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In
this issue-Click on the numbers to go to the article. You can return to top by
clicking on the ‘back’ button of your
browser Dýþ Basýnda Türkiye / Western
Press Review / Arab
Press Review / Israeli
Press Review
American Press Review (Slate) / Western Press Review
|
New
York Times Editorial A Plan Without a
Map Clear Terms, Murky
Future By
PATRICK E. TYLER
Slate
Tell a
Vision When is a state not a
state? When it's Palestinian.By
William Saletan Ha'aretz
WHAT IT MEANS: Politically, Arafat
is a dead man walking Analysis / Sharon's
victory, by Aluf Benn Jerusalem
Post ANALYSIS: An offer
they can refuse |
Le
Monde Washington cherche une "stratégie de
sécurité" Financial
Times – David Hale - Recovering
from the dollar The
Economist on the Seville summit,
and the stability pact Semi-final
underdogs will bark but not bite, predicts David
Lacey |
H3
Los
Angeles Times – Cyprus - A Deadline Looms in Paradise By RANAN R.
LURIE
Jerusalem
Post Turkey: Syria deal won't spoil Israel ties EIU - Turkey - Country
forecast summary. New York Times on
Sabancý and art Daily Star Turkey’s
identity crisis follows its players to the World
Cup
IMF
says U.S. economic outlook favorable. Britain
says it will not help finance Turkey's leadership of peacekeeping
force | ||
|
H4 New York
Times Editorial A Plan
Without a Map Clear Terms, Murky
Future By
PATRICK E. TYLER
President's Speech Is
Criticized For Lacking Specific Proposals
Full
text of Bush speech - 'Things Must Change in the Middle
East'
Paul
Krugman - Bush administration: where others might see problems, it sees
opportunities Nicholas
Kristof - bolster terror-infested third world countries like
Pakistan. |
H5 Washington
Post Plan for Palestinians
Lacks Important Details Both Sides Feel
Vindicated By Bush's Peace Proposal Deadly
Progress in the Middle East By
Richard Cohen Even
a 'Bad Man' Has Rights |
H6 Guardian
Bush says Arafat must
go One-sided offer that
will change nothing
US dismisses al-Qaida
claim that network is '98% intact' Africa is forced to
take the blame for the devastation inflicted on it by the rich world
George Monbiot Agency seeks
dirty-bomb material from Soviet farms | ||
|
H7 Slate
Tell
a Vision |
H8 Daily Star Israel’s contortions might tie
America in a knot Arab
Press Review Despite debate on validity, ‘martyrdom
operations’ set to continue |
H9 Ha'aretz
WHAT IT MEANS: Politically,
Arafat is a dead man walking Analysis / Sharon's
victory, by Aluf Benn Yasser won't
go | ||
H10 Los
Angeles Times U.S. on Risky Road if
It Uses Nuclear Bluff - Misguided policy could turn loose a terrible
genie.
U.S. Must Follow Up on
Proposal Pakistan's President
Could Confront Axis of Extremists
Under a worst-case
scenario, three extremist groups could link up to try to topple
Musharraf |
H11 RFE/RL Iran
Report |
H12 Christian Science Monitor A gulf grows between Mideast rhetoric and
action In
Afghanistan, think small a recovery strategy aimed at
security should focus particularly on returning refugees outside Kabul,
and on building community-based small businesses. | ||
|
H13 Financial
Times – David Hale - Recovering
from the dollar Russia
and the WTO - No rush |
H14 Independent US hawks deliver
victory to Sharon in battle over Arafat Q & A: General
Pervez Musharraf |
H15
Le Monde Washington
cherche une "stratégie de sécurité" | ||
|
H16 The Times - Bush
tells the Palestinians: you must get rid of
Arafat WHICH is
more likely to give President Bush problems in his re-election race in
2004: the dollar, or another terrorist attack on the United
States? The
idea that greed is good is no longer an acceptable part of the American
dream Leader-
Bush and africa |
H17 Daily
Telegraph Bush
plan only fuels suspicion that US is firm ally of
Israelis America's
shaky financial position got markedly worse yesterday when the slide in
the value of the dollar accelerated and a political row left the
government in danger of defaulting on its debt. |
H18 RFE/RL EU: Candidates Unfazed By Changes To
Accession Timetable Russia: Putin -- U.S.
Must Join Moscow To Fight Terrorism In Georgia Western
Press Review: Seville Summit, Afghanistan
| ||
|
H19 Washington
Times Fulfillment
diplomacy
Newt Gingrich Protecting liberty in
a permanent war - Ted Galen Carpenter |
H20 Stratfor
The
Palestinian Strategy |
H21 Guardian Finally, a return to
old order Semi-final underdogs
will bark but not bite, predicts David Lacey | ||
|
New York Times/ Washington Post |
Slate (American Press Review/
International Press Review) |
Russia / Caucasus / Asia / Middle East / Arab Press Review / Israeli Press Review Ed.s
from the Hebrew Press / Ha'aretz
/ Jerusalem Post / Debka
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
(RFE/RL)
World Media Reaction (USIA) Periodicals / Think-tanks / Stratfor / Book reviews FBIS (Foreign Broadcasting Information Service) | ||
On Turkey
See also Turkey
in Foreign Press by Basýn Yayýn, German
Press on Turkey, French
Press on Turkey
Los Angeles Times
A Deadline Looms in Paradise
By RANAN R. LURIE
Ranan R. Lurie is a
senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in
Washington, D.C., and a syndicated columnist and political
cartoonist.
June 24 2002
There's a remote yet beautiful country in
the eastern Mediterranean, whose name, I would venture, a sizable percentage of
Americans can't even spell: Cyprus. It's a picturesque island, about the size of
Connecticut, that breeds good-natured, easygoing and capable people of Greek and
Turkish extraction. Cyprus has never attacked another state, and "never" in
Cyprus means 10,000 years. The Cypriots are a human treasure that the rest of
the world should preserve as a token of appreciation for the people who really
"made love, never war."
There are two reasons why the Cypriots are so
nonaggressive. They live in an island nation, which means there are no border
frictions. And second, by nature, they're genteel and love to mind their own
business. The downside of this fine character is that Cyprus has been invaded
and brutalized many times throughout history.
On July 20, 1974, a massive
force of Turkish paratroopers, supported by the Turkish navy, descended on
Cyprus and took over the northern part of the stunned island. According to Umit
Pamir, Turkey's knowledgeable ambassador to the United Nations, there was a
reason for that outburst of unhappiness by his country: One Greek Cypriot, Nikos
Sampson, booted the Greek Cypriot president, Archbishop Makarios, out of office
and was planning to annex Cyprus to Greece. All this caused great displeasure in
Turkey, which sent its airborne forces to "protect" the Turkish Cypriot
minority, mostly in northern Cyprus. To the credit of the Greek Cypriots, they
in turn booted out Sampson within days. But Sampson's actions, which triggered
the Turkish invasion, were backed by the Athens junta. Considering the
tremendous fiasco in which its darling Sampson failed so miserably and
single-handedly brought the Turkish punishment upon Greek Cyprus, the junta had
to give up power (the one upside of the Turkish invasion).
Cyprus learned
to live as an island divided between the two people, like a divorced couple who
still have to share a house that has only one shower. Good-natured Cyprus was
invited to join the European Union, something that would make the island's life
much more interesting and flourishing.
However, U.N. Resolution 1251 of
June 29, 1999, reaffirmed the United Nations' position that a Cypriot settlement
must be "based on a state of Cyprus with a single sovereignty, an international
personality and a single citizenship." Thus, if the two groups would come to an
understanding and unite while maintaining social autonomy, says Cyprus'
ambassador to the United States, Erato Markoulli, the 650,000 Greek Cypriots and
the 200,000 Turkish Cypriots could join Europe and almost immediately elevate
their economic situation and quality of life.
Turkey, which also hopes to
join the EU, feels like a chess player who suddenly realizes that a weaker
opponent has managed to move a pawn ahead and that this tiny piece will become a
queen in the next move. Once Cyprus enters the EU, it will be able to cast its
veto against Turkey's admission.
Right now, the Greek and Turkish
Cypriots have a deadline to reach a conclusion of unity by the end of the month.
If the deadline is missed, Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf R. Denktash will watch as
President Glafcos Clerides and his clever people on their two-thirds of the
island enter the EU as the Republic of Cyprus.
Clerides, 83, was a bomber
pilot during World War II. He promised that Cyprus would encourage the entry of
Turkey to the EU. "We are interested in a democratic, wealthy and happy big
neighbor to our north," he told me some time ago. "Turkey is the only democratic
Islamic country nowadays," said the veteran official, "and joining the EU will
cement its democracy and economy. Cyprus can only benefit from
it."
Denktash, also a mature leader, knows that the only way to elevate
the Turkish Cypriot standard of living (about $4,000 per capita) and bring it to
the standards of the Greek Cypriots (about $17,800 per capita) will be to join
the EU as one country. This can hurt no one, and would make many
happy.
History may have, for a change, a Greek tragedy with a happy
ending.
Turkey: Syria
deal won't spoil Israel ties
ANKARA Senior
Turkish officials have reassured Israel that two comprehensive military
agreements between Ankara and Damascus, signed last week, will not affect the
strategic ties between Turkey and Israel.
Through a
number of contacts, Turkish Foreign Ministry and General Staff members last week
also assured Israeli government and military officials that Turkey is fully
determined to maintain its ties with Israel.
Saying the
agreements with Syria are only meant to ease relations with Damascus, which they
said has taken considerable steps in recent years to decrease its support of
anti-Turkish PKK terrorists, the Turks added that the move is part of Turkey's
policy of balance, and said Ankara will continue to improve ties with Israel.
Meanhile, the
Turkish military is to start training Syrian officers, and a group of Turkish
military officers will travel to Damascus in the coming months to inspect Syrian
military units, The Jerusalem Post learned.
Syria also
plans to upgrade its military representation in Ankara by sending a military
attache to Turkey for the first time in several years. Syria had kept the
position vacant as a protest of Turkish-Israeli relations.
Under the two
deals outlining mutual cooperation in military training and technical and
scientific studies, the countries will send officers to each other's military
academies during military maneuvers.
"A new era
will be opened in the relations between Turkey and Syria with military
cooperation," said Turkey's Chief of General Staff Gen. Huseyin Kivrikoglu, as
his Syrian counterpart Hasan Turmani applauded the landmark deal.
Turkey and
Syria stood at the brink of war in 1998 when Turkey threatened military action
over Syria's provision of shelter to Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan and
his Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorists. Tensions eased in October 1998,
when Ocalan left Damascus, his long-time safe haven, and Syria pledged to
cooperate on security matters with Turkey.
Hovewer,
serious problems remain between the states. Ankara wants Damascus to give up
claims over the southern Turkish province of Hatay, often shown as a Syrian
territory on Syrian maps. And, despite its recent silence, Damascus is also
still unhappy about a number of dams Turkey has built on the Euphrates and
Tigris rivers, which originate in Turkey and flow down to drought-stricken Syria
and Iraq.
Syrian
President Bashar Assad plans to come Turkey soon, as Syrian Prime Minister
Mustafa Miro canceled his trip to Turkey last month because of Turkish Prime
Minister Bulent Ecevit's illness. Last year, Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim
Khaddam brought a message to Ankara of Damascus's willingness to turn over a new
leaf with Turkey, which currently trains F-16 fighter pilots from the United
Arab Emirates.
EIU - Turkey - Country forecast summary.
COUNTRY VIEW
FROM THE
ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT
* The Economist Intelligence Unit's baseline
forecast assumes that Turkey's fragile three-way coalition
government will cling to office for as long as possible to avoid an early
election. However, it appears increasingly unlikely that the coalition can
survive until the end of the parliamentary term in early 2004.
* The deep
divisions in the ruling coalition, a deterioration in the state of the prime
minister's health and the uncertain economic outlook have increased the
likelihood of a government crisis during the next 6-12 months. This could lead
to an early election and derail the IMF-backed stabilisation programme.
*
The outcome of the next election is hard to predict. It could bring about a
major change in the political landscape, owing to the current widespread
dissatisfaction with the established political parties and the emergence of new
ones.
* After a contraction by 7.4% in 2001, we expect weak GDP growth in
2002. Events after the September 11th terrorist attacks on the US have hit
expectations of a strong recovery driven by increased exports and tourism.
Economic growth should regain momentum from 2003, but will be constrained by
domestic imbalances during most of the remainder of the forecast
period.
* Although year-end consumer price inflation will be close to the
government's target of 35% in 2002, the prospects for taming inflation will
depend greatly on the stabilisation of the lira, the effectiveness of a new
inflation-targeting strategy expected during 2002, and oil price trends. We
believe that the new inflation-targeting regime will not provide a sufficiently
rigorous framework to achieve the government's target of 12% by
end-2004.
* The continued weakness of domestic demand should result in
another, albeit smaller, current-account surplus in 2002. The balance is
forecast to return to deficit in 2003-06. Deficits of around 2-3% of GDP and
very high debt servicing will require ready access to external funding, making
Turkey vulnerable to another external payments crisis.
*
Although additional IMF support should help to avoid another financial crisis in
2002, the risk of a destabilising default on, or a restructuring of, domestic
debt remains acute during the forecast period, as real interest rates on new
domestic debt issues are still high.
Key indicators 2004 2005 2006
Real GDP growth (%) 4.0 4.3 4.2
Consumer price inflation (%) 34.2 32.1 31.0
Budget balance (% of GDP) -9.63 -7.44 -6.72
Current-account balance (% of GDP) -2.3 -2.2 -2.4
3-month interbank money market interest rate
(av; %) 50.0 48.0 49.0
Exchange rate TL '000:US$ (av) 2,879.3 3,819.1 5,086.8
Exchange rate US$:Euro (av) 1.01 1.00 0.98
Key indicators 2001 2002 2003
Real GDP growth (%) -7.4 2.5 4.4
Consumer price inflation (%) 54.4 48.8 41.9
Budget balance (% of GDP) -15.75 -13.95 -11.57
Current-account balance (% of GDP) 1.3 0.5 -1.9
3-month interbank money market interest rate
(av; %) 92.0 60.0 52.0
Exchange rate TL '000:US$ (av) 1,225.6 1,532.0 2,154.9
Exchange rate US$:Euro (av) 0.90 0.92 0.97
SOURCE: Country
Forecast.
New York Times
A House as His Home, but a Museum as His Dream
By DOUGLAS
FRANTZ
STANBUL,
June 24 — Sakip Sabanci is a billionaire with, he says, a mission. First, he
wants Turks to have a museum that meets international standards. Then he intends
to reverse the flow of cultural masterpieces departing Turkey for the last
couple of centuries. Finally, he is dead set on instilling a sense of
philanthropy in the country's business elite.
"I want to better Turkey, and art is a very important part of that effort," Mr. Sabanci (pronounced sah-BAHN-ja) said the other day, shaking both fists for emphasis.
Mr. Sabanci certainly has the wherewithal to finance his dreams. He is chairman of Sabanci Holding SA, one of Turkey's largest industrial conglomerates. The family foundation spent $40 million building what quickly became one of Turkey's most respected private universities and financed a string of other cultural and educational projects.
With the grand opening of the Sakip Sabanci Museum in a hilltop park overlooking the Bosporus in Istanbul on June 8, Mr. Sabanci, a diminutive man of outsize achievements in the business world, accomplished his goal of bringing an international-quality museum to Turkey.
Istanbul is blessed with wonderful museums, from the Ottoman palace of Topkapi to archaeological and religious treasure houses. But none meet international standards for fire safety, earthquake resistance and other factors that would allow them to act as hosts to major traveling exhibitions.
Mr. Sabanci and an advisory board, which included Makrukh Tarapor from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Glenn Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, put together a plan to remedy that omission.
The result is a stunner — the stately Sabanci family villa was transformed into a state-of-the-art home for Mr. Sabanci's renowned calligraphy collection along with furniture and decorative arts. Attached to the villa by a covered walkway is an all-new contemporary, 15,000-square-foot, glass-walled pavilion for temporary exhibitions. Both buildings meet the standards required by curators and insurers for traveling shows.
For the museum's gala opening, which drew the country's political, business and social A list, the pavilion displayed 140 paintings from Mr. Sabanci's collection. The exhibition contains works by the most famous Turkish painters like Osman Hamdi and Ibrahim Calli.
But the museum's centerpiece is the calligraphy, acknowledged as the premier private collection in Turkey and one of the world's best. The current display features the 70 illuminated books, scrolls and wall plaques that were shown at the Metropolitan in New York in 1999 and at the Louvre in 2000.
The two-story villa's galleries are atmospherically lighted, with deep blue walls that create the feel of a jewel box. On those walls are Koranic manuscripts and verses rendered in exquisite script on marbled paper that trace 500 years of unbroken Ottoman rule.
The idea for the museum, Mr. Sabanci said, grew out of his visit to the United States several years ago. Mr. Sabanci's father was a cotton sharecropper in Turkey who built a conglomerate that today has 30,000 employees and 65 companies, with interests ranging from auto manufacture and banking to hypermarkets and chemical plants.
One of the company's strategies has been to form joint ventures with leading foreign corporations like Toyota, Bridgestone, Philip Morris and DuPont. The idea was to learn from one another, and it rubbed off on the cultural side.
Mr. Sabanci said the inspiration to create a museum sprang from a visit with the duPont family in Wilmington, Del. "They turned the family house into a wonderful museum," Mr. Sabanci said. "I realized that an institution's success and contribution cannot be solely judged on economic criteria."
Mr. Sabanci was living in the mansion overlooking the Bosporus, which his father had bought in 1951 as a summer home. When Mr. Sabanci described his plan, friends told him he was crazy to open his house — and treasures — to the public while he was still alive.
"They told me to wait until I died, but I wanted to do it now, when I am strong and in control," said Mr. Sabanci who, at 69, shows no sign of relinquishing control anytime soon.
As in France, culture is the province of the government in Turkey and there are few private cultural institutions. Likewise, charity is traditionally dispensed from the mosques and private philanthropy is a largely untested concept.
To direct the museum, Mr. Sabanci turned to Emin Balcioglu, a Turkish architect who ran a Turkish cultural center in New York. Along with overseeing the $6.5 million renovation of the villa and construction of the new gallery, Mr. Balcioglu consulted experts to upgrade Mr. Sabanci's collections.
"A private collector buys for his taste or because he got a good deal," Mr. Balcioglu said. "There were gaps we needed to fill to provide a sequence."
For instance, 123 paintings were acquired, bringing the collection to 318, probably the largest private or public holding of quality contemporary Turkish paintings. The calligraphy needed few additions, because Mr. Sabanci had been a major and careful collector for years.
The museum will also run education and training programs through its affiliation with Sabanci University. Chief among them will be a laboratory to conserve and restore paper. Of the 130,000 historic manuscripts in Istanbul, Mr. Balcioglu estimated, 30,000 need restoration.
As for Mr. Sabanci's other goals, he said that he had seen progress in building a domestic market for Turkish art and cultural artifacts and that Turkish buyers were repatriating works bought years ago by Americans and Europeans.
He is optimistic, too, that private philanthropy will expand among other rich Turks. Toward that end, he happily ushered a number of them through his museum on a recent Saturday evening, laughing as he joked about leaving the house, with its art and furnishings, three years ago, taking with him only his pajamas.
Daily
Star
Turkey’s identity crisis follows its
players to the World Cup
The Turks are being true to form.
There has been no diminution of their capacity to drag politics into virtually
any issue, including art and sport.
They still haven’t allowed the remains
of the great Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet to be brought back from Moscow
where he died and was buried in 1951 to be re-interred in his native
Anatolian soil, for no reason other than that he was a communist.
They
spurned the talents of the country’s master film maker, the late Yilmaz Guney,
because he was a Kurd.
When the celebrated novelist Yasar Kemal began
supporting the call for the Kurds to be granted cultural rights, he became one
of the regime’s hate figures.
And because of the Kurdish origins of singer
Ibrahim Tatlises, Turkey’s most famous pop star has recently been on the
receiving end of a relentless campaign of vilification accusing him of giving
money to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party.
No one ever knows whose
turn will come next. Anyone can incur the wrath of the regime if they are
perceived to be stepping out of line, even if they are international
celebrities. But few expected it to reach as far as South Korea and Japan, where
the Turkish national soccer squad has been competing in the 2002 World Cup
championship.
If there is any Turkish player who is of world class and
renown, it is most definitely Hakan Sukur, the star striker and former hero of
Istanbul’s top club Galatasaray, where he was nicknamed Bull of the Bosphorus,
because of his skill as a header of the ball.
Sukur put Turkey’s name on the
world soccer map. And after the national team
won qualification for the
championship tournament, for only the second time in 50 years, all eyes in the
country were bound to turn to him.
But as it happened, they were not turned
to his magical feet or his golden head. They were turned, instead, to what he
and a number of his teammates did on June 7, when they joined a congregation of
South Korean Muslims at Friday prayers.
A great hue and cry was raised
by hard-line secularists in Istanbul, outraged that members of the national
squad could have the effrontery to give public expression to their faith, and
join in prayer ahead of a crucial soccer match.
Never mind that this was no
more than a matter of players trying to settle their nerves or bolster their
self-confidence prior to an important game via an act of devotion.
Many
European and Latin American players habitually do the same by crossing
themselves before taking to the pitch, or after scoring goals by way of giving
thanks. No one ever takes issue with that, or claims that it has any bearing,
for better or worse, on the performance of the individual player or the team as
a whole.
But certain Turks do. As ever, they could not pass up this golden
opportunity to make a political issue out of the “incident” of Hakan Sukur
attending communal prayers.
Sukur was savaged by Tuncay Ozkan, a
commentator for Milliyet newspaper known for his close links to the military and
intelligence establishments, in the name of secularism and the Turkish
educational system. Ozkan implicitly demanded, in almost threatening tones, that
coach Senol Gunes take the country’s best goal scorer out of the team.
“Sukur is someone who was educated in this country, and he should behave in
a way that is consistent with the education he received,” Ozkan fumed, before
adding another warning to the rest of the team: “They must be made to understand
very clearly, that supplications are not enough!”
In light of the
“incident,” when, after a disappointing start to the championship, the Turkish
team defeated China, the Islamist newspaper Yeni Safak headlined its report of
the game “Faith Triumphs,” whereas the secularist daily Hurriyet opted for “The
Sun Is Now Rising” a word-play on coach Gunes’ surname, which means sun.
As well-known analyst Cengiz Candar pointed out, neither headline was
about soccer. Other agendas were at work. And if Sukur was done down because of
his religious faith, Gunes has also been denigrated because he hails not from
sophisticated Istanbul but the provincial Anatolian heartland.
To the mind
of commentator Fehmi Koru, this all relates to the way the powers-that-be
operate in Turkey and the “assortment” of forces that front for them in every
walk of life.
This “assortment,” he says, comprises two or three newspapers
that behave as though they are entitled to impose their opinions on the public
at large, including by means of their vilification campaigns against Sukur and
Gunes.
It includes those who seek to “wreck Turkey’s European dreams for the
sake of a convict on Imrali Island” a reference to hard-line nationalist
Deputy Premier Devlet Bahceli, who is demanding that Ankara resist European
Union pressure to repeal the death sentence passed on Kurdish rebel leader
Abdullah Ocalan.
And the “assortment” also extends to those “who want to
keep a patient in his sick-bed” without any voice emerging from his party to say
“enough” a reference to the officially-maintained pretense that ailing
Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit is fit enough to remain in office.
Koru
contrasts the warm praise he heard lavished on the Turkish soccer team by a
German taxi driver, with the way the “mouthpieces of doom” at home have been
attacking the players for attending Friday prayers, and the coach because of his
central Anatolian origins.
Everyone who could find an appropriate angle
appears to have seized on the World Cup finals to promote their political agenda
for Turkey.
Foreign affairs commentator Sami Kohen looked to the soccer
squad to provide the nation with a badly-needed morale boost to help it out of
its political and economic crisis. “The victory (over China) revived feelings of
hope and self-confidence that have been shattered recently by politics and
economics,” he reflected. “We needed the flush of victory to dispel the harsh
and pressing climate that was prevailing within us.”
Kohen went on to
argue that Turkey’s politicians could learn a lot from its sportsmen about
preparation, organization and team spirit. “Why can’t Turkey progress beyond the
current ‘round’ in its relations with the European Union and qualify for the
next one, which is full membership?” he wondered, adding the doleful reflection:
“If only we could get past the first round in politics as we did in soccer.”
Another prominent commentator, Taha Akyol, used the World Cup to argue in
favor of extending cultural rights to Turkey’s Kurdish population, a move
strongly opposed by Bahceli’s National Movement Party.
He wrote that the
people of the predominantly Kurdish southeastern city of Diyarbakir
enthusiastically celebrated the Turkish team’s victory over China, implying that
it is only the constraints on their right to express their culture that
alienates Kurds from the Turkish state.
Why else, Akyol asked, “would
Diyarbakir give 62 percent of its votes to HADEP (the Kurdish-oriented People’s
Democracy Party), and yet so rejoice at the triumph of our national team?”
Mohammad Noureddine is an expert on Turkish affairs. He wrote this commentary for The Daily Star
Back
to top
Reuters
IMF says U.S. economic outlook favorable.
By Mark Egan
WASHINGTON, June 24
(Reuters) - The U.S. economy's outlook is favorable and interest rates need not
be raised until the recovery gathers steam, according to a new International
Monetary Fund report notable for its criticism of the Bush administration's
economic performance.
In the lender's annual assessment of the world's
richest economy, placed on the U.S. Treasury's Web site without fanfare late on
Friday, the IMF said: "The Fed has some room to wait until the recovery is more
clearly established before acting, given the minimal signs of impending
inflation pressures and the still uncertain economic outlook."
The powerful
U.S. central bank last cut its key short-term interest rate target in December
to 1.75 percent, a four-decade low. The Fed meets this week to set interest-rate
policy and is expected to leave borrowing costs unchanged.
But the IMF
cautioned the Federal Reserve to remain wary of "the possibility that delaying
action would require larger and more disruptive policy adjustments later
on."
The IMF said it expects growth to moderate from the rapid 5.6 percent
annual pace of expansion seen in the first quarter, but nevertheless sees the
recovery being sustained by an uptick in business investment and strong consumer
spending.
But it said "important uncertainties remain," notably the prospects
for corporate profits and investment, household demand strength and the large
U.S. trade deficit.
CRITICAL REPORT
The report was critical of the Bush
administration's handling of fiscal policy - something it was happier with
during the Clinton years when the budget was balanced.
"The fiscal outlook
has deteriorated markedly over the past year," it said, while also panning
recent U.S. trade policy.
The international lender, best known for its
dealings with economically troubled nations like Argentina and
Turkey, also offers annual economic advice to its richer member
nations.
While many of those appraisals are notable for their lack of
criticism of governments' policy actions, the latest U.S. report card took issue
with the Bush administration's actions.
On the fiscal front, the IMF said
projections of a unified surplus of 2.5 percent of gross domestic product for
fiscal 2002 had evaporated in the past year into a likely 1 percent deficit. The
report also noted that while the budget projects surpluses after fiscal 2004,
deficits would remain after excluding the surpluses of Social Security trust
funds. And, it added, "medium-term fiscal projections could be
optimistic."
The Bush administration has proposed meeting higher military and
security spending through cuts elsewhere, something the IMF said, "could be
difficult to sustain, especially given the apparent weakening of fiscal
discipline."
Indeed, the report said that the fiscal position has
deteriorated so much that, "consideration may need to be given to revenue
measures" - IMF code for either raising taxes or reducing tax breaks offered to
households and companies. Without such measures, it said, "the pending cuts in
marginal income tax rates may need to be reconsidered."
But if American
taxpayers might worry that the Bush administration is about to hike taxes to
keep the IMF happy, they can take solace in the fact that Republican presidents
religiously ignored similar IMF advice throughout the 1980s.
The report said
budget projections may also, "significantly understate the growth of Medicare
outlays." Moreover, the lender said it cannot rule out a further erosion of tax
revenues as a ratio of gross domestic product.
Calling for a return to a
balanced budget, the report said longer-run fiscal pressures from an aging
population "remain worrisome." Placing Social Security and Medicare on a sounder
financial footing was also needed, the IMF said.
But it was on trade matters
that the IMF was most critical. It said the measures taken to protect the steel
industry, appear "likely to impose significant costs both domestically and
abroad and, by raising trade tensions, could undermine momentum for multilateral
trade liberalization."
It also said massive farm subsidies, "were damaging
from both a domestic and international perspective" and will "encourage
production of crops already in chronic oversupply and adversely affect producers
abroad, while also undermining domestic fiscal objectives."
The IMF also
panned the paltry 0.1 percent of economic output America earmarks for overseas
aid, saying that even plans in place to increase that amount would leave the
world's richest nation as "the lowest among industrial countries" when it comes
to helping those in need.
U.S. counterterrorism expert opens conference in Turkey
Mon Jun 24,11:23 AM ET
ANKARA, Turkey - A top U.S. counterterrorism official opened a regional conference on battling terror Monday and said that global cooperation was vital in fighting groups like al-Qaida.
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Francis X. Taylor, the head of the State Department's office of counterterrorism, said that security forces have already disrupted planned attacks by Osama bin Laden ( news - web sites)'s al-Qaida network.
"I am convinced ... that we are making success against al-Qaida. We are disrupting their networks. We have disrupted plans for attacks and we will continue to work to do that," he said. He gave no details.
Taylor, a retired U.S. Air Force general, opened a three-day regional conference in Ankara, Turkey, on fighting terror. The conference includes representatives from Central Asia, including Afghanistan ( news - web sites) and the Caucasus and observers from countries including Britain, China and Russia.
The regional conference, which is held annually, took place last year in Istanbul.
"We are here to roll up our sleeves and talk practical issues of cooperation," he said at a press conference.
"We are focusing on ... how nations can work together on closing the seams that terrorists operate in around the world and particularly in this region," he added. He gave no details and the conference was not open to the press.
Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country that has backed the U.S.-led anti-terror campaign and is heading an international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, has been identified by U.S. officials as a potential target for international terrorist acts.
Britain says it
will not help finance Turkey's leadership of peacekeeping force
Mon Jun 24, 2:18 PM ET
LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair ( news - web sites)'s government said Monday it would not help finance Turkey's leadership of the peacekeeping force in Afghanistan ( news - web sites).
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Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said that instead, Britain was leaving computer and communications equipment and a fire engine for the use of the 19-nation international force, known as the International Security Assistance Force.
Last week, Turkey took over command from Britain of the more than 4,000 international peacekeepers now in Afghanistan. About 75 percent of Britain's 1,500-strong contingent will leave by the end of the month, while the number of Turkish troops will rise to about 1,400.
Turkey, which is struggling with a deep economic crisis, is worried about the mission's cost and had asked the United States and other nations to provide the Turkish military with satellite communication systems and cargo planes.
The U.S. administration has promised Turkey that it would ask Congress for dlrs 200 million in economic aid and another dlrs 28 million in military aid for Turkey.
"The U.K. will not be giving any financial assistance, but has agreed to leave in Afghanistan for use by ISAF some computer and communications equipment and a fire engine," Hoon said in a written reply to a question raised by lawmakers in the House of Commons.
The peacekeeping force has been patrolling
Kabul since January, working with the interim government and a new police force
to prevent violence and lawlessness like that which followed the military action
by U.S.-supported forces, which drove the Taliban from power.
ÝÇÝNDEKÝLER
· EL PAIS
ONBEÞLER, YUMUÞATILMIÞ GÖÇ VE GENÝÞLEMEYE DESTEK KONUSUNDA BÝR TEKLÝFLE ZÝRVEYÝ
KAPATIYOR
· FINANCIAL
TIMES TÜRK ORDUSU AFGANÝSTAN'DAKÝ ULUSLARASI BARIÞGÜCÜNÜN KOMUTASINI DEVRALDI
· TO VÝMA
ANKARA'NIN 15'LERDEN KÜÇÜK BEKLENTÝLERÝ
· AFP
JEAN-CLAUDE JUNKLER: KOPENHAG ZÝRVESÝ, SADECE TÜRKÝYE ÜZERÝNDE YOÐUNLAÞMAMALIDIR
· DE MORGEN
KABÝL'DEKÝ BARIÞI BUNDAN BÖYLE TÜRKÝYE KORUYACAK
· HARAVGÝ
KLERÝDÝS SON DAKÝKADA ÇÖZÜM UMUYOR
· LE MONDE
TÜRKÝYE'DE KIRMIZI-BEYAZ BAYRAK DALGASI
EL
PAIS
ONBEÞLER, YUMUÞATILMIÞ GÖÇ VE GENÝÞLEMEYE DESTEK KONUSUNDA BÝR TEKLÝFLE
ZÝRVEYÝ KAPATIYOR
ANKARA, 22/06(BYE)--- Ýspanya'da yayýmlanan
El Pais gazetesinin 22 Haziran 2002 tarihli sayýsýnda yukarýdaki baþlýk altýnda
Madrid çýkýþlý bir yazý yer almýþtýr. Internet'ten saðlanan haberin çevirisi
þöyledir:
Zirvenin ikinci gününde Onbeþler'in, Fransýz
muhalefeti karþýsýnda, Ýspanya Baþbakaný Aznar tarafýndan dün yumuþatýlan
yasadýþý göçle mücadelede Ýspanyol önerisini kabul etmeleri bekleniyor. Ayrýca,
AB devlet baþkanlarý, üstlenmeye hazýr olduklarý ortak Hükümetteki
deðiþikliklere ve 2004 yýlýnda katýlmak için AB kapýlarýnda bekleyen ülkelere
gönderilecek mesaja karar vermek zorundalar.
Onbeþler, 2004 yýlýndaki Avrupa Parlamentosu
seçimlerine katýlabilmeleri için, yýl sonundan önce 10 yeni ortaðýn katýlýmý
müzakerelerini sonuçlandýrma niyetinde olduklarýný teyit ettiler. Bununla
birlikte Ýspanya Dýþiþleri Bakaný Pique, bu ilerlemenin, Kopenhag'da Kasým
ayýnda yapýlacak zirvedeki tarým yardýmlarý konusundaki anlaþmadan sonra
geldiðini belirtti.
Ayrýca, daha hazýrlýklý on ülkeyi (Kýbrýs,
Çek Cumhuriyeti, Estonya, Macaristan, Letonya, Litvanya, Malta, Polonya,
Slovakya ve Slovenya) heveslendirmek için Pique, Onbeþler'in, AB'ye katýlým
yolunda geride kalan Bulgaristan ve Romanya'ya bugün olumlu bir mesaj
yollayacaklarýný da ifade etti. Yýl sonundan önce resmi bir þekilde 2004 yýlýnda
aday ülkeler grubuna katýlabilecek olan Türkiye'nin de ilerlemesini teþvik
edecekler. Pique, bu ülkenin 1993 yýlýnda Kopenhag'ta saptanan ekonomik ve
siyasi kriterleri tamamlamakta olduðuna, ancak ülkenin güncel yaþamýnda yasal
deðiþikliklerin pratik olarak uygulanmasýnýn gerektiðine iþaret etti.
FINANCIAL
TIMES
TÜRK ORDUSU AFGANÝSTAN'DAKÝ ULUSLARASI BARIÞGÜCÜNÜN KOMUTASINI
DEVRALDI
ANKARA, 21/06(BYE)--- Financial Times
gazetesinin 21 Haziran 2002 tarihli sayýsýnda Leyla Boulton imzasýyla ve
yukarýdaki baþlýk altýnda bir makale yayýmlanmýþtýr. Ýnternetten saðlanan
makalenin çevisi þöyledir:
Bir Türk general dün, Türk ve Ýngiliz
bandolarýnýn da bulunduðu coþkulu bir kalabalýk içerisinde Afganistan'daki
Uluslararasý Güvenlik ve Destek Gücü'nün (ISAF) komutasýný Ýngiltere'den
devraldý.
NATO'daki tek Müslüman ülke olarak Türkiye,
Kabil'de barýþý koruma görevi için biçilmiþ kaftan olarak görülüyor. Afganistan
ile askeri iþbirliði, 1923 yýlýnda Türkiye Cumhuriyeti'ni kuran asker kökenli
devlet adamý Mustafa Kemal Atatürk tarafýndan baþlatýldý. Türkiye, Taliban
rejimi altýnda dahi Kabil'de bir çocuk hastalýklarý hastanesini muhafaza
etti.
Ancak Türk ordusu, Afganlarla tarihi ve dini
yakýnlýðýna raðmen bilinmeyen topraklarda yürüyecek.
NATO'nun ikinci büyük ordusunun ilk görevi
halen "Türk topraklarýný ve cumhuriyetini... iç ve dýþ tehditlere karþý korumak"
olarak tanýmlanýyor. Türk ordusu, 1960 yýlýndan bu yana üç darbe giriþiminin
ardýndan, askerler kadar sivil politikacýlardan da sorgulanmayan bir saygý
görmeye alýþtý.
Türk ordusu üzerine bir kitabý bulunan ünlü
gazeteci Mehmet Ali Birand, "Türk ordusunun Afganistan'da bir asker, centilmen
ve bir siyasetçi olmasý gerekecek. Ýþlerin yapýlmasý yalnýzca bir emir
çýkartýklarý Türkiye'deki gibi olmayacak" þeklinde yazdý.
1,400 askeri olan ISAF'taki Türk birliði
arasýnda dün, korkularýn yaný sýra heyecan da duyuluyordu. Binbaþý Ýbrahim Can,
"Amacýmýz barýþý saðlamak ve insanlara yardým etmektir" dedi.
Tümgeneral Akýn Zorlu, diðer komutan ve
siyasetçilerle baðlantý içerisinde, -Ýngiliz selefinin genellikle çetrefilli
bulduðu bir görev olan- medyayý denetim altýnda tutmakla birlikte Afgan
baþkentinde güvenliðin tam anlamýyla saðlanmasýndan sorumlu. Zorlu ayrýca,
ISAF'ýn Afganistan güvenlik kuvvetlerine vereceði eðitimi de
denetleyecek.
Ýngiltere, týbbi müdahale ve inþaat
çalýþmalarý ile yerel halka yardým ederek "kalpleri ve akýllarý" kazanmada
gayriresmi bir emsal oldu. Tümgeneral Akýn Zorlu dün, Türkiye'nin "önümüzdeki
altý ayýn her gününü benzer projelerle" doldurma planý olduðunu
söyledi.
Bu hafta seçilen Afganistan Devlet Baþkaný
Hamid Karzai "Türk kardeþlerini ve güçlü generallerini" memnuniyetle karþýladý.
Batýlý bir diplomat, "Bu, Türk Silahlý
Kuvvetleri'nin uluslararasý güvenlik üzerinde aðýrlýðý olan bir role sahip
olduklarýný kanýtlamalarý için bir fýrsattýr" dedi.
Türk Silahlý Kuvvetleri, Türkiye'nin
güneydoðu bölgesinde Kürt teröristlere karþý 15 yýllýk mücadeleyi kazanmasýnýn
ardýndan daha da kuvvetlendi. Bu savaþ, insan halklarý ihlalleri ve köylerin
yakýldýklarý iddialarýyla ordunun yurt dýþýndaki imajýný zedeledi.
Türkiye'nin yakýn müttefiki ve
Afganistan'daki batý koalisyonunun lideri ABD, yardým teklifiyle, ISAF'ýn
komutasýný Türklerin devralma kararýný garantiledi.
Buna ihtiyaçlarý olacak. Ýngiltere'den devir
hazýrlýklarý, soðuk savaþ döneminden bu yana çok az modernleþen bir ordunun
sýnýrlýlýðýný gösterdi bile.
Paranýn yokluðu, 21. yüzyýl için daha hýzlý,
öldürücü ve yüksek teknolojiye sahip bir ordunun kurulmasýnda tek engel
deðil.
Bunun yanýnda, taktikler ve araç gereçler
yalnýzca 18 ay boyunca hizmet görecek askerler için oldukça sade bir þekilde
kullanýlmalý.
Askere alma da, ordunun toplum üzerindeki
nüfuzunun temelini oluþturur. Ýngiliz yazar Gareth Jenkins, "Her Türkün asker
olarak doðduðu sýklýkla söylenir" þeklinde yazýyor.
Jenkins, "Ordunun, karmaþýk siyasi ve
ekonomik durumda istikrar saðladýðý görüldüðü zaman (ISAF'dan) geri çekilmesini
beklemek zor olacaktýr. Ancak oynadýklarý role, siyasi sistemin reformlarý gölge
düþürüyor" dedi.
Türkiye'nin, askerlerin sivil otoritelere
baðýmlýlýðýný gerektiren Avrupa Birliði adaylýðý nedeniyle reformlarýn
gerçekleþtirilmesi için baskýlar giderek artýyor. Fakat analistler, ordunun bir
gecede profesyonel ve apolitik bir hale dönüþmesinin beklenmemesi gerektiðini
kabul ettiler.
Türk Savunma Sanayii'nden bir yetkili Sýtký
Egel, "ISAF silahlý kuvvetlere, bazý þeyleri yapmanýn farklý yollarýný
gösterecektir. Bu yalnýzca onlarýn kendi yararlarýna olacaktýr" dedi.
TO
VÝMA
ANKARA'NIN 15'LERDEN KÜÇÜK BEKLENTÝLERÝ
ATÝNA, 21/06(BYE)--- Tirajý günde 33.500
olan To Vima gazetesinin 21 Haziran 2002 tarihli sayýsýnda, yukarýdaki baþlýk
altýnda yayýmlanan Ýstanbul çýkýþlý haberin çevirisi þöyledir:
Sevilla'da yapýlacak olan AB Zirvesi'nden
Ankara'nýn beklentileri küçüktür. Türkiye, AB ile üyelik müzakerelerinin
baþlamasý yolunda talepte bulunmaya hazýr deðildir. Geçmiþte diplomat ve
siyasiler AB-Türkiye arasýnda üyelik müzakerelerinin bitiþ tarihinin de
belirlenebileceðini söylüyordu. Oysa görünen o ki, Türkiye bu tür taleplerde
bulunmaya hazýr deðildir.
Türkiye'nin içte durgun bir dönemde
bulunmasýndan dolayý gerektiði gibi hazýrlanamamasý, ülke içinde hayal kýrýklýðý
yaratmýþtýr. Baþbakan Yardýmcýsý Mesut Yýlmaz, partisinin parlamento grubuna
hitaben yaptýðý konuþmada, "reformlarýn uygulanabileceði yolundaki ümitlerim gün
geçtikçe azalýyor" dedi.
Reformlarýn belirlenmiþ süre içinde
uygulanamayacaðýndan kaygý duyan TUSÝAD da hükümete çaðrýda bulunarak, bu yaz
TBMM'nin tatil yapmayarak ekim ayýna kadar gereken reformlarý uygulamasýný talep
etti.
DYP lideri Tansu Çiller de, AB-Türkiye
iliþkilerinde yaþanan durgunluktan bugünkü hükümetin sorumlu olduðunu
söylüyor.
AB-Türkiye iliþkileri konusunda iyimser olan
tek kiþi var, o da Dýþiþleri Bakaný Ýsmail Cem. Ýsmail Cem, Baþbakan Bülent
Ecevit ile görüþmesinde, Baþbakan'a, "Türkiye'nin AB trenini kaçýrdýðý görüþünü
öne sürmek için daha zamanýn erken olduðunu" söylediði öðrenildi.
AFP
JEAN-CLAUDE
JUNKLER: KOPENHAG ZÝRVESÝ, SADECE TÜRKÝYE ÜZERÝNDE YOÐUNLAÞMAMALIDIR
SEVÝLLA (ÝSPANYA), 23/06(AFP)(BYE)---
Lüksemburg Baþbakaný Jean-Claude Junnkler dün yaptýðý bir açýklamada, Avrupa
Birliði'ni, "önümüzdeki aralýk ayýnda düzenlenecek Kopenhag Avrupa Konseyi
Zirvesi'ni sadece Türkiye üzerinde yoðunlaþtýrmamalarý" konusunda
uyardý.
Sevilla Zirvesi'nin ardýndan basýn
açýklamasý yapan Junkler, "deðiþik süreçleri birbirinden ayýrmamýz gerekir"
þeklinde konuþtu.
Junkler'e göre, aralýk ayýnda hükümet ve
devlet baþkanlarý düzeyinde yapýlacak Kopenhag Zirvesi'nde birlik, yeni
ülkelerin katýlýmý ile gerçekleþecek olan geniþleme süreci konusunda kararlar
almalý ve bu ülkelerin Avrupa ailesi ile bütünleþmeleri konusunu görüþmelidir.
Ayrýca Junkler, bu zirvenin AB'ye aday ülkeler için çok önemli bir "an"
olacaðýný da sözlerine ekledi.
Türkiye ile üyelik görüþmelerinin açýlmasý
konusuna atýfta bulunarak sözlerine devam eden Junkler, "Kopenhag'da görüþülecek
hususlar çok önemlidir ve bu hususlar arasýna acela etmemizi gerektirmeyecek
baþka konular sokulmasý, diðer konulara vermemiz gereken önemi azaltabilir"
dedi.
Ayrýca Junkler, Sevilla Zirvesi'nde
geniþleme süreci ile ilgili, birliðe aday on ülke ile bu yýlýn sonuna kadar
görüþmelerin bitirilmesi konusunda alýnan kararý olumlu bulduðunu
açýkladý.
DE
MORGEN
KABÝL'DEKÝ BARIÞI BUNDAN BÖYLE TÜRKÝYE KORUYACAK
BRÜKSEL, 21/06(BYE)--- Tirajý günde 67.000
bin olan De Morgen gazetesinin 21 Haziran 2002 tarihli sayýsýnda Ayfer Erkul
imzasýyla ve yukarýdaki baþlýk altýnda yayýmlanan Reuter kaynaklý haberin
çevirisi þöyledir:
Türkiye, ISAF komutasýný dün Ýngilizlerden
devraldý. Bu güç, önümüzdeki altý ay boyunca barýþý korumanýn yaný sýra, karþýt
güçlerin çatýþmasýný engellemeye çalýþacak. Yardým örgütleri, kuzeyde herkesin
istediðini yapmasýný engellemek üzere ISAF görev alanýnýn Kabil dýþýna
geniþletilmesini istiyorlar.
Deðiþik ülke askerlerinden oluþan ISAF'ýn
komutasý, þimdiye kadar sadece Türk birliklerini yönetmiþ olan Tümgeneral Akýn
Zorlu için büyük bir test olacak. Tümgeneral Zorlu, yýllarca Türkiye'nin
güneydoðusunda PKK'ya karþý Türk birliklerini yönetti. Ancak ISAF'ý yönetmek
için askeri yetenek kadar diplomatik yetenek de gerekiyor.
Kabil'de güvenliði saðlama dýþýnda, Zorlu
için önemli bir baþka görev de yeni Devlet Baþkaný Karzai ile iþbirliði yapmak
ve yýllardýr Afganistan'da kendi aralarýnda mücadele eden gruplar arasýnda
barýþý saðlamak olacaktýr.
Sorun da burada ortaya çýkabilir. Türkiye,
yeni Afgan hükümetinde görev alamayan, tartýþmalý Özbek lider Raþid Dostum'u
desteklediðini þimdiye kadar hiç gizlemedi. Ancak bu endiþe dün hissedilmedi.
Devlet Baþkaný Karzai, özellikle Türkiye ve Afganistan arasýndaki uzun dostluk
iliþkilerine deðindi. Geçen yýldan bu yana ekonomik kriz yaþayan ve ABD'den
maddi yardým alan Türkiye'nin ISAF komutasýný almasýný en çok ABD istiyordu.
Uzmanlara göre ABD, Türkiye'yi Afganistan'a laik ve demokratik bir örnek olarak
göstermek istiyor. Türk halkýnýn yüzde 90'ý Müslüman, ancak devletin laik bir
modeli var. Üstelik ABD, terorizmle mücadele Müslüman bir müttefiði olduðunu da
göstermek istiyor.
HARAVGÝ
KLERÝDÝS
SON DAKÝKADA ÇÖZÜM UMUYOR
LEFKOÞA, 21/06(BYE)--- Tirajý günde 9 bin
olan, AKEL partisi yayýn organý Haravgi gazetesinin 21 Haziran 2002 tarihli
sayýsýnda, yukarýdaki baþlýk altýnda yayýmlanan haberin çevirisi þöyledir:
Cumhurbaþkaný Glafkos Kleridis, Kýbrýs
sorunuyla ilgili devam eden doðrudan görüþmelerin son anda da olsa Kýbrýs
sorununda, iki toplumlu, iki kesimli bir federasyona ve hem Kýbrýs Elenleri hem
Kýbrýs Türklerinin insan haklarýna saygýya dayalý, kalýcý, yaþayabilir bir
çözüme yol açacak uzlaþýlmýþ bir düzenlemeyi getirebileceðine inandýðýný
söyledi.
Kleridis dün Dominik Cumhuriyeti Büyükelçisi
Manuel Morales Lama'nýn güven mektubunu kabulü sýrasýnda yaptýðý konuþmada, Türk
tarafýndan, samimi, yapýcý ve gelecek vizyonuyla müzakere isteði göstermesini ve
Kýbrýs sorununa kalýcý bir hal çaresi bulunabilmesi için "uzlaþmaz tez ve
taleplerini" terk etmesini beklediklerini de söyledi.
Kýbrýs sorununa bulunacak çözümün BM
kararlarýnýn parameterleri içinde, uluslararasý hukuk ve AB normlarýyla uyumlu
olmasý gerektiðini de kaydeden Kleridis, Kýbrýs'ýn yakýnda gerçekleþmesini
umduklarý AB üyeliðinin, eþsiz bir fýrsat penceresi açtýðýný ve adanýn
bölünmüþlüðünün sona ermesi için bir dinamik yarattýðýný ifade
etti.
Bu fýrsatýn kaçýrýlmamasý gerektiðini de
söyleyen Kleridis, Kýbrýs'ýn geleceðe bakmaya ve geçmiþin rehinesi olarak
kalmamaya niyetli olduðunu söyledi.
Lama ise ülkesinin, "Kýbrýs Cumhuriyeti'nin
hakkaniyetin egemen olma çabalarýný tanýdýðýný ve diðer ülkeler gibi Kýbrýs
Cumhuriyeti'nin geçmiþ tarihsel olaylarýn sonucu olarak hala var olan
çatýþmalarý aþacaðý beklentisinde olduðunu" söyledi.
LE
MONDE
TÜRKÝYE'DE KIRMIZI-BEYAZ BAYRAK DALGASI
PARÝS, 21/06(BYE)--- Tirajý günde 510 bin Le
Monde gazetesinin 20 Haziran 2002 tarihli sayýsýnda Nicole Pope imzasýyla
yayýmlanan Ýstanbul çýkýþlý haberin çevirisi þöyledir:
Ekonomik gerileme ve iþsizlik unutuldu!
Baþbakan Bülent Ecevit'in hastalýðýnýn yol açtýðý siyasi belirsizlik unutuldu!
Futbolun kral olduðu bu ülkede, Türk Milli Takýmý'nýn 18 Haziran Salý günü
Japonya karþýsýnda zafer elde ederek ilk defa Dünya Kupasý çeyrek finaline
kalmasý evveliyatý görülmemiþ bir sevinç patlamasýna yol açtý.
Ýstanbul'un efsanevi trafiði, sporun
tanrýlarýna geçici olarak boyun eðdi. Maç sýrasýnda yollar çöl gibiydi. Kahve
önlerine veya bürolara televizyonlar konulmuþtu. Birçok iþyerinde çalýþanlar
birkaç saatliðine iþlerini býrakmýþtý. Hakemin son düdüðü derhal eðlenceyi
baþlattý. Birkaç dakika içerisinde kýrmýzý-beyaz bayrak dalgasý yollarý kapladý.
Klaksonlar çalýndý, fiþekler patlatýldý ve hatta münferid birkaç el ateþ açýldý.
Ýlk defa Türkiye'de kaybeden bir takým yoktu ve tüm bir ülke, aylardýr süren
yoksunluklarý silen ve tüm ümitlere kapýlar açan bir zaferi kutluyordu.
Zonguldak'ta bir kiþi kalp krizi geçirerek
hayatýný yitirdi. Ýzmir'de ise çok heyecanlanan bir taraftar arabasýný ateþe
verdi. Ama çok az olay çýktý. Ankara'da onbinlerce kiþi Kýzýlay Meydaný'nda
toplandý. Bir aracýn üzerinden eðilen Belediye Baþkaný, kalabalýða sarý futbol
toplarý gönderdi. Gürültülü kalabalýðýn, bayraklarla donanmýþ araba ve kamyon
konvoylarýnýn yarattýðý trafik sýkýþýklýðýndan ise hiç kimse þikayetçi deðildi.
Hoparlörlerden "kýrmýzý-beyaz... Þampiyon Türkiye" sesleri geliyordu. "Sizinle
gurur duyuyoruz", "saðol, saðol, saðol." Bazý taraftarlar, duyduklarý gururu
tarif edilmez mutluluðu heyecandan ifade bile edemiyordu.
Türkiye'nin bütün þehirlerinde davul zurna
eþliðinde halaylar çekildi. Bazen de Tarkan'ýn "Kuzu Kuzu" adlý þarkýsý
eþliðinde danslar edildi. Hatta kalýn kýyafetleri altýnda sýcaktan bunalan
Osmanlý Yeniçerileri, yani Mehter Takýmý da ateþli taraftarlarýn arasýna
katýldý. Bir spor karnavalýna dönüþen günden, ülkeyi baþtan aþaðýya donatan
kýrmýzý-beyaz bayrak satýcýlarý karlý çýktý. Resmi binalarýn çatýlarýndan sarkan
devasa bayraklar, babalarýnýn omuzlarýna çýkmýþ çocuklarýn salladýðý küçük
bayraklar, arabalarý süsleyen kurdeleler derken her yer kýrmýzý-beyaz olmuþtu.
Bu baþarý, zaman zaman yurtdýþýnda pek sevilmediðini ve pek iyi anlaþýlmadýðýný düþünen Türklere gururlarýný ifade etme imkaný tanýdý. Burada Milli Takým oyuncularýný herkes ön adýyla biliyor: Hakan, Rüþtü, Yýldýray ve özellikle de Ümit Davala. Japonya karþýlaþmasýndaki tek golün sahibi Ümit Davala, "bu Türk halkýna bir hediyedir" dedi. Birçok televizyon kanalýndaki sunucular, Milli Takým formasý giymiþti. Kosta Rika karþýsýnda hayal kýrýklýðýna uðradýklarý maçýn ardýndan oyuncularý ve onlarý Milli Takým'a çaðýran Þenol Güneþ'i eleþtiren spor yorumcularý, kendilerini affettirmek için bundan istifade ettiler. Kötü paslar unutuldu. 1954'ten beri Dünya Kupasý'nda temsil edilmeyen Türk futbolu için yeni bir sayfa açýlmýþtý. Taraftarlar, Senegal karþýsýnda oynanacak çeyrek final için 22 Haziran Cumartesi günü için sözleþtiler. Senegal maðlup edilmesi zor bir takým ama Türkler rüzgarýn kendilerinden yana estiðini düþünüyor.
Editorial A Plan Without a Map
resident
Bush has offered a far-reaching, moral vision for the future of the Middle East.
The question is how to get there from here.
As laid out in two speeches, one in April and the second yesterday, Mr. Bush wants to see two thriving democratic states, one Jewish, the other Palestinian, sharing the strip of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. The 1993 Oslo peace framework may have collapsed under the strain of Palestinian terror and Israeli military retaliation, the president is saying, but its opponents will not be permitted to declare victory. The Oslo goal of coexistence between two states remains the only legitimate one.
But to accomplish this, the two sides, so angry and suspicious of one another, need specific direction. The Israelis and Palestinians need a road map in which a concession by one will be followed by a concession from the other. On this point, yesterday's speech left much to be desired. Mr. Bush does not seem to expect anything immediately from the Israelis, and he appeared to rule out much improvement in the lives of Palestinians until Yasir Arafat is ousted. He told the Palestinian people they needed to elect new leaders, build new institutions and create new security arrangements before he could support declaration of even a provisional state. Meanwhile, he simply stated as a fact that Israel "will continue to defend herself."
We are no fans of Mr. Arafat either, and we accept Mr. Bush's conclusion that Israel and the Palestinians will have little hope of achieving real peace as long as he is in charge. But making Mr. Arafat's fate the be-all and end-all of the Mideast peace process makes him look far too significant, and makes it all the harder for the Palestinians themselves to show him the door. Mr. Bush had a better approach when he was ignoring Mr. Arafat and placing emphasis on democratic reforms that would help bring others into positions of authority. Moreover, Mr. Bush seemed to be telling Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that he is free to reoccupy the entire West Bank until a new, democratic Palestine emerges. How the Palestinians can be expected to carry out elections or reform themselves while in a total lockdown by the Israeli military remains something of a mystery.
In broad terms, Mr. Bush told Israel the right things. It must help the Palestinians achieve democracy by releasing its frozen revenues, end settlement building in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and negotiate all the difficult remaining issues, like Jerusalem and refugees. But the president set no timetable. This means that settler leaders and military hard-liners, including those in the government, may take this waiting period to grab all they can and establish "facts on the ground."
Mr. Bush may have a vision of a Palestinian state being declared in three years, but a great deal of harm can occur while everyone is waiting for Yasir Arafat to leave and political reform to take place. Israeli officials and many Americans worry about "sending a message" that terror works if Israeli concessions are made now. But without steps by both sides, a different message could be received by the Palestinians — hopelessness.
Clear Terms, Murky Future
By PATRICK E.
TYLER
ewsAnalysis
WASHINGTON, June 24 — Since October, President Bush has been saying more explicitly than any previous president that he believes in the principle of a Palestinian state, one that could live side by side with Israel in peace and security.
Today, however, after a week of renewed Palestinian suicide bombings, Mr. Bush declared the price of statehood for 4.5 million Palestinians, and it will be high: the removal of Yasir Arafat as the Palestinian leader.
Once that occurs, and "with intensive effort by all," Mr. Bush said, an agreement to create such a state, with an elected leadership, a rule of law, and an open economy "could be reached within three years from now, and I and my country will actively lead toward that goal."
With this address, Mr. Bush opened a new period of American diplomacy in the Middle East that immediately raised the question of whether it can succeed, since it defers indefinitely the political negotiations that Palestinians, backed by Arab leaders, have been demanding to end Israel's occupation of the West Bank and to reach a final settlement on statehood. An important question is whether Mr. Arafat, whom Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel would like to exile and Mr. Bush would like to remove from office, will have any incentive to cooperate with this new American policy.
The policy is still short on the details of how a cease-fire could be put in place — how the Israeli Army might be coaxed out of the West Bank or how Palestinian security institutions might be rebuilt to prevent suicide bombings. Those are important factors in creating conditions for a political process that could move forward.
For all the risks in a policy that sends a sharp message to Mr. Arafat that he is irrelevant, the recent track record of splitting differences in the Middle East has been a dismal failure. "Everything is shoved down the road so, and it was so conditional," said Richard W. Murphy, a onetime assistant secretary or state for the Middle East who served Democratic and Republican administrations. He added that Mr. Bush could face a "dilemma" if — in defiance of American pressure to remove the icon of their national movement — Palestinians re-elect Mr. Arafat at the first opportunity, which is expected to be next spring.
"Arafat never struck me as the kind who would want to step down in the name of national interest, because he thinks he knows it better than anyone else," Mr. Murphy said.
A significant risk is that while Mr. Bush waits for Palestinians to live up to the benchmarks he set forth from the Rose Garden of the White House, the violence will simply continue, or even intensify.
It was also unclear how changing the Palestinian leadership would actually proceed after the United States and European countries helped Palestinians carry out local and national elections over the next year, or how those elections would be carried out at all if violence and Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories continued.
Martin S. Indyk, who served as a top Middle East strategist in the Clinton administration, applauded part of what Mr. Bush said. "It was a moment of clarity," Mr. Indyk said. "It was right for him to remove the ambiguity from American policy when it came to the question of Palestinian leadership because not only has Arafat failed the test of leadership, there is not an Israeli leader who would negotiate an agreement with Yasir Arafat, so there does have to be a change."
Mr. Indyk added that he was concerned that Mr. Bush offered too little clarity to Palestinians. "He needed to give definition to what the Palestinian state would look like and that would give the Palestinians a greater sense of what they would get in return for ditching their leadership." he said.
Though Mr. Bush's speech tilted heavily toward the view of the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, who has been arguing since September that Mr. Arafat is no different from Osama bin Laden, some Arab officials and Palestinians focused on the positive elements.
"Finally, we have an American policy, and that is an essential part of the exercise," said a foreign policy adviser to an Arab government allied with Washington. "Now, of course, he had to score points with Israel so they will withdraw from the West Bank, and maybe he tilted too heavily against the Palestinian leadership, but I think some good will come of it."
This Arab adviser said he did not think most Arab leaders were alarmed that Mr. Bush had taken a muscular stand on the need to create a democratic and transparent state for Palestinians.
"The democratization of the Palestinian leadership is a point well taken, and obviously it was targeted against Arafat, but there will be elections there and we will see," the adviser said.
Putting the best face on the speech in Washington was Hassan Abdulrahman, Mr. Arafat's official representative here. The president, he said, "spoke of many things that we wanted to hear, an end to the Israeli occupation, and he challenged Israelis to freeze the settlements, withdraw their troops and respect Palestinian rights."
Asked whether he understood the speech to be a direct challenge to Mr. Arafat's rule, Mr. Abdulrahman was evasive. He pointed out that Mr. Bush never used Mr. Arafat's name in the speech when he called for new leadership.
For now, Mr. Abdulrahman said he preferred not to focus on the "ambiguity" of Mr. Bush's remarks, and added: "He asked us for elections that may produce a new leadership. We are committed to elections and Yasir Arafat is committed to elections."
Still, a number of experts expressed concerns that Mr. Bush has set out a task that Palestinians will be hard put to perform.
Stephen P. Cohen of the Israel Policy Forum said that while Mr. Bush today charted a vision of a solution that marks "an advance over where the United States has been in the past," the prescription the president laid out "still has the basic framework which is that the Palestinians have to act first."
Mr. Indyk had another worry after listening to Mr. Bush's speech. If it heralds a new and sustained engagement by the president himself to push Palestinian reforms, he said, "they can begin to pull the parties out of the abysss."
But, Mr. Indyk added, if Mr. Bush is trying satisfy the calls from Arab leaders to act on the Palestinian problem before moving "on to Baghdad" to topple Saddam Hussein, then the policy "is not going to work."
President's Speech Is Criticized For Lacking Specific Proposals
By NEIL
MacFARQUHAR
IYADH,
Saudi Arabia, June 24 — The Arab world, hoping for a detailed American proposal
for peace and a Palestinian state, instead found a speech short on a specific
timetable and long on demands for Palestinian reform.
"You cannot put his speech down on the negotiating table and make a plan out of it — we will implement this tomorrow and this the next day," said Jamal Khashoggi, an editor and columnist at the Arab News daily. "He just completely adopted the Israeli analysis of the situation, that it is terror forcing them to maintain the occupation, not that occupation is leading to terrorism."
Few in the Arab world believed President Bush's speech went far enough in offering the kind of incentives needed to stem the rising violence and death toll on both sides.
"There were a number of tough conditions for the Palestinians which made it not as balanced as one had expected," said Adnan Abu-Odeh, a former Jordanian ambassador to the United Nations and political adviser to the late King Hussein. "But nevertheless I think the Palestinian Authority might be ready to fulfill those conditions with a little amendment."
Arab leaders adopted their own outline for peace in March in Beirut, promising they would normalize ties with Israel in exchange for returning to the 1967 borders.
The leaders from the moderate states — Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah of Jordan and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt — then traveled one after the other to the United States to implore Mr. Bush to lead the way toward implementing the plan by forcing an end to Israeli occupation.
In his speech, Mr. Bush demanded that Israel cease building settlements in Gaza and the West Bank and eventually pull back to the boundaries prior to the 1967 war. Mr. Bush said he envisioned a provisional Palestinian state until full, permanent statehood could be achieved, perhaps in three years.
However, Arab governments have in recent days rejected the idea of a provisional state attached to only a vague timetable.
Mr. Bush gave his speech just before midnight in the Arab world and because the region's leaders are in the habit of consulting with each other before speaking publicly, there was little official reaction.
Some analysts noted that in the absence of more concrete American promises to the Palestinians on how the occupation might end, even transparent elections now in the Palestinian territories would likely only produce a leadership far more radical and confrontational than the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat.
"The Arabs will simply say that this is an issue for the Palestinians to decide," said Mr. Khashoggi. "But under the current circumstances the Palestinians will choose a hard-liner."
A senior Palestinian official said before Mr. Bush's speech that President Mubarak had called today to say that Mr. Bush would set a three-year timeline, refer specifically to Security Council resolution 242, which calls for Israel to return occupied territory, and call for an end to the occupation.
This made Palestinian officials expect a speech that would put more pressure on the Israelis, something the Arabs have been demanding.
The President's Words of Warning: 'Things Must Change in the Middle East'
By THE NEW YORK
TIMES
ollowing
is a transcript of President Bush's speech yesterday on his Middle East
proposals, as recorded by The New York Times:
For too long the citizens of the Middle East have lived in the midst of death and fear. The hatred of a few holds the hopes of many hostage. The forces of extremism and terror are attempting to kill progress and peace by killing the innocent. And this casts a dark shadow over an entire region.
For the sake of all humanity, things must change in the Middle East.
It is untenable for Israeli citizens to live in terror. It is untenable for Palestinians to live in squalor and occupation. And the current situation offers no prospect that life will improve. Israeli citizens will continue to be victimized by terrorists and so Israel will continue to defend herself. And the situation of the Palestinian people will grow more and more miserable.
My vision is two states living side by side in peace and security. There is simply no way to achieve that peace until all parties fight terror. Yet at this critical moment, if all parties will break with the past and set out on a new path, we can overcome the darkness with the light of hope.
Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership so that a Palestinian state can be born. I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror. I call upon them to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty.
If the Palestinian people actively pursue these goals, America and the world will actively support their efforts. If the Palestinian people meet these goals, they will be able to reach agreement with Israel and Egypt and Jordan on security and other arrangements for independence.
And when the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors, the United States of America will support the creation of a Palestinian state, whose borders and certain aspects of its sovereignty will be provisional until resolved as part of a final settlement in the Middle East.
In the work ahead, we all have responsibilities. The Palestinian people are gifted and capable. And I'm confident they can achieve a new birth for their nation. A Palestinian state will never be created by terror. It will be built through reform. And reform must be more than cosmetic change or veiled attempt to preserve the status quo. True reform will require entirely new political and economic institutions based on democracy, market economics and action against terrorism.
Today the elected Palestinian legislature has no authority. And power is concentrated in the hands of an unaccountable few. A Palestinian state can only serve its citizens with a new constitution which separates the powers of government. The Palestinian parliament should have the full authority of a legislative body. Local officials and government ministers need authority of their own and the independence to govern effectively.
The United States, along with the European Union and Arab states, will work with Palestinian leaders to create a new constitutional framework and a working democracy for the Palestinian people. And the United States, along with others in the international community, will help the Palestinians organize and monitor fair multiparty local elections by the end of the year, with national elections to follow.
Today the Palestinian people live in economic stagnation made worse by official corruption. A Palestinian state will require a vibrant economy where honest enterprise is encouraged by honest government. The United States, the international donor community and the World Bank stand ready to work with Palestinians on a major project of economic reform and development.
The United States, the E.U., the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are willing to oversee reforms in Palestinian finances, encouraging transparency and independent auditing. And the United States, along with our partners in the developed world, will increase our humanitarian assistance to relieve Palestinian suffering.
Today the Palestinian people lack effective courts of law and have no means to defend and vindicate their rights. A Palestinian state will require a system of reliable justice to punish those who prey on the innocent. The United States and members of the international community stand ready to work with Palestinian leaders to establish, finance and monitor a truly independent judiciary.
Today Palestinian authorities are encouraging, not opposing, terrorism. This is unacceptable. And the United States will not support the establishment of a Palestinian state until its leaders engage in a sustained fight against the terrorists and dismantle their infrastructure. This will require an externally supervised effort to rebuild and reform the Palestinian security services. This security system must have clear lines of authority and accountability and a unified chain of command. America is pursuing this reform along with key regional states.
The world is prepared to help. Yet ultimately these steps toward statehood depend on the Palestinian people and their leaders. If they energetically take the path of reform, the rewards can come quickly. If Palestinians embrace democracy, confront corruption and firmly reject terror, they can count on American support for the creation of a provisional state of Palestine.
With a dedicated effort, this state could rise rapidly as it comes to terms with Israel, Egypt and Jordan on practical issues such as security. The final borders, the capital and other aspects of this state's sovereignty will be negotiated between the parties as part of a final settlement. Arab states have offered their help in this process, and their help is needed.
I've said in the past that nations are either with us or against us in the war on terror. To be counted on the side of peace, nations must act. Every leader actually committed to peace will end incitement to violence in official media and publicly denounce homicide bombings. Every nation actually committed to peace will stop the flow of money, equipment and recruits to terrorist groups seeking the destruction of Israel, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. Every nation actually committed to peace must block the shipment of Iranian supplies to these groups and oppose regimes that promote terror like Iraq. And Syria must choose the right side in the war on terror by closing terrorist camps and expelling terrorist organizations.
Leaders who want to be included in the peace process must show by their deeds an undivided support for peace.
And as we move toward a peaceful solution, Arab states will be expected to build closer ties of diplomacy and commerce with Israel, leading to full normalization of relations between Israel and the entire Arab world.
Israel also has a large stake in the success of a democratic Palestine. Permanent occupation threatens Israel's identity in democracy. A stable, peaceful Palestinian state is necessary to achieve the security that Israel longs for. So I challenge Israel to take concrete steps to support the emergence of a viable, credible Palestinian state.
As we make progress toward security, Israel forces need to withdraw fully to positions they held prior to Sept. 28, 2000. And consistent with the recommendations of the Mitchell Committee, Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories must stop.
The Palestinian economy must be allowed to develop. As violence subsides, freedom of movement should be restored, permitting innocent Palestinians to resume work and normal life. Palestinian legislators and officials, humanitarian and international workers must be allowed to go about the business of building a better future. And Israel should release frozen Palestinian revenues into honest accountable hands.
I've asked Secretary Powell to work intensively with Middle Eastern and international leaders to realize the vision of a Palestinian state, focusing them on a comprehensive plan to support Palestinian reform and institution building.
Ultimately Israelis and Palestinians must address the core issues that divide them if there is to be a real peace, resolving all claims and ending the conflict between them. This means that the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 will be ended through a settlement negotiated between the parties based on U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, with Israeli withdrawal to secure and recognized borders.
We must also resolve questions concerning Jerusalem, the plight and future of Palestinian refugees and a final peace between Israel and Lebanon and Israel and a Syria that supports peace and fights terror.
All who are familiar with the history of the Middle East realize that there may be setbacks in this process. Trained and determined killers — as we have seen — want to stop it. Yet the Egyptian and Jordanian peace treaties with Israel remind us that with determined and responsible leadership, progress can come quickly.
As new Palestinian institutions and new leaders emerge, demonstrating real performance on security and reform, I expect Israel to respond and work toward a final-status agreement. With intensive effort by all, this agreement could be reached within three years from now. And I and my country will actively lead toward that goal.
I can understand the deep anger and anguish of the Israeli people. You've lived too long with fear and funerals, having to avoid markets and public transportation and forced to put armed guards in kindergarten classrooms. The Palestinian Authority has rejected your offered hand and trafficked with terrorists. You have a right to a normal life. You have a right to security. And I deeply believe that you need a reformed, responsible, Palestinian partner to achieve that security.
I can understand the deep anger and despair of the Palestinian people. For decades you've been treated as pawns in the Middle East conflict. Your interests have been held hostage to a comprehensive peace agreement that never seems to come as your lives get worse year by year. You deserve democracy and the rule of law. You deserve an open society and a thriving economy. You deserve a life of hope for your children.
An end to occupation and a peaceful democratic Palestinian state may seem distant. But America and our partners throughout the world stand ready to help, help you make them possible as soon as possible. If liberty can blossom in the rocky soil of the West Bank and Gaza, it will inspire millions of men and women around the globe who are equally weary of poverty and oppression, equally entitled to the benefits of democratic government.
I have a hope for the people of Muslim countries. Your commitments to morality and learning and tolerance led to great historical achievements. And those values are alive in the Islamic world today. You have a rich culture and you share the aspirations of men and women in every culture. Prosperity and freedom and dignity are not just American hopes or Western hopes; they are universal human hopes. And even in the violence and turmoil of the Middle East, America believes those hopes have the power to transform lives and nations.
This moment is both an opportunity and a test for all parties in the Middle East. An opportunity to lay the foundations for future peace. A test to show who is serious about peace and who is not. The choice here is stark and simple. The Bible says: I have set before you life and death, therefore choose life.
The time has arrived for everyone in this conflict to choose peace and hope and life.
Thank you very much.
The Reality Thing
By PAUL KRUGMAN
ou
can say this about the Bush administration: where others might see problems, it
sees opportunities.
A slump in the economy was an opportunity to push a tax cut that provided very little stimulus in the short run, but will place huge demands on the budget in 2010. An electricity shortage in California was an opportunity to push for drilling in Alaska, which would have produced no electricity and hardly any oil until 2013 or so. An attack by lightly armed terrorist infiltrators was an opportunity to push for lots of heavy weapons and a missile defense system, just in case Al Qaeda makes a frontal assault with tank divisions or fires an ICBM next time.
President George H. W. Bush once confessed that he was somewhat lacking in the "vision thing." His son's advisers don't have that problem: they have a powerful vision for America's future. In that future, we have recently learned, the occupant of the White House will have the right to imprison indefinitely anyone he chooses, including U.S. citizens, without any judicial process or review. But they are rather less interested in the reality thing.
For the distinctive feature of all the programs the administration has pushed in response to real problems is that they do little or nothing to address those problems. Problems are there to be used to pursue the vision. And a problem that won't serve that purpose, whether it's the collapse of confidence in corporate governance or the chaos in the Middle East, is treated as an annoyance to be ignored if possible, or at best addressed with purely cosmetic measures. Clearly, George W. Bush's people believe that real-world problems will solve themselves, or at least won't make the evening news, because by pure coincidence they will be pre-empted by terror alerts.
But real problems, if not dealt with, have a way of festering. In the last few weeks, a whole series of problems seem to have come to a head. Yesterday's speech notwithstanding, Middle East policy is obviously adrift. The dollar and the stock market are plunging, threatening an already shaky economic recovery. Amtrak has been pushed to the edge of shutdown, because it couldn't get the administration's attention. And the federal government itself is about to run out of money, because House Republicans are unwilling to face reality and increase the federal debt limit. (This avoidance thing seems to be contagious.)
So now would be a good time to do what the White House always urges its critics to do — put partisanship aside. Will Mr. Bush be willing to set aside, even for a day or two, his drive to consolidate his political base, and actually do something that wasn't part of his preconceived agenda? Oh, never mind.
I think that most commentators missed the point of the story about Mr. Bush's commencement speech at Ohio State, the one his aide said drew on the thinking of Emily Dickinson, Pope John Paul II, Aristotle and Cicero, among others. Of course the aide's remarks were silly — but they gave us an indication of the level of sycophancy that Mr. Bush apparently believes to be his due. Next thing you know we'll be told that Mr. Bush is also a master calligrapher, and routinely swims across the Yangtze River. And nobody will dare laugh: just before Mr. Bush gave his actual, Aristotle-free speech, students at Ohio State were threatened with expulsion and arrest if they heckled him.
It's interesting to note that the planned Department of Homeland Security, while of dubious effectiveness in its announced purpose, will be protected against future Colleen Rowleys: the new department will be exempted from both whistle-blower protection and the Freedom of Information Act.
But back to the festering problems: on the economic side, this is starting to look like the most dangerous patch for the nation and the world since the summer of 1998. Back then, luckily, our economic policy was run by smart people who were prepared to learn from their mistakes. Can you say the same about this administration?
As I've noted before, the Bush administration has an infallibility complex: it never, ever, admits making a mistake. And that kind of arrogance tends, eventually, to bring disaster. You can read all about it in Aristotle.
Let Them Sweat
By NICHOLAS D.
KRISTOF
TTOCK,
Pakistan — When the G-8 leaders meet this week, cowering in a Canadian mountain
resort beyond the reach of organized anarchists, here's a way for them to
bolster terror-infested third world countries like Pakistan.
They should start an international campaign to promote imports from sweatshops, perhaps with bold labels depicting an unrecognizable flag and the words "Proudly Made in a Third World Sweatshop!"
The Gentle Reader will think I've been smoking Pakistani opium. But the fact is that sweatshops are the only hope of kids like Ahmed Zia, a 14-year-old boy here in Attock, a gritty center for carpet weaving.
Ahmed, who dropped out of school in the second grade, earns $2 a day hunched over the loom, laboring over a rug that will adorn some American's living room. It is a pittance, but the American campaign against sweatshops could make his life much more wretched by inadvertently encouraging mechanization that could cost him his job.
"Carpet-making is much better than farm work," Ahmed said, mulling alternatives if he loses his job as hundreds of others have over the last year. "This makes much more money and is more comfortable."
Indeed, talk to third world factory workers and the whole idea of "sweatshops" seems a misnomer. It is farmers and brick-makers who really sweat under the broiling sun, while sweatshop workers merely glow.
The third world is already battered by heartless conservatives in the West who peddle arms and cigarettes or who (like the Bushies) block $34 million desperately needed for maternal and infant health by the United Nations Population Fund. So it's catastrophic for muddle-minded liberals to join in and cudgel impoverished workers for whom a sweatshop job is the first step on life's escalator.
By this point, I've offended every possible reader. But before you spurn a shirt made by someone like 8-year-old Kamis Saboor, an Afghan refugee whose father is dead and who is the sole breadwinner in the family, answer this question: How does shunning sweatshop products help Kamis? All the alternatives for him are worse.
"I dream of a job in a factory," said Noroz Khan, who lives on a garbage dump and spends his days searching for metal that he can sell to recyclers. He earns about $1.40 a day, and children earn just 30 cents a day for scrounging barefoot in the filth — a few feet away from us, birds were pecking at the bloated carcass of a cow, its feet in the air.
Of course, Western anti-sweatshop activists mean well and aim only for improved conditions and a "living wage." But the reality is that the bad publicity becomes one more headache for companies considering operating in international hellholes (where the only lure is wages so low that it would be embarrassing if journalists started asking questions about them), and so manufacturers opt to mechanize their operations and operate in somewhat more developed countries.
For example, Nike has 35 contract factories in Taiwan, 49 in South Korea, only 3 in Pakistan and none at all in Afghanistan — if it did, critics would immediately fulminate about low wages, glue vapors, the mistreatment of women.
But the losers are the Afghans, and especially Afghan women. The country is full of starving widows who can find no jobs. If Nike hired them at 10 cents an hour to fill all-female sweatshops, they and their country would be hugely better off.
Nike used to have two contract factories in impoverished Cambodia, among the neediest countries in the world. Then there was an outcry after BBC reported that three girls in one factory were under 15 years old. So Nike fled controversy by ceasing production in Cambodia.
The result was that some of the 2,000 Cambodians (90 percent of them young women) who worked in those factories faced layoffs. Some who lost their jobs probably were ensnared in Cambodia's huge sex slave industry — which leaves many girls dead of AIDS by the end of their teenage years.
The G-8 leaders will never dare, of course, begin a pro-sweatshop campaign. But at a summit that will discuss how to bring stability and economic growth to some of the world's poorest nations, it would be a start if Westerners who denounce sweatshops would think less of feel-good measures for themselves and more about how any of this helps people like Ahmed and Kamis.
Washington Post
Editorial An Uncertain Road Map
Tuesday, June 25, 2002; Page A18
"PRESIDENT BUSH'S forceful speech on the Middle East yesterday contained good and badly needed messages for all sides." That's what we wrote 2 1/2 months ago, when Mr. Bush delivered blunt advice with regard to the deteriorating Mideast conflict. But the speech was disappointing in its results -- in part, obviously, because the conflict isn't easy to solve, but in part because the administration didn't follow up. Senior officials in Washington disagreed over the best course of action, and even Mr. Bush himself seemed to disagree with aspects of his speech. In particular, he seemed lukewarm in subsequent weeks to his own admonition to Israel to end its military offensive in the West Bank and ease controls on the Palestinian population.
Now Mr. Bush has delivered another much-touted speech, and it's not clear how the consequences of this one will be any more fruitful. This one has the advantage at least of seeming to better reflect the president's own world view. He placed most of the onus on the Palestinians: The clear message was they shouldn't expect anything -- not a state, not a provisional state, not an Israeli withdrawal -- until they get rid of Yasser Arafat as their leader and clean up their collective act. His recipe for reform -- an end to corruption, multiparty local elections, an independent judiciary -- is admirable, if you discount the oddness of Mr. Bush asking other Arab nations who need the same medicine to help oversee the cure.
But Palestinian officials who said they needed some incentive to pursue such reform and to control terrorism didn't get the encouragement they were looking for. Yes, Mr. Bush said, he would support a provisional Palestinian state -- but not until "the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors." Yes, Israeli forces should withdraw to positions they held before this second uprising began -- but only "as we make progress towards security." And the president said he would expect Israel "to respond and work toward a final status agreement," but again only "as new Palestinian institutions and new leaders emerge."
Such a one-sided approach might be appropriate if Israel's government were committed to the two-state vision that Mr. Bush claimed as his own yesterday. After all, the president is right that Mr. Arafat has shown a willingness to use terrorism -- the unacceptable murder of innocent civilians -- to further political goals, and that such terror should not be rewarded. But Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has made clear that he sees a two-state solution many years distant at best. His government has shown no inclination to modify the settlement policy that makes an ultimate agreement ever more difficult.
Mr. Bush remains unwilling to address that side of the equation with any vigor. He gave little substance yesterday to what, if the Palestinians do reform, he would support with respect to such difficult issues as borders, contiguity and Jerusalem. And he did not spell out in any detail what he would do to push the process forward; there was no mention of Secretary of State Powell's multinational conference. Mr. Bush's call for new Palestinian leadership and institutions is on target; but if he does not fill in those blank spaces, the danger is that yesterday's address will go into the archives as just another recitation of worthy goals, and the violence will continue and escalate.
Plan for Palestinians Lacks Important Details
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff
Writer
Tuesday, June 25, 2002; Page A01
After months of fits and starts, President Bush yesterday distilled his Middle East policy to a simple proposition: Peace depends almost entirely on the Palestinians.
Bush made no mention of an international conference. He did not repeat his demand for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces, which shortly before Bush spoke announced they were headed into Gaza. In the plan outlined by the president, virtually any action required of the Israelis must be preceded by positive steps taken by the Palestinians.
The tough core of the speech -- intended by the administration to be a splash of cold water on the moribund peace process -- was leavened by passages equating the suffering of the Palestinian people with the terror felt by Israelis. Arab leaders could also find references to demands they have long made on Israel, perhaps one reason why the initial Arab reaction yesterday was so muted.
If Palestinians accept Bush's demands -- including electing a new leadership without Yasser Arafat -- then the president held out the promise of deep and sustained U.S. involvement in the building of a democratic state. Bush suggested the United States will determine whether the Palestinians have met the conditions he set forth, which would allow them to create a provisional state that could negotiate final boundaries with Israel.
But while Bush suggested a three-year timetable for the establishment of a Palestinian state, the clock doesn't start ticking until Palestinians elect new leaders and build new political, economic and security institutions. And Bush made the creation of a Palestinian state conditional to a series of tough yardsticks that could be impossible to achieve.
In some ways, Bush's speech did not signal much of an advance beyond his Rose Garden address on April 4, which marked his first foray into Middle East peacemaking. Much of the language concerning Israel was virtually identical, and Bush offered no new ideas on how to resolve vexing "final status" issues such as borders and Jerusalem. The speech had all the hallmarks of a plan drafted by a committee of strong-willed administration officials who disagreed fiercely about key points.
But, in other ways, the speech represented a purposeful abandonment of neutrality by the administration, which now has largely adopted the stance of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that Arafat is no longer relevant to the peace process, and that security and political reform must precede negotiations about a Palestinian state.
Increasingly stern administration warnings to Arafat gave way yesterday to a declaration that he must give up the reins of power. Pleas to Israel to leave Palestinian territories gave way to an acknowledgment that those territories should be given up "as we make progress towards security."
Since April 4, however, Bush has had some tough lessons in the bloody and volatile Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
For weeks last spring, Sharon all but ignored Bush's demands that Israel withdraw its forces from Palestinian lands. "He learned on April 4 that to challenge Sharon without coordinating with Sharon can be a painful experience," said Richard Murphy, a former State Department official responsible for the Middle East.
As for Arafat, the administration finally lost patience after last week's suicide bombings, in which 26 Israelis were killed in two attacks. Even before the bombings, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told the San Jose Mercury News the Palestinian Authority "is corrupt and cavorts with terror," and this "is not a basis for a Palestinian state moving forward" -- comments that drew a fierce rebuttal by Arafat.
But the president's speech was toughened after the attacks, which delayed delivery of the address by a week. "The violence did change the character of the speech," a senior administration official said.
For an administration that has long disdained nation-building, Bush laid out highly specific goals for the Palestinians -- and for U.S. involvement. Some of the goals -- such as a new constitution and elections -- are already in the works. But Bush also specified that the Palestinian parliament should be given real power and that municipal leaders should be given authority -- a not-subtle attempt to lure other Palestinian officials to support his approach.
Bush promised that the United States, along with other countries, would help write the Palestinian constitution, build legal institutions, monitor elections, fund economic development, create a banking system and build a security force to root out terrorists.
CIA Director George J. Tenet has already been working closely with the Egyptian and Jordanian intelligence agencies on a plan to overhaul the Palestinian security forces.
But the speech was silent on other issues equally important to Palestinians, which could leave the clarity of Bush's vision of a Palestinian state without Arafat unsatisfying for many Palestinians. Bush gave no hint of how he would resolve the dispute over borders, merely using general language refering to pre-1967 boundaries that each side could interpret as it wishes.
Bush was also silent on how the administration planned to follow up on this initiative. He did not lay out a negotiating process, such as an international conference, that demonstrates to the Palestinians how the process of political reform and greater security would lead to the establishment of a provisional state. Bush did not announce that he was dispatching Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to the region to drum up support for the plan, as he did after the April 4 speech.
Indeed, by writing Arafat out of the picture, Bush may have left Arafat no incentive to cooperate -- and Bush has yet to explain whom the United States or Israel would negotiate with in the coming months. Currently, there is no functioning Palestinian government that can stop the terrorist attacks or replace the Israeli army, and there is no leadership that has the authority or respect to negotiate with Israel.
"There's a real question of what the administration will do to make the plan more concrete," said Martin Indyk, a Brookings Institution scholar and former ambassador to Israel.
Both Sides Feel Vindicated By Bush's Peace Proposal
By Molly Moore and John Ward
Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 25, 2002; Page A12
JERUSALEM, June 24 -- Both the Israeli government and the leadership of the Palestinian Authority embraced President Bush's Middle East policy announcement tonight, each claiming the president had endorsed its criteria for peace in the region and playing down aspects of the speech each did not like.
Bush's demand for elections to choose a new Palestinian leadership drew the expected praise from Israel, but did not unduly rankle officials of the Palestinian Authority.
"He did not call for a coup d'etat" said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a Palestinian Authority spokesman and adviser to its leader, Yasser Arafat. "He's calling for elections. We don't reject having a change through elections. There's no problem here if he says he does not like the Palestinian leadership."
Palestinian officials noted that Arafat had ordered presidential elections for no later than January. Although Bush "criticized the Palestinian leadership in a very severe manner," Abed Rabbo added, "we even share some of the criticisms and have declared publicly we want to reform. We are not an island."
"President Arafat and the Palestinian leadership welcome the ideas presented by President Bush," the Palestinian Authority said in a statement. "These ideas represent a serious contribution to push forward the peace process."
The Israeli government issued a brief response noting that Bush had made demands that echoed the policies of the Israeli leader: "Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said on numerous occasions that when there is a complete cessation of terror, violence and incitement, and when the Palestinian Authority enacts genuine reforms, including new leadership at the top, then it will be possible to discuss how to make progress on the political tracks."
Both Israeli and Palestinian officials said that while they shared Bush's goals, his speech was vague and offered little guidance for how to move ahead.
"I don't think we can call what President Bush said tonight a plan," said Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian peace negotiator. "A plan must have timelines and specifics and an endgame."
The two warring sides also read into Bush's speech their own conflicting visions of the sequence of events needed to restart peace negotiations, an indication of how difficult it will be to reach an agreement within the three-year period Bush advocated.
The leadership of the Palestinian Authority urged withdrawal from the West Bank cities and towns now occupied by Israeli forces and a freeze on expansion of Jewish settlements as a prerequisite for useful negotiations.
But Sharon's spokesman, Raanan Gissin, said, "First they've got to get rid of terrorism, then they get rid of occupation." He reiterated in the written statement demands for a "complete cessation" of violence before taking any major steps toward peace talks.
Abed Rabbo, the Palestinian Authority spokesman, said, "You cannot combat terrorism at the same time every security office and police station is targeted by Israel and destroyed." He was referring to the Israeli military's attacks on Palestinian police stations during incursions into West Bank cities over the past three months.
Criticism of Bush came quickly from the leadership of the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas, which has claimed responsibility for many of the suicide bombings and attacks against Israel.
"I'm disappointed because he totally supported the Sharon plan and put pressure on the Palestinians when he criticized the Palestinian situation and talked about the Palestinian resistance as terrorism," said Ismail Abu Shanab, a political leader of Hamas. "Yet he recognized the Israeli occupation without saying the occupation is the major cause of terror in the whole region."
Deadly Progress in the Middle East
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, June 25, 2002;
Page A19
To an observer in Chappaqua, N.Y., it seems that the Israeli-Palestinian struggle is approaching a "tipping point." The phrase comes from Malcolm Gladwell's book of that name and refers to the moment, the point, when an accumulation of little things suddenly turns into something momentous. To Bill Clinton, speaking to me by phone from his home, that tipping point is in the numbers. Palestinian terrorists are showing that terrorism works.
Not too long ago, Palestinians died in far greater numbers than Israelis. Recently, the gap has narrowed -- from about 8 to 1 to about 3 to 1. On June 18 and 19, for instance, two bombings in Jerusalem killed 26 Israelis and wounded 124. The two bombers themselves died, but it seems an inexhaustible supply of others is eager to take their place. (Since September 2000, 548 Israelis and 1,428 Palestinians have been killed.)
The harsh logic of the numbers is not lost on the terrorists and their sympathizers. If it cannot be said that they are winning, at least it can be said that they are not losing as badly as they once did. The effect may be to destroy both the standing and the logic of moderate Palestinians, just the sort of people who recently signed a manifesto calling for an end to suicide bombings. They argued that it hurt their cause. The fatality figures, though, can be used to argue otherwise.
Some time ago I wrote that the Israeli-Palestinian struggle had entered its Battle of Algiers phase. The war for Algerian independence that ended in 1962 cost the lives of 250,000 Algerians and 25,000 French soldiers. Ultimately, the French could not prevail over a population that simply wanted them out. The more repressive France was, the more it radicalized the Algerians. Finally, de Gaulle ended it.
Would that Israel had a de Gaulle. The Jewish state desperately needs someone to say that the present policy of repeatedly attacking Yasser Arafat and punishing the Palestinians is not working. This is because Arafat is no longer capable of restraining the more militant elements in Palestinian society -- even his infrastructure has been destroyed -- and because every Israeli retaliation amounts to a recruitment drive for suicide bombers. Since the breakdown of the Camp David talks in 2000, Arafat has effectively negotiated via terrorism. It cost many lives. It cost him his credibility.
In an odd way, Ariel Sharon has lost credibility also -- and Israeli polls show it. His formula is more of the same. He wants to be rid of Arafat, but Arafat is not the problem anymore -- it's rising Palestinian militancy. Repeatedly, Sharon has retaliated and repeatedly suicide bombers have come right back at Israel. Now Israel has returned to the West Bank, once again penned in Arafat, and intends to stay until it has eliminated terrorism. That will take time, an Israeli official close to Sharon told me, noting that after many months the United States has yet to eliminate al Qaeda, whether in Afghanistan or elsewhere.
The analogy is imperfect. The United States is not occupying Afghanistan. A more apt analogy is what the Soviet Union attempted there and why it failed. Israel will fail, too -- and it, unlike the Soviet Union, is morally restrained from waging all-out war against a civilian population, no matter how hostile.
Only the United States can break this impasse. This is not just because America is the world's lone superpower but also because -- in Clinton's words -- "we are the only big country who Israel believes cares if it lives or dies." The confidence Israel has in Washington's intentions should not be used solely for mere pats on the back. Sometimes a little tough love is in order.
But the Bush administration, while strongly pro-Israel, has been reluctant to engage persistently in a tough, protracted, diplomatic initiative. Colin Powell, who favors this approach, has been nowhere near as active as previous secretaries of state. In Clinton's view -- and few people have his experience in the Middle East -- this is a mistake. The situation has worsened while the United States dithered, but it now has the opportunity to act.
Bush's speech yesterday, however, offered the Palestinians nothing in the short run -- not even an immediate halt to building new Jewish settlements in the West Bank. And Bush's demand that the Palestinians dump Arafat can only bolster him in the near future. For the Palestinians it is a plan that could have been written in Tel Aviv, not Washington.
Still, the hard work of persistent diplomacy has to be done -- even at a time, and this is one, when a breakthrough seems remote.
"You have to ask yourself if the problem is getting better if you leave it alone," the former president said. His answer -- apparent in newspaper headlines -- is no. "It's going to get worse if we don't get involved, that's for damn sure."
Even a 'Bad Man' Has Rights
By Gary Solis
Tuesday, June 25, 2002;
Page A19
On May 8, FBI agents arrested Jose Padilla, a k a Abdullah al Muhajir, a former Chicago gang member and convict, and a U.S. citizen. In announcing Padilla's arrest, the attorney general and the director of the FBI informed America that Padilla had been on a quest for a "dirty bomb" -- a conventional explosive laced with radioactive material, detonation of which would spread radiation over a large area. The president informed us that Padilla is a bad man and that he is classified an "enemy combatant." A month after his arrest, Padilla was transferred from Department of Justice confinement to the Navy brig at Charleston, S.C., where he remains in open-ended military custody. His incarceration without charges, his isolation from legal counsel and his being foisted upon the military should raise alarms, as should the case of Yasser Esam Hamdi, another U.S. citizen.
A perplexing question: What is an "enemy combatant" in the context of these two cases? In Vietnam, I knew what an enemy combatant was. He was the fighter across the paddy who was firing at me. But Padilla hardly fits that description. One may argue that he was trained and sent to us by al Qaeda, unquestionably our enemy in the war against terrorism. Even presuming that is true (does the attorney general's assertion automatically make it so?), Padilla had no weapon, no criminal conspiracy is alleged, no incriminating documents have been revealed, and he surely was not shooting at anyone. So, how is he an enemy combatant? Yes, one can be the enemy despite lack of weapon and uniform, but what evidence can we point to in Padilla's case?
Until now, as used by the attorney general, the term "enemy combatant" appeared nowhere in U.S. criminal law, international law or in the law of war. The term appears to have been appropriated from ex parte Quirin, the 1942 Nazi saboteurs case, in which the Supreme Court wrote that "an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property [would exemplify] belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoner of war, but to be offenders against the law of war subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals."
But that description hardly fits Padilla; he didn't come to the United States secretly, he passed through no lines, and as a U.S. citizen he is not within a military tribunal's jurisdiction. The term "enemy combatant" is simply lifted from a Supreme Court opinion and applied to Padilla and Hamdi because it makes them sound like they ought to be held incommunicado, without charges and without representation. It is a term without prior legal meaning, manufactured from commonly used military words, "enemy" and "combatant." In the Padilla and Hamdi cases, the term seriously misleads.
One must look beyond Padilla-Hamdi, the individuals, and consider the larger issues applicable to all American citizens, even those we are told are bad people, issues such as those contained in the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. Padilla-Hamdi should have years to consider their acts from the inside of prison cells -- if they are convicted of criminal acts in a court of law. Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners captured in Afghanistan, conversely, are non-U.S. citizens without Padilla-Hamdi's claims to our constitutional rights. U.S. constitutional protections need not be accorded foreign enemy prisoners.
The Justice Department makes no secret of why it has not charged Padilla or Hamdi, nor why they are kept from their lawyers. The Justice Department wants to wring from them every whisper of information that may bear on the war, a reasonable enough goal. To charge them would require in-court arraignment, which would publicly cement their legal rights -- not something conducive to productive interrogation. To grant them a lawyer would lead to a similar informational dead end. Yet charges within a reasonable period and legal representation are what the Constitution guarantees every American citizen, bad, good or bomber. The Justice Department cannot credibly fight terrorism at the cost of basic constitutional rights. If Padilla and Hamdi may be held in isolation in the name of terrorism, with no opportunity to defend themselves, who else might be subject to similar treatment? If "enemy combatant" is an undefined criminal category invoked by government officials free of judicial scrutiny, who else might be so nominated?
Finally, why is Padilla in a military brig? Is his military custody a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, the federal law that prohibits the military from executing civilian law? The military did not investigate or seek Padilla. He is a civilian, not a prisoner of war and, enemy combatant or not, he is outside the jurisdiction of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Nor is he in pretrial confinement, because no military trial is envisioned. What is the military supposed to do with him -- and when? Unfortunately for the image of U.S. military justice, many will presume the military can hold anyone for an indefinite period without charges; after all, isn't that what they do to soldiers, sailors and Marines?
That is not what the military does, and years have been spent trying to erase that outdated image. Thanks to the Justice Department, the military is positioned to appear fast and loose with service personnel's rights. Justice has done the military no favors by saddling it with Padilla. Nor do the Justice Department's actions serve the Constitution.
The writer, a retired Marine, teaches the law of war at Georgetown University Law Center.
A gulf grows between Mideast rhetoric and action
As Bush floats a plan for a provisional Palestinian state, Israel tightens its grip on the West Bank.
By Cameron W. Barr | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
JERUSALEM - With Israeli forces
taking up semipermanent positions in a half-dozen Palestinian towns and cities,
the clock of Middle East peacemaking has now turned firmly back to the
mid-1990s, when Israel occupied much of the West Bank.
President Bush was
expected last night to lay out a proposal for a provisional Palestinian state,
but loosening the death grip that binds Israelis and Palestinians is a
monumental task. The conflict is more and more defined by the contrast between
the two sides' official statements in favor of peace and their warmaking on the
ground.
Monday Israeli forces,
for the third time in a month, entered the main West Bank city of Ramallah and
surrounded the already-pulverized compound of Palestinian Authority (PA)
President Yasser Arafat. Israeli missiles also struck a car in the Gaza Strip
carrying a leading Palestinian militant, killing him and five other people in an
apparent assassination.
Mr. Arafat has spoken
in the past weekabout his willingness to agree to peace proposals he once
rejected and has taken steps recently to reform the PA in keeping with Israeli
and US demands.
But with or without
his acquiescence, violence against Israelis continues, actions that carry the
broad support of the Palestinian people. In the space of just three days last
week, two Palestinian suicide bombers and a gunman killed 31 Israelis. Arafat's
power, analysts say, is waning.
"Increasingly a chasm
has developed between official and public rhetorics," says Mouin Rabbani, head
of the Palestinian-American Research Center in Ramallah, "more so on the
Palestinian side."
Building a wall
Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon ostensibly remains committed to negotiating an interim peace
agreement with the Palestinians, but his Cabinet last week authorized a military
reoccupation of parts of the West Bank until suicide bombings
stop.
His government has
also begun building physical barriers separating the two peoples, including 215
miles of walls and fences, creating a de facto border that amounts to an Israeli
annexation of parts of the West Bank. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, the leading
Israeli proponent of what was once termed the peace process, on Sunday took the
rare step of threatening to resign from the Cabinet, media reports say, citing
his concern over the de facto annexation.
'Holding the land'
Mr. Sharon's
combination of reoccupation and separation has left many Israeli analysts
puzzled. "I don't think we're moving in any direction right now," says Mark
Heller of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv. "We're just sort
of dancing around the same indeterminate, inconclusive
debate."
One Foreign Ministry
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says he believes that Palestinian
attacks would decline sharply following a "massive military campaign." But he
adds that "in the long run, force has to be complemented by political moves" –
an implicit criticism of Sharon's refusal, with the exception of a single,
fruitless meeting with three Arafat advisers, to negotiate with the
Palestinians.
Men of peace?
To some extent,
peacemaking is out of character for both Sharon and Arafat. The Palestinian
leader founded his Fatah movement in the early 1950s on the premise that
Palestinians should take up arms themselves against Israel, rather than relying
on intervention from Arab states.
Sharon, a former
general who has fought in all of Israel's wars, has maintained a longtime
commitment to "holding the land" – particularly the strategic hilltops of the
West Bank that are now home to hundreds of thousands of Israeli
settlers.
To be sure, Arafat
signed a peace deal with then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1993, and
Sharon was instrumental in implementing Israel's peace with Egypt, including the
removal of Israeli settlements from the Sinai Desert.
Waning support for
Arafat
But today it is
seeming more and more unlikely that Arafat has the will or the power to contain
Palestinians bent on fighting Israel and that Sharon can renounce the West Bank
settlements he worked hard to build.
Arafat's forces put
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the leader of the militant Islamic Resistance Movement, or
Hamas, under house arrest yesterday and arrested other members of the
organization, but the Palestinian leader remains thoroughly hobbled. For one
thing, says Mr. Rabbani, destructive Israeli incursions have shattered the
capacity of Palestinian security forces to arrest militants, raised the
political costs of doing so, and soured the attitude of Palestinian policemen to
do anything on Israel's behalf.
A poll of Palestinians
conducted in late May and early June by the Jerusalem Media and Communications
Center showed the popularity of militancy is outpacing that of Arafat. Nearly 66
percent of respondents said Israel's most recent six-week invasion of the West
Bank, known as Operation Defensive Shield, had caused them to increase their
support for suicide bombings. Nearly 59 percent said that Defensive Shield had
made them stronger supporters of Hamas. Just under 39 percent said the same for
Arafat.
Sharon has never fully
agreed to a US-devised cease-fire plan that calls for a complete halt to
settlement construction. Amid calls for Israel to withdraw from some
hard-to-defend settlement as a gesture to the Palestinians, Sharon has said that
no settlements will be dismantled for the time being.
Broadly speaking, a
renunciation of violence by the Palestinians, and an Israeli withdrawal from
most settlements, are considered the central ingredients of any viable peace
between the two sides.
In Afghanistan, think
small
By Arthur C. Helton
NEW
YORK
- The chaos around Afghanistan's raucous loya jirga (grand assembly),
which ended late last week, reflects the messiness of state-building. Insecurity
remains rampant there, and consensus has not yet emerged for the expansion of
the International Security Assistance Force beyond Kabul. Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld has asserted that American forces would not be part of any
peacekeeping force. Instead, Western governments plan to help build an
indigenous army and police force to suppress quarreling warlords and bandits
already exploiting the post-Taliban security vacuum. But building an effective
police force will take years, and security is an urgent
concern.
There is a better way.
Instead, a recovery strategy aimed at security should focus particularly on
returning refugees outside Kabul, and on building community-based small
businesses.
The repatriation of
refugees and internal exiles will undoubtedly drive recovery efforts in
Afghanistan. Given the size of the exile population – 5 million refugees and
internally displaced persons out of a population of 26 million – a large return
could either exacerbate the chaos or contribute to Afghanistan's stability. At
the outset of 2002, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees planned
for the return of approximately 1.25 million persons. But more than 1 million
refugees already have come back. As individuals return to war-torn communities,
they will become a force that will greatly influence the future of Afghanistan
and the quality of recovery for its people.
Afghanistan needs a
rehabilitation strategy that takes into account both the pervasive climate of
insecurity and the dramatic scale of repatriation. For that reason,
microenterprise, such as small manufacturing and agricultural projects, which
have proven to help the poor in developing countries, should be an important
component of the recovery strategy. As local people are provided with the means
to repair houses, plant crops, or obtain and use tools, a vested interest in
stability can spread throughout the community.
There are many
advantages to a grass-roots focus. A fully developed financial sector, something
Afghanistan will not have for a long time, would not be needed. Initiatives can
be taken quickly since the general level of impoverishment wouldn't require an
elaborate needs assessment. Both men and women would benefit, although the
exclusion of women from public life under the Taliban means that they are likely
to benefit even more. And projects such as small-scale farming or carpet-weaving
are too small to be targeted for looting or diversion.
Small projects
represent an interface between highly divergent relief and development
perspectives. Development experts think in terms of national plans and economic
strategies that require years to implement; small projects are designed to build
confidence among returnees and receiving communities and can contribute to
economic development in the places where returning populations set down
roots.
The international
community offers recent rebuilding experience to draw upon from places such as
Cambodia, El Salvador, and Mozambique. The United Nations Development Program
funded similar small projects in Afghanistan during the Taliban's rule,
expending approximately $20 million throughout the country by working with local
community structures to undertake a variety of small-community development
initiatives. Projects such as repairing irrigation channels and drilling water
wells were small enough to stay off the Taliban's radar, but important enough to
make a difference in the lives of ordinary people. Small viable projects like
these could now be expanded. In contrast, the multidonor trust fund to be
administered by the World Bank, beginning with a committed $10 million for
contractors to develop financial accountability in Afghanistan, will take a
considerable amount of time to implement.
Significantly,
relatively few of the projects submitted to donors by international
organizations and NGOs for funding this year explicitly feature microfinancing.
But smallness, giving loans to small businesses and making small grants for
public works, is a proven approach in postconflict recovery and refugee
repatriation operations.
An Afghan-American who
recently returned from a visit to Afghanistan told me, "If you give the Afghan
people $10,000, they can use it more effectively than if you provided $100,000
to international groups." A community-based approach would directly provide the
Afghan people with the means to achieve their own aspirations and rebuild
Afghanistan.
• Arthur C. Helton
is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of 'The Price
of Indifference' (Oxford University Press, 2002).
Los
Angeles Times U.S. on Risky Road if It Uses Nuclear Bluff
Misguided policy could turn loose a terrible genie.
By ANTHONY CLARK AREND and DOUGLAS B. SHAW
Anthony Clark
Arend, a professor of government at Georgetown University, is author of "Legal
Rules and International Society" (Oxford University Press, 1999). Douglas B.
Shaw, a doctoral student at Ge
June 24 2002
The Bush
administration seems to be moving toward preemptive nuclear strikes against
those who threaten the U.S. with weapons of mass destruction. This threat to use
nuclear weapons has a big flaw: We might have to make good on it.
Weapons
of mass destruction are indeed the central threat to U.S. national security and
our way of life. The Bush administration's nuclear posture review already has
eroded the "nuclear taboo"; the new strategic doctrine now being developed may
make the use of nuclear weapons even more likely.
Warfare has matured to
the point that a nuclear weapon that can fit in a cargo container, a truck or
even a suitcase could destroy a city. If we can prevent a catastrophe involving
chemical, biological, nuclear or radiological weapons by striking first, then we
must. But we should do so within the bounds of international law. These rules
are to our advantage and in the interest of civilization as a whole. If our
example encourages most of the world to stop playing by the rules most of the
time, we will be in even greater danger.
International law allows for
preemptory self-defense, but it demands that such first strikes must meet two
strict requirements: necessity and proportionality.
First, it must be
demonstrated that force is necessary to prevent an imminent attack. It is not
enough that an enemy possesses weapons of mass destruction. There must be a
credible indication that their use is imminent.
Second, the preemptive
action must be proportionate to the threat. Only a truly mammoth threat would be
proportionate to the use of a nuclear weapon. Since no threat of the magnitude
of a nuclear weapon's devastation has been made public, the administration's
proposed strategic doctrine suggests a lowering of this legal standard. It seems
to assert that the U.S. has an exclusive privilege to step outside the
law.
If the most powerful nation in the world asserts such a first-use
doctrine, other countries--some facing overwhelming threats--are likely to begin
to make similar claims. The reason that only a tiny minority of countries has
joined the "nuclear club" is that the vulnerability of all, bolstered by
international law in the form of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, has
convinced most countries that these weapons are unusable, despite the example of
World War II.
But if the U.S. uses another nuclear weapon, we should
expect one to be used against us.
This might happen anyway. The West was
slow out of the gate in rendering assistance to the former Soviet Union to
secure its arsenal, and it still does not give this critical task the attention
it demands. There are dark corners of Iraq and elsewhere where international
inspectors are unwelcome.
More countries with nuclear weapons will mean
more places for terrorists to steal or buy nuclear weapons or material. Less
confidence in our conventional superiority will weaken our friendships and
embolden our enemies to put their focus where we have--on nuclear
weapons.
Terrorists have demonstrated to us that they have the will to
act with absolute brutality. There are plenty of reasons to believe we may lose
a city to terrorism. We should not add one more reason through a misguided
doctrine.
Terrorists may not have cities to burn, but we do. Civilization
is the source of our strength and their one true enemy. Redefining ourselves to
be more like them will not make us more secure. It will leave our cities naked
before the world.
U.S.
Must Follow Up on Proposal
By RONALD BROWNSTEIN
Times Staff
Writer
June 25 2002
WASHINGTON -- With his new blueprint for
defusing the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation, President Bush is accepting far
more responsibility than he initially sought for ending violence in the Middle
East. But for the plan to work, Bush may have to take on far more responsibility
yet.
In a nod to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Bush argued that
negotiations on the major issues dividing Israel and the Palestinians should
come only after comprehensive reform and the election of "new leaders" in the
Palestinian Authority—presumably meaning the removal of its current leader,
Yasser Arafat.
But such reforms, difficult under any circumstances, may
not be possible without vastly intensified U.S. involvement in the grueling work
of restructuring Palestinian institutions and nurturing political alternatives
to Arafat. Meeting the tests Bush established in his speech could carry him into
the kind of "nation-building" for which he frequently criticized the Clinton
administration.
"I don't see any other alternative; otherwise, the
Palestinians themselves won't take reform seriously," said Gary J. Schmitt,
executive director of the Project for a New American Century, a hawkish think
tank. "It's not on the scale of rebuilding Japan or Germany, but there is
certainly the case that this is nation-building."
Similarly, Sen.
Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said after the speech: "Now that the
president has dictated the terms, America has a responsibility through continued
engagement to help achieve the results."
Though fiercely blunt at
points—particularly in the call for Palestinians to elect new leaders—the speech
was notable as much for what Bush didn't say.
The president offered no
hints of U.S. views about the possible final settlement of the underlying issues
dividing the two sides, from the ultimate borders of a Palestinian state to
where Palestinian refugees might be allowed to resettle.
Bush was much
more specific on the internal reforms he expectsbefore negotiations on those
issues can proceed. He called on the Palestinians to write a new constitution,
invest their parliament with "the full authority of a legislative body," devolve
more specific powers to local officials, develop independent courts, accept an
"externally supervised effort" to rebuild their security services and hold "fair
multi-party local elections by the end of the year, with national elections to
follow."
Above all, he urged the Palestinians to produce "leaders not
compromised by terror."
Yet even on this front, Bush left several key
points vague. He offered no hint of how the U.S. will proceed if the
Palestinians don't reform their leadership. And although he strongly suggested
that Arafat should be removed, he never mentioned him by name—a point senior
administration officials noted after the address.
Nor did Bush specify
when he would ask Israelis to take the steps he urged on them: withdrawing
military forces from the West Bank positions they now hold, freezing new
activity in settlements in the occupied territories and providing Palestinians
more freedom of movement. All of those moves Bush conditioned on "progress on
security," a phrase that Sharon and Arab leaders are likely to define in very
different terms.
Though the address generally drew praise from Democrats
as well as Republicans, the few notes of criticism focused on unanswered
questions. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who is exploring a bid for the
Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, charged that the speech was too
"one-dimensional" and too focused on internal Palestinian reform.
"I
don't think it brings us very far at all," he said. "I agree that ... reform and
transition is important.... But I don't think there is enough vision in here of
[a final agreement] that will allow politicians ... on all sides to hold on
to."
Yet it was precisely that focus on internal Palestinian reform that
drew the loudest applause from Jewish groups, leading conservatives and some
Democrats. Amplifying the theme from his earlier addresses, Bush moved the
demand for Palestinian change to the center of the Mideast peace
process.
That emphasis brought Bush back in line with U.S. conservatives.
As the president in recent months has oscillated between denouncing Arafat and
urging restraint on Sharon, the right has grown uneasy with his policy in the
region—an uneasiness that intensified as recent reports indicated that Bush in
this address would support the declaration of a provisional Palestinian
state.
Bush did, in fact, embrace that idea. But by demanding fundamental
internal reform before the U.S. would support such a state—in effect by making
the provisional state conditional—Bush drew praise from a wide range of
conservatives, including neoconservatives such as Schmitt, religious
conservatives such as televangelist Pat Robertson, and House Majority Whip Tom
DeLay (R-Texas).
In the region, the heavy stress on reform as the
precondition toward progress on Palestinian statehood represents a gamble. On
the one hand, analysts say, Bush is trying to wean average Palestinians away
from Arafat by offering the prospect of their own state—with a more vibrant
economy and clearly defined civil liberties—if they install new
leadership.
On the other hand, this approach risks generating restiveness
among other Arab countries and increased violence from Palestinian extremists by
asking so little of Israel in the short run and offering an extended timeline
for an independent Palestine. In his address, Bush said an accord might be
reached in three years "with intensive effort by all of us."
In the
months ahead, one critical question may be whether the combination of foreign
pressure and aid that Bush envisions can produce enough tangible improvement in
the day-to-day lives of Palestinians to outweigh disappointment over the
deferral of progress toward independence and statehood.
With his sweeping
vision of a transformed society, Bush seemed to be setting himself in
competition for the hearts and minds of average Palestinians—offering order and
prosperity as an alternative to the nationalism and grievance that have defined
Palestinian public life for decades.
After all of Bush's hesitance about
assuming too much responsibility in the region—an instinct still visible Monday
in the lack of specifics about next steps—the real test may be whether he has
the stomach and the stamina to carry that competition through the inevitable
reversals ahead, some of them sure to be measured in blood.
Pakistan's President Could Confront Axis of
Extremists
Asia: Under a worst-case scenario, three extremist groups could link up to try to topple Musharraf.
By TYLER MARSHALL
Times Staff
Writer
June 25 2002
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- President Pervez
Musharraf faces an ominous new challenge to his rule from three Islamic militant
groupings that now stand against him, each clearly capable of using violence to
bring him down, diplomats and others following developments in Pakistan
believe.
The presence of an undetermined number of fighters from Osama
bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network who fled to Pakistan last winter after
the Taliban regime's collapse in neighboring Afghanistan merely adds to the
volatile brew.
Those who track Pakistan's turbulent domestic political
environment worry openly about a nightmare scenario—one in which elements from
the three diverse strains of militancy set aside their individual causes, link
up with Al Qaeda members and unite around a set of shared objectives: removing
Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in the war on terror; destabilizing the country; and
driving the United States from the region.
Two of these groups—one
consisting of Pakistanis who fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan, the other
made up of Muslim holy warriors dedicated to capturing all of the disputed
Kashmir region for Pakistan and the Islamic cause—were once de facto allies of
Musharraf's government.
The third—extremists from Pakistan's majority
Sunni sect who have waged a bloody, mafia-style war against the minority
Shiites—was already at odds with him.
The dangers posed by these
extremist groups have increased sharply in recent weeks because of steps taken
to ease the crisis with India over Kashmir, diplomats and others following
developments in Pakistan believe.
To reduce those tensions, Musharraf
intensified a crackdown on militants whom the Pakistani government had for years
trained for attacks on Indian-controlled areas of Kashmir.
With this
crackdown coming just nine months after Musharraf withdrew his government's
support for the Taliban, angry and disillusioned sympathizers of both the Afghan
and Kashmiri causes view the president, a general who took power in a coup, as a
traitor to militant Islam.
There are about 1,000 uniformed Americans and
a large FBI contingent based here as part of the war on terrorism, so the United
States has a large stake in Pakistan's internal stability.
At a different
level, Americans also have a stake in a political struggle being watched across
the Muslim world—that of a leader who cast his fate with the West in the wake of
Sept. 11 and is now locked in a battle to survive the backlash.
Some
observers believe that informal linkups between militant groups may already have
begun.
Communications Minister Javed Ahraf Qazi, the former head of
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, said that this month's
bombing at the U.S. Consulate in Karachi had the earmarks of cooperation between
local religious extremists and Al Qaeda refugees believed to be in the rough
port city.
"My suspicion is that sectarian elements did this at the
behest of Al Qaeda," he said. "They are [both] ruthless
murderers."
Presidential spokesman Rashid Qureshi acknowledged, "Some
[Pakistani] groups may have developed Al Qaeda links."
So far, there is
no hard evidence that followers of the three militant causes have entered into
any formal agreement or established anything as structured as a common
underground network to pursue their shared goals.
With Al Qaeda and
Pakistani Taliban fighters in disarray, the heads of several large Sunni groups
in jail and many Kashmiri militants only now beginning to contemplate an
alternative future, organizational leadership is in short supply, according to
those who monitor militant activities.
They believe that, instead, little
more than a camaraderie among individuals attracts the militants together as
small groups explore possible cooperation.
"Al Qaeda elements and others
are now in the process of coming together to find a specific-oriented agenda,"
said Aamer Ahmed Khan, editor of the Herald, a Karachi-based monthly that
closely follows the activities of Islamic militant groups. "Some leaders haven't
even met yet, but groups are starting to work together."
A previously
unknown group calling itself Al Qanoon—"The Law"—claimed responsibility for the
consulate attack. In a note faxed to local newspapers, it described the bombing
as the beginning of a campaign against "America, its allies and its lackey
Pakistani rulers."
Although no one has claimed responsibility for a
bombing last month outside the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi that killed 11 French
defense contract workers, authorities talk privately of a possible similar nexus
in that attack.
Musharraf's government pressed its search for Al Qaeda
remnants in the wake of the U.S. Consulate attack.
Last week,
precinct-level police officers in all four provinces were called to urgent
meetings where superiors ordered them to search for possible links between known
Sunni militants in their areas and Al Qaeda members who might have found refuge
there.
A senior Interior Ministry source said that as part of the search,
landlords have been told to report to police any tenants willing to pay
conspicuously more than the market rate for accommodations.
The
government also has invoked longer-term measures to choke off support for
Islamic extremists.
A tough new law announced last week tightens controls
on the thousands of religious schools, known as madrasas, and cuts off
foreign sources of funding to them. With financial help from foreign-based
Islamic fundamentalist organizations, many of Pakistan's madrasas
instilled their students with extremist ideas heavily laced with
anti-Americanism.
Authorities have also launched investigations into the
activities of several Pakistan-based nongovernmental organizations funded by
Arab world money suspected in recent months of providing aid and shelter to
fleeing Arab Al Qaeda fighters and their families.
So far, no one has
linked Kashmiri militant groups to the string of recent attacks against
foreigners in Pakistan, primarily because their break with Musharraf has only
just occurred. But many fear that the potential is now there.
"There's a
very serious danger of the government losing control over the Kashmiris," said
Aamer. "It's a major failure that the government didn't prevent the Kashmiri
freedom movement from being infiltrated by these [other]
militants."
Veteran Pakistan-based diplomats claim that Musharraf had
already decided before Sept. 11 to end the government's support of Muslim
extremist elements in the country because the price in terms of domestic
violence and a growing international isolation had become too high. His
strategy, however, had been to take on the militants quietly.
"He wanted
to finish them off one by one," noted a respected Islamabad-based Arab envoy.
"Now he has been forced to fight on three fronts simultaneously. Politically,
this could be dangerous."
So far, the extremist groups have made no
public statements or issued any credible claims regarding their intentions. But
previous shared ties could help bring them together despite their different
political agendas, diplomats and analysts fear.
Evidence of these ties
abounds.
For example, Kashmiri militants and Sunni sectarian extremists
from Pakistan were routinely trained at Al Qaeda-run camps in eastern
Afghanistan. In fact, there is now evidence that at least one of the terrorist
camps in eastern Afghanistan hit by U.S. cruise missiles in 1998 was training
recruits for Kashmiri militant groups, not Al Qaeda. The U.S. attack came as a
reprisal for the American Embassy bombings in East Africa.
In addition,
Pakistani journalists who trekked across the mountains into eastern Afghanistan
for a May 1997 news conference with Bin Laden recall that their guides and hosts
for the trip were members of the Kashmiri militant organization Harkat
Moujahedeen.
"The collective experience of having trained and fought
together has led to a camaraderie," said a senior member of Musharraf's
government who declined to be identified. "This camaraderie is now playing
itself out."
U.S. and Pakistani authorities have had some notable
successes in the search for Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan in recent months. A
raid in the Punjab city of Faisalabad in March netted a senior Bin Laden aide,
Abu Zubeida. U.S. officials say that information provided by Zubeida led to last
month's arrest of Jose Padilla, the so-called "dirty bomber."
Despite
this, senior Pakistanis worry whether their security forces are up to a major
confrontation with militants on the home front. The police, they say, are
ill-equipped, overextended and so corrupt that the government has come to rely
increasingly on paramilitary units such as the Pakistani Rangers to carry out
sensitive tasks.
Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider admitted that his
forces aren't in good shape.
"I have my problems about police
capabilities," he said. "I used to get help from the [paramilitary forces], but
they are now on the border. So I'm left with a police force which has been tired
ever since September, when hundreds of thousands of [protesters] came onto the
streets."
Haider said he had requested additional resources to beef up
both the manpower of the police and their investigative capabilities.
"We
don't want the land of Pakistan to be used by any militants, extremists or
terrorists," he said. "This is the policy of our president, and we'll do our
best to implement it."
Fulfillment diplomacy
Newt Gingrich
Published 6/25/2002
One of the
realities of living in an information age is that television, the Internet,
radio and other forms of public information are decisive in shaping pubic
opinion.
In the 1981-1982 fight in Europe over
matching the Soviet Union's military build-up by fielding mobile missiles in
several of those countries, success required a strong public- information
campaign in order to sustain diplomatic
initiatives.
In the late 1940s, a significant
American education and information campaign in France, Italy, Greece and other
countries played a major role in the survival of freedom and the defeat of
communist tyranny. Today, when America is faced with an organized, ruthless
minority that is gaining ground through dishonest propaganda and through
violence, the United States must not only meet its security challenges but also
its information challenges.
When we win
militarily, we must also be prepared to win culturally, informationally and
economically. Because people everywhere want to be safe, healthy, prosperous and
free, they look to the United States as a leader in that quest, and where they
see a real opportunity of success in attaining the freedoms they so desperately
want, they will be strongly in favor of allying with America. We must implement
fulfillment campaigns in Afghan-istan and other countries after we defeat the
extremist wing of Islam. Instead of exit strategies, we have to create
fulfillment strategies that enable governments like that headed by Afghanistan's
Hamid Karzai to create safety, health, prosperity and freedom for its
citizens.
We have been successful in the past
in Germany, Italy and Japan after World War II, and South Korea after the Korean
War. If we apply the same techniques and the same investment of capital, values
and education, we can succeed again today.
Our
continuing effort to defeat the extremist, fanatical wing of Islam, and those
Islamic dictators who would acquire weapons of mass destruction, promote
disorder, barbarism and genocide, requires a five-pronged ongoing
strategy.
First, where necessary, the United
States and its allies have to be the guarantors of physical safety against
terrorists, the murderers and the committers of
genocide.
Second, having established safety,
the United States and its allies must employ strategies of wealth creation based
on private property rights, the rule of law, a rewarded work ethic, information
age technological infrastructure, modern systems of health and health care, and
the culture of freedom and self-government. This is only partially a resource
issue. Most of the failures of development in the last four decades have been
failures to export the ideas that underpin wealth-creation. That is largely a
function of public diplomacy or public-information
operations.
Next, when confronted with a
coherent ideological opponent such as Nazism, fascism, Japanese militarism,
communism or the extremist fanaticism of Islam, it is necessary to develop a
countervailing intellectual communications effort on behalf of freedom,
modernity and individual rights. Young people growing up have to be given the
choice between hatred, violence and tyranny and the alternative of peace,
opportunity and freedom. Only a systematic educational and public-information
campaign can truly provide this choice. In our current conflict, the madrasas of
extremism have to be replaced with schools that educate young men and women into
productive modern lives that are the basis of prosperity and integration into
the modern world.
Subsequently, in order to
sustain these first three efforts there has to be a strategic public-information
campaign that explains to our own people, our allies in Europe and around the
world, the non-fanatical, non-extremist elements in the Islamic world and others
of our efforts, our sincerity and our idealistic goals. A campaign of this
nature and scale has to be run within a framework acceptable to the White House,
but the White House cannot run it. A single key figure, probably in the State
Department, should be empowered to coordinate all American public information
operations on a daily basis with the White House. To the degree possible, our
allies in non-governmental organizations should be recruited, included and
involved in a broad public-information strategy and
campaign.
Fifth and finally, it is imperative
that the White House lead the daily public-information effort because the
president is so decisively the primary communicator of the American system. The
administration should shape and direct the first four stages but it should
implement only the fifth stage.
The United
States is today unprepared to engage in a public-information campaign on the
scale needed to create safety in the 21st century. The ultimate scale of
resources needed to defeat the extremist, fanatic wing of Islam will resemble
the resources we used to defeat communism. The combination of educational
efforts, communications campaigns, covert activities, economic assistance, and
aggressive efforts to communicate our view of reality were the underpinnings for
the nearly 50-year containment of Soviet
communism.
Creating a stable, safe world
requires a public-information capability and a public-diplomacy capability far
beyond anything we have developed to date. The emerging information age has new
requirements for tactical information on a daily basis and complex requirements
for the Internet, cell phones, satellite television, radio and long-term
educational efforts. These activities can often be implemented by
non-governmental organizations, but the resourcing and the general strategies
and systems implementation require government
leadership.
Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, is a senior
fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Protecting liberty in a permanent war
Ted Galen Carpenter
Published 6/25/2002
With the detention
of Jose Padilla (a k a Abdullah al Mujahir), the Bush administration has made an
extraordinary assertion of power. It is sweeping and unnerving. The
administration contends that, by merely designating a person as an "enemy
combatant," the government can hold him in prison without according him a trial.
Indeed, the government does not have to charge him with any criminal offense,
much less present evidence of an offense. That is true even if the person in
question is a U.S. citizen and is apprehended on U.S. soil.
Civil libertarians are justifiably alarmed at
such an ominous shadow over the constitutional rights of all Americans. But
there is another aspect that has received less attention even though it is
equally alarming. It is a truism that civil liberties have suffered in most of
U.S. wars. But in all of those earlier episodes, there was a certainty that the
conflict would end someday. A peace treaty would be signed, or the enemy country
would either surrender or be conquered. In other words, the United States would
someday return to normal and civil liberties would be restored and
repaired.
The war against terrorism is
different. Because the struggle is against a shadowy network of adversaries
rather than a nation state, it is virtually impossible even to speculate when it
might end. Mr. Bush's initial comment that it might last "a year or two" was
long ago consigned to the discard pile.
Indeed,
it is not clear how victory itself would be defined. Even if the war is confined
to combating al Qaeda, there is no way to confirm at any point that the
organization's operatives have been neutralized. The concept of victory becomes
more elusive if the goal is the eradication of all terrorism from the planet, as
administration officials have sometimes hinted. That is a guaranteed blueprint
for perpetual war.
Nor would the mere
prolonged absence of attacks on U.S. targets be definitive evidence of victory.
How long a period of quiescence would be enough? A year? Five years? Ten years?
The reality is that no president would want to risk proclaiming victory in the
war on terrorism only to have another terrorist attack occur on his watch. The
political consequences of such a gaffe would be dire indeed. (For similar
reasons, the color-coded warning system adopted by the Office of Homeland
Security will likely never go below yellow). The safe political course would be
always to emphasize the need for continuing struggle and
vigilance.
In short, the United States is now
waging a permanent war. That reality makes civil liberties considerations even
more important than in previous conflicts. Whatever constitutional rights are
taken from us (or that we choose to relinquish) will not be restored after a few
years. In all likelihood, they will be gone
forever.
We therefore need to ask whether we
want to give not only the current president but also his unknown successors in
the decades to come the awesome power that Mr. Bush has claimed. It is chilling
to realize that the president is insisting that all he must do is invoke the
magical incantation "enemy combatant" and a U.S. citizen can be stripped of his
most fundamental constitutional rights without any meaningful scrutiny by the
judicial branch. A place where that is possible is not the the United States we
have known. It is not a United States that we should want to
know.
Ted
Galen Carpenter is vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the
Cato Institute and is the author or editor of 14 books on international affairs
including the forthcoming "Peace and Freedom: Foreign Policy for a
Constitutional Republic."
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter
Slate Tell a
Vision
When is a state not a state?
When it's Palestinian.
By
William Saletan
Posted Monday, June 24, 2002, at
4:41 PM PT
This afternoon, President Bush outlined his long-awaited plan for resolving the Middle East conflict. He gratified Israelis and dismayed Palestinians by demanding, as a condition of Palestinian statehood, a complete overhaul of the Palestinian leadership. But that's just the most obvious caveat in Bush's proposal. The raw deal for Palestinians isn't the hoops they'll have to jump through to get their prize. It's the dubiousness of the prize.
Bush repeatedly described the state he envisions as "provisional." White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer and Secretary of State Colin Powell have also called it a "potential" or "interim" state. (Fleischer has a curious habit of saying that a Middle East settlement must offer "security" to Israelis and "hope" to Palestinians, as though hope were the equivalent rather than the opposite of security.) Bush's aides see no need to apologize for not proposing an actual state. They figure they've shown plenty of courage by going as far as they have. "You now, for the first time, have a President of the United States who has held out that distinct possibility of the creation of a Palestinian state," Fleischer emphasized two weeks ago.
Normally, when you grant people statehood, you deal with the leaders those people have chosen. Not in this case. "Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership so that a Palestinian state can be born. I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders," Bush said today. Naturally, Bush demanded this more amenable government in the name of democracy. He also asked the U.S.-friendly dictators of various Arab countries, whose statehood he doesn't dispute, to "work with Palestinian leaders to create a new constitutional framework and a working democracy for the Palestinian people."
The White House keeps asserting that all parties in the conflict support Bush's "vision" of a Palestinian state. It's just that they don't quite agree on how to get there. To maintain this veneer of agreement, the administration avoids specificity. When will the "provisional" state give way to a permanent one? "At some point in the future," says Powell. Who will decide at what point Palestinian reforms are sufficient to merit statehood? "The President will wait … to see if the Palestinian institutions are going to form in a way that gives faith to the President and to the neighborhood that a viable government can be formed," says Fleischer. What is the U.S. agenda for upcoming talks with the parties? "We have remained committed to the concept of moving forward with the concept," says Powell. What immediate results does the United States expect? "The short-term goal is to figure out the way to get to the long-term goal," says Fleischer.
And what exactly is the "provisional state" to which this process might lead? To begin with, Bush says, it will have "secure and recognized borders." Bush and Powell have repeated this promise for weeks, using the firmness of the words "secure" and "recognized" to conceal the fact that they've never explained where those borders will be. "The final borders, the capital and other aspects of this state's sovereignty will be negotiated between the parties, as part of a final settlement," Bush said today. Beyond that, Powell has noted unhelpfully, "If it is going to be a state, it will have to have some structure. It will have to have something that looks like territory, even though it may not be perfectly defined forever."
Despite its rhetoric, the administration hasn't even pledged that these borders, wherever they may end up, will in practice be secure and recognized. On June 13, Fleischer was asked whether, if Israel sent tanks across the new Palestinian border in response to terrorism, the United States would consider it "an act of war." Fleischer twice refused to answer the question. "That's a hypothetical, and I'm not going to get into that," he said.
Why is Bush's plan so vague? Because it was conceived as a pretty picture, not as a solution. From the moment last fall when he first spoke of "a day when two states, Israel and Palestine, live peacefully together," Bush and his aides have described this idea as a "vision." The word, which Bush repeated twice in his speech today, is significant. A vision is something you imagine, not something you do. In this case, it's something Bush wants Palestinians to imagine—"a political process on the horizon" to encourage them to build "the institutions necessary for peace," as he put it on June 10. On June 13, Powell affirmed that the United States was trying to "give the Palestinians something to look forward to in the form of a state that will eventually come into being." When asked at that day's White House press briefing what Bush meant by "Palestine," Fleischer replied, "The President thinks it is very important to send signals to the Palestinian people that they are worthy and deserving of a state."
That's what the offer of a "state" with no defined borders, powers, or timetable (and no right to be represented by its present leadership) is. It isn't even a bone thrown to the Palestinians. It's a picture of a bone. Bush's father was notorious for confusing the photo op of a thing ("Message: I care") with the thing itself. The son, too, seems to think that his words are equal to deeds. A month ago, when he was asked about progress in the Middle East, he noted with pride, "I gave a speech right here in the Rose Garden on April the 4th that said parties have responsibilities. … I've talked about a vision of two states." Congratulations, Mr. President. You've done it again.
American press review (previous day)
Guardian Bush says Arafat must
go
Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday June 25,
2002
The Guardian
President Bush yesterday
insisted the Palestinians abandon Yasser Arafat and the rest of their current
leadership as a condition for achieving a provisional state and then permanent
nationhood possibly within three years.
In his much-awaited speech
on Middle East policy, Mr Bush sided squarely with the Israeli government's
position that there can be no peace in the Middle East as long as Mr Arafat and
his aides lead the Palestinian people.
"Peace requires a new and
different Palestinian leadership so that a Palestinian state can be born," the
president said in the White House Rose Garden.
He said that once new
elections had been held and a new leadership formed with new political and
economic institutions, an interim Palestinian state could be created, for which
"borders and certain aspects of its sovereignity would be provisional".
The boundaries of a
permanent Palestinian state, and the future of Jerusalem and of the Palestinian
refugees would be left for future negotiations, launched at an international
conference later this year.
The president called on
Israel to halt its military incursions into Palestinian areas to stop building
settlements in the occupied territories, and to pull back to its positions in
September 2000. However, he made no mention of any sanctions if Israel should
fail to comply. By far the greatest onus for achieving peace was placed on the
shoulders of the Palestinians.
Palestinian officials, who
had been looking forward to Mr Bush's speech as a welcome US return to
intervention in the Middle East peace process, reacted with anger.
"Palestinian leaders don't
drop from parachutes from Washington or anywhere else. Palestinian leaders are
chosen by the Palestinian people," Saeb Erekat, a leading Palestinian
negotiator, said, pointing out that Mr Arafat had already called for elections
by the end of the year.
Mr Bush has long
criticised Mr Arafat and has refused to meet him but until yesterday he had
stopped short of embracing the position held by the Israeli prime minister,
Ariel Sharon, that the Palestinian leader must be removed from power as a
precondition for peace. However, there was no mistaking the meaning of his words
yesterday.
He said "reform must be
more than cosmetic changes or a veiled attempt to preserve the status quo" if
the Palestinians were to achieve their aspirations of statehood.
"When the Palestinian
people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with
their neighbours, the United States of America will support the creation of a
Palestinian state, whose borders and certain aspects of its sovereignty will be
provisional until resolved as part of a final settlement in the Middle East,"
the president said.
White House officials said
they thought a provisional Palestinian state could be achieved within 18 months,
following the election of a new leadership. However, it was unclear what such a
provisional state would look like. No such entity is recognised under
international law.
"A state is a state, and
you cannot be provisionally pregnant, and you cannot have a provisional state,"
Nabil Shaath, a senior Palestinian cabinet member said before the speech.
The speech was warmly
welcomed by Israelis. The former prime minister Ehud Barak said it would be
acceptable to the Israeli people.
"It's a good speech that
makes it clear that if and only if there is a change of leadership, and total
change in the nature of Palestinian authority in terms of democracy and in terms
of fighting terror ... then Israel will have to go back into secure and
recognised borders," Mr Barak said.
The initial boundaries of
such an interim entity looked likely yesterday to become immediate points of
contention. The Arab world wants the starting point for any negotiations over
borders to be the pre-1967 Green Line, under which the whole of the West Bank
and Gaza would be under Palestinian control.
The Israelis want the
point of departure to be the area theoretically under the control of Mr Arafat's
Palestinian Authority, almost all of Gaza but only 40% of the West Bank.
One-sided offer that will change
nothing
Suzanne Goldenberg in Jerusalem
Tuesday June 25,
2002
The Guardian
Hours before President Bush
delivered his vision for Middle East peace yesterday, Israeli tanks roared up to
the headquarters of Yasser Arafat and a sixth Palestinian town fell under
Israeli military occupation.
Mr Bush made no mention of
either fact. Instead, his promise of a Palestinian state was contingent on a
call to Palestinians to overthrow their elected leader, Yasser Arafat, and to
create a western-style democracy that exists nowhere else in the Arab world.
In stark contrast, the
Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, faced no immediate pressure for an end to
the army's re-occupation of West Bank towns, or for a freeze on illegal Jewish
settlements. Mr Sharon has overseen 34 new outposts during his 15 months in
power.
Though the president did
not specifically call for Mr Arafat's removal, he made it clear the Palestinians
could never hope for a state of their own unless they cast out the man who has
led them for the last 35 years.
"Peace requires a new and
different leadership so that a Palestinian state can be born," Mr Bush said. "I
call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by
terror." Only then, he added, would America support the creation of a state.
"When the Palestinian
people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with
their neighbours, the United States of America will sup port the creation of a
Palestinian state," he said.
However, while many in the
West Bank and Gaza would like to see a more effective Palestinian
administration, and are angry and frustrated at the corruption of their leaders,
there is no sign they are willing to jettison Mr Arafat on Mr Bush's - or Mr
Sharon's - say-so.
Although Mr Arafat's
personal popularity is at barely 25%, according to an opinion poll this month by
the Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre, each successive Israeli invasion
of Palestinian territory has strengthened his standing.
While the Palestinian
leader has been discredited in the eyes of America, 47.5% of people in the West
Bank and Gaza expect Mr Arafat would be returned if free elections were held.
"It is only for the
Palestinian people to determine who is their leader... and President Bush must
respect the democratic choice of the Palestinian people," the Palestinian
negotiator, Saeb Erakat, told CNN yesterday.
Beyond Washington's focus
on the removal of Mr Arafat, the US president's vision went no further last
night than a vague promise of a provisional Palestinian state, to be redeemed
within three years - by which time Mr Bush may no longer be in the White House.
He held out no details on
the borders of the state that will emerge three years from now, the location of
its capital, or the future of millions of Palestinian refugees - all vital
concerns for the people of the West Bank and Gaza.
Mr Bush also freed Mr
Sharon of his few remaining constraints. While Israel does not yet have licence
to expel Mr Arafat - as Mr Sharon's hardline allies demand - after last night's
speech that day may not be far off.
In addition, Mr Sharon was
handed additional pretexts to delay a withdrawal from Palestinian lands, or the
reopening of negotiations with the Palestinians. As Mr Bush made clear, Mr
Sharon is now within his rights to demand not only an end to Palestinian
violence, but a total overhaul of the judiciary in the West Bank or Gaa, before
embarking on peace talks.
"There is no basis here
for any pressure on Israel whatsoever," said Joseph Alpher, an independent
Israeli analyst. "There is no vision in terms of providing an incen tive to the
Palestinians of what a state might look like. The only real vision is a
democratic market state of Palestine without Arafat. If this is supposed to
provide an incentive to Palestinians to get rid of Arafat, I don't see it."
He was also extremely
sceptical of Mr Bush's calls on Arab states - such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and
Jordan - to encourage the development of an independent legislature and
judiciary, and a market economy in the West Bank and Gaza. None of those states
conform to America's vision of a Palestinian state.
In Mr Alpher's view, Mr
Bush's address - his most detailed articulation so far of his policy towards
Israel and the Palestinians - falls short of a genuine re-engagement in Middle
East peacemaking. By doing so, it also promises precious little in the way of
hope for an end to nearly two years of blood and chaos.
"This is either an
incredibley naive approach or the cover for an absence of any genuine energy to
really deal with the region.
"After all, Bush began his
term by being very standoffish, and this is an elegant way of getting out of the
issues," he said.
"We are dealing with two
leaders, Sharon and Arafat, who are locked in their respective positions, and an
American leader, the only conceivable person who can affect change, who does not
want to truly get involved. So we are stuck where we are, which means more of
the same, which means the situation will get worse: creeping Israeli occupation,
expanding settlements and continued terrorism."
Sharon, the failed
kingmaker
Before he tries to replace Arafat, he should remember
Lebanon
Charles Glass
Tuesday June 25, 2002
The Guardian
Voices in Israel, including within Ariel
Sharon's cabinet, are calling on their prime minister to crown his reconquista
of the West Bank by naming a new Palestinian leader. If he does so, it will be
his second exercise in Arab kingmaking. The first was 20 years ago in Lebanon.
Eighteen years and thousands of dead later, Israelis were as happy to leave as
the Lebanese were to see them go.
The parallels between the
invasions of Lebanon and of the Palestinian Authority zones are too many to
ignore. Sharon holds Arafat responsible for Palestinian violence in exactly the
way Israeli leaders used to blame Lebanon. The Lebanese government, like Arafat,
was too weak to stop a war whose roots go far deeper than whoever happens to be
in nominal charge.
Following the 1967
Arab-Israeli war, the Palestinian commando movement came into being. And Israel
hit Lebanon after every Palestinian raid organised in Beirut, waging a steady
war on Lebanon's cities, villages and infrastructure. In 1968, Israel destroyed
13 civilian aeroplanes of Lebanon's airline at Beirut airport, just as this year
it destroyed the Palestinian airport in Gaza. Israel's raids strengthened the
PLO in Lebanon then; Sharon's destruction of Arafat's Ramallah headquarters has
restored some of the latter's popularity now. In Lebanon, the Israel-PLO battles
sparked a war that destroyed the Lebanese state. Israeli actions in the West
Bank have crippled the PA.
When Israel failed both to
control the PLO in Lebanon and destroy its popularity in the occupied
territories, it invaded Lebanon twice, in 1978 and in 1982. In 1982, the defence
minister, Ariel Sharon, played Lebanese kingmaker. After expelling 14,000 PLO
fighters from Beirut, he forced the Lebanese parliament to choose as president
the Christian militia commander Bashir Gemayel.
Sharon and Gemayel then
plotted an assault on the Palestinian refugee camps in west Beirut that bears an
uncanny similarity to Israel's operations in the West Bank since March. The
Israeli army would seize key buildings and roads. Gemayel's militiamen would be
transported to the refugee camps to root out "terrorists", in violation of
Israeli undertakings to the US to leave west Beirut unmolested. The Israeli
historian Benny Morris wrote that the plan called for Gemayel's Phalange to "do
the dirty work in the refugee camps, carrying out arrests, interrogations, and
demolition of buildings".
When a Syrian agent
assassinated Gemayel, Sharon put the plan into action. He told Gemayel's
lieutenant Elie Hobeika, as Israel's Kahan commission discovered: "I don't want
a single one of them left." Sharon said he meant "terrorists", but there were no
armed fighters in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Hobeika, whose men
slaughtered civilians for 30 hours under the light of Israeli flares, took him
to mean Palestinians. The distinction was lost, as it sometimes has been in
recent Israeli attacks in the West Bank.
Hobeika was due to testify
earlier this year against Sharon in a Belgian court examining the Sabra and
Shatila massacres, but he was assassinated. Israel's justice ministry,
meanwhile, announced that Israel would not ratify the international criminal
court treaty because the tribunal "could consider the settling of Israelis in
the territories as a war crime".
For Sharon to assassinate
or remove Arafat and appoint a tame Palestinian in his place would repeat the
mistakes of Lebanon. Israel occupied Lebanon and helped destroy the Lebanese
state. Twenty years later, Sharon is reoccupying West Bank cities and
dismantling the Palestine Authority infrastructure. Sharon named Lebanon's
president, as some in his cabinet want to choose a new Palestinian leader. He
further demands that the next PA president do Israel's bidding, as he and
Menachem Begin ordered Gemayel to do theirs. The first policy was a catastrophe
for Israel and Lebanon. It led to the creation of Hizbullah, Muslim
fundamentalists who became the first guerrillas to drive Israel out of territory
it had occupied. If Sharon disposes of Arafat and finds a quisling, what reason
is there to suppose he will succeed with a policy that failed before?
The other question is
what, in Sharon's reckoning, would constitute the success of this week's
Operation Determined Path? If it is to assume military control and leave a
Palestinian administration to collect the rubbish, he may succeed. If it is to
increase the area of West Bank land under settler control from 42% and integrate
it into Israel, he may succeed in that as well. But Palestinians will go on
dying to oppose him, because such action negates their survival as a people. If
the Determined Path is intended to achieve a peace for Israelis and Palestinians
to live beside each other in dignity, failure is etched into its very bones.
© Charles Glass 2002
Charles Glass was ABC's
chief Middle East correspondent in the 1980s and was kidnapped in Beirut in
1987.
US dismisses al-Qaida claim that
network is '98% intact'
Rory McCarthy in Islamabad
Tuesday
June 25, 2002
The
Guardian
The
US military yesterday dismissed as "wishful thinking" new threats from an
al-Qaida spokesman who said Osama bin Laden's terrorist network was still intact
and preparing new attacks.
"We felt that we have had
a significant impact on their ability to perform, command and control," Colonel
Roger King, a US army spokesman at the military base at Bagram in Afghanistan,
said.
In an audiotape handed to
the al-Jazeera television station at the weekend, a known al-Qaida spokesman
said "98%" of the network was still intact and claimed Bin Laden was alive and
well. The spokesman warned America to expect more attacks "in the coming days
and months".
But Col King said the US
military believed al-Qaida no longer maintained a viable central command. "We
don't feel that they can effectively do that with their bodies of forces at this
time," he said. "We think that is a direct result of our actions and I feel if
someone from al-Qaida says that 98% of their command and control is still
effective, it's wishful thinking on their part."
Yet even American
officials have started to admit that although al-Qaida can no longer easily
operate out of Afghanistan, it still represents a serious worldwide terrorist
threat.
A string of brutal suicide
bombings against western targets in Pakistan, as well as the arrests of al-Qaida
suspects in Saudi Arabia and Morocco, suggest that Bin Laden's lieu tenants are
spreading out across the world and trying to work with local Islamists.
US intelligence officials
have described the new threat as a "radical international jihad".
In a clear sign that
America's war is far from over, the most senior US commander in the war in
Afghanistan held detailed talks with Pakistan's ruler, General Pervez Musharraf,
in Islamabad yesterday.
General Tommy Franks
discussed the hunt for al-Qaida suspects in Pakistan, particu larly in the
lawless regions along the Afghan border where hundreds of Bin Laden loyalists
are believed to be hiding.
Although in public Gen
Franks was said to have given the Pakistani president his "deep appreciation"
for his support so far, there is little doubt that the US commander also pressed
him hard to hunt down more militants loyal to Bin Laden.
In the past six months
Pakistan has arrested more than 300 al-Qaida suspects and handed them over to US
custody. Now dozens of FBI and CIA agents are working alongside the Pakistan
army searching for more suspects.
Attention has focused on
Pakistani militant groups, which have for many years been supported by the state
and are now believed to be harbouring al-Qaida allies. These groups are
suspected of involvement in three big suicide bombings in Pakistan since March.
The latest attack, which took place at the US consulate in Karachi earlier this month, killed 12 Pakistanis.
At the seat of
empire
Africa is forced to take the blame for the
devastation inflicted on it by the rich world
George
Monbiot
Tuesday June 25, 2002
The
Guardian
In
the Canadian fastness of Kananaskis this week, the messianic cult of empire will
solemnly worship itself. The leaders of the G8 nations will declare that they
have come to deliver the world from evil. They will announce that they are
sacrificing themselves for the good of lesser nations. They will propose
solutions from on high, without acknowledging any responsibility for the
problems.
It is traditional, when
empire celebrates, that its vassal states come to pay tribute and beg for
deliverance. This time, the African leaders who will be admitted to the summit
on Thursday are prepared to suffer the final humiliation by blaming themselves
for the disasters visited upon them by the G8.
"Africa," according to the
Canadian government, "will remain a central focus of the Kananaskis summit." The
discussions will revolve around a plan called the New Partnership for Africa's
Development, or Nepad, drafted by the African leaders and enthusiastically
endorsed by the G8. The enthusiasm is not entirely surprising, as Nepad places
nearly all the blame for Africa's problems and nearly all the responsibility for
sorting them out on Africa itself. In the hope that it might win them a few
crumbs of aid and extra debt relief, the continent's leaders appear to have told
the rich world everything it wants to hear.
Nepad accepts that
colonialism, the cold war, and "the workings of the international economic
system" have contributed to Africa's problems, but the primary responsibility
rests with "corruption and economic mismanagement" at home. Few would deny that
these have played a significant role, but nowhere in the document on which the
plan is based is there any mention of the far more consequential corruption and
mismanagement by the nations to whom they are appealing.
Africa's underlying
problem, as the continent's leaders acknowledge, is debt. Nepad implicitly
accepts the rich world's explanation for this debt: that previous African
leaders have frittered away their economic independence through poor planning
and personal graft. Nowhere is any context given: that Africa's deficit is
merely one component of a vast and growing global debt, affecting consumers and
nations in the rich world as well as nations in the poor world. The US, for
example, owes $2.2 trillion: almost as much as the entire developing world's
debt put together. No mention is made of the debt-based banking system which has
caused this crisis, and which ensures that the only way debts can be discharged
is through the issue of more debt.
This problem, as poor
nations know but dare not acknowledge, is compounded by the policing system
developed by the rich world at Bretton Woods in 1944. Rather than the
self-correcting mechanism proposed by John Maynard Keynes, which forced
creditors as well as debtors to discharge the debt, the World Bank and
International Monetary Fund were introduced as a means of persuading only the
debtor nations to act, in the knowledge that this couldn't possibly work.
This system granted the
rich world complete economic control over the poor world. The power that nations
wield within the IMF is a function of their gross domestic product: the richer
they are, the more votes they can cast. The World Bank is run entirely by
"donor" states. These two bodies, in other words, respond only to the nations in
which they do not operate.
The consequences for
national democracy are devastating. African voters can demand a change of
government, but they cannot demand a change of policy. All the important
decisions affecting the continent are made in Washington, and they always boil
down to the neoliberal demolition of the state's capacity to care for its
people. So when the African leaders announce that "Africa undertakes to respect
the global standards of democracy", they are accepting a burden they cannot
lift. Democracy in Africa is meaningless until its leaders are prepared to
challenge the external control of their economies.
But far from denouncing
the authors of their misfortunes, they appear only to embrace them. "Structural
adjustment", the IMF policy which has forced countries to repay their debts
instead of investing in healthcare and education, is now almost universally
acknowledged as the nemesis of development in Africa. Nepad's fiercest criticism
is that it "provided only a partial solution" to poverty. Africa's leaders have
pledged to support not only its successor policies (such as the IMF's demand
that Malawi privatise its food reserves, with the result that millions of its
inhabitants are now at risk of starvation), but also the Africa Growth and
Opportunity Act passed by the US Congress. This seeks to complete the job which
structural adjustment began: forcing African nations to dismantle state support
and privatise their economies in return for minimal concessions on trade and
aid.
Without addressing any of
these obstacles, Nepad blithely promises to eliminate poverty, enrol all
children in primary school, reduce child mortality by two-thirds and supply the
continent with clean water and effective infrastructure. It will achieve these
worthy aims, it claims, largely by means of "public-private partnership", the
mechanism which is now failing so spectacularly in the rich world, while being
forced on Africa by the G8.
Agricultural development
depends, Nepad tells us, "on the removal of a number of structural constraints
affecting the sector". One might have expected this to mean the dumping of
subsidised produce on the African market by Europe and North America, which is
widely acknowledged as a crippling impediment to effective farming on the
continent. But this is never mentioned. Instead, the plan insists, the "key
constraint is climatic uncertainty". Quite how the African leaders intend to
"remove" this constraint is not explained, but that objective is arguably just
as realistic as any of the others they propose.
Apart from a few timid
requests for an increase in aid and a little more debt relief, the continent's
leaders absolve the G8 nations of all responsibility. Instead, they proudly
proclaim that "we will determine our own destiny" and call on the people of
Africa "to mobilise themselves in order to put an end to further marginalisation
of the continent". Self-determination is an admirable goal, but without control
over economic policy it is bombast.
Some might say that this
self-flagellation is a realistic means of engaging with the imperial powers in
Kananaskis: the G8 nations, after all, do not take kindly to being lectured on
their responsibilities. Nepad could be viewed as a white lie: the lies of the
whites, repeated, with the best intentions, by the leaders of Africa. But
development cannot be built on a lie, for development is a matter of reality. So
while their plan has admitted them to the imperial court, it merely reinforces
the dispensation that ensures Africa stays poor while the G8 stays rich. The
continent's leaders will be forced to kneel on the stony ground of Kananaskis.
But at least they've brought a Nepad.
· George Monbiot will be away until
August. His website can be found at http://www.monbiot.com/.
Sailing into the
sunset
Or, knowing Dr Mahathir, perhaps not
Leader
Tuesday June 25, 2002
The Guardian
It does not happen often that firmly
established, all-powerful national leaders suddenly decide, for no apparent
reason, to throw in the towel and sail off into the sunset. But that is exactly
the situation in Malaysia where the prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, shocked
his party's annual congress and the nation with an announcement that he was
standing down. Dr Mahathir has been very much in charge in Kuala Lumpur for more
than two decades, making him Asia's longest-serving leader. He is credited with
an economic and industrial success story that transcended the country's
unpromising legacy of colonial rule, ethnic and religious divisions and
communist insurgency. Many Malaysians have difficulty imagining life without
him. But it seems they may have to. Dr Mahathir, aged 76, is not ill. The next
election is not due until 2004. Nor has he been under any unusual pressure to
step aside. Government insiders say he may simply have had enough, that he had
been considering the move for some time. After dropping his bombshell, Dr
Mahathir took off for Naples for a spot of sailing.
How refreshing that a man
renowned for his autocratic tendencies, his chauvinistic defences of Asian
values and his zero tolerance of criticism, particularly western human rights
criticism, should decide to go with such unaccustomed grace. This is the same
man, after all, who humiliated his able deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, and saw him
jailed on trumped-up charges; the same man who behaved so unhelpfully when
Australian and British troops intervened in East Timor; the man who has
encouraged the expansion of the US "war on terror" into Asia. Some might think
his departure overdue. But there is a snag. He may not actually be departing, at
least not any time soon. All the talk now is of a "lengthy transition" and
"phased handover". That could take years - assuming that he does not change his
mind again. As we said at the beginning, it does not happen often.
Agency seeks dirty-bomb material
from Soviet farms
Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow
Tuesday June 25,
2002
The Guardian
A large number of mobile
irradiation units, each containing a deadly amount of radioactive dust, are
feared missing in the former Soviet Union, according to atomic security experts.
The units, built by the
Soviet government in the 1970s to stop maize germinating, hold eight to 10 thin
tubes of the highly radioactive caesium-137.
US officials fear
terrorists could create a dirty bomb using a radioactive material such as
caesium-137 in combination with conventional explosives. The resulting explosion
could cover a large area with radioactive dust and contaminate thousands of
people.
The caesium-137 tubes were
stored inside protective casing to protect farm workers and the units, weighing
nearly a tonne, were then mounted on lorries. But since the break-up of the
Soviet Union, officials have lost track of the units and the International
Atomic Energy Authority is trying to locate, recover, and secure them.
"We have seen nine in
total so far," Melissa Fleming, an IAEA spokeswoman, said. "Four of them were
recovered in Georgia and five in Moldova. They contain caesium chloride and were
wheeled around the Soviet Union for years to stem growth or germination in corn.
But we don't know how many of them there are, or where they are."
Caesium-137 is
particularly worrying, the IAEA says, because of the damage a small amount can
do.
In 1987, a Brazilian
scrapyard worker inadvertently took caesium-137 home with him. The powder, which
children ingested via their hands, killed four residents and contaminated eight
city blocks.
The incident in Brazil
involved caesium-137 with a radiation measurement of up to 200 curies, while
each irradiation unit contains 3,500 curies.
Ms Fleming added that the
units were transportable, and "could easily be used by terrorists. They would
have to dismantle the shielding to get at the source, which they could easily do
if they had a disregard for their own health."
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Daily Telegraph Bush plan only fuels suspicion that US is firm ally of
Israelis
By Alan
Philps
(Filed: 25/06/2002)
President George W Bush's formula for Middle East peace came as a shock to Palestinians, but hardly as a surprise. It fulfills their worst suspicions that, on key issues, Washington is firmly allied with the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon.
There were some uncomfortable words for Israeli ears, but every demand on the Israelis - from troop withdrawal to freezing settlements - is contingent on the Palestinians ditching Yasser Arafat and choosing a new leadership which will "fight terror."
Many Palestinians would gladly get rid of Mr Arafat. He has failed as a nation-builder and he has fallen into every trap set by Mr Sharon during the past 18 months, allowing the Israeli army to destroy much of what was built up over the seven years of peace.
But this conflict is as much about dignity as about land in Palestinian eyes, and they will not take kindly to being told who they should choose as their leader.
The Palestinian chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said last night that calls for a leadership change were "unacceptable."
Rather than talking of changing the leadership, he said, Mr Bush should have set out a timetable for withdrawal from the occupied territories and a road map for restoring Israel's borders of June 1967. Neither of these concepts found a place in Mr Bush's speech.
There is a fundamental difficulty in choosing a new leadership. Mr Arafat has led the Palestinian movement since 1968 thanks to his control of the flow of money and a ruthless cutting down to size of any potential challengers.
There is no one close to having the stature of a leader who could hold in his hands all the constituencies of the Palestinians. They are deeply divided in geography and status. Some are refugees, some are citizens; some live in the West Bank, some in the Gaza Strip, and others in the Arab countries and all over the world.
Mr Bush's statement comes at a time of ferment and soul-searching in Palestinian society. Intellectuals are calling for an end to suicide bombings and other attacks on Israeli civilians, arguing that these only provide a justification to Israel for re-occupying Palestinian towns.
But all the signs are that the proponents of an end to attacks on civilians are a tiny minority. At a time when jobs are fast disappearing, careers are being made in running the armed struggle against Israel and there is plenty of money available from radical Middle Eastern states such as Iran and Iraq, and from private donors in countries such as Saudi Arabia.
Palestinian analysts say the only thing that would give pro-peace elements the confidence to act against the militants would be a clear political horizon, offering a path to an independent state.
But Mr Bush's prescription begins with so many demands on the Palestinians that this state remains firmly over the horizon.
Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor, adds: The notion that elections would produce a more pliant Palestinian leader able to do business with Israel and America is a fiction.
A combination of Israeli assassinations over the decades and Mr Arafat's own chicanery have ensured that he has no clear successor. Even if a pragmatist were to take control of the Palestinian areas, he would be tainted as an Israeli stooge.
Under the terms of the draft basic law for the Palestinian autonomous areas, which Mr Arafat has allowed to gather dust, the speaker of the Palestinian legislative council, Ahmed Qreia, known as Abu Alaa, a senior negotiator throughout the Oslo process, would lead the Palestinian Authority for 60 days while new elections are held.
Mr Arafat's other hat, as the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, would in theory be taken over by the senior Oslo negotiator, Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen. Israel considers both to be moderates.
The heads of the myriad Palestinian security services could have a crucial say. All these men owe their position to Mr Arafat, however, and are unlikely to challenge him while he is alive.
US row
raises spectre of government default
By
Simon English in New York
(Filed: 25/06/2002)
America's shaky financial position got markedly worse yesterday when the slide in the value of the dollar accelerated and a political row left the government in danger of defaulting on its debt.
Republicans in the House of Representatives are refusing to back an increase in US debt levels in the latest dispute with the White House over economic policy.
The government needs another $450 billion (£300 billion) to meet immediate bills but is facing opposition from politicians alarmed at a predicted budget deficit of $150 billion this year.
US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill warned: "If they don't act we are going to hit the wall, probably by next weekend because on Sunday we've got to certify social security payments and other large payments."
A $1.3 trillion tax cut, a declining economy and massive costs from the war on terrorism have left the US short of cash. It will dip into its social security surplus to balance the budget.
Another difficult day on Wall Street was aggravated by further falls for the dollar, as foreign investors grow increasingly pessimistic about the prospects for the world's biggest economy.
The euro traded at more than 98 cents for the first time since February 2000, up from 87 cents since April, while sterling rose to a 22-month high of $1.5084. Analysts at Citibank now expect the euro to reach $1.02 in the next three months.
An attempt by Japan to weaken the yen by buying dollars had only limited success. It sold around $4 billion of yen, yet the Japanese currency soon recovered to 121.21 per dollar.
The Dow Jones fell more than 100 points in morning trading in New York, but closed 28 points higher at 9,281. Nasdaq, the technology market, briefly fell below its worst level since September 11, down 8 points at 1,422. However, it recovered to end the day up 19 points at 1,460.
Bleak profits, corporate scandals and terrorism fears have left investors reluctant to buy shares, causing the biggest half-year losses since 1970. Minor rallies are repeatedly followed by an immediate selling spree.
A downgrade from UBS Warburg for technology giants Lucent and Nortel also rocked sentiment. Goldman Sachs lowered earnings estimates for IBM.
Analysts assume the Bush administration is involved in a game of brinkmanship with political opponents, who are thought certain to approve new borrowing later this week.
However, the government has already been forced into cancelling its usual weekly sale of Treasury bills, the equivalent of gilts, while it awaits permission to raise new money. The slightest government default on debt would have a dramatic effect on the stability of stock markets.
Mr O'Neill has faced fierce criticism for his handling of the economy and for "loose cannon" comments when he seemed to question whether a strong dollar was best for the US. His enemies could use his urgent need for funds to inflict further damage on his reputation.
Figures this week on consumer confidence and factory orders are eagerly awaited for signs of a recovery. Consumer spending, two thirds of the economy, is likely to have faltered.
Alan Greenspan, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, will make a decision on interest rates tomorrow. He is expected to leave them unchanged.
Leader
Independent US
hawks deliver victory to Sharon in battle over Arafat
By Phil Reeves in Jerusalem
25 June 2002
Game and set - if not match - to Ariel Sharon. Yasser Arafat, long frozen out of the Bush White House, is no longer perceived by the Americans as the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people.
The Palestinians can no longer expect anything in the near future beyond a vague "provisional state", and even that will depend on them electing different leaders.
For their part, the Israelis were presented with a "to do" list by Mr Bush that contained so many conditions that they will have no difficulty in consigning it to the back burner.
George Bush finally gave his long-awaited speech on the Israel-Palestinian conflict last night. The document had created acrimonious divisions between the administration's hawks and the State Department. The hawks won.
There was little in the speech that looked like a remedy to a conflict that has claimed more than 2,000 lives, and appears to be getting steadily worse.
Mr Bush did not name Yasser Arafat, but his meaning was clear: "Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born," he said. "I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror."
Not so long ago, State Department officials were talking about the need to keep Yasser Arafat because he was the only leader the Arab world would accept. That, it seems, is over.
Israel's guarded official statement concealed real delight with the speech. In the last 15 months, Mr Sharon has managed to reoccupy Palestinian-run land, tear up the infrastructure of the Palestinian Authorityand carry out scores of assassinations. Mr Bush talked only of Israel's right to defend itself, in effect endorsing these practices. There was also speculation that it would be seen as a signal to finally go after Mr Arafat himself.
Mr Sharon's office said that "when the Palestinian Authority undergoes genuine reforms and a new leadership takes it place at its head ... it will be possible to discuss ways of moving forward by diplomatic means."
Startlingly, Mr Arafat's office seemed to ignore the speech's central message. It welcomed Mr Bush's ideas, describing them as "a serious effort to push the peace process forward".
Mr Bush waxed lyrical on the merits of democracy – and even, breathtakingly, suggested that Arab states, not exactly known for their democratic structures, should help to build its institutions.
But he made no bones that the United States will only support Palestinian statehood if the electors chose a leader other than Mr Arafat. Even then, the US will only back a state whose "borders and ... sovereignty will be provisional until resolved as part of a final settlement."
The President equated the Palestinian suicide attacks to the "terror" against which Americans is fighting a war, rather than murderous assaults which – though utterly unjustifiable – are mounted in the name of ending Israel's illegal 35-year occupation of Arab lands, and of avenging the civilians killed by the Israeli army.
Mr Sharon's aim has long been to persuade the world that there is no difference between Palestinian militants, and al-Qa'ida. Last night, he partly achieved this.
The Palestinians sought solace in Mr Bush's references to the "occupation", the issue which they say lies at the heart of their intifada. Mr Bush also said "permanent occupation" – suspected by many to be Mr Sharon's aim – "threatens Israel's identity and democracy," and spoke of a "viable state", another important buzzword to the Palestinians.
But there was little to suggest this speech will make much difference to the nightmare on the ground. Mr Bush talked of the need for Israel to withdraw to the positions before the start of the intifada in late September. But the withdrawal should be made "as we make progress toward security.'' One suicide bomber attack would allow Israel to argue that progress has not been made.
Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories must end but this should be "consistent with the recommendations of the Mitchell report", he said. This, too, ensures that Israel can stall – as it long ago re-cast the recommendations to include a timeline.
Mr Bush suggested a three-year timeline for his two-state "vision" to become reality. "As new Palestinian institutions and new leaders emerge, demonstrating real performance on security and reform, I expect Israel to respond and work toward a final-status agreement." This is likely to mean that if Israel decides the leadership is not demonstrating "real performance", the Palestinians can forget about a state.
Exactly where the new leaders will come from is not clear. Elections today would deliver a strong showing for Hamas, classed by the US as terrorist.
Palestinians were crestfallen last night but unsurprised. "This is going to have an opposite effect to the one he intended," Jihad al-Wazir, a Palestinian minister, said. "Telling the Palestinians to get rid of Yasser Arafat will have the effect of sending his ratings up. We will hold an election and Mr Arafat will win it. And then what's going to happen. No state?"
Q & A: General Pervez Musharraf
The full text of the interview by Peter Popham of The Independependent with the President of Pakistan
24 June 2002
Internal link
The two faces of Musharraf: Dictator and Taliban's friend or secular liberal?
Q: Allow me to congratulate you on your first year as President.
A: Thank you, thanks very much (laughs), thanks a lot.
Q: But you've got a lot of problems - problems to the right, problems to the left, problems in the middle.
A: (laughs) You've put it correctly.
Q: People fear for your safety. They say you cannot leave Rawalpindi, cannot leave Islamabad
A: That's absolutely untrue, I can leave anywhere, I've gone abroad, I've gone to Lahore, Karachi, I move in accordance with my plan of movement, in accordance with what I want to do. This is absolutely ridiculous - why should I not move? I don't get scared like that - no problem, I go anywhere, any time. I keep going around here, in Pindi and Islamabad, very frequently I go and have coffee in Marriott or PC, I'm moving around, very comfortably around. The people around me may not be very happy about it.
Q: Stories have appeared in the press saying you cannot leave home without 200 or 300 security guards
A: There is security around me - but two or three hundred, maybe they've counted all the policemen from here to the president's house in Islamabad. The police function in accordance with the blue book that they have, I haven't changed that at all, in fact I've been telling them to review this blue book concept because it's overdoing everything. But there's no special additional anything that they do for me. During the referendum campaign I went to every part of Pak with thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people right in front of me.
Q: Mr President, you have three quarter of a million Indian soldiers on the border, al Qaeda terrorists coming into North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan, and terrorist incidents like the car bombing in in Karachi. Is it not true to say that Pakistan is in grave crisis?
A: Pakistan is facing difficult days, yes, and maybe I'll go to the extent of saying these kind of difficulties were never faced before. But as far as these internal things are concerned they were brushing it under the carpet and I am not brushing it under the carpet. I am facing them head on and I want to rectify the internal situation. Bring stability and tolerance and balance into this society, into our internal environment where these extremists were roaming freely and nobody dared to touch them. I am daring to touch them, I will not heed them, and we are meeting a lot of successes, let me tell you. Inshallah we will be all right on this internal front, we will actually improve the law and order situation internally.
Now on the west, yes, Afghanistan has always been turbulent. Right since the time the cold war started it has always been turbulent. And after that with the internecine battles between the warlords it has remained like that. Kashmir has always been active since the last decade. But now with the Indian troops moving on to the border is an addition. And all of them happening together at one point is also the issue. So yes I will agree with you that rarely has Pakistan faced such a difficult situation.
But I am very confident that if you mean that our security is threatened - no. Our security is not threatened at all. I don't think so. We are very secure and there is no problem so far as our stability and sovereignty is concerned.
Q: Are attacks like those in Karachi more likely if you clamp down on freedom fighters, terrorists in Kashmir, and if so what can you do about it?
A: I think what we are seeing is the peak, and what more can there be? We have crossed the peak I think. I personally feel that this should start decreasing now. Because we are on one side improving the law and order situation, law enforcement agencies, we are improving our intelligence services to be able to pre-empt any terrorist attacks and extremist attacks and we are trying to improve our investigative agencies so we are able to track down culprits. So all this is happening, and we have caught a number of extremists, I am talking about domestic, so that should be improving.
On the al Qaeda side they are on the run, and we have caught so many of them so I think also that situation should be improving.
Q: You took the initiative to crack down on sectarian terrorists soon after you came to power. But in the case of the Taliban and the militants in Kashmir, you had to have your arm twisted.
A: We had diplomatic contacts with the Taliban, we were one of the few countries who had recognised them and maintained our embassy there, this was our stance, not because of what the world was doing because the world was against the Taliban but when I went around everywhere I did explain our situation. Our position was - especially mine, when I came in '99 - that 90 per cent of Afghanistan was in Taliban hands and they happened to be Pukhtuns and there was no other popular leader. Now Pukhtuns have very close affinity with Pakistan, on our border in Baluchistan and Frontier they have their kith and kin living across the border. So I think there was no other option whatsoever for Pakistan to follow other than recognising Taliban and trying to be with them, going along with them.
Now unfortunately the world had deserted us after the Cold War, everyone had left, we were here alone faced with three million refugees - so what should the world have expected of Pakistan? We couldn't have left the Taliban and gone on the side of the Northern Alliance. We had to recognise the Taliban. All that I did was to bring normalcy. I tried to approach even the Northern Alliance, I tried to moderate that we need to have a balanced approach, we need to moderate the views of the Taliban. I think our policy was absolutely clear, even in the later stages when the operation against the Taliban started in Afghanistan, let me tell you that there was no problem in our breaking off diplomatic relations - but let me tell you that the United States itself wanted us to continue diplomatic relations, yes, yes indeed, because we were the only ones who were providing a window of contact with the Taliban, with their ambassador here. That however never meant that we were in sort of love with the Taliban - certainly we didn't want that kind of Islam in Pakistan. Nobody wanted that kind of Islam. But having diplomatic relations did not mean we want that kind of rule here or that we are very much impressed by what they are doing in their country - not at all, we had diplomatic relations.
On the other side, Kashmir is a festering wound, it is going on since partition, there is a United Nations Security Council resolution, we are demanding its implementation, and that has been our stance, that we will give diplomatic, political and moral support to the Kashmiris. All through we have been doing that, and we will continue doing that, supporting them in all forums, they must be heard and we must resolve the Kashmir dispute, this is our stand even now.
Q: But people have been saying for a long time, and now even western statesmen such as Jack Straw have begun to say that the position of Pakistan, that you provide only moral, political and diplomatic support to the freedom struggle, is not correct. In fact you have been supporting them with the direct support of the Pakistani Army, training militants, etc. This has become what the world now believes to be true. Isn't it time that you accepted the fact that your story is not being believed any more?
A: Yes, yes. That's why I've been saying that nothing is happening. I'm concerned with what is happening now. A lot has been happening on both sides, on the Indian side, on the Pakistani side, so I'm a believer that we should be looking forward, we should not be talking of the past, and that is why I have been saying that nothing is happening on the line of control - now.
But we have to move forward. The resolution of the problem does not end here. It ends with the resolution of the Kashmir dispute: addressing it and resolving it.
Q: In the process you have to stop terrorists crossing from Pakistan-controlled territory in to Indian-controlled Kashmir.
A: It's a chicken and egg situation. We have to mutually de-escalate, we have to mutually take action, moving towards a process of dialogue, towards a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute. Now who takes what steps is an issue which can be resolved as long as the will is there to move forward. So therefore it's a step by step approach, whoever takes a step there is the requirement of a response from the other side. And that is how we keep going forward. But if a step is taken and there is no response from the other side, I think that would be dangerous.
Q: How do you evaluate the conciliatory measures that India has taken so far?
A: Cosmetic. Cosmetic. These are no conciliatory measures, these are easing their own problems. When they say we have called back the Navy, they were not in our waters, because they know what to expect from this side. And if they are happy moving around in high seas in rough waters with their ships getting worn out, wear and tear of ships, and it costs a lot to keep a flotilla out, it wasn't disturbing us in the least! Except they keep roaming around in the sea. So if they call them back they will ease their own problems. The other, air flight, they want to open their air space to us - 140 or 130 flights of theirs are affected at the moment, about 10, 12 flights of ours. Not disturbing us at all. So therefore we said, we will see, we need to negotiate, we need to see how to open air spaces. They are again trying to ease their own problems.
On the rail movement contact, we said yes, people to people contact, let train movement between the two countries take place, let people come, we haven't decided on the goods coming or going. No trade. People to people contact is all right. But they are easing their own problems actually.
Q: Nothing of substance yet.
A: Nothing of substance.
Q: When will you say, this is not cosmetic, something has happened?
A: As far as de-escalation is concerned: the air force, moving back, because they are in the forward air bases. Although that also is not very substantive - what is important is the logistic buildup, that takes time. Aircraft will take a few hours to come back.
Then on the army side, their strike formations moving back. Not the defensive ones, the strike formations. From the international border. From Kashmir, from inside Kashmir, any formation moving back, moving out of Kashmir. These are the de-escalatory steps.
But what we are looking for is not really de-escalation, frankly, let me not create an impression that the reciprocation we expect from India is de-escalation. We couldn't care less, let them escalate, let them keep remaining on the border. That's not disturbing us at all. We expect a substantive movement towards a process of dialogue addressing the Kashmir dispute, and all other issues. That is what we call a substantive response from the Indian side. Rest of them, nothing is disturbing us.
Q: How do you get the rest of the world to focus on Kashmir? Only when you get talk of nuclear war do you get a flurry of envoys...
A: That is really unfortunate. I have been saying this since I addressed the United Nations General Assembly last year, that we must get to the real cause of terrorism. What is terrorism? We need to define it first of all. Because we keep saying terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. We include state terrorism in it. Okay, a person killed a man, he's a terrorist. If a state kills a man, a civilian, what is that? If a state is killing a man in their own country one would even accept that, it's a law and order problem. But a disputed territory, and the state is killing the civilians there and suppressing them, what is it, I would like someone to define what this is.
And then secondly, if you see all the people involved in the September 11 terrorist attack, were they Islamic extremists? No, not at all. Not one of them was an Islamic extremist, a religious extremist. The motivation for doing this act was not Islam. All of them we read from the news were in bars and they had a very good night before they went there. This is not an Islamic activity. So what motivated them to do this was not Islam, it was not religion. It was a cause: it was the Palestinian cause that motivated them to do this. So therefore I am very clear in my mind, the root of the issue of terrorism is to resolve political disputes. And that is the root cause of terrorism. Because that leads people to the extreme act of giving up their life. They don't do that for religion, nobody here has done that for religion.
Q: You made a terrific speech on January 12, welcomed all around the world, in which you spoke in detail of the problems that are eating Pakistani society "like termites". You spoke of the inadequacy of the education provided by madrassas. Have you begun to take steps to remedy that?
A: We have done a lot but we have certain resource constraints. The strategy is quite clear, that we want to bring madrassa education in line with the mainstream of education. We have introduced subjects that we want them to teach in madrassas, four subjects, and we have asked themk to take the normal examinations. And we have asked them to get registered with a board that we have created. This board will then examine them. But this cannot be implemented in a few months. When we pass an order, its implementation has to be seen. How does a madrassa in a remote part of Baluchistan implement what I am telling them? Do they have the teachers, do they have the capacity to do that, do they have the money to do that? So it is easier said than done. I do realise that. Therefore we have allocated a lot of funds for this purpose. We have told the madrassas we will assist you in giving you teachers. But of course our resource limitations are there. Therefore in accordance with whatever our resources are we will keep moving forward. But the fact is that most of them have accepted this point of view that yes, they have got convinced that yes we should teach these subjects. So that's a positive point. But I would admit that we need to move faster, we need to have more resources to move faster.
Q: Mr President, one of the reasons you have resource limitations is the ever-expanding military budget.
A: Our problem is not the military budget first of all, let me correct, 53 per cent of our budget was going on debt servicing. Military spending is there, certainly, but let me tell you that in real terms military spending has been reduced. You are not right when you say we have increased the military budget. India has been increasing, by 28 per cent and then 14 per cent and then another I don't know how many per cent this year. I froze the military budget. Since the time I have come, we didn't increase the military budget at all. So therefore in real terms we decreased the military budget. Now this is phenomenal, in spite of all the tensions that we've had to deal with...For this tension, for whatever has happened, we have allocated some additional funds because of the mobilisation.
Q: And of course that will have to continue for as long as the crisis continues.
A: Yes. But we are checking the major expenditures and we are keeping them to the minimum. On the defence side, all my civilian government ministers compliment me for that.
Q: Tensions appear to have eased over the past week. Do you think India and Pakistan came close to having a war three weeks ago?
A: They came close and they are still close. Because I keep telling every one, one judges this situation through two gauges, one is the gauge of intention and the other is the gauge of capability. And the gauge of capability is more serious. Intentions can change any time, one conference and you decide to go to war, the intention is there and if the capability is there you can start war. So the capability exists even now. The danger even now exists, it's just a matter of overnight change of intention. Intention has gone down: yes, on both sides, tempers have cooled. So that is a positive. But capability exists.
Q: What brought that about? You made declarations to Mr Armitage that satisfied Delhi. That's what seems to have been the key event. Can you share with me what the reason is why you made those declarations to Mr Armitage because all sorts of strange stories are circulating, they say Mr Armitage is a very rough, abrasive character, he came in and threatened you, threatened economic sanctions...
A: I was very pleasantly surprised when Mr Armitage came that he is such a wonderful person. We had an excellent meeting.
Q: You are both commandos. You did some arm-wrestling?
A: No I think he's much stronger, he's a big man. He does a lot of bench presses. I did talk about weight lifting and all that which I did dabble around with in my youth.
We had a very very congenial and very good interaction where he understood exactly our point of view. I said I was pleasantly surprised because perhaps because of his physique maybe people think he carries that kind of image as you are saying. But I was very pleasantly surprised. Not at all. There was no such thing.
I think since 11th September we have developed a great understanding with the United States on our national stand and on me as a person, frankly. No, there has been no threat whatsoever, there was no question of a threat. We explained our position, I explained my position. I explained Pakistan's position. I explained the reality in Kashmir. And I also said yes, there is nothing happening across the Line of Control. I know that the world is concerned about the war clouds, and they were all concerned about cross border terrorism. Now I did tell them that we need to address this Kashmir dispute once for all, and this is the assurance I've got, that we need to address the Kashmir dispute and move forward on it. So all I've done is that there is nothing happening across the Line of Control and move forward towards its resolution. It is a step by step approach that both we and I need to take.
Q: Meanwhile Mr Vajpayee is declaring that India has won a great victory without firing a shot.
A: I think if they take this as a face saving it is very good, let them say anything if they are de-escalating. But I am looking for a response on Kashmir. Let them take that seriously. We are looking for a response, we have to start discussing Kashmir and moving forward to its resolution.
Q: You've had discussions before they've gone nowhere - how can you persuade India to make any progress - they don't want to make any progress on Kashmir.
A: We have never discussed Kashmir - except in Agra, now when we went there. Never has Kashmir been discussed. They would never discuss Kashmir, they would try to sideline it by saying we need to discuss all issues - what all issues? Minor issues of trade, minor issues of [inaudible], minor issues of Sir Creek - these are simple irritants, I call them. But the main issue they used to sideline. "Let's develop confidence-building". That's why we've been fighting these wars. Why have we been fighting these wars? Because we have been asking them to implement the Security Council resolution. Which they don't. And then comes the '65 war. Then we had this Simla accord. Now in this Simla accord there is a mention of Kashmir in a very apologetic manner, just once in the whole document - once Kashmir is mentioned.
Mr Vajpayee is very keen, he keeps talking of the bus diplomacy, he keeps talking that he was moving closer and that he wanted to have peace, he keeps talking of the Lahore Declaration. In Lahore Declaration there was no mention of Kashmir, not once. It was me, because I was Chief of Army Staff when the draft was being prepared, I happened to be there when they read out the draft, our side, and there was no word of Kashmir. And I brought that out and I said at least we should write the word Kashmir there. But this is their sincerity on Kashmir. Kashmir has never been discussed.
In Agra yes it was discussed, it was discussed for hours. In three meetings that I had with prime minister Vajpayee I was discussing Kashmir throughout. And we reached an agreement, we reached a joint declaration, accepting the centrality of Kashmir. And because of their own internal dissensions we couldn't get to signing it.
Q: Did you make tactical mistakes at Agra, because people say that press conference was too successful - bewitching a roomful of Indian editors - do you not think you would have been better to keep your mouth shut on that Sunday morning?
A: I was trying to help, how could I have known that I sitting alone in front of 30, 35 of their luminaries - they should have put me on the dock! I took the risk of being in front of them! They call themselves a very open, democratic society, what is wrong with that? They call us closed, they call me a dictator so what's wrong with them if I was sitting with their media and press. After all I was talking openly and let them come and talk openly to our press, I will allow that. One of their ministers was here, Sushma Swaraj, and I asked her, I said the media is here you talk, I'll sit. She didn't want to!
I don't know, I think that's an excuse. The reality is that we reached a declaration and prime minister Vajpayee and Jaswant Singh accepted that declaration, the wording of it, but their internal dissension, there were some hardliners, the hawks, who behind the scenes scuttled the whole thing.
I think I was extremely courteous and I was extremely peaceful, I wanted peace, I wanted peace forever, I was talking very good! Never did I say anything offensive or harsh.
Q: On the contrary you charmed them.
A: They shouldn't grudge that!
Q: You have a tantalising relationship with Mr Vajpayee - there seems to be some chemistry there but it comes to nothing. What's the problem?
A: Very frankly, I think he's being influenced and he's not being himself. Quite clearly, I am very sure. Because when we discussed - he's a nice man, I think he's a good man, he's a balanced person, he wants peace, I think. That's my judgement in 8 or 9 hours of sitting with him. He accepted Kashmir. He asked me, how can we move forward? I told him that there are four steps that we can take: 1st I gave him credit that you've invited me. I give all the credit to you for being a statesman and for having taken this bold step. And second I said, one more bold step you have to take, you have to accept the centrality of Kashmir, which no leader in India has done ever, you should accept the centrality, that this is the dispute that has bedevilled our relations, that we have to resolve it, to have peace between ourselves.
I said, you will be liked for it. It will be a bold decision, but I'm sure your public will like it, and our public will also like it.
Then the 3rd and 4th steps will be difficult ones: now we are moving towards a resolution of Kashmir. So I said 3rd step is we eliminate whatever is unacceptable to you and to us. We are in a process of elimination, we eliminate those.
And the 4th step from out of the remainder we strike at a mutually acceptable decision with flexibility, with give and take, beyond stated positions. And he accepted these. So we discussed all these things. I think he was an open-minded person, but then let me also tell you that after the first meeting of three hours we went for the delegation meeting. Here after three or four hours we had an excellent meeting, very good, we accepted everything, we came out laughing and smiling and we sat across the tables, their team that side, my team this side. And somebody passes him a file, he stands up and he reads an address. And to my shock and horror the same offensive, the same language, nothing, not a word related to what we had been talking for three hours. I said, let me also reply, then I also because he said we will not tolerate and accept this, I also said, we have our honour and dignity to guard. We will guard that with all our might. So what we discussed for three hours, for public consumption he was talking something different.
In spite of that we went in and we reached this declaration. And again somebody scuttled it. And we had excellent, courteous meetings, in spite of the fact that we then did not sign the declaration. I went back to say goodbye - I went there and shook hands and went off - disappointed, of course.
But now: from then onwards: what happened? What did I do? What did Pakistan do? Nothing! Everything was being done by them! They realised, maybe, that they have lost in many ways - diplomatically or media wise or whatever. And they needed to correct this situation. And he somehow got under the influence of his hardliners and he used to sort of attack me, attack Pakistan, be offensive. So I think he needs to be natural, he needs to decide on what he wants as a leader of India. And then convince others.
I am a believer that a leader does not go by what the general trend is. Some people think that you see the general trend and you go along with it. No, I don't think so. A leader's job is to change that trend. That is the real leader. You decide on what is good for your country and change the perception, change others' views. That is the leadership quality. Instead of flowing around with others' views.
Q: You've been forced by events to give up on the Taliban, are we seeing the same thing happening now on the other side of the country?
A: As far as Taliban are concerned, not giving up. Policies are made in accordance with environments. The environment changed, our policy changed. National interest is permanent. Now on the other side, national interest remains permanent. National interest can never be given up. Our national interest was not that we keep saving Taliban. Our national interest is with Afghanistan, it is not with Taliban. We would like to have peace in Afghanistan, we would like to have stability and unity of Afghanistan, that is our national interest, it is not to support Taliban and to bring Talibanisation into Pakistan and the region. No, that was not our national interest.
But here our national interest is the cause of Kashmir must be resolved - through peaceful means. We will keep following this national interest. No leader, no government can change national interests.
Q: I've noticed that there is a change in the national debate about Kashmir in Pakistan. People are saying and writing in the newspapers, let Kashmiris solve their own problems, Pakistan has enough problems of its own. Do you hear people saying this to you?
A: This is a school of thought, but not in the majority. The majority have opposite views. We have to resolve our internal problems, but that doesn't mean Kashmir has to be forgotten. Kashmir is there, it has to be resolved. These political issues don't die down in months, you don't switch from - you have a certain direction. National interests are permanent as I said. So even if something happens temporarily because we are facing a problem here internally, we may be focusing here more internally, the dynamics of Kashmir as I said - there are Kashmiris in Azad Kashmir, in the whole of Pakistan - my chairman, Joint Chief of Staff Committee, a 4-star general is a Kashmiri, my military secretary Major Gen Nadeem, he is a Kasmiri - how can we get this out? There are Kashmiris in the UK, there are Kashmiris all over the world, just like Irish are all over the world - can they get Ireland out of their blood? They are Irish...so I would say that Kashmir needs to be resolved - okay, I also say it needs to be resolved in a peaceful manner. But if at all the other side does not want to resolve it, then we are stuck again. Then what happens? Therefore I keep telling the United States and everyone, we must understand the dangers of this region. These dangers can only be averted if we resolve the Kashmir dispute. We must do that. Otherwise there is another Palestine here in the making.
After all, people are dying there, 75,000, 80,000 people have died there.
So we must understand realities, remove the causes of extremism from the world, resolve these disputes, they will remove the causes of extremism.
Q: It's a very longterm programme, removing the causes of extremism.
A: Yes it is longterm, but let's move in the right direction at least. I can't expect that you can resolve it in a few months or days or weeks. It is longterm. But let's move in the direction, let people be saying yes we need to resolve the K dispute. Let the whole world tell India you need to address the Kashmir dispute and implement the United Nations Security Council resolution. Let them start saying and let them start telling them you need to sit down and talk on Kashmir with Pakistan and then we start moving forward.
Q: Might you defer the elections for a further period?
A: No I am not doing that. Because I have given my word and whenever I give my word I adhere to it. Whenever I have said anything in the past I have done it. Therefore I don't want to change my word. I have said that we will have elections in October, therefore we should have elections in October.
Q: Can you tell me about your proposal for a National Security Council.
A: It's extremely important from our experience's point of view. We've had experience of democracy in this country - elected governments, anyway, not democratic, none of them were democratic. But however, they were elected governments. And the experience we've had over the past is that every power broker - there are three power brokers in Pakistan, the prime minister the president and the chief of army staff - all three of them at some time have overreached, overstepped their authority.
So therefore there is a requirement for institutionalising a system which would ensure checks and balances for all three of them. And also ensuring that national interests remain supreme as opposed to party and political and individual interests. This I am saying again because in the past again our experience has been that the government and the prime minister, the chief executive, has been having their own personal and party interests over national interests. At the cost of national interests.
Thirdly that all the reforms and restructuring we've been doing - we've done a lot, we've done a hell of a lot in the political arena, on the economic side. This must continue. This must not be reversed. And there are many people who would like to reverse it.
And then there is disharmony in the provinces: we need to bring harmony in the provinces.
So for all these four this National Security Council is important.
Q: But separately the Pres will retain the power to dismiss govts?
A: But that also I am going to institutionalise, that it should be the National Security Council which will assist in reaching this decision. Previously one of the issues was exactly this, in the absence of a National Security Council. When the prime minister was not performing, and was looting and plundering the country, what does a good president do? He can only warn her or him and then take a decision to fire.
Now obviously he doesn't take the decision in one day or one night or one hour, he starts thinking, the other starts responding that they may like to impeach him. That was what was happening in the last days, the prime minister was trying to impeach the president, the president was trying to throw him out, who's right, who's wrong? This is one versus one. One is an elected man, the other is also elected by all the assembly. But it's one's word against the other. Every time the army chief used to be drawn in, by these very people! They keep cribbing that the army interferes, no sir, they pull him in to mediate. So why not have an institutionalised method where they don't do this one on one. It's a body that brings harmony to the whole function. It's very important from our point of view. It suits our environment. It may not suit your environment in your country. But when the government itself, and the prime minister himself or herself is doing wrong -who should check? It's irrelevant to say the people have elected them, yes the people have elected them to do well, to perform well, to govern well. Now if they are not governing well and they have five years - what can the people do? So they will ruin the country in five years, because they can do it.
Q: So supposing you have a misperforming prime minister, the National Security Council could ensure the implementation of your ideas anyway - is that it?
A: The National Security Council will have to first of all guide that prime minister - it should not be meant just to fire the assembly - it should regularly be overwatching, overseeing, and regularly through contact - because the prime minister will be a member of the National Security Council - correcting course if at all the course is going wrong. They should be correcting course. So it will not be an impulsive move by one man. It will be continuous correcting or keeping to the course. I think it will be very good, it will be very healthy.
Also on the positive note to reinforce the prime minister in case he is performing well. Because here the Opposition start pulling the prime minister down from day one. Their objection is nothing. Their object is to pull him down so we will have another election and he comes in. Never has any government completed its tenure. All this will be put to naught through this National Security Council. The National Security Council will reinforce the prime minister if he or she is performing well.
A person sitting in the UK or US or Holland may think this is undemocratic. But sir, for Pakistan it is very correct.
Q: In your wildest dreams did you ever see yourself ruling the country?
A: Never. I was very happy playing games and sports. He [Major-General Rashid Qureshi, present at the interview, President Musharraf's press spokesman] was my chief of staff on my last appointment. In fact there was a stage when I was not at all hopeful that I would be made Chief of Army Staff. I took everything as a bonus right from the beginning. People used to think when I was a major general, I could have been passed over, I was roaming around the United States, riding around there, a lot of people said, what are you doing, you should be in your country, I said if they take me they take me, if they don't they don't! Why am I to be bothered? I think it was all Destiny.
Leader
|
Recovering
from the dollar |
|
By David
Hale |
|
Published: June
24 2002 20:47 | Last Updated: June 24 2002 20:47 |
There are
increasing signs in the market that the US dollar has embarked on a correction
that could be prolonged and sustained. If so, that is likely to provide an
important boost for the global economy.
The dollar has
failed to rally after positive data on the US economy. It has failed to provide
a haven for investors concerned about the risk of war in south Asia. There has
been a significant loss of confidence in the administration of George W. Bush
because of its decision to support protectionist trade policies for steel,
Canadian timber and agricultural products. In fact, the dollar's decline began
shortly after the announcement of the new steel tariffs.
The dollar's
decline since March has been broad-based. It has fallen nearly 10 per cent
against traditional inflation hedge assets such as the Australian dollar, the
South African rand and gold. It has experienced a more moderate correction
against other main currencies such as the euro and the
yen.
There is no
precise way to predict how far the dollar will fall but the risk of a prolonged
decline is high for three reasons. First, the US will have an unprecedented
current account deficit of $450bn-$500bn (£310bn-£340bn) during the next 12
months - equivalent to about 5 per cent of gross domestic product. It is very
unusual for mature industrial countries to run such large external deficits for
several years in a row.
Second, global
investors already have significant exposure to US financial assets. They own
about 40 per cent of the US Treasury market, 24 per cent of the corporate bond
market and 13 per cent of the equity market. The total value of these holdings
is about $8,400bn, or a sum equal to 80 per cent of GDP. If investors simply
decide to reallocate a small share of these assets to other currencies, the US
may find it difficult to finance the current account deficit without a large
dollar decline.
Last, the US
Federal Reserve Board intends to hold US interest rates steady because of
concern about the resilience of domestic spending and the risk that a war with
Iraq could produce an oil-price shock this autumn. Alan Greenspan, chairman of
the Federal Reserve, restrained interest rates on three occasions during the
1990s for reasons independent of the US economy.
The three
occasions were the east Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998, the Russian default
of August 1998 and the run-up to the Y2K millennium transition. The Iraq war
would be the fourth time that Mr Greenspan has given priority to factors other
than the US economy in setting monetary policy. The European Central Bank, by
contrast, is more apprehensive about inflation risks and would probably respond
to an oil-price shock with monetary tightening. The Fed's caution about
tightening could reinforce the downward trend of the
dollar.
The great
question looming over the financial markets is how other countries will respond
to dollar weakness. During the late 1980s, there was often large-scale official
intervention to manage the dollar's decline. Japanese intervention was so
extensive that it was said there were good grounds for the Bank of Japan to
register as a Republican political action committee. In the mid-1990s, Japan
tried to stem the yen's appreciation through a policy of low interest rates, not
just intervention.
Because Japan
and Europe have become heavily dependent on export-led growth, there is a strong
chance that they will attempt to limit the dollar's depreciation. They will
start with intervention but will then probably resort to easing monetary policy.
The Bank of Japan will begin to sell yen; the European Central Bank, meanwhile,
will defer the interest-rate increases that might otherwise have occurred
because of the persistence of inflation rates above 2 per cent. Monetary
accommodation in these two central banks could also have a restraining influence
on monetary policy in smaller countries, such as South Korea, Australia and
Switzerland.
The effect of
all this could give a tremendous boost to the growth rate of the global economy
during 2003 and 2004. Competitive global monetary reflation will probably
encourage commodity prices to appreciate and thus bolster the export income of
the developing countries. It will also help to support the asset markets of the
industrial countries, including both equities and property. Rising asset prices
and falling capital costs could then help to stimulate consumer spending and
business investment.
The dollar has
been strong for so long that most investors have forgotten the impact of
previous periods of dollar weakness on monetary conditions and exchange-rate
policy in other countries. But the fact remains that the US is still the world
economy's growth locomotive and other countries will find it difficult to cope
with a large dollar depreciation. As a result dollar weakness will quickly turn
into an engine for competitive global monetary reflation in order to restrain
exchange-rate appreciation.
The writer
is chief economist at Zurich Financial Services
|
No
rush |
|
|
|
Published: June
25 2002 5:00 | Last Updated: June 25 2002 5:00 |
|
|
|
It is no
surprise that Russia has run into trouble negotiating its entry into the
World Trade Organisation. Nor should last week's setback in accession
talks be a matter of great regret. A country as large and complex as
Russia can join the WTO only on the right terms. If it is not ready it
must take time to prepare.
President
Vladimir Putin's target of entry next year always looked ambitious. Mr
Putin's main motive is the political kudos to be gained from joining
another important global club, following this year's acceptance as a
semi-detached Nato member. But WTO accession is more than a symbol of
international acceptance. It is a process that requires a wide-ranging
opening of the economy to global trade and investment. Such an opening, in
terms of cutting import tariffs and other entry barriers, must be
accompanied by deep-rooted economic reform, especially domestic
liberalisation. Russia
is only at the beginning of the process. It has liberalised enough in the
past decade to win recognition this year from the European Union and the
US as a market economy. But there are serious doubts about Russia's
willingness to open key sectors to foreign participation, including
financial services, telecommunications, agriculture and some parts of
manufacturing, notably furniture, cars and aircraft. It wants to develop
strong domestic groups before allowing the full entry of foreign
capital. Not only
is this incompatible with WTO accession, it is an economic cul-de-sac. The
powerful business lobbies that have pushed the Kremlin to take such
illiberal positions in Geneva must not win the day. Russia's own history
shows that closed economies and closed sectors are doomed. The WTO does
not demand free-market perfection - restrictions are tolerated, notably in
agriculture. But liberalisation must be at the core of Russia's accession
strategy. The country needs far more foreign trade and investment if the
great mass of people are to share in the prosperity now enjoyed by the
few. The west
should encourage Russia towards greater economic openness both for its own
sake and for Russia's. The world will be a richer and safer place once
Russia is fully integrated into the global market
economy. The WTO
can play its part by insisting that Russia joins only on the right
conditions. The first step is to abandon the 2003 target date as Mike
Moore, the WTO director-general, did last week, when he said Moscow might
have to wait three years. Russia needs time to devise sector-specific
liberalisation plans compatible with WTO rules. Without such policies,
there is little point in
negotiating. |
German Press
Review (previous
day)
European Press
Review (previous
day)
Washington cherche une
"stratégie de sécurité"
• LE MONDE | 24.06.02 |
14h50
L'administration Bush a-t-elle une stratégie pour combattre ce qu'elle appelle le terrorisme ? Et qu'appelle-t-elle exactement ainsi ? Alors que le Conseil national de sécurité, placé auprès du président, travaille à la définition d'une "stratégie nationale de sécurité", destinée à être rendue publique d'ici deux ou trois mois, la théorie est nébuleuse, la pratique est hésitante.
La "nouvelle stratégie" a commencé à se dessiner à l'automne 2001, deux mois après les attaques du 11 septembre. Elle a été exprimée - sinon précisément formulée - par George W. Bush dans son discours du 29 janvier sur l'état de l'Union, à travers la dénonciation de l'"axe du Mal". En clair, expliquait-on alors à Washington, l'exécutif américain avait décidé de passer de la dissuasion (deterrence) à l'action préventive (preemption). Face à un terrorisme fondé sur l'attentat-suicide, la méthode consistant, pour empêcher une attaque, à en rendre le coût exorbitant pour l'agresseur n'est pas adaptée. La seule tactique possible est d'ôter à un agresseur éventuel, avant qu'il ne s'en serve, les armes avec lesquelles il pourrait attaquer les Etats-Unis.
Depuis septembre, les dirigeants américains sont sûrs d'une chose : le vecteur de nouvelles attaques meurtrières contre leur pays, ce sont les hommes - et peut-être, un jour, les femmes - que l'idéologie islamiste transforme en bombes à retardement. Ils estiment que les attentats à venir n'emprunteront pas la même méthode que ceux du 11 septembre, contre laquelle des précautions sont maintenant prises. Les coups qui se préparent consisteront à placer une "charge" nucléaire, chimique ou biologique sur ces missiles humains. Ces charges proviendront soit du marché noir de matériaux produits par l'ex-Union soviétique, soit d'un des pays de l'axe du Mal, Irak, Iran et Corée du Nord. M. Bush et son équipe affirment que ce dernier danger est très réel, même si aucune connexion n'a pu être démontrée entre Al-Qaida et l'un de ces pays.
Le terrorisme islamiste se rapproche, aux yeux des dirigeants américains, des mouvements totalitaires du XXe siècle et, plus particulièrement, du nazisme.
A Berlin, le 23 mai, M. Bush a employé l'expression de "nouveau totalitarisme", choisie à dessein dans un bâtiment, le Reichstag, dont l'incendie avait été une étape importante de la prise du pouvoir par Hitler. La comparaison semble en effet, à plusieurs égards, pertinente. Procédant lui aussi d'un "renversement des valeurs", l'islamisme présente la mort comme plus désirable que la vie ; la soumission (à un prétendu ordre divin) comme préférable à la liberté ; la guerre comme, en elle-même, supérieure à la paix. De même que le nazisme ne pouvait s'accomplir que dans la destruction, l'islamisme n'a pas d'autre programme que de porter des coups aux ennemis qu'il s'est désignés : les Américains, les chrétiens, les juifs.
Cependant, les stratèges américains ne sont pas très précis sur l'extension de ce nouveau totalitarisme. Il y a le réseau Al-Qaida, défait en Afghanistan mais non détruit et qui, selon l'administration Bush, est présent dans soixante pays. En quoi consiste cette présence ? De quels moyens disposent ses agents ? Quel est leur niveau de formation ? De quoi sont-ils capables ? On l'ignore. Les arrestations opérées récemment, que ce soit celle d'un militant de nationalité américaine à Chicago ou celle d'un groupe au Maroc, semblent indiquer que l'on a affaire à des préparatifs improvisés de façon un peu précipitée après la déroute afghane.
Outre Al-Qaida, des mouvements islamistes combattent le pouvoir central dans des pays comme les Philippines, la Géorgie, la Tchétchénie, ainsi qu'en Asie centrale. Les Etats-Unis redoutent que ne se reproduise là ce qui s'était passé en Afghanistan, avec la constitution de zones sous contrôle islamiste qui pourraient servir de bases à Ben Laden ou à ses émules.
Viennent ensuite les Etats qui partagent les objectifs, ou les cibles, ou, en partie ou en totalité, l'idéologie du terrorisme islamiste. C'est surtout à leur propos que l'alternative entre dissuasion et action préventive, ou plutôt le passage de l'une à l'autre, a un sens. Un Saddam Hussein qui, comme le rappelle souvent M. Bush, "a gazé son propre peuple", reculerait-il devant une initiative qui entraînerait des représailles pour l'Irak, dès lors qu'il aurait de bonnes chances d'y échapper lui-même, comme il y est parvenu en 1991 ? Les ayatollahs, qui conservent l'essentiel du pouvoir en Iran, hésiteraient-ils à se servir de l'arme atomique, s'ils en disposaient, par crainte des centaines de milliers de morts que la riposte ferait parmi leurs compatriotes ? Et que peut-on attendre du régime nord-coréen, qui affame sa population plutôt que de risquer d'affaiblir son pouvoir ?
ACTION "DÉCISIVE"
De ce constat, l'administration Bush prétend tirer plusieurs conséquences. La première a été de relancer et même, maintenant, d'accélérer le programme de missiles antimissiles, que M. Bush a promis de mettre en pratique durant son mandat et dont les premiers éléments pourraient, en effet, voir le jour dès 2004. Destiné à protéger le territoire américain contre des missiles à tête nucléaire lancés par un "Etat-voyou", ce programme trouve aujourd'hui une justification renforcée dans les craintes que font naître l'Irak, l'Iran et la Corée du Nord. La deuxième application du passage à l'action préventive est réputée être la "transformation" de l'outil militaire américain, engagée pourtant avant le 11 septembre. Cette évolution de l'armée de la guerre froide à celle d'un monde désordonné est placée aujourd'hui sous l'impératif de la lutte contre le terrorisme, avec de nouvelles armes et de nouvelles capacités de déploiement.
La troisième conséquence de la nouvelle stratégie est la préparation d'une offensive contre l'Irak, mais l'hésitation, ici, est à son comble. Depuis le 11 septembre, l'administration fait alterner les proclamations guerrières et les négociations pacifiques (les sanctions "intelligentes" désormais appliquées par l'ONU), l'annonce officieuse que des moyens sont déjà en œuvre pour en finir avec Saddam Hussein et des indiscrétions sur l'élaboration d'un plan d'action militaire pour l'automne 2002, puis pour le printemps 2003. Le secrétaire à la défense, Donald Rumsfeld, disait, lundi 17 juin, que chaque jour qui passe rend le régime irakien plus dangereux. Colin Powell lui avait répondu par avance, deux jours avant, que l'action préventive, il n'y a rien de mieux, à condition qu'elle soit "décisive".
Le président et son équipe ont décidé de s'engager dans la recherche d'une sortie de crise au Proche-Orient quand le vice-président, Richard Cheney, a constaté sur place, en mars, que les Etats-Unis se mettraient à dos le monde arabe s'ils attaquaient Saddam au moment où la violence faisait rage entre Israéliens et Palestiniens. Aujourd'hui, alors que la situation paraît de nouveau bloquée, Ariel Sharon tente de les convaincre que la clé du problème palestinien est à Bagdad. M. Bush est au rouet.
Patrick Jarreau
• ARTICLE PARU DANS L'EDITION DU
25.06.02
Daily
Star
Israel’s contortions might tie America in a knot
Israel and its supporters are inordinately fond of trumpeting the Jewish
state’s claim to being a nation of laws in a sea of (Arab) tyrannies. But the
pace at which evidence to the contrary rolls into the public spotlight puts the
lie to their contentions. That would be gratifying to the objective observer
were it not for the very real dangers posed by contradictions between the Jewish
state’s democratic posturing and its theocratic soul. Simply put, Israel is a
democracy when the undertakings of its most illiberal extremists require the
protection of the law and a military dictatorship when these same zealots are
best-served by a heavy hand.
Given the prevalence of such political
contortions in Israeli governance, it should come as no surprise that Ariel
Sharon’s Cabinet is once again engaged in a bizarre exercise in which each step
forward is followed by two leaps back. Sadly, however, it is not just a cabal of
maniacal settlers that is imperiled by these irrational maneuverings: Instead,
they also present a needless hazard to life and limb for majorities in both
Israel and the Occupied Territories who just want to work and raise their
families.
The latest performance is a duet of dissonance between Sharon and
his defense minister, Labor Party leader Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. Even as the
former proceeds with a reoccupation of the West Bank designed to dismantle the
Palestinian Authority and with it the peace process, the latter is promising to
uproot 20 “rogue” settlements (i.e. outposts established without the blessings
themselves illegal of the Israeli government).
There is a
problem, though, because neither the laughably named “Israel Defense Forces” nor
any other Israeli security body has any standing legal, moral, or
otherwise to tell radical settlers where they can and cannot set up shop.
If the Israeli state can thumb its nose at the entire world for 35 years, who is
Ben-Eliezer to tell a few neo-fascists that they can endanger their children on
this hilltop but not on that one?
From a strictly local point of view, this
episode only compounds the already extant one stemming from Sharon’s
simultaneous walling off of the West Bank even as he plots with the radicals to
expel its Palestinian owners. But in a place like Washington, it should cause
grave concern. What can be said of an ally that in pursuing illegitimate goals
seeks to impose its own internal contradictions, and the repercussions thereof,
on a benefactor that has lavished some $100 billion on it over the past five
decades?
As though all of the depredations carried out with US-built
weapons over the years were not enough, the Jewish state is now contemplating a
new round of ethnic cleansing that threatens to make the “original sin” of 1948
look like child’s play. The fact that this too will be stamped “Made in the USA”
should cause alarm bells to go off in Washington: George W. Bush may be many
things, but it is hard to believe that he wants a sophisticated campaign of
pogroms on his conscience. Unless he opens his eyes to the true nature of the
man he has described as “a man of peace,” however, it is virtually inevitable
that America will once again be tarred with the foul brushes of Israel’s
official mendacity and Sharon’s personal depravity.
24
June 2002, Volume
5, Number
23
AFGHANISTAN'S
NEW GOVERNMENT: INSIDERS AND OUTSIDERS. The
new Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, introduced on 19 and 22 June a cabinet that
apparently aims to be more accommodating to ethnic groups that felt sidelined by
the interim administration. There is some controversy about the new ministers --
the insiders -- and also about individuals who do not have a formal role in the
government -- the outsiders. Nevertheless, Karzai has vowed to quit if he fails
to bring peace and prosperity to Afghanistan.
Ethnicity has been a thorny issue since the Tajik-Uzbek-Hazara Northern Alliance (United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan) captured Kabul from the predominantly Pashtun Taliban. Karzai is a Pashtun, and his new vice presidents are Mohammad Qasim Fahim (Tajik), Karim Khalili (Hazara), and Haji Abdul Qadir (Pashtun). Karzai said he might appoint two or three more vice presidents. The cabinet contains a few changes from that of the interim administration, and it probably will be smaller in size. (Names in parentheses are interim administration ministers.)
Agriculture: Seyyed Hussein Anwari, Shia Hazara
Air Transport and Tourism: Mir Wais Saddiq, Tajik (Abdul Rahman)
Border Affairs: Arif Nurzai, Pashtun (Amanullah Zadran)
Commerce: Seyyed Mustafa Kazemi, Shia
Communication: Masum Stanakzai, Pashtun (Abdul Rahim)
Defense: Mohammad Qasim Fahim, Tajik
Education: Yunis Qanuni, Tajik (Qolam Ylagi)
Finance: Ashraf Ghani, Pashtun (Hedayat Amin Arsala)
Foreign Affairs: Abdullah, Tajik
Hajj and Waqf: Mohammad Amin Naziryar, Pashtun (Hanif Balkhi)
Health: Soheila Siddiqi, Pashtun
Higher Education: Sharif Fayz, Tajik
Information and Culture: Rahim Makhdum, Tajik
Interior Minister: Taj Mohammad Wardak, Pashtun (Yunis Qanuni)
Irrigation: Ahmed Yusuf Nuristani, Pashtun (Haji Mangal Hussein)
Justice: Abdul Rahim Karimi, Uzbek
Labor and Social Affairs: Noor Mohammad Karkin, Turkmen (Sadeq Mir Wais)
Light Industries: Mohammad Alim Razm, Uzbek (Arif Nurzai)
Martyrs and Disabled: Abdullah Khan Wardak, Pashtun
Mines: Juma M. Muhammadi, Pashtun
Planning: Mohammad Mohaqeq, Shia Hazara
Public Works: Haji Abdul Qadir, Pashtun (Abdel Khalq Fazal)
Reconstruction: Mohammad Amin Farhang, Pashtun
Refugees: Inyatulah Nazeri, Tajik
Rural Development: Hanif Asmar, Pashtun (Abdel Malik Anwar)
Transportation: Mohammad Ali Jawad, Shia (Sultan Hamid Sultan)
Urban Planning: Yusuf Pashtun, Pashtun (Haji Abdul Qadir)
Water and Electricity: Ahmed Shaker Kargar, Uzbek
Women's Affairs: (Sima Samar)
New York University's Professor Barnet Rubin discussed the new cabinet in an interview with Salimdjon Ayoubov of RFE/RL's Tajik Service. Rubin explained that in making his choices, Karzai had to strike a balance between the actual military power of the Panjshiris on the one hand, and pressure to make the government look both broadly representative yet smaller and more efficient on the other. Rubin noted the greater presence of Pashtuns. Rubin did not think that this cabinet was forced on Hamid Karzai. "It certainly was not a choice that he made just by himself but was the result of a long negotiation. But at the same time, nobody came to him with this list and said, 'This is what you have to agree to,'" Rubin said.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, admitted that the cabinet is not ideal, but it is a move in the right direction. "Is it perfect? Clearly not. We have to wait to find out what the final balance of the cabinet is. But I regard it as a positive step in consolidating the new order of healing the wounds of Afghanistan," he said, according to Reuters on 19 June.
Two delegates to the Loya Jirga, or grand assembly, Omar Zakhilwal and Adeena Niazi, were far more critical of the new cabinet. They wrote in "The New York Times" on 21 June that the three vice presidents are "the very forces responsible for countless brutalities under the former mujahedeen [sic] government." And when the cabinet was announced, a female delegate said, "The warlords have been promoted and the professionals kicked out." Delegates at the Loya Jirga only had a symbolic role, according to Zakhilwal and Niazi, while a "small group of Northern Alliance chieftains led by the Panjshiris decided everything behind closed doors and then dispatched Mr. Karzai to give us the bad news."
Zakhilwal and Niazi predicted that Women's Affairs Minister Sima Samar would be ousted once the world's attention was focused elsewhere. That did not take long. Samar was not mentioned when the entire cabinet was named on 22 June. Afghanistan's Supreme Court ruled that Samar could never be a minister because she said she did not believe in Islam, dpa quoted the Afghan Islamic Press as reporting on 22 June.
Several powerful individuals remain outside the government, and this could cause difficulties later. Herat's Governor Ismail Khan and Mazar-i Sharif's Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, according to "The New York Times," turned down vice-presidency posts. These individuals control customs revenues, and they also maintain sizable militias. Ismail Khan downplayed concerns about the militias in an interview with RFE/RL's Afghan Service, saying, "We hope those who were previously commanders in the battlegrounds become the future reconstruction leaders. We shed blood to rescue our country, and now its time to persevere for her development." He continued: "We have collected arms from all villages and stored them in the military campus. Today our duty is to reconstruct Herat -- we have started the foundations of more than 100 buildings, construction and mending of roads and highways, schools have reopened and even arranged transportation of students. So the atmosphere is really different from all other provinces in Afghanistan."
And Karzai himself downplayed concerns about Dostum. Karzai told the Loya Jirga on 19 June, "Dostum said to me that he wants to be a hero for peace. He said that he wants to serve in the interest of peace and fight against bloodshed and guns and work for disarmament." Karzai added, according to Reuters, "I hold you to your promise."
The most controversial change in the cabinet is the replacement of Yunis Qanuni as interior minister. Karzai offered Qanuni the post of education minister, but there was confusion about his acceptance of the offer. Karzai said, "Mr. Qanuni shouldn't refuse this post. In front of your eyes, [the Loya Jirga] has applauded and he has accepted. Yes, he has accepted. Very good. Very good. Now we no longer have a problem about appointing an education minister." But Loya Jirga delegates close to Qanuni said that he rejected the offer in remarks that were not picked up by the microphones.
Clearly, Qanuni's supporters did not accept the situation. According to RFE/RL's correspondent in Kabul, Ron Synovitz, troops from Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley -- mostly members of Qanuni's Jamiyat-i-Islami faction -- cut off traffic around the Interior Ministry complex in the city center for several hours. They also drove vehicles around Kabul while openly displaying AK-47 rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers (RPGs), and heavy-caliber anti-aircraft weapons. Many Afghans saw this demonstration as a way of pressuring Karzai into offering Qanuni a more substantive post in the Transitional Authority, and there was speculation that Qanuni might head a National Security Council that has yet to be created.
Indeed, by 22 June Qanuni had accepted the post of education minister, as well as special adviser to the president on security issues. Qanuni explained how he and Interior Minister Wardak will share domestic security responsibilities in a 23 June interview with Radio Free Afghanistan. "The relation of the [internal security adviser's] post to the Interior Ministry and the intelligence services is that they must contact the head of the Transitional Authority through the security adviser. The internal security adviser will have control and supremacy over other Afghan security organizations," Qanuni said.
Despite these apparent difficulties, Karzai has promised not to waver and said that he will quit his job if he cannot fulfill his promises: "We have promised to the people of Afghanistan through you [the Loya Jirga] and through your votes to bring security and peace and dignity to this country until our mothers and sisters are no longer afraid in their homes of the evil of the guns. And I swear that if I do not act on this promise, then I will present my resignation." (Bill Samii)
RADIO FREE
AFGHANISTAN INTERVIEWS SHIA LEADERS... Leaders of Afghanistan's Shia
minority -- which makes up about 15 percent of a total population of some 27
million -- have been active in the June Loya Jirga. They recently discussed the
selection of Hamid Karzai as president of Afghanistan's Transitional Authority,
and their minority's role in Karzai's cabinet, in interviews with Masir Begzad
of RFE/RL's Afghan Service.
Karim Khalili, leader of the predominantly Shia Hizb-i-Wahdat, discussed the selection of Karzai in a 14 June interview. "I am pleased that after decades of warfare the Loya Jirga convened in peace and that people from all provinces could assemble and select the head of Afghanistan's Transitional Authority," Khalili said. "This is a moment of total happiness for every Afghan, and I congratulate Hamid Karzai on his victory and wish him success." Khalili also rejected reports that the selection of Karzai was undemocratic. "It was quite pleasant, very democratic, and flawless. People were free to vote for whomever they desired, and I saw no flaw in voting or tallying of the ballots," Khalili said. "Obviously, in an assembly of 2,000 people there are bound to be moments of squabble and use of inappropriate language."
Khalili participated in a meeting at which it was agreed that Hamid Karzai should head the Transitional Authority, according to an 11 June report from the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency. Other participants in the meeting were former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, Ittihad-i-Islami leader Abdur Rasul Sayyaf, Herat Province Governor Ismail Khan, Nangarhar Province Governor Haji Abdul Qadir, and some Northern Alliance commanders.
Ayatollah Assef Muhseni, who heads the predominantly Shia Harakat-i Islami, also backed Karzai's candidacy. According to Afghan state radio on 13 June, Muhseni presented Karzai's candidacy form to the chairman of the session and he expressed support for Karzai's candidacy. Muhseni also proposed a name for the state of Afghanistan -- the transitional Islamic government of Afghanistan -- according to Kabul radio on 15 June.
[Abdur Rasul Sayyaf, who heads the fundamentalist Sunni Ittihad-i-Islami, also demanded inclusion of the word "Islamic" in the state's name. God chose Islam as the country's religion and its political system, he told the assembly, and then he had a warning for Karzai: "It is our duty to obey Karzai as we obey god and (his Prophet) Mohammad. But if (Karzai) does not obey God and the Sharia laws, then we should not obey him."]
Minister of Planning Mohammad Mohaqeq, who also is a leader of the predominantly Shia Hizb-i-Wahdat party, spoke about his expectations of the cabinet in a 17 June interview with Masir Begzad of RFE/RL's Afghan Service. Mohaqeq said, "Hazara people expect adequate and logical cooperative participation in the future administration of Afghanistan. They enthusiastically participated in the elections, and expect to actively be a part of future infrastructure and administration too. The ministries in the hands of Hazaras have not raised any concerns other than emphasizing participation of all different ethnic Afghans and that the future ministers should not have manipulative policies or treat [ministries] as their personal property." (Bill Samii)
...AND OTHER
AFGHAN MINORITIES EYE LOYA JIRGA. It is not just the Shia, most of
whom are from the Hazara ethnic group, who are watching the Loya Jirga with
great interest. Afghanistan's biggest ethnic group is Pashtun (38 percent), and
this is followed by Tajiks (25 percent) and then Hazara (19 percent). Then there
are smaller ethnic groups like the Aimaks, Baluchis, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, and
Uzbeks.
Turkmen leaders estimate that their community numbers some 2 million people. Representatives of the Turkmen minority complained that they were bypassed in the elections to the Loya Jirga, according to RFE/RL's correspondent in Kabul, Charles Recknagel. As a result, only 30 Turkmen became delegates to the assembly, and they say that many other candidates who tried to win election from mainly Turkmen areas were prevented from doing so by the non-Turkmen armed factions that control northern Afghanistan.
Abdullah Furqani, a Turkmen leader, described the situation in an interview with RFE/RL. "Some people were forced to step back during the elections. As an example, in Kondoz province, a person whose name I won't tell you was elected as a delegate. But he was threatened by some people that if he remained a delegate, then dangerous consequences would await him. And in this way, they presented people from their own [non-Turkmen] tribe."
Furqani told RFE/RL that the UN-assisted Special Independent Commission for Convening of the Emergency Loya Jirga ignored the Turkmens' complaints. Many Turkmen refugees in Pakistan, therefore, became disillusioned with the Loya Jirga process. Furqani explained, "Hearing that, the Turkmen refugees were completely disappointed, and they said that until they were given their rights they would [maintain their distance from Afghanistan's factional conflicts] and stay in Pakistan as refugees. They also said they had lots of hopes for this Loya Jirga, but unfortunately they were disappointed." Moreover, Turkmen leaders say that many Turkmen refugees in Pakistan are delaying their return to northern Afghanistan because of their concerns.
Representatives of other minorities also want a voice in the Loya Jirga, according to the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) on 17 June. Tordi Akhund is from the Kyrgyz minority in the Wakkan corridor in the province of Badakhshan, and he stated, "No one has even come to discover our problems. There is no road for vehicles. Even horses and donkeys find it difficult going." Hashmat Ghani of the Kuchi nomads told IWPR that his group of 6 million people is facing difficulties, too. "We have lost our traditional grazing lands in Hazarajat over the past 23 years of wars -- and they should be given back or exchanged for other lands," he said. He called for schools and hospitals.
Demands have even come from the Ismailis and the Sikhs. Seyyed Ismail from Badakhshan said that the Ismailis no longer have a place of worship in Kabul, and they faced repression from the mujahedin and then the Taliban, according to IWPR. Preet Singh, a Sikh representative to the Loya Jirga, said, "We should be given a chance in all state affairs and services. Even before Islam we lived here."
Parvin Bashir-Mohmand, who represented the Kuchis at the Loya Jirga, described the situation in an interview with Radio Free Afghanistan. She said, "They [Kuchis] needed two pieces of land in the cold and warm climate to build houses for themselves. I also wanted to form an organization for them [Nomads] so they could refer their problems to it, but none of these issues were addressed." (Bill Samii)
KARZAI THANKS IRAN. Afghan President Hamid Karzai singled out the Iranian ambassador to Kabul for his help in organizing the Loya Jirga. Karzai said during his 19 June speech to the assembly, according to Kabul state radio: "Dear brothers and sisters, our neighboring countries too have helped us. Especially during the past few days of the Loya Jirga, and before the opening of the Loya Jirga until today, Mr. Taherian, the ambassador of Iran to Afghanistan, has made a lot of efforts for this Jirga to be held properly. We praise and appreciate his services. [Applause] Is he here or not? His representative is here, that is good. You should let him know." (Bill Samii)
TEHRAN PLEASED
WITH EU AGREEMENT. The European Union on 17 June
announced that it will negotiate a Trade and Cooperation Agreement with Iran
which is linked to separate instruments on political dialogue and
counterterrorism. The EU's expectation is that this agreement would help in the
development of economic exchange and cooperation with Iran while contributing to
the process of political and economic reform there, according to the EU website
(europa.eu.int). Washington and Tel Aviv tried to block this agreement
beforehand, according to reports in the European and Iranian press, and now
official statements from Iran are indicating great satisfaction.
The EU professes, in its 17 June announcement, that it would like to see improvements in its dialogue with Tehran, as well as Tehran's stand, on four areas: (1) human rights and fundamental freedoms; (2) nonproliferation; (3) terrorism; and (4) the Middle East peace process. On this latter point, "The European Union encourages Iran to join without reservation the international consensus on the necessary existence of two States, Palestine and Israel, living peacefully side by side within secure and recognized borders." Germany, Great Britain, and the Netherlands had pushed for a single agreement that would link commercial, political, and human rights issues, while France, Greece, and Italy favored a simple free-trade agreement, "The Guardian" reported on 18 June.
The EU is Iran's largest trading partner. In 2000, EU imports from Iran totaled some $8.2 billion, while its exports to Iran were worth about $5.1 billion. More than 75 percent of this trade consists of oil products. Statements from Tehran demonstrate the belief that trade, rather than concern about human rights, weapons of mass destruction (WMD), or the Middle East, drove the European decision.
An 18 June Iranian state radio commentary said that the EU considered its economic interests when pursuing the accord with Tehran and overcoming American and Israeli pressures. Tehran radio said that this accord would serve as the basis for eliminating economic obstacles, such as customs tariffs and double taxation. Another Tehran radio commentary later that day said that Europe wants to expand and institutionalize its trade ties with Iran "despite some minor differences on political issues, such as the human rights debate, weapons of mass destruction, and Middle East developments."
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Assefi said on 18 June that the EU decision is a step forward in developing mutual ties, IRNA reported, and Tehran would welcome the expansion of EU-Iran relations "without any preconditions." Government spokesman Abdullah Ramezanzadeh said on 19 July that Iran will try to promote its relationship with the EU regardless of third parties' stances, IRNA reported.
Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who had met with EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten one day earlier, said on 19 June that the opportunity for further dialogue with the EU is important, IRNA reported. According to Zarif, Iran would be able to express "our concerns about various elements of behavior in the West as well as listen to the concerns of the West and in the process reach a better understanding." Iran's concerns are terrorism and post-11 September attempts to use this issue for other purposes, as well as the proliferation of WMD, according to Zarif. Such terminology usually implies criticism of Israel. (Bill Samii)
CROATIA CANCELS
DEALS WITH IRAN. Croatia has dropped $12 million
worth of economic projects with Iran as a result of U.S. pressure, Zagreb's
daily "Vecernji List" reported on 19 June. Foreign Minister Tonino Picula told
the parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, "The Americans asked that we cancel
the deals with one country that is not doing enough to fight against terrorism."
He added that Croatia wants to show that it is an active partner in the war on
terror. The most important deal involved an Iranian contract to build several
small patrol vessels in Croatia's ailing shipyards on the Adriatic. Washington
reportedly offered its own deal as compensation. Croatian Defense Minister Jozo
Rado confirmed the next day that "the U.S. has expressed readiness to compensate
us in some way," "Vecernji List" reported. He said the method of compensation
for losses suffered in the war on terrorism has yet to be determined. Croatia's
exports to Iran last year amounted to $4 million, according to "Vecernji List."
Zagreb's decision will come as a disappointment to Tehran. When Croatia's deputy speaker of parliament, Zdravko Tomac, was in Tehran in April at the head of a parliamentary delegation, he noted that Iran is interested in economic cooperation, according to Croatia's Hina news agency on 17 April. Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref-Yazdi told Tomac that the two countries' economic relations lag behind their political ones, and he complained that the joint Croatian-Iranian economic cooperation committee had not met in the past two years. Tomac and his delegation came to Tehran on 14 April for a six-day visit, and according to IRNA he was scheduled to meet with Speaker of Parliament Mehdi Karrubi, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, and Minister of Roads and Transportation Ahmad Khoram. (Bill Samii, Patrick Moore)
TURKS TOUR
TEHRAN AND TABRIZ. Iranian Minister of Roads and
Transport Ahmad Khoram and Deputy Foreign Minister Mohsen Aminzadeh greeted
Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer on the latter's arrival at Tehran's
Mehrabad Airport on 17 June. President Hojatoleslam Mohammad Khatami officially
welcomed Sezer at Sadabad Palace later in the day, and they immediately went
into a two-hour closed-door discussion. According to IRNA, the meeting dealt
with expansion of bilateral ties, developments in Iraq, the Middle East crisis,
and the reconstruction of Afghanistan. "The happy faces of the presidents,
leaving the venue of the meeting, signaled their satisfaction with outcome of
their talks," according to IRNA.
Aminzadeh provided a bit more detail in an interview with the Anatolia news agency. He said that the focus of the Sezer-Khatami meeting was bilateral relations, Iraq, Afghanistan, terrorism, and commercial affairs. Turkey and Iran expressed similar views on the importance of maintaining Iraq's territorial integrity, according to Aminzadeh, but they did not discuss possible use of Turkish territory for anti-Iraq operations because they hoped that the possibility would not arise. Both sides believe that the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) are terrorist groups, Aminzadeh said, and they would not allow any terrorist activities from their territories against each other. Aminzadeh added that Tehran expressed its concern about Ankara-Tel Aviv relations.
The official talks began after the closed-door session. President Khatami said Sezer's visit was a turning point in Tehran-Ankara relations, according to IRNA on 17 June, and better economic cooperation could lead to improved political, security, and cultural ties. Sezer was very enthusiastic about the potential for bilateral cooperation, too, according to IRNA. He added that expanded Iran-Turkey security cooperation would contribute to regional peace and stability. Subsequently, Iranian Minister of Finance Tahmasb Mazaheri and a visiting Turkish official signed an agreement to eliminate double taxation.
Trade between the two countries was worth some $1.2 billion in 2001, and Sezer was accompanied by some 120 businesspeople. The first meeting of the Iranian-Turkish tradesmen's council began on 18 June in the presence of Khatami and Sezer. Speakers at this meeting discussed elimination of nontariff barriers, Iranian gas exports to Europe via Turkey, and the readiness of Iranian investors to carry out joint ventures with their Turkish counterparts, IRNA reported. Sezer told the meeting that recent Iranian legislation on foreign investment is important and will encourage Turkish entrepreneurs. Sezer pointed out that there are more Iranian enterprises in Turkey than Turkish ones in Iran.
On his way home on 18 June, Sezer stopped in Tabriz. He toured some of the city's historical monuments, such as the Kabud (turquoise) bazaar and the Tabriz Carpet Museum.
The Iranian press was cautiously enthusiastic about the Turkish president's visit. According to the English-language "Iran News" on 17 June, "Iranian public opinion is of the view that Turkish foreign policy is increasingly influenced and dependent on Western powers," and Turkey's security cooperation with Israel hampers its ties with Iran. The English-language "Iran Daily," produced by IRNA, noted on 18 June that foreign policy officials in Ankara and Tehran have adopted a more realistic approach regarding issues of mutual concern. Both sides are aware, the daily said, that "Iran and Turkey are after all neighbors and must be able to co-exist peacefully in today's volatile world," and they must put together a "coalition for peace." "The good omen is that both leaders are prudent personalities and well aware of the far-reaching implications of the true spirit of unity," "Iran Daily" concluded.
A 17 June editorial in "Kayhan International" -- which is under the supervision of the supreme leader's office -- praised Turkey for expanding its relationship with Iran: "Despite the obstacles thrown in the way by the enemies of the Islamic ummah, especially the U.S., Turkey has shown remarkable maturity in adhering to the agreements inked with Iran." The daily said an important point during the Turkey-Iran meeting is that some countries should not be in the region, and it described the "U.S. scheme of increasing Zionist influence in Turkey." (Bill Samii)
BERLIN AND TEHRAN DISPUTE TRAVEL REGULATIONS... An Iran Air aircraft landed in Berlin on 17 January, marking the resumption of daily flights from Tehran, according to IRNA. Iran Air had canceled the flights in October, citing a reduction in demand following the 11 September terrorist attacks in the U.S. It is not clear, however, if demand for the Germany-Iran route will be very high because of a dispute over visa requirements. The German charge d'affaires in Tehran, Fritz Klaus Geyer, was summoned to the Iranian Foreign Ministry regarding news reports that Iranian nationals will be fingerprinted upon their arrival in Germany, IRNA reported on 17 June. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Assefi said that a possible consequence of the German action would be "similar action against the nationals of those countries whose governments take such actions." Two weeks earlier, an anonymous German Foreign Ministry source said that there is no definite decision about placing Iran on a list of 22 countries whose nationals would face toughened visa requirements. Among these requirements, IRNA reported on 3 June, would be fingerprinting and background security checks of the applicants. (Bill Samii)
...AND HUMAN RIGHTS. Adding to the tension over the possibility of travel restrictions on Iranians, Tehran has taken exception to a critical German government human rights report that was released on 7 June. Berlin's human rights report covers the 1 January 2001-31 March 2002 period and it states, according to AFP, "While Iran has made progress [on human rights issues], namely strengthening democracy, curtailing suppression of information, and the relative improvements of women's positions in the public, Iran continues its massive human rights violations." The report cites arbitrary arrests, torture, "frequent death sentences and other severe bodily penalties," violations of freedom of expression, and failures to comply with the rule of law. Iranian state radio on 8 June discussed German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer's related comments about human rights in Iran. Tehran radio described Fischer's comments as "blatant intervention in Iran's domestic affairs," and it complained that Germany allows the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) to operate on its territory. Tehran radio cited the power of the "Zionist influence in Germany," because of which nobody dares to question the "much inflated myth of the Holocaust in Israel's claim on the alleged massacre of Jews by Germans during World War II." (Bill Samii)
WAR GAMES HELD NEAR SHIRAZ. The Bayt-ol Muqaddad-14 military exercises -- code-named Pride and Honor of Imam Hussein -- were held over several days in the Darengun region of Shiraz, Fars Province, and ended on 15 June. Participating in the event were armor, artillery, and infantry from the 55th Airborne Brigade, as well as rotary-wing assets from the Havaniruz and fixed-wing fighter-bombers from the air force. Army commander General Mohammad Salimi told state television on 15 June that this was primarily a training exercise and an opportunity for students to put theory into practice, but "the distinguishing feature of this maneuver, compared to previous maneuvers, is that all the operations here are based on the experience gained during the eight years of the imposed [Iran-Iraq] war." According to a 16 June IRNA report, the exercises also were an opportunity to test the accuracy of artillery and missiles. There was a nocturnal operation on 12 June. (Bill Samii)
TEHRAN TO EXPORT UAVS AND REPAIR TANKS. General Hussein Alai, who is the chairman of the Iranian armed forces' Aviation Industry Organization, announced on 19 June that the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics intends to export unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Alai claimed, according to IRNA, that Iran has the appropriate technology to make UAVs. Indeed, the Mohajer 4 and Saeqeh UAVs underwent test flights in February (see "RFE/RL Iran Report," 4 March 2002). Moreover, ground-forces personnel have repaired and upgraded 385 tanks and personnel carriers, as well as 15,000 light and heavy weapons, over the past year, according to state television on 11 June. Army commander General Mohammad Salimi inspected the equipment and then said that such self-sufficiency improves the country's defensive readiness. (Bill Samii)
INTERNET ACCESS
IN IRAN COULD IMPROVE. About half the Iranian population
will have Internet access within five years, according to Telecommunications
Company of Iran (TCI) Information Affairs Director Mohammad Sadri, whereas 2.5
percent of the population has Web access today. Sadri went on to say, IRNA
reported on 16 June, that two more Internet gateways will become operational by
December, and laws dealing with illegal Internet providers have been outlined.
Internet Networks Employers Guild head Mustafa Mohammadi told RFE/RL's Persian Service on 18 June that such efforts to control Internet access do not have a legal basis. Mohammadi went on to complain that TCI and even Minister of Post, Telegraph, and Telephone Ahmad Motamedi have ignored the private Internet providers' advice on this subject.
But there could be a way around such laws. The head of Dubai's Internet City announced that Iranian Internet companies will be welcome to set up shop there, RFE/RL's Persian Service reported on 12 June. Economic journalist Mohammad-Reza Balideh told RFE/RL that Iranian Internet companies could offer goods through the Internet using Dubai's facilities, but he was skeptical about anything more substantive. Regarding the possibility of similar facilities being offered in Iran, Balideh said this could accelerate the process of getting away from an oil-based economy.
Meanwhile, Iran's Permanent Representative to the UN, Hadi Nejad-Husseinian, proposed that there be greater technology transfers to developing countries so they can take advantage of modern communications technology, IRNA reported on 17 June. Nejad-Husseinian said that UN funding is insufficient to bridge the North-South digital gap.
In another part of his comments, Nejad-Husseinian called for rules of "decency and morality" to cover the Internet and other forms of communications technology, IRNA reported. He also called for greater respect of different cultures. A website of which he is likely to approve is that of the supreme leader's university representative (www.nahad.net) which opened recently. The site includes about 4,000 student questions and the related answers, information on marriage, information about students who died in the Iran-Iraq War, and a link so people can post questions. (Bill Samii)
24 June
2002, Volume
5, Number
18
BUSH
ADMINISTRATION POLICY ON IRAQ. "The
Washington Post" on 16 June reported that President George W. Bush has
authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to use all means at its
disposal, including the use of lethal force, to capture Saddam Husseyn. A
front-page lead by the well-known investigative reporter Bob Woodward said that
President Bush signed an intelligence order early this year which expanded a
previous presidential finding designed to oust Saddam.
The newspaper said the new order calls for: increased support to Iraqi opposition groups and forces inside and outside Iraq including money, weapons, equipment, training, and intelligence information; expanded efforts to collect intelligence within the Iraqi government, military, security service, and overall population where pockets of intense anti-Saddam sentiment have been detected; and possible use of CIA and U.S. special forces teams similar to those deployed in Afghanistan since the 11 September terrorist attacks. Such forces would be authorized to kill Saddam if they were acting in self-defense.
"The Post" said that the Bush administration has allocated tens of millions of dollars to the covert program. But the newspaper reported the CIA Director George Tenet had told President Bush that the CIA effort alone, without accompanying military action and economic and diplomatic pressure, has probably only a 10 to 20 percent chance of succeeding. A source was quoted as saying that CIA covert action should be viewed as "preparatory" to a military strike so the agency can identify targets, intensify intelligence gathering on the ground in Iraq, and build relations with alternative future leaders and groups if Saddam is ousted.
U.S. congressional leaders said that they supported President Bush's decision to take covert steps to overthrow Saddam Husseyn. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) said, "We should try to do it first covertly or with special operations but, if not, be prepared to do what's necessary." Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, "I don't think there's any question that if Saddam Husseyn's around five years from now, we've failed." Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), the ranking member on the Select Intelligence Committee, said, "I believe the president is on the right track, he's determined to do this, and I'm certainly going to support him." Democrat Tom Daschle (D-SD), the Senate majority leader, said that there was "broad support for regime change in Iraq." Congressman Dick Armey (R-TX), the House majority leader, said, "I'm sure [it] is wise and a prudent thing to do."
Iraq dismissed the reports. Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri on 17 June told reporters in Baghdad, "It is not new...the United States has been conspiring against Iraq over the last 30 years." He went on to say: "U.S. policy is trying to deceive world public opinion from time to time. We have been confronting U.S. aggression and we have heard a lot of such threats over the last 11 years," Reuters reported.
Former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter interpreted the news as a U.S. bid to kill any notion of Iraq allowing back weapons-inspection teams. Ritter, who has become an opponent of U.S. policy on Iraq, said that Iraq would now try to insist that nobody who might be a CIA operative would be on the inspection teams. Writing in the "Los Angeles Times" on 19 June, Ritter said that during his time as a chief inspector there were dozens of personnel described as missile experts and logistics experts but who were in reality drawn from U.S. units like Delta Force and the CIA Special Activities Staff. He also said there were teams of British radio-intercept operators, who listened in on the conversations of Saddam Husseyn's inner circle.
Ritter wrote that now President Bush has specifically authorized American covert-operations forces to remove Saddam, the Iraqis will never trust an inspection regime that has shown itself susceptible to infiltration and manipulation by intelligence services hostile to Iraq. The leaked CIA covert operations plan, he continued, effectively kills any chance of inspectors returning to Iraq.