[Peace-discuss] News notes, 12/16 (Part 2 of 2)

[C. G. Estabrook]

NOTES ON THE WEEK'S NEWS, FOR AWARE MEETING, 12/16 (Part 2 of 2)

[NB: I neglected to send these notes out in a timely fashion, so I'm
appending a a bit of doggerel (so to speak) to make up for it. --CGE]

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED AT THE PRISON UPRISING NEAR MAZAR-I-SHARIF US planes
are continuing to bomb the mountain hideouts of trapped Al-Qaeda fighters
after the expiration of a surrender-or-die ultimatum from the US-backed
Afghan forces besieging them. Al Queda forces had previously offered to
surrender in the presence of UN troops and diplomats from their own
countries. Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the southern part of
Afghanistan needed only to look north for a glimpse of their possible
fate. In one of the most notorious atrocities of the war, hundreds of
foreign Taliban prisoners were massacred in a prison uprising in
Mazar-I-Sharif in Northern Afghanistan by Northern Alliance forces and US
bombers. Amnesty International has called for an investigation into the
incident, saying that "serious abuses of international human rights and
humanitarian law may have been committed". And UN human rights
commissioner Mary Robinson said, "If there are contraventions of standards
-- prisoners or civilians -- the leaders of forces should be disqualified
from a future government." She said, the worst perpetrators should be
brought to justice," and added that a probe would be "a standard-setting
exercise". But the US and Northern Alliance have brushed aside requests
for an investigation. 

A SWEDISH PROTESTER WHO WAS SHOT BY THE POLICE WHILE PROTESTING PRESIDENT
BUSH'S VISIT TO GOTHENBERG LAST SPRING IS CONVICTED OF RIOTING . . . BUT
DID POLICE DOCTOR EVIDENCE? Riot police are on standby in Brussels today,
as some 80,000 people march through the Belgian capital, demanding the
European Union give labor unions a larger role in shaping social policy
and do more to cut unemployment. A two-day summit of EU leaders begins
today, and is expected to draw anti-globalization activists from across
Europe for three other demonstrations this weekend. 3,000 riot police and
horse patrol police officers equipped with water cannons have been
deployed on the streets, and Belgian air force F-16 fighters have been
placed on alert. The protests in Brussels have been largely peaceful, but
looming large in everyone's minds is the violence of recent
anti-globalization demonstrations in Gothenberg, Sweden and Genoa, Italy.
The force used by Italian police to break up demonstrations at last
month's Group of Eight summit in Genoa prompted an international outcry.
During the riots in Genoa, one protester was fatally shot, more than 200
were injured and 300 were arrested Photographs and videotapes show police
beating and kicking protesters who were on the ground. In one of the
bloodiest incidents, police raided a school housing some of the
demonstrators, beating them and throwing them down stairwells. Dozens of
protesters were hospitalized, and one required brain surgery. Television
footage showed blood-smeared walls and floors after the police raid. The
behavior of the Italian police at Genoa prompted criticism even from those
who usually condemn the anarchists for turning otherwise peaceful
anti-globalization protests into riots. Only a month earlier, when
President Bush, traveled to meet with the European Commission and the
Swedish presidency of the EU, thousands of protesters turned out into the
streets of Gothenberg to greet him. The 25,000 or so protesters who
converged in Gothenberg, 300 miles south of Stockholm, were met by
thousands of riot police. One of those protesters was 19 year old Hannes
Westberg, who is one of three protesters shot and injured by police.
Westberg was shot in the side, lost 300 units of blood, and went into a
coma for two months. He lost a spleen and a kidney and burst his aorta.
Westberg was recently convicted of rioting and one count of assault
against policeman. He is one of 28 protesters sentenced to prison after
the demonstrations. Westberg will serve 5 months of jail time. But the
video that police used in the trial had been edited. 

TERRORISM, SECURITY AND PROTEST ACCORDING TO ANTI-GLOBALIZATION GURU NAOMI
KLEIN Since Vancouver hosted the APEC (the Asia Pacific Economic
Conference) conference in 1997, Canadian politicians have faced a dilemma:
how do you clamp down on messy street protests without violating
fundamental laws that guarantee freedom of assembly and prohibit political
interference with policing? Toronto-based syndicated columnist Naomi Klein
tells us that: "Post-September 11, the answer has revealed itself, as
elegant as it is brutal: ditch the laws." According to some, this answer
could apply to police investigations into the protests in Genoa and
Gothenberg. The doctoring of the police video used in the trials of
Swedish protesters Three senior Italian police commanders were transferred
to other posts last night after an investigation into the policing of
riots at the G8 summit in Genoa in which one protester was shot dead and
more than 230 were wounded. It amounts to a government admission that the
police had used excessive force. Claudio Scajola, the Interior Minister,
announced that Francesco Colucci, the Genoa Chief of Police, Arnaldo La
Barbera, the head of the Anti-Terrorism Squad, and Ansoino Andreassi, the
Italian Deputy Chief of Police, were being moved to other posts. The
action placed a question mark over Gianni de Gennaro, the Italian Chief of
Police. The investigation looked at an aggressive police raid on a school
housing protesters in which 62 were injured and 93 were arrested. All
police were cleared of any wrongdoing in September by a parliamentary
committee. 

AFTER THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION TELLS THE NETWORKS NOT TO AIR UNEDITED
VIDEOTAPES OF OSAMA BIN LADEN, THE ADMINISTRATION RELEASES A NEW TAPE,
TRANSLATED BY THE PENTAGON The Pentagon released a translated videotape of
Osama bin Laden yesterday. US intelligence officers claim they found the
tape in a residence in Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. The Bush
administration says the videotape shows bin Laden betraying his advance
knowledge of the suicide hijackings and spoke about how the destruction
had exceeded even his "optimistic" calculations. But skeptics abroad
remained unconvinced that bin Laden did anything more than express
pleasure at the success of attacks. The Bush administration had argued for
days over whether to release the tape. One faction said the tape would
prove once and for all that bin Laden was responsible for the attacks;
another said that the poor, dark, grainy quality of the tape would leave
the administration vulnerable to charges that the tape was doctored or
even created by the CIA. 

WAR ON TERRORISM FOR WHOM? THE US SENTENCES CUBAN SPIES TO LIFE IN PRISON.
THEY SAY THEY WERE TRYING TO PREVENT TERRORIST ATTACKS ON FIDEL CASTRO A
US federal court sentenced convicted Cuban spy Ramon Labanino to life in
prison, a day after the alleged leader of his spy ring received the same
sentence. Labanino was one of five Cubans convicted June 8 of espionage.
The US accuses the five of trying to infiltrate US military installations
and Cuban exile groups in an effort to feed military and political
information back to Havana. But the accused say they were penetrating
exile groups to try to avert terrorist acts against Cuba, and said at no
time did they try to attack US national security. Cuban-American Luis
Posada was arrested in Panama last November for an assassination attempt
against the Cuban President Fidel Castro. Posada had admitted in 1998 to
the New York Times that he receives funding from the Miami-based Cuban
American National Foundation. President Bush has yet to freeze the assets
of any Cuban exile groups in his so-called war on terrorism. 

PRESIDENT BUSH ABANDONS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ARMS-CONTROL AGREEMENTS
OF THE LAST THREE DECADES, PULLING OUT OF THE ANTI-BALLISTIC MISSILE
TREATY WITH RUSSIA President Bush yesterday abandoned one of the most
important arms-control agreements of the last three decades by announcing
that the United States is pulling out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
with Russia so he can pursue his plans for a so-called missile defense.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said "We consider it a mistake," but
admitted that there was little Russia could do to prevent the US from
leaving the treaty. Bush formally notified Russia and three former Soviet
republics that the US will withdraw from the pact in six months, after
Russia insisted the US could not continue with tests for so-called missile
defense without violating the treaty. It is first time in more than 50
years that the United States has renounced a major arms control agreement.
The ABM treaty, which the United States and the former Soviet Union
negotiated in 1972, prohibits development, testing and deployment of
strategic missile defense systems - including components based in the air,
at sea or in space. It is based on the proposition that, without missile
shields, the threat of mutual annihilation prevented either country from
launching an attack. Bush has said the US needed to leave the treaty,
which he says is outdated, to build a missile shield that could protect
the country from ballistic missile threats from so-called rogue states.
But Chinese officials say that missile defense is aimed at them and their
modest nuclear force, and that abandoning the treaty could spark a new
global arms race. The questions raised by US abandonment of the ABM treaty
are far from academic. All this is taking place as the US continues to
bomb Afghanistan, as tensions continue to rise between nuclear-armed
India, Pakistan, and China. And Critics wonder how the US is going to make
the world a safer place by junking landmark arms control deals for a
missile defense scheme they say is too expensive, too dangerous, and
unlikely to ever even work. 

Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, all objected to the
order Bush signed Wednesday and made public yesterday. It claimed
executive privilege in refusing to hand over prosecutors' memos in
criminal cases, including an investigation of campaign-finance abuses,
saying doing so ''would be contrary to the national interest.'' [House
Government Reform] Committee members said the order's sweeping language
created a shift in presidential policy and practices dating back to the
Harding administration. They complained also that it followed a pattern in
which the Bush administration has limited access to presidential
historical records, refused to give Congress documents about the vice
president's energy task force, and unilaterally announced plans for
military commissions that would try suspected terrorists in secret.
Representative William D. Delahunt, a Quincy Democrat and former district
attorney, said: ''This is the beginning of a constitutional confrontation.
In a short period of time, this Department of Justice has manifested
tendencies that were of concern to Senate members during the confirmation
hearings for John Ashcroft as attorney general.'' The Government Reform
Committee is investigating the FBI's use of confidential informants while
the bureau investigated New England organized crime activities. The
committee seeks information on deals FBI officials struck with suspected
murderers Stephen ''the Rifleman'' Flemmi and James ''Whitey'' Bulger. It
is also exploring what FBI officials, including former director J. Edgar
Hoover, knew about the innocence of Joseph Salvati of Massachusetts.
Salvati spent 30 years in prison for the 1965 murder of Edward ''Teddy''
Deegan in Chelsea, but the Governor's Council commuted his sentence in
1997. His conviction was overturned in January after a judge concluded
that FBI agents hid testimony that would have cleared Salvati because they
wanted to protect an informant. ''The federal government wanted Joe
Salvati to die in jail because dead men don't tell tales,'' said Salvati's
lawyer, Victor J. Garo, at the hearing yesterday. In buttressing the
executive order, Michael E. Horowitz, chief of staff for the Justice
Department's criminal division, told the committee that providing
documents about prosecutorial decision-making could have a ''chilling
effect'' on the advice that lower-level attorneys may be willing to
provide to top prosecutors. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said
Ronald Reagan invoked such a privilege three times, while Bill Clinton did
so on four occasions. Forms of privilege were also claimed in the Nixon
administration during the Watergate investigation.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15

The United States on Saturday used its veto power to kill a U.N.
resolution that demanded an immediate halt to Middle East violence and
said the Palestinian Authority was essential to any peace process ... The
vote in the 15-member council was 12 to 1 with 2 abstentions, Britain and
Norway. The other two Europeans on the council, France and Ireland were
among the ``yes'' votes following two dozen speeches that spilled into the
early-morning hours. The U.S. veto was the second this year on a
Palestinian-backed resolution. In March, Washington killed a tougher
measure that called for an international observer force, which Israel
opposes. Saturday's resolution, sponsored by Egypt and Tunisia and amended
by France, encouraged ``all concerned to establish a monitoring
mechanism'' to help ease conditions in the West Bank and Gaza. It
condemned all terrorist acts, executions without trial, excessive use of
force and the destruction of property. But Negroponte said it was
fundamentally flawed because it did not even mention ``recent acts of
terrorism'' against Israelis or those responsible for them. On Dec. 1,
Palestinian suicide attacks killed 26 in Jerusalem and Haifa. At least 776
Palestinians and 233 Israelis have been killed since Israeli-Palestinian
clashes flared anew in September of last year after U.S. mediated peace
efforts collapsed ... Israel said it believed the conflict was not about
occupation but about the Jewish state's right to exist. Israeli delegate
Aaron Jacob said there was an ''ever-diminishing window of opportunity''
to salvage peace negotiations if Palestinians entered direct bilateral
talks with Israel and crushed militant groups like Hamas. ``The terrorism
that has afflicted Israeli civilians is part and parcel of the
fundamentalist terrorism that is now the focus of a comprehensive
international campaign aimed at its eradication,'' Jacob said. 

A smart analysis of the gap in income between the wealthiest Americans and
"everyone else"--a level of inequality higher than in any other
industrialized nation--finds its way onto the NYT art pages. Some numbers
from the 90's boom economy suggest that those good old days weren't so hot
for most of us. "Forty-seven percent of the total real income gain between
1983 and 1998 accrued to the top 1 percent of income recipients, 42
percent went to the next 19 percent, and 12 percent accrued to the bottom
80 percent," writes the author of a book called Top Heavy. "There is no
doubt that market forces have spoken in favor of more inequality," says a
Harvard economist. What is to be done? Depends whom you ask. "The question
is whether you lean against the wind of the market to try to preserve
decent living standards for working and poor people," says the Harvard
guy. The split is about what you'd expect: conservative economists say
let's leave well enough alone, while liberals want to lend a helping hand.

The Americans and their Afghan allies appear to be trying to cover up the
slaughter of more than 280 foreign Taliban fighters believed to be loyal
to Osama bin Laden in Kandahar airport. Mystery has surrounded the fate of
the foreign fighters since the airport was captured last week, after
intensive bombing by the Americans. Afghan anti-Taliban forces
acknowledged that more than 280 fighters had been holding out in the
airport, but claimed that only about 20 were killed. The rest, they
claimed, escaped alive. But one of the Afghan soldiers who took part in
the fighting said yesterday that he was ordered to return to the airport a
day after it was captured, where he says he helped bury the bodies of
about 280 mostly Arab fighters. The soldier, who used the pseudonym Ahmad
Gul to protect his identity, said the majority were killed by American
bombs. Two other witnesses, Abdul Basir and Abdul Kadim, said they saw two
bulldozers dumping earth into what they believe was a mass grave at the
airport. Two Arab prisoners captured in the fighting - who should be
protected under the Geneva conventions - also seem to have disappeared. Mr
Gul said he handed over two ethnic Arab prisoners-of-war he helped to
capture to some Americans, presumably members of the CIA, who interrogated
them on the spot, then took them away. There has been no word on them
since. Reporters were allowed into the airport for the first time
yesterday. More than 200 US Marines are setting up a forward base inside,
and dozens of armoured troop carriers were parked around the complex. A US
Marine captain gave photographers a guided tour. The airport was
devastated in the fighting. Huge craters lay in the runway, and almost all
the windows in the modernist terminal building had been smashed, broken
glass crunched under our feet. But not included in the guided tour was the
grave site, a short distance away, where Mr Gul said he helped to bury the
foreign fighters. The Americans have sealed off the entire airport site,
making it impossible to reach the alleged grave. Mr Gul said he was one of
a small group of Afghan soldiers who were sent back to the airport the day
after the end of the fighting there to help bury the bodies. He said that
on the day he arrived, last Saturday, the soldiers collected about 30
bodies. The next day, he said, they collected as many as 250. Mr Gul's
version of events would strengthen the argument of those who say the
Americans prefer to kill the foreign fighters rather than take them alive.
It comes after the massacre at Mazar-i-Sharif, where American and British
forces fighting alongside the Northern Alliance killed more than 150
foreign Taliban prisoners-of-war, when they quelled a prison rebellion
using air strikes. In Tora Bora, the Americans continued bombing despite
an offer from al-Qa'ida fighters to surrender to the United Nations or
diplomats from their own countries. The US would only accept an
unconditional surrender which was not forthcoming.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2001

China probing 24 explosions in two-day period, one at McDonald's: China
was probing 24 explosions which rocked three cities in just two days, with
20 bombs exploding in one city and elsewhere a blast ripping through a
McDonald's restaurant during the crowded dinner hour. [AFP]

Pakistani secret service masterminded attack on parliament: India India
said it had evidence of Pakistan's alleged involvement in an attack on the
national parliament which left 13 dead and 17 injured. [AFP]

The FBI is fully aware that the Cambodian Freedom Fighters (CFF) - which
staged a bloody coup attempt in Phnom Penh last November - is based in
Long Beach, under the leadership of American-Khmer Chhun Yasith.
Like-minded anti-communist Vietnamese exiles, calling themselves the
Government of Free Vietnam, plot the violent overthrow of Hanoi's
government from Orange County. Both groups openly admit to deploying their
insurgent forces in Cambodia and Thailand, with the aim of carrying out
sabotage attacks designed to overthrow the two governments now accepted by
Washington. Free Vietnam's leader, Nguyen Huu Chanh, recently boasted in
an interview that his supporters planted several bombs around Hanoi in
October to protest the arrest of a dissident. A member of the group was
arrested and charged in Thailand for placing explosives outside the
Vietnamese Embassy in Bangkok on June 19. Still, the United States has not
included them on its list of worldwide terrorist organizations - to
Vietnam's annoyance. In Laos, the normally sleepy and peaceful capital of
Vientiane has been rocked this year by a series of bomb attacks, believed
to be financed and supported by U.S.-based Laotian exiles who want to
overthrow the communist regime. Exile groups, once suspected of receiving
covert support from Washington during the Cold War, continue to conduct
cross-border raids from Thailand. In Cuba, Castro has long complained that
his country has been the victim of terrorist acts carried out by Cuban
exiles based in Miami, who he says are frequently backed by the U.S.
government's Central Intelligence Agency. Barbados deputy prime minister
Billie Miller reminded the United Nations General Assembly in mid-November
that in 1976 a Cuban airliner was blown up shortly after takeoff from his
Caribbean island, killing 73 passengers. Speaking just after the 25th
anniversary of the attack, Miller condemned the lack of legal action
against the Cuban émigré perpetrators. Although reportedly well known to
U.S. intelligence and police authorities, the suspects who allegedly
planned this attack are yet to be punished. A key figure in a network of
terrorism, drug trafficking and an illegal war against Nicaragua was
identified in a Miami Herald investigation as the central figure in 11
bombing attempts against Cuba's tourist industry in 1997. South Florida
Cuban exile groups were shown to have collected at least $15,000 to help
finance the bombings. *

	*	*	*

HOW THE FEDS STOLE CHRISTMAS by Gary Krist, Sunday, December 16, 2001

[Gary Krist is a Washington writer. His latest novel is "Chaos Theory"
(Random House)]

"The federal government is the Scrooge of the season." -- D.C. Del.
Eleanor Holmes Norton

	The American people liked Christmas a lot --
	But the Federal Government clearly did NOT!
	The feds hated Christmas! They did -- every one!
	They hated the chaos, the crowds and the fun.
	"It's wartime!" they cried. "We have to be wary.
	The prospect of Christmas is simply too scary."
	(For they saw in the season's delightful excesses
	The makings of untold security messes.)
	"Those tourists will come to D.C. on their jaunts
	And want to see all of our usual haunts.
	They'll fly in from places like Flint or Peru
	And expect to see Congress, the Archives, the Zoo.
	"But how to distinguish, amid all the revels,
	The innocent tourists from terrorist devils?
	We've got to be hard-nosed -- too bad if they frown!
	We've got to take action to lock up the town!"
	So those Grinches did issue an edict to close
	All tours of the White House to regular Joes.
	"No visits allowed -- not sooner, not later --
	For you never know who is part of al Qaeda."
	This order, however, was only the latest
	Of numerous acts to defeat those who hate us.
	For one Grinch named Ashcroft already had taken
	Draconian steps that left liberals shaken.
	"It's crucial," said he, "to adopt zealous measures
	In order to safeguard our national treasures."
	So he'd rounded up suspects -- and not just a few:
	If your face fit his profile, well, boo-hoo for you.
	But that wasn't all; no, these Grinches had more.
	For they saw in this issue a wide-open door.
	Why, they even made plans, in their fright and their fury,
	To try certain people without any jury!
	And so, under pretext of just being cautious,
	They did things the Founders would surely find nauseous.
	"We've done it," they crooned, "We've killed off their spirit.
	They once loved their freedom, but now they all fear it!"
	"Yes, Christmas is spoiled, and Hanukkah, too.
	But with things as they are, who will dare to say boo?
	For when people are scared, they seize any solution,
	Despite all their laws and their old Constitution."
	But we know the rest; sure, we've all read our Seuss.
	We know that our people won't brook such abuse.
	We know they'll give voice to their freedom of speech
	And cry out their demand: equal justice for each.
	And the Grinches, of course, will take heed and reform.
	Their cold little hearts will grow ample and warm.
	For that's how it works in a holiday tale:
	The world's finer nature will always prevail.
	Ah --
	But there we'd be wrong, for in this case, alas,
	The heartwarming ending may not come to pass.
	The American people, it seems, quite approve!
	The polls show support for each Grinch-worthy move.
	So the Grinches have triumphed! The '50s are back!
	And here's what we've learned from this terror attack:
	That life is no kid's book with uplifting plot;
	Our freedoms are precious -- except when they're not.

			--30--