Ten Years On: Murder and Mayhem Prevail in Iraq

March 27, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

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By Ernest Corea* | IDN-InDepth News Analysis

iraq-market_smallWASHINGTON DC (IDN) – Anniversaries are usually treated as occasions for celebration. They are given special names as in “golden” for a fiftieth anniversary and “tin” for a tenth. Goodwill is in the air, food and drinks are brought out, and “don’t worry, be happy” is the overarching theme for all concerned. Not so in contemporary Iraq, where the tenth anniversary of the US invasion of that country fell on March 19, 2013. The event was not commemorated with joyous activity. Instead, murder and mayhem prevailed.

International news agencies reported that Baghdad was wracked by death and destruction on the tenth anniversary of the invasion. Over 50 people were reported dead in a wave of bombings that ripped through the capital and its environs.

Sporadic sectarian violence has continued throughout the post-Saddam period. So has corruption, as near-anarchy continues to dominate post-invasion Iraq. The Washington Post comments that “haunted by the ghosts of its brutal past, Iraq is teetering between progress and chaos, a country threatened by local and regional conflicts that could drag it back into the sustained bloodshed its citizens know so well.”

“Mission Accomplished,” President Bush?

Outcome of “Rash War”

In Iraq as elsewhere, recollections during the tenth anniversary of an invasion that was said to be characterized by “shock and awe” evoked sorrow over deaths and suffering, anger at the launching of a war on false grounds, and baffled introspection over how the US as a whole – the people, politicians, and the press – were bamboozled into supporting a “dumb war” and a “rash war” as then State Senator Barack Obama called it.

Looking back at the US invasion and its aftermath, perhaps the most cogent encapsulation has come from Hans Blix, the distinguished Swedish diplomat who was formerly his country’s foreign minister and who headed the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). In an Iraq retrospective published by CNN to mark the 10th anniversary of a deadly misadventure, Blix wrote:

“– The war aimed to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, but there weren’t any.

– The war aimed to eliminate al Qaeda in Iraq, but the terrorist group didn’t exist in the country until after the invasion.

– The war aimed to make Iraq a model democracy based on law, but it replaced tyranny with anarchy and led America to practices that violated the laws of war.

– The war aimed to transform Iraq to a friendly base for U.S. troops capable to act, if needed, against Iran — but instead it gave Iran a new ally in Baghdad.”

Blix’s pithy summation provides a salutary warning to all those whose reaction to a conflict taking place beyond America’s shores is a yearning for direct intervention.

WMD were non-existent

Many influential supporters of the US invasion of Iraq remain hawkish, nevertheless. They have not shifted from their original positions and some of them are so committed to their own misadventure that they claim they would “do it all over again” if an opportunity arose.

Moreover, some remain faithful to the dubious proposition that the invasion was justified because at the time it was launched, intelligence agencies all over the world were convinced that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Some national intelligence agencies did, indeed, make this assumption from the safety of distance. UNMOVIC, which had deployed inspectors on the ground in Iraq, was not convinced.

As Blix told the UN Security Council and through it the world on Feb. 14, 2003, well ahead of the invasion:

“How much, if any, is left of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and related proscribed items and programs? So far, UNMOVIC has not found any such weapons, only a small number of empty chemical munitions, which should have been declared and destroyed.”

That was not just a “gut feeling,” or idle speculation. It was an assessment based on actual facts.

Evidence of Absence

Knowing that the Bush Administration was inexorably moving towards war although the justification it claimed did not exist, Blix, as well as others associated with UNMOVIC, sought to avert a disaster. They attempted to persuade Western leaders, among others, that potentially cataclysmic decisions were being approached on the basis of flawed assumptions.

Blix records, for instance, that “during a telephone chat with Tony Blair on February 20, I told the British prime minister that it would be paradoxical and absurd if a quarter of a million troops were to invade Iraq and find very little in the way of weapons. He (i.e. Blair) responded by telling me intelligence was clear that Saddam had reconstituted his weapons of mass destruction program.” (Readers will recall that Blair was as gung ho as President George W. Bush about the invasion.)

Blix shared his misgivings with others in high positions who might have been able to halt or slow down the drift towards war. He writes: “…suspicions are one thing and reality is quite another. U.N. inspectors were asked to search for, report and destroy real weapons.

“As we found no weapons and no evidence supporting the suspicions, we reported this. But U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed our reports with one of his wittier retorts: ‘The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.’” Verbal dexterity is a helpful trait in a politician but does not supplant the need for realism in the decision-making process. Policy decisions on war and peace require more than comedic talent.

In yet another intervention, Blix writes, “on February 11 — less than five weeks before the invasion — I told U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice I wasn’t terribly impressed by the intelligence we had received from the U.S., and that there had been no weapons of mass destruction at any of the sites we had been recommended (to inspect) by American forces. Her response was that it was Iraq, and not the intelligence, that was on trial.” Oh, wow.

Fake premise, Real problems

A war launched on a cooked-up premise is likely, at best, to have mixed results. On the plus side, Iraq has the benefit of Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical – in some situations, brutal – regime having ended. Few but his closest associates mourned his eviction from power. The end of his regime has not, however, been an unmixed blessing for the people of Iraq.

Over 130,000 Iraqis died as a result of the invasion and its consequences. Families were disrupted as they are in any war, and the hope of a “new tomorrow” remains distant for the nation. Stable, democratic governance is yet to be achieved. Corruption has been woven into the fabric of life.

On the US side, over 4,000 deaths have been reported, with so many more injured. Military personnel have lost their limbs and, thereby, their capacity for employment. They, and many others, have become victims of emotional trauma.

A report on the Costs of War compiled by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University calculates that US war expenditures at over $2 trillion – yes, with a “t.” This upsurge of unfunded expenditure aggravated the recession from which the US has not fully recovered.

The world’s policymakers would be well advised to think deeply on the effects of the Bush Administration’s intervention in Iraq as they consider their responses to other regional and global problems that cry out for resolution.

*The writer has served as Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Canada, Cuba, Mexico, and the USA. He was Chairman of the Commonwealth Select Committee on the media and development, Editor of the Ceylon ‘Daily News’ and the Ceylon ‘Observer’, and was for a time Features Editor and Foreign Affairs columnist of the Singapore ‘Straits Times’. He is Global Editor of and Editorial Adviser to IDN-InDepthNews as well as President of the Media Task Force of Global Cooperation Council. [IDN-InDepthNews – March 21, 2013]

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Filed Under: Commentary, Conflict, Human Rights, Middle East, Security Tagged With: ,

Israel Goods Boycott Movement Rises

February 11, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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Um Abed plants an olive tree in support of Palestinian farmers. Credit: Eva Bartlett/IPS.

By Eva Bartlett

ZEITOUN, Gaza, Feb 10 (IPS) – Tawfiq Mandil, 45, stands amongst hundreds of Palestinian farmers, activists, and international supporters in the Gaza Strip’s eastern Zeitoun district, about half a kilometre from the border with Israel. They are renewing a call for the boycott of Israeli goods.“The Israeli army destroyed my house and my five dunums of land (a dunum is 1,000 square metres) on the last day of the attacks in 2009, as well as 20 other homes,” he says.

With signs reading ‘Boycott Israeli Agricultural Products’ and ‘Support Palestinian Farmers’, Mandil and others protesting Israeli oppression of Palestinian farmers joined together Saturday to plant olive trees on Israeli-razed farmland and to implore international supporters to join the boycott of Israeli agricultural produce.

Mandil believes that the boycott is his only hope for justice for Palestinian farmers being targeted by the Israeli army and oppressed by Israel. “We hope that it will put pressure on Israel to stop targeting us and allow us to farm our land as we used to.”

With an Israeli surveillance blimp hovering above and a nearby remotely-controlled machine gun tower open and ready to fire, the significance of the rally’s location near the ‘buffer zone’ was not lost. Israeli authorities prohibit Palestinians from accessing the 300 metres flanking the Gaza-Israel border. In reality, the Israeli army regularly attacks Palestinians up to two kilometres from the border in some areas, rendering more than 35 percent of Gaza’s farmland off-limits.

“By engaging in the trade of settlement produce, states are failing to comply with their obligation to actively cooperate in order to put the Israeli settlement enterprise to an end. Therefore, a ban on settlement produce must be considered amongst those actions that Third Party States should undertake in order to comply with their international law obligations.”

The Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq released a position paper last month condemning the Israeli settlement produce trade. The paper, ‘Feasting on the Occupation: Illegality of Settlement Produce and the Responsibility of EU Member States Under International Law’ highlights the means by which Israeli settlements benefit from the oppression of Palestinian farmers.

“While the EU has been quite outspoken in condemning settlements and their expansion, they continue to import produce from these same settlements and in doing so, help to sustain their very existence,” Al-Haq director general Shawan Jabarin notes in the Al-Haq press release.

“More than 80 Palestinians have been injured and at least four Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks in the border regions since the November 2012 ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian resistance,” says Adie Mormech, 35, a British activist living in Gaza. This is in addition to the many Palestinians killed and hundreds injured in previous years of Israeli army attacks on the border regions.

“There is simultaneous action happening in the occupied West Bank,” says Mormech. “They’re planting near Yitzhar colony, which is notorious for its violence against Palestinians. Around the world, an estimated 30 countries are holding actions in solidarity with Palestinian farmers and fishers.”

Um Abed, 65, from Zeitoun is defiant. “Today we’re planting olive trees. God willing next year we’ll plant lemon, date and palm trees. We grow, they bulldoze, we re-plant.”

The boycott action follows a growing number of initiatives emerging in recent years from the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian students in Gazan universities stepped up the Boycott call in 2012, releasing Youtube videos calling for political action, not aid, from international supporters.

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has attracted international support, including the backing of numerous UK and North American universities and scholars.

Increasing numbers of cultural and religious associations, such as the Quakers’ Friends Fiduciary Corporation, are divesting from corporations that profit from or support Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands. The United Church of Canada endorsed the boycott of goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements in August 2012.

Dr Haidar Eid, professor at Gaza’s Al-Aqsa University and PACBI member, outlines what BDS entails.

“We are calling for implementation of UN Security Council resolution 242, which calls for withdrawal of occupation forces from the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and east Jerusalem. The second demand is the implementation of the United Nations resolution 194, the return of all Palestinian refugees to the towns and villages from which they were ethnically cleansed in 1948. The third demand is the end to Israel’s apartheid policies in Palestine 1948. We want equality.”

While civil society and students have been in the forefront of BDS actions in the Gaza Strip, the Hamas government has also taken steps calling for boycott. Joe Catron, an American activist based in the Gaza Strip, explains one recent government-led campaign.

“The Adidas campaign began in March 2012, when Adidas was sponsoring a marathon through parts of Jerusalem, including parts that are internationally recognised as occupied. The Ministry of Youth and Sports here called upon the Arab League to boycott Adidas in response to this, which a number of countries did.”

In September 2012, Gaza’s Ministry of Agriculture decided to ban most Israeli fruits entering Gaza.

“Palestinian farmers can grow the fruits we consume,” said marketing director in the ministry Tahsen Al-Saqa. “We need to support and protect our own farmers. They’ve been economically devastated by the Israeli ban on exporting since 2006.”

“Boycott is the key, and it is growing,” says Adie Mormech. “The momentum is so much now that it is not going to stop. It’s going to be like South Africa.”

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Human Rights, Middle East, Politics, Report, Security Tagged With: , ,

Deadly Car Blast Hits Turkey’s Syria Border

February 11, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

AJ Correspondents

DOHA, Qatar, Feb 11 (Al Jazeera) – At least 10 people have been killed and 30 others wounded following a car-bomb explosion near the border between Turkey and Syria, Turkish television reported.A Syrian-registered car is believed to have been at the centre of Monday’s blast on Turkish soil, Huseyin Sanverdi told the NTV news channel.

Dozens of ambulances were dispatched to the scene at the Cilvegozu border crossing in the southern Turkish province of Hatay.

Four Turkish nationals were among the dead.

An official from Turkish foreign ministry confirmed the explosion, adding that the blast triggered a fire that damaged around 15 cars.

"We don’t know whether this was a suicide bomb or whether a car that was smuggling petrol across the border blew up," one Turkish official told Reuters news agency.

Television footage and photographs showed severe damage to a series of cars at the border, where a gate was blown open and part of the roof collapsed.

"There was an explosion in the no-man’s zone. It was not a mortar attack. It was very strong," a Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

The Cilvegozu border gate, several miles outside the town of Reyhanli, sits opposite the Syrian gate of Bab al-Hawa, which the rebels captured last July.

Refugees cross back and forth and Turkish lorries also deliver goods into no-man’s land between the two gates, where they are picked up by Syrians.

In October, five Turkish civilians were killed when a mortar shell hit a house in the Turkish border town of Akcakale.

Turkey has always responded to cross-border gunfire and mortar rounds, and is currently hosting NATO Patriot missile batteries to defend against attacks from Syria.

*Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Middle East, Report, Security, Terrorism Tagged With: ,

Bulgarian Charge of Hezbollah Bombing Was an “Assumption”

February 7, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Gareth Porter

LONDON, Feb 07 (IPS) – Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov’s dramatic announcement Tuesday on the Bulgarian investigation of the July 2012 terror bombing of an Israeli tourist bus was initially reported by Western news media as suggesting clear evidence of Hezbollah’s responsibility for the killings.But more accurate reports on the minister’s statement and the only details he provided reveal that the alleged link between the bomb suspects and Hezbollah was merely an “assumption” rather than a conclusion based on specific evidence.

Tsvetanov was quoted by various Western news outlets as saying, “We have established that the two were members of the militant wing of Hezbollah.” The minister also said, "There is data showing the financing and connection between Hezbollah and the two suspects,” according to the BBC and Jerusalem Post.

Those statements implied that the Bulgarian investigators had uncovered direct evidence of Hezbollah’s involvement in the Burgas bombing.

But the New York Times on Wednesday quoted Tsvetanov as saying, in remarks to a session of Bulgaria’s Consultative Council on National Security Tuesday, “A reasonable assumption, I repeat a reasonable assumption, can be made that the two of them were members of the militant wing of Hezbollah.”

That statement appeared to acknowledge that he was merely speculating on the basis of data that doesn’t necessarily support that conclusion.

In a report on Wednesday by Sofia News Agency, Bulgaria’s largest English-language news provider, Tsvetanov was quoted as saying that the investigation had led to a “well-founded assumption” that two of the perpetrators of the deadly attack belonged to what the Bulgarian government is calling the “militant wing of Hezbollah”.

In an interview with Bulgarian National Radio Wednesday, the Bulgarian chief prosecutor, Sotir Tsatsarov, emphasised that the investigation of the Burgas bus bombing had not been concluded and expressed concern about the term “well-founded assumption".

The chief prosecutor implied that Tsvetanov’s conclusion about Hezbollah might have been swayed by political pressures. Tsatsarov said that the prosecutor’s office “could not be used to make political decisions or to justify them”, according to Sofia News Agency.

In a television interview for the morning broadcast of Bulgarian National Television, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov defended Tsvetanov’s use of the phrase “well-founded assumption”. Mladenov explained that it meant that Bulgaria had “good reason” to believe that the attack had been organised and inspired by members of the militant branch of Hezbollah at this stage of the investigation, Sofia News Agency reported.

But Mladenov did not claim that any of those “good reasons” consisted of hard evidence.

In an interview with Associated Press Tuesday, Europol Director Rob Wainright said, “The Bulgarian authorities are making quite a strong assumption that this is the work of Hezbollah."

But Wainright also cited only the most general arguments in support of Tsvetanov’s “assumption”, declaring, “From what I’ve seen of the case – from the very strong, obvious links to Lebanon, from the modus operandi of the terrorist attack and from other intelligence that we see – I think that is a reasonable assumption.”

Europol had sent several investigators to help the Bulgarian authorities on the Burgas bombing investigation, Wainwright told Associated Press.

None of the details provided by Tsvetanov, according to press reports, involved evidence showing that two of the alleged conspirators belonged to Hezbollah or to Hezbollah financing of the terror plot.

The most important piece of evidence cited by Tsvetanov was the lengthy stays in Lebanon by two of the three alleged participants in the bombing and driver’s licenses that were forged in Lebanon.

Tsvetanov said the two alleged conspirators with Canadian and Australian passports who are believed to have helped the third member of the cell carry out the Burgas bombing lived in Lebanon between 2006 and 2010.

He also indicated that two of driver’s licenses used by the conspirators were “forged in Lebanon”, and that Bulgaria was able to piece together the movements of two of the suspects from Lebanon to Europe.

Those connections between the alleged conspirators and the bombing by themselves could hardly support an assumption of Hezbollah responsibility for the bombing. Al-Qaeda terrorist cells have been operating in Lebanon for years, and have the technical capability for such a bombing plot.

Members of one Al-Qaeda network of 13 men organised in different cells arrested in 2006 and 2007 confessed to having planned and carried out the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, although they retracted their confessions before trial.

Furthermore, Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for a series of terrorist bombings involving Israeli tourists in the past, whereas there is no known case of a Hezbollah bombing of Israeli tourists, as a Hezbollah spokesman pointed out Wednesday.

In November 2002, Al-Qaeda carried out a terrorist attack on Israeli tourists in Mombasa, Kenya in November 2002 that involved an attempted shoot-down of an Israeli passenger aircraft and a triple suicide car bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel.

Two years later, an Al-Qaeda affiliate took responsibility for bombings at three Red Sea resorts, killing 34 Israeli tourists. And in July 2005, the same Al-Qaeda-related organisation took responsibility for suicide bomb attacks that killed at least 88 people at a shopping area and hotel packed with tourists, including Israelis, in the Egyptian Red Sea resort city of Sharm el Sheik.

Nevertheless, Tsvetanov offered no other specific evidence to support his conclusion.

Another aspect of the Bulgarian investigation suggesting that information about the alleged participants is still very limited is the fact, reported by the Bulgarian daily newspaper Sega, that the investigators had found no direct communication and only “indirect indications” of ties between the Arab holding an Australian passport and the perpetrator of the attack.

The Bulgarian charge of Hezbollah responsibility for the bombing based on little more than assumption has raised the suspicion in Bulgaria that the government was under pressure from the United States and Israel to reach a conclusion that aligned with the Israeli-American position.

Foreign Minister Mladenov denied that Bulgaria was pressured into issuing a statement on the progress of the investigation. But both Israel and the United States have given evidence of wanting such a statement.

Bulgaria is a member of NATO and has expanded military and intelligence ties with Israel since Israeli relations with Turkey soured in 2009.

Israel also played a key role in the Bulgarian investigation, as Interior Minister Tsvetanov acknowledged in his presentation Tuesday. He specifically thanked the Israeli government for its support in regard to the investigation and said Israel had provided “relevant expertise” in regard to one of the indicators implicitly cited as pointing to Hezbollah – the identification of the false driver’s licenses used by the alleged bomb cell.

Ha’aretz reported Tuesday that Israel and the United States had both feared that, “while the investigation’s finding would be clear, Bulgaria’s public statement would be ambiguous and would not name Hezbollah responsible.”

John Brennan, U.S. President Barack Obama’s primary adviser on homeland security and counter-terrorism, issued a statement that portrayed the Bulgarian investigation as having reached a definitive conclusion. Brennan praised the Bulgarian authorities for “their determination and commitment to ensuring that Hizballah is held to account for this act of terror on European soil".

*Gareth Porter, an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy, received the UK-based Gellhorn Prize for journalism for 2011 for articles on the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Europe, Report, Security, Terrorism Tagged With: ,

"Drone" a Dirty Word in the U.N. Lexicon

February 7, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 07 (IPS) – The "drone", one of the eminently controversial lethal weapons deployed by the United States in its war against terrorism, is obviously a dirty word in the U.N. lexicon.So when Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous was asked about U.N. plans to use drones in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), he demurred.

"I would not use the word drones," he told reporters Wednesday, opting for a military euphemism: "unmanned aerial vehicles" (UAVs).

Ladsous said the United Nations plans to use "unarmed UAVs" only for surveillance purposes – but with the express permission of the government of DRC and neighbouring countries.

"We will see how this experiment works," he said, adding that the United Nations will be "open" to sharing whatever intelligence it gathers with regional bodies in Africa, besides U.N. force commanders on the ground.

The "green light" for the use of unarmed drones in DRC – a country battling a violent insurgency – was given by the 15-member Security Council last November, and is aimed at monitoring the movement of armed groups by the 17,500-strong U.N. Organisation Stabilisation Mission in DRC (MONUSCO).

But some U.N. diplomats fear that U.N. drones may eventually be armed, if and when the conflict in DRC takes a turn for the worse.

The drones used by the United States are fully armed and have resulted in the killings of both suspected terrorists and civilians in countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen.

According to published reports, more than 40 countries either deploy or manufacture drones.

Larry Dickerson, defence systems analyst at Forecast International, a U.S. defence marketing research firm, told IPS that besides the United States, there is a very long list of countries manufacturing these UAVs.

These countries include U.K., Israel, France, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Canada, Greece, Bulgaria, Spain, Italy, Russia, China, South Korea, Austria, India, South Africa, Japan and Singapore.

Ben Emmerson, a British lawyer and U.N. special rapporteur for human rights and counterterrorism, is in the process of preparing an investigative report on the use of drones.

He is focusing on 25 drone strikes, specifically in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and the Palestinian territories (by Israeli drones), where these attacks have reportedly resulted in civilian deaths.

The report is expected to be presented to the General Assembly next October or November.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has already expressed "concern" on the use of armed drones for targeted killings, "as it raises questions about compliance with the fundamental principle of distinction between combatants and non-combatants."

Associate U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters last month that drone attacks have also reportedly caused "substantial casualties, raising questions about the ability to ensure full compliance with the principle of proportionality".

He said the secretary-general has asked relevant member states to be transparent about the circumstances in which drones are used, and the means by which they ensure that attacks involving drones comply with international law.

According to Amnesty International, there have been more than 300 drone strikes in Pakistan alone over the last few years, which have killed both civilians as well as suspected militants.

Responding to a report that the administration of President Barack Obama was finalising guidelines for "targeted killings" by drones, Susan Lee, Amnesty’s Americas programme director, said bluntly: "There already exists a rulebook for these issues: it is called international law."

Any policy on so-called targeted killings by the U.S. government, she said, should not only be fully disclosed, but must comply with international law.

To date, the justifications publicly offered by senior Obama administration officials have shown only that U.S. government policy appears to permit extrajudicial executions in violation of international law, Lee added.

Asked how far behind are China and Russia in deploying drones in conflict situations, Dickerson told IPS that both countries are increasing their UAV inventories, "but remain far behind the United States in terms of numbers fielded and the sophistication of these systems."

"Neither have the battlefield experience in the operation of UAVs that the U.S. military gained over the last 10 years," he said.

Dickerson also said that the United States has the largest market share and produces more UAVs than any other country in the world.

He said the worldwide market for UAVs is worth a staggering 70.9 billion dollars over the next 10 years: 39.2 billion dollars related to the production of these systems; 28.7 billion dollars for research and development spending; and around 3.0 billion dollars for UAV services contracts.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Conflict, Geopolitics, Human Rights, Lead, Politics, Security, United States Tagged With: , , ,

Arms Aid to Fragile States Can Backfire

February 6, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Eva Weiler | IDN-InDepth NewsReport

STOCKHOLM (IDN) – The need for security forces in a fragile state to be adequately trained and equipped is recognized as a precondition for stability and development. However, supplying arms to security forces in fragile states can contribute to armed conflict and instability, warns a new report by the eminent Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)

"The risks associated with supplying arms and ammunition to fragile states include the risk that the arms will be diverted to actors seeking to undermine stabilization efforts; the risk that the arms will contribute to the renewal or intensification of armed conflict; and the risk of corruption in the transaction," argues the study Transfers Of Small Arms and Light Weapons to Fragile States: Strengthening Oversight And Control.

The report notes that a number of European Union, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) states have undertaken risk mitigation measures, sometimes in cooperation with recipients as part of security sector reform (SSR) programmes.

These measures include supporting multilateral notification systems for arms transfers; increasing control and oversight of the delivery of arms and ammunition; ensuring good standards for stockpile management, marking on import and surplus destruction; and improving the recipient states’ standards in arms procurement.

But the challenge for the international community is to ensure that fragile states receive the arms that they require, while limiting the negative impacts on conflict dynamics, stabilization efforts and governance, cautions the report co-authored by Mark Bromley, Lawrence Dermody, Hugh Griffiths, Paul Holtom and Michael Jenks.

The paper focuses on international transfers of conventional arms supplied to the national security forces of eight fragile states in the period 2002-12: Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Iraq, Liberia, Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone, Somalia and South Sudan. While many of these states were affected by armed conflict during this period, this factor did not determine their inclusion in this study, authors of the report say.

Although Afghanistan and Iraq are the most notable examples of the risks associated with the supply of arms and ammunition to nascent security forces in fragile states, similar issues have been highlighted in the six other states. The paper identifies lessons learned from these cases for application in ongoing and future efforts to support security forces in fragile states such as Libya and Mali.

The study further outlines the risks entailed in supplying arms and ammunition to fragile states, using examples from the eight case study countries. In many of the examples, member states of the European Union (EU), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or the Organisation for Economic Co operation and Development were providing financial and technical support for SSR programmes at the time the arms transfers took place, finds the report.

"However, EU, NATO and OECD states are often unable to directly supply equipment due to constraints imposed by their national laws and regulations or their lack of appropriate materiel. As a result, the supply of arms, ammunition and military equipment is often carried out by states that pay less attention to the risks of diversion or misuse and are therefore more ready to issue an export licence. In other cases, the problems associated with accessing and delivering materiel has meant that transfers can involve private suppliers, brokers or transport providers that have also been involved in transfers to embargoed destinations," says the report. It explains that those EU, NATO and OECD states that do supply arms and ammunition to security forces in fragile states also take measures to mitigate risks.

Risk mitigation

The authors also examine risk-mitigation measures that have been used in several of the eight cases studied, noting their strengths and weaknesses, and consider ways to build on lessons learned.

Overcoming the legacies of conflict while providing equipment and training for national security forces was a common challenge found in all the fragile states examined in the study. "There were also evident dilemmas of choosing when to deliver arms and ammunition to nascent security forces so as not to contribute directly to conflict dynamics, and of avoiding providing items that risk being misused or diverted after delivery," notes the report.

For each arms transfer, an overarching question was whether it would contribute to or threaten security. If states that are providing military equipment, training or other forms of support for a fragile state’s security sector have troops on the ground in the fragile state, these troops can provide oversight and perhaps control over the delivery and subsequent use of the arms.

However, the study confesses that in many cases such close oversight of the delivery process is neither practically feasible nor politically desirable. It therefore says: "For states that are interested in assisting the stabilization processes in fragile states, and can therefore also be considered to be potential suppliers of arms and ammunition, finding ways to limit the risk that a transfer will contribute to conflict, instability or poor governance is paramount."

This entails making difficult decisions to meet urgent needs and requires access to reliable and up-to-date information when making risk assessments and confidence that the right elements are contained in the procedures for making such assessments.

Steps that can be taken to mitigate risks of misuse or diversion after delivery include: (a) training programmes; (b) clauses in delivery agreements imposing conditions on storage or the supplier directly providing assistance in safe storage; (c) clauses in delivery agreements requiring destruction of surpluses; and (d) assistance in calculating the quantities of arms and ammunition that should be delivered relative to the recipient’s legitimate security needs.

Most of the examples presented in the report highlight the need for multilateral measures on the supply side to minimize the risk that arms transfers will contribute to conflict, instability and poor governance. The notification system connected with certain UN arms embargoes and the sharing of information by some major arms suppliers via the Wassenaar Arrangement are two existing examples.

However, these practices could be strengthened for states that are recognized as having high risks of conflict or instability. But such an approach impinges on the national sovereignty of the recipient state and so is sensitive, as shown by the responses of sections of the governments of the DRC and Somalia to the UN arms embargo notification system.

"Therefore, where possible, suppliers should consider not only sharing information among themselves but also consulting with fragile states to exchange information on recipient holdings, storage conditions and needs. Information on export licences granted and denied, shipments made and, where applicable, brokering and transit could be exchanged between suppliers and between suppliers and recipients in a timely manner for high-risk cases," urges the study.

It adds: Steps could also be taken to strengthen and implement nascent recipient state information-exchange mechanisms, particularly those attached to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Convention on Small arms and light weapons (SALW) and the Kinshasa Convention. Although particularly sensitive, sharing information on watch lists of brokers and transport providers could also help limit diversion risks. Providing assistance on such issues to recipient states could also help to eliminate some of the concerns identified above, argues the report. [IDN-InDepthNews – February 4, 2013]

2013 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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Filed Under: Analysis, Geopolitics, Security Tagged With: , ,

"Pregnant, Chained to a Wall and Starved", One of 136 Terror War Stories

February 6, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

bush_cheney

“We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world,” said then Vice President Dick Cheney (left) in 2001. “A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quickly, without any discussion."

George Gao

NEW YORK, Feb 06 (IPS) – Shedding new light on a chapter of the U.S. "war on terror" that has largely remained shrouded in secrecy, the Open Society Justice Initiative released a report Tuesday detailing the cases of 136 individuals who were extraordinarily rendered or secretly detained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).Entitled “Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition”, the report confirms that the CIA held suspected terrorists in undisclosed prisons, known as “black sites”. The agency also carried out “extraordinary renditions” – defined by the report as the illegal transfer of a detainee to the custody of a foreign government for detention or interrogation.

According to the Justice Initiative’s report, CIA detainees were tortured and abused in detention sites around the world. Some were wrongfully detained, and others were never charged for a crime.

“That’s the thing with these cases, each one is quite disturbing,” Amrit Singh, author of the report and senior legal officer at the Open Society Justice Initiative’s National Security and Counterterrorism programme, told IPS.

Take the case of Fatima Bouchar, one of 136 individuals whose experience the report documented. In 2004, the CIA and Thai authorities abused Bouchar at an airport in Bangkok. She was chained to a wall and starved for five days, before being rendered to Libya. Bouchar was four and a half months pregnant at the time.

“Part of the reason why this report was written is because it’s really important to tell the stories of what happened to these victims,” said Singh.

The report argues that along with its illegality, torture produces faulty information. It cites the case of Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, who was extraordinarily rendered by the U.S. to Egypt in 2002. Under the threat of torture, al-Libi fabricated information about Iraq, Al-Qaeda and the use of biological and chemical weapons.

In 2003, then Secretary of State Colin Powell cited this fabricated information in his speech to the U.N., while advocating for war in Iraq.

The report was written in the context of post 9/11 U.S. counterterrorism policies. Its opening epigraph draws from a 2001 television interview with Vice President Dick Cheney, conducted by Tim Russert for “Meet the Press” on NBC News.

“We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world,” said Cheney. “A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quickly, without any discussion."

The report also lists 54 complicit “foreign governments” that participated with the CIA in various ways: by hosting CIA. prisons on their territories; by capturing, transporting and torturing detainees; by providing intelligence, etc.

“It really speaks to the power that the U.S. wields over the world,” said Singh. “In this case, the U.S. has power essentially recruit partners in committing human rights violations in the name of countering terrorism.”

Checks and balances and extrajudicial killings

In 2002, Maher Arar was detained by U.S. authorities at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport. The CIA flew him out to Amman, Jordan, where he was abused by Jordanian guards. Then he was extraordinarily rendered to Syria, locked in a grave-like cell for 10 months, beaten with cables and threatened with electric shocks.

Arar’s lawyer Maria LaHood, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, told IPS that they sued the U.S. government officials who sent him to be tortured. But their case came up short.

“Basically, the defendants (the U.S. government) came back with the same arguments as they always do, saying even if what (Arar) says is true – that the U.S. sent him to Syria to be tortured – the officials can’t be held liable,” said LaHood.

She said that when U.S. government officials associate their actions with “national security”, it is nearly impossible to prosecute them. “The judiciary cannot touch it.”

“Even though there’s constitutional violations here, there’s no remedy,” she added. “(Arar) couldn’t go anywhere with his case in the U.S. He hasn’t gotten an apology. He’s still on the watch-list.”

LaHood told IPS about similar challenges in prosecuting extrajudicial killings. She noted an ongoing case Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta in which the families of three U.S. citizens – who were killed in U.S. drone strikes – are suing the U.S. executive branch.

“The defendents – Panetta, Petraeus and a couple of others – have moved to dismiss the case, arguing that the judiciary can’t adjudicate the case,” she said.

When asked about the balance of power between the executive and judicial branches of the U.S. government, LaHood said, “(The) executive power has grown and grown, and that’s in part because the executive is increasing its own power, and in part because the judiciary is deferring to it.”

Philip G. Alston, a professor of law at New York University School of Law and a former U.N. Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, told IPS, “The executive branch is effectively given carte blanche by the judicial branch.

“The latter has particularly abdicated its responsibility to uphold the rule of law in any matter that involves the CIA,” he added. “The result is that it is left to make its own decisions, subject only to pro forma Congressional oversight – which, as far as can be judged from the public record, is little short of cheerleading.”

Singh told IPS, “There’s no doubt that there are serious terrorist threats today in the world, and they must be dealt with in an appropriate an lawful manner, but the fact that these threats exist does not constitute grounds to deviate from established domestic and international law.

“U.S. courts have largely denied victims of torture their (compensations). U.S. courts have not acted as a constraint on the abuse of executive power, which is how they should conduct their business,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) released a statement in response to a controversial U.S. Department of Justice white paper, entitled “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al Qa’ida or An Associate Force.”

“The parallels to the (George W.) Bush administration torture memos are chilling,” said Vincent Warren, executive director at CCR, of the white paper. “Those were unchecked legal justifications drawn up to justify torture; these are unchecked justifications drawn up to justify extrajudicial killing.”

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

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Prisons in Mexico on Verge of Collapse

December 28, 2012 by

Global News Blog / IPS

Daniela Pastrana

MEXICO CITY, Dic 28 (IPS) – Edgar Torres Castillo, 21, has spent two years in the prison of Gómez Palacio, in the Lagunera district between the northern Mexican states of Durango and Coahuila – an arid zone known as one of the most dangerous parts of the country.Amparo Castillo, the mother of Edgar, who was sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing a cell-phone, last saw him during a Dec. 18 visit to the prison. “I thought he was acting strange, he seemed really sad and as if he had been hurt,” she told IPS by phone. “We spent just an hour together before they started to shoo us out – things were really tense,” she said with anguish in her voice.

In the wee hours of the morning on Dec. 17, the police transferred 137 prisoners from the Gómez Palacio prison to federal penitentiaries.

The next day, at the end of the visiting hours, people living in nearby homes heard loud bursts of gunfire and cries inside the prison. The authorities reported that 25 prisoners and six unarmed guards had been killed during an escape attempt.

In a communique, the Durango police said the prisoners had opened fire on the guards when they were thwarted in their attempt to escape.

Later, the federal government emptied out the prison, where 78 people have been killed in the past three years and several major prison escapes have been staged. At the time it was emptied, there were 500 inmates left in the prison.

Like other family members, Castillo went to the prison after the reports of gunfire, to find out what happened. When little information was offered, the prisoners’ relatives held protests and set up roadblocks. “We didn’t even know if they were alive or not,” she said.

The bloody clash between prisoners and guards was one more illustration of the crisis plaguing Mexico’s prison system, which experts say is on the verge of total collapse.

There are 429 prisons in Mexico, according to the latest report by the ministry of federal public security. Of that total, 15 are run by the national government, 10 by the authorities in Mexico City’s Federal District, 91 by municipal governments, and the rest by the states.

Studies indicate that the prison population is 22 percent (around 40,000 prisoners) over capacity. In addition, four out of 10 inmates are still pending sentencing. But prisoners awaiting trial are held in the same cells as convicted inmates.

Those charged with or convicted of federal crimes, generally for involvement in organised crime like drug trafficking, make up just one-fifth of the prison population.

After a visit to 24 prisons around the country in 2009, a report by the United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture warned about structural flaws in Mexico’s penal system, which encourage abuses of all kinds committed with the aim of obtaining confessions or self-incriminating statements.

The already heavy use of preventive detention became even more excessive during the crusade against the drug cartels waged by President Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) in his six years in office.

The “Diagnóstico Nacional de Supervisión Penitenciaria”, an assessment of the prison system presented by the governmental National Human Rights Commission in September, found that six out of 10 prisons in the country were co-governed to some extent by criminal groups.

The report warns of prison hotspots in 10 of Mexico’s 31 states. Between 2010 and 2012 alone, a total of 521 prisoners escaped in 14 prison escapes, and 350 people were killed in two riots and 75 fights.

The prison of Gómez Palacio, which went through six different directors in less than three years, has been the site of high-profile escapes and acts of corruption.

In March 2009, a group of armed men wearing federal police uniforms walked into the prison in broad daylight and took five prisoners away with them. In July 2010, the then director of the prison, Margarita Rojas, was arrested and accused by the attorney general’s office of allowing inmates who later took part in a mass killing of 17 people on a nearby farm to leave the prison.

According to the federal government, the guards allowed a group of inmates to leave the prison at night, using the guards’ weapons and official vehicles, to carry out reprisals against rival criminal groups.

But that was not the only case. Jorge Carvallo, president of the bar association of the state of Mexico, next to the capital, reported in November 2010 that prisoners, with the complicity of the state police, were allowed to leave the Barrientos prison at night to commit armed robberies.

The government of Durango announced on Dec. 21 the definitive closure of the Gómez Palacio prison, which will be converted into a police station.

Meanwhile, the families are still desperately seeking information about what happened to the inmates.

“We are trying to help a group of women who came to us in a terrible state, in despair and full of fear for their loved ondes,” activist Verónica Villarreal of the Popular Workers Coordinating Council told IPS. Her group provided shelter to a group of women who came to the capital of the state, four hours from Gómez Palacio, in search of information.

Since Dec. 19, Amparo Castillo has been on a vigil outside the Durango prison, hoping to see her son. “They haven’t told us anything, we don’t know how they are. We only know that they took some to prisons in other states and that others are here, but they told us we’ll only be able to see them in four weeks.

“There’s no law here, people have been tried and convicted without evidence. And now it’s easy for them just to shut down the place; they don’t think of the expenses that represents for us. My son didn’t steal the cell-phone, but in any case, I have already paid it off. What do they want? It wasn’t something that deserved eight years in prison, or to have to go through all of this,” she said.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Featured, Justice, Latin America, Security Tagged With: ,

Qatar intervening in Northern Mali?

December 2, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy

By Mehdi Lazar

While it is likely that ECOWAS is preparing for a military intervention to regain northern Mali following the military coup of March 22nd, 2012 that overthrew the regime of Amadou Toumani Touré, more and more is being said about Qatar’s involvement in this part of the Sahel. Taking advantage of the dual crisis afflicting this country – Islamist groups have benefited from the Tuareg rebellion to take control of the north and a military coup overthrew the incumbent president in Bamako – the emirate would advance its pawns on the territory on a path towards Afghanization. A game which if confirmed would prove quite dangerous.

Qatar’s presence in Mali has been proved but in a manner that remains unclear

If the presence of Qatar in Mali is confirmed, it is difficult to argue that the emirate is trying to change the political and strategic situation in one way or another. However, despite the lack of evidence of Qatari involvement in supporting armed fighters, a body of evidence suggests that this might be the case.

Firstly, Qatar already has a network of various funding projects which include madrassas, religious schools and charities which date from the 1980s and 1990s in Mali, as in other Muslim-majority countries in Africa. Secondly, following an agreement between the Qatari Red Crescent and Red Cross Mali held in Doha in August, Qatari aid is present on Malian soil to act in solidarity with the people of the north, particularly around the triangle of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal.

However, regardless of the degree and intensity, the presence of Qatari forces in Mali has been, and continues to be, a strategy used increasingly in Africa, especially since the Arab Spring. The emirate became involved in the financing of political parties such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011 and 2012, was involved in mediation in Darfur which was held in Sudan in 2011 and engaged in the NATO coalition that fought the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 (similarly, Qatar has also funded rebel fighters in Libya). Besides the presence of the Qatari Red Crescent humanitarian aid in Mali, one may wonder what could be some other reasons for their presence in this part of the Sahel.

What are the interests of a Qatari presence in Mali?

If the assumption of funding, even training and arming Islamist groups by Qatar forces in northern Mali is confirmed, then it is possible to draw several conclusions.

Firstly, this intervention would provide the emirate a simple but risky strategy to greatly increase its influence in West Africa and the Sahel. Indeed, Qatar could greatly increase its influence in the mediation between the Malian government, ECOWAS, the northern rebels, and even France. This would increase its political clout on the continent, taking advantage of, as it often does, a favorable political environment. In the case of Mali, it is a failed state with a sudden power vacuum in the North, due both to the Tuareg rebellion in the North and the coup in the South. Add to this the fortuitous presence in the Sahel of many fighters and weapons used in the recent war in Libya and the presence in the North of young and unemployed Tuaregs opposed to the Malian state, one can see how it is possible to fund the rebels.

Using this combination of favorable factors, the emirate can see a way to continue to have its influence heavily felt in Africa, continuing the work undertaken in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. In this respect, as in the case of Qatari engagement in Syria, two factors are in common. Firstly, after the success of the Libyan campaign, the emirate feels confident in being able to directly intervene abroad in a power perspective. In addition, as in Syria, the presence of the emirate in Mali, if it is real, should be viewed in the context of a twofold competition: first with Saudi Arabia to control the Sunni Islamic world, but also to strengthen the power struggle of Sunni Muslims against Shiite Muslims (because the axis Iran – Syria – Hezbollah remains strong while the Shia in Iraq rises).

Another common point, but this time with Libya, is that Mali is seen as a potential owner of large reserves of natural gas[2] and has a need for infrastructure development; two areas in which Qatar specializes. It could therefore, in the event of good relations with the leaders of an Islamic state in northern Mali, exploit the subsoil rich in gold and uranium, and prospect the country’s oil and gas potential.

Finally, geographically, Mali is also an axis of penetration into black Africa and West Africa to which Qatar is pursuing its influence through the purchase of resources and agricultural land, as well as the funding of places of worship.

An intervention which, if proved, could turn against Qatar

The situation in Mali illustrates how the problematic situation in the Sahel is of extreme concern because of the weakness of states in the region and the presence of AQIM and other jihadist fighters. In addition, the war in Libya in 2011 has worsened the situation, as evidenced by the recent assassination of the U.S. ambassador in Benghazi, Christopher Stevens. In Mali, the defragmentation of the state is not only due to intrinsic factors (Tuareg rebellion, structural weakness of the state, democratic façade, poor development) but also the consequences of the poorly controlled Libyan crisis.

In this context the intervention of Qatar, if it proves controversial, is very unwelcome and four players could take umbrage: The United States, France, Algeria and the African Union. French and American redeployment in the region is indeed currently in place to try to stop the downward spiral of northern Mali. The United States is refocusing its security efforts on North Africa and the Sahel, especially after the assassination of its ambassador and the prospect of future withdrawals of military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. France, the traditional power in the region, has recently had several of its citizens taken hostage in Mali and are under pressure from numerous economic and political interests. However, the United States and France have very strong relations with Qatar, which in the case of Mali, unlike the Syrian intervention[3], could go against western interests. The United States and France could make Qatar understand their decision to intervene, yet we have to wonder about the scope of “retaliation” possible vis-à-vis an emirate that is important economically, politically and militarily to the two countries[4].

Meanwhile, the African Union is trying to assert itself as an influential political power and wants to resolve conflicts on its own soil, namely through its regional organization, ECOWAS, who have amassed a force of more than 3,000 men. If the strategy of Qatar is financing or arming fighters in northern Mali, then this complicates the African Union’s task. However, its ability to act and to influence the decisions of Qatar is very low (except through the EU or France). Algeria, for its part, is particularly concerned by the situation in northern Mali. On the surface, Qatari-Algerian relations are strong since the two countries are “brothers.” However, Algeria is monitoring this situation very closely because it fears an attempt to destabilize its borders and even its own soil. More generally, a Qatari intervention in northern Mali would increase Algeria’s distaste against the emirate. Despite recent agreements, the two countries oppose each other economically in their competition for gas exports, as well as politically (financing of the Muslim Brotherhood in North Africa by Qatar, which also hosts on its floor the former FIS leader Abassi Madani, is frowned upon by Algeria, as well as the fact that Qatar has joined the NATO coalition in Libya while Algeria advocates non-interference). In addition, MOJWA (the Movement for Jihad in West Africa), which could be financed by the emirate of Qatar, holds seven Algerian diplomats (kidnapped in April 2012 in northern Mali) hostage. Algeria, besides being a regional power, is therefore a key state in the Malian crisis but is reluctant to intervene because of its 1,300 km border with northern Mali in an area extremely difficult to control. Doing so would indeed carry the risk of a new terror strike on its soil as happened in the 1990s.

Algeria, like the United States and France has no interest in the status quo in the Sahel, and if Qatar intervenes, these states could potentially react. However, given the regional situation there is more for Qatar to gain than to lose from an intervention in northern Mali. This of course is true only if for the United States and France put the problems of the Malian crisis before their common interests with Qatar, which are indeed numerous.

———————————————————————————————-

Mehdi Lazar is a geographer and former education inspector for the French Ministry of Education. M. Lazar has completed a PhD in Geography at Panthéon-Sorbonne University and is the author of “Qatar, une Education City” (l’Harmattan, Paris, 2012).

[1] “Notre ami du Qatar finance les islamistes du Mali” in Le Canard enchaîné, June 6, 2012 edition.

[2] Malika Groga-Bada, “Mali: et si les islamistes convoitaient l’or noir ?”, in Jeune Afrique, July 19, 2012 edition.

[3] Mehdi Lazar, “Axe sunnite et gazoduc : quand les Qataris interviennent en Syrie pour le plus grand bonheur des Occidentaux”, in Atlantico, August 26, 2012.

[4] Mehdi Lazar, “Qatar : une politique d’influence entre conjoncture favorable et fondamentaux géographiques”, in Diploweb, May 27, 2012.

 

© Copyright 2012 Mehdi Lazar, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

This article should not be republished or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.


Filed Under: Africa, Conflict, Featured, Insurgency, Security Tagged With: , ,

Execution Met With Silence in Pakistan

November 26, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Zofeen Ebrahim

KARACHI, Nov 26 (IPS) – Wednesday, Nov. 21, dawned like any other in the sleepy town of Faridkot, located some 150 kilometres from the Punjab capital of Lahore in Pakistan. But as the town’s 3000 residents went about their daily routines the air grew thick with apprehension, for a reason none wanted to mention.At seventy-thirty that morning, one of the town’s former residents, a man named Ajmal Kasab, was executed in Pune’s Yerawada Central Jail, in western India’s Maharashtra state.

Kasab was the sole survivor of a group of ten men who carried out the three-day terror rampage in November 2008 that left 166 people dead in Mumbai.

Kasab was charged with 86 offences, including murder and waging war against the Indian state. After a long trial and the denial of his clemency appeal on Nov. 5, he was hanged just a few days before the fourth anniversary of the senseless but well-orchestrated attack that brought the nuclear neighbours to the brink of war.

Shafique Butt, a correspondent for the English daily newspaper ‘Dawn’, who visited the village on the morning of the execution, told IPS over the phone from Punjab, “While everyone knew he had been hanged, people were just not willing to talk about it; let alone express their feelings – either in favour or against (the execution).”

Kasab’s immediate family had long since left the village. “No one is sure if they have been relocated by the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), or Pakistan’s intelligence agencies,” said Butt. The LeT is also blamed for an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001.

“I was told there are five or six Lashkar men in the village,” Butt added, including, possibly, Kasab’s younger brother who was just a teenager in 2008.

On the streets, ordinary Pakistanis have shown little or no interest in Kasab’s hanging. They are far too concerned about their own safety: bomb blasts have become a daily occurrence in all the big cities, despite high security since the holy month of Muharram began a week ago.

“The government of Pakistan will not take a critical position on this issue; it will stay quiet,” said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Lahore-based political analyst.

Islamic parties and hard-line anti-India groups have expressed some resentment or spoken about the denial of justice, Askari told IPS, but sustained protest was not expected.

Only a handful of people, like Saba Khan, a housemaid in Faridkot, lamented the act. “Couldn’t they have given him life imprisonment? They didn’t even grant him his last wish of meeting his mother,” she told IPS.

Re-examining ‘terrorism’ in Pakistan

On the other side of the border, the hanging has been hailed as “a victory for India” and a “tribute to all the innocent people and police officers who lost their lives” in the tragedy of November 2008.

Megha Prasad, deputy bureau chief for the Indian news channel ‘Times Now’, who reported live from outside the Oberoi and Trident hotels where 33 people were killed, expressed surprise at the clandestine execution of “foot soldier Kasab”, but told IPS that the execution may bring “temporary closure to the victims of 26/11”.

Still, she echoed the sentiments of many when she added that justice will only be delivered when the “perpetrators and those who masterminded 26/11 are brought to book.”

Other experts have been even less taken aback by the incident, which came just one day after India, along with 39 other U.N. member states, voted against a General Assembly draft resolution calling for a non-binding moratorium on executions.

“Kasab’s hanging was a foregone conclusion and surprised no one,” Pervez Hoodbhoy, a peace activist and academic, told IPS. “It had to be done, else mass murder would have gone unpunished.”

“That the Mumbai attacks were carried out by a Pakistan-based militant group can surprise no one because, literally for decades, groups such as LeT and Jaish-e-Muhammad, have publically declared that they exist only to attack India, anywhere and at any time,” he added.

Indeed, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, founder of the banned LeT, is a prominent public figure in Pakistan, often seen at political rallies delivering vitriolic sermons, directed primarily at the United States government.

Hoodbhoy’s analysis, shared by many others, highlights the sticky situation the government is now in.

For years, according to Askari, the most popular narrative within official political circles has been that Pakistan is a victim of terrorism. “(Most) officials attribute terrorist activities and violence in Pakistan to Pakistan’s foreign adversaries. That means that they do not give much credence to domestic sources of Pakistan’s problems.”

Zohra Yusuf, chairperson of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told IPS that this makes a strong case “for Pakistan to adopt a credible, meaningful policy. Pakistan has to go after terrorists – and not back off only because India is asking it to act. Almost all terrorist attacks anywhere in the world seem to have some Pakistani ‘connection’, from the U.S. embassy bombing in Kenya” to the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. twin towers, she said.

“The world understands how difficult it is to tackle militants,” added Ashaar Rehman, resident editor for ‘Dawn’ in Lahore, “but is in no mood to play the understanding elder when its own existence is on line.”

But for now, he said, Pakistan seems either unable or unwilling to tackle rising militancy.

Hoodbhoy pointed out that most militant groups had, at some point in their existence, received the support of Pakistani intelligence agencies. “While some still do (accept the support), others have pointed their guns against their former benefactors,” he said.

Many experts believe Pakistan should make public some of the answers they must already have gathered through their investigations such as: who masterminded the the 2008 attacks and why, where and how the gunmen were trained, and most importantly, how these activities went ‘unnoticed’ in Pakistan.

But the government has proven it will be slow to act. It took a long time for Pakistan to even admit that the Mumbai attacks were planned on its soil, and it continues to deny any official involvement.

While seven of the alleged masterminds were charged in 2009, more evidence is needed to convict them, the government insists.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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