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Friday, June 23, 2006

  • 12:50 PM
Beyond Iraq: The Spreading Crisis

by David Finkel

THE DISASTER AND carnage of the Iraq occupation is the center of a crisis now spreading through the region, to Iran, to Afghanistan and the India-Pakistan subcontinent, and especially to Israel-Palestine, with implications far beyond.

The immediate question is whether the military adventurism of the Bush regime toward Iran will push the Middle East and the world toward an unimaginable catastrophe. In the long run, a set of deep contradictions confront any strategy for global management, (in other words imperialism) whatever political faction reigns in Washington, D.C. Those imperial contradictions also underlie the United States’ slide toward a police state at home, and for that matter, the enormous political eruption over “illegal immigration” discussed elsewhere in this issue of Against the Current.

Iraq itself is proceeding toward full meltdown. Even worse than a conventional civil war among defined political factions, Iraqi society is virtually dividing into communal and tribal fractions as people, mostly against their will, retreat into religious or ethnic “identity” for some hope of shelter from competing government and insurgent death squads.

But the argument in the United States about “whether Iraq is in civil war” is less about Iraq’s politics than about our own. The domestic discussion of Iraq has a surreal quality: While Bush and Cheney stage their “Strategy for Victory” traveling show, hardly anyone among the U.S. elites or the general population believes it any more. Even among Republicans, active defenders of Donald Rumsfeld are as elusive as the ivory-billed woodpecker. Reading between the lines, the debate seems to be whether and when to say out loud what the commentators know, the United States has lost the Iraq war.

The uncertainty over admitting defeat is mainly because neither conservatives nor liberals have much to say about what would come next, in Iraq or at home. The administration’s implicit political defense is this: To say openly “Iraq is in a civil war” is to admit that the war has failed and U.S. troops should leave. Further, combined with the debacles of Katrina, the budget deficit and illegal domestic spying, it’s to imply that the entire Bush regime is a disaster and that its top officials ought to resign in disgrace, beginning with Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. These are consequences that the U.S. political establishment can’t honestly confront.

What’s the reality behind the mushrooming revelations of killings of Iraqi civilians by United States military forces? These aren’t isolated incidents; every week now we learn of families slaughtered by U.S. troops in their homes, of a massacre in a mosque, of wild firing in all directions after a roadside bombing. In part, they reflect simple fear among soldiers under fire who can’t identify insurgents from civilians, but they also present a warning sign, just as in the Vietnam war four decades ago, of military spirit, discipline and “rational” objectives being displaced by the revenge lust of soldiers sensing they’re in a war they can’t win, or even define what “winning” would be.

This is horrific enough, but it looks like getting worse. Start with Afghanistan, parts of which were never “stabilized” following the 2001-02 invasion because the Bush administration was consumed with mobilizing resources for the conquest of Iraq and parts beyond. A revived Taliban insurgency in southern Afghanistan will occupy the NATO expeditionary force for years to come (the government of Canada, currying favor with Washington, has foolishly dragged its military into commanding this mess). As the Taliban forces enjoy support within Pakistan’s military intelligence service, this will feed into the permanent political crisis of that country.

Beyond this, Bush has signed an agreement with the government of India allowing it to continue its nuclear weapons program free of inspection, while gaining access to U.S. technology for nuclear power. The motive is to gain India’s backing for Washington’s gang-bang against “the Iranian threat” of nuclear weapons, a hypothetical possibility at least a decade away, while the most concrete and immediate risk of a nuclear showdown is between the two really-existing nuclear-armed states of the subcontinent, India and Pakistan, and to forestall an Indian orientation toward China.

The Next War

To top this off, the Bush administration has made explicit its threat of war with Iran. We discussed this in the editorial in our previous issue (ATC 121, March-April 2006), but we now know that factions in the White House—not the generals, who know insanity when they see it—are pushing for a “tactical nuclear option” against Iranian targets.

It’s not just the repetition by Cheney and Ambassador John Bolton of the formula “we are not taking any options off the table” which indicates the clear intention to go to war; it’s also Rumsfeld’s accusation that Iran is the “source” of IED (roadside bomb) materials that are killing U.S. troops in Iraq. None of these explosives, we’re supposed to believe, had been lying around in the looted Iraqi armories that U.S. commanders neglected to guard after the “liberation.”

But this accusation, however grotesque on its face, creates a pretext for future U.S. military action against Iran on grounds of “self-defense” without the need for a United Nations cover, in case the UN fails to obey imperial orders to isolate and ultimately punish Iran for its impudence.

For its part, the government of Iran, and no doubt the forces competing for supremacy in the Tehran regime’s murky internal factional life, are deeply involved in “the internal affairs” of Iraq, from the Shia militias to the political parties and perhaps some insurgent elements. Iran’s internal conflicts aside, how could any state fail to “meddle” in a neighboring country, a recent deadly enemy no less, on the verge of disintegration under a foreign occupation?

The Iranian regime’s first choice since 2003 has been to cooperate with The Great Satan in establishing a semi-theocratic Shia-controlled government in Iraq. But if the occupier’s intention is to use “liberated” Iraq as the springboard to destroy the Iranian regime, then it makes perfect sense to turn that springboard into a quicksand for the Americans, especially as assorted U.S. blunders and brutalities have accomplished much of this already.

The immediate likelihood of war with Iran remains low, at least before the November election. The Bush gang’s instinct for political survival will make it think twice about the prospects for $100-a-barrel oil and $5.00-per-gallon gasoline. The president’s political base is smaller than it was just before 9/11, and the confidence he enjoys among U.S. elites has never been weaker.

Bush’s relations with Russia, moreover, which were strong in the buildup to the Iraq war (despite Moscow’s diplomatic opposition to the invasion), have also turned somewhat sour. Nonetheless, the United States has been unexpectedly successful in enlisting European support for its anti-Iran campaign, whether because European governments want to follow the American lead, or think that joining this diplomatic front will forestall an early recourse to military strikes.

In any case, even if the insane “tactical nuclear option” disappears, bombing and “regime change” in Iran is the clear direction that the administration has staked out in either the long or short run. All of which poses the question: With the unbelievable mess the Bush regime has made for itself and the world in Iraq, how can the U.S. political establishment allow this largely discredited administration to march toward an even more dangerous debacle?

Why in particular does the Democratic Party, whose Congressional representatives are sniping at the administration’s “incompetent” handling of the current war, raise no opposition to the next one while it can be stopped? Why, after admitting they fell for the phony “Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction,” would these fools, including most of the liberal politicians and editorialists among them, accept or actively promote the fraudulent pretext for attacking Iran?

One reason is plain political cowardice, a fear of being attacked as traitors by the right wing’s attack dogs for “deserting” the cause and the troops in time of war. But at a deeper level, two fundamental factors are at work. First, most of the opposition to the Bush gang in bourgeois politics actually supports the administration’s war aims in Iraq and wants to see them more “competently” pursued (don’t ask how)—and especially, crushing any independent economic and political course for a large oil-rich country like Iran.

Second, as much as they may dislike the Bush administration, these elite opponents are even more fearful of a major defeat for U.S. power. To bring down the Bush regime at the expense of weakening U.S. imperialism would be too great a price in their view. They would not choose that risk, except under pressure from a powerful popular movement that threatened more fundamental change, a threat that the antiwar movement so far, regrettably, hasn’t been able to pose.

Israel’s “Withdrawal” to Apartheid

Over the past year, considerable speculation has focused on the possibility of Israel participating in, even initiating, a military attack on Iran. In immediate terms, the Israeli election outcome doesn’t appear to lead in this direction. Israel’s parliamentary politics are highly fractured: The newly-hatched governing Kadima party has fewer seats than expected; its leader Ehud Olmert doesn’t carry the military weight and doesn’t have the grandiose ambitions of the defunct Ariel Sharon; the long-dead Labor Party has been partly resurrected as a social-democratic force under its Moroccan-born trade unionist leader Amir Peretz, reflecting the potential for the re-emergence of class politics within the Israeli state; and the Israeli electorate showed if anything that it wants a period of quiet to deal with the country’s wracking social crises.

What may look like “peace and quiet” to inward-looking Israeli voters, however, is chaos and disaster for the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The parameters of Olmert’s program for “unilateral disengagement” and “fixing Israel’s final borders by 2010,” backed by the Bush regime and the Democrats in the United States, are fixed in practice by Israel’s Annexation Wall. This so-called “security barrier” carves the West Bank into cantons, cuts villages from their lands and from Jerusalem, and destroys the possibility of any semblance of a viable independent Palestinian state.

In the name of “two states” and “preserving the Jewish and democratic character of Israel,” the Israeli state is on the road towards “withdrawal” to apartheid on the model of the failed South African Bantustans. This is not only an obscenity but also a formula for permanent conflict, as even the most servile pro-American dictatorships in the Arab world will find it difficult to accept in the face of their own populations.

For Israel’s 1.5 million Arab citizens, the rise to third place of Avigdor Lieberman’s fascistic “Israel Our Homeland” party—displacing the collapsing traditional right wing Likud, and advocating that Arabs be stripped of Israeli citizenship and the regions where they live “transferred” to the Palestinian Bantustan in exchange for Israel’s annexation of the settlement blocs—doesn’t mean “peace and quiet” either.

This extreme “demographic solution” is not on the short-term political agenda, for reasons of international politics (and because traditional Zionism would hardly be eager to “sacrifice” the territory of the Galilee). But it represents the kind of permanent threat that Israeli Arab citizens, sometimes called “1948 Palestinians,” face under the imperative of “preserving Israel’s strong Jewish majority.” It also naturally accompanies the sick logic of establishing “peace and final borders” by annexing as much of the West Bank as the Israeli state thinks it can digest, which represents close to a consensus among Jewish voters.

Israel’s pretext for “unilateral disengagement,” of course, is that there is “no Palestinian partner for peace.” Translated, this means that the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas rejected Israel’s demand that he launch a civil war against the Islamist movement, and then that the population in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem refused to vote for surrender. As the new Palestinian Authority government organized by Hamas was installed, the United States along with Canada joined Israel in cutting off aid and relations with the PA and attempting to starve the population into submission.

Imperial Chaos

Sum it up: the glorious imperial conquest of Iraq has become U.S. imperialism’s very own suicide bomb, blowing up the region along with the invader. Now the circle of chaos threatens to close. The Palestinians cannot accept the Israeli-American demand of surrender to apartheid. They must look for allies simply in order to survive, and it certainly doesn’t look like the European Union intends to defy the United States on this issue by replacing the lifeline that Washington and Israel have cut off.

Suppose now that the Iranian regime, as it has promised, steps up to do so, because Iran too needs allies in the face of the imperialist threat. To protect Palestinians from starvation would no doubt confirm Condoleezza Rice’s proclamation that Iran is “the central banker of international terrorism”, as if any country other than the United States of America could claim that title. Would Iranian aid to the Palestinian Authority propel Israel toward joining a U.S. attack on Iran? Would this bring about a resumption of the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah’s war with Israel, and what would that mean for a fragile Lebanese state and society, and for Syria?

The worst-case scenarios aren’t inevitable. But sooner than anyone would like, a cascade of new disasters may tie together the multiple crises that U.S. imperialism has sharpened in its drive to “transform the Middle East.”
  • 12:47 PM
Blair goes nuclear

RECENTLY, PRIME minister Tony Blair told CBI dinner guests that he backed building a new generation of nuclear power stations, saying nuclear power was "back on the agenda with a vengeance". In doing so, Blair pre-empted the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) report on UK energy requirements, expected in July.

But Blair's headlong rush for nuclear should come as no surprise. Even though Labour's 2005 election manifesto gave no commitment for expanding nuclear energy, big business nuclear lobbyists were knocking at the door of Number 10.

Figures released by the Electoral Commission has shown that as soon as the DTI review was announced "money from nuclear interests flooded in" (The Independent, 27 May 2006) to Labour's coffers.

Among the donors was a lobbying firm for British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) who gave £19,500. The BNFL privately owned consortium operates eight of the 16 nuclear power plants which are due to close by 2010. Other donors include EDF Energy which operates 58 reactors in Europe, and US nuclear company Fluor.

These companies are licking their lips at winning a juicy contract for new nuclear stations. Ten new nuclear plants alone would be worth £20 billion in contracts.

Blair and his big business pals justify replacing Britain's nuclear energy plants on the grounds of meeting the government's commitments for curbing 'greenhouse gas' emissions and reducing dependency on imported fossil fuels.

But nuclear power doesn't really represent a 'greener' option. Even a doubling of existing nuclear capacity would only reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 8%. However, a Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution says carbon dioxide (CO2) levels must be reduced 60% by 2050. The government's own target of a 20% CO2 cut by 2010 was quietly dropped after the CBI bosses argued that such measures would affect industry's "competitiveness," ie their profits!

Moreover, nuclear power is potentially dangerous. (It's particularly ironic that Blair has opted for nuclear power on the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.) And there is still no safe means of disposing of toxic radioactive waste.

Hidden costs
Also, the cost of nuclear power vis-ˆ-vis renewable energy sources is prohibitively expensive.

The New Economics Foundation (NEF) says existing estimates underestimate real costs by a factor of three. NEF says these estimates don't allow for the cost of building novel technologies and expensive delays in construction. For example Dungeness B power station, which took 23 years to complete instead of five, cost 400% above the predicted estimates!

Moreover, big business wants the public to pick up the huge tab for insurance and decommissioning. Decommissioning the Dounreay reactor alone will cost £3 billion over 30 years.

Existing investment in renewables such as wind and wave power, solar energy and geo-thermal energy is a tiny fraction of the amount invested by governments and big business in nuclear and fossil fuels energy.

Likewise, in the USA, George Bush's 2005 Energy Bill gave $14.5 billion for energy measures. But the bulk of this money went to provide tax breaks and loans for new nuclear plants and to oil and gas companies, with only 7% to renewables and energy conservation.

Capitalism is a profit-driven system which enriches a minority of individuals at the expense of the majority. Under this system, energy supply, industrial production and agribusiness is not sustainable. It is a system that cannot meet human needs without wrecking the environment.

Only socialism, by ending the anarchy of the profit system, can democratically plan economies to meet human needs on a sustainable basis.
  • 12:42 PM
A Glimpse Of Freedom

By John Pilger

May 25, 2006

The long, wide, bleak streets of cobblestones and tufts of petrified grass reach for the sacred mountain Illimani, whose pyramid of snow is like a watchtower. There was almost no life here when I first came to Bolivia as a young reporter – only the freezing airport and its inviting oxygen tent; now almost a million people live in El Alto, the highest city in the world, the creation of modern capitalism.

El Alto is as symbolic of Latin America today as Cerro Rico is of the past. A hill almost solid with silver, Cerro Rico was mined by slave labour and served to bankroll the Spanish empire for three centuries. Both places are in the poorest country on a continent of 225 million inhabitants, half of whom are poor. Debt bondage, even slavery, still exists secretly in Bolivia, whose hill of silver now takes second place to other natural treasures of gas and water. I arrived in El Alto in the early hours of the morning. Through skeins of fog, the moonlit streets were deserted save for silhouettes of hunched men swaying in the cold, framed in doorways, waiting, hoping, for the morning’s first auctioned work.

Bolivia was second only to Chile as a laboratory of “neoliberalism”, the jargon for capitalism in its pure, Hobbesian form. The Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs designed the “shock therapy” that the IMF and World Bank administered in Bolivia, adding another dimension of poverty and suffering. With the privatisation of the mines, tin finally collapsed, and the miners and their families headed for La Paz, settling on the bitter plain at El Alto, a thousand feet above the capital, without water and power and with little food. Farmers forced off their land by IMF diktats followed them, and their mass migration was typical of that of millions driven out of secure work by the foreign managers of the “Washington consensus”, a fanaticism conceived at Bretton Woods in 1944 as a tool of empire. (Sachs sees himself as a liberal and is mentor to the gormless Bono, of Live Aid et cetera fame.)

Until now, Bolivia’s modern presidents have all been rich, white men who ran the country on behalf of a tiny wealthy minority. Owners of vast tracts of land control the lowlands around Santa Cruz, reminiscent of their equivalent in South Africa. The pre-Inca indigenous majority were the “blacks” who were politically invisible, except as occasionally troublesome workers, especially the miners. People chewed coca leaves to relieve hunger; many died in their early middle years and their children were stunted. “My mother was worked to death on a big estate near Santa Cruz,” a campesino told me. “If she was found learning to read, she was severely punished.”

The last president but one, Sánchez de Lozada, a multimillionaire mine-owner now exiled in Maryland, had grown up in the United States and spoke better English than Spanish. He was known as “El Gringo”. In colluding with the IMF and selling off the country’s gas and water at knock-down prices to Brazilian, American and European multinationals, he fulfilled his role, like so many Latin American presidents, as Washington’s viceroy. Indeed, Richard Nixon’s contemptuous remark about Latin America – “People don’t give a shit about the place” – was quite wrong; America’s imperial design was inscribed on the lives of the people in its “backyard”.

Last year, I interviewed Pablo Solón, son of the great Bolivian muralist Walter Solón, in an extraordinary room covered by his father’s epic brush strokes. More visceral than Diego Rivera’s images of the Mexican revolution, the pictures of injustice rage at you; the barbaric manipulation of people’s lives shall not pass, they say. Pablo Solón, now an adviser to the government of Evo Morales, said: “The story of Bolivia is not unlike so many resource-rich countries where the majority are very poor. It is the story of the government behind the government and what the American embassy allows, for in that building is the true source of power in this country. The US doesn’t have major investments here; what they fear is another Chávez; they don’t want the ‘bad example’ to spread to Ecuador and beyond – even to Nigeria, which might be inspired to tax the oil companies as never before. For the US, any genuine solution to poverty spells trouble.”

“How much would it cost to solve the poverty of Bolivia?” I asked.

“A billion dollars; it’s nothing. It’s the example that matters, because that’s the threat.”

I drove out of El Alto with Juan Delfín, an indigenous church deacon, taxi driver and artist, who spoke about the conquistadores if they were within his memory. This is a society where a half-millennium of history is a presence and its subjugation and impoverishment are understood with anger. With Illimani looming ahead of us, a cemetery consumed the horizon. On the other side of the road was a small hill not of silver, but rubbish: a stinking, smoking, acrid hell of dust and dead dogs and wild pigs and women in traditional bowler hats digging with pickaxes for something, anything. “Here you have the symbol of everything we live and reject,” said Delfín.

He took me to a plaque with the names of 24 people shot to death by the army in October 2003 when de Lozada tried to stop the people of El Alto marching down to La Paz in protest against his selling-off of gas. Juan Delfín linked their deaths to the lines of ordinary graves, many of them children, “who also died violently, from poverty”. A shepherd boy emerged from a pile of stones where he lived, looking too small for his age.

After de Lozada was driven from Bolivia, his successor Carlos Mesa capitulated to the demands of the social movements, such as El Alto’s Federation of Neighbourhood Committees. These are a new phenomenon of Latin America; the Landless People’s Movement in Brazil is the best known, but the most effective, politically, have been in Bolivia. For more than five years, the movements included almost the entire population of the city of Cochabamba as they fought the “water wars” against a foreign consortium led by a subsidiary of the American multinational Bechtel, which de Lozada had handed the city’s public water supply, causing water bills to consume a third of meagre incomes. Even the right to collect rainwater belonged to Bechtel. With an annual revenue of more than $17bn, the company’s power is such that it expected and got (without the inconvenience of bidding) the contract to rebuild the US fortress in occupied Iraq. Yet, not only was Bechtel driven out of Bolivia in 2000, shortly followed by its mentor de Lozada, but the company has now dropped its compensation action against the government. It is a victory of huge significance, because it warns other multinationals in Bolivia (such as British Gas) that even if the government is prepared to compromise the wrath of the people, the movements are not.

It is also a warning to Evo Morales, whose electoral victory in December remains largely symbolic here. An indigenous man now leads Bolivia for the first time; the chequered pre-Inca flags are proudly on high everywhere. “The elections aren’t something we asked for, ever,” said Oscar Olivera, the Cochabamba union leader who led the anti-Bechtel revolt. “What the social movements need to do now is to continue accumulating popular forces, to build up our ability to pressure whatever government that comes. A Morales government would be less difficult to love, but it will still be difficult.”

Unlike his absurd caricature abroad – a previous American ambassador to Bolivia likened Morales to Osama Bin Laden and his party (MAS) to an Andean Taliban – “Evo”, as he known here, is not a “radical”, not yet. His theatrical announcement of “nationalisation” on 1 May did not mean expropriation, and he made it clear the multinationals would not lose any rights. What they will lose is their grotesque share of profits and benefits; they will now have to pay true market prices for Bolivia’s gas, along with a proper rate of tax. His vice-president, Álvaro García Linera, has said “capitalism will last for 50 years in Bolivia”. Before the election he told me: “In a small country like Bolivia, you can’t be heroes.”

But many have been heroes, in the blockade of Cochabamba, in the surge of people from El Alto down into La Paz, facing bullets and expelling their gringo president. Out of the new spirit abroad in Latin America, perhaps the Bolivians and Venezuelans have brought true revolutionary change closest. The contrast is with the “left-wing” Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, who agreed to IMF terms even before he took office and who has distributed less land than his right-wing predecessor.

The likeable Evo is on notice above all with his own people, but also with the Americans, the “government behind the government”. Unless Washington can “lobotomise him” (as it did with Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti), it is likely to encourage a secessionist movement in the landowners’ heartland of Santa Cruz, where the gas is and where the government has promised to redistribute unused land. Bolivia, like Venezuela, has glimpsed its freedom and demands our support.
  • 12:35 PM
Stop Bush & Blair's terror

THE RESULT of George Bush spreading his version of 'freedom and democracy' is evident worldwide: three Guantanamo Bay prisoners have hanged themselves, while death and destruction continues in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bob Severn
Following the three Guantanamo deaths, the US administration callously dismissed the suicides as "a good PR [public relations] move" co-ordinated by the prisoners.

Guantanamo's base commander, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, was equally unconcerned about the deaths. "They have no regard for human life, neither ours nor their own," he said.

The prison camp, where only ten of the 460 prisoners have ever been charged for a crime, has led even Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen - a firm backer of the US/UK invasion and occupation of Iraq - to call for facilities at Guantanamo to be closed down. Of course, he's saying this to limit embarrassing PR!

Bad PR for 21st century imperialism does not stop there though. Leading politicians and officials in Afghanistan, supposed to be an example of US-exported democracy, have been exposed in a 220-page report by the UN high commissioner for human rights.

The UN report (uncovered by the guardian after being shelved for 18 months), accuses the former warlords, now in positions of power, of war crimes including massacres, torture and mass rape.

Last week a British solder was killed, the first since 3,300 UK troops were sent to the Afghan province of Helmand, as battles increase between coalition troops and resurgent Taliban forces. Two more soldiers were seriously injured. Two US soldiers were killed the Tuesday before, with dozens of Taliban and Afghan soldiers killed in the past month.

Meanwhile, Bush and Blair have tried to divert attention away from the mess they have made by trumpeting the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqarwi, al-Qa'ida leader in Iraq. The US President said: "It is a victory for the war on terror".

Unfortunately for Bush, Zarqarwi's death will not quell the insurgency. This is not only because al-Qa'ida have said they will avenge his death but also because the 'insurgency' is not just al-Qa'ida.

Much of the violence in Iraq comes from militias allied to different ethnic groups, Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish, not just fighting the occupation but fighting each other for political control.

Guantanamo, Afghanistan and Iraq have not happened because George Bush wants to establish worldwide peace but because the US government and their corporate friends want to control more oil resources, as well as secure the US as economic and military ruler of the world.

The Socialist Party has opposed these imperialist wars of occupation and calls for the immediate withdrawal of troops.

However, to cut across religious and ethnic sectarianism requires the building of socialist forces in these countries and the coming to power of governments made up of and representing working-class and poor people.
  • 12:17 PM
D-8, also known as Developing-8, is an arrangement for development cooperation among the following member countries: Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey. It also adds a new dimension to enrich the social and economic relations of its partners.

Following the “Conference on Cooperation for Development”, on October 22, 1996, and after a series of preparatory meetings, the establishment of D-8 was announced officially by the Summit of Heads of State/Government in Istanbul, on June 15,1997 (Istanbul Declaration).

The objectives of D-8 are to improve developing countries’ positions in the world economy, diversify and create new opportunities in trade relations, enhance participation in decision-making at the international level, and provide better standards of living.

D-8 is a global arrangement rather than a regional one, as the composition of founding members reflects. Membership will be open to other developing countries subscribing to the goals, objectives, and principles of the group, sharing common bonds.

D-8 is a forum with no adverse impact on bilateral and multilateral commitments of the member countries, emanating from their membership to regional and international organisations.

Principal organs

The principal organs of D-8 are the Summit, the Council, and the Commission.

The Summit, which is the supreme organ of D-8 is composed of the Heads of State/Government of member states. It is convened once every two years.

The Council is composed of the Ministers in charge of Foreign Affairs of member states. It is the political decision making organ of D-8, and acts as a forum for thorough and comprehensive consideration of the issues.

The Commission is the executive organ of D-8. It is composed of senior officials appointed by their respective governments. Each Commissioner is responsible for national coordination in his/her respective country.

An Executive Director is appointed to ensure efficient communication, expedite the flow of information, and supervise the provision of services for the meetings.

Areas of cooperation

At the outset, ten sectors have been identified for cooperation and project development. They are: Trade; Industry; Telecommunications and Information; Finance, Banking and Privatization; Rural Development; Science and Technology; Poverty Alleviation and Human Resources Development; Agriculture; Energy; Environment; and Health.

On the basis of a division of labour for the coordination of D-8 activities, each sector is assigned to a member country.

Although 50-60 projects were originally proposed at the First Summit, in order not to spread resources too thinly, the following six priority projects were selected to be launched immediately:

Establishment of an International Marketing and Trading Company
Workshop on Poverty Alleviation
Establishment of an Industrial and Technological Data Bank Network among D-8
Establishment of Takaful Schemes (Insurance), including joint ventures between the companies of D-8
Cooperation for the Development of Inland and Coastal Aquaculture
Design, Development, Production, and Marketing of Agricultural Aircraft
D-8 countries have large, young populations with a growing and increasingly skilled labour force

D-8 member countries have relatively large populations. The total population of D-8 countries was around 800 million in 1997. This corresponds to some 13.5 percent of the world population. In four of the eight countries the population is well over one hundred million, in one country it is more than two hundred million.

After relatively high annual growth rates recorded in previous decades, population growth is gradually coming down in all D-8 countries, similar to the phenomenon observed in the rest of the world. Due to rapid growth in the past, a large part of their population will continue to be young for the foreseeable future, constituting a factor of dynamism in D-8 societies.

Moreover, an increasing number of these young people are being educated and trained in universities and research institutions in order to meet the requirements of high-tech industries for skilled labour.

http://www.mfa.gov.tr/d-8/facts.figures01.htm
  • 11:54 AM
World: Bali D-8 Summit Gives Iran Forum For Its Nuclear Cause
By Breffni O'Rourke

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in Jakarta on the eve of the Bali meeting
(epa)

The formal aim of the summit on May 13 between eight big mainly Muslim nations is increased economic cooperation. Members of the D-8 group -- or "Developing 8" as they call themselves -- are meeting on the Indonesian island of Bali. Formed in 1997 on the initiative of then Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, the group comprises Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Malaysia. But this year's summit comes as D-8 member Iran is embroiled in an international crisis over its nuclear program. Can the summit help ease tensions?

PRAGUE, May 11, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Iran's president, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, is expected to try to enlist active support for Iran's controversial nuclear effort while he's in Bali.

The one-day meeting presents Ahmadinejad with a rare opportunity to appeal directly to fellow Muslim leaders at a time when Tehran is under intense international pressure to stop enriching uranium.

Tehran's Agenda

Ahmadinejad used a visit to Indonesia just before the summit to scorn the Western concern over Iran's nuclear program as "pretense."

"[The U.S. and its allies] pretend that they are concerned about the nuclear program of the Islamic Republic of Iran diverting [from peaceful uses]," Ahmadinejad said. "This is a big lie. I tell you that they are not at all concerned about the non-peaceful nuclear activities of any [country]."

Ahmadinejad appears to be trying to allay concerns about the seriousness of the opposition facing Iran over the nuclear question. In fact, at the United Nations, the United States, Britain, France, and Germany are busy trying to formulate a resolution that would legally bind Iran to end uranium enrichment or face possible sanctions or military intervention.

Analyst Glen Barclay, of the Australian National University in Canberra, says Iran's decision to attend the Bali summit at top level at such a difficult time indicates the importance Tehran attaches to its image abroad.

"[It's a] demonstration that Iran is a major country, it's an influential country, it's part of the international community, and [it] is prepared to work closely with, and cooperate with, countries which are prepared to recognize its undeniable right to develop nuclear energy -- at least for peaceful purposes," Barclay says.

But the summit provides an opportunity not only for Iran to influence others -- but also for others to influence Iran. Turkey, for instance, is a NATO member and a close ally of the United States, as well as an aspiring EU member. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is listed to attend the summit, and he can be expected to reflect a view more like that of the Western powers.

The director of the Foreign Policy Institute at Bilkent University in Ankara, Seyfi Tashan, takes up this point.

"Towards Iran, Turkey has made it perfectly clear that Turkey wants nuclear energy to be used for absolutely peaceful purposes and that Iran should provide absolute transparency and full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)," Tashan says.

Growing D-8 Influence?

The D-8 group is diverse. Apart from NATO's Turkey, there is nuclear-armed Pakistan, oil-rich Nigeria and Iran, plus resource-poor members like Egypt and Bangladesh.

Analyst Barclay notes that the D-8 members collectively inhabit an area of the world that he believes will become the economic and political powerhouse of the 21st century.

"The major players in the world balance of power, from now until the foreseeable future, are going to be the great Asian nations," he says.

Iran's South Pars gas field (Fars)Barclay adds that Iran figures in this equation, too. Thanks to Iran's vast energy resources, he argues, China and India have no option but to keep their links with Tehran open, come what may.

Barclay says that the Asian states have less interest than the West in isolating Iran, whether through sanctions or political isolation. He says they recognize that President Ahmadinejad is "very much a loose cannon" and their inclination is to try to limit his scope for excess.

"Other regional leaders would be very interested in having Iran tied into stable international organizations," Barclay says.

Ahmadinejad continued undeterred with his intemperate rhetoric in Jakarta today, telling students that Israel is an "evil" that "will one day vanish." But he also said that he is ready to negotiate with any country to resolve the dispute over Iran's nuclear program.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

  • 2:39 PM
Beyond Abu Ghraib:
detention and torture in Iraq


"I have lost a year and a half of my life"
43-year-old former security detainee and father of three daughters following his release in September 2005; he alleged that he was ill-treated while held in US detention in Iraq.

Introduction

Nearly three years after United States (US) and allied forces invaded Iraq and toppled the government of Saddam Hussain, the human rights situation in the country remains dire. The deployment of US-led forces in Iraq and the armed response that engendered has resulted in thousands of deaths of civilians and widespread abuses amid the ongoing conflict.

As Amnesty International has reported elsewhere(1), many of the abuses occurring today are committed by armed groups opposed to the US-led Multinational Force (MNF) and the Iraqi government that it underpins. Armed groups continue to wage an uncompromising war marked by their disregard for civilian lives and the basic rules of international humanitarian law. They commit suicide and other bomb attacks which either target civilians or while aimed at military objectives are disproportionate in terms of causing civilian casualties, and they abduct and hold victims hostage, threatening and often taking their lives. Amnesty International condemns these abuses, some of which are so egregious as to constitute crimes against humanity, in addition to war crimes, and continues to call on Iraq’s armed groups to cease such activities and abide by basic requirements of international humanitarian law.

In this report, Amnesty International focuses on another part of the equation, specifically its concerns about human rights abuses for which the US-led MNF is directly responsible and those which are increasingly being committed by Iraqi security forces. The record of these forces, including US forces and their United Kingdom (UK) allies, is an unpalatable one. Despite the pre-war rhetoric and post-invasion justifications of US and UK political leaders, and their obligations under international law, from the outset the occupying forces attached insufficient weight to human rights considerations. This remains the position even if the violations by the MNF that are the subject of this report do not have the same graphic, shock quality as the images that emerged in April 2004 and February 2006 showing inmates being tortured and humiliated by US guards at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison and Iraqi youth being beaten by UK troops after they were apprehended during a riot. The same failure to ensure due process that prevailed then, however, and facilitated - perhaps even encouraged such abuses – is evidenced today by the continuing detentions without charge or trial of thousands of people in Iraq who are classified by the MNF as "security internees".

The MNF has established procedures which deprive detainees of human rights guaranteed in international human rights law and standards. In particular, the MNF denies detainees their right to challenge the lawfulness of their detention before a court. Some of the detainees have been held for over two years without any effective remedy or recourse; others have been released without explanation or apology or reparation after months in detention, victims of a system that is arbitrary and a recipe for abuse.

Many cases of torture and ill-treatment of detainees held in facilities controlled by the Iraqi authorities have been reported since the handover of power in June 2004. Among other methods, victims have been subjected to electric shocks or have been beaten with plastic cables. The picture that is emerging is one in which the Iraqi authorities are systematically violating the rights of detainees in breach of guarantees contained both in Iraqi legislation and in international law and standards – including the right not to be tortured and to be promptly brought before a judge.

Amnesty International is concerned that neither the MNF nor Iraqi authorities have established sufficient safeguards to protect detainees from torture or ill-treatment. It is particularly worrying that, despite reports of torture or ill-treatment by US and UK forces and the Iraqi authorities, for thousands of detainees access to the outside world continues to be restricted or delayed. Under conditions where monitoring of detention facilities by independent bodies is restricted – not least, due to the perilous security situation – measures which impose further limitations on the contact detainees may have with legal counsel or relatives increase the risk that they will be subject to torture or other forms of abuse.

Amnesty International is calling on the Iraqi, US and UK authorities, who both operate detention facilities where persons detained by the MNF are held, to take urgent, concrete steps to ensure that the fundamental human rights of all detainees in Iraq are respected. In particular, these authorities must urgently put in place adequate safeguards to protect detainees from torture or ill-treatment. This includes ensuring that all allegations of such abuse are subject to prompt, thorough and independent investigation and that any military, security or other officials found to have used, ordered or authorized torture are brought to justice. It includes too ensuring that detainees are able effectively to challenge their detention before a court; the right to do so constitutes a fundamental safeguard against arbitrary detention and torture and ill-treatment, and is one of the non-derogable rights which states are bound to uphold in all circumstances, even in time of war or national emergency.(2)

Torture and ill-treatment goes on

Karim R (3), a 47-year old imam and preacher (khatib), was detained and tortured by US forces in 2003 and then by Iraqi forces in 2005. On each occasion, he was subsequently released uncharged. He told Amnesty International that he was first detained in October 2003 by US forces in Baghdad, where he lives and is head of a charity. He was insulted, blindfolded, beaten and subjected to electric shocks from a stun gun (taser) by US troops at a detention facility in the Kadhimiya district of Baghdad. After seven days of detention, he was released without charges.

Karim R was again detained in May 2005 for 16 days – this time by forces of the Iraqi Interior Ministry at a detention facility they operated in Baghdad. During this detention, he was blindfolded and then beaten and subjected to electric shocks while being hung up in a manner designed to cause him excruciating pain. He told Amnesty International:

"They tied my hands to the back with a cable. There was an instrument with a chain which was attached to the ceiling. When they switched it on the chain pulled me up to the ceiling. Because the hands are tied to the back this is even more painful (…) Afterwards they threw water over me and they used electric shocks. They connected the current to my legs and also to other parts of my body. (…) The first time they subjected me to electric shocks I fainted for 40 seconds or one minute. It felt like falling from a building. I had a headache and was not able to walk. The interrogator said: You better confess to terrorist activities, in order to save your life. I responded that I was not involved in these activities and that I had a heart condition. (…) Later they forced me to confess on camera. They asked questions claiming that I was a terrorist but they did not even give me the chance to reply. They just stated that I was a terrorist. (…)."

Torture and ill-treatment in Iraqi detention facilities
In the weeks leading up to Iraq’s parliamentary elections, held on 15 December 2005, new evidence emerged to indicate that the Iraqi Interior Ministry was holding many detainees in different facilities under its control and subjecting them to torture and ill-treatment. On 13 November 2005, US military forces raided one detention facility controlled by the Interior Ministry in the al-Jadiriyah district of Baghdad, where they reportedly found more than 170 detainees being held in appalling conditions, many of whom alleged that they had been tortured. On 8 December 2005, Iraqi authorities and US forces inspected another detention facility in Baghdad, also controlled by the Interior Ministry. At least 13 of the 625 detainees found there required medical treatment, including several reportedly as a result of torture or ill-treatment. The Iraqi Ministry of Interior denied that any detainees had been tortured or abused.(4) However, the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, stated that "over 100" detainees found at the detention facility in al-Jadiriyah and 26 detainees at the other detention location had been abused.(5)

According to media reports, in both cases detainees alleged that they had been subjected to electric shocks and had their nails pulled out. (6) An Iraqi Human Rights Ministry official subsequently told Amnesty International that the Iraqi authorities had conducted medical examinations but that these had not confirmed the allegations. However, the official stated that several detainees had injuries caused by beating with plastic cables. Further, the official confirmed that abuses committed at other detention facilities under the control of Iraqi authorities over the past year included incidents of detainees having been subjected to electric shocks. (7)

Months earlier, Human Rights Watch had drawn attention to increasing reports of torture and ill-treatment of detainees by Iraqi government forces in a report published in January 2005. The report was based on interviews which Human Rights Watch had conducted with 90 detainees and former detainees between July and October 2004, 72 of whom disclosed that they had been tortured or ill-treated while in detention. Some had been held as criminal suspects but others had been detained apparently because of their political activities or alleged affiliation with armed groups.(8) Yet, despite the Human Rights Watch findings, little or no action appears to have been taken by either the Iraqi government or the MNF in the months following to address this pattern abuse, and to safeguard detainees from torture or ill-treatment.

Unsurprisingly, in view of this failure to crack down on the torturers and end the cycle of abuse, several detainees are reported to have died in 2005 while being held in the custody of the Iraqi authorities; in several cases, the bodies of the victims reportedly bore injuries consistent with their having been tortured. On 12 February 2005 three men, who were reportedly members of the Badr Organization,(9) a Shi’a militia, died in custody after being arrested by Iraqi police at a police checkpoint in the Zafaraniya district of Baghdad. The bodies of 39-year-old Majbal ‘Adnan Latif al-Alawi, his 35-year-old brother ‘Ali ‘Adnan Latif al-Alawi, and 30-year-old ‘Aidi Mahassin Lifteh were found three days later, bearing marks of torture.
  • 2:33 PM
Amnesty International report highlights human rights abuses in “war on terror”
By Joseph Kay
3 June 2004
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The human rights organization Amnesty International published its annual report on May 26, covering developments that occurred in 2003. Though the 339-page report covers countries around the world and cites many different types of human rights violations, its most significant part outlines the violations of democratic rights implemented by the United States and other countries in the name of a war on terrorism.

The report also refers to human rights violations related to the American-led wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, including the torture of prisoners. By bringing together related developments in many countries, it highlights the extent to which the most basic democratic rights are under attack. (The report can be accessed on the Internet at http://web.amnesty.org/report2004/index-eng.)

In a statement summarizing the organization’s findings, Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan noted that the Bush administration’s policy of “violating rights at home, turning a blind eye to abuses abroad, and using pre-emptive military force where and when it chooses” has “damaged justice and freedom, and made the world a more dangerous place.” At a news conference, Khan stated, “Not since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948 has there been such a sustained attack on [its] values and principles.”

In the United States, the report noted that many basic democratic rights—such as the right to a fair trial, the right of the accused to a lawyer and the presumption of innocence—were under attack. It noted, “Hundreds of foreign nationals remained in prolonged indefinite detention, without charge or trial in US custody outside the US mainland. Most of those detained as so-called ‘enemy combatants’ were held without any form of judicial process.... Many of the measures taken by the US authorities in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks undermined the fabric of international law. Other aspects of US security policy, including the threat in July to cut off military aid to 35 countries for refusing to guarantee US nationals immunity before the International Criminal Court, threatened to have a similarly corrosive effect on the international rule of law.”

The report notes that those held at the US-run Guantanamo Bay prison complex in Cuba include children as young as 13 years old. “None of the detainees were charged, tried, or given access to lawyers, relatives or the courts.” The US is also maintaining prison complexes in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Amnesty report repeats earlier evidence that many prisoners in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay are tortured and mistreated, including “prolonged enforced standing and kneeling, sleep deprivation and the cruel use of shackles.”

In Iraq, Amnesty notes that an unknown number of civilians have been killed as a result of the US-led war and the occupation. It cites, in particular, the US actions that led to the death of 7 demonstrators in Mosul on April 15 and 15 demonstrators—including children—in Fallujah on April 29. A supplementary report cites the massive evidence revealed last month of US torture of Iraqi prisoners.

In addition to prisoners held by the US in the wake of its wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, the past years have also seen a steady erosion of the rights of prisoners captured and held in the United States. Hundreds of foreign nationals were detained and deported following September 11, 2001, even though there was no evidence linking any of them to the terrorist attacks. In addition, US citizens Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla continued to be held by the military without charge as so-called “enemy combatants.”

The report refers to other violations of human rights by the American government, including the blanket detention of Haitian asylum-seekers, the ill-treatment of American prisoners, the excessive use of force by US police, and the use of the death penalty. It notes, “In 2003, 65 people were executed, bringing to 885 the total number of prisoners put to death since the US Supreme Court lifted a moratorium on executions in 1976.” The US stood in “shameful isolation” for its policy of executing individuals who had committed their crimes while minors.

Amnesty also reveals how governments in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and South America have seized on the “war on terror” to justify increased repression and attacks on democratic rights.

In Asia, “the belief of several governments that human rights could be curtailed under the ‘war on terror’ was particularly apparent in China, India, Malaysia, Pakistan and Thailand. Hundreds of people suspected of ‘terrorism’ found themselves condemned to legal black holes as authorities ignored national and international legal frameworks.” The government of Pakistan, which has collaborated with the US in its actions in Afghanistan, handed over hundreds of people to the United States. Many of these detainees were sent to Guantanamo Bay.

In India, the Hindu-chauvinist government detained hundreds of Muslims in the state of Gujurat on allegations of terrorism and anti-state conspiracies. In 2002, Gujarat experienced riots—led by Hindu fundamentalists and facilitated by the state government—that resulted in the murder of hundreds of Muslims. China continued its suppression of the predominantly Muslim Uighur community, thousands of whom “were detained or imprisoned as ‘separatists, terrorists and religious extremists.’ ”

In Australia, a law was enacted in June that gave the government the power “to detain people suspected of having information about ‘terrorist’ offences for seven days before being brought before a court. There was no requirement that relatives be informed of the whereabouts of detainees during this time.”

Similar developments occurred in Europe. In the United Kingdom, 14 foreign nationals continued to be detained under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act of 2001 (ATCSA). “Proceedings under the ATCSA fell far short of international fair trial standards, including the right to the presumption of innocence, the right to a defense and the right to counsel. There was also grave concern at the reliance on secret evidence and at the executive’s and judiciary’s willingness to rely on evidence extracted under torture.”

In France, new legislation on internal security increased the powers of police officers to question ordinary civilians engaged in activities such as gathering in public. In 2003, a law was proposed that was passed in 2004 banning the wearing of Muslim headscarves in schools—a violation of democratic rights purportedly enacted to combat Islamic extremism. Since September 11, Spain has enacted legislation giving the government increased powers in its war against Basque separatists, also under the name of “anti-terrorism.” Many detainees held under this legislation have complained of torture and ill-treatment. In Germany—as in the United States and other countries—a debate has begun in political circles over the possible justification of torture under certain conditions.

In the Middle East, “the so-called ‘war on terror’ continued to erode fundamental human rights.... Members of the League of Arab States continued to implement the Arab Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism which contained few human rights safeguards. This, as well as a range of bilateral security arrangement, facilitated the transfer of individuals between states and in and outside the region without judicial proceedings, legal counsel or recourse to asylum procedures.... The ‘war on terror’ was used as a pretext to legitimize existing practices, such as long-term administrative detention and unfair trials by special courts whose procedures fall far short of international standards. Other states, such as Morocco and Tunisia, introduced “anti-terrorism” laws during the year, which posed a further threat to basic human rights.”

The Israeli government has escalated its attacks on the Palestinian population. The report notes that many of Israel’s actions—including the torture of prisoners, the use of Palestinians as human shields, obstruction of medical assistance to the wounded and the wide-scale practice of home demolition—constituted war crimes.

This partial list of developments during 2003 is an indication of the extent to which basic democratic rights are being eroded around the world, stimulated above all by US actions at home and abroad. It makes a mockery of Bush administration claims that it is waging a battle for democracy and freedom. Instead, the actions of the US government have become a model of anti-democratic legislation and actions around the world.

See Also:
Amnesty International report denounces US treatment of war prisoners
[25 September 2003]
Amnesty says US leads in human rights violations following September 11
[8 June 2002]
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