Operation Condor on Trial in Argentina

March 6, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Arg-small

Manuel Cordero, captured on camera in 2009 by a journalist with Uruguay’s Channel 12 violating house arrest in Brazil. Credit: Canal 12

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Mar 05 (IPS) – The trial over a campaign of terror coordinated among the dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America in the 1970s and 1980s began Tuesday in Buenos Aires with former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla as one of the main defendants, along with another 24 former military officers.Under Operation Condor, as the coordination between the military dictatorships in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay was known, opponents of the regimes were tracked down, kidnapped, tortured, transferred across borders and killed – including guerrilla fighters, political activists, trade unionists, students, priests, journalists or mothers demanding to know what had happened to their missing sons and daughters.

"This is the first time in Latin America that a trial is being held over Operation Condor, to prosecute those responsible, above and beyond trials held in some countries for specific cases," lawyer Luz Palmas of the Fundación Liga Argentina por los Derechos Humanos (FUNLADDHH), a human rights organisation, told IPS.

The 25 defendants include Videla and other former generals like Reynaldo Bignone and Luciano Benjamín Menéndez. Uruguayan general Manuel Cordero, prosecuted for the role he played in the illegal detention centre at Automotores Orletti in Buenos Aires, was extradited from Brazil for this trial.

Three of the accused were declared unfit to stand trial for health reasons. Another 15 people under investigation died before the case came to trial.

"Orletti was an operational base for Condor. Foreigners who were kidnapped were taken there, which is why it was decided to take both the cases to oral trial together," said Palmas, who represents survivors of the torture centre as well as victims of forced disappearance.

The trial that began Tuesday, which could stretch on for up to two years, is for the kidnapping and forced disappearance of 106 people. The largest group of victims were Uruguayans (48), but there were also Argentines, Bolivians, Chileans, Paraguayans and one Peruvian.

The case was initiated in 1999, when the two amnesty laws that put a stop to the prosecution of members of the military for human rights abuses committed during Argentina’s 1976-1983 dictatorship were still in force.

The lawsuit thus invoked forced disappearance as a crime against humanity that was not subject to amnesty.

After the amnesty laws were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2005, along with the presidential pardons of former members of the military junta, the case picked up speed, more victims were included and more people came under investigation.

In the Orletti case, the crimes are illegal detention and torture. Sixty-five victims were identified, some of whom survived and, like Ana Inés Quadros, a Uruguayan citizen, have already testified in an earlier stage of the trial in 2010 against four torturers belonging to the Argentine intelligence services.

At that time, Quadros declared that she was kidnapped in Buenos Aires in July 1976 and taken to Orletti, where she was tortured and raped by Cordero. She was later transferred to an illegal detention centre in Uruguay, and eventually freed.

However, Cordero is only being tried for illegal detention under Operation Condor, and not for the crimes he committed in Orletti, because the Brazilian justice system did not grant extradition for that case.

In the view of Lorena Balardini, research coordinator for the Centre for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), a local human rights group, this trial "is the biggest to be held so far in the region over Operation Condor, and could serve as an impetus for other countries where there have been delays or backsliding," she told IPS.

Balardini said there had been "a setback" in Uruguay. She was referring to a Supreme Court ruling in February this year overturning a lower court verdict to remove the statute of limitations on crimes of the 1973-1985 dictatorship, regarded as crimes against humanity.

"This trial is a way of making these abuses visible and judging them from the viewpoint of coordination between dictatorships," she said. For this reason, CELS, in its capacity as legal representative of several victims, has focused on key cases in which that coordination is proven.

For example, CELS is representing the families of Marcelo Gelman – the son of Argentine poet Juan Gelman – and his wife María Claudia García Irureta. The couple was kidnapped in Buenos Aires in 1976 at the ages of 20 and 19 respectively, when García was seven months pregnant.

Gelman was killed and his body was identified in 1989, but García was taken from Orletti to Uruguay, where she gave birth to Macarena Gelman, who was finally tracked down at the age of 23 by her grandfather in 2000. García’s body has never been found.

Complaints will also be lodged on behalf of Horacio Campiglia and his secretary Susana Pinus, Argentine citizens who were kidnapped in Galeão airport in Rio de Janeiro in 1980 and were presumed to have been transferred to Argentina, where they disappeared.

In the context of Operation Condor, other famous cases were investigated specifically, such as the murders in Argentina of Uruguayan Congressmen Zelmar Michelini and Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz in 1976.

Former Bolivian president Juan José Torres, who took refuge in Argentina after being overthrown by Hugo Banzer in 1971, was also murdered there in 1976.

According to lawyer Carolina Varsky, head of litigation at CELS, these murder cases were not included in the Operation Condor trial in order to evade restrictions imposed by the amnesty laws, and only cases of forced disappearance – considered “ongoing crimes” – were taken up.

As for the central role played by Chile’s DINA, the secret police of late dictator Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), Varsky regretted the lack of progress in prosecuting direct or indirect agents of repression who participated in Operation Condor.

Essential evidence came from Paraguay, where lawyer and journalist Martín Almada discovered in 1992 what are known as the Archives of Terror in a police station in Asunción, containing innumerable documents shedding light on the fate of Operation Condor victims from the seven countries.

Further evidence is contained in declassified documents from the United States State Department, such as a 1976 memo from an FBI agent describing the coordinated actions of South America’s military regimes, which could go "as far as murder."

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: Featured, History, Human Rights, Justice, Latin America Tagged With: ,

Chávez Leaves a Deep Imprint

March 6, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Chavez-small

Hugo Chávez greeting a little girl in a campaign rally. Credit: Carabobo Comando in the 2012 election campaign.

Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Mar 06 (IPS) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez died Tuesday in the Military Hospital of Caracas after a long battle with cancer in his abdominal region, which was diagnosed in June 2011.Born on Jul. 28, 1954 in Sabaneta, a small town in Venezuela’s southwestern plains, Chávez was the second of the six sons born to rural schoolteachers Hugo de los Reyes Chávez and Elena Frías.

Raised mainly by his grandmother, the young Hugo was passionately devoted to baseball. At the age of 17, after graduating from high school, he entered the Military Academy.

As a lieutenant in the army, he founded the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200, a political and social movement, in 1982, influenced by his older brother Adán, an active member of the Venezuelan Revolution Party headed by guerrilla leader Douglas Bravo.

Chávez first made history on Feb. 4, 1992, when he surrendered after leading a failed uprising by several army battalions against then president Carlos Andrés Pérez (1974-1979 and 1989-1993).

Wearing combat fatigues and a red paratrooper’s beret and walking calmly among the jittery officers who arrested him, he gave an improvised 70-second speech addressing his fellow troops involved in the uprising, which had an immediate impact on millions of Venezuelans watching the live TV coverage.

“Lamentably, for now, our objectives were not achieved…But the country has to take the road to a better destiny, and I assume responsibility…for this Bolivarian movement,” he said, calling for his companions to lay down their arms to avoid further bloodshed.

Instead of blood, ink ran, as analysts discussed how, in a country where millions of people were marginalised from the oil economy and where leaders who acknowledged the shortcomings of the political system were lacking, a young army officer had assumed responsibility for the attempted coup in the name of a movement that invoked independence hero Simón Bolívar (1783-1830).

Chávez’s legend was thus born, and his popularity began to grow. After spending two years in prison he was pardoned by then president Rafael Caldera (1969-1974 and 1994-1999) of COPEI, Venezuela’s Christian Democratic party, and began to travel the country raising hopes of a new uprising.

But in 1996, on the advice of veteran left-wing politicians like Luis Miquilena, his political mentor, he decided to seek power at the polls.

Chávez founded the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR), which grew and grew while the traditional parties that had ruled since 1959 went into decline. He won the Dec. 6, 1998 presidential elections with 56 percent of the vote.

In 15 other elections held between 1999 and 2012, the proportion of voters who backed Chávez and his supporters remained fairly steady at that level. From the start, his main voting base was made up of the poor.

The hope of the poor

To the economic, social and cultural reasons that explain this support were added “the hope of justice that lives always in the depths of the soul of the poor,” as well as Chávez’s charisma, former socialist leader Teodoro Petkoff told IPS.

People of “mestizo” or mixed-race heritage identified easily with Chávez, who looked like them. Other aspects of his charismatic personality were a casual, accessible approach, a powerful stage presence and commanding voice, and a speaking style that at times had a trace of the preacher. His speeches were splattered with references to Bolívar and to the independence and land reform struggles of the 19th century.

Since taking power, he made 2,200 nationwide broadcasts and nearly 400 editions of his Sunday show "Aló Presidente", where he discussed political questions, aspects of his military career, or history, largely unscripted and for several hours, in colloquial language.

Chávez supported left-wing causes and governments throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, had a close alliance with Cuba, and described Fidel Castro as his mentor.

He had the constitution rewritten and approved by voters in 1999 and amended in 2009.

In 2001, land laws aimed at redistributing unused rural property unleashed a backlash from the moneyed classes and prompted constant protest marches by Venezuelans calling for him to step down.

On Apr. 11, 2002, the largest opposition march to date ended with gunfire near the house of government that claimed the lives of 19 people and left many more injured – an incident that was never clarified.

The military high command, backed by powerful civilian elites, staged a coup against Chávez, and Pedro Carmona, the head of Fedecámaras – the main business association – was declared president and immediately dissolved most of Venezuela’s democratic institutions, including Congress.

But loyal members of the military, along with tens of thousands of supporters who surrounded the government palace and military institutions in Caracas, put Chávez back in power less than 48 hours after he was ousted.

In late 2002 and early 2003, a lockout by top management of the PDVSA oil company and by private firms aimed at toppling Chávez caused extensive damage to the economy. But the two-month business shutdown failed and the country’s democratic institutions remained stable.

In August 2004, the opposition organised a recall referendum asking Venezuelans whether Chávez should leave office immediately. But 59 percent of voters said he should continue to govern, in a transparent vote overseen by the Organisation of American States and the Carter Centre, among other observers.

With support from Cuba, the Chávez administration introduced a broad range of social programmes, known as “missions”, bringing healthcare, dental care, education, subsidised food, literacy programmes and direct financial aid to the poor, along with employment and housing plans, outside of the traditional bureaucratic channels.

According to the World Bank, between 1999 and 2012, poverty was reduced to 28.5 percent, from at least double that. In addition, per capita GDP increased from 4,105 dollars to 10,810 dollars in 2011, according to World Bank figures.

After his re-election in December 2006, the president stepped up his verbal and diplomatic confrontation with the United States, forged closer ties with countries outside the region like Russia, China and Iran, broke off relations with Israel, and declared that his aim was “21st century socialism”.

Chávez invariably defined himself as Bolivarian, to the point that he officially named the country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and used the term in the names of his works and proposals. But he also described himself as Christian, humanist, Marxist, socialist, anti-imperialist, pro-indigenous and pro-worker.

The high price of oil, which accounts for 40 percent of Venezuela’s budget revenue, made it possible for him to nationalise a number of companies and place the economy under tight controls, starting with exchange controls. But he failed to curb the heavy dependence on the importation of foodstuffs or Venezuelans’ rampant consumerism.

After a new constitutional reform was voted down in 2007 by a narrow majority, he had to wait until 2009 to push through the possibility of indefinite re-election for the presidency and other posts.

Long before, in a brief conversation with IPS in 2003, Chávez had said that he did not want to govern forever, “just for two terms, until January 2013, and after that another revolutionary will do so.”

But he changed his mind later, arguing that he needed to stay in power in order to usher in the necessary changes, saying the constant shifts in administration in Latin America and the Caribbean had thwarted similar initiatives.

His effort to be elected to a fourth term apparently had an impact on his health. Doctors said it was extremely negative for him to dedicate himself to the government and the election campaign simultaneously in 2011 and 2012, while neglecting his health.

Only in extremis, after his health took a turn for the worse in December 2012, did he decide to name a chosen successor: Nicolás Maduro, his candidate to replace him in the presidency.

The first big question mark is whether his political heirs will inherit the leadership role and popular support he enjoyed for 20 years, 14 of them in the government.

Another question is whether “Chavismo” will give rise to a strong political movement, along the lines of Peronism in Argentina after the death of Juan Domingo Perón (1895-1974), or whether Chávez will become a cult figure for the left like Argentine-Cuban guerrilla Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928-1967).

Chávez frequently said that when he reached old age he imagined himself retired, under the shade of a tree on the Venezuelan plains where he was born, teaching children, and perhaps cultivating one of his passions: the “copla” music of the plains region.

A born warrior, a “simple soldier” as he liked to say, with combat terms always on hand to explain any situation, who defeated almost all of his rivals, a true winner in politics, Chávez was unable to win the final battle against cancer that brought him down at the age of 58.

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: History, Latin America, Lead, Politics Tagged With: , ,

Nepal: A Republic That Does’nt Come of Age

December 28, 2012 by

By Shastri Ramachandaran*

IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

NEW DELHI (IDN) – Multi-party democracy was born in Nepal in 1991 – after a popular uprising forced an autocratic king to make way for a constitutional monarchy. This year, 21 summers after an interim coalition government presided over the Himalayan kingdom’s first multi-party elections, Nepal should have come of age as a democracy, as a republic.

Unfortunately, the nascent democracy never grew up. It remains a stunted, retarded caricature of electoral democracy with institutions such as parliament, the election commission and Supreme Court standing as tragic reminders of their irrelevance. The so-called ‘Republic of Nepal’ is bereft of life breath, namely, a constitution. There is no government, at least not a legitimate one.

The Federal Democratic Republican Alliance (FDRA) government of Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai is an opportune coalition of the Maoists and the Madhesi parties. It has no basis in a constitution (because there is none), in an elected parliament (because there is none) or even in vague alibis such as ‘pleasure of the President’. It has no sanction from the people either. The government is taken to be the government because those who style themselves the government are occupying the governmental structures. In short, the government is hostage to a self-appointed group.

Nepal is a non-democracy if ever there was one.

Moribund, mutilated, dismembered – not anarchy – are the words that come to mind when reflecting on Nepal’s polity. Anarchy is vibrant, seething with chaotic energy, churning with ideas and possibilities, and it holds out at least the promise of something radically new.

The last elected parliament, in 2008, converted itself into a Constituent Assembly (CA) for drafting and delivering a new constitution. Far from attending to this task, there followed a succession of governments and prime ministers elected on the floor of the house. The CA failed to come up with a constitution within the stipulated two years, and kept extending its term until Nepal’s Supreme Court, and President, called an end to this charade. The CA was dissolved seven months ago.

The reason appeared to be differences on some of the provisions relating to federalism. It is a moot point whether the ruling coalition headed by the Maoists and the opposition – each for their own self-serving reasons – scripted such an outcome.

Regardless, after the sound and fury of hostilities died down, the parties realised that they had to begin talking and come to some agreement. Falling back on the fiction of an ‘interim constitution’ – after all some basis was required to break the constitutional, electoral, political and legal impasse – the parties agreed on elections, which was scheduled for November 22. But November 22, like all other deadlines which Nepalese politicians have failed to meet, too, passed the benighted country without any change for the better.

At issue is how to clear the decks for holding elections. Now Nepal’s political parties agree that a new Constituent Assembly must be elected within six months from November 22. Unless a new CA is elected, there can be no constitution. But the interim constitution does not have a provision for electing a second CA. This deficiency can be addressed by “amending” the constitution. The person who can do so is President Ram Baran Yadav. He has already courted controversy by the steps he proposed for resolving the stalemate.

He can invoke his constitutional power to “remove obstacles” – towards holding an election – but on the advice of the cabinet. In the prevalent situation, acting on the FDRA government’s recommendation is fraught with risks. Therefore, President Yadav wants all parties to arrive at an explicit consensus in favour of his exercising this extreme option.

The opposition, comprising the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) party are willing to enable a consensus and clear the way for elections only if they get to lead the government. The FDRA is asking them to come on board the Bhattarai-led coalition and make it a national government. The NC is unwilling to do this and wants Sushil Koirala as the prime minister.

The NC and UML accuse the FDRA of resisting a change of prime minister to thwart elections. The Maoists suspect that once Koirala becomes prime minister with UML support, the two parties will not hold elections to the CA.

What emerges is that all parties want to be in government without elections. All of them are fearful of going back to the people for a fresh mandate. Therefore, none of the parties may hasten to clear the ground of obstacles for holding elections in April 2013.

*The author, an independent political and foreign affairs commentator, has covered events and developments in Nepal for over 20 years. He is co-editor of the book State of Nepal. This article first appeared in DNA-Daily News & Analysis [IDN-InDepthNews – December 17, 2012]

2012 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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


Filed Under: Asia, History, Lead, Politics Tagged With: , , ,

Jumping the Abyss: Marriner S. Eccles and the New Deal, 1933-1940

December 27, 2012 by



By Mark Nelson
We capitalists have got to decide how much we are going to pay for capitalism.[1]
Marriner S.


See on neweconomicperspectives.org


Filed Under: Economic Crisis, Economic Policy, Economy, Finance, Headlines, History Tagged With: , , ,

Peru Identifies Civil War Victims – at Snail’s Pace

August 30, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Milagros Salazar

LIMA, Aug 30 (IPS) – Of the 69,000 people killed during the 1980-2000 armed conflict in Peru, at least 16,000 were buried in secret unmarked graves. So far, only 2,064 of these bodies have been recovered, and just 50 percent have been identified, according to a new report.“The exhumation process is slow and disorderly, and moreover it is not a priority for the authorities, even though no democracy can grow strong without reconciling with its past and without recovering its dead,” historian Carola Falconí, executive director of the non-governmental Human Rights Commission (COMISEDH), told IPS.

For example, the forensic medicine institute (IML), which is in charge of the exhumations and answers to the attorney general’s office, does not have a national plan for forensic anthropological investigations to recover the remains of the victims of the civil war between government forces and the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas.

Nor do the authorities have up-to-date records on the areas where bodies were buried, often in mass graves, which would give a complete picture of what still needs to be done, says the book "Los muertos de Ayacucho. Violencia y sitios de entierro clandestinos" (The Dead of Ayacucho: Violence and Clandestine Burial Sites), presented by COMISEDH on Tuesday Aug. 28.

The book was published nine years after the independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR) released its final report, which stated that 69,000 people, mainly indigenous peasants, were killed or forcibly disappeared, as victims of Sendero or the state security forces.

IML officials estimate that there are 15,731 victims – acknowledged to be an underestimate – of the conflict buried at more than 4,000 sites around the country documented by the CVR up to 2003.

But the IML was only able to find 2,064 bodies between 2002 and 2011, which means that at this rate, it would take eight decades to exhume the rest of the bodies, and much more time to identify them and turn the remains over to the victims’ families, says the book, whose journalistic investigation was carried out by this reporter.

The government inaction is especially notorious in the southern department or region of Ayacucho, which suffered the highest number of victims during the armed conflict. Official figures indicate that in the last 10 years, the remains of 1,196 of the 8,660 victims buried there – a conservative estimate – have been exhumed.

COMISEDH reveals in its book that in Ayacucho there are another 1,818 burial sites, besides the 2,234 reported by the CVR in 2003.

The new figure emerges from the updating of the records carried out by COMISEDH from 2004 to 2009, after the CVR stopped operating.

The figure has since been updated, to a total of 6,462 secret unmarked graves.

To locate the sites, a team of COMISEDH researchers headed by Falconí interviewed thousands of family members of victims, survivors and witnesses in some 100 villages and towns of Ayacucho. Several of the experts had been in charge of putting together the original CVR list in that region.

Falconí said that in late September, she would give the updated list to the office of the public prosecutor and the ombudsman’s office, so it could be used as “a tool to draw up a plan for forensic anthropological investigations and an orderly, efficient process of exhumation, in accordance with international standards.”

In its 2003 report, the CVR recommended that the government craft a national plan for forensic anthropological investigations, to make it possible to recover and identify the remains of victims and hand them over to the families, in an efficient and planned manner, especially necessary given the complexity of the events in question and the number of years that have passed.

“It’s not the same thing to exhume the body of someone who died recently as those of people who were murdered over two decades ago,” said Falconí.

Exhuming bodies implies stirring up past crimes. Forensic anthropological investigations make it possible to identify the cause of death, and provide clues as to who may have been responsible, as a result of analysing the bones and scraps of clothing and other belongings and carrying out a reconstruction of events.

The head of the IML, Gino Dávila, told IPS that his team has an annual schedule for exhumations, but that a document with a medium- to long-term scope such as the one called for by the CVR would be difficult to come up with because the government forensic experts work on the basis of requests by the prosecutors who are investigating the civil war-era human rights violations.

“For this year, we have programmed some 400 exhumations, to try to speed things up and gain time. If we assessed what would be needed to complete the work (recover the remains of all of the victims), a great deal of funds would be needed,” Dávila said.

The specialised IML forensic team has a budget of about 600,000 dollars a year – 80 percent less than what Dávila had requested from the attorney general’s office for the purpose of recovering and identifying the remains of victims, including DNA testing.

Only 50 percent of the bodies exhumed have been identified so far. The rest are still pending DNA tests. And in some cases, it is impossible to determine the identity of the victim due to the poor state of the remains, the absence of family members to provide blood samples to match with DNA, or the lack of materials to carry out the required technical process.

This high proportion of unidentified bodies indicates inadequate investigation prior to the exhumation, according to experts at the only two specialised civil society institutions, the Andean Centre for Forensic Anthropology Research (CENIA) and the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF).

There are family members who have been waiting for results of DNA tests for seven years, when they gave blood samples. The civil society experts say that at the very least, grieving relatives should be informed when a match is made and a body is identified.

In response to the indifference and ignorance of much of society and the lack of political will on the part of the authorities, COMISEDH proposed a plan of forensic anthropological investigations for Ayacucho, in order to recover the victims in a more efficient manner, Falconí said.

The head of the human rights investigation team in the ombudsman’s office, César Cárdenas, said that “Allowing them to stay there (in the ground) is like recognising that Sendero Luminoso, which started the armed struggle, was right. And we know that this is not true.”

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: Conflict, History, Human Rights, Justice, Latin America, Report Tagged With: , , ,

Book: Alan Fogelquist, Politics and Economic Policy in Yugoslavia, 1918-1929

July 27, 2011 by

Politics and Economic Policy in Yugoslavia, 1918-1929

By Alan Fogelquist

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This study, based on the author’s doctoral dissertation at UCLA, examines Yugoslav economic policy from 1918 to 1929, how it was made, and how it was affected by political developments of the time. It studies the activities of Yugoslavia’s regional political and business elites, political groups, and corporations, their reactions to Yugoslav economic policy and their efforts to influence it. The study contains a detailed analysis of party politics and the manner in which the political process affected economic policy. The study uncovers and explains relationships between state, elite, class, national-confessional groups, and territorial regions in the determination of social and economic policy in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, later renamed Yugoslavia, and the relationship between these groups and the Yugoslav state.

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Product Details

ISBN
978-1-257-94299-2

Copyright
Alan F. Fogelquist, Ph.D (Standard Copyright License)

Publisher
Global Geopolitics Net

Published
July 27, 2011

Language
English

Pages
502

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Black & white

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Filed Under: Books, Economic Policy, Economy, Europe, History, Politics Tagged With:

Bosnians Mark Srebrenica Anniversary

July 11, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Correspondents*

DOHA, Qatar, Jul 11, 2011 (IPS/Al Jazeera) – Tens of thousands of Bosnia Muslims gathered on Monday to bury the remains of 613 people at Srebrenica to commemorate the 16th anniversary of the 1995 killings of thousands of Muslims in and around the town.

The massacre is the worst single atrocity on European soil since World War II and the only episode of the 1992-95 Bosnian war that international courts have called a genocide.

The remains of the 613 victims, who will be buried in Monday’s service in Potocari near Srebrenica, were recovered from mass graves during the past year and identified through DNA tests.

Forensic experts painstakingly assembled complete skeletons and checked each bone against the DNA from blood samples of survivors of the massacre.

The dead were among more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys from the eastern enclave who were systematically killed after Serbian forces besieged the town on July 11, 1995, in the climax to the 1992-95 Bosnian war that claimed a total of 100,000 lives.

Ahmed Sehic, who came to bury his father who was killed with two of Ahmed’s uncles while trying to flee through the woods to Muslim-held territory during the Bosnian war, said: "I hope it will be easier for me now, I will know where he is, where I can come to visit his grave."

‘Celebrated as heroes’

A Muslim member of Bosnia’s presidency said on Sunday that many Serbs were not facing the truth about the Srebrenica massacre.

Bakir Izetbegovic, whose father Alija Izetbegovic was Bosnia’s wartime Muslim leader, said the wartime Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic were still "celebrated as heroes" by a large number of Serbs.

"Time is needed for these things to heal and to find their place," he said. "It takes too long for things to improve. We still face provocations from people who consider Ratko Mladic a hero."

Mladic is being tried at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslovia (ICTY) on 11 war crime charges, including genocide, for allegedly masterminding atrocities during the Bosnian war.

Munira Subasic, who lost her husband, two brothers, and many men in her wider family in the 1995 massacre, said that though the arrest of Mladic had brought some comfort, "there is no justice that can make any mother happy".

Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons, reporting from the Memorial Centre in Potocari, said Monday’s commemorations were "an active way of perpetual grief, as the whole cemetary is emotionally charged because Ratko Mladic is now behind bars, now facing justice in a defiant fashion".

*Published under an agreement with Al-Jazeera.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

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, Europe, Featured, History, Human Rights Tagged With: ,

Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present [Hardcover]

July 7, 2011 by

Amazon.com: Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present (9781400041718): Jeff Madrick: Books

 

Jeff Madrick (Author)

Review

 “Jeff Madrick has written one of those rare, wonderful books that allow us to understand a huge and important historical development that we may not have realized was a coherent and coordinated series of events. Madrick’s account of Alan Greenspan’s ideologically-driven mistakes alone is worth the price of admission, but it is but one course in a feast of wonderful reporting and writing. If you want to know what has happened to your country, read this book.”
            -Robert G. Kaiser, author of So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government
 
“Jeff Madrick’s devastating biography of greed is rife with carefully documented cautionary tales of the rich, greedy and unregulated, which collectively constitute the definitive answer to Milton Friedmanesque laissez faire economics.”
            -Victor Navasky, author of Kennedy Justice
 
“Honore de Balzac wrote long ago that behind every great fortune lies a great crime.  Now in Jeff Madrick’s important new book, Age of Greed, we are introduced to some of the best and brightest moneychangers in the murky world of high finance.”
-Gay Talese, author of A Writer’s Life
 
“Who’s responsible for the laying waste of our economy—making the rich far richer and everyone else economically insecure? Madrick does more than name names. He tells us who did what and how they did it—the ideologues, demagogues, corporate titans, and crooks. A wonderfully insightful but deeply troubling account of the movers and shakers who toppled America.”
-Robert B. Reich, author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future
 
“The economic disaster of 2008 was not an accident of God but a man-made event. In writing about the financiers, bankers, brokers, free-market philosophers, hedge fund managers and government officials who together engineered the fundamental and profound, almost revolutionary shift in the American economy that culminated in the events of 2008, Jeff Madrick provides his readers with a new and startling account of recent economic history. The individual chapters are riveting but the genius of this book is that Madrick’s whole is even greater than the sum of its manificent parts. This is a book that bears reading by everyone with an interest in the American economy and the American future.”
-David Nasaw, author of The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst
 
“Ideas and policies, like people, have parents and grandparents and in Age of Greed we learn of the men (and they are all men) whose ideas and actions begat three decades with almost no income growth for the vast majority, mountains of debt and fabulous riches for themselves and their peers. Jeff Madrick provides a powerful story of the damage done to our nation by hubris, delusions and lust for money.”
-David Cay Johnston, author of Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill)
 

Product Description

A vividly told history of how greed bred America’s economic ills over the last forty years, and of the men most responsible for them.

As Jeff Madrick makes clear in a narrative at once sweeping, fast-paced, and incisive, the single-minded pursuit of huge personal wealth has been on the rise in the United States since the 1970s, led by a few individuals who have argued that self-interest guides society more effectively than community concerns. These stewards of American capitalism have insisted on the central and essential place of accumulated wealth through the booms, busts, and recessions of the last half century, giving rise to our current woes.

In telling the stories of these politicians, economists, and financiers who declared a moral battle for freedom but instead gave rise to an age of greed, Madrick traces the lineage of some of our nation’s most pressing economic problems. He begins with Walter Wriston, head of what would become Citicorp, who led the battle against government regulation. He examines the ideas of economist Milton Friedman, who created the plan for an anti-Rooseveltian America; the politically expedient decisions of Richard Nixon that fueled inflation; the philosophy of Alan Greenspan, on whose libertarian ideology a house of cards was built on Wall Street; and the actions of Sandy Weill, who constructed the largest financial institution in the world, which would have gone bankrupt in 2008 without a federal bailout of $45 billion. Significant figures including Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken, Jack Welch, and Ronald Reagan play key roles as well.

Intense economic inequity and instability is the story of our age, and Jeff Madrick tells it with style, clarity, and an unerring command of his subject.

  • Hardcover: 480 pages
  • Publisher: Knopf (May 31, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1400041716
  • ISBN-13: 978-1400041718

For more information and reivews visit the Amazon.com page for this work.

 

 


 


Filed Under: Books, Economic Policy, Economy, History, United States

ARGENTINA: Shedding Light on Dictatorship’s Sex Crimes

June 28, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jun 28, 2011 (IPS) – It’s been nearly three decades since Argentina’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship came to an end, but the sex crimes committed against political prisoners are just now starting to draw more attention, after being pushed into the background in human rights trials.

"It’s not that it wasn’t talked about before; it’s that people weren’t listening," sociologist Lorena Balardini, a researcher at the Centre for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), a prominent human rights group involved in a number of the cases, told IPS.

Balardini, a co-author of the study "Gender violence and sexual abuse in clandestine detention centres", is working with lawyer Ana Oberlin and psychiatrist Laura Sobredo to finally bring these crimes to light – and the perpetrators to justice.

The three CELS experts who produced the study organise seminars to sensitise judicial system workers on the issue. Speakers in the seminars include well-known figures like former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón – famous for getting former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) arrested in London – and members of international criminal tribunals.

So far, there have been scant results with respect to prosecuting sex crimes committed during the dictatorship. Only one sentence has been handed down so far, against non-commissioned officer and torturer Gregorio Molina, in June 2010. Although the grounds for charges in such cases "are excellent," this was the only conviction, Balardini said.

"There is great reluctance on the part of judicial system operators," said the expert. The majority see sex crimes as falling in the broader category of torture, but classifying them as such is just another way of concealing them, she said.

"If a crime is differentiated and specified in our penal code, to merely lump it in a wider category reduces its significance and importance," Balardini said. "We want it to be understood that the systematic repression included the practice of sexual violence."

The justice system must specifically investigate these crimes, she said. But few prosecutors and judges have done so, although some have begun to study the issue.

"We are making progress. But we have had more failures than achievements," she admitted.

A layperson might suppose that after all these years, sex crimes would be difficult to prove. But Balardini explained that when it comes to crimes against humanity, in which victims suffered a wide range of abuses and torture in clandestine detention centres run by de facto governments, the main evidence comes from testimony.

It is impossible to prove each case of torture in which a victim was naked and tied to a metal bed spring in a room where the only other people were torturers. Other witnesses, if any are still alive, can only testify that they heard her screams or saw her coming out of the torture chamber or back to the cell injured, she said.

Balardini noted that women are reporting sex crimes now more than ever before. And some cases have begun to prosper. In the 1980s, "neither the justice system nor society heard or paid attention to them," she said.

In seven years, the dictatorship forcibly disappeared between 11,000 and 30,000 people, depending on the source of the estimate.

The regime hunted down left-wing activists, guerrillas, trade unionists, members of social movements and people who were picked up and "disappeared" merely to rob them. These people filled up numerous concentration camps, where they were tortured and usually ended up being "transferred" – a euphemism that meant they were being taken away to be killed, either shot or thrown, drugged but alive, from airplanes into the Atlantic Ocean or the River Plate estuary.

Among the abuses, sexual attacks on women as well as men were a systematic practice.

The former junta members were tried in 1985 and sentenced, several of them to life in prison, during the government of Raúl Alfonsín (1983-1989).

Later, the legal action brought against thousands of lower-ranking members of the security forces sparked army revolts and heavy military pressure against the still-fragile democracy, which prompted the adoption of two amnesty laws, in 1986 and 1987, that shielded human rights abusers from prosecution.

The former military commanders were pardoned and released in 1989 and 1990 by then president Carlos Menem (1989-1999).

The impunity only began to be tackled when the late Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) became president. Congress repealed the amnesty laws and presidential pardons, and the Supreme Court found them unconstitutional. As a result, the human rights cases were resumed in the courts. Today there are more than 360 trials underway nationwide.

In this new context, the sexual torture of women political prisoners has begun to receive specific attention, unlike during the trials in the 1980s.

A few judges have called for specific investigations into what are classified as "crimes against honour," although most other judges still include sex crimes in the broader category of torture.

"In the first case involving the First Army Corps (one of the clandestine prisons), the number of victims who reported sex crimes was appalling, but these crimes become invisible in sentences that broadly refer to cases of torture," Balardini said.

The study on gender violence and sexual abuse collected the accounts of women political prisoners. In some cases, their husbands, who were seized along with them, are still missing, and in other cases, the women’s children were taken from them – circumstances that tended to overshadow the other crimes of which they were victims.

"I am only now able to talk about it," said one. "Within the context of the horror you experienced in the concentration camps, a rape seemed like something secondary," said another of the women who spoke anonymously.

In some cases, women were forced to fix themselves up and were taken from the illegal detention centres to apartments to have sex with military officers or others. If they refused, they could be "transferred". The victims finally feel they can talk about these situations in which they were degraded and forced to have sex.

The authors of the study say that in the 1980s, the trials had "limited aspirations," and the testimony was focused on proving the existence of a systematic plan of repression. For that reason, sex crimes did not figure in the sentences against the former junta members.

In the face of the magnitude of the plan to exterminate dissidents, the objective of demonstrating the extent of the repression overshadowed the details of the individual experiences of political prisoners.

But now there has been a "qualitative leap" in the testimony of victims, the authors say.

The survivors of the dirty war, both men and women, had largely refrained from talking about sex crimes for different reasons.

One was that at the time, when the dictatorship had just come to an end, they believed the priority was to find out what had happened to the victims of forced disappearance. Many also felt the need to conceal from their families the most shocking and private details of the horror they had experienced.

But today, the survivors are apparently more ready to reveal their experiences. There is also a large body of academic work by the women’s movement that has helped bring visibility to the question of sex crimes, the study’s authors explain.

Balardini said the sentences issued by the U.N. international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the 1990s set a fundamental precedent by recognising various forms of sexual violence as crimes against humanity.

She also said recent reports that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi purportedly ordered that rape be used as a weapon of war against the opposition were made possible by the new visibility of sexual violence within the context of armed conflicts around the world.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

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: Gender, History, Latin America, Report Tagged With: , , , ,

LINKS BETWEEN HARKAT-UL-MUJAHIDEEN (HUM) & BIN LADEN/ AL QAEDA

June 26, 2011 by

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR—PAPER NO 730

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy

B.RAMAN

The Harkut ul-Mujahideen (HuM), also known as the Harkat-ul-Ansar (HUA), the Jamiat-ul-Ansar (JUA) and Al Faran, is reported to have denied a report published by the “New York Times” on June 24,2011, alleging that it had links with Osama bin Laden and was part of his Pakistan support network. According to the “NY Times”, investigations by the US authorities into a mobile phone used by bin Laden’s courier are said to have given rise to suspicion that OBL had contact with the HUM. The mobile set of the courier was reportedly recovered during the raid by US naval commandos into the house of OBL at Abbottabad in Pakistan on May 2.

2. The first evidence of links between Al Qaeda and the HUM came after the US Cruise missile attacks on suspected Al Qaeda camps in Afghan territory on August 20,1998, in reprisal for Al Qaeda’s truck-bombing outside the US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam earlier that month. Many of the camps destroyed by the Cruise missiles, which ,the US thought, were run by Al Qaeda turned out to be those of the HUM. The HUM had apparently been permitted by Al Qaeda and the Taliban to locate its training camps in the same area in which Al Qaeda had set up its camps.

3. Addressing a press conference at Islamabad on August 22,1998, after the US bombing of the HUM training camps in Afghanistan, Fazlur Rahman Khalil, its then Amir, denied that bin Laden was indulging in terrorism and accused the US of killing 50 innocent civilians, including 15 Arabs.

4.He said that the camps bombed by the US in Afghan territory had actually been set up by the CIA during the Afghan war and claimed that these were being used by the HUM for giving education to the Afghans.  He denied that any training in terrorism was going on in those camps. He alleged that the Nawaz Sharif Government, which was then in power in Islamabad, was privy to the bombing and said that 40 Cruise missiles had struck three HUM camps in Afghan territory.  

5.He then warned: “ The USA has proved itself to be the world’s biggest terrorist by carrying out the attacks on Afghanistan and the Sudan and I want to convey to the US leadership that we will take revenge for the attack.”

6. Addressing a meeting at the Karachi Press Club on August 23,1998, Azizur Rahman Danish, the then head of the Sindh branch of the HUM, warned: “The US air strikes have drawn a clear dividing line between the Muslim Ummah and non-believers and this is the beginning of a crusade. The USA will be paid back in the same coin.”

7.Addressing a press conference at Peshawar on August 25, 1998, Fazlur Rahman Khalil said that nine HUM members died in the US attack on its camps in the Khost area, of whom five were killed on the spot and the remaining succumbed to their injuries in Pakistani hospitals.   In addition, two Tajiks and four Arabs, two of them physically handicapped, were also killed.  According to him, the Cruise missiles destroyed four mosques, partially damaged another and burnt 200 copies of the Holy Quran kept in the camps.

8.He added: “The USA calls Osama a terrorist and President Clinton is claiming that all terrorist training camps had been destroyed in the air strikes.  Let me tell the Americans that not even one per cent of the so-called terrorist camps run by Osama have been destroyed.”

9.In another warning to the US on September 1,1998, Fazlur Rahman Khalil said: “The USA has struck us with Tomahawk Cruise missiles at only two places, but we will hit back at them everywhere in the world, wherever we find them.  We have started a holy war against the US and they will hardly find a tree to take shelter beneath it.”

10. Writing in the "Friday Times" (August 18-24,2000) of Lahore, Khalid Ahmed, the well-known Pakistani analyst, said:

"The Harkat-ul-Mujahideen formally announced itself as a new             organization in June 1996 in Muzaffarabad.  In January 2000, Masood Azhar of Harkat-ul Mujahideen was sprung from an Indian jail after the Kathmandu hijack.  Masood Azhar had gone into India through ‘proper channels’, as a journalist endorsed by Islamabad (that is, the ISI).  He was a follower of Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, the founder of the anti-Iran and anti-Shia organization Sipah-e-Sahaba, who was killed  in 1990.

"After his release, Masood Azhar wished to revive the legacy of his master.  By this time Harkat had become a major Deobandi organization in Pakistan.  Its main strength remained the militants of Punjab who not long ago had been the militants of Sipah-e-Sahaba.

"His return, therefore, caused an upheaval which climaxed in a grand split in the Harkat.  The split was soon followed by the assassination of Maulana Yusuf Ludhianvi, a key figure in the Deobandi movement because of his status as a spiritual guide to two important Deobandi leaders, his Khalifas: Maulana Fazlur Rehman of JUI and Maulana Azam Tariq of Sipah-e-Sahaba.

"The split  in Harkat-ul-Mujahideen was caused by the militants in Punjab. Masood Azhar and his Punjabi following isolated the Harkat leader Fazlur Rehman Khalil.  The formation of Jaish-e-Muhammad as a new organization was announced, but Masood Azhar and Fazlur Rehman Khalil began to fight over the Harkat assets.

"On 19 March 2000, the two submitted to a hakam (arbitration) of  their elders.  Harkat was represented by Muhammad Farooq Kashmiri and Jaish was represented by Maulana Abdul Jabbar (a key figure in the Kathmandu hijack) on the pledge given that they would abide by the hakam. The verdict was given by three elders: Mufti Rasheed Ahmed of     Zarb-i-Momin Jihadi militia, Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai of the Binori  Town complex and Dr Sher Ali Shah of Waziristan.  The decision was that all offices of the Harkat, occupied by Jaish in Punjab, would be returned to the Harkat, which in turn would pay the Jaish Rs 40 lakh as its share of the division of assets.

"The implementation of the hakam, however, was not so smooth.  The vehicles and offices returned by Jaish to Harkat were in such bad repair that Harkat refused to accept them and thus also refused to pay the stipulated 40 lakhs.

"In Pakistan the Jaish emerged as the more  radical and more sectarian part of the Harkat because of its Sipah-e-Sahaba background.  Maulana Yusuf Ludhianvi, it is said, inclined to their creed more than to Harkat’s moderate view.  Mufti Shamzai seemed to vacillate between the two splinter groups, thus allowing the Harkat’s over-all leader Fazlur Rehman Khalil to be eclipsed.

"Finding himself thus isolated, Khalil is said to have gone to Osama bin Laden and made up some of his losses by getting from him 12 new double-cabin pick-up trucks to replace those ruined by the Jaish in Punjab.

11. Maulana  Fazlur Rahman Khalil is a founding member of the Harkat-ul-Ansar (HUA), subsequently renamed in 1997 as the Harkat-uk-Mujahideen (HUM) after the US designated the HUA as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation in October,1997, and then re-named again as the Jamiat-ul-Ansar (JUA) after President  Pervez Musharraf banned the HUM on January 15,2002, under US pressure.

12.He was also a founding member of Osama bin Laden’s International Islamic Front (IIF) for Jihad Against the Crusaders  and the Jewish People formed in 1998.  Apart from its activities in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) and other parts of India, the HUM was also active in training and arming the Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front of Southern Philippines, the Rohingya Jihadi organisations of Myanmar, the Chechens and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Since 1995, it  was also  recruiting and training black Muslims from the US in its camps in Pakistani territory.

13.A wing of the HUM called HUM–Al Alami, meaning HUM-International, participated in the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, in Karachi in January-February,2002. The incident was master-minded by Omar Sheikh, who was one of those released by the Indian authorities in December,1999, following the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar by the HUM. The interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM) of Al Qaeda by the US authorities reportedly brought out that while Omar Sheikh had orchestrated the kidnapping of Pearl, his killing was done by KSM. Thus, the HUM-Al Alami and Al Qaeda had jointly organised the kidnapping and murder of Pearl.

14. Since 2004, the Afghan authorities had been complaining to Pakistan that the terrorists of the Taliban and Gulbuddin Heckmatyar’s  Hizbe Islami, who had stepped up their attacks on Afghan and US troops in Afghan territory, were being trained in clandestine training camps  run by the JUA in Balochistan and the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan under the supervision of Fazlur Rahman Khalil. The Pakistani authorities initially denied the allegations, but subsequently took Maulana Fazlur Rahman Khalil into custody when the Karzai Government shared with them a copy of the interrogation report  of one Sohail of the Taliban who had given details of the training camps run by Khalil, in one of which he (Sohail) was trained.

15.They released him after eight months in custody on the ground that there was no evidence against him warranting his further detention. His name again cropped up during the investigation of a case in California. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was  reported to have uncovered an Al Qaeda sleeper cell in Lodi , near Sacramento in California .  All of those  arrested in this connection —- one Hamid and his father Umer Hayat, Muhammed Adil Khan, Shabbir Ahmed Mohammed  and Khan’s son Hassan Adil – were Pakistanis or American nationals of Pakistani origin. Hamid admitted to have attended an Al Qaeda  training camp at a place called Tamal  near Rawalpindi in 2003-04.He gave the name of the in-charge of the training camp as Fazlur Rahman, which was then assessed as probably identical with Fazlur Rahman Khalil. It was reported that following the admission of Hamid, the FBI  requested the Pakistani authorities to arrest Khalil once again and hand him over to the FBI for interrogation. The Pakistani authorities claimed that Khalil had gone underground and was not traceable.

16.The "Daily Times" of Lahore reported as follows on  June 13, 2005:  ‘ Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, former chief of Jamiatul Ansar (JA), has gone into hiding after the arrest of Hamid Hayat and Umer Hayat who told the Federal Bureau of Investigation that they received training from a Pakistani Al Qaeda camp allegedly run by Khalil. Security agencies have begun efforts to arrest Khalil after Hamid Hayat and Umer Hayat were arrested in Lodi, California. Sources said he (Khalil) was earlier released by security agencies after eight months’ detention. “Khalil was released on the condition that he separate himself from his militant activities but after this new development security agencies have resumed efforts for his arrest,” sources said. Khalil was arrested from his house by security agencies on May 20, 2004, but sources said security agencies found no evidence of his involvement in militant activities in Afghanistan."

17.The same paper reported further on September 22, 2005, as follows:   " Law enforcing agencies have pressed the leadership of the Herkatul Mujahideen cover-named Jamiatul Ansar to disclose the whereabouts of its former commander Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, Daily Times has learnt. Sources said the law enforcers were in touch with Farooq Kashmiri, a prominent figure at the Jamiatul Ansar, seeking the information about Khalil who went underground three months back. They said the agencies might re-arrest Khalil to investigate about his alleged links with the Taliban leadership. Farooq Kashmiri, who had been working with Khalil since the organisation set forth, had told the law enforcers that he was not aware of where Khalil was. The sources said Khalil had also contacted Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the opposition leader in the National Assembly, seeking his help to make a deal with the agencies. “Khalil approached the opposition leader following his name was echoed during the investigation of Hamid Hayat and Umer Hayat who were arrested in the US. Both of them were allegedly trained as militants at a camp run by Khalil in Rawalpindi,” the sources said. The US was pressurising Pakistan to enhance the scope of investigation into the terror acts, they said, and that Khalil wanted the opposition leader to broker a deal with the government. They said Khalil had sent a message to Maulana Fazlur Rehman that he was in crisis and needed his help, urging him to mediate with the government. They said that Maulana had also talked with the agencies on the matter and defended Khalil, saying that he was not involved in any terrorist activities in or outside the country."

18. Before the visit of then President George Bush to Afghanistan, India and Pakistan from March 1 to 3,2006, the Karzai Government had told the Pakistani authorities that fresh information received by them indicated that Khalil and his JUA continued to train the jihadi terrorists of the Taliban, the Hizbe Islami and the IMU. They requested for his arrest and handing over to them for interrogation. They also brought this information to the notice of President Bush, who subsequently brought it to the notice of Musharraf.

19. In its issue of March 30,2006, the "Daily Times" of Lahore  reported as follows:  " Six people on Tuesday evening picked up Maulana Fazalur Rehman Khalil, the former chief of banned militant group Harkatul Mujahideen, from Tarnol, thrashed him and dumped him on Fateh Jang road. They also severely beat up Abdur Rehman, Khalil’s driver , said Sultan Zia, the information secretary of the banned organisation. Golra police have registered an FIR against unidentified men. “Six unidentified people badly thrashed Maulana Khalil and his driver with rifle butts inflicting serious head injuries to them, Zia said. Maulana Kahlil left his residence along with his driver on Tuesday evening to attend a congregation at Tarnol, sources said. He made a stopover to offer Maghrib prayers near Tarnol railway crossing, where unidentified men put cloth over the heads of Khalil and his driver, tied them up with rope and took them to Fateh Jang road in a vehicle. Later, the men started beating them. Khalil was severely injured and received wounds on his head and other parts of his body, the sources added. They said at midnight on Tuesday, when Khalil returned to his senses, he made a phone call to his home."

20.After this incident, I had written as follows: “ It is suspected that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had itself instigated the attack on Khalil in order to have him killed to avoid handing him over to the FBI for interrogation. He seems to have survived the serious injuries sustained by him. The FBI should insist on his being immediately handed over to it so that it could have him flown out for medical treatment and interrogation.  He may be able to give them information not only about the training camps and the HUM’s sleeper cells in the US, but also about bin Laden.”

21.On the basis of information from well-placed Pakistani sources, I had reported as follows in INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR: PAPER NO.160 of December 5,2006:

“Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil,  of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), who is a close associate of Osama bin Laden and  who had disappeared from public circulation since March last, is back in circulation. He has been visiting mosques and madrasas controlled by the HUM in Pakistan and addressing religious congregations. He has been appealing to the Muslims to step up the jihad against the American and British forces in Iraq, against the NATO forces in Afghanistan and against the Indian security forces in India’s Jammu and Kashmir. He has been claiming that Osama bin Laden is hale and hearty and preparing another major terrorist strike in the US homeland. He has been calling for a united jihad against the NATO forces in Afghanistan under the leadership of Mulla Mohammad Omar, the Amir of the Taliban.

“It is learnt from reliable sources that the Maulana was kept all these months in a safe house of Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) and was released on November 19, 2006.  According to the "Post", a daily of Peshawar, ( November 21, 2006), "with a new vigour, his followers plan to regroup themselves for helping their Afghan brothers and free the neighbouring Islamic State from the US-led NATO forces." With the HUM joining the Taliban, Gulbuddin Heckmatyar’s Hizb-e-Islami and Al Qaeda, an intensification of acts of jihadi terrorism, including suicide terrorism, in Afghanistan is likely. The HUM is also expected to assist the Hizbul Mujahideen in J&K in stepping up acts of terrorism.”

25-6-11

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com .Twitter: @SORBONNE75  )

Copyright © 2011 B. Raman – South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG).

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.


Filed Under: Asia, History, Politics, Report, Terrorism Tagged With: , , , , ,
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