[Peace-discuss] News notes for Mar. 3 (part 2 of 2)

[C. G. Estabrook]

[continued from part 1]

***Friday, March 1, 2002***

WHO'RE THE TERRORISTS, AGAIN? Three days of religious violence had cost as
many as 250 lives in the Indian state of Gujarat by Friday morning.
According to the Times of India, "Neither the Army nor the shoot-at-sight
orders given to the Gujarat police could control the mob frenzy in
Ahmedabad 
 as the city witnessed a total collapse of the law and order
machinery for the second straight day taking a heavy toll of human lives
and the government's own credibility." The paper reported that "mobs ruled
the streets in almost all the curfew-bound areas killing people, burning
shops and houses and fighting pitched battles without much sign of the
security forces" ... On Thursday and Friday, most of the rioters were
Hindus attacking Muslims to avenge the massacre of 57 Hindu nationalists
burnt to death on a train Wednesday. The Times of London described the
eruption of communal violence as the "most serious challenge" to Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's government since it came to power in 1999.
"For it forces him to intervene in an issue that could polarise all India,
split his party, destabilise much of northern India and weaken the state
at a time of high tension with Pakistan." The issue is the plan by Vishwa
Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) to build a Hindu temple on the site
of a 400-year-old mosque demolished by mobs in 1992 (the mosque had
displaced a Hindu temple centuries before). In recent weeks, VHP members
have gathered on the site and have vowed to begin construction March 15 in
defiance of government instructions. VHP activists were returning from the
temple site when their train was attacked Wednesday. The Nation of
Pakistan claimed that the "train burning was set off by grave provocation
by VHP" activists, but an op-ed in the Hindustan Times was skeptical about
the incitement defense: "[I]t does seem extraordinary that slogans shouted
from a moving train or at a railway platform should have been enough to
enrage local Muslims, enough for 2,000 of them to have quickly assembled
at eight in the morning, having already managed to procure petrol bombs
and acid bombs." [SLATE]

WAR IS GOOD FOR YOU/US. An article previews GOP tactics for the November
elections. The White House will send Vice President Dick Cheney around the
country, hinting that the war on terrorism is a semi-permanent condition
and that if you're not for us, you're against America. [NEWSWEEK]

WHO'RE THE TERRORISTS? (II) The Colombian government has picked up on the
Bush administration's rhetoric of terrorism as it declares a war zone in a
large part of southern Colombia and expands military special powers.
President Andres Pastrana warned citizens to expect more "terrorist"
attacks from the rebels yesterday, in his first televised address to the
nation since breaking off peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Force
of Colombia last week. Yesterday Pastrana rejected a one-year deadline to
swap guerrillas in state jails for hostages held by FARC, including
several members of Congress. The FARC hostages include Ingrid Betancourt,
a presidential candidate with the small Oxygen Green party, who was taken
on as she tried to enter the former rebel safe haven, a Switzerland-sized
chunk of territory in the south, which Pastrana ceded to the FARC as a
peace gesture four years ago. But after the FARC hijacked a civilian
airliner and kidnapped a high-level senator, Pastrana reclaimed the zone
and called off peace talks on Colombia's 38-year civil war. Backed by an
air force bombing campaign, the Colombian army has moved in on the former
enclave to reassert control. The FARC has emerged out of the jungle to
step up attacks on power lines, knocking out power to more than 50 towns,
mainly in southern Colombia. Today, activists in Bogota are will hold a
demonstration to call for the resumption of the peace talks between the
government and the FARC, and for the safe return of the hostages. [DN]

WAR AGAINST WHOEVER (II). The administration's sending military aid to
Yemen. Several hundred American troops will train and assist Yemeni forces
in hunting terrorists, much like the United States is doing in the
Philippines. [WSJ]

HOMELAND SECURITY. Citing an unreleased federal study that the paper got a
peek of, USAT says that fallout from aboveground nuclear tests "probably
caused at least 15,000 cancer deaths in U.S. residents born after 1951."
(The paper explains that 1951 is when the aboveground tests began in
Nevada. And it adds that although aboveground tests were banned in 1963,
some of the radioactive elements released by them will "remain dangerous
for hundreds of years.") According to the article, "The study shows that
far more fallout than previously known reached the USA from nuclear tests
in the former Soviet Union and on several Pacific islands used for U.S.
and British exercises. It also finds that fallout from scores of U.S.
trials at the Nevada Test Site spread substantial amounts of radioactivity
across broad swaths of the country. When fallout from all tests, domestic
and foreign, is taken together, no U.S. resident born after 1951 escaped
exposure, the study says." The paper notes in the seventh paragraph, "The
cancer figures are a general nationwide estimate-there is no way to link
specific cases to fallout." USAT reports that the study, which was
conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and the National Cancer
Institute, has been "finished for over a year" but hasn't been released
because it's undergoing "internal review." One frustrated scientist told
the paper that he was asked to peer-review it, but still hasn't received
the study. By the way, USAT has been leading the coverage on this story
since 1997, when the government first acknowledged that the aboveground
tests could have caused what was then thought to be a large number of
relatively minor cancer cases. [USAT]

***Saturday, March 02, 2002

RESISTANCE IN ISRAELI ARMY (BUT NOT US).  Today, the 300th Israeli soldier
signed the reservists' statement -- a sergeant in the armored corps named
Avriel Bar-Levav. What started a month ago as an unusual protest statement
by 52 reservists has ballooned into one of the largest acts of organized
insubordination in Israel's history ... This week an Israeli reserve
officer walked away from his post in the West Bank to protest what he
called vague rules authorizing soldiers to open fire on Palestinians ...
"There is no room for such acts in a democratic country in a state of
war," said Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, Israeli army chief ... "Which population
in the world would allow itself to be intimidated and terrified as this
whole population is, where you can't send your kid out for a pizza at
night without fear he'll be blown up?" said David Hartman, a rabbi and
philosopher who runs a Jerusalem research institute. "The frustration is,
'Sharon, we thought you'd show our power.' Let's really let them
understand what the implication of their actions is. . . . Very simply,
wipe them out. Level them." [WP]

***Sunday, March 03, 2002***

I THOUGHT THAT WAS OVER. US troops areinvolved in fighting at Gardez, the
hottest fight in Afghanistan since Tora Bora last December ... in a "snowy
mountainous area" about 60 miles south of Kabul. NYT reports involvement
by "several hundred soldiers from the Army's 101st Airborne Division" (out
of 2,000 stationed in Kandahar) ... One American soldier is confirmed
dead, but the LAT quotes an Afghan commander who claims another American
was killed Friday night before the operation ... Each article mentions the
use of "two experimental 2,000-pound bombs," of the thermobaric variety.
(The "BLU-118B," says LAT.) Thermobarics--which disperse and then ignite a
massive cloud of flammable fuel--have been used before. (The 15,000 lbs
"daisy cutter," for example.) [SLATE]

DANGER OF PEACE BREAKING OUT. The New York Times has a package of articles
on the "Saudi Peace Idea," in advance of next week's White House visit by
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and mideast tour by VP Dick Cheney ...
One Israeli analyst dreams about normalization for NYT: "economic and
cultural cooperation; falafel in Damascus and stalls in the international
market of Dubai; an Israeli flag in Riyadh, programming engineers in
Bahrain and gas from Qatar."

DUCK AND COVER. The Washington Post features articles on "Nuclear
Anxieties," as does Time magazine. But it's also reported that radioactive
fallout from Cold War nuclear weapons tests across the globe probably
caused at least 15,000 cancer deaths in U.S. residents born after 1951,
according to data from an unreleased federal study. The study, coupled
with findings from previous government investigations, suggests that
20,000 non-fatal cancers and possibly many more also can be tied to
fallout from aboveground weapons tests. The study shows that far more
fallout than previously known reached the USA from nuclear tests in the
former Soviet Union and on several Pacific islands used for U.S. and
British exercises. It also finds that fallout from scores of U.S. trials
at the Nevada Test Site spread substantial amounts of radioactivity across
broad swaths of the country. When fallout from all tests, domestic and
foreign, is taken together, no U.S. resident born after 1951 escaped
exposure, the study says. [USA TODAY]

NOT JUST ONE BAD APPLE. We should read the recently released Nixon tapes
to see how our elected leaders actually work, e.g., a mild comment
""Goddamn that Peace Corps! Goddamn that Peace Corps! What in the hell are
they doing there [the Marianas]? I don't care where the hell they send
them. Send them to the Congo, any place, but get them the hell out of that
region. . . . They're protesters! They're against the United States. . . .
Go get them the hell out of the Marianas!"

HOW A (DOLLAR) BILL BECOMES A LAW. In early 1998, Enron Corp. secured a
$750,000 contract for political operatives tied to House Majority Whip Tom
DeLay (R-Texas) to secretly conduct an aggressive grassroots campaign
pushing energy deregulation, according to documents obtained by Roll Call
and interviews with individuals involved with the effort. The contract was
awarded after DeLay personally recommended to Enron officials that they
hire the team of strategists who make up the inner circle of his political
and fundraising machine. In a January 1998 meeting at his home in
Sugarland, Texas, DeLay reviewed plans to have Enron bankroll a new
grassroots operation to jump-start the deregulation debate with three of
his operatives. [ROLL CALL]

YA GOTTA TO BE SMART TO GET TO THE TOP. In a briefing last week, the White
House Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer, argued with the press corps that
Pakistan signed an extradition treaty with the US in 1931, even though
Pakistan was not an independent state until 1947. What is most bizarre is
that Fleischer seems to think that there were "Pakistani authorities"
running around in 1931. In fact, Chaudhuri Rahmat Ali, a Cambridge
graduate student, did not even propose the idea of creating a state called
"Pakstan" until 1933. The Lahore Resolution calling for a separate Muslim
homeland was not passed until 1940.

THIS JUST IN. The Bush administration hopes to use concern over terrorism
to build support in Congress for direct aid to the Colombian government to
fight leftist rebels, officials say. [NYT]

WHY THE US WANTS TO STOP THESE TRIALS. There are many reasoned criticisms
of the war crimes tribunal itself, whether it can be fair and outside the
realm of politics that created it amid the darkness of the Bosnian war
that raged from 1992 to 1995. But Mr. Milosevic's decision to engage
actively in his defense - as opposed to remaining mute and rejecting any
role - seems to have made this a trial that functions, more or less, as
envisioned. [NYT]

	* * *

[A] Milosevic's Trial and 'Selective Justice' By Douglas Hamilton,
Reuters, April 9, 2001

The West promises justice will be done if Slobodan Milosevic is sent to
the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague on charges of war
crimes in Kosovo.

Serbia, Russia and some independent Western analysts believe such
proceedings would be more of a show trial to vindicate NATO retroactively
for its bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. "It can't be justice, because
justice has to be based on just principles," Massachusetts Institute of
Technology linguistics professor Noam Chomsky said in an interview.

"The tribunal instantly discredited itself in the Balkan case by excluding
crimes committed by NATO. That doesn't meant that Milosevic isn't a
criminal but it does mean that you can't take the proceedings seriously,"
Chomsky said. In Moscow's view, pressure to have the former Yugoslav
president delivered to The Hague is simply "NATO bullying". "Milosevic's
surrender will play into the hands of the US which would like to see him
in The Hague and thus legalize the spring of 1999 and justify NATO's
aggression against Yugoslavia," said Dmitri Rogozin of the Russian Duma.

Serbian Justice Minister Vladan Batic wrote to Tribunal chief prosecutor
Carla Del Ponte a few days ago, demanding that ethnic Albanians also be
indicted for executing Serb civilians. "The scales of justice must be
equal for all because all sides have committed crimes," Batic said. "How
come not a single leader of another nationality was indicted? Something is
wrong here. It looks like selective justice."

Supporters of the Tribunal would say that what is wrong here is Serbian
attempts to purvey "moral equivalence" between victim and aggressor which
glosses over the facts showing who inflicted the worst crimes and who
suffered most. "It is nonsense to say Milosevic cannot get a fair trial in
The Hague," NATO Secretary General George Robertson said. "The judges at
the tribunal are of the highest reputation and are 100 per cent
independent." "Anyone who has seen the proceedings will know that the
cases have been tried to the best and most painstaking international
standards, and it has been operating long enough now to demonstrate both
its fairness and impartiality," he replied to a question.

Some argue, however, that it is not the trials that are unfair but the
targets chosen by the prosecutor's office. Yugoslav Justice Minister
Momcilo Grubac, a mild-mannered law professor who normally avoids
polemics, argued last year the court itself was clearly made up of
respected judges but the prosecutor's office was a political institution.

Critics say it is little wonder that some Western powers, including the
US, seem unenthusiastic about a permanent International Criminal Court
which could in theory be turned on themselves? "Putting foreigners on
trial for war crimes is a satisfying pastime. We can exercise our
self-righteousness at someone else's expense," said the Yorkshire Post on
this subject.

But if others can put us on trial "it could all blow up in our face". What
if Tony Blair were indicted for Yugoslavia, John Major for the Gulf War,
Margaret Thatcher for the Falkands, Henry Kissinger for Cambodia?

Chomsky pointed out that the International War Crimes Tribunal for former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) had indicted Milosevic in the middle of the NATO bombing
for alleged crimes in Kosovo. "He had committed his biggest crimes in
Bosnia and wasn't indicted because the West was dealing with him (to
obtain the 1995 Dayton peace accords)," he said, calling the May 1999
indictment a clearly political act.

Chomsky said that the US and Britain gave the Tribunal secret intelligence
for the indictment. "It's virtually identical to State Department
publications describing Milosevic's crimes."

When NATO started bombing Yugoslavia in March 1999 it was not for
humanitarian reasons but to show who was boss because the credibility of
NATO was at stake, he said. "Ask any Mafia don and he'll tell you. If
someone doesn't pay his protection money you don't just get the money; you
beat them to a pulp so that others will understand. "That's credibility,
and it's a very significant element in international affairs. Action after
action by great powers is taken to protect their credibility and it makes
sense. Others have to be afraid of them," Chomsky said.

A Milosevic trial would be an extension of the lesson, said Chomsky. He
predicted the bid to create a world war crimes court will fail, because no
great power will ever submit to it. Canadian Philippe Kirsch, a driving
force behind the idea, says 139 countries have signed the UN statute for
such a court and 29 out of the 60 needed have ratified the document. The
US is not among them. China neither.

	* * *

[B] FROM <http://www.seruv.org.il/>:

	o We, reserve combat officers and soldiers of the Israel Defense
Forces, who were raised upon the principles of Zionism, sacrifice and
giving to the people of Israel and to the State of Israel, who have always
served in the front lines, and who were the first to carry out any
mission, light or heavy, in order to protect the State of Israel and
strengthen it.
	o We, combat officers and soldiers who have served the State of
Israel for long weeks every year, in spite of the dear cost to our
personal lives, have been on reserve duty all over the Occupied
Territories, and were issued commands and directives that had nothing to
do with the security of our country, and that had the sole purpose of
perpetuating our control over the Palestinian people. We, whose eyes have
seen the bloody toll this Occupation exacts from both sides.
	o We, who sensed how the commands issued to us in the Territories,
destroy all the values we had absorbed while growing up in this country.
	o We, who understand now that the price of Occupation is the loss
of IDF's human character and the corruption of the entire Israeli society.
	o We, who know that the Territories are not Israel, and that all
settlements are bound to be evacuated in the end.
	o We hereby declare that we shall not continue to fight this War
of the Settlements.
	o We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order
to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people.
	o We hereby declare that we shall continue serving in the Israel
Defense Forces in any mission that serves Israel's defense.
	o The missions of occupation and oppression do not serve this
purpose -- and we shall take no part in them.

	[end]