Book review: Ghost Soldiers [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- from http://www.japantoday.com/ __ The stuff heroes are made of Ghost Soldiers By Hampton Sides Review by Charles Lewis World War II is coming to a close. The Japanese are keen to cover up atrocities they have committed against prisoners of war in the Philippines. Most prisoners, survivors of the Bataan Death March, who are in any semblance of good health have already been shipped off to Japan, Taiwan or mainland China to work as slave labor. At the Puerto Princesa prison camp on Palawan, Japanese prison guards begin killing American and allied POWs as the American army prepares to retake the Philippines. A few POWs are able to escape the massacre and their stories eventually reach the American High Command. A decision is made to rescue the long suffering, doomed prisoners at the Cabanatuan prison camp on the main island of Luzon. The army has been training a group of former mule skinners in New Guinea. The army doesn't need to use mules to haul equipment anymore, and these big, tough farm boys seem like a good choice to use as a new elite force; Army Rangers. The Rangers get their first assignment; rescue what is left of the prisoners at Cabanatuan before they are killed by the retreating Japanese. In Ghost Soldiers, The Forgotten Epic Story Of World War II's Most Dramatic Mission, Hampton Sides has provided us with a well written, thoroughly researched hitherto relatively unknown story that should have been told long ago. He does a good job attempting to explain the brutality of the prison guards. They are not good enough to be the regular army, they are the dregs, they wish they were at the front. The Japanese Imperial Army uses physical violence as a form of punishment within its own ranks. Since the guards, who are often Korean or Taiwanese, are the lowest of the low, they cannot resist beating the POWs, who are even lower than themselves. The book jumps between details of the last stand on the Bataan peninsula, life in the Cabanatuan prison camp and details of the raid. At times there are too many details about the prison camp and Bataan, and not enough about the raid. I found myself looking to see how many more pages I had to go before I got back to the raid more than once. Personal histories of the soldiers taking part in the raid and some of the POWs are very detailed but redundant on more than one occasion. More information about how some of the lower ranking Rangers felt during the build-up to the raid would have been a welcome addition. Descriptions of living conditions for the defenders of Bataan and the POWs are vivid and realistic. There are, however, too many descriptions of grotesque food. One passage about monkey hands in stew would be enough. I would also have liked to have heard a little more about the nurses who cared for the wounded on Bataan and were eventually transferred to Corregidor. I was left wondering where they were imprisoned and how they were treated. Something lacking in other books about the Death March, the opinions and feelings of regular Philippine people, are most welcome here in Sides' book. The reasons for the Filipinos' empathy for the Americans and their deep hated of the Japanese are explained quite well. After witnessing years of murder, torture and brutality being committed by the Japanese Imperial Army, the Americans have arrived to liberate the islands. Add to this the humanity and natural hospitality of the Philippine people. Acts of selfless compassion towards the prisoners, often at great personal risk, are heart rendering. The Japanese occupation of the Philippines was brutal. In addition, Sides explains, to slap a Filipino in the face is to create a deadly enemy for life. The Japanese have a propensity to slap. There is, however, a complete lack of information regarding the fate of the Philippine soldiers who were part of the Death March. In the beginning of the book, we are told that the Philippine army fought tooth and nail defending Bataan and that after the surrender, they joined the Americans on the Death March. No other mention of what became of them is made. Sides informs us that Shigeji Mori, the Cabanatuan commandant, and Camp O'Donnell commandant Yoshio Tsuneyoshi were sentenced to life at hard labor. We are left to wonder, however, how much of their sentences they actually served. The man believed responsible for many of the worst atrocities of the Death March, Colonel Masanobu Tsuji, escaped prosecution. After being liberated, the former prisoners gather strength at an evacuation hospital where they are paid a visit by General Douglas MacArthur. When they finally head back to the U.S., the ship that carries them takes a zigzag route to avoid Japanese submarines. After a month at sea, the boat finally pulls into San Francisco bay. Thousands of people lining the Golden Gate Bridge shower trinkets on the boat; flowers, money, tickets
Xinhua: U.S. Warplanes Attack Northern Iraq [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- U.S. Warplanes Attack Northern Iraq Xinhuanet 2002-04-20 00:55:47 WASHINGTON, April 19 (Xinhuanet) -- U.S. warplanes on Friday attacked Iraqi air defense system in northern Iraq in response to Iraqi anti-aircraft fire, the U.S. military officials said. "Coalition aircraft responded to the Iraqi attacks by dropping precision ordnance on elements of the Iraqi integrated air defensesystem from locations east of Mosul," the U.S. European Command said in a statement. "All coalition aircraft departed the area safely," the statement said. It was the first attack on northern Iraq since February and thethird this year, U.S. officials said. U.S. warplanes on Monday attacked an Iraqi air defense site in "no-fly" zone of southern Iraq. Enditem --- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Colombia: Rebels 'seek refuge in Venezuela' - Financial Times [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- THE AMERICAS: Bush voices concern as Colombian rebels 'seek refuge in Venezuela' == WASHINGTON TO STRENGTHEN MILITARY TIES WITH BOGOTA: Financial Times; Apr 19, 2002 By EDWARD ALDEN and JAMES WILSON US President George W. Bush yesterday expressed concern over Colombian charges that rebels had taken refuge in neighbouring Venezuela, and said he planned to step up efforts to help Colombia fight the terrorist groups. The comments, following Mr Bush's meeting with Andres Pastrana, Colombia's president, underscored how the US's global war on terrorism is strengthening its military involvement in Colombia and exacerbating tensions with Venezuela. Mr Bush said he would push Congress to approve legislation that would for the first time allow US military aid for Colombia to be used not only for anti-drug operations but for armed action against suspected terrorist groups. The proposal was endorsed this week by Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress, following meetings on Wednesday with Mr Pastrana. The Colombian leader said the two countries were fighting a common enemy that is narcotrafficking and narcoterrorism. In talks yesterday Mr Bush said the two presidents concentrated on how to change the focus of our strategy from counter-narcotics to include counter-terrorism. That new emphasis will place a harsher spotlight on Venezuela's alleged links with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), the guerrilla army that the US considers a terrorist group. Farc groups have been accused of operating out of Venezuelan territory and the Colombian military says the organisation smuggles arms and ammunition through Venezuela. Venezuela's interior minister is alleged to have previously carried out secret missions to talk to Farc. Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, has also heavily criticised Plan Colombia, the US-backed counter-drugs programme, saying it would spark a spillover of problems into his country. Venezuela has refused to allow US aircraft to fly over its territory to monitor drug smuggling flights, which critics say has left a hole in regional counter-narcotics efforts. Mr Pastrana said yesterday that he was seeking assurances from Venezuela that Farc members who were operating out of Mexico before their offices were shut down by the Mexican government last week had not moved to Venezuela. The allegation of ties to Farc is likely to put more strain on US relations with Venezuela. The US has come under harsh criticism from many Latin American countries for failing to denounce the attempted military coup last week against Mr Chavez. Mr Bush said yesterday that, while the US clearly opposed extra-constitutional action, it was important for Mr Chavez to address the reasons why there was so much turmoil on the streets. He repeated past criticisms of the Venezuelan president for interfering with freedom of the press. But he said the US remained prepared to work with any government in the region that tried to rout out terror. Colombia has had a turbulent relationship with Venezuela throughout the Chavez era. Bogota accused Venezuela of meddling in Mr Pastrana's peace strategy; peace talks collapsed in February. www.ft.com/colombia www.ft.com/venezuela --- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
FT: US warns it may aid Taiwan on missile defence [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ASIA-PACIFIC: US warns it may aid Taiwan on missile defence Financial Times; Apr 19, 2002By MURE DICKIE, JOE LEAHY, RICHARD MCGREGOR and ANDREW WARD The US warned yesterday that it would consider providing missile defences for Taiwan if China continued what Washington believes is an accelerated build-up of firepower aimed at the island. Admiral Dennis Blair, the head of the US Pacific Command, said China had recently increased its deployment of short-range ballistic missiles and now had 300 of them ranged against Taiwan. "They cannot make a decisive military difference yet, but if they continue to increase in number and accuracy there will come a time when they threaten the sufficient defence of Taiwan," Admiral Blair told a forum in Hong Kong. "And at that time, I'm sure there will be consideration of missile defences for Taiwan." The unusually blunt warning comes after clear signs of expanding military co-operation between Taiwan and the US, much to the irritation of Beijing. The US Defense Department said earlier this month a navy-led team would travel to Taiwan, possibly as early as next month, to discuss eight submarines the US promised to sell to the island as part of a big arms package approved by President George W. Bush last year. Admiral Blair also called for more detailed intelligence sharing with China as part of the international war on terrorism. He said the two sides had been co-operating well on sharing general information but now needed to get down to specifics. "Who's getting on an airplane? What name is that person using, when are they arriving here? We haven't achieved really that level of intelligence exchange with China, which we have with other countries that we are working with in the region," Admiral Blair said. Speak out on Korea, Bush told A US government commis-sion has accused North Korea of letting its people starve while the state pursues weapons of mass destruction and called for President George W. Bush to speak out about the "humanitarian disaster" gripping the communist country, Andrew Ward writes from Seoul. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom, set up to advise the president on states that suppress religion, said in a report to Mr Bush the people of North Korea were "perhaps the least free on earth" and urged him to take action against human rights abuses by the country's military regime. --- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Guardian: The Soviet threat was a myth [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- Comment The Soviet threat was a myth Stalin had no intention of attacking the west. We were to blame for the cold war Andrew AlexanderFriday April 19, 2002The Guardian On a long and reluctant journey to Damascus, as I researched the diaries and memoirs of the key figures involved, it dawned on me that my orthodox view of the cold war as a struggle to the death between Good (Britain and America) and Evil (the Soviet Union) was seriously mistaken. In fact, as history will almost certainly judge, it was one of the most unnecessary conflicts of all time, and certainly the most perilous. The cold war began within months of the end of the second world war, when the Soviet Union was diagnosed as inherently aggressive. It was installing communist governments throughout central and eastern Europe. The triumphant Red Army was ready and able to conquer western Europe whenever it was unleashed by Stalin, who was dedicated to the global triumph of communism. But "we" - principally the US and Britain - had learnt from painful experience that it was futile to seek accommodation with "expansionist" dictators. We had to stand up to Stalin, in President Truman's phrase, "with an iron fist". It was a Manichean doctrine, seductive in its simplicity. But the supposed military threat was wholly implausible. Had the Russians, devastated by the war, invaded the west, they would have had a desperate battle to reach the Channel coast. Britain would have been supplied with an endless stream of men and material from the US, making invasion virtually hopeless. And even if the Soviets, ignoring the A-bomb, had conquered Europe against all odds, they would have been left facing an implacable US: the ultimate unwinnable war. In short, there was no Soviet military danger. Stalin was not insane. Nor was he a devout ideologue dedicated to world communism. He was committed, above all else, to retaining power, and ruling Russia by mass terror. Stalin had long been opposed to the idea that Russia should pursue world revolution. He had broken with Trotsky, and proclaimed the ideal of "socialism in one country". Foreign communist parties were encouraged to influence their own nations' actions. But it was never Stalin's idea that they should establish potentially rival communist governments. Yugoslavia and China were to demonstrate the peril of rival communist powers. The cold war began because of Russia's reluctance to allow independence to Poland. Stalin was held to have reneged on promises at Yalta. Roosevelt and Churchill had demanded that Poland be allowed a government that would be "free" and also "friendly to Russia". It was a dishonest formula. As recently as 1920, the two countries had been at war. No freely elected Polish government would be friendly to the USSR. Furthermore, as Stalin pointed out at Yalta, Russia had been twice invaded through Poland by Germany in 26 years, with devastating consequences. The invasion of 1941 had led to the deaths of 20 million Russians. Any postwar Russian government - communist, tsarist or social democratic - would have insisted on effective control at least of Poland, if not of larger areas of eastern Europe, as a buffer zone against future attacks. The cold war warrior Harry Truman came to office in April 1945. The existing White House, including the belligerent Admiral Leahy, convinced him that he must make an aggressive start. In May, Churchill told Anthony Eden, the foreign secretary, that the Americans ought not to withdraw to the lines previously agreed. There had, he said, to be a "showdown" while the Allies were still strong militarily. Otherwise there was "very little prospect" of preventing a third world war. Churchill's iron curtain speech at Fulton, Missouri, in March 1946 - the phrase originated with Dr Goebbels, warning of the same red peril - reflects the great warrior's view of the Soviet menace. Not surprisingly, however, it was seen by the Russians as a threat. Referring to the new "tyrannies", Churchill said: "It is not our duty at this time when difficulties are so numerous to interfere forcibly in the internal affairs of countries." The inevitable implication was that there would be a time when difficulties were not so numerous. Truman had adopted an aggressive attitude to Russia the previous October. He produced 12 points which he said would govern American policy, including the importance of opening up free markets. The programme would be based on "righteousness". There could be "no compromise with evil". Since half his points were aimed at Soviet rule in eastern Europe, the evil he had in mind was plain. He added that no one would be allowed to interfere with US policy in Latin America. So Russian interference in countries essential to its safety was evil. But exclusive US domination of its own sphere of influence was righteous. In any case,
Re: Guardian: The Soviet threat was a myth [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- Yes, totally correct in general, but inaccurate on many details - the truth is far worse. Truman also knew he was lying when he talked of evil, he wanted his own sphere of influence. Many British documents are now being made public. I am extremely busy at the moment and will reply in detail later. --- Stasi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- Comment The Soviet threat was a myth Stalin had no intention of attacking the west. We were to blame for the cold war Andrew Alexander Friday April 19, 2002 The Guardian On a long and reluctant journey to Damascus, as I researched the diaries and memoirs of the key figures involved, it dawned on me that my orthodox view of the cold war as a struggle to the death between Good (Britain and America) and Evil (the Soviet Union) was seriously mistaken. In fact, as history will almost certainly judge, it was one of the most unnecessary conflicts of all time, and certainly the most perilous. The cold war began within months of the end of the second world war, when the Soviet Union was diagnosed as inherently aggressive. It was installing communist governments throughout central and eastern Europe. The triumphant Red Army was ready and able to conquer western Europe whenever it was unleashed by Stalin, who was dedicated to the global triumph of communism. But we - principally the US and Britain - had learnt from painful experience that it was futile to seek accommodation with expansionist dictators. We had to stand up to Stalin, in President Truman's phrase, with an iron fist. It was a Manichean doctrine, seductive in its simplicity. But the supposed military threat was wholly implausible. Had the Russians, devastated by the war, invaded the west, they would have had a desperate battle to reach the Channel coast. Britain would have been supplied with an endless stream of men and material from the US, making invasion virtually hopeless. And even if the Soviets, ignoring the A-bomb, had conquered Europe against all odds, they would have been left facing an implacable US: the ultimate unwinnable war. In short, there was no Soviet military danger. Stalin was not insane. Nor was he a devout ideologue dedicated to world communism. He was committed, above all else, to retaining power, and ruling Russia by mass terror. Stalin had long been opposed to the idea that Russia should pursue world revolution. He had broken with Trotsky, and proclaimed the ideal of socialism in one country. Foreign communist parties were encouraged to influence their own nations' actions. But it was never Stalin's idea that they should establish potentially rival communist governments. Yugoslavia and China were to demonstrate the peril of rival communist powers. The cold war began because of Russia's reluctance to allow independence to Poland. Stalin was held to have reneged on promises at Yalta. Roosevelt and Churchill had demanded that Poland be allowed a government that would be free and also friendly to Russia. It was a dishonest formula. As recently as 1920, the two countries had been at war. No freely elected Polish government would be friendly to the USSR. Furthermore, as Stalin pointed out at Yalta, Russia had been twice invaded through Poland by Germany in 26 years, with devastating consequences. The invasion of 1941 had led to the deaths of 20 million Russians. Any postwar Russian government - communist, tsarist or social democratic - would have insisted on effective control at least of Poland, if not of larger areas of eastern Europe, as a buffer zone against future attacks. The cold war warrior Harry Truman came to office in April 1945. The existing White House, including the belligerent Admiral Leahy, convinced him that he must make an aggressive start. In May, Churchill told Anthony Eden, the foreign secretary, that the Americans ought not to withdraw to the lines previously agreed. There had, he said, to be a showdown while the Allies were still strong militarily. Otherwise there was very little prospect of preventing a third world war. Churchill's iron curtain speech at Fulton, Missouri, in March 1946 - the phrase originated with Dr Goebbels, warning of the same red peril - reflects the great warrior's view of the Soviet menace. Not surprisingly, however, it was seen by the Russians as a threat. Referring to the new tyrannies, Churchill said: It is not our duty at this time when difficulties are so numerous to interfere forcibly in the internal affairs of countries. The inevitable implication was that there would be a time when difficulties were not so numerous. Truman had adopted an aggressive attitude to Russia the previous October. He produced 12 points which he said would
BBC: S Korea and Japan restore military ties [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- Saturday, 20 April, 2002, 06:55 GMT 07:55 UK S Korea and Japan restore military ties http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_194/1940740.stm Japan and South Korea have agreed to restore military ties suspended last year over a dispute about history books. The agreement was reached after a meeting between Japan's Defence Minister Gen Nakatani and his South Korean counterpart Kim Dong-Shin. Military exchange visits will resume and a joint navy search and rescue exercise will take place in September. South Korea announced a series of measures against Japan in July last year, after Japan refused to change controversial text-books which Seoul said glossed over Japan's colonial and wartime record. Relations improved last month during a visit to South Korea by the Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi; he apologised for South Korea's suffering under Japanese colonial rule. From the newsroom of the BBC World Service --- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Xinhua: Commentary: People Who Trample on Human Rights Should Be Condemned [WWW.
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- Commentary: People Who Trample on Human Rights Should Be Condemned Xinhuanet 2002-04-19 21:23:43 BEIJING, April 19 (Xinhuanet) -- A humanitarian disaster is threatening civilian lives in Palestinian cities and villages where Israeli troops ride roughshod over the human rights of Palestinians. Innocent civilians have been massacred; men have been arrested;houses have been destroyed; women, children and the elderly have been made homeless; and there is no food or water. In face of such a terrible and horrendous situation occurring in the West Bank, people can not help but raise an outcry against the Israeli government to cease and desist and stop trampling on humanity! People around the world will not forget the inhuman treatment and massacre of the Jewish people during World War II. The Jewish people still bear the scars of their suffering. As it was pointed out by a Jewish leader, the cruel treatment of Jews "can be forgiven, but not forgotten." But what is now going on in the WestBank means that the Israeli government's actions are no different than their previous persecutors. Some seem to have forgotten the pain as soon as the wounds healed. Palestinians in this region areexperiencing the same suffering the Jewish people experienced during World War II. This too is also a sad part of human history. Yet today's humanitarian catastrophe facing the Palestinians isnothing but the continuation of Israel's policy of collective punishment and retaliation against some individual Palestinians extreme actions against Israel. Israeli troops used to demolish arab houses,raze woods, block roads or isolate whole villages, forcing pregnant women to gave birth to children on the road and cause patients to die for being deprived access to a hospital. Ignoring the international community's repeated warnings, the Israeli government has acted with indifference to Palestinians andhave violated international laws and principles that protect humanrights. The Israeli troops on Monday even waged attacks on the refugee camp in Jenin, creating incredibly horrible scenes of death and destruction and went far in their complete disregard of human life. The Israeli government has become more abusive and violent, attempting to break their will and resistance to Israel's illegal occupation. The Israeli government however hasn't realized that the tougher it treats the Palestinian people, the greater Palestinians' hatred toward Israel grows. In the long run, Israel can only face a deteriorating security situation, and it will never force the Palestinian people to accept its illegal occupation. Neither did the Israel government expect that its refusal to allow international human rights and aide groups' to investigate the Jenin camp would arouse the anger of people around the world. The United Nations top human rights body condemned Israel on Monday for its "mass murders" of Palestinians and demanded it end its military offensive in the occupied territories. If the Israel government doesn't stop its outrages at once, it will earn itself eternal infamy in history. Enditem --- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Stratfor: North Korea Prepares for Nuclear Contingencies [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- S T R A T F O R THE GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE COMPANY http://www.stratfor.com ___ 18 April 2002 THE GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT - FULL TEXT FOR MEMBERS ONLY - ON OUR WEBSITE TODAY FOR MEMBERS ONLY: North Korea Prepares for Nuclear Contingencies Summary A broad shift in U.S. foreign policy since Sept. 11, which surprised many of Washington's own allies, has raised few eyebrows in North Korea. Pyongyang has long viewed itself as being in Washington's gun sights, and the shift in U.S.- designated nomenclature -- from rogue nation to member of the axis of evil -- has only confirmed this belief. Because Pyongyang's ultimate goal is regime survival, Washington's increasing unilateralism will serve both as a lever for Pyongyang to disrupt the U.S. alliance system and as further justification for an accelerated self-strengthening program, focusing primarily on the military. Analysis North Korea recently has begun re-engaging South Korea and Japan, is discussing economics with Southeast Asia and Europe and has offered to reopen talks with the United States, while simultaneously issuing anti-U.S. diatribes and threatening to restart its nuclear program. This is business as usual for Pyongyang, which has based much of its survival strategy on the seemingly contradictory tracks of issuing military threats, admitting internal weakness and offering limited concessions. Over the past few years, the United States has changed North Korea's moniker from rogue nation to a more conciliatory state of concern to its most recent label: member of the axis of evil. Despite these changes in nomenclature, Pyongyang has wavered little from pursuing its primary goal: the perpetuation of the regime. The post-Sept. 11 shift in U.S. foreign policy, and Washington's determination to prevent potential terrorists from gaining access to weapons of mass destruction, have placed the United States -- an unstoppable object -- on a collision course with the immovable wall of North Korea. North Korea's inclusion on Washington's list of potential anti- terrorism targets came as little surprise to Pyongyang. Sources close to Pyongyang confirmed that North Korean leaders have always believed the United States would ultimately return to strike them, and they have maintained the Army First policy to prepare for such an eventuality. Pyongyang's weapons programs, which include developing missiles and potential nuclear weapons, serve a two-fold purpose. First, North Korea hopes that by having an extensive military, it can dissuade the United States from attacking. Barring that, military planners want to ensure that if Washington does initiate military action, North Korea can deliver an irreparable counterstrike -- if not to the mainland United States, at least to South Korea and Japan. This does not mean that Pyongyang remotely believes it could destroy the United States or successfully carry out the reunification of the Korean Peninsula through force so long as U.S. forces are based there. Pyongyang's ultimate goal is regime survival, not self-annihilation. Survival, however, is predicated on strength -- not only in military terms but also in the economic and political spheres. Since the end of the Cold War and the loss of China and the Soviet Union as its two primary sponsors, North Korea has shifted tactics in its quest for survival: It is seeking new forms of economic assistance and investment and working to undermine the U.S. alliance structure, particularly the Washington-Seoul-Tokyo security triangle. The overlap of the administration of former U.S. President Bill Clinton and President Kim Dae Jung's administration in Seoul opened a unique door for Pyongyang, giving the regime time to recover from the loss of its Cold War sponsors and to find ways to reanimate its moribund economy. As the Clinton years drew to a close, however, Pyongyang saw this door closing as well, prompting leaders to accelerate economic and political contact with Europe and the rest of Asia as a bulwark against a potentially more hostile regime in Washington. The election of U.S. President George W. Bush was a turning point for Pyongyang, one that was only confirmed by the post-Sept. 11 U.S. policy changes, the axis of evil label and Washington's evolving nuclear doctrine. Pyongyang fully understood that the Bush administration was taking the United States back to a much clearer and less conciliatory policy than that of Clinton. Leaders also were quite cognizant of Washington's ability and will, if necessary, to strike unilaterally at North Korea. Officials concluded there was little they could do to alter Washington's opinion short of stepping down from power and abolishing the
Xinhua: Northern Philippine Residents Irked by Noisy U.S. Warplanes [WWW.STOPNAT
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ¡¡ Northern Philippine Residents Irked by Noisy U.S. Warplanes Xinhuanet 2002-04-19 23:51:45 MANILA, April 19 (Xinhuanet) -- Local residents living near an airport inside the Clark economic zone in the northern Philippineshave been complaining of noise brought about by the U.S. aircraft involved in a Philippine-U.S. military exercise. Mayor Marino Morales of Mabalacat town where the Clark economiczone sits has been receiving complaints about the intensifying noise from local residents, the Philippine News Agency reported Friday. Over 2,000 US troops will be flying in to join the 28,000 Filipino soldiers for the coming joint exercise coded "Balikatan 02-2" from April 22 to May 6 in central Luzon in the northern Philippines. "The noise of flying aircraft has now become a health concern among local residents who have become used to a more quiet area since the Americans (troops) pulled out from Clark field in 1991,"said Jose Dayrit, executive secretary of the mayor. More U.S. aircraft has been regularly landing and taking off atthe Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) in the Clark zone since Wednesday, carrying military personnel and equipment. The aircraft includes C-5 Galaxy cargo carriers. Residents in the northern city of San Francisco and the neighboring villages have also been complaining of the noise in early morning which they described as "irritating and disturbing." Military officials said U.S. military jet fighters such as F-18Hornets are scheduled to arrive in Clark shortly, which will create louder noise than the C-130. In last year's joint exercises, some local officials even wroteletters to the related national government body to complain of theexcessive noises. Enditem --- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Xinhua: New Changes Seen in Global Geo-Strategy After September 11 Event: Chines
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- New Changes Seen in Global Geo-Strategy After September 11 Event: Chinese Schola Xinhuanet 2002-04-19 23:28:40 SINGAPORE, April 19 (Xinhuanet) -- A well-known Chinese scholar has said that international geo-strategic structure has taken on some new changes after the September 11 event although the "post- September 11" general situation has not changed significantly in the Asia-Pacific and the whole world. In his speech at the ASEAN-China dialogue held here earlier this week, Lu Zhongwei, president of China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, pointed out, "The global geo-strategic structure is fermenting a new round of changes with Asia-Pacific being the center of shuffling." The international terrorist organizations and other hidden actors have come out from behind the curtain to the stage and acted as the new players on the international chessboard, he said,noting "They are now publicly playing the game with the traditional states and international organizations in an unsymmetry manner." The security boundary has changed from an international conceptinto a domestic one with the U.S. attaching unusual strategic importance to the homeland defense, he added. He said that the rules of geo-political games are also changing,mentioning the definition of terrorism, the use of military forcesin war on terror, the demarcation between terrorist camp and counter-terrorist camp, the leadership of counter-terrorism and soon. Lu underlined that the most notable change lies in the reshuffling of geo-political situation in the Asia-Pacific where regional countries began to adjust overall strategies including counter-terrorist strategies. "In the big context of Asia-Pacific strategic structure, a new strategic line connecting by three critical sub-regions-- South Southeast Asia, Central Asia and West Asia-- has emerged on the southern edge of the Asian continent," he said. Noting that "some uncertainties have already been seen along this arc," he pointed out a number of new developments such as more and more aggressive U.S. military presence and strategy in Central Asia, heating up tension between India and Pakistan in South Asia, intensified Palestinian-Israeli conflicts in West Asiaand strengthened military cooperation between the U.S. and some Southeast Asian countries in the name of jointly countering terrorism. Enditem --- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Guardian: Son of Milan crash pilot says it was suicide [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- Son of Milan crash pilot says it was suicide Philip WillanSaturday April 20, 2002The Guardian Suicide emerged yesterday as a possible explanation for the mystery of why an experienced pilot flew his private plane into Milan's tallest skyscraper on a clear spring afternoon. Three people, including the Swiss-Italian pilot, died in Thursday's incident which sent shockwaves around the world for its evocation of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centre in New York. "What accident! It was a suicide, suicide, do you understand?" the pilot's son, Marco Fasulo, told the Rome daily La Repubblica. "They wanted to rip him off, ruin him financially, and he killed himself," Mr Fasulo, himself a pilot for the Swiss airline Crossair, told the paper. Luigi Fasulo, 67, crashed his white and orange single engine Rockwell Air Commander into the facade of the Lombardy regional government's office building, devastating its upper floors and setting the 30-storey tower alight. The two other victims were female lawyers working for the regional government, one of whom was blown out of the building by the explosion. Eleven people were recovering from burn and blast injuries in hospital. La Repubblica also quoted a friend of Fasulo who said the pilot was devastated by his financial problems. "I'm ruined, he told me," the friend, identified only as Franco, told the paper. "They have taken everything I have, they have stolen more than a million dollars." Fasulo, who left the Swiss airport of Locarno at 5.15pm to fly to Milan, had attempted to land at Linate airport but had botched his approach and reported trouble with his landing gear. Told by air traffic control to circle near the airport, he suddenly headed off into central Milan, flying low towards the city's tallest building. According to some reports in the Italian media yesterday there was confusion over air traffic control orders with Fasulo at one point apparently carrying out a command which had been issued to a helicopter pilot who was in nearby airspace. Described as a "cowboy pilot" by some colleagues, he had once been forced to land in a potato field after running out of fuel and had recently damaged landing lights at Zurich airport by landing too short. Roberto Formigoni, the president of the Lombardy regional government, also appeared to lend credence to the suicide theory. "It was an absolutely strange accident," he said. "The plane went in with the precision of a laser ray." Fasulo's wife rejected the suggestion, however. "My husband was serene," Folimena Fasulo told an Italian radio yesterday. But she confirmed her husband's financial problems. "We were defrauded by some Italians," she said. "Those criminals have ruined us, so there was no reason to be happy." Italian police have begun an investigation into Fasulo's financial affairs. The tone of Fasulo's conversations with the control tower were calm and he informed them in the last one, at 5.43pm, that he was attempting a manual solution to the undercarriage problem. "For the moment we have excluded the hypothesis of terrorism," said Giuseppe De Angelis of Milan police. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 --- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Venezuela: Postmortem of a Coup - Stratfor [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- Stratfor Venezuela: Postmortem of a Coup === 19 April 2002 Summary As the smoke clears from an attempted coup in Venezuela, it is becoming more and more obvious that no fewer than three opposition factions were involved. The lack of cohesion between these groups, combined with President Hugo Chavez's own contingency plan, rendered the coup a failure. Analysis The military coup that briefly toppled Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez April 11-12 was unusual in several ways: There was no organized plan in the armed forces (FAN) to launch a coup against Chavez that specific day; rival military factions never fired at each other; and the same military factions that toppled Chavez returned him to power within 24 hours, according to published reports and knowledgeable STRATFOR sources in Caracas. International audiences -- and in fact, many Venezuelans -- were baffled by Chavez's tumultuous overthrow and swift return to power between April 11 and April 14. Many have speculated that Chavez launched a controlled auto-coup to flush out his numerous opponents within the FAN and opposition political groups. In fact, as Caracas returns to normalcy, it's becoming clearer that extremist groups on both sides that strongly support or oppose the Chavez regime likely took advantage of this situation -- the largest anti-government demonstration in Venezuela's history -- to trigger a violent confrontation that unseated Chavez, but ultimately restored him to power. STRATFOR has pieced together the following chain of events April 11-12 from public and private sources in Venezuela: About three hours before gunfire erupted in downtown Caracas, the FAN's high command knew from intelligence personnel that infiltrated pro-Chavez Bolivarian Circles that a plan existed to disrupt an anti-Chavez protest march of at least 350,000 Venezuelans, the daily El Universal reported April 18. FAN intelligence indicated that extremist anti-Chavez groups were also seeking a confrontation that day. However, efforts to coordinate an effective security response and pre-empt the violence were hindered by disagreements between Chavez and senior military officers over how to proceed. Reportedly, Chavez insisted that soldiers and tanks be deployed to Miraflores presidential palace to break up the unexpectedly large anti-Chavez march. However, General Manuel Rosendo, chief of the FAN's joint unified command, CUFAN, resisted the president's orders because he and other military officers opposed confronting peaceful protesters with assault rifles and tanks. Rosendo also argued that Chavez should issue orders to withdraw several thousand civilian Bolivarian Militia members from the downtown area near Miraflores. However, Chavez ignored Rosendo's advice and issued orders to Fort Tiuna to deploy troops and armored vehicles. Meanwhile, in downtown Caracas, a cordon of several hundred National Guard soldiers formed a line that was intended theoretically to keep the pro- and anti-Chavez groups far apart. The National Guard security cordon was facing the advancing anti-Chavez protesters, while behind the soldiers several thousand Bolivarian Circle members and pro-Chavez supporters armed with rocks, clubs, Molotov cocktails and, in many cases, handguns, became visibly more inflamed, according to STRATFOR sources on site. A phalanx of Caracas Metropolitan Police reinforced by a water cannon protected the front of the advancing anti-Chavez march on Baralt Avenue. As the marchers reached the corners of Llaguno and La Pedrera, still several blocks from Miraflores, snipers began firing simultaneously at both anti- and pro-Chavez protesters from at least three buildings, including the Eden Hotel, La Nacional office building -- in which are housed municipal government offices -- and the rooftop of the Foreign Ministry's parking garage, according to the daily TalCual, which confirmed the presence of six snipers atop two of the buildings. Two of the alleged snipers subsequently were detained and identified by name as Environment Ministry security department employees. Television video footage of the violence also showed dozens of alleged Bolivarian Circle members firing handguns in the direction of the anti-Chavez protesters. Although Chavez government officials claim that no MVR or Bolivarian Circles fired weapons at anyone, one of the videotaped shooters was identified by name as an elected MVR municipal official, while three or four others were also identified as having links to the MVR. In all, 15 persons were killed and over 157 wounded by gunfire April 11 in downtown Caracas. STRATFOR sources in the Caracas medical examiner's office report that nearly all of the fatalities resulted from head or neck shots fired from higher elevations. The violence -- especially videotaped footage of pro-Chavez supporters firing into the anti-Chavez protesters and eyewitness accounts of senior
CNN: U.S. concern over China missile build-up [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- U.S. concern over China missile build-up April 18, 2002 Posted: 6:57 PM HKT (1057 GMT) More than 300 missiles are aimed at Taiwan By Andrew DemariaCNN HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Although China currently lacks the military capability to take and hold Taiwan, the U.S. commander for the Pacific says he is concerned about the missile balance across the Taiwan Strait. Admiral Dennis C. Blair, the Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Pacific Command, told delegates at a Hong Kong luncheon Thursday that China had accelerated its deployment of missiles which target Taiwan. "These missiles can cause a great deal of destruction to Taiwan. They cannot make a decisive military difference yet, but if they continue to increase in number and accuracy there'll come a time when they threaten the sufficient defense of Taiwan." Blair said that more than 300 missiles where aimed at Taiwan but stressed that the military situation there was "more stable than newspapers indicate." Beijing considers Taiwan a renegade province and part of China since they spilt and were governed separately following the communist victory on the mainland in 1949. China has maintained its intention to reunify with Taiwan under the 'One China policy,' even if it requires war, and has warned that any moves to declare Taiwan independent would be met with force. 'Stable situation' AUDIO Admiral Dennis C. Blair speaks about the Taiwan Strait situation.893K / 1:23 minWAV sound MORE STORIES The Philippines: War on terror's second front Kissinger warning on U.S.-China ties CNN.com Asia More news from ourAsia edition For its part, Washington's policy is to defend Taiwan in the event of conflict although the exact details of its commitment to the island's security have traditionally been left deliberately ambiguous. With measured weapons sales and increased capabilities of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Blair said that U.S. ties with Taiwan had ensured a "stable military balance" in the region for the "foreseeable future." "I believe that on the basis of this stable balance, Taiwan and China's peaceful achievement of one China -- which is the policy of China, the policy of Taiwan and the policy of the United States -- can move forward," Blair said. However, a peaceful resolution to the one China issue could be threatened by further military build-ups on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, the admiral said. "We will have the same basic military situation at a higher and higher level of armament which I don't think does a lot of good for anybody and certainly doesn't foster the sort of peaceful resolution of the issues there which we want to maintain," Blair said. North Korean missiles Blair (R) greets Philippine Southcom Chief Lt. Gen. Roy Cimatu in the southern
Jenin: the bloody truth - Sunday Times [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- Jenin: the bloody truth === Was it a massacre? Marie Colvin in the ruins of the refugee camp found cold comfort for propagandists on either side SUNDAY TIMES THE first medical teams allowed into the Jenin refugee camp last week followed the chickens. Human senses were overwhelmed by the devastation and the stench of death, but the birds were not distracted. They were hungry. Two rusty-coloured fowl pecking away at a bundle in the street drew a Red Cross team to the remains of Jamal Sabagh. He wasn't really recognisable to an untrained eye. His body had been lying there for more than a week. The Israeli army had banned ambulances from the camp for 11 days, and neighbours were too terrified to go to him. Tank tracks led to his body, over it and onwards through the mud. What had once been a young man was rotting flesh mingled with shredded clothing, mashed into the earth. One foot was all that looked human. Sabagh was no fighter, his brother and friends say. He was 28 and a father of three. His wife and children had fled on the first day of the Israeli invasion, Wednesday, April 3, but he stayed because he was diabetic and was too ill to run away. He was also afraid he would be mistaken for a fighter. Two days later, he left his house when the Israelis yelled over megaphones that they were going to blow it up. He walked, directed by soldiers in armoured personnel carriers, with other men to Seha Street at the centre of the camp, carrying his bag of medicines. He joined the crowd. Soldiers yelled at him to take off his shirt, then his trousers. He clung to his bag of medicine as he tried to unbuckle his belt, and he was slow. The soldiers shot him, friends say. Medical workers shooed away the chickens, wrapped Sabagh's remains in a rug, then lifted them into the back of a small open-bed truck. It drove off, past burned and shell-holed buildings, looking like a medieval plague wagon. Across the narrow street was a forlorn pile of men's jeans, polyester tracksuit tops and cheap shoes - left by those who had got their clothes off in time, to prove they had no bombs strapped to their bodies, and had been taken to the Israeli army base at the nearby village of Salem. As the rescue teams spread out over Jenin camp last week, after the Israeli army claimed victory in its battle against several hundred armed Palestinian radicals, it was clear something cataclysmic had occurred. Instead of the Hawamish neighbourhood -previously a jumble of mismatched cinderblock homes - a vista lay open to the hills beyond. Stunned and dusty in this new world, returning Palestinians wandered around a moonscape the size of two football pitches. It was littered with the detritus of human life - blankets, a little girl's tartan skirt, a child's orange boxing glove, shoes, a musical keyboard. Women in hijab headscarves dug at the crushed rubble with buckets and bare hands. Five-year-old Ahmed Hindi cried: I want to go home. He didn't know he was standing on it. Images of this man-made earthquake zone have flashed around the world as evidence that the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is responsible for another war crime in Jenin on a par with the massacre of Palestinians in the Chatila and Sabra refugee camps in Beirut 20 years ago. Israel has responded that the devastation was the consequence of a pitched battle against entrenched terrorists. What really happened? Tragedy doesn't necessarily breed truth. The propaganda war had begun before the white dust settled over Jenin. Rafi Laderman, a personable Israeli reserve major, emerged from the battlefield and made the rounds of the media in his rumpled green uniform. His clear plastic spectacles signalled his real job as a marketing consultant. Laderman insisted that all the buildings in the refugee camp had been destroyed by explosive booby traps set by the terrorists, or levelled by Israeli bulldozers because they presented additional engineering difficulties that could endanger civilians. He himself had stopped the fighting to lead Palestinian civilians to safety. All that seemed disingenuous. Equally unlikely were Palestinian claims that the Israelis had killed 500 Palestinians in cold blood, most civilians, and buried them in mass graves under the rubble after running them over with tanks. Israel said about 70 had been killed. Terje Roed-Larsen, the United Nations envoy to the Middle East, cut through the propaganda by stating the obvious: No military operation can justify this scale of destruction. Whatever the purpose was, the effect is collective punishment of a whole society. He and his family received telephone death threats from Israeli callers for his pains. Under pressure from many sides - including the United States, Britain, the United Nations and the European Union - Israel has agreed to a UN fact-finding mission. The trouble with such missions, however, is that they become bogged
Xinhua: Britain Delays Dossier On Iraq Indefinitely: Reports [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.U
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- Britain Delays Dossier On Iraq Indefinitely: Reports Xinhuanet 2002-04-20 18:32:59 LONDON, April 20 (Xinhuanet) -- The long-awaited dossier Prime Minister Tony Blair has promised would justify his support for a U.S.-led military offensive on Iraq is being delayed indefinitely due to unresolved dispute at the highest levels of government, Financial Times reported on Saturday. The Foreign Office was quoted as confirming that the dossier nolonger had a firm publication date, and that a final draft has still to be agreed. It would be released "when we judge that the time is right," it said. The British government is thought to have encountered resistance to the plan among senior Whitehall officials, some ministers and the secret intelligence service MI6, the newspaper said. In contrast to previous intelligence dossiers on al-Qaeda used by the Blair government to justify policy initiatives, the information on Iraq was judged by some officials as insufficient to convince critics within the Labor Party that the full-scale offensive against Iraq was justified. Senior defense sources also said there were debates within government on how much could be included in such a document without revealing sensitive information or compromising intelligence sources. Enditem --- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Jimmy Carter: America Can Persuade Israel to Make a Just Peace [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/21/opinion/21CART.html April 21, 2002 America Can Persuade Israel to Make a Just Peace By JIMMY CARTER ATLANTA - In January 1996, with full support from Israel and responding to the invitation of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the Carter Center helped to monitor a democratic election in the West Bank and Gaza, which was well organized, open and fair. In that election, 88 members were elected to the Palestinian National Authority, with Yasir Arafat as president. Legally and practically, the Palestinian people were encouraged to form their own government, with the expectation that they would soon have full sovereignty as a state. When the election was over, I made a strong effort to persuade the leaders of Hamas to accept the election results, with Mr. Arafat as their leader. I relayed a message offering them full participation in the process of developing a permanent constitutional framework for the new political entity, but they refused to accept this proposal. Despite this rejection, it was a time of peace and hope, and there was no threat of violence or even peaceful demonstrations. The legal status of the Palestinian people has not changed since then, but their plight has grown desperate. Ariel Sharon is a strong and forceful man and has never equivocated in his public declarations nor deviated from his ultimate purpose. His rejection of all peace agreements that included Israeli withdrawal from Arab lands, his invasion of Lebanon, his provocative visit to the Temple Mount, the destruction of villages and homes, the arrests of thousands of Palestinians and his open defiance of President George W. Bush's demand that he comply with international law have all been orchestrated to accomplish his ultimate goals: to establish Israeli settlements as widely as possible throughout occupied territories and to deny Palestinians a cohesive political existence. There is adequate blame on the other side. Even when he was free and enjoying the full trappings of political power, Yasir Arafat never exerted control over Hamas and other radical Palestinians who reject the concept of a peaceful Israeli existence and adopt any means to accomplish their goal. Mr. Arafat's all-too-rare denunciations of violence have been spasmodic, often expressed only in English and likely insincere. He may well see the suicide attacks as one of the few ways to retaliate against his tormentors, to dramatize the suffering of his people, or as a means for him, vicariously, to be a martyr. Tragically, the policies of Mr. Sharon have greatly strengthened these criminal elements, enhanced their popular support, and encouraged misguided young men and women to sacrifice their own lives in attacking innocent Israeli citizens. The abhorrent suicide bombings are also counterproductive in that they discredit the Palestinian cause, help perpetuate the military occupation and destruction of villages, and obstruct efforts toward peace and justice. The situation is not hopeless. There is an ultimate avenue to peace in the implementation of United Nations resolutions, including Resolution 242, expressed most recently in the highly publicized proposal of Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah. The basic premises of these resolutions are withdrawal of Israelis from Palestinian lands in exchange for full acceptance of Israel and Israel's right to live in peace. This is a reasonable solution for many Israelis, having been accepted in 1978 by Prime Minister Menachem Begin and ratified by the Israeli Knesset. Egypt, offering the greatest threat to Israel, responded by establishing full diplomatic relations and honoring Israeli rights, including unimpeded use of the Suez canal. This set a pattern for what can and must be done by all other Arab nations. Through constructive negotiations, both sides can consider some modifications of the 1967 boundary lines. East Jerusalem can be jointly administered with unimpeded access to holy places, and the right of return can be addressed by permitting a limited number of displaced Palestinians to return to their homeland with fair compensation to others. It will be a good investment for the international community to pay this cost. With the ready and potentially unanimous backing of the international community, the United States government can bring about such a solution to the existing imbroglio. Demands on both sides should be so patently fair and balanced that at least a majority of citizens in the affected area will respond with approval, and an international force can monitor compliance with agreed peace terms, as was approved for the Sinai region in 1979 following Israel's withdrawal from Egyptian territory. There are two existing factors that offer success to United States persuasion. One is the legal requirement that American weapons are to be used by Israel only for defensive purposes, a premise certainly
Media Drawn Into West Bank Propaganda War [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7366-2002Apr18.html Media Drawn Into West Bank Propaganda War By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, April 18, 2002; 8:53 AM The Israeli assault on the West Bank town of Jenin has produced dramatically different media accounts. The British press is playing it as a massacre, while American newspapers say there's no such evidence. How on earth can journalists visiting the same refugee camp reach such different conclusions? At the moment, there is no hard evidence of deliberate mass killings, as some Palestinians have alleged. The media on both sides of the Atlantic have reported those charges. There is little doubt that civilians have been killed, as tragically happens in all wars. The Palestinian allegations should be aggressively pursued. But jumping the gun, so to speak, is dangerous business. Keep in mind that British papers are openly ideological, Tory or Liberal (although some would argue the American press is quietly ideological). Some of the British press reports seethe with anger toward Israel. The Brits also are willing to make sensational charges based on thin evidence. It was a British newspaper, after all, that ran a piece about American torture of Afghan detainees at Guantanamo Bay. That never came even close to being proven, but it fit the European stereotype of an arrogant and unfeeling Uncle Sam. So caveat emptor. The Independent runs this no-doubt-about-it headline: Amid the ruins of Jenin, the grisly evidence of a war crime. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=285413 Writes reporter Phil Reeves: A monstrous war crime that Israel has tried to cover up for a fortnight has finally been exposed. Its troops have caused devastation in the centre of the Jenin refugee camp, reached yesterday by The Independent, where thousands of people are still living amid the ruins. . . . A quiet, sad-looking young man called Kamal Anis led us across the wasteland, littered now with detritus of what were once households, foam rubber, torn clothes, shoes, tin cans, children's toys. He suddenly stopped. This was a mass grave, he said, pointing. We stared at a mound of debris. Here, he said, he saw the Israeli soldiers pile 30 bodies beneath a half-wrecked house. When the pile was complete, they bulldozed the building, bringing its ruins down on the corpses. Then they flattened the area with a tank. The Times of London has this report by Janine di Giovanni: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-268533,00.html The refugees I had interviewed in recent days while trying to enter the camp were not lying. If anything, they underestimated the carnage and the horror. Rarely, in more than a decade of war reporting from Bosnia, Chechnya, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, have I seen such deliberate destruction, such disrespect for human life. This was not only a town of fighters, as Israeli soldiers told me. It was a town of women, children and old men, who have seen the camp grow into a warren of ramshackle homes over half a century. Amnesty International called for an immediate investigation into 'the killings of hundreds of Palestinians,' saying crucial evidence may be destroyed as Israel 'continues to impede access.' Now pull back to America and examine the New York Times account: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/16/international/middleeast/16JENI.html Since the Israeli assault on Jenin began nearly two weeks ago, aid groups have complained that Israeli soldiers have blocked ambulances and prevented aid from reaching the camp. A team from the International Committee of the Red Cross was allowed to enter the camp for the first time today to search for wounded, evacuate the sick and remove bodies. The Red Cross said it had recovered six bodies and had seen a total of about two dozen dead in a search of a portion of the camp. Red Cross officials said they were unaware of the case of the man who was pulled from the rubble, which has apparently not been reported to them. Saed Dabayeh, who said he stayed in the camp through the fighting, led a group of reporters to a pile of rubble where he said he watched from his bedroom window as Israeli soldiers buried 10 bodies. 'There was a hole here where they buried bodies,' he said. 'And then they collapsed a house on top of it.' The Palestinian accounts could not be verified. And The Washington Post report: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56619-2002Apr15.html The rubble has obscured many facts, but some are indisputable. Some of the most brutal urban battles, heaviest air barrages and most devastating ground tactics in more than two weeks of Israeli assaults against Palestinian towns and communities across the West Bank have been waged here. Others are less clear. Interviews with residents inside the camp and international aid workers who were allowed here for the first time today indicated that no evidence
Demonstrators Rally to Palestinian Cause [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
Title: Message HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- Published on Sunday, April 21, 2002 in the Washingtion Post Demonstrators Rally to Palestinian Cause by Manny Fernandez Tens of thousands converged on downtown Washington yesterday to demonstrate for a variety of causes, but it was the numbers and passion of busloads of Arab Americans and their supporters that dominated the streets. Protesters for Palestinian solidarity demonstrate in Washington Saturday, April 20, 2002. Tens of thousands of protesters joined forces in Washington to demonstrate against everything from U.S. policy in the Mideast to globalization and corporate greed. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Roggenbrodt) Eager to make their presence felt and their voices heard in the nation's capital as never before, Arab and Muslim families marched and chanted for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel, overwhelming the messages of those with other causes in a peaceful day of downtown rallies and marches. Young men wore the Palestinian flag around their necks like a cape. Arabic was heard nearly as often as English, and cardboard signs held by women and children denounced Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Bush. Protesters rallying against corporate wrongs and the global economy found themselves tweaking Vietnam War-era chants to the Palestinian cause, shouting, "One, two, three, four: We don't want no Mideast war!" "The message here is we must support the Palestinian people against a military occupation and an apartheid state," said Randa Jamal, a graduate student at New York's Columbia University who joined thousands at a pro-Palestinian rally near the White House. She said her cousins were killed in Ramallah, and her 16-year-old sister has been unable to attend school because of the Israeli occupation. "What they are going through," she said, "is crimes against humanity." Palestinian rights was the theme of two of four permitted marches that merged on Pennsylvania Avenue NW in a loud and colorful procession to the Capitol. The host of other issues anti-corporate globalization, antiwar and anti-U.S. policies in several areas were boiled down to an essence visible on banners, placards and T-shirts. Banners read: "Drop debt, not bombs" and "Peace treaty in Korea now." Bumper stickers on T-shirts declared: "No blank check for endless war" and "We are all Palestinian." It was possible to stand on the Washington Monument grounds and hear simultaneous speeches from three rallies nearby antiwar demonstrators, counter-demonstrators and pro-Palestinian activists in a mind-boggling surround-sound mix. Protesters came from the Anti-War Committee in Minneapolis, Middlebury College in Vermont and the D.C. chapter of the International Socialist Organization. There were teenage anti-capitalists with black bandanas over their faces marching alongside Muslim mothers wrapped in traditional headdress and pushing baby strollers. Other demonstrations are planned today and tomorrow near the Washington Monument grounds and outside the Washington Hilton, the site of a pro-Israel lobbying group's annual conference. District police officials said the crowds were larger than they had anticipated and put the number at about 75,000. Metro transit officials said ridership increased significantly yesterday, but estimates would not be available until today. Organizers of the Palestinian-rights rally at the Ellipse said the gathering was the largest demonstration for Palestine in U.S. history. "We are here because we want to do something, to send a message," said Amal K. David, a Palestinian American who weathered a 12-hour trip in a 21-bus caravan from the Detroit area to join the rally organized by International Answer, an antiwar, anti-racism coalition that shifted the theme of its protest as the violence in the Middle East escalated. In tears, David spoke of the destruction that U.S.-financed Israeli weapons and tanks have done to Palestinians, saying: "My beloved country is financing such death and destruction. I am so ashamed." Many pro-Palestinian marchers said they learned of the march through their mosques. "All over the U.S., everybody got the word," said Issam Khalil of the Bronx, who traveled in a fleet of 50 buses from New York. Several downtown blocks away, several thousand other pro-Palestinian activists took to the streets for another march to free Palestine. The
Venezuela Coup Linked to Bush Team [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
Title: Message HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- Published on Sunday, April 21, 2002 in the Observer of London Venezuela Coup Linked to Bush TeamSpecialists in the 'dirty wars' of the Eighties encouraged the plotters who tried to topple President Chavez by Ed Vulliamy in New York The failed coup in Venezuela was closely tied to senior officials in the US government, The Observer has established. They have long histories in the 'dirty wars' of the 1980s, and links to death squads working in Central America at that time. Washington's involvement in the turbulent events that briefly removed left-wing leader Hugo Chavez from power last weekend resurrects fears about US ambitions in the hemisphere. It also also deepens doubts about policy in the region being made by appointees to the Bush administration, all of whom owe their careers to serving in the dirty wars under President Reagan. One of them, Elliot Abrams, who gave a nod to the attempted Venezuelan coup, has a conviction for misleading Congress over the infamous Iran-Contra affair. The Bush administration has tried to distance itself from the coup. It immediately endorsed the new government under businessman Pedro Carmona. But the coup was sent dramatically into reverse after 48 hours. Now officials at the Organization of American States and other diplomatic sources, talking to The Observer, assert that the US administration was not only aware the coup was about to take place, but had sanctioned it, presuming it to be destined for success. The visits by Venezuelans plotting a coup, including Carmona himself, began, say sources, 'several months ago', and continued until weeks before the putsch last weekend. The visitors were received at the White House by the man President George Bush tasked to be his key policy-maker for Latin America, Otto Reich. Reich is a right-wing Cuban-American who, under Reagan, ran the Office for Public Diplomacy. It reported in theory to the State Department, but Reich was shown by congressional investigations to report directly to Reagan's National Security Aide, Colonel Oliver North, in the White House. North was convicted and shamed for his role in Iran-Contra, whereby arms bought by busting US sanctions on Iran were sold to the Contra guerrillas and death squads, in revolt against the Marxist government in Nicaragua. Reich also has close ties to Venezuela, having been made ambassador to Caracas in 1986. His appointment was contested both by Democrats in Washington and political leaders in the Latin American country. The objections were overridden as Venezuela sought access to the US oil market. Reich is said by OAS sources to have had 'a number of meetings with Carmona and other leaders of the coup' over several months. The coup was discussed in some detail, right down to its timing and chances of success, which were deemed to be excellent. On the day Carmona claimed power, Reich summoned ambassadors from Latin America and the Caribbean to his office. He said the removal of Chavez was not a rupture of democratic rule, as he had resigned and was 'responsible for his fate'. He said the US would support the Carmona government. But the crucial figure around the coup was Abrams, who operates in the White House as senior director of the National Security Council for 'democracy, human rights and international operations'. He was a leading theoretician of the school known as 'Hemispherism', which put a priority on combating Marxism in the Americas. It led to the coup in Chile in 1973, and the sponsorship of regimes and death squads that followed it in Argentina, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and elsewhere. During the Contras' rampage in Nicaragua, he worked directly to North. Congressional investigations found Abrams had harvested illegal funding for the rebellion. Convicted for withholding information from the inquiry, he was pardoned by George Bush senior. A third member of the Latin American triangle in US policy-making is John Negroponte, now ambassador to the United Nations. He was Reagan's ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985 when a US-trained death squad, Battalion 3-16, tortured and murdered scores of activists. A diplomatic source said Negroponte had been 'informed that there might be some movement in Venezuela on Chavez' at the beginning of the year. More than 100 people died in events before and after the coup. In Caracas on Friday a military judge confined five
Bush Team Tarnishes US Status as Champion of Democracy... [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
Title: Message HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- Published on Sunday, April 21, 2002 in the Los Angeles Times A Sometime Champion of DemocracyThe Bush administration's initial acceptance of Venezuela's coup erodes the United States' moral authority. by Chris Kraul and William Orme MEXICO CITY -- The Bush administration's rapid initial approval of this month's coup in Venezuela has tarnished its status as self-proclaimed champion of democracy and the rule of law in Latin America. Moreover, the reaction to the attempted ouster of President Hugo Chavez especially rankled Latin leaders because it followed recent trade and security measures in which the U.S. has been seen as contradicting its principles. The practical effects could include an erosion in support for U.S. policies on Iraq and the Middle East conflict, Latin American diplomats say. To be sure, there is little sympathy in the region for Chavez, who has trampled on a few democratic principles himself. But by seemingly backing the overthrow of a freely elected leader, the United States has diminished its capacity for moral suasion. "There is at least a short-term cost. It's not something people will forget," said Carlos Elizondo Mayer-Serra, a political scientist and director of the Mexico City-based Center for Economic Research and Teaching. "It's a displacement of the very ends that the United States is trying to promote." After Chavez was replaced April 12, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer declared the Bush administration's support for new elections. And National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said on a television news show two days later that Chavez's policies were not working for his country. But the administration has insisted that it took no action to encourage a coup or ensure its success. Response Draws Fire For all the administration's talk of backing democracies and free markets, its response gave the impression that the U.S. government selectively supports coups d'etat and a short-circuiting of the popular will, various observers in the hemisphere say. A leading Brazilian newspaper, O Globo, said, "Washington's impatience, its supposed approval of the coup leaders and its hurry to approve an interim government bring back memories of a past that democracies of the continent repudiate with fervor." Most Latin American leaders--led by the presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Argentina--were quick to condemn the coup attempt. Upon his return to office, Chavez singled out Mexico's Vicente Fox by thanking him for refusing to recognize the coup leaders. The Brazilian government reacted "with pleasure to Venezuela's return to constitutional order and its democratic process. . . . It marks an important achievement in the reaffirmation of Latin American values and democratic principles." By contrast, President Ricardo Lagos of Chile is under fire at home for his seemingly ambivalent initial response to the news. Lagos' fellow leftists say Chilean leaders have a special responsibility to denounce coup attempts, given the violent 1973 overthrow of President Salvador Allende. But it was the U.S. reaction that had immediate repercussions at the United Nations, with Latin American diplomats holding a private conclave and the large developing-nation bloc uniting quickly behind Chavez and, by implicit extension, against Washington. The consensus, participants said, was that the coup plotters had acted only because they believed--rightly or not--that they had been given a green light by the Bush administration. "The United States blew it badly," said a senior Latin American diplomat at the U.N. from a country that is normally supportive of Washington. "It is now trying to get out of this situation the best that it can. But damage has definitely been done." U.S. Actions a Concern The Venezuelan fiasco occurred amid lingering bitterness in the region after the U.S. slapped tariffs of up to 30% on foreign steel this year. That measure in effect seals off the U.S. market from exporters such as Brazil, which says the tariff runs counter to free trade principles. U.S. law enforcement agencies' roundup of hundreds of foreigners after Sept. 11 and the secrecy surrounding their detention also concern many Latin Americans for what the actions convey about legal institutions that heretofore were regarded as exemplary. "Some of the measures have been more appropriate to a dictatorship, and so
US Tries To Remove Diplomat [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- US Tries To Remove Diplomat Standing In Way Of War With Iraq By George Monbiot www.monbiot.com The Guardian - London 4-19-2 On Sunday, the US government will launch an international coup. It has been planned for a month. It will be executed quietly, and most of us won't know what is happening until it's too late. It is seeking to overthrow 60 years of multilateralism in favour of a global regime built on force. The coup begins with its attempt, in five days' time, to unseat the man in charge of ridding the world of chemical weapons. If it succeeds, this will be the first time that the head of a multilateral agency will have been deposed in this manner. Every other international body will then become vulnerable to attack. The coup will also shut down the peaceful options for dealing with the chemical weapons Iraq may possess, helping to ensure that war then becomes the only means of destroying them. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) enforces the chemical weapons convention. It inspects labs and factories and arsenals and oversees the destruction of the weapons they contain. Its director-general is a workaholic Brazilian diplomat called Jose Bustani. He has, arguably, done more in the past five years to promote world peace than anyone else on earth. His inspectors have overseen the destruction of 2 million chemical weapons and two-thirds of the world's chemical weapon facilities. He has so successfully cajoled reluctant nations that the number of signatories to the convention has risen from 87 to 145 in the past five years: the fastest growth rate of any multilateral body in recent times. In May 2000, as a tribute to his extraordinary record, Bustani was re-elected unanimously by the member states for a second five-year term, even though he had yet to complete his first one. Last year Colin Powell wrote to him to thank him for his very impressive work. But now everything has changed. The man celebrated for his achievements has been denounced as an enemy of the people. In January, with no prior warning or explanation, the US state department asked the Brazilian government to recall him, on the grounds that it did not like his management style. This request directly contravenes the chemical weapons convention, which states the director-general ... shall not seek or receive instructions from any government. Brazil refused. In March the US government accused Bustani of financial mismanagement, demoralisation of his staff, bias and ill-considered initiatives. It warned that if he wanted to avoid damage to his reputation, he must resign. Again, the US was trampling the convention, which insists that member states shall not seek to influence the staff. He refused to go. On March 19 the US proposed a vote of no confidence in Bustani. It lost. So it then did something unprecedented in the history of multi lateral diplomacy. It called a special session of the member states to oust him. The session begins on Sunday. And this time the US is likely to get what it wants. Since losing the vote last month, the United States, which is supposed to be the organisation's biggest donor, has been twisting the arms of weaker nations, refusing to pay its dues unless they support it, with the result that the OPCW could go under. Last week Bustani told me, the Europeans are so afraid that the US will abandon the convention that they are prepared to sacrifice my post to keep it on board. His last hope is that the United Kingdom, whose record of support for the organisation has so far been exemplary, will make a stand. The meeting on Sunday will present Tony Blair's government with one of the clearest choices it has yet faced between multilateralism and the special relationship. The US has not sought to substantiate the charges it has made against Bustani. The OPCW is certainly suffering from a financial crisis, but that is largely because the US unilaterally capped its budget and then failed to pay what it owed. The organisation's accounts have just been audited and found to be perfectly sound. Staff morale is higher than any organisation as underfunded as the OPCW could reasonably expect. Bustani's real crimes are contained in the last two charges, of bias and ill-considered initiatives. The charge of bias arises precisely because the OPCW is not biased. It has sought to examine facilities in the United States with the same rigour with which it examines facilities anywhere else. But, just like Iraq, the US has refused to accept weapons inspectors from countries it regards as hostile to its interests, and has told those who have been allowed in which parts of a site they may and may not inspect. It has also passed special legislation permitting the president to block unannounced inspections, and banning inspectors from removing samples of its chemicals. Ill-considered initiatives is code for the attempts Bustani has made, in line with
Cuba is 'too fun to be a regime' [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- AP. 21 April 2002. Some Americans Embrace Their Lives in Cuba, Holding to Socialist Ideals . HAVANA -- The wall of windows at Lorna Burdsall's seventh floor apartment overlooks a bay ringed by trash. The vintage red elevator, installed before Fidel Castro seized power, is decrepit. Still, the American widow of Red Beard - the socialist revolutionary who went on to become Cuba's top intelligence chief - says her 47 years in the Caribbean country have given her few complaints. The heat is one of the few things that I haven't gotten used to in Cuba, says Burdsall, 73, apologizing for not hearing the doorbell at first because she had retreated to her air-conditioned bedroom. Burdsall, who moved to Cuba from New York in 1955, is one of more than a dozen Americans who call this communist island home, still clinging to the ideals of a socialist revolution as capitalism expands its hold around the globe. I would like to be a good communist, but I don't think they exist, the white-haired fiery grandmother says. Socialism, however, is a good step toward that perfect society; it's an interim. Amitai Etzioni, a sociologist at George Washington University who specializes in American culture, said: Leftists are looking for a place for their beliefs and Cuba is one of the last hopes, a remnant of communism. In Burdsall's sparse apartment on the outskirts of Havana, there are no outward signs of her revolutionary life except for faded pictures of herself with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara and her husband, Manuel Pineiro, known as Barbarroja for the thick red beard he grew while a guerrilla in the Sierra Maestra. The Cuba that Burdsall now calls home is a world away from the place she discovered after marrying Pineiro, whose older brothers owned a distributing agency for Hatuey beer and Bacardi rum. He was studying business administration at Columbia University when he met her. He was dancing the most fabulous mambo, Burdsall recalls. After marrying him, Burdsall put her career as a dancer on hold to follow her husband and his dream of starting a revolution in Cuba. Shortly after their arrival, Pineiro was engrossed in the pro-Castro underground working to overthrow the dictator Fulgencio Batista. When we came, it was very dangerous, she says. We moved around a lot. The conditions were terrible. I remember ants in the soup and staying in places where the rats would eat my high-heeled shoes. Burdsall became pregnant and before long, was keeping weapons and ammunition in her baby's room. The guns - like her husband - eventually ended up in the Sierra Maestra where Castro and his rebels were training to overthrow Batista. Two years after their victory in 1959, Pineiro was named deputy minister of the interior and went on to head Cuba's security and intelligence operations. He later helped train leftist groups throughout Latin America. He was completely committed to the revolution, she says. Burdsall resumed her own career in dance, founding the Compania Danza Contemporanea and becoming national director of dance and modern dance under the culture ministry. She traveled frequently back and forth to the United States and eventually divorced Pineiro after 20 years of marriage. He died three years ago. Today, although still committed to her husband's dreams, Burdsall openly criticizes Cuba. She says low wages and a dependency on U.S. dollars has forced some doctors - who earn the equivalent of $20 a month - to work as piano players to earn the coveted currency. But she believes the good outweighs the bad. I think that if Manuel were alive today he would say that most of the things they set out to accomplish in the revolution were achieved, particularly in the areas of education, medicine and the arts, but it's only logical that some would be disappointed with the way some things turned out. Michael Fuller's journey to Cuba in 1994 was motivated by politics, not love. He came as a member of the solidarity brigades, an international group dedicated to helping Cubans that he joined while living in Spain. I thought about returning to Spain but all things pointed to me staying. My very presence was an act of solidarity, says the 37-year-old native of Syracuse, N.Y. He lives in Tarara, a town 14 miles east of Havana where more than 15,000 children and adults affected by Ukraine's 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster have received medical treatment. Fuller, who now works as a writer and teacher, says he's committed to Cuba's communist policies. I eat great. I don't miss ownership and I have come to accept the philosophy, he says. I suppose I could use a car, but I don't miss the commercials on TV and I've gained serenity here. I've also gained a family and faith in the future. Fuller criticizes U.S. perceptions of Cuba. Some still refer to Cuba as a regime but it's too fun to be a regime. I don't rule out returning to the
Fwd: Lettre de Nouvelles des Mai Mai (3) [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- In a message dated 18/04/02 18:45:07 Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Subj:Lettre de Nouvelles des Mai Mai (3) Date:18/04/02 18:45:07 Eastern Daylight Time From:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent from the Internet Le général JOSEPH PADIRI BULENDA David vient de publier un Communiqué de Presse concernant l'accord de réunification du Territoire National Regardez l'URL suivant: http://www.congo-mai-mai.net/avr02/com18avr_02.html Constantin Muhondosi Chargé de Relations Extérieurs Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ou [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel.: 00 243 98301060 --- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^ ---BeginMessage--- Title: Lettre de Nouvelles des Mai Mai (3) Le général JOSEPH PADIRI BULENDA David vient de publier un Communiqué de Presse concernant l'accord de réunification du Territoire National Regardez l'URL suivant: http://www.congo-mai-mai.net/avr02/com18avr_02.html Constantin Muhondosi Chargé de Relations Extérieurs Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ou [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel.: 00 243 98301060 ---End Message---
ICTY to move against KLA?????? [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- [Who will be arrested??? Thaci, Ceku, Rexhepi, Haradinaj, Albright???...not bloody likely! Don't even bother holding your breath on this one..] U.N. May Indict Kosovo Albanian By GARENTINA KRAJA .c The Associated Press PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - The chief U.N. prosecutor said Friday that a Balkan war crimes tribunal that has so far focused on Serbian suspects may finish investigations into ethnic Albanian rebels in Kosovo later this year and hand down indictments. Carla del Ponte met top Kosovo officials at the end of a three-day Balkan tour in which she pressed governments in Bosnia and Serbia to hand over indicted suspects for trial in The Hague, Netherlands. The U.N. war crimes tribunal has been criticized for alleged bias against Serbs. Most of those indicted for crimes in the Croatian, Bosnian and Kosovo wars are Serbs held responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. No ethnic Albanian has been publicly indicted so far for wrongdoing. But Del Ponte said her investigators hoped to finish probes later this year into three cases involving suspects from the Kosovo Liberation Army, a rebel group that fought for independence of the Yugoslav province. ``I'm sure that this year we will issue the first indictment,'' she said. Standing at her side, Michael Steiner, the top U.N. official running the province, said his mission will offer full support to prosecute those responsible for war crimes, regardless of their origin. ``There is no nationality when it comes to war crimes,'' Steiner said. Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova and Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi pledged their support. ``We have said before that no one stands above the law,'' Rexhepi said. ``The tribunal has the right to investigate in every place where the fighting took place.'' NATO's air war in 1999 ended former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanians that left at least 10,000 of them killed. Milosevic is currently on trial in the Hague. A committee gathering information on crimes against humanity and violations of international law in Belgrade says 3,276 Serbs and other non-Albanians are missing since the 1998-2001 conflict in Kosovo. Most of the victims were killed or abducted after NATO-led peacekeepers and the United Nations took over the province in June 1999, according to the committee. On Friday, assailants hurled a hand grenade into the last Serb-owned restaurant in the predominantly ethnic Albanian town of Presevo in southern Serbia, near the Kosovo border. No one was injured, but the restaurant was ruined, a Yugoslav government statement said. 04/19/02 12:56 EDT --- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Bush: Hard choices, real leadership needed [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
Title: Message HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- Bush: Hard choices, real leadership needed From the Washington Politics Policy DeskPublished 4/20/2002 10:26 AM WASHINGTON, April 20 (UPI) -- Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat must act to end acts of terrorism and Israel must continue troop withdrawals from Palestinian territory to diffuse the current crisis in the Middle East, President George Bush said Saturday, Long-term peace and security, however, will require "real leadership." "All parties must realize that the only long-term solution is for two states -- Israel and Palestine -- to live side by side in security and peace," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "This will require hard choices and real leadership by Israelis and Palestinians, and their Arab neighbors. "The time is now for all of us to make the choice for peace. America will continue to work toward this vision of peace in the Middle East." The president's remarks follow the return to Washington by Secretary of State Colin Powell from a six-day mission to the region, during which he met both Sharon and Arafat. No cease-fire was brokered by Powell, but Arafat met U.S. demands to publicly condemn the acts of Palestinian terrorism that have killed scores of Israelis in recent weeks. Sharon also began withdrawing troops from some Palestinian areas occupied in response to the terrorism. "In this region, we are confronting hatred that is centuries old, and disputes that have been ignored for decades," Bush said. He said the Palestinian Authority "must act on its words of condemnation against terror. Israel must continue its withdrawals. All Arab nations must confront terror in their own region. All parties must stop funding or inciting terror, and must state clearly that a murderer is not a martyr; he or she is just a murderer." Bush also used his weekly address to give a pep talk on U.S. efforts against terrorism following Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the country. He noted that in addition to military action in Afghanistan, 161 countries have joined together to block more than $100 million in financial assets of suspect organizations, and more than 1,600 terrorists and their supporters have been arrested or detained in 95 countries. "We're making progress," he said. "Yet nothing about this war will be quick or easy. We face dangers and sacrifices ahead." But, he added, "We are determined, we are steadfast, and we will continue for as long as it takes, until the mission is done." Copyright 2002 United Press International --- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
RE: Cuba is 'too fun to be a regime' [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- Today, although still committed to her husband's dreams, Burdsall openly criticizes Cuba. Ah, but impossible. Free speech exists only in western democracies. :-) Barry Stoller wrote: AP. 21 April 2002. Some Americans Embrace Their Lives in Cuba, Holding to Socialist Ideals . HAVANA -- The wall of windows at Lorna Burdsall's seventh floor apartment overlooks a bay ringed by trash. The vintage red elevator, installed before Fidel Castro seized power, is decrepit. Still, the American widow of Red Beard - the socialist revolutionary who went on to become Cuba's top intelligence chief - says her 47 years in the Caribbean country have given her few complaints. The heat is one of the few things that I haven't gotten used to in Cuba, says Burdsall, 73, apologizing for not hearing the doorbell at first because she had retreated to her air-conditioned bedroom. Burdsall, who moved to Cuba from New York in 1955, is one of more than a dozen Americans who call this communist island home, still clinging to the ideals of a socialist revolution as capitalism expands its hold around the globe. I would like to be a good communist, but I don't think they exist, the white-haired fiery grandmother says. Socialism, however, is a good step toward that perfect society; it's an interim. Amitai Etzioni, a sociologist at George Washington University who specializes in American culture, said: Leftists are looking for a place for their beliefs and Cuba is one of the last hopes, a remnant of communism. In Burdsall's sparse apartment on the outskirts of Havana, there are no outward signs of her revolutionary life except for faded pictures of herself with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara and her husband, Manuel Pineiro, known as Barbarroja for the thick red beard he grew while a guerrilla in the Sierra Maestra. The Cuba that Burdsall now calls home is a world away from the place she discovered after marrying Pineiro, whose older brothers owned a distributing agency for Hatuey beer and Bacardi rum. He was studying business administration at Columbia University when he met her. He was dancing the most fabulous mambo, Burdsall recalls. After marrying him, Burdsall put her career as a dancer on hold to follow her husband and his dream of starting a revolution in Cuba. Shortly after their arrival, Pineiro was engrossed in the pro-Castro underground working to overthrow the dictator Fulgencio Batista. When we came, it was very dangerous, she says. We moved around a lot. The conditions were terrible. I remember ants in the soup and staying in places where the rats would eat my high-heeled shoes. Burdsall became pregnant and before long, was keeping weapons and ammunition in her baby's room. The guns - like her husband - eventually ended up in the Sierra Maestra where Castro and his rebels were training to overthrow Batista. Two years after their victory in 1959, Pineiro was named deputy minister of the interior and went on to head Cuba's security and intelligence operations. He later helped train leftist groups throughout Latin America. He was completely committed to the revolution, she says. Burdsall resumed her own career in dance, founding the Compania Danza Contemporanea and becoming national director of dance and modern dance under the culture ministry. She traveled frequently back and forth to the United States and eventually divorced Pineiro after 20 years of marriage. He died three years ago. Today, although still committed to her husband's dreams, Burdsall openly criticizes Cuba. She says low wages and a dependency on U.S. dollars has forced some doctors - who earn the equivalent of $20 a month - to work as piano players to earn the coveted currency. But she believes the good outweighs the bad. I think that if Manuel were alive today he would say that most of the things they set out to accomplish in the revolution were achieved, particularly in the areas of education, medicine and the arts, but it's only logical that some would be disappointed with the way some things turned out. Michael Fuller's journey to Cuba in 1994 was motivated by politics, not love. He came as a member of the solidarity brigades, an international group dedicated to helping Cubans that he joined while living in Spain. I thought about returning to Spain but all things pointed to me staying. My very presence was an act of solidarity, says the 37-year-old native of Syracuse, N.Y. He lives in Tarara, a town 14 miles east of Havana where more than 15,000 children and adults affected by Ukraine's 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster have received medical treatment. Fuller, who now works as a writer and teacher, says he's committed to Cuba's communist policies. I eat great. I don't miss ownership and I have come to accept the philosophy, he says.
UK: Suicide Killer - Everyman - BBC1 Wednesday 2:30am [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- Everyman - Suicide Killers. BBC1 Wednesday Morning - 2:30am. (UK Only) Definately one to set the video for, this is, despite it's sensationalist title, one of the most inspiring (and almost sympathetic) portrayals of what it takes to become a martyr in a sacrifice action. With much actual footage from guerrilla organisations such as those in Palestine and Sri Lankaand interviews with members of suicide squads (including a deeply moving and eloquant interview with an 8-year old Palestinian girl who explains her desire to grow up to become a suicide bomber for the resistance) contrasted with interviews with the clearly loaded bourgeois families of thecapitalist scum who died on S11, this programme really places the whole debate on how and why people make this ultimate sacrifice into a clear focus. One to show at meetings along withthe previously shown BBC2 Correspondent programme on the Palestinian Resistance. Brilliant. It was shown several weeks back and is now (thankfully)being repeated (with signing) as part of the BBC's programmes for the deaf (hence the ungodly hour of broadcast). YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS PROGRAMME! SET THE VIDEO NOW. (VideoPlus code - 8826057) --- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Iraq: $25,000 for each Jenin homeless [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- Reuters. 21 April 2002. Saddam orders $25,000 for each Jenin homeless. BAGHDAD -- Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on Sunday ordered $25,000 to be given to each Palestinian whose house was destroyed during the Israeli assault on the Jenin refugee camp, the official Iraqi News Agency said. The agency said Saddam had chaired a cabinet meeting that reviewed the situation in the Middle East and the fate of Palestinian people facing a hateful, bloody, criminal Zionist scheme. The agency quoted a statement by the cabinet as saying the president has ordered the allocation of $25,000 for each house demolished in Jenin by the criminal Zionists. A senior U.N. official said on Sunday initial assessments showed that about 800 dwellings had been destroyed and many more damaged in the Jenin camp, making 4,000 to 5,000 people homeless. Saddam earlier this month ordered 10 million euros ($8.8 million) be allocated to support a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation which began in September 2000. Baghdad offers cash to relatives of Palestinians killed in clashes with Israeli troops and free education in Iraqi universities to Palestinians living in territories under Palestinian Authority rule. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews --- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
70 Mexicans Dead Crossing into U.S. [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- . . Global and Local Analysis Action ... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] [Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ] . . - Original Message - From: Walter Lippmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Change Links [EMAIL PROTECTED]; CubaNews [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, April 21, 2002 4:02 AM Subject: [CubaNews] 70 Mexicans Dead Crossing into U.S. Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - Luis A. Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] 70 MEXICANS HAVE DIED IN 4 MONTHS ATTEMPTING TO ENTER US Rights of undocumented violated; Mexican government looks the other way Han muerto 70 mexicanos en cuatro meses en su intento por cruzar hacia EE.UU. (Sigue versión en Español) De la Torre: Number of Mexicans crossing the border does not decrease by ANDRES T. MORALES JORGE A. CORNEJO Y CRISTOBAL CARCIA La Jornada CBIACS Press Review 4/20/02 So far this year, 70 Mexicans have died attempting to cross the border into the United States without documentation. It is estimated that one Mexican will die every day while attempting to cross the border, said the general director of Migrant Services of the Presidential Office for Mexicans Abroad, Omar de la Torre de la Mora. Interviewed at Boca del Río, Veracruz, he remembered that 380 Mexicans died last year, most of them from either drowning in the river or dehydrating in the desert. At the same time, he admitted that, following the attacks of September 11, violence and harassment towards the Mexican community in the U.S. increased to such an extent that 50 consulates had to be placed on alert. Speaking at the inauguration of the Eleventh National Meeting of State Offices for Migrant Services, the federal official pointed out that recent statistics show that the flow of migrants attempting to cross the northern border has not decreased. Also at this meeting, the participants unanimously rebuked a U.S. Supreme Court ruling against Mexican workers, describing it as a legal blunder that increases the vulnerability of migrants. Despite the hardening of U.S. immigration policy following the attacks, 70 Mexicans died during the first 14 weeks of the year. He explained that most drowned in the river or died of dehydration in the desert. He added that the highest death rate occurs in the desert stretches between Sonora and Arizona and Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, the most dangerous point on the border. Officials Fired Felipe de Jesús Preciado Coronado, commissioner for the National Institute of Migration (INM) said that 900 officials were removed from their positions due to various errors and crimes. 180 of these were fired mainly for assaulting Central American undocumented migrants and 12 were brought before the Public Ministry on charges of belonging to bands dedicated to illegal human trafficking. On the other hand, the California Foundation for Rural Assistance, an international organization known for its defense of the rights of the undocumented, condemned the Mexican government for not taking a position at the U. N. Human Rights Commission against the U.S. immigrant control operatives at the southern California border. The organization's director, Claudia Smith, said that the Mexican diplomats at the work sessions of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland set forth their positions regarding human rights situations around the world, such as Cuba and Iraq, but said nothing about the problems confronting the prospective undocumented migrants at the border band between the U.S. and Mexico. Meanwhile, a truck bearing the logo of the international delivery company, Fedex was used to transport 15 Mexicans wishing to travel to Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Translated by Luis Martin -- No baja el número de connacionales que buscan atravesar la frontera: De la Torre Han muerto 70 mexicanos en cuatro meses en su intento por cruzar hacia Estados Unidos ANDRES T. MORALES JORGE A. CORNEJO Y CRISTOBAL CARCIA CORRESPONSALES En lo que va del año, 70 connacionales han fallecido en la frontera norte, en su intento por ingresar de manera indocumentada a Estados Unidos. Se estima que durante 2002 morirá un mexicano diariamente al buscar cruzar la zona, sostuvo el director general de Atención a Migrantes de la Oficina Presidencial para Mexicanos en el Exterior, Omar de la Torre de la Mora. Entrevistado en Boca del Río, Veracruz, recordó que el año anterior fallecieron 380 mexicanos, en su mayoría ahogados en el río Bravo y deshidratados en el desierto. Pese a que desde septiembre se endureció la política migratoria estadunidense, el flujo de migrantes se mantiene, señaló. Asimismo, admitió que tras los atentados del 11 de septiembre se incrementó la violencia y el hostigamiento hacia la comunidad mexicana radicada en Estados Unidos, por lo que se pusieron en alerta los 50 consulados. Presente en la inauguración de la Decimoprimera reunión nacional de oficinas estatales para la atención de los
Make Or Break For Bush [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
Title: Message HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- Make Or Break For BushPresident George W. Bush faces a crisis that will make or break his presidency. Ironically, to use his words applied to Yasser Arafat, Bush finds himself in a situation of his own making.Last week, the president was publicly humiliated by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who arrogantly ignored Bush's repeated calls for the Israelis to stop their military operation and pull out of the West Bank. The secretary of state was also publicly humiliated. The king of Morocco kept him cooling his heels for two hours before consenting to see him and then, in front of the press, embarrassed him with a hostile but legitimate question, "Why are you here instead of in Jerusalem?" All of the Arab leaders, in fact, instead of heeding Bush's demand that they condemn terrorism, laid new demands on the United States.Bush seriously misread Sharon. That's probably because he is ignorant of the Middle East and its history. I think he relies on his staff to give him little yes-or-no choices to make. If Bush had bothered to read the British and Israeli press or, God forbid, one or two books on the conflict, he would have known: Sharon started the intifada; Sharon has been the one who has refused to negotiate for the past 14 months; Sharon has systematically destroyed the Palestinian Authority and the Oslo peace process; and Sharon does not intend to yield an inch of the West Bank.All of this time, Bush has apparently thought that if the Palestinians would just lie down, Sharon would resume the negotiations. Apparently, he wasn't aware that Arafat did keep the peace for three weeks, and Sharon's response was to start a program of systematically assassinating Palestinian political leaders. Bush, of course, routinely condemns every act of resistance by the Palestinians, and the most he has ever said to the Israelis is, "Gee, I hope you show some restraint."So now his reputation and that of the United States is at stake. It isn't just the Arab world that is fed up with Israel's brutality and flaunting of international law and America's one-sided support for Israel. It's the European Union, the United Nations and Russia. Serious demonstrations against Israel and the United States are taking place all over the world.So here's Bush's dilemma: Sharon will not stop his military operation. Sharon will not negotiate with the Palestinians. Bush will have to force him. The reason Sharon feels confident in humiliating the president is because he believes that the Israeli lobby has such a lock on Congress that it will prevent Bush from taking any measures to punish him for his defiance. Hence, when Bush butts heads with Sharon, he will also have to butt heads with the Israeli lobby.The question upon which the success or failure of his administration depends is, does Bush have the guts to do that? I don't know. We'll just have to wait and see. If Bush caves in to Sharon, American prestige will plummet, and his coalition for his war on terrorism will fall apart. Moreover, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will eventually start a wider war in the Middle East, for which Bush will be justly blamed.The reason this is a situation of his own making is that Bush should have pressured Sharon into negotiations 14 months ago, instead of falling for Sharon's ruse that he wouldn't talk while Palestinians were resisting the occupation. Bush should have been equally critical of the Israeli violence. It has apparently taken him 14 months to realize that the Palestinian violence is provoked by the Israeli violence.His popularity, while still high, is already starting to drop, and if he lets Ariel Sharon walk all over him, I predict he will be a one-term president. The larger question for the American people is this: Who runs American foreign policy, the elected president or the Israeli lobby?Charley Reese can be contacted at [EMAIL PROTECTED]. 2002 by King Features Syndicate, Inchttp://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20020419/index.php --- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Palestine Update Apr 21 [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- . . Global and Local Analysis Action ... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] [Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ] . . - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, April 21, 2002 2:42 PM Subject: [kominform2] Palestine Update Apr 21 UPDATE: Ramallah April 21, 2002: Urgent alert: We have been informed by people inside the Presidential Compound that they have received information from a reliable IDF source that a special commander force is planning to enter the building today. April 20, 2002: 17.55:The power station supplying the area of Ramallah has been bombed and both Ramallah and Al-Bireh are now without electricity. _ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Buy Stock for $4 and no minimums. FREE Money 2002. http://us.click.yahoo.com/orkH0C/n97DAA/ySSFAA/VL0olB/TM -~- Peruuta ryhmän tilaus lähettämällä sähköpostia osoitteeseen: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ --- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
British activist seeks Kissinger arrest [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- Reuters. 21 April 2002. British Activist Seeks Kissinger Arrest. LONDON -- A British human rights activist said he would apply to a London court on Monday for an arrest warrant to be issued against former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on war crimes charges. The action comes days after a Spanish judge called for the Nobel peace prize winning statesman to be questioned by international police about crimes committed by South American military dictatorships in the 1970s and 80s. Peter Tatchell, a political and gay rights activist, said he would seek a warrant at London's Bow Street Magistrates Court for Kissinger's arrest on charges of war crimes under the Geneva Conventions. British law states that violations of the Geneva Conventions are war crimes. There are no immunities from prosecution, Tatchell said in a statement. British police said they were unaware of Tatchell's court application. Tatchell said Monday's warrant, if issued, would allege that Kissinger had commissioned, aided and abetted and procured war crimes in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia while he was President Richard Nixon's National Security Adviser from 1969 to 1973, and secretary of state from 1973-77 under the governments of Nixon and his successor Gerald Ford. German-born Kissinger is due in London on Wednesday to address a meeting of Britain's Institute of Directors. Last week, Spanish High Court judge Balthazar Garzon asked Interpol to question Kissinger in London about whether he knew of human rights abuses by Latin American governments while he was serving in Washington. The judge's order called for authorities to ask Kissinger if he knew of Operation Condor -- a plan by regimes in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay to persecute opponents. Kissinger's spokesman said he would cooperate with the Spanish judge's inquiry but stressed he was seen as a witness and not as accused. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews --- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
How the British fought terror in Jenin [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
Title: Message HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- How the British fought terror in JeninBy Rafael Medoff (April 18) 'Demolishing the homes of Arab civilians... Shooting handcuffed prisoners... Forcing local Arabs to test areas where mines may have been planted..." These sound like the sort of accusations made by British and other European officials concerning Israel's recent actions in Jenin. In fact, they are descriptions from official British documents concerning the methods used by the British authorities to combat Palestinian Arab terrorism in Jenin and elsewhere in 1938. The documents were declassified by London in 1989. They provide details of the British Mandatory government's response to the assassination of a British district commissioner by a Palestinian Arab terrorist in Jenin in the summer of 1938. Even after the suspected assassin was captured (and then shot dead while allegedly trying to escape), the British authorities decided that "a large portion of the town should be blown up" as punishment. On August 25 of that year, a British convoy brought 4,200 kilos of explosives to Jenin for that purpose. In the Jenin operation and on other occasions, local Arabs were forced to drive "mine-sweeping taxis" ahead of British vehicles in areas where Palestinian Arab terrorists were believed to have planted mines, in order "to reduce [British] landmine casualties." The British authorities frequently used these and similar methods to combat Palestinian Arab terrorism in the late 1930s. BRITISH forces responded to the presence of terrorists in the Arab village of Miar, north of Haifa, by blowing up house after house in October 1938. "When the troops left, there was little else remaining of the once-busy village except a pile of mangled masonry," The New York Times reported. The declassified documents refer to an incident in Jaffa in which a handcuffed prisoner was shot by the British police. Under Emergency Regulation 19b, the British Mandate government could demolish any house located in a village where terrorists resided, even if that particular house had no direct connection to terrorist activity. Mandate official Hugh Foot later recalled: "When we thought that a village was harboring rebels, we'd go there and mark one of the large houses. Then, if an incident was traced to that village, we'd blow up the house we'd marked." The High Commissioner for Palestine, Harold MacMichael, defended the practice: "The provision is drastic, but the situation has demanded drastic powers." MacMichael was furious over what he called the "grossly exaggerated accusations" that England's critics were circulating concerning British anti-terror tactics in Palestine. Arab allegations that British soldiers gouged out the eyes of Arab prisoners were quoted prominently in the Nazi German press and elsewhere. The declassified documents also record discussions among officials of the Colonial Office concerning the rightness or wrongness of the anti-terror methods used in Palestine. Lord Dufferin remarked: "British lives are being lost and I don't think that we, from the security of Whitehall, can protest squeamishly about measures taken by the men in the frontline." Sir John Shuckburgh defended the tactics on the grounds that the British were confronted "not with a chivalrous opponent playing the game according to the rules, but with gangsters and murderers." There were many differences between British policy in the 1930s and Israeli policy today, but one stands out - the British, faced with a level of Palestinian Arab terrorism considerably less lethal than that which Israel faces today, utilized anti-terror methods considerably harsher than those used by Israeli forces. The writer is visiting scholar in the Jewish Studies Program at SUNY-Purchase. His most recent book is Baksheesh Diplomacy: Secret Negotiations Between American Jewish Leaders and Arab Officials on the Eve of World War II (Lexington Books, 2001) http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2002/04/18/Columns/Columns.47190.html --- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
