-Caveat Lector- [radtimes] # 176 An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities. "We're living in rad times!" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Send $$ to RadTimes!! --> (See ** at end.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents: --The Fall of a Hells Angel Leader --US urged to create new space-spying office --Private US firm training both sides in Balkans --The Zapatista Army Marches through all America --Killer Nation --Sudanese children trade in guns for schoolbooks =================================================================== The Fall of a Hells Angel Leader <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15406-2001Mar2.html?GXHC_gx_session_id_FutureTenseContentServer=e2215344abdef117&referer=email> Indictment Alleges Spokesman's Charity Masks Drug Ring By Jeff Adler Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, March 3, 2001; Page A07 VENTURA, Calif. - George Christie Jr., national spokesman for the Hells Angels biker group, ran the 1984 Olympic Torch Relay to raise money for charity. He once poured cash into a children's museum to rescue it from financial collapse. But prosecutors here say his philanthropy has been nothing more than a front for a criminal organization that targeted teenagers to sell and buy drugs. Christie, 53, also president of the local biker chapter, appeared in state court here this week asking a judge to lower the $1 million bond authorities are holding him on while he awaits trial on a variety of drug and racketeering charges. The judge refused Christie's request and sent him back to jail. The charges Christie faces, fraud, theft, selling drugs to benefit a street gang, firearms possession and tax evasion, are the culmination of a four-year investigation during which prosecutors used wiretaps and informants to penetrate the Ventura County chapter of the Hells Angels. Last week, a county grand jury indicted 28 members and associates of the Hells Angels, including Christie's wife, Cheryl Christie, 53, the couple's son, George Christie III, 24, and their daughter, Moriya Christie, 29, a lawyer who sometimes represents Hells Angels in court. The family faces more than 50 criminal counts altogether. The 197-page indictment details how the local chapter of the international biker group allegedly funneled hundreds of thousands of tranquilizer and painkiller pills from the Los Angeles Air Force Base through a group of teens called "The Outfit" who were recruited to sell the drugs to high school students here. "We're alleging that the Outfit kids sold drugs on campus and that they were associated with the Hells Angels street gang," said Jeff Bennett, chief deputy district attorney for Ventura County. The drugs initially came from Joshua Adams, 23, an airman who worked in a medical clinic at the air base, Bennett said. Adams allegedly stole about 700,000 pills of Valium and the pain medication Vicodin, which he sold to a Hells Angel, according to the indictment. Christie's attorney, Barry Tarlow, declined to comment on the case. Tarlow is a former federal prosecutor who won an acquittal for Christie in a 1987 murder-for-hire case. That trial notwithstanding, Christie has spent more than two decades trying to improve the image of the oft-maligned Hells Angels, all while keeping members' rugged, tattoo-covered exteriors. For many years, he has owned a tattoo parlor in Ventura called The Ink House, the same one prosecutors allege was a front for Christie's criminal enterprise. Some neighbors are reluctant to talk about Christie. But other merchants describe him as "polite" and "very friendly." In 1984, Christie raised $3,000 for the Special Olympics when he ran in the torch relay and later took officials of the charity to court to ensure that the money benefited mentally retarded children, not administrators. He has lectured in colleges and high schools about ethics. When the nearby Gull Wings Children's Museum faced bankruptcy in 1997, Christie and his motorcycle brethren organized a concert that raised more than $5,000. "Had they not done that, the museum would have closed," said Leana Bowman, the museum's executive director. Law enforcement officials dismiss these acts as infrequent stabs at improving the bikers' public relations. But Christie has caused many in this beach community to rethink their opinions of the Hells Angels. "I think most people see the Hells Angels today as a radical group from the past that's aging and now more interested in doing something good," said merchant Doug Halter. "I guess the concern is whether that's strictly a facade or that's who they are." Christie's public image has suffered setbacks, none more noteworthy than the 1987 trial, in which prosecutors charged that he solicited the murder of a former Angels associate who had turned informant. Tarlow argued that law enforcement set up Christie because they believed his running in the Olympic torch relay was an affront to patriotism. Two weeks after his acquittal in that case, Christie celebrated with a barbecue. Five jurors showed their support by attending. Christie stirred controversy more recently when hundreds of Harley-riding Angels descended on Ventura for the club's 50th anniversary. The celebration was relatively peaceful, with hundreds of bikers posing for a photograph on the steps of Ventura's City Hall before retreating to the Angels' clubhouse. "We were real nervous about having lots of different Hells Angels come to the town," said Donna De Paola, a council member who added that "there were probably more policemen in town than Hells Angels." But Ventura County District Attorney Michael D. Bradbury says authorities haven't been fooled by Christie and his cohorts. The Hells Angels gang has "basically been a criminal enterprise since its inception, and that's true of the Ventura County chapter," Bradbury said. "They've just been smarter than most because they've had a fairly intelligent guy as their president. He recognizes the value of good public relations, and that has served him well." =================================================================== US urged to create new space-spying office http://www.arabia.com/article/0,1690,Tech|41290,00.html Declining attention and funding may hider work on super-secret projects, commission warns March 03, 2001 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A US commission has recently recommended creating an office cloaked in secrecy to pursue innovative technology for spying from space, saying the existing agency was not sufficiently clandestine for the task. The National Commission for the Review of the National Reconnaissance Office said the NRO, the agency that designs, builds and operates US spy satellites, had lost some of its luster since the end of the Cold War due to inadequate funding and declining attention from the president, secretary of defense and CIA director. The commission, established by Congress in legislation that went into effect in December 1999, warned that if current trends continued the NRO might lose its edge in providing the nation its "eyes and ears" for monitoring the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and tracking international "terrorists." "Without bold and sustained leadership, the United States could find itself 'deaf and blind' and increasingly vulnerable to any of the potentially devastating threats it may face in the next ten to twenty years," the report said. Rep. Porter Goss, a Florida Republican, and Sen. Bob Kerrey, a Nebraska Democrat, served as co-chairmen of the 11-member bipartisan commission. The panel did not recommend abolishing the NRO, but said the agency had "become a publicly acknowledged organization that openly announces many of its new program initiatives," which in turn hindered its ability to tackle intelligence problems. The commission recommended creating a new Office of Space Reconnaissance to work on super-secret projects to gain technological advantage in space-related spying. Boldness and risk-taking urged "Evolution is continuously moving forward in technology, and I think that those things should be done very discreetly and with boldness and risk-taking. And we need to create a mechanism that can allow those things to happen," Goss, chairman of the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, told Reuters. "There are so many new things on the horizon that have such promise and they need to be pursued, but they need to be pursued in a way that we don't give the advantage to others of knowing about them, or sharing some of the things we've learned," Goss added. The National Reconnaissance Office, which marked its 40th anniversary last year, has evolved away from its original mission "to go out and do things that had never been dreamed of before, and we need that," Goss said. It also used to be given the highest level attention from the president and top US officials, the congressman added. "It's been taken for granted and it's lost some of its punch," Goss said of the NRO. "We need to get on to the next generation,'' he added. Budget constraints have delayed modernization while the proliferation of commercial imaging technologies has provided US adversaries with "unprecedented insight within our national borders, as well as into our overseas activities," the commission's report said. "Equally problematic, widespread knowledge of the NRO's existence and public speculation on how NRO satellites are used has aided terrorists and other potential adversaries in developing techniques of denial and deception to thwart US intelligence efforts," the report added. In addition, other technologies such as fiber-optic communications "render certain NRO capabilities obsolete," the report said. The report warned that the agency's resources were being stretched "and the result is a prescription for a potentially significant intelligence failure." The NRO is overseen by the Defense Department and the CIA director. An NRO spokesman said the commission's recommendations were "valuable" and the agency would look at them. The CIA declined comment. =================================================================== Private US firm training both sides in Balkans <http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/world.cfm?id=51340> Saturday, March 3, 2001 Christian Jennings In Debelde THE US government's favourite private security service has trained both sides in the latest ethnic flare-up in the Balkans. Only two years ago the rag-tag Kosovar Albanian rebels were taken in hand by the Virginia-based company of professional soldiers, Military Professional Resources Incorporated. An outfit of former US marines, helicopter pilots and special forces teams, MPRI's missions for the US government have run from flying Colombian helicopter gunships to supplying weapons to the Croatian army. Among its most recent tasks - training the Macedonian army, now shooting it out with the Albania guerrillas in and around the farming village of Tanusevce, just across the border from Kosovo. The twist symbolises perfectly how the sympathies of NATO and the UN are changing in and around Kosovo. About 200 black-uniformed Albanian fighters have taken control of Tanusevce in the last ten days and this week have clashed at least four times with some of the 300-plus Macedonian soldiers and policemen surrounding the village, which lies above the snow-line at 4,200ft in northern Macedonia. Only last summer, MPRI began working with the Macedonians. The UN refugee agency UNHCR estimates that over 500 refugees have fled the area since the fighting began last week. "There was more shooting last night, in the evening, over there beyond the ridge-line," says US Lieutenant Jeff Wilbur, from Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion, 325th Parachute Infantry Regiment, stationed with a squad of men a half mile back from the village of Debelde, some 800 yards from the border. Lt Wilbur points at a line of oak trees standing in the snow, marking the Macedonian border. Further on, inside the village, officers from the 82nd Airborne Division have their binoculars out and are watching the movements of Albanian rebels and Macedonian forces in the woods on the facing hillside. Smoke rises from a house that villagers say was set alight on Wednesday night. NATO's senior commander in Kosovo, Italian General Carlo Cabigiosu, has said Kosovo will not become a haven for rebels seeking to export violence from Kosovo, and has strengthened his troops on the border accordingly. His hand is made stronger by the training programme MPRI is giving to the higher echelons of the Macedonian army. "They've got a former two-star general heading up the programme, I think, it's high-level stuff," says one US army major inside Debelde. "If you're an ex-communist country, then MPRI are the guys for you," he says, watching a group of refugee children walk past. "MPRI have been training the Macedonian army and border police since spring of 2,000," says one MPRI employee based in the Macedonian capital, Skopje. MPRI armed and trained the Croatian army in the mid-90s, in preparation for "Operation Storm" in 1995, which saw the Croats liberate the Krajina region, forcing up to 100,000 Serbs out. Then in 1998 and 1999 MPRI was tasked with training and assisting the ethnic Albanians of the Kosovo Liberation Army in their struggle against the oppressive regime of the then-president, Slobodan Milosevic. MPRI sub-contracted some of the training programme to two British private security companies, ensuring that between 1998 and June 1999 the KLA was being armed, trained and assisted in Italy, Turkey, Kosovo and Germany by the Americans, the German external intelligence service and former and serving members of Britain's 22 SAS Regiment. Two years later, and a wave of ethnic cleansing of Kosovo's remaining Serbs at the hands of ethnic Albanians has left nearly 1,000 people murdered in 18 months. This week the two latest victims of Albanian extremism were two elderly Kosovo Serbs, axed to death in their homes in eastern Kosovo, the latest in a series of violent attacks on Kosovo's beleaguered population of ethnic minorities which is rapidly turning international sympathy away from the Kosovar Albanian cause. The incident is the latest in a series of attacks on Kosovo's minorities populations by extremist Albanians, designed to intimidate Serbs who fled Kosovo in 1999 from returning. Two weeks ago at least ten people died and up to 30 were injured in a bomb-attack on a bus carrying Serbs near the Kosovan town of Podujevo. "Day by day, the province is losing the sympathy of the international community," says Eric Morris, head the Kosovo mission of UNHCR. =================================================================== March 3rd Editorial by the daily La Nación of Costa Rica http://www.narconews.com/lanacioned.html Beyond Spectacle The Zapatista Army Marches through all América A week ago, "the march for indigenous dignity" began, from its headquarters in La Realidad, in Chiapas, led by the enigmatic subcomandante Marcos, 23 unarmed comandantes and their faces covered with ski masks, as well as indigenous groups, all of which form the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). In a week, after 3,000 kilometers and the celebration of 33 acts or special stops, the caravan will arrive in Mexico City. This long March, reminiscent of Mao - although different in that the many comandantes don't sleep in trucks but, rather, travel in a tourist bus equipped with television, air conditioning and bathroom - complies with one of the first promises by the EZLN: "Advance to the capital." On this occasion the proposal is not to defeat the government, as it announced on January 1, 1994, but, according to what its leaders have proclaimed in recent days, a dialogue for peace in Chiapas and the constitutional recognition of indigenous rights. As the caravan advances, criticism of the government of President Fox intensifies, sometimes with archaic rhetoric, but thunderous and, it seems, effective in many countries of the Third World. And the number of spectators grows each day as if this were a bicycle race. Subcomandante Marcos becomes today a national hero for diverse sectors of Mexico, culminating seven years of intense and continuous propaganda. Without a doubt, he is the consummate teacher. His role, in political, social, economic and social ideals since 1994, has discovered an unending mother lode, sustained and made even larger by the the advantage of irresponsibility that people of these kinds of movements have. This march and, in general, the actions of the EZLN are a direct matter for Mexico. But its strategy, methodology and results, positive or negative, cannot be disassociated from the reality of our countries because of the discourse it brings, its geographic proximity and its resonance, political and military, with similar movements in Latin America in recent years. For President Fox, it constitutes an enormous challenge at the dawn of his government, one that could determine, for good or for bad, his political future. But it is also for the Mexican people. The political leaders must understand that. From this perspective, the Colombian example, near and painful, represents the best laboratory. If the Mexican state cedes its most basic essence in the principles of sovereignty, legitimacy and government, the consequence is well known. The principal danger lies in not being able to distinguish, from the conceptual and practical points of view, between the justice of the indigenous demands, which must be satisfied, and the certain fact that an internal rebellion - like the alliance between drug trafficking and Colombian guerrillas - will always want and demand more. We cannot remain indifferent toward the internal situation of Mexico, above all if we look toward the south at the crisis in Colombia, Venezuela or Ecuador, whose triggers have been, in this order, drug trafficking, guerrillas and paramilitaries; the populism of a Marxist shade by President Chávez and the chaos of Ecuador aggravated by the growing opposition by indigenous groups. The common denominator of these complex situations has been the accumulation of economic and social problems, the political incapacity to react quickly with seriousness and effectiveness, a certain slumber and even complicity, in many cases, by Civil Society, reflected in the spineless city cultures. The political vacuum and governmental ineptness lead, in some cases, to rebellion, in others to messianic populism: in both cases to the fracture of the system. If these premises are joined, there is no democratic country that will be immune to the results. This is a time to observe and to learn. =================================================================== Killer Nation Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty International March 02, 2001 The USA is about to carry out its 700th execution since resuming judicial killing in 1977, Amnesty International warned today, pointing out that more than 500 of them have occurred since 1993. Nine more prisoners are scheduled to be executed in the next nine days, including two this evening. "The USA is engaged in a cruel, brutalizing, unreliable, unnecessary and hugely expensive activity for no measurable gain," Amnesty International said. "The fact that it is violating human rights standards in the process only adds to the deepening shadow being cast on its international reputation by its relentless resort to this outdated punishment." As of this morning, there had been 697 executions in 31 US states since 1977. Between this evening and next Friday, nine more prisoners are scheduled to be put to death in seven states: -- 1 March, Oklahoma: Robert Clayton - his IQ has been assessed at 68. An IQ of 70 or under indicates possible mental retardation. International standards oppose use of the death penalty against such individuals. -- 1 March, Virginia: Thomas Akers - he has borderline mental retardation and a long history of mental illness. He pleaded guilty to the crime, asked to be sentenced to death and has been allowed to drop his appeals. -- 2 March, North Carolina: Ernest McCarver - his IQ has been measured at 67. He is facing execution despite the fact that the state legislature is about to consider proposals to outlaw the use of the death penalty against the mentally disabled. Thirteen of the 38 death penalty states have enacted such legislation. -- 6 March, Georgia: Ronald Spivey, a 61-year-old is facing death in the electric chair after more than two decades on death row. -- 7 March, Missouri: Antonio Richardson - International law prohibits the use of the death penalty against those who were under 18 at the time of the crime. Antonio Richardson was 16. This would be the USA's ninth execution of a juvenile offender since January 1998, out of a known world total of 12. Richardson's IQ has been assessed at 70. -- 7 March, Texas: Dennis Dowthitt - he has been diagnosed with serious mental illness. His lawyers are fighting for a reprieve so that they can further investigate his long-held claims of innocence. -- 8 March, Oklahoma: Phillip Smith - he has consistently maintained his innocence. He was convicted on circumstantial evidence. In 1999, the prosecution's key trial witness, who put Smith at the crime scene, recanted his testimony. -- 9 March, North Carolina: Willie Fisher - he was defended by a lawyer whose severe depression and other health problems meant that did not adequately prepare for the trial. He was subsequently disbarred for failing to properly represent clients. International standards require that capital defendants be provided with adequate legal representation above and beyond the protection afforded in non-capital cases. -- 9 March, Delaware: David Dawson - he has been incarcerated for 15 years. He has learned to read and write on death row. He is held in his cell 24 hours a day, except for 45 minutes of recreation, alone, followed by 15 minutes to shower three times a week. Since 1977, there have been about half a million murders in the USA. The 700 men and women executed so far have been selected by a system riddled with arbitrariness, discrimination and error. It is a lethal lottery of which the USA should be ashamed, and which other countries should condemn. "The victims of violent crime and their families deserve respect, compassion and justice", Amnesty International said. "Killing a selection of prisoners offers none of these things. It is an illusory solution to a pressing social problem, and merely amounts to a failure of political vision." Among the 700 were those who committed their crimes when they were still children, the mentally impaired, those denied adequate legal representation, foreign nationals denied their consular rights, and defendants whose guilt remained in doubt. Race continues to play a role in who gets a death sentence. In over 80 per cent of the 700 cases, the crimes involved white victims. "There is no evidence that the US authorities have prevented a single crime with this policy," Amnesty International continued. "They have diverted countless millions of dollars away from more constructive efforts to fight crime. And the macabre absurdity is that it creates more victims - the family members of the condemned - often in the name of victims' rights." "The death penalty is a symptom of a culture of violence, not a solution to it. The sooner US politicians begin to find the political courage to educate public opinion rather than hide behind it, the better". Since the USA resumed executions in 1977, over 60 countries have abolished the death penalty. Currently, 108 countries, are abolitionist in law or practice. =================================================================== TUESDAY, MARCH 6, 2001 Sudanese children trade in guns for schoolbooks <http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/03/06/p12s1.htm> By Associated Press MALOU, SUDAN Jumping for joy, the tall, skinny 15-year-old rushed to scoop up his new school bag. He had just been transformed from a rebel soldier into a schoolkid. "I am happy today, and if my parents were alive, they would be happy to see me getting an education," said Paulina Kwol, who has fought with the Sudan People's Liberation Army since he was 10. In a ceremony Feb. 25, Paulina and 244 other child soldiers marched and sang at an SPLA camp here in southern Sudan before being turned over to the United Nations Children's Fund, or UNICEF. Laying down their weapons, they slipped out of military uniforms into tattered civilian clothes and lunged at the school bags filled with ballpoint pens and paper, needles and thread, and a T-shirt and shorts. "If you look here, you will see children in uniform, children who know how to drill, children who are not afraid of handling guns. This is an army, this is no place for a child," said Martin Dawes, a UNICEF spokesman. The SPLA, which has fought since 1983 to try to win autonomy for the largely Christian southern Sudan from the Muslim Arab north, agreed to a request in October by UNICEF head Carol Bellamy to muster the youngsters out of the rebel camps and put them in school. "We are happy because we are sending these children to areas out of danger," SPLA commander Majak D'Agot told the departing child soldiers. "But we are sad because the lives of some young children like you have been destroyed by war. We pray that you will prosper and that you will not die young." On Feb. 27, UNICEF announced it had completed the evacuation of 2,500 demobilized child soldiers like Paulina from combat zones to safe areas to attend school and begin the search for lost families. "There's a growing recognition worldwide that children should not be in combat zones," Ms. Bellamy said last week in Geneva. "But 300,000 [worldwide] are still being used as soldiers, porters, and sex slaves. Only a global movement can make this stop." SPLA officials said thousands of youngsters were housed in their camps after losing their parents in the war or after being kidnapped into slavery, but only about 5 percent took part in fighting. "I hated marching to the front line," said Paulina, who hopes to become a Roman Catholic priest. "I love God. He created us, heaven and earth.... I don't understand politics. Had my parents not been killed, I would not have known what it means to be a soldier." But Bak Turjong, 12, wants to return to the rebel army. "I want to go to school and then go back to the army because my parents were killed," said Bak, who fought with the SPLA for two years. =================================================================== "Anarchy doesn't mean out of control. It means out of 'their' control." -Jim Dodge ====================================================== "Communications without intelligence is noise; intelligence without communications is irrelevant." -Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC ====================================================== "It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society." -J. Krishnamurti ====================================================== "The world is my country, all mankind my brethren, and to do good is my religion." -Thomas Paine ====================================================== " . . . it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds . . . 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