-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$E0MJCFAAA
EX1PQFIQMFCFFWAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2001/11/09/wqat09.xml
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Qatar shooting heightens fear of attack
By Charles Clover in Doha
(Filed: 09/11/2001)
DELEGATES from around the world arriving for a high-level trade
meeting in Qatar discovered yesterday that the Gulf capital had been
turned into an armed camp, with hundreds of armed men deployed on the
otherwise deserted streets.
Security fears for the five-day World Trade Organisation meeting were
heightened after a gunman was shot dead on Wednesday when he opened
fire on an airbase used by American forces. Despite claims from the
authorities that the man was mentally deranged, diplomatic sources
said he was a member of the Qatari air force.
The incident has deepened American fears that the meeting might be
attacked. Intelligence briefings to American delegates have suggested
that Islamic extremists have penetrated the Qatari armed forces.
Yesterday, the American navy's helicopter ship Peleliu and two other
vessels with 2,100 Marines on board moved into the Gulf off Qatar to
offer security for the WTO meeting. An official said it was a
precautionary move.
Meanwhile, the authorities in Doha say the investigation into the
shooting on Wednesday was a purely criminal affair. Asked if the
attack was related to Osama bin Laden, the Qatari Attorney General,
Abdullah al-Mal, said: "I am not a political analyst. But for us it
is a criminal investigation which we are carrying out."
Many US congressmen, businessmen and officials had already decided
not to attend the meeting. They were told during classified security
briefings last week that terrorist cells might be operating in the
tiny Gulf state.
It was suggested that anti-American Islamic fundamentalists may have
infiltrated the military and that a suspected terrorist with
expertise in truck bombing had entered Qatar in recent months.
Those attending the briefings laid on by the Bush administration were
told that on arrival in Doha they would receive an emergency pack,
including a gas mask, medical supplies and a radio device for
communication if delegates had to be evacuated to a ship offshore.
The meeting will be attended by a large British delegation, including
Patricia Hewitt, the Trade Secretary, Baroness Symons, Trade
Minister, Clare Short, International Development Secretary, and
Michael Meacher, Environment Minister.
They have been given a lengthy security briefing by the Foreign
Office. Qatar was originally chosen by the World Trade Organisation
as the venue to wrong-foot anti-capitalist protesters who reduced its
Seattle summit to chaos two years ago.
Expensive flights, the small number of hotel rooms and the emirate's
off-putting security forces were thought likely to deter the hordes
of peaceful demonstrators and small but violent groups of anarchists.
In the event, the war in Afghanistan raised the issue of moving the
meeting to a new location, or scrapping it altogether, but Qatari
authorities rushed to reassure WTO officials that their country was
safe and secure. The summit is due to resume talks on a new round of
trade liberalisation after the collapse of the Seattle talks nearly
two years ago.
Some delegates, such as Miss Hewitt, have already tried to use the
events of September 11 to urge on the process of globalisation. She
has argued that the suicide bombing of the World Trade Centre was an
attack upon global trade.
"So we must respond by launching a new trade round," she told an
audience at the Foreign Press Association in London.
According to Miss Hewitt, a successful conclusion to the five-day
talks would give a fillip to the world's economy, boosting it by
about $400 billion (£333 billion) a year, of which $150 billion would
go to developing countries, three times what they receive in aid.
Defiance of terrorism may yet prove to be the mood at Doha, but
according to insiders there are as many, if not more, differences of
opinion as there were before Seattle, where nothing was resolved.
Agreement in the WTO is by consensus, which means that one country,
such as Japan, can block progress and the developing world plays a
much more powerful role than it did under the forerunner of the WTO,
the GATT.
A failure to agree a new round of tariff reductions would be a blow
to the global economy at a sensitive moment and to score such goals
as reforming Europe's Common Agricultural Policy.
The environment will also be an issue, with Michael Meacher, the only
European environment minister who will be attending the conference,
saying yesterday that it would have to decide which took precedence,
the world's environmental agreements, such as the Kyoto climate
treaty, or the WTO's rule.
Many developing countries, with far fewer officials than the big
delegations of the First World, are already convinced that the agenda
has been fixed.
©
Copyright of
Telegraph Group Limited 2001.
End<{{{
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