In the event of an opposition victory in this year's parliamentary election, a withdrawal of Canadian troops will be likely. The Dutch have already decided to pull out. It may trigger a domino effect. The Czech Republic, Denmark and Norway are already in the process of withdrawing their troops from northern Afghanistan.
Taliban heading north
Meanwhile, the Taliban have begun moving toward the Amu Darya region in northern Afghanistan. They seem to be virtually repeating their strategy in the 1996-98 period, making their northern advance in a pincer movement. One arm of the Taliban is moving toward Kabul from strongholds in Helmand and the southeastern provinces, while other groups are moving up from Kandahar along the Iranian border regions and the western provinces of Herat, Badghis and Faryab. (Faryab has old Pashtun settlements.)
In October, the Taliban tested the waters by overrunning several districts in the Faryab and Badghis region. The Bala Murghab, Ghormach and Qades districts of Badghis are virtually under Taliban control. They are recruiting people in the countryside. They have established intelligence and operational networks in most district centers in the northwestern provinces. In 1997, the Taliban used Badghis as the base for their operations in the provinces to the east, such as Jowzjan and Balkh.
They have also begun harassing the 400-strong German contingent in the northern province of Kunduz with sporadic firing, booby traps and mines and firing rockets and rocket-propelled grenades into German camps. A concerted Taliban attempt to capture Kunduz, a highly strategic area in the north, seems a possibility. The fall of Kunduz in 1997 to the Taliban was a turning point in their capture of the Amu Darya region, including the remote Takhar and Badakhshan regions in the east.
NATO's difficulties mounting
All signs are that the war effort is deteriorating. What is taking place is the syndrome in which the Soviet occupying troops in the 1980s found themselves trapped - tactical achievements but a potential strategic failure. Recent NATO operations in the town of Musa Qala, a dust bowl in the middle of nowhere in Helmand's stretching desert region, are a poignant indicator. NATO touted it as a decisive battle - a veritable Waterloo for the Taliban - when it dispersed the Taliban who had been in occupation of the town for close to a year.
But it is apparent that Afghan government troops will have a tough time holding on to Musa Qala while the Taliban dominate major districts in Helmand such as Greshk, Sangin and Garmseer. Besides, the killing and looting that accompanied the NATO operation left a trail of bitterness that the Taliban will easily exploit. All reports indicate that NATO troops resorted to indiscriminate use of artillery and air strikes against civilians.
NATO forces control major cities but the countryside where three quarters of Afghan people live is beyond their control. The London Sunday Times featured a devastating article in November lampooning the German troops in the relatively tranquil northern Afghanistan who refuse to venture out of their camps after dark. The report, titled "For us ze war is over by tea time, ja", cited that in one case, German troops engaged in an operation near Kunduz left the battlefield by afternoon so they could return to the safety of their camp by sundown, and that German troops "spend much of their time in an enormous base, complete with beer halls and nightclubs".
Contrary to NATO propaganda, the Taliban seem to face no difficulty in recruiting new volunteers from a vast pool of disaffected Afghans. This is quite understandable, since, as an Asia Foundation survey in December assessed, some 80% of Afghans are disillusioned with the Kabul government.
Clearly, from the Bush administration's perspective, there couldn't be a worse time for the unraveling in Pakistan. But what is it that the US can do to ensure that Pakistan stabilizes? The simple answer is, precious little at the moment. Even with the elections delayed, the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid that supports Musharraf cannot hope to return to power - unless, of course, the elections are blatantly rigged, which, in the present circumstances, cannot be ruled out.
In all probability, in a relatively free and fair election, an alliance of Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League and the late Bhutto's PPP (Pakistan People's Party) may well capture power. But that may set the stage for a confrontation between the democratic opposition and Musharraf. Can Washington prevail on Sharif and Asif Zardari (Bhutto's husband) to let bygones be bygones and work under Musharraf?
But even assuming that a PML-PPP coalition government refrains from confronting Musharraf, its willingness to go along with the "war on terror" on Washington's terms is highly doubtful. Any elected government will be sensitive to the deep-rooted opposition to the war in Pakistan public opinion.
US special forces in Pakistan
Pentagon sources have been quoted by influential columnist and former Army intelligence analyst and consultant William Arkin as claiming that Washington is expecting, in terms of an agreement reached in November with Islamabad, to "vastly expand" the US military presence in Pakistan's frontier area. Arkin wrote in the Washington Post that the "first US personnel could be on the ground in Pakistan by early in the new year".
The new head of the US Special Operations Command, Admiral Eric T Olson, visited Islamabad in August, November and December, meeting with Musharraf, the chairman of the Pakistan Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, General Tariq Majid, and the commander of the military and paramilitary troops in northwest Pakistan, Lieutenant General Muhammad Masood Alam. Arkin says that what appears to have been under discussion is a "shift for the US military and for US-Pakistan relations" whereby Musharraf will lift restrictions on US involvement in cross-border military operations by special forces as well as paramilitary operations within Pakistani territory.
The Washington Post has separately reported that planning for the proposed US military deployment in Pakistan is already underway at the headquarters of the US Special Operations Command in Tampa, Florida. The report characterized the proposed counterinsurgency campaign as a "vivid example of the American military's asserting a bigger role in a part of Pakistan that the Central Intelligence Agency has overseen almost exclusively since September 11".
The project is no doubt critically important for the success of Afghan operations. NATO has been insisting for some time that Washington cannot any longer "afford to leave the Pakistani military to clean up its side of the border".
However, Bhutto's assassination may have upturned the project for the deployment of US special forces in Pakistan. In the present volatile situation there is bound to be an overwhelming popular uproar if Musharraf is seen as acquiescing with US military operations - under whatever pretext - on Pakistani soil. With Bhutto's death, there has been a paradigm shift in the power calculus. Bhutto might have, arguably, gone along with the new US plan, but not Sharif.
No doubt, Sharif's strength lies in creating allies among conservatives and Islamists. Indeed, he is the only national figure left in Pakistani politics today who can possibly walk the tightrope between Pashtun tribalism and Islamism in the Pakistani northwest. But that's about it. Sharif will militate against any perceived dilution of Pakistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity by the US military.
Conceivably, Washington brought immense pressure to bear on Musharraf to agree to Washington's carefully crafted schematic plan to station US special forces on Pakistani soil. Any "vastly increased" presence of these forces in the northwest regions will be anathema to the Pakistani military. Apart from the aspect of professional pride and patriotism, the Pakistani military will be uneasy about a US presence in the northwest close to where almost the entire nuclear arsenal of Pakistan is kept.
The new year has come, but it is unlikely special forces are heading for Pakistan's northwest any time soon. Bhutto's assassination has taken the pressure off Musharraf and the Pakistani military for complying with the US plan, no matter the imperative needs emanating out of NATO's war in Afghanistan.
M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JA03Df02.html
Clarín:
Oscar Niemeyer, un genio de las formas
El genial arquitecto brasileño acaba de cumplir 100 años y sigue en plena actividad. Ligado profundamente al espíritu sensual de su pueblo, en esta entrevista habla de sus trabajos y de sus ideas innovadoras.
Por: Chris Dercon
28.12.2007
El pulcro anciano de cabello negro como el azabache que está en la recepción del Copacabana Palace debe de ser el músico Sergio Mendes. Es conocido por sus ritmos de bossa nova pasados por el filtro estadounidense en las décadas de 1960 y 1970. El día anterior me había comprado su trabajo más reciente, Timeless, en una de las mayores tiendas de discos del mundo, Modern Sound, en la Rua Barata Ribiero de Copacabana. Mi visita a Río estuvo llena de música. Oscar Niemeyer rindió su habitual tributo a la brasileñidad de los grandes genios de la bossa nova, sus viejos amigos Vinicius de Moraes y Antonio Carlos Jobim, cuyo encanto y sensualidad gusta de comparar con su propia arquitectura. Sergio Mendes debe de ser demasiado estadounidense para él. Sin embargo, parece ser que Niemeyer -él mismo un gran guitarrista- prefiere las melodías populares del nordeste brasileño. La víspera se había celebrado en Copacabana una manifestación en favor de los discapacitados que estuvo acompañada por un trío eléctrico bahíano, uno de esos inmensos escenarios móviles que difunden ritmos brasileños por medio de una megafonía formidable. Por la noche fuimos con Cesar, Maria, Luciano, Cesinha y Julia –los brasileños tienen unos nombres fantásticos– al club Carioca da Gema en Lapa, el centro de Río, para escuchar samba tradicional.
¿Qué otra cosa se puede hacer en el Día nacional del samba? Pasamos por delante del iluminadísimo Sambodromo de Niemeyer, el estadio dedicado al samba y construido como una calle inmensa jalonada de tribunas donde las escuelas de samba estaban ya ensayando para el carnaval. ¡Una fiesta nacional dedicada al samba! Con la estrella Gilberto Gil dirigiendo el Ministerio de Cultura, la música popular no es sólo un derecho humano, sino un asunto de Estado. Todos se confunden en la pista de baile: jóvenes y viejos, gordos y anoréxicas, mulatos, blancos y negros, prostitutas feas y atractivos travestis, familias completas y guapísimas mujeres solas. Todos se mueven al adictivo tictacticbom del samba. Algunos bailarines imitan el sonido profundo de la letra. Tictacticbom -"el samba nunca morirá"-, la boca se abre para gritar que no; tictacticbom -"el samba soy yo"-, las manos y los dedos se alzan en el aire; tictacticbom -"en mi casa siempre hay samba"-, las cabezas asienten con energía; tictacticbom -"aunque pierda la casa me queda el samba"-, brazos alzados con espíritu angélico; tictacticbom -"porque la samba soy yo"-, dedos señalándose el pecho: tictacticbom –"mañana todo irá mejor"-, manos enviando besos; tictacticbom -"porque el samba soy yo".
Para el legendario arquitecto brasileño Oscar Niemeyer esas cuestiones son mucho más importantes, afirma, que la arquitectura como tal. "Hay mucha miseria en este mundo y, en particular, en Brasil", me dice; "pero ¿qué podemos hacer?" Niemeyer arde en deseos de mencionar a su viejo amigo Fidel Castro, a sus nuevos amigos Hugo Chávez y Evo Morales, los presidentes Venezuela y Bolivia, así como a su amigo brasileño, Lula, que es sobre todo su amigo porque mantiene una política exterior amistosa con las políticas de Chávez y Morales.
Niemeyer tiene muchísimos amigos, de los cuales sólo unos pocos son arquitectos. Lo que todos esos insignes políticos tienen en común es, según Niemeyer, que actúan para mejorar la condición humana y, por lo tanto, son más importantes que los arquitectos. "Como la poesía, la arquitectura por sí misma no puede cambiar el mundo", afirma Niemeyer con tono resignado. Pero, ¿qué ha hecho o hace él para mejorar el mundo? Cuando tuvimos nuestro encuentro, Niemeyer estaba diseñando un centro de congresos en Fortaleza, en el nordeste del país, para el Movimiento de los sin Tierra, una organización de trabajadores pobres de las zonas rurales. "Un arquitecto solo no puede solucionar sus problemas ni los problemas de la favela, porque eso es como luchar contra la naturaleza o contra la naturaleza de una montaña. Sin embargo, podemos ofrecer mejoras paralelas, como construir escuelas, o nuevas infraestructuras deportivas o culturales".
A lo largo de este año se ha hecho público el anuncio de que va a construir el estadio donde se celebrará el Mundial de Fútbol que acogerá Brasil en el año 2014, y que si alcanza a inaugurarlo lo hará con 107 años cumplidos. También se ha dado a conocer el proyecto de un gran complejo cultural y de ocio en Avilés, frente al mar, su primera obra en España. Por todo ello, Niemeyer aceptó que centráramos nuestra conversación en el futuro. Al fin y al cabo, cuando uno está a punto de cumplir cien años, "tienes que arreglar algunas cosas, como una llamada al orden". Días antes había mandado al diario Folha de Sao Paulo un manifiesto titulado Acerca del futuro y sigue haciendo radicales declaraciones públicas. Por ejemplo, con ocasión de su nonagésimo noveno cumpleaños, el 15 de diciembre del año pasado, criticó abiertamente a su amigo Lula por no respetar la ideología de la vieja izquierda, en un momento en que el antaño ferviente militante había subrayado la necesidad de una posición más moderada. "No tengo nada más que decir al respecto", dijo Niemeyer, quien prefirió hablar de su nueva escultura en La Habana que muestra a un pequeño cubano empujando una bandera frente a una figura diabólica, y que supuestamente representa a Bush. "Bush no es nada, no existe", espetó con una expresión de odio en la cara que ni Chávez podría superar.
Un blanco fácil
Para algunos críticos, Niemeyer resulta un blanco fácil. Es un comunista de la vieja escuela, un auténtico estalinista, con cierta tendencia por populistas como Chávez y Morales. Se presenta a sí mismo como un personaje extraído de alguna epopeya ("soy un hombre sencillo"), controlando con cuidado el más mínimo detalle y reescribiendo en caso de que sea necesario su propia historia. Y, lo que es peor, sus recientes proyectos parecen repetitivos; en algunos casos (como en la escultura de Bush), incluso van más allá del kitsch sentimental. Sin embargo, la poco ortodoxa modernidad de Niemeyer es hoy inmensamente popular. "Es Mies pasado por el ácido", declaró un famoso crítico de arquitectura en un artículo de The New York Times sobre Niemeyer, "el último de los modernos".
Sí, es muy fácil atacar con los argumentos expuestos al centenario arquitecto Oscar Niemeyer, ¡el arquitecto más longevo de la historia de la civilización occidental! Así que decidí adoptar un punto de vista moderado y escucharlo atentamente a él y a sus colaboradores. Me reuní con Fair Valera, el fiel jefe de su estudio, donde lleva ya trabajando más de 35 años. Visita a su jefe todos los días para repasar los bocetos que éste sigue realizando cotidianamente y que a un lego le parecen unos garabatos incomprensibles.
Atrás quedaron los tiempos de las amplias curvas en los proyectos de edificios monumentales o los erotizantes dibujos ("La forma sigue lo femenino", le gusta decir a Niemeyer) de voluptuosos desnudos femeninos. Algunos dibujos ampliados se han reproducido de modo exquisito con mosaicos de cerámica blanca para adornar los interiores de Niemeyer, como el recién inaugurado restaurante Olimpo, situado sobre la terminal del ferry en Niterói, una variante light de la radical sensualidad del museo cercano.
¿Es la arquitectura de Niemeyer forma y sólo forma? "No, es tecnología engarzada con la naturaleza", afirma Valera. Acerca del legado arquitectónico de Niemeyer, las opiniones difieren. Hablé con uno de los historiadores de la arquitectura más importantes de Brasil, Lauro Cavalcanti, curador de una exposición en el centenario de Niemeyer inaugurada a principios del 2007 en el Paço Imperial, un antiguo palacio de estilo barroco portugués en pleno centro de Río. La exposición presentaba al visitante unas versiones ampliadas de los escritos de Niemeyer y luego se concentraba en los dibujos y las maquetas de los proyectos recientes, como la piscina de Potsdam, cuya finalización está prevista para el 2009. "Nadie entiende de verdad los dibujos arquitectónicos, todo tiene que ponerse en un texto. Los políticos, sólo entienden el texto, en caso de que entiendan algo de arquitectura", admite Niemeyer. Tuvo que "simplificar un poco" la piscina de Potsdam para conseguir la aprobación final. El proyecto fue paralizado en mayo de 2006, cuando el ministro de economía Ulrich Junghanns supo que el edificio iba a costar más de lo previsto. ¿Por qué una piscina de Niemeyer tenía que costar más que cualquier otra piscina?, preguntaron los políticos locales. Sin embargo, ahora que Niemeyer cumplió los 100 años (el 15 de diciembre), todos están orgullosos de haberle dado el nihil obstat. También la compañía Vitra, famosa por ser muy escrupulosa, le ha encargado un proyecto que pronto se edificará en su sede en Weil am Rhein. En realidad, estar presente ahí (junto a otros arquitectos ilustres, como Gehry, Hadid, Sanaa y Herzog & DeMeuron) es como entrar en el hall de la fama de la arquitectura contemporánea.
Aunque con ocasión de la búsqueda de un arquitecto para el ya frustrado proyecto para un museo Guggenheim- Río, el alcalde de l a ciudad consiguió ofender a Niemeyer al declarar: "Queremos un arquitecto, no un escultor". Por lo tanto, acudí a Niterói para visitar a Luiz Guilherme Vergara, un niemeyeriano creyente que dirige el museo inaugurado allí en 1996. Con todas sus curvas exteriores e interiores, ¿no resulta un edificio bastante difícil para exhibir obras de arte? "Hay que usar este edificio como una máquina para la percepción y presentar las muestras en consonancia", afirmó Vergara, quien también trabaja con la Fundación Oscar Niemeyer y el propio Niemeyer para crear junto al museo un centro comunitario orientado a promover la creatividad de los pobres de Niterói. Niemeyer siempre se ha mostrado generoso con los desvalidos, a veces haciendo incluso proyectos sin cobrar, como el caso reciente de una plaza para la Universidad de La Habana, su primer proyecto arquitectónico en Cuba. Fidel Castro. Castro suele decir que Niemeyer y él son "los últimos comunistas de este planeta".
"Al final, el capitalista es un auténtico perdedor", coincide Niemeyer con Castro. Le preocupa que "Fidel no está muy bien", sin mencionar en absoluto su propio estado físico tras haber sufrido una rotura de cadera. Luego sonríe mientras me cuenta la siguiente anécdota, una historia que habrá contado mil veces: "Nunca he querido subirme a un avión (Niemeyer viaja desde hace décadas –ha llegado incluso a Caracas– con el mismo chofer, a quien ha construido como regalo una modesta casa cerca de la favela). Así que Fidel vino a Río.
Con ocasión de una visita a la oficina en Copacabana, era ya más de la medianoche, resultó que el ascensor no funcionaba. Tuvimos que despertar a un vecino para pasar por su apartamento y utilizar el montacargas. Mi vecino abrió la puerta y casi le da un ataque de corazón al encontrarse con un imponente Fidel que le ofrecía un puro a modo de disculpa".
Presto atención a la débil voz de Niemeyer, y a su mezcla de francés y portugués. Quién sabe, quizá sea una de sus últimas entrevistas. Niemeyer me ha recibido en el minúsculo dormitorio de su apartamento de Ipanema. La sala de estar estaba llena esa mañana de polvo y ruido, con operarios dedicados a abrir grandes agujeros en el techo. A lo lejos se oían las voces amortiguadas de criadas y cuidadores. No hay nada sofisticado en el hogar que comparte (¡acaba de casarse!) con su nueva esposa, Vera Lucia Cabreira, que ha cumplido 60 años. Tampoco hay nada sofisticado, salvo la espléndida vista, en la oficina situada en el apartamento de Copacabana, donde varios miembros de la familia, también arquitectos, mantienen vivo el legado arquitectónico del abuelo Niemeyer. Y están también el archivo y el desordenado estudio ocupado por un pequeño grupo de atareados arquitectos e ingenieros, ambos en el centro de la ciudad. Como ocurre en el estudio de otro de los genios arquitectónicos de Brasil, el reciente ganador del premio Pritzker, Paulo Mendes da Rocha, no hay ni una sola computadora verdaderamente sofisticada. Me pregunto qué software utiliza José Carlos Sussekind, su ingeniero de confianza, para calcular los diseños de Niemeyer y enfrentarse a sus constantes peticiones de arcos cada vez más amplios y planos voladizos de hormigón reforzado.
Niemeyer habla con toda naturalidad de abarcar más metros sin apoyo alguno, mientras cita a Le Corbusier diciendo "la arquitectura es invención" y "sólo me gustan las iglesias por los grandes espacios". Sin embargo, salvo por la mención al gran modelo Le Corbusier, tampoco hay nada religioso ni sofisticado en Niemeyer. La sofisticación perdida sólo se encuentra en la vieja casa familiar de Canoas, cerca de Boa Vista –los nombres lo dicen todo–, donde, en medio del exuberante verdor de la montaña, se encuentra ahora la Fundación Oscar Niemeyer. La casa de Canoas, construida en 1951, es un ejemplo perfecto de cómo Niemeyer aceptó sin reparos desde muy pronto las limitaciones y los desafíos del entorno natural. "Hay que saber enfrentarse a cada terreno. Construyo con la naturaleza, no contra ella". ¿Y por qué esas rampas que parecen interminables? "Las rampas ofrecen la oportunidad de disfrutar del paisaje y de la arquitectura en su conjunto; la rampa es como un viaje".
En la casa de Canoas se encuentran algunos muebles originales de Niemeyer diseñados a finales de la década de 1970. En la última edición de Art Basel Miami Beach, los precios de esos accesorios modernos se cotizaron entre los 35.000 y lo 55.000 euros. La Fundación Oscar Niemeyer se está planteando volver a fabricar algunos de esos muebles. Los beneficios se destinarían a proyectos educativos.
Seguí hablando con Niemeyer, sentado en pijama en una vieja butaca. Uno de sus cuidadores –un joven negro– dormitaba al otro lado del dormitorio. Vera, la nueva esposa, secretaria y amante durante muchos años, decidió unirse a nosotros. Se disculpó por el desorden de la casa. Su boda con Niemeyer sorprendió a muchísimas personas; y, entre ellas, la menos sorprendida no fue Anna-Maria, la hija única del arquitecto y su esposa Annita, fallecida en 2004 a los 76 años. Anna-Maria, que ronda los sesenta, se enteró de la boda un par de horas antes de la ceremonia. "Al lado de un hombre tiene que haber una mujer, y todo lo demás está en manos de Dios", comentó con satisfacción un Niemeyer mujeriego y ateo cuando felicité a los recién casados. Habíamos acordado hablar del futuro, pero Niemeyer volvió una y otra vez al pasado. Considera como uno de sus grandes logros el recinto universitario de Constantina en Argelia, construido en la década de 1970. La noticia es nueva, porque hasta hace poco sus proyectos más preciados eran todavía la iglesia de San Francisco, el casino y el puerto deportivo de Pampulha cerca de Belo Horizonte, en Minas Gerais. Los edificios pioneros de Pampulha sólo pudieron construirse gracias a la fe ciega del entonces gobernador de Minas Gerais, Juscelino Kubitschek, más tarde presidente y fundador de Brasilia. "Como la mayoría de los políticos, no entendía nada de arquitectura; y, en realidad, eso permitió que esos imaginativos edificios pudieran construirse".
¿Y qué ocurre con la conservación y la restauración? "Lo construido, construido está. Igual que con los seres humanos, habría que dejar que la arquitectura envejeciera."
Un agujero en la modernidad
No es posible pasar por alto la contribución de Niemeyer a la arquitectura del siglo XX. Hizo un agujero en la modernidad inyectando a la doctrina internacionalista las tradiciones y los lenguajes populares y en especial locales (brasileños), desde el barroco colonial hasta la naturaleza tropical. Eso lo convirtió en un arquitecto tan importante. Y es probable que explique también por qué es tan popular entre los jóvenes diseñadores y artistas contemporáneos, desde el diseñador de moda Nicolas Ghesquière, director de Balenciaga, hasta la artista Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, pasando por el fotógrafo Andreas Gursky. El tropicalismo de Niemeyer y otros visionarios brasileños se encuentra hoy en el mismísimo centro de las escenas culturales de París, Londres y Nueva York. Al igual que otros radicales del arte brasileños, como el músico Caetano Veloso o el artista Hélio Oiticica, el arquitecto Niemeyer creó una sensibilidad lírica y populista. A Niemeyer no sólo le gusta combinar curvas, sino que encuentra inspiración todos los días en las curvas de las montañas situadas cerca de Río y en las de las mujeres brasileñas. Su autobiografía publicada en 1998, Les courbes du temps está profusamente ilustrada con formas femeninas. Como dijo Rem Koolhaas tras una visita a la oficina de Niemeyer en Copacabana: "Niemeyer es la prueba viviente de que en la arquitectura interesante, el sexo y el comunismo van juntos".
El propio Niemeyer es, por una vez, más realista: "El verdadero reto para la arquitectura del futuro sólo está planteado por la tecnología, y la tecnología nunca ha sido tan generosa con la arquitectura. Pero el arquitecto tiene que ser capaz de reflexionar también sobre otras cosas además de la arquitectura. No hay que convertirse en especialista, porque en ese caso no puede uno inventar ni tener influencia". "La política, la filosofía, la literatura, la música, las artes visuales –dirá–, todas esas disciplinas desempeñan un papel igual de importante que la ingeniería. Los arquitectos deberían querer ser ante todo intelectuales." En este punto Niemeyer empezaba a cansarse, perdía la voz: "Quiero seguir construyendo para los seres humanos, para permitirles encontrarse con otros seres humanos. Una arquitectura que organice encuentros humanos, eso es lo que me interesa. Y la dibujo todos los días". Aquel día Niemeyer sonaba como el samba. Pensé, ojalá que tenga una vida aún más larga.
(c) La Vanguardia y Clarín
Traducción de Juan Gabriel López Guix
Niemeyer Básico
Explorador de las posibilidades plásticas y sensuales del hormigón armado y del vidrio, es uno de los arquitectos más influyentes del siglo veinte y el autor del proyecto de los principales edificios de la capital administrativa de Brasil, Brasilia, que se construyó entre 1956 y 1960. Sus primeras obras fueron el casino y la iglesia de San Francisco, a orillas del lago Pampulha. Estas obras, especialmente la iglesia, decorada por el artista plástico Cándido Portinari, le dieron fama nacional e internacional. Afiliado al Partido Comunista, revolucionario ortodoxo, lírico y populista en su concepción general de la arquitectura moderna a cuyos duros materiales logró trasladar las curvas de la naturaleza y del cuerpo femenino, Niemeyer diseñó desde sambódromos hasta memoriales y edificios de oficinas. Se opuso siempre al concepto de "vivienda social" pues sostiene que éstas no deben ser menos bellas que las de los ricos.
Copyright 1996-2008 Clarín.com - All rights reserved
http://www.revistaenie.clarin.com/notas/2007/12/28/01573475.html
Guardian:
Kenya 'facing humanitarian disaster'
Matthew Weaver and agencies
Wednesday January 2, 2008
Aid agencies today warned of a humanitarian disaster in Kenya amid claims of "ethnic cleansing" and increased international pressure on Kenyan leaders to end the post-election violence.
The Kenya Red Cross said up to 100,000 people had so far been displaced. According to Kenya's Human Rights Commission, more than 300 have been killed.
More than 5,000 people have fled to neighbouring Uganda, and several hundred people have fled to Tanzania.
Abbas Gullet, the secretary general of the Kenya Red Cross, described the situation as "national disaster", adding: "A few hundred thousand will need assistance for some time."
Meanwhile, Kenya's disputed president, Mwai Kibaki, and his main rival, the opposition leader Raila Odinga, have come under mounting diplomatic pressure to reach a compromise to end the violence.
In a joint statement, the foreign secretary, David Miliband, and his US counterpart, Condoleezza Rice, acknowledged the "irregularities" in the elections but called on both Kibaki and Odinga to negotiate.
The head of the African Union, the Ghanaian president John Kufuor, is due to meet both leaders tomorrow in a mediation effort.
His mission is being backed by Gordon Brown, who said he would do everything in his power to promote reconciliation.
"The whole international community has been coming together to try to bring an end to violence in Kenya and I believe that there is a responsibility on the part of all opposition and government leaders in Kenya to call on their supporters to end the violence that's taking place," Brown said.
Brown has been in phone contact with Odinga and Kibaki, whose re-election on Sunday is widely seen to have been rigged.
"Millions of people queued up in Kenya to cast their vote. They deserve a government that brings about stability and prosperity," Brown said.
Yesterday Odinga rejected a plea by Brown to negotiate with Kibaki, saying he would only do so if Kibaki acknowledged that he had lost the election. He has urged his supporters to take part in a rally against the result tomorrow.
Kibaki has invited all members of the newly elected parliament, which is dominated by his opponents, to a meeting to soothe tensions.
Anger at the poll's result has stirred ethnic tensions. In the worst incident, up to 50 ethnic Kikuyus were burned alive as they sheltered in a church in the Rift Valley city of Eldoret.
Eyewitness reports of victims being hacked as they fled echoed those from the Rwandan genocide in 1994, in which more than 500,000 people were killed.
Red Cross officials visiting the Moi University hospital, in Eldoret, reported seeing people who had suffered gunshot and arrow wounds. "The hospital is overwhelmed with the number of casualties," Gullet said.
"One tribe is targeting another one in a fashion that can rightly be described as ethnic cleansing," an unnamed senior police official told the AFP news agency.
Kibaki's government has accused Odinga's supporters of the violence, while Odinga accused the government of "genocide". The UN's humanitarian information service reported that 30 checkpoints had been set up between Burnt Forest and Eldoret by vigilantes.
More than 5,000 people have fled to Uganda. "If you are not of the right ethnic group, it's no go," one Red Cross official was reported as saying. John Okello, a Nairobi doctor, said clinics around the city were running short of basic materials such as white gauze because so many people had been arriving for treatment suffering from machete wounds.
Accounts of the fire at the church in Eldoret have continued to emerge. A mob of around 2,000 arrived at the building, George Karanja, whose family had sought refuge there, said. "The mattresses that people were sleeping on caught fire. There was a stampede, and people fell on one another," he said.
The 37-year-old helped rescue at least 10 people from the flames, but added: "I could not manage to pull out my sister's son. He was screaming ... he died." First aid workers were stopped by vigilantes who challenged them to declare their ethnicity.
There are more than 40 tribes in Kenya. The largest, the Kikuyu, Kibaki's tribe, is accused of using its dominance of politics and business to the detriment of others. Odinga is from the Luo tribe, a smaller but still major tribe that claims it has been marginalised. While Kibaki and Odinga have support from across the tribal spectrum, those responsible for the violence see politics in strictly ethnic terms.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/kenya/story/0,,2234154,00.html
Jeune Afrique: Au moins 35 personnes brûlées
dans une église, 306 morts depuis l'élection
KENYA - 2 janvier 2008 - par AFP
Au moins 35 personnes, dont des femmes et des enfants, sont mortes mardi dans l'incendie volontaire d'une église au Kenya, portant à 306 morts le bilan des violences interethniques et des émeutes depuis la réélection contestée du président Mwai Kibaki le 27 décembre.
Les violences en cours dans la vallée du Rift, notamment à Eldoret (ouest), pourraient être qualifiées de "nettoyage ethnique", a déclaré à l'AFP un haut responsable de la police.
Près de la ville d'Eldoret (300 km à l'ouest de Nairobi), des assaillants ont incendié à l'essence l'église en bois dans laquelle 300 à 400 personnes s'étaient réfugiées pour fuir les violences, ont indiqué des responsables kényans citant des survivants et des sources policières.
"Au moins 35 personnes ont été brûlées vives dans l'église, certaines étaient méconnaissables. Il y avait des femmes et des enfants", a déclaré à l'AFP un haut responsable de la Croix-Rouge locale. Selon un autre responsable de l'organisation, 42 personnes "grièvement brûlées" ont été hospitalisées.
Eldoret et Kisumu, situées à environ 80 km à l'est de la frontière avec l'Ouganda, sont les deux villes kényanes les plus touchées par les violences qui ont redoublé d'intensité mardi.
Dans la nuit de lundi à mardi, 18 personnes avaient été tuées à Eldoret, selon la police qui y a reçu l'ordre de tirer à vue. Et mardi matin, 55 nouveaux cadavres étaient rassemblés à la morgue à Kisumu, fief de l'opposant Raila Odinga qui conteste l'élection de M. Kibaki. Par ailleurs, à Monbasa (ouest), 10 personnes ont péri dans l'incendie criminel de leur maison.
Dénonçant "une tuerie insensée", la Croix-Rouge kényane a estimé qu'au moins 70.000 personnes avaient été déplacées dans l'ouest du pays par les violences. Des images aériennes montrent des centaines de maisons et huttes incendiées et des barrages routiers installés tous les dix kilomètres sur les routes.
Des centaines de Kényans de la tribu Kikuyu dont est issu le président Kibaki se sont réfugiés en Ouganda, selon des responsables ougandais, pour fuir des opérations de police et des actes de vengeance d'autres tribus, loyales à l'opposant Odinga.
L'Union africaine et l'Union européenne ont appelé mardi à "la retenue" et au "dialogue" les représentants des deux camps, l'UE souhaitant qu'une "solution crédible et transparente" soit trouvée aux aux problèmes suscités par l'élection présidentielle.
Gordon Brown Ayant téléphoné à MM. Kibaki et Odinga, le Premier ministre britannique Gordon Brown les a appelés à "se parler" et à "explorer la possibilité qu'ils puissent se rassembler dans un gouvernement".
Comme en réponse, le président Kibaki a convenu "que les dirigeants des partis politiques devraient se rencontrer immédiatement et appeler publiquement au calme".
La secrétaire d'Etat américaine, Condoleezza Rice, et le ministre britannique des affaires étrangères, David Miliband, ont lancé de leur côté mercredi dans un communiqué commun un appel aux dirigeants kényans pour qu'ils "fassent preuve d'esprit de compromis".
"Nous nous félicitons de l'appel lancé par l'Union africaine (UA) à mettre fin aux violences et appelons tous les leaders politiques à s'engager dans un esprit de compromis qui puisse placer les intérêts démocratiques du Kenya en première ligne", ont ajouté les auteurs du communiqué.
Raila Odinga avait auparavant averti dans un entretien à la BBC qu'il n'accepterait de "négocier" avec le président sortant que si M. Kibaki reconnaissait avoir perdu les élections. "Les voix peuvent être recomptées (...), avait-il dit. Nous sommes disposés à faire venir une équipe internationale de juges".
Une "marche pacifique" que l'opposition voulait organiser jeudi à Nairobi a été interdite par la police.
M. Odinga avait accusé dimanche M. Kibaki de fraude sur au moins 300.000 voix. L'écart officiel entre les deux candidats est de 231.728 voix.
Le président est issu de l'ethnie kikuyu, la plus nombreuse du Kenya, implantée autour du Mont Kenya, dans la province centrale. Dans cette province, il a recueilli plus de 90% de suffrages.
Le chef de l'opposition est issu de l'ethnie Luo, implantée sur les rives du lac Victoria. Dans cette province, il a lui aussi raflé 90% des voix.
La mission d'observation de l'UE des élections générales kényanes a demandé mardi une enquête indépendante sur les résultats de la présidentielle, estimant qu'elle n'avait "pas respecté les critères internationaux et régionaux d'élections démocratiques".
http://www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/article_
depeche.asp?art_cle=AFP23718aumoinoitce0
Mail & Guardian:
Is Nigeria's new Dubai a white elephant?
Estelle Shirbon | Tinapa, Nigeria
02 January 2008
In the minds of its creators, the Tinapa resort in south-eastern Nigeria will rival Dubai or London as a shopping and trading paradise for rich and enterprising Nigerians.
In reality, about $340-million has been spent since 2005, but 80 000 square metres of pristine retail space lie empty, the silence broken only by the footsteps of a few security guards.
The 243-room hotel with a river view is not quite finished. Neither is the water park with its giant, snaking slide and wave pool, or the movie theme park -- though a King Kong figure already tops a golden dome.
Originally set for 2006, the launch keeps being postponed, and many fear that inertia is setting in, both because of construction delays and bureaucracy.
Nigeria is Africa's top oil producer, but decades of misrule and corruption have left most of its 140-million people stuck in poverty and its infrastructure in decay. In that context, Tinapa is a bold experiment -- visionary to some, foolhardy to others.
Nigeria's biggest banks have invested in it, though the state of Cross River where the resort is located and the federal government have contributed more and are now heavily in debt.
Predictions
"The investors knew it would take time for the vision to take hold," said Donald Duke, the former Cross River governor who masterminded the project, in an editorial this month.
He predicted that three years after completion, Tinapa would be drawing three million visitors a year and generating an annual 300-billion naira ($2,5-billion) with an enormous multiplier effect on the economy of Cross River and Nigeria as a whole.
But such predictions are a long way from fruition.
"This place should be booming, but instead it is empty," said Ushie Peter Tinker, a project manager at a NGO, who had taken time off from work in the nearby city of Calabar to visit Tinapa on a recent morning.
Some of the empty shops are already branded with the logos of prestigious clothes, textiles or cosmetics chains, and cellphone networks MTN and Celtel, the two biggest in Nigeria. Three banks have opened branches, but there are no customers in sight.
Only one shop was fully stocked, with colourful fabrics imported from other West African countries, but even though it displayed in its window a letter from Tinapa management authorising the sale of duty-free products, it was closed.
"Customs have been preventing us from selling. They say we have to pay duty. That's why no one else has opened. Meanwhile, our rent is running but our patience is running thin," said a member of staff who did not wish to be named.
This is ominous. Customs are one of the most corrupt institutions in Nigeria, the finance minister said last month, and have a powerful vested interest against duty-free trade.
But Bassey Ndem, Tinapa's chief executive, said its free-trade status has received political approval and customs chiefs will soon match that with the necessary paperwork. He said Tinapa will succeed because there is pent-up demand for it from affluent Nigerians who currently travel to Europe, the United States or Dubai on shopping holidays.
The idea is for them to have fun at the water park and movie centre, and satisfy their appetite for fashionable brands at duty-free prices. There are plans to add a golf course, casino and games arcade.
Glamour
Tinapa has spent big money advertising on news channel CNN.
"Our target customers don't watch Nigerian television; they watch CNN. To them, Nigeria is not glamorous. We want them to associate Tinapa in their minds with Dubai or Paris," said Ndem.
The other key target group for Tinapa is Nigerian traders who take frequent flights to Dubai, India or China to buy goods that they bring back as luggage and sell at home.
"The traders who jump on the plane every two weeks to Dubai or the Far East, and those who would like to but can't because they don't have a visa or they can't afford the flights -- these are the people who will make up the numbers we need," said Ndem.
In theory, wholesale goods will be duty free inside Tinapa, though traders will have to pay taxes when they sell the goods outside. This would still be cheaper than flights and visas.
One thing that Tinapa already has going for it is the quality of the infrastructure. Designed by South African and Nigerian architects and built by the Nigerian arm of a German construction group, it is unlike anything else in Nigeria.
"It's like being in Europe. It's something every African can be proud of," said Peary Idornigie, of Ecobank, one of Tinapa's financiers. He was on a private visit to see for himself. "For the first time I feel proud to be associated with Africa and Nigeria," he said.
Reuters
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=328601&area=/insight/insight__africa/
Página/12:
Un año diferente
Por Washington Uranga
Miércoles, 02 de Enero de 2008
Los gestos y los hechos producidos desde la asunción de Cristina Fernández, en particular el encuentro que la cúpula del Episcopado encabezada por el cardenal Jorge Mario Bergoglio sostuvo con la presidenta el pasado 19 de diciembre, cambiaron en forma sustancial la perspectiva de la relación Gobierno-Iglesia para el año que comienza. No hay que pensar que desaparecieron las dificultades, pero está claro que el camino está allanado y por lo menos están dadas las condiciones para discutir sobre las diferencias, que sin duda existen, entre las máximas autoridades nacionales y la dirigencia de la Conferencia Episcopal.
Entre los hechos positivos que abonan lo anterior debe contarse la apertura del diálogo directo entre las máximas instancias del Ejecutivo y los jerarcas eclesiásticos. El encuentro en Casa Rosada, según todos los participantes, fue cordial. Pero tampoco se habló de cuestiones de fondo, ni de los asuntos que separan. Apenas se avanzó sobre algunas consideraciones sobre lo social, el ámbito en el que existen las mayores coincidencias entre Gobierno e Iglesia. Los obispos volvieron a entregar el último documento episcopal en el que tampoco faltaron los mensajes hacia el Gobierno, pero no ahondaron en el contenido del mismo. Para más adelante, seguramente en el transcurso de este 2008, se dejaron los temas más espinosos.
Parte del acercamiento, además de la voluntad de las partes, se hizo posible gracias a los buenos oficios del secretario de Culto, Guillermo Olivieri. Si bien se trata de una tarea que es propia de su incumbencia también es cierto que el titular de Culto ha sabido construir una buena relación con gran parte de los obispos y ganarse la confianza de la mayoría. No menos importante es la excelente relación que mantiene con el obispo Sergio Fenoy, Secretario General del Episcopado. El jefe de Gabinete, Alberto Fernández, también aportó lo suyo en esta construcción de relaciones en la nueva etapa. Por el lado episcopal el grupo de obispos moderados cuyo referente principal es el titular de Pastoral Social, Jorge Casaretto, puso su cuota insistiendo una y otra vez frente al propio Bergoglio a quien le solicitaron que generara gestos de aproximación a las autoridades nacionales.
La presidenta Cristina Fernández allanó el camino con algunas declaraciones que sonaron a gloria a los obispos. Las unas tienen que ver con la poca disposición de la mandataria a facilitar legislaciones que vayan en contra de lo que la Iglesia considera el “derecho a la vida” desde la concepción hasta la muerte natural. Léase: no a la despenalización del aborto y no a la eutanasia. Por el lado de la Iglesia, la reciente designación del obispo Agustín Radrizzani, vicepresidente segundo de la Conferencia Episcopal, como nuevo titular de la diócesis de Luján-Mercedes, sede de la basílica nacional, es un mensaje que puede leerse como positivo. Radrizzani es un progresista moderado que, en público y en privado, abogó por el diálogo franco, abierto y sincero entre la Iglesia y el Gobierno. El mismo mantiene un canal abierto permanente con hombres del Gobierno y su posición le trajo incluso algunos disgustos y fuertes intercambios con Bergoglio en los momentos en que el cardenal se instaló en el lugar de la mayor distancia con el ex presidente Néstor Kirchner.
En su escenario, Cristina Fernández sabe que necesita contar con la Iglesia, en particular con su jerarquía, si quiere avanzar con la idea de concertación social. Más allá de la evidente pérdida de influencia que el catolicismo tiene en la vida cotidiana de los argentinos, la institución eclesiástica es un referente necesario para el diálogo. A los obispos, por su parte, les agrada y consideran importante la propuesta de la concertación, porque entienden que ayuda al diálogo ciudadano y a la consolidación institucional. En ese tema estuvo trabajando todo el año anterior la Pastoral Social y, en particular, la Comisión de Justicia y Paz, ambas lideradas por Casaretto.
Pero tampoco puede decirse que el horizonte del 2008 es un camino de rosas en las relaciones entre la Iglesia y el Gobierno. Queda por resolver la designación del obispo castrense que debe suceder en ese cargo al renunciado Antonio Baseotto. El obispado hoy se encuentra vacante. El tema no es fácil, aunque puede haber un principio de acuerdo. El Gobierno, que quiere revisar a fondo el tratado con el Vaticano en lo que respecta a los capellanes militares, estaría dispuesto a dar su acuerdo para el nombramiento del obispo castrense siempre y cuando se garantice un mecanismo de negociación que asegure que, en poco tiempo, la institución de los capellanes militares habrá desaparecido. La Santa Sede habría manifestado su disposición a conversar sobre el tema. En ese caso, el más firme candidato a ser designado nuevo obispo castrense es otro progresista moderado: Carlos Malfa, actual obispo de 9 de Julio.
Si esta cuestión, que parece ser una de los más espinosas, se resuelve de manera adecuada para ambas partes, no habría que esperar mayores sobresaltos en la relación Iglesia-Gobierno. La cooperación en áreas sociales, en cuanto a situaciones de emergencia, ayuda alimentaria y viviendas, está aceitada y en marcha. Cáritas es uno de los interlocutores más confiables del Gobierno en materia social. Los obispos insistirán en no perder terreno en lo que tiene que ver con los aportes que reciben del Estado para mantener la “educación pública de gestión privada” como prefieren llamarle al servicio educativo católico.
En la propia interna católica habrá que dirimir cuotas de poder. El pleito planteado en Iguazú entre el obispo emérito Joaquín Piña y el actual titular Marcelo Martorell debe leerse como mucho más que una rencilla donde se cuestiona el uso del dinero. La disputa es, en términos profundos, entre dos maneras de entender la Iglesia y su compromiso social. Esta es la verdadera división de la Iglesia en Iguazú. Un debate que, sin tener aristas tan críticas, también está instalado en la generalidad de la Iglesia en Argentina. Y esta pelea se da, no sólo pero también, en la designación de nuevos obispos. Habrá que mirar con atención los nombres de aquellos que se promueven a los niveles episcopales. Y también si después de muchos intentos –la mayoría fallidos– los laicos católicos logran mayor protagonismo institucional frente a una jerarquía que, más allá de las palabras, los sigue relegando a un segundo plano.
© 2000-2008 www.pagina12.com.ar |Todos los Derechos Reservados
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-96922-2008-01-02.html
Página/12:
Los tobas y nosotros
DIALOGO CON EL ANTROPOLOGO PEDRO WRIGHT
Mientras avanza velozmente la hibridación cultural y cambian los contextos internacionales y locales, los pueblos originarios procesan las transformaciones combinando integración y resistencia.
Por Leonardo Moledo
Miércoles, 02 de Enero de 2008
El cronista hipotético, que en verano se inclina más a las ciencias sociales por obvias razones meteorológicas, deambula, como siempre sin sentido entre senderos de las ciencias sin sentido, o quizá con demasiado (situación que el Cardenal de Cusa con su coincidentia oppositorum hubiera alabado) y es de este modo que rodando de un extremo a otro del conocimiento va a parar a la oficina de Pedro Wright, investigador del Conicet, doctor en Antropología, posdoctorado en Harvard y profesor adjunto de Antropología simbólica, en la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras; y sin temor, sin siquiera un lejano temblor (y en consecuencia, sin temor y temblor), inicia el interrogatorio por la clásica pregunta que sus lectores ya conocen.
–¿Cuál es su tema de trabajo?
–Dentro del campo amplio de la antropología simbólica me interesa estudiar cómo las sociedades dan sentido a la realidad a través de la religión y de la historia. Hay también un tema que une a los otros dos: heterodoxias socio-religiosas. Es decir, grupos o iglesias que ocupan posiciones periféricas... como los carismáticos católicos, monjes benedictinos (que ahora con este Papa están siendo mayormente legitimados). Dentro del campo espiritista, los grupos llamados esotéricos: ocultistas, rosacruces, teósofos, antroposóficos. Dentro del área indígena, mi proyecto individual es sobre la dimensión simbólica e histórica de los tobas. Así que hago trabajo de campo en Formosa y Chaco, y también con los migrantes a Buenos Aires. Lo que me interesa es conocer las tensiones que viven los grupos qom (como se llaman los tobas a sí mismos, en su lengua). La palabra toba es guaraní, en realidad es tobá, y significa “que tiene la frente ancha”, porque cuando se moría un pariente se cortaban la frente como rasgo de duelo y les quedaba ancha. Lo que me interesa es estudiar cuáles son las tensiones de la modernidad que los atraviesan, y que tienen que ver con ser grupos periféricos dentro de la periferia. Ver cómo ellos en su lengua y en sus prácticas religiosas o políticas construyen y reelaboran lo que es para ellos ser qom.
–¿Y qué pasa con los elementos del mundo blanco: la televisión, el hospital, la escuela?
–Uno de los resultados de la política del Estado argentino es la instalación de escuelas dentro de predios de las comunidades indígenas, normalmente sin una adaptación a las realidades diferentes. Lo que sucede es que en alguna zonas la gente llega monolingüe a las escuelas o con dificultades de entender el castellano escolar: no solamente el lenguaje hablado sino también las pautas escolares clásicas: levantar la mano, mirar al profesor. Se dan una serie de incongruencias entre las formas de socialización indígena y las nuestras. El resultado es la deserción escolar, unida a la cuestión económica: no tienen dinero para comprar los cuadernos, los libros como los blancos; en teoría, pueden. Y hay una cuestión de qué conocimientos se transmiten y cómo se transmiten. Los chicos indígenas, por ejemplo, tienen un enorme conocimiento de la flora y de la fauna porque están acostumbrados al trabajo manual, a la cuestión artística, ecológica, botánica, zoológica. Vienen de una cultura cazadora-recolectora y muchas de las metáforas con las cuales piensan el orden social vienen del mundo de lo natural.
–¿Y cuál es el futuro de estas comunidades? Uno tiende a pensar que va a haber una absorción total.
–Bueno, ése es el pensamiento modernista evolucionista europeo del siglo XIX: pero muchas de estas culturas, sin embargo, sobrevivieron. Lo que sí se ve es un proceso de criollización muy fuerte en Santa Fe y Chaco, y a la vez hay formas de resistencia cultural, una conciencia étnica de la pertenencia a una entidad diferente: somos una comunidad, somos Qom, los otros son doqshi.
–¿Cuántos son?
–Difícil saber un número. En Formosa, por lo menos ocho mil; en Chaco 20 mil, en Rosario unos tres mil, acá habrá unos mil. Lo que pasa es que hacer un censo indígena es una cuestión metodológica delicada, porque la pregunta a ellos les puede sonar un poco violenta, sobre todo en zonas donde hay más fricción con los blancos.
–¿Qué diferencia hay entre estas comunidades y, por ejemplo, la secta Amis? ¿O las subculturas dentro de la cultura dominante?
–En el caso de los tobas la frontera es más lábil que en la secta Amis. En la territorialidad, por ejemplo: los padres qom no les prohíben a sus hijos salir por la tranquera, o tomar un colectivo. Si bien hay una crítica a los blancos como mentirosos, que no cumplimos la palabra o que estamos siempre apurados, no hay un rechazo a toda la sociedad o a la cultura blanca. Los tobas se sienten tobas y a la vez sienten el afuera y el adentro. Negocian con el afuera, pero mantienen la frontera.
–¿Y qué pasa con el correr de las generaciones? Cuando la cultura de afuera las rodea por completo...
–Eso depende de cada comunidad. En general se toman elementos de la sociedad blanca y se resignifican en la cultura. Es imprevisible lo que va a ocurrir, aunque ahora hay una coyuntura mucho más favorable a las minorías étnicas, a los “otros internos”.
–¿Y qué pasa cuando hay un conflicto médico o judicial? Por ejemplo, el caso del chico guaraní... O si alguna institución toba aplica sanciones que van contra el Código Penal.
–Bueno, ésta es una de las contradicciones básicas de la modernidad de estos grupos, porque en muchos casos la forma estatal de medicina no acepta otras formas: las persigue como ejercicio ilegal, como un acto que no tiene ninguna eficacia real. Lévi-Strauss trabajó mucho sobre la eficacia simbólica de estos sistemas terapéuticos indígenas. Lo que se ve ahora en la zona en que yo trabajo es que la gente sabe bastante bien a qué especialistas ver, de acuerdo con lo que ellos evalúan que están teniendo. A veces van al pastor, a veces al chamán. Si el chamán les dice que es algo para el hospital, ellos van al hospital, no tienen ningún problema. Es una cuestión práctica: si a vos te dan un tratamiento por un año, por ejemplo, vos lo cumplís al pie de la letra, aunque a los tres meses ya te sientas mejor. Ellos no: ellos cortan apenas se sienten bien. No hay adaptación biomédica a la forma de ver la enfermedad de estas sociedades. Para los tobas la enfermedad es un hecho social: alguien me hizo algo, o yo hice algo.
–Por ejemplo, si un toba mata a otro, ¿cómo actúa la justicia toba?
–Le cuento un caso que se trató en Formosa. Un hombre joven que tenía una mamá. Su madre murió y antes de morir dijo quién le había hecho el daño. Esa confesión es como el exhorto. Este hombre fue, lo invitó a tomar algo y después lo mató por la espalda. ¿Qué pasó? La Justicia de Formosa le dio 9 años, en un dictamen bastante etnocéntrico, porque sólo toma en cuenta el hecho mórbido y nada más, ninguna explicación dada por los tobas. La gente de la comunidad me decía que cuando alguien dice quién lo mató es un mandato: no se duda la veracidad, y uno queda con la obligación moral de vengar esa muerte. Es una contradicción clara en el Derecho argentino, porque no están aceptadas para nada las cuestiones consuetudinarias. En otro país tal vez habría habido un trabajo más interaccional con los pensamientos de los tobas.
–Dentro de las comunidades, ¿no hay formas de opresión interna?
–La antropología ha probado que toda sociedad tiene una cuota de inequidad. No existe una sociedad utópica: hay formas de control social muy fuertes, incluso algunas que para nosotros serían intolerables, como la brujería o el chamanismo. Es una forma de control de las tensiones. Además, por supuesto, de que no terminan de entender los sistemas de valores de la sociedad externa.
–Lo que yo me pregunto es si, en caso de que alguna de las leyes tobas viole el Derecho argentino, habría que intervenir o no.
–Mi respuesta es que ellos tienen sus mecanismos, con los que a veces pueden solucionar problemas y a veces no. A veces acuden a la policía: por ejemplo, una vez fueron para pedirles que arrestaran a una bruja que estaba matando gente. Y la policía no la podía arrestar, porque no cabe dentro de un sistema que no cree en la brujería. Yo les preguntaba por qué no lo trataban ellos mismos. Y decían que era imposible para ellos parar a esa mujer. Yo creo que cuando hay cierto nivel de problemas tienen mecanismos para solucionarlos; pero cuando ya no pueden, acuden a la policía, al político, a los gendarmes.
© 2000-2008 www.pagina12.com.ar |Todos los Derechos Reservados
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/ciencia/19-96917-2008-01-02.html
Página/12:
Gran Cielo
Por Rodrigo Fresán
desde Barcelona
Miércoles, 02 de Enero de 2008
UNO De un tiempo a esta parte –ya lo comenté, uno se vuelve cada vez más raro con el creciente correr de los años y la progresiva lentitud de cuerpo y mente–, he desarrollado un hábito al que, cuando menos, se lo puede calificar de particular. La cuestión es que voy recortando de los diarios y revistas todas las noticias que tienen que ver con el Papa de turno, con el Vaticano de siempre y con su gestión de lo divino y anexos. Guardo todo ese material en una carpetita color verde agua y, cuando tengo que viajar en avión, me la llevo para leer lo recopilado a lo largo de semanas o meses y degustar todas esas minucias ahí arriba, en el gran cielo, donde corresponde, mientras otros se persignan o leen novelas pertenecientes al género “de catedrales” y todo eso.
DOS Entiéndase por novelas “de catedrales” a aquellas que se llaman La catedral del mar o la recién aparecida Un mundo sin fin. La primera la escribió un abogado español –Idelfonso Falcones– idéntico a uno de los compositores e intérpretes de “Macarena” y la segunda un galés con nombre de autor de muchos best-sellers: Ken Follet, quien ya firmó Los pilares de la tierra (Un mundo sin fin es su continuación) considerado el libro más vendido en la historia de España, más de cinco millones desde su publicación a finales de los años ’80. A diferencia de lo que ocurrido recientemente con la obra del inocuo Dan Brown o del talentoso Phillip Pullman, Falcones y Follet no han despertado las iras de clérigos siempre sensibles a detectar la obra del demonio entre los hombres. Las novelas de Falcones y Follet son, supongo, lo que le gusta leer y le gusta que se lea a la Iglesia: libros celebratorios de una lenta y dedicada construcción vertical elevándose hacia el Altísimo cada vez más alto. En cambio, incomodan las conjuras que reescriben las sagradas escrituras o las aventuras juveniles donde se predica la cada vez más evidente ausencia de Dios y se proponen claras metáforas para el catolicismo corporativo como poder despótico. Y el que las altas jerarquías eclesiásticas critiquen y adviertan sobre el aliento satánico de obras de ficción siempre me ha causado asombro. ¿Por qué? ¿Para qué? ¿No se dan cuenta de que se tratan de ficciones? ¿Y de que acaban promocionando aquello que condenan? De ahí que yo nunca vaya a olvidar las sabias palabras de Sir Ian McKellen –convocado para la versión fílmica de El código Da Vinci– al serle preguntada su opinión en cuanto a las exigencias de religiosos varios de insertar, al principio de la película, un cartel donde se dijera que nada de lo que allí se contaba estaba respaldado por hechos reales. “Totalmente de acuerdo”, respondió flemático Sir McKellen. Y agregó: “Pero entonces que también pongan la misma advertencia al principio de la Biblia, ¿no?”
TRES Y yo ahora, en el aire, hago a un lado el ejemplar de una gran novela católica/pecadora que estoy leyendo, otra vez, por placenteros motivos de trabajo –Poderes terrenales, de Anthony Burgess– y abro mi carpetita color verde agua y me concentro primero en el último escandalete vaticano (la confección de un calendario benéfico con “sacerdotes guapos”, varios de ellos –se supo al poco tiempo– modelos profesionales a los que les encajaron una sotana y no les dijeron de qué iba la cosa). Luego, paso a un resumen de la hace poco emitida encíclica Spe salvi, firmada por Benedicto XVI, donde, básicamente, se condena a toda idea de modernidad porque la modernidad desobedece a Dios, poder supremo e incontestable. Apenas entre líneas, lo que se nos dice aquí es que no es posible un gobierno de los hombres para los hombres. Democracia y ciencia son factores inestables e imperfectos. Quien manda es Dios y, como todo parece indicar que Dios está de licencia por tiempo indefinido, entonces los que deben asumir la dura tarea son ya saben quiénes. Como concluye el filósofo Paolo Flores d’Arcais en el recorte que leo: “El papa Ratzinger se postula para el liderazgo mundial del fundamentalismo religioso, el no terrorista, obviamente”. El problema es que hay tantas maneras diferentes de dar y de repartir miedo. Ya ha quedado más que claro a lo largo de los siglos: la fe mal empleada es, sí, un arma de destrucción masiva.
CUATRO Y mientras yo voy volando este domingo de sol, abajo, en el suelo, las masas católicas marchan sobre Madrid. Son 160.000 fieles convocados por la Iglesia –quien multiplicó, como si se trataran de panes y peces, a los asistentes hasta sumar los 2.000.000– para defender a la familia de los peligros del gobierno de Zapatero que no ha hecho otra cosa que mejorar generosamente el modo en que el clero español es financiado con los impuestos de los contribuyentes. Pero no importan, se supone, los asuntos materiales cuando las huestes de Belcebú hacen de las suyas. A saber: casamiento homosexual, leyes blasfemas, investigación terapéutica con embriones, nuevas materias escolares que “manipulan la educación de los jóvenes”, divorcio express, el horror ante la posible despenalización del aborto y las campañas informativas de anticoncepción. Varios purpurados pasaron por el palco –hay que decir que ninguno de ellos con look digno de figurar en ningún almanaque fashion– y advirtieron, con esa voz rara, como modulada por extraterrestres, sobre los peligros del “laicismo radical” y la seducción diabólica de varios modelos de familia. “Gays siempre hubo, qué le vamos a hacer. Que vivan juntos, pero nada de llamarlos familia”, apuntó un fervoroso. Y muchos declaraban cosas por el estilo, los rostros crispados, los puños en alto, los mansos de corazón y apocalípticos de cerebro. Y así la paradoja: la Iglesia se la pasa advirtiendo sobre el advenimiento de un nuevo oscurantismo cuando lo único que desea es volver al sitio de privilegio que tenía en la Edad Media.
CINCO Y mirando por la ventanilla yo me pregunto lo que tantos se preguntan de vez en cuando. ¿Dios existe? ¿Creo en él? ¿Cree él en mí? Quién sabe... De una cosa estoy seguro: la idea de Dios que me resulta más cercana y posible no fue propuesta por un profundo filósofo o por un elevado teólogo sino por un rocker llamado Ray Davies en una canción titulada “Big Sky” incluida en un curioso y magistral álbum pastoral y puritano de 1968 –donde se llega a defender la preservación de la virginidad hasta la noche de bodas– llamado The Kinks are The Village Green Preservation Society. Allí, en ella, Davies –quien se sintió extáticamente inspirado en un atardecer en Cannes, contemplando desde el balcón de su hotel “a ejecutivos ocupándose de sus asuntos allí abajo”– ideó un entidad divina llamada Gran Cielo que nos observa desde lo alto pero que no se entromete en nuestras cuestiones. Gran Cielo no está muerto, pero estamos muertos para él aunque Gran Cielo “se siente triste cuando oye a los niños gritar y llorar”. Gran Cielo “es demasiado grande como para deprimirse y simpatizar” y está demasiado ocupado consigo mismo como para encargarse de nuestras pequeñeces. Y concluye: “Un día seremos libres, nada nos importará, espera y verás / hasta que ese día llegue no te derrumbes”, porque “cuando siento que el mundo es demasiado para mí, pienso en Gran Cielo y ya nada me importa demasiado”.
Y a Davies (y a mí) le alcanza y le sobra con eso.
Y de eso se trata.
Y –si mal no recuerdo, mientras me ajusto el cinturón, aterrizando– de no tomar el nombre de Dios en vano.
© 2000-2008 www.pagina12.com.ar |Todos los Derechos Reservados
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/contratapa/13-96902-2008-01-02.html
The Guardian:
13 die as police, militants clash in Rivers
From Kelvin Ebiri, Port Harcourt
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
A NEW Year dawn raid by suspected militants on two police stations and a five-star hotel in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, has left 13 persons dead, among them four policemen.
The police have, however, ruled out the return of curfew in Port Harcourt. The state government had on Sunday lifted a four-month curfew imposed on the city in the wake of clashes between rival militant groups last August.
The gunmen, suspected to have come from a nearby riverine community where men of the Joint Task Force (JTF) have been deployed to flush them out, drove into Port Harcourt in a convoy of vehicles at midnight when residents began the New Year celebrations.
Like the Christmas Day attack at Akinima, their targets were policemen and their stations. Their first encounter at about 12.20 a.m. with the police was at the Artillery Junction along Aba Road, where they opened fire on a police patrol team. Two policemen were injured in the attack.
The gunmen headed for the Trans-Amadi Police Station where they ran into some policemen in front of the post on stop-and-search-duty. The bandits reportedly opened fire on them, killing an Inspector and a 25-year-old mentally retarded man who was reportedly brought to the station by members of his family.
On why the insane man was at the station, the state Commissioner of Police, Phelix Ogbaudu, who confirmed the attacks, said his family had earlier taken him to a hospital and the doctors demanded for a deposit of N10,000 before he could be admitted, hence their decision to keep him with the police.
But while the family members were talking with the police, the gunmen's bullet hit his neck and killed him.
Still bent on wreaking more havoc on policemen, the militants went for another police patrol team within the Trans-Amadi area, opening fire on their van. They shot the driver on the head. It was learnt that the driver survived and was rushed to an unnamed hospital.
Ogbaudu said the gunmen later went to the Presidential Hotel on the busy Aba Road, where they gained access through one of the side doors. He explained that they forced their way in and shattered all the doors to the main entrance. They allegedly moved into the lobby and broke the glasses in the reception area. The attack sent scores of persons in the hotel scampering for safety. A security supervisor was reportedly killed by the militants.
Not done, the gunmen boarded their vehicles and headed for the Borikiri Police Station, where they met their waterloo.
As they approached the station, a Police Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC), which was stationed there reportedly attacked them head-on by ramming into three of the gunmen's cars.
Infuriated that they were demobilised, the hoodlums alighted and opened fire on the APC.
According to Ogbaudu, "they moved into the police station and threw dynamites. They freely fired at the station and at the end of the day, they killed three more policemen."
During the fierce gun duel, six of the militants were killed while the others fled and took along with them some of their injured colleagues.
When The Guardian visited the scene, blood littered the floor of the station while its roof was destroyed by dynamite.
The police chief said that security agents held a four-hour meeting with Governor Chibuike Amaechi yesterday. He disclosed that the police had already recovered a Federal Government vehicle, which the militants abandoned at the Ndoki waterfront from where they escaped.
Other items recovered from the vehicles were: one General Purpose Machine gun, four rifles, three AK47, one G3 gun, four magazines of AK47 rifles, 14 pieces of dynamites, 42 bullets, 525 live rounds of 4.62mm and other explosives.
Ogbaudu said: "This singular incident will not make us to bring back the curfew unless there are some other extraneous reasons, maybe if the hoodlums become so unruly and perhaps sustain their attack for a week or two."
Meanwhile, Mr. Tonye Princewill, the governorship candidate of the Action Congress (AC) for Rivers in the April 2007 election, has criticised the attack on the police and the hotel.
Princewill said the aim of the attack might not be unconnected with plans by some persons to destabilise the Amaechi administration.
© 2003 - 2007 @ Guardian Newspapers Limited (All Rights Reserved).
http://www.guardiannewsngr.com/news/article02//indexn2_
html?pdate=020108&ptitle=13%20die%20as%20police,%20militants%20clash%20in%20Rivers
The Independent:
Pakistan postpones election by six weeks
Reuters
Published: 02 January 2008
Pakistan's Election Commission today postponed a general election by six weeks due to the turmoil sparked by the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
"Polling will now be held on 18 February instead of 8 January," chief Election Commissioner Qazi Mohammad Farooq told a news conference.
The killing of the opposition leader has fuelled doubts about stability and the transition to democratic rule in nuclear-armed Pakistan, a crucial US ally in its anti-terrorism efforts.
The Election Commission had said yesterday that "in principle" the vote would be delayed but Bhutto's party objected and analysts said a postponement could lead to more violence.
Bhutto's party would expect to reap a considerable sympathy vote following her assassination in a gun and bomb attack as she left a rally in Rawalpindi on Thursday.
The commission said many of its offices in Sindh, Bhutto's home province, were burnt in the rioting that followed her murder and election material including voter rolls destroyed.
Nearly 60 people were killed in the violence and, while the situation has now calmed, it remains tense. Markets are gripped by fears of capital flight if security worsens.
President Pervez Musharraf was due to give a televised address at 8 pm local time. A close aide told Reuters the president would announce he was to seek international help in investigating Bhutto's murder.
Pakistani shares slid 2.3 percent as political nerves suddenly returned to the market ahead of the Musharraf address.
Supporters of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the other main opposition party, led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, had wanted the election to go ahead next week as planned, fearing a delay would work to Musharraf's advantage.
Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, the new co-chairman of the PPP alongside their 19-year-old son Bilawal, has called a party meeting for later on today.
"The 8 January elections must proceed as scheduled," Zardari had said in a joint statement with Sharif on Tuesday. "This will not only be a tribute to the memory of Benazir Bhutto, but even more important, a reaffirmation of the cause of democracy for which she died."
The Pakistan Muslim League, which backs Musharraf, had said it had no objection to deferring the vote over security concerns.
"A delay in the election is a bad thing because of the sentiment among PPP supporters. If they postpone it, the PPP will protest against the government. There will be destabilisation," said Karachi banker Mohammad Sayeed.
Bhutto, relatively liberal by Pakistan's standards and an opponent of Islamist militancy, returned from self-imposed exile in October. Hours after arriving home she narrowly escaped a suicide blast against her motorcade that killed about 140 people.
Her death wrecked US hopes of a power-sharing deal between her and Musharraf, who took power in a military coup in 1999 but left the army in November to become a civilian president.
Authorities published on Wednesday photographs of a severed human head and two men standing in a crowd outside Bhutto's Thursday rally moments before she was killed and offered a reward of 10 million rupees ($164,000) for their identification.
The government has blamed an al Qaeda-linked militant based on the Afghan border for Bhutto's murder but many Pakistanis believe others from among Bhutto's enemies, perhaps from within the powerful security agencies, were involved.
Bhutto's party has called for a UN investigation.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq said the government was open to outside assistance and the United States and Britain had offered help. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, visiting Pakistan on Tuesday, had also offered help, he said.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article3301628.ece
The Nation:
Amnesia at the Multiplex
by LAKSHMI CHAUDHRY
[posted online on December 30, 2007]
"For all the pain and loss that The Kite Runner depicts, it is still a film of exhilarating, redemptive humanity, conveying an enduring sense of hope," gushed Ann Hornaday in her Washington Post review of the cinematic adaptation of Khaled Hosseini's literary blockbuster. While other movie critics were less enthusiastic, almost all emphasized the "universal" appeal of a story of childhood friendship, betrayal and atonement, set against the backdrop of three decades of recent Afghan history.
The release of The Kite Runner at the height of the holiday movie season no doubt showed a certain amount of chutzpah on the part of Hollywood, given its unfestive subject and cast of unknown Afghan and Iranian actors. Sadly, such marketing brio isn't matched by the movie itself, which is yet another dismal example of Hollywood's predilection for historical amnesia and political pandering, especially when it comes to stories about the Muslim world.
Released in 2003, the novel emerged as a literary dark horse that made its way to the top of the New York Times bestseller list based almost entirely on word-of-mouth marketing by enthusiastic readers and book clubs. Critics and commentators widely praised Hosseini for "humanizing" both Afghanistan and its people at a time when, in the wake of 9/11, they were more likely to evoke fear than empathy.
"If The Kite Runner's early adopters picked up the book to learn something about Afghanistan, what kept them reading (and recommending it) is the appealingly familiar story at the heart of the novel: a struggle of personal recovery and unconditional love, couched in redemptive language immediately legible to Americans," wrote Slate critic Meghan O'Rourke in 2005 of its equally successful paperback edition, which currently enjoys fourth place on the Times bestseller list. "It's clearly such messages of redemption that prompted one Amazon reviewer to observe that The Kite Runner 'remind[s] us that we are all human alike, fighting similar daily and lifelong battles, just in different circumstances.' "
It's a message Hosseini emphasizes in interviews promoting the movie: "This film is going to bring, in a way, Afghanistan into the living rooms of people around the world. In a positive light, in a human light. This is a story about these Afghan Muslim characters that does not begin with terrorism, does not begin with fanaticism. It's a story about ordinary human beings."
The "story," however, is more than a little suspect. Both the novel and its faithful cinematic adaptation rely on a carefully edited version of political reality that enables Western--or, more specifically, American--empathy with the other by absolving the self of all responsibility.
In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Fatemeh Keshavarz, author of Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran, makes a case for what she describes as the "New Orientalism," which merely replaces the age-old Orientalist dichotomy of West versus East with that of the good Muslim versus bad Muslim. The updated version views the Islamic world as a universe of victims and villains, where the right kind of Muslims, i.e., standard-bearers of Western values of secularism, democracy and freedom, are pitted against cruel, barbaric, backward oppressors.
Rather than humanizing the other, the narrative allows us to maintain our favored state of moral superiority and outraged innocence. We are free to pretend not only that the problems of the Muslim world and its denizens are entirely of their making but also that our enlightened values offer their best hope for the future.
It isn't a coincidence that at a time when most Americans feel tremendous anxiety and uncertainty about our relationship with the Muslim world, the publishing industry has witnessed a boom in Islam-themed books that shift the attention away from "us" to "them." Books like The Kite Runner, The Bookseller of Kabul and Reading Lolita in Tehran painstakingly re-create details of native culture and history, and yet conveniently omit a long history of US involvement and intervention. "Indeed, the way this literature navigates its way through the Middle Eastern mess without running into the US presence there is astounding," writes Keshavarz.
While haunting scenes of Russian- and Taliban-inflicted violence abound in both the novel and the movie, there is not one mention in The Kite Runner of the US role in arming and promoting the very militants who would go on to enslave an entire nation. On the big screen, America serves instead as a haven of freedom for the narrator, who flees to this country on the heels of the Russian invasion, and again at the very end for a young boy rescued from the Taliban.
Unlike the novel, the movie avoids dealing with the 9/11 attacks and the war against Afghanistan that soon followed--events that Hosseini air-brushes over in the most egregious fashion in the book: "One Tuesday morning last September, the Twin Towers came crumbling down and, overnight, the world changed. The American flag suddenly appeared everywhere.... Soon after the attacks, America bombed Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance moved in, and the Taliban scurried like rats.... That December, Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras gathered in Bonn, and under the watchful eye of the UN, began the process that might someday end over twenty years of unhappiness in their watan [homeland]."
There's nary a word about dead civilians, unsavory alliances with warlords or the escalation of anti-Muslim sentiment--including the desire to bomb their homeland back into the proverbial Stone Age--that surely made life uncomfortable for the average Afghan immigrant in America.
Hosseini's brand of humanism is carefully tailored to confirm our most self-indulgent preconceptions about ourselves and our role in the world. But at least its sins are merely those of omission, committed perhaps with the best of intentions by an author intent on persuading a largely hostile, or at best indifferent, audience of the value of his people and their culture.
Besides, The Kite Runner's crimes against historical integrity pale in comparison to that other movie about Afghanistan to hit theaters this Christmas. Released a mere week later, Charlie Wilson's War manages to recast shortsighted hubris and rabid anticommunism as patriotic virtue, and this in a movie created by a team of self-identified Hollywood liberals, no less. Written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Mike Nichols, it makes a hero of the flamboyant Texan Congressman who engineered a $1 billion covert CIA operation to arm the mujahedeen resistance to Soviet occupation back in the 1980s. This operation entailed, among other things, secretly funneling arms and money from Israel to Pakistan without Congressional oversight; getting in bed with Pakistani dictator Zia ul-Haq, a man widely credited for transforming Pakistan into an Islamic state and building its nuclear arsenal; and last but not least, nurturing the very jihadis who would later become foot soldiers of Al Qaeda.
Yet six years after the 9/11 attacks, in the midst of a disastrous military intervention stoked by the same kind of patriotic fervor, even as an armed-to-the-teeth Pakistan struggles for political stability, all this self-styled political satire has to offer by way of acknowledging that pesky little thing we call blowback is an ambiguous quote about how we "fucked up the endgame."
"Is this admirable restraint or cold feet?" asks David Ansen in his Newsweek review. "Are they afraid of spoiling the feel-good uplift of Charlie's victory with the harsh downdraft of history? It's as if 'Titanic' ended with a celebratory shipboard banquet, followed by a postscript: by the way, it sank."
Maybe it's just good old-fashioned denial, both of history and of our role in shaping it. While its big-screen adaptation is unlikely to do as well, the paperback edition of The Kite Runner is still flying high on the New York Times bestseller list. Meanwhile, Charlie Wilson's War has already snagged itself five Golden Globe nominations, including one for Sorkin's screenplay. Denial may be bad for the soul, but it's undeniably good for business.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080107/chaudhry
ZNet | Asia: They Don’t Blame Al-Qa’ida.
They Blame Musharraf.
by Robert Fisk; The Independent/UK ; December 30, 2007
Weird, isn’t it, how swiftly the narrative is laid down for us. Benazir Bhutto, the courageous leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, is assassinated in Rawalpindi - attached to the very capital of Islamabad wherein ex-General Pervez Musharraf lives - and we are told by George Bush that her murderers were “extremists” and “terrorists”. Well, you can’t dispute that.
But the implication of the Bush comment was that Islamists were behind the assassination. It was the Taliban madmen again, the al-Qa’ida spider who struck at this lone and brave woman who had dared to call for democracy in her country.
Of course, given the childish coverage of this appalling tragedy - and however corrupt Ms Bhutto may have been, let us be under no illusions that this brave lady is indeed a true martyr - it’s not surprising that the “good-versus-evil” donkey can be trotted out to explain the carnage in Rawalpindi.
Who would have imagined, watching the BBC or CNN on Thursday, that her two brothers, Murtaza and Shahnawaz, hijacked a Pakistani airliner in 1981 and flew it to Kabul where Murtaza demanded the release of political prisoners in Pakistan. Here, a military officer on the plane was murdered. There were Americans aboard the flight - which is probably why the prisoners were indeed released.
Only a few days ago - in one of the most remarkable (but typically unrecognised) scoops of the year - Tariq Ali published a brilliant dissection of Pakistan (and Bhutto) corruption in the London Review of Books, focusing on Benazir and headlined: “Daughter of the West”. In fact, the article was on my desk to photocopy as its subject was being murdered in Rawalpindi.
Towards the end of this report, Tariq Ali dwelt at length on the subsequent murder of Murtaza Bhutto by police close to his home at a time when Benazir was prime minister - and at a time when Benazir was enraged at Murtaza for demanding a return to PPP values and for condemning Benazir’s appointment of her own husband as minister for industry, a highly lucrative post.
In a passage which may yet be applied to the aftermath of Benazir’s murder, the report continues: “The fatal bullet had been fired at close range. The trap had been carefully laid, but, as is the way in Pakistan, the crudeness of the operation - false entries in police log-books, lost evidence, witnesses arrested and intimidated - a policeman killed who they feared might talk - made it obvious that the decision to execute the prime minister’s brother had been taken at a very high level.”
When Murtaza’s 14-year-old daughter, Fatima, rang her aunt Benazir to ask why witnesses were being arrested - rather than her father’s killers - she says Benazir told her: “Look, you’re very young. You don’t understand things.” Or so Tariq Ali’s exposé would have us believe. Over all this, however, looms the shocking power of Pakistan’s ISI, the Inter Services Intelligence.
This vast institution - corrupt, venal and brutal - works for Musharraf.
But it also worked - and still works - for the Taliban. It also works for the Americans. In fact, it works for everybody. But it is the key which Musharraf can use to open talks with America’s enemies when he feels threatened or wants to put pressure on Afghanistan or wants to appease the ” extremists” and “terrorists” who so oppress George Bush. And let us remember, by the way, that Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter beheaded by his Islamist captors in Karachi, actually made his fatal appointment with his future murderers from an ISI commander’s office. Ahmed Rashid’s book Taliban provides riveting proof of the ISI’s web of corruption and violence. Read it, and all of the above makes more sense.
But back to the official narrative. George Bush announced on Thursday he was “looking forward” to talking to his old friend Musharraf. Of course, they would talk about Benazir. They certainly would not talk about the fact that Musharraf continues to protect his old acquaintance - a certain Mr Khan - who supplied all Pakistan’s nuclear secrets to Libya and Iran. No, let’s not bring that bit of the “axis of evil” into this.
So, of course, we were asked to concentrate once more on all those ” extremists” and “terrorists”, not on the logic of questioning which many Pakistanis were feeling their way through in the aftermath of Benazir’s assassination.
It doesn’t, after all, take much to comprehend that the hated elections looming over Musharraf would probably be postponed indefinitely if his principal political opponent happened to be liquidated before polling day.
So let’s run through this logic in the way that Inspector Ian Blair might have done in his policeman’s notebook before he became the top cop in London.
Question: Who forced Benazir Bhutto to stay in London and tried to prevent her return to Pakistan? Answer: General Musharraf.
Question: Who ordered the arrest of thousands of Benazir’s supporters this month? Answer: General Musharraf.
Question: Who placed Benazir under temporary house arrest this month? Answer: General Musharraf.
Question: Who declared martial law this month? Answer General Musharraf.
Question: who killed Benazir Bhutto?
Er. Yes. Well quite.
You see the problem? Yesterday, our television warriors informed us the PPP members shouting that Musharraf was a “murderer” were complaining he had not provided sufficient security for Benazir. Wrong. They were shouting this because they believe he killed her.
Robert Fisk is Middle East correspondent for The Independent.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=44&ItemID=14617
ZNet | Asia:
My Heart Bleeds For Pakistan
by Tariq Ali; The Independent; January 01, 2007
Six hours before she was executed, Mary, Queen of Scots wrote to her brother-in-law, Henry III of France: "...As for my son, I commend him to you in so far as he deserves, for I cannot answer for him." The year was 1587.
On 30 December 2007, a conclave of feudal potentates gathered in the home of the slain Benazir Bhutto to hear her last will and testament being read out and its contents subsequently announced to the world media. Where Mary was tentative, her modern-day equivalent left no room for doubt. She could certainly answer for her son.
A triumvirate consisting of her husband, Asif Zardari (one of the most venal and discredited politicians in the country and still facing corruption charges in three European courts) and two ciphers will run the party till Benazir's 19-year-old son, Bilawal, comes of age. He will then become chairperson-for-life and, no doubt, pass it on to his children. The fact that this is now official does not make it any less grotesque. The Pakistan People's Party is being treated as a family heirloom, a property to be disposed of at the will of its leader.
Nothing more, nothing less. Poor Pakistan. Poor People's Party supporters. Both deserve better than this disgusting, medieval charade.
Benazir's last decision was in the same autocratic mode as its predecessors, an approach that would cost her – tragically – her own life. Had she heeded the advice of some party leaders and not agreed to the Washington-brokered deal with Pervez Musharraf or, even later, decided to boycott his parliamentary election she might still have been alive. Her last gift to the country does not augur well for its future.
How can Western-backed politicians be taken seriously if they treat their party as a fiefdom and their supporters as serfs, while their courtiers abroad mouth sycophantic niceties concerning the young prince and his future.
That most of the PPP inner circle consists of spineless timeservers leading frustrated and melancholy lives is no excuse. All this could be transformed if inner-party democracy was implemented. There is a tiny layer of incorruptible and principled politicians inside the party, but they have been sidelined. Dynastic politics is a sign of weakness, not strength. Benazir was fond of comparing her family to the Kennedys, but chose to ignore that the Democratic Party, despite an addiction to big money, was not the instrument of any one family.
The issue of democracy is enormously important in a country that has been governed by the military for over half of its life. Pakistan is not a "failed state" in the sense of the Congo or Rwanda. It is a dysfunctional state and has been in this situation for almost four decades.
At the heart of this dysfunctionality is the domination by the army and each period of military rule has made things worse. It is this that has prevented political stability and the emergence of stable institutions. Here the US bears direct responsibility, since it has always regarded the military as the only institution it can do business with and, unfortunately, still does so. This is the rock that has focused choppy waters into a headlong torrent.
The military's weaknesses are well known and have been amply documented. But the politicians are not in a position to cast stones. After all, Mr Musharraf did not pioneer the assault on the judiciary so conveniently overlooked by the US Deputy Secretary of State, John Negroponte, and the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. The first attack on the Supreme Court was mounted by Nawaz Sharif's goons who physically assaulted judges because they were angered by a decision that ran counter to their master's interests when he was prime minister.
Some of us had hoped that, with her death, the People's Party might start a new chapter. After all, one of its main leaders, Aitzaz Ahsan, president of the Bar Association, played a heroic role in the popular movement against the dismissal of the chief justice. Mr Ahsan was arrested during the emergency and kept in solitary confinement. He is still under house arrest in Lahore. Had Benazir been capable of thinking beyond family and faction she should have appointed him chairperson pending elections within the party. No such luck.
The result almost certainly will be a split in the party sooner rather than later. Mr Zardari was loathed by many activists and held responsible for his wife's downfall. Once emotions have subsided, the horror of the succession will hit the many traditional PPP followers except for its most reactionary segment: bandwagon careerists desperate to make a fortune.
All this could have been avoided, but the deadly angel who guided her when she was alive was, alas, not too concerned with democracy. And now he is in effect leader of the party.
Meanwhile there is a country in crisis. Having succeeded in saving his own political skin by imposing a state of emergency, Mr Musharraf still lacks legitimacy. Even a rigged election is no longer possible on 8 January despite the stern admonitions of President George Bush and his unconvincing Downing Street adjutant. What is clear is that the official consensus on who killed Benazir is breaking down, except on BBC television. It has now been made public that, when Benazir asked the US for a Karzai-style phalanx of privately contracted former US Marine bodyguards, the suggestion was contemptuously rejected by the Pakistan government, which saw it as a breach of sovereignty.
Now both Hillary Clinton and Senator Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, are pinning the convict's badge on Mr Musharraf and not al-Qa'ida for the murder, a sure sign that sections of the US establishment are thinking of dumping the President.
Their problem is that, with Benazir dead, the only other alternative for them is General Ashraf Kiyani, head of the army. Nawaz Sharif is seen as a Saudi poodle and hence unreliable, though, given the US-Saudi alliance, poor Mr Sharif is puzzled as to why this should be the case. For his part, he is ready to do Washiongton's bidding but would prefer the Saudi King rather than Mr Musharraf to be the imperial message-boy.
A solution to the crisis is available. This would require Mr Musharraf's replacement by a less contentious figure, an all-party government of unity to prepare the basis for genuine elections within six months, and the reinstatement of the sacked Supreme Court judges to investigate Benazir's murder without fear or favour. It would be a start.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=44&ItemID=14631
posted by attilav at 19:48
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