Iraqis Sold Out; Oil Sold Off

Linda Heard

The White House’s criticism of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki is muted nowadays. And no wonder. Last Monday President Bush and Iraq’s leader agreed a cozy “declaration of principles”. This permits the US to keep permanent “long-term” military bases within country - expected to house up to 50,000 personnel - and opens the door to American control of Iraq’s oil sector — illegal under the 2008 US Appropriations Act, which expressly forbids such control.
The same act and the 2008 Defence Authorisation Act preclude the US from establishing “any military installation or base for the purposes of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq”.
The deal, which was effected without the approval of Iraq’s Parliament or Congress, gives grist to the mill of those who claim the invasion of Iraq was primarily carried out to further Washington’s regional hegemony and cement its control of Iraq’s rich oil and gas resources. It’s couched in terms of “two fully sovereign and independent states with common interests” - laughable if it wasn’t so tragic.
From the standpoint of the Bush administration it’s a coup. It facilitates an eventual showy withdrawal of US troops, which will please the public and quiet Democrat demands, while all the while an unspecified number of soldiers, Marines, airmen and intelligence officers will remain behind fortified walls. The voters will then be conned into believing Iraq is old news.
Why would Al-Maliki give the go ahead? Does he believe Iraqis need to be protected from each other or does he think his country is threatened by predatory neighbours? I suspect neither. Iraq survived without foreigners since its inception and with international support in terms of training, weapons and equipment it could do so again.
Moreover, bitter sectarian divisions emerged after the 2003 invasion and provided oil and gas revenues were evenly distributed throughout all provinces and a process of forgiveness and reconciliation implemented, it’s probable the country could be re-glued.
The most likely scenario is Maliki has been somehow coerced. It gets worse. The Iraqi leader is also set to ask the United Nations to renew the multinational forces’ mandate in Iraq for another year, which translated means “US forces” since the so-called coalition of the willing has been decimated with even Britain and Australia preparing to quit.
Shouldn’t he instead be appealing to the UN to call for US withdrawal, especially when almost everyone agrees the invasion was illegal and based on false pretences in the first place?
The firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr and his followers believe so. They are said to be seething over the prime minister’s capitulation effected without their consent. Iraq’s Vice President Tarek Al-Hashemi is equally scathing, while the tribal heads of Anbar province who have recently been cooperating with the Americans against al Qaeda are threatening to change allegiances.
Another point of contention within Iraq is the controversial oil law, which the US government is asking the Iraqi Cabinet to pass into law as swiftly as possible. Again, no wonder, as it allows foreign oil companies to develop the country’s oil fields and retain a substantial proportion of revenue for decades to come.
Iraq’s Oil Minister Hussain Al-Shahristani, who fled Iraq after being jailed by Saddam for refusing to help build a nuclear bomb, says final approval of the oil law is just months away. He welcomes the law as an instrument to encourage foreign investment.
It will do that alright but while most other oil producing countries have painfully rid themselves of foreign control and interference it begs belief that the Iraqi oil minister seems to be opening his arms to a plan that, on the face of it, is tantamount to theft and smacks of a bygone imperialist age.
In fact, the Kurds have beaten him to it. They’ve already had a yard sale signing 15 exploration contracts with 20 overseas oil companies.
It looks as though elements of the Iraqi government are virtually saying to their nation’s occupiers, “Our house is your house. Stay as long as you like and help yourself to the fridge”. I don’t know why and I suspect neither do the Iraqis.

Arab News

Prostitution ordeal of Iraqi girls

Lina Sinjab

With their bright neon signs and glitzy decor, dozens of nightclubs line the streets of the Maraba district in the Syrian capital Damascus. It's here that men come from far and wide - car number plates are not just from Syria but Iraq and Saudi Arabia - to watch young women dancing. Most of the dancers are teenagers and many of them are Iraqi refugees.
They dance for the cash which gets tossed onto the stage. The dancers are surrounded by bodyguards, to stop them being touched by the men. But the guards also arrange for their charges to be paid for sex with members of the audience. A women came to my mother, who agreed to send me to these places. We needed the money
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees have moved to Syria and Jordan during the past four years, escaping the violence and instability that followed the US-led toppling of Saddam Hussein. Women supporting families face the greatest challenge.
The Syrian authorities and aid agencies do not know the exact numbers, but many of the women say they have little choice but to work in places like Maraba. Rafif is an innocent-looking 14-year-old, her long hair tied in a pony tail. She seems barely to understand the enormity of the crisis she is living.
"I have three sisters who are married and four brothers. They are all in Baghdad. I am here with my mother and young brother only. None of my family know what I do here."
Banned from doing regular work in Syria, she says their money ran out and her mother started looking for other means to survive.
She says she makes about $30 a night at the clubs, but when men take her to private villas she makes $100. She won't say what she must do to earn this money.
"A woman came and spoke to my mother, who agreed to send me to these places. We needed the money. "I have already been arrested for prostitution and sent back to Iraq, but I came back with a false passport."
Not all sex workers went into the industry by choice. Nada, 16, says was dumped by her father at the Iraq-Syria border after her cousin "took away my virginity". Five Iraqi men took her from the border to Damascus, where they raped her and sold her to a woman who forced her to work in nightclubs and private villas.
She is now waiting at a government protection centre to be deported back to Iraq. The government says police have arrested Iraqi girls as young as 12 working as prostitutes in the nightclubs.
"We are coming across increasing numbers of women who do not manage to make ends meet and are therefore more vulnerable to exploitative situations such as prostitution," says Laurens Jolles of the UN refugee agency.
"Intimidation and shame means the numbers of trafficking victims and sex industry workers in Syria may never be known by government or aid agencies." Women picked up by the police are sent to protection centres, which they frequently escape from, or are sent to prison.
"Immediately after we get to them, or sometimes before, they are bailed out of prison, often by the same people who probably forced them into prostitution," says Mr Jolles. Many of the young women who leave Iraq hoping for an easier, safer existence find what is in some ways an even tougher life in Syria. At an age when life should just be beginning, Iraqi teenagers like Nada feel they have reached a dead end. "Now they will send me back to Iraq, I have no-one there and in any case I am afraid for my life. I have no hope leaving here. I have told the government I don't want to go back. My family has abandoned me."


BBC News

Desperate Somalia

Darfur has engendered less international attention but no less misery in recent months: Violence is still rampant, and aggression by the Sudanese army continues. But there is at least the hope of relief in the planned deployment early next year of 19,000 more peacekeepers under a UN mandate. That can't be said for nearby Somalia, a failed state where another nasty war is escalating, another major humanitarian crisis is building - and the United Nations, together with most of the rest of the world, has written off any rescue.
Some international aid officials are arguing that the suffering in Somalia is now greater than in Darfur, and they may have a point. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the capital, Mogadishu, to live in camps along roads, where they have little food. A failed harvest has brought the rest of the country close to famine. In the capital there are regular bombings and ambushes by insurgents and occasional flare-ups of all-out combat; more than 80 people were killed in one week this month. Hundreds have drowned in recent months trying to flee the country by boat.
A year ago there was hope that Somalia could be stabilised for the first time since 1991, after Ethiopian troops routed the forces of the Islamic Courts movement, which had installed a fundamentalist administration in Mogadishu and harboured terrorists linked to al Qaeda. But the Western-backed coalition government that the Ethiopian forces carried into Mogadishu proved incapable of broadening its base to include powerful clans whose support was needed to pacify the capital. A plan to transfer security from the Ethiopians, who are widely disliked in Somalia, to an African peacekeeping force fell through. The remnants of the Islamic Courts force regrouped to wage war against the Ethiopians, with the help of allied clansmen. Ethiopian forces have been guilty of indiscriminate shelling of neighbourhoods where insurgents are based.
Not only Somalis stand to suffer in this crisis. The war could escalate into a conflict between Ethiopia and its bitter enemy Eritrea. If the Islamists win, Somalia could become a base for al-Qaeda and a staging point for attacks in East Africa and Europe. Yet the will and resources for an international intervention seem nonexistent. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, struggling to manage nine peacekeeping operations in Africa, recently said there was little chance of one in Somalia. The United States, which was driven out of Mogadishu in 1993, has unsuccessfully sought to act through surrogates - first local warlords, now the beleaguered and undisciplined Ethiopians.
If there is a chance for improvement, it may lie with the 68-year-old humanitarian who last week was named Prime Minister, Nur Hassan Hussein. Since Somalia descended into chaos 16 years ago, Mr. Hussein has worked for the Somali Red Crescent, helping to provide health services and build hospitals. Encouragingly, he said in his first speech that "consultations will be my first priority." If Somalia is to be saved from another catastrophe, the solution will have to begin with a home-grown political bargain.

The Washington Post

Chavez isn't finished



On election days in Caracas, fireworks and bugles awaken voters in districts known to support Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who controls all branches of government and has cowed or taken over most of the media. With that kind of political machine, the defeat of Chavez's favoured constitutional reforms in a referendum on Sunday was a remarkable indictment of his agenda for the nation's future.
Yet while many have ample reason to celebrate the setback for Chavez, whose so-called reforms were aimed at turning a democracy into a socialist dictatorship, it shouldn't be taken as a sign that there is a resurgent opposition movement in a nation that has already ceded most of the reins of power to its president. Nor will Sunday's close vote - the 69 constitutional amendments were divided into two packages on the ballot, with the first losing by a margin of 1.4% and the second by 2% - put a serious brake on Chavez's quest for more influence.
Among other things, the amendments would have given Chavez control over the central bank, allowed him to appoint regional vice presidents whose powers would have superseded elected governors and mayors, granted him the ability to censor the media and suspend due process at whim, and ended presidential term limits. Even with the defeat, Chavez probably will be able to pass many of his desired reforms legislatively, given that he controls all 167 parliamentary seats as well as the Supreme Court. The term limits can't be undone without voter approval, though, meaning that Chavez may have to call for another referendum if he wants to keep his seat after his second term expires in 2012.
Media images of huge student marches in Caracas in the run-up to Sunday's vote gave the impression of a powerful opposition movement in action, but in reality, Venezuela's opposition groups are deeply fragmented and leaderless. The biggest factor in the poll loss Sunday probably wasn't the students' protests but Chavez's own nonsensical economic policies, which have caused many of his impoverished supporters to wonder if he really knows what he's doing.
Massive oil revenues and heavy government spending are helping to spark the highest inflation rate in Latin America. Chavez's response has been to impose price controls on basic foodstuffs, giving farmers no incentive to produce and retailers no incentive to sell. The result is severe shortages and hours-long waits to obtain staples such as milk and beans. If that sounds like Soviet Russia or modern Cuba, there's a reason. Chavez's socialist ideals are leading Venezuela to a precipice, and it's the poor who will suffer most if it goes over the edge.

Los Angeles Times

My life by Fidel Castro: A review

Fidel Castro, helas, et encore, helas, helas. Castro is the most famous Latin American since Bolivar, one of the few to have achieved world fame. He deserves it, as a third-world revolutionary and as a survivor. There are many studies of him, and here is another, the product of some hundred hours of interviews conducted by Ignacio Ramonet, whose inexhaustible stamina in serving him up sycophantic lobs seems to have surprised even Castro himself.

Though monumentally uncritical and containing few if any new revelations, it is not entirely useless. It summarises the Castro line on a wide range of subjects. As the Spanish saying goes, the Devil does not know so many things because he is the Devil, but because he is so old, and Castro has the longest experience of all heads of state with the exception of Queen Elizabeth II and the King of Thailand, whose trials have been less demanding. Like all tyrants he is guarded in what he says, and like all revolutionaries he is always right — they only admit mistakes when those who might benefit from the admission have departed the scene. So here for specialists who have to know about these things, and for fans — two different sets of readers and the only two likely lo get anything out of this book — is a sort of manual of the Fidel line to be referred to as the occasion demands.

Why helas? Like the original subject of the lament, Victor Hugo, Castro is not only important, at limes eloquent and interesting, but frequently, commonly quite extraordinarily boring — much more so than Victor Hugo. Andres Oppenheimer wrote 16 years ago in The preface to his prematurely titled Castro's Final Hour, "Few presidents speak more, and more often than Fidel Castro — and few repeat their public speeches so often 'in private conversation."

He is not a great orator — I remember Raymond Carr pointing out in the dawn of the regime that people listen to such figures for the simple reason that they want to know what is going to happen next. He has no sense of humour, and has never been troubled by self-doubt. He has never lost certain youthful enthusiasms, and when triggered will always start off once more on the glories of the Cuban wars of independence and Jose Marti.

An acquaintance of mine says he was nearly driven to throwing himself out of the window when trapped as the audience to an all-night conversation between Castro and Garcia Marquez — another impossibly famous person with whom Fidel likes sharing the burdens of fame — on the significance of the French Revolution.

Ploughing dutifully through My Life I came to sense the power of inflicting boredom as a political weapon, a political tool in itself, and wondered why it has attracted comparatively little attention from theorists or analysts of "discourse".

Does Machiavelli have anything to say on the subject? Have I missed some systematic treatise? Repetition of the familiar is a recognisable trait of many a political speech, and is often a necessary one

— the faithful find it reassuring, it has its place in the rituals — but with Castro we have mind-numbing of a different order, and not as an adjective, but as a distinctly transitive verb. "La France s'ennuie", as someone said — Victor Hugo again? — before one of their 19th-century revolutions, but it usually takes even the French a considerable time to reach that stage — a quarter-century of boredom and inertia under Mitterrand and Chirac, for example, before the current ambiguous stirrings under Sarkozy. Cuba must be bored indeed.

Some little light relief is inadvertently provided by Ramonet in a chapter on Fidel and France. He has some remarkably banal early memories:

I still remember some of the words I learned back then: bonjour, bonsoir, fourchette, merci beaucoup. Later on in high school, I studied French, and I was crazy about the French Revolution, so I learned that political motto the revolutionaries of 1789 gave the world: Liberte, egalite, fraternite.

Gratifying for French readers, though they are duly warned that "later, and one must keep this firmly in mind, the Revolution, like Saturn, devoured its own children". Then there is Victor Hugo again, and an enthusiasm for Les Miserables shared with Castro's new friend Hugo Chavez.

Ramonet fishes for compliments: what about de Gaulle, or the historians of the Annales school? The first gets an odd passing salute:

De Gaulle. saved France once again although I'm not sure what he saved, or what he saved it from, because you people have always had political crisis, and there was a time when you had a different government every six months.

Castro has not read the Annales historians — he got stuck with Lamartine, Thiers and Jean-Jaures — so we are mercifully spared his views on la longue duree and the inadequacies of l’histoire evenementielle'.

There were happy hunting trips with good old Georges Marchais, that enabled us to talk about all sorts of things. Every time he came, he'd bring me several bottles of excellent French wine, wonderful cheeses and sometimes foie gras, whose producers he knew personally. French wines, cheeses and foie gras are the best in the world. How delicious! Well, I said, don't even think about nationalising agriculture. Leave the small producers alone, don't touch them. Otherwise you can kiss good wine, good cheese and excellent foie gras goodbye.

That brings to mind one of the myth-beliefs of the Left in the 60s, that Castro had found the means in Cuba to produce a large range of fine cheeses — one was always given a precise number, several score, but I forget what it was — and that these cheeses were all going to find a ready market in Canada. Ramonet forgets to ask him what happened about that.

The Asian Age

Freedom At Last For Gaza: But How Long?

Donald Macintyre

24 January, 2008

Abdullah al-Najar, who runs a taxi company in the northern Gaza town of Jabalya, reflected for a moment as the families and donkey carts, laden with everything from olive oil to mattresses, from cement to computers, streamed past him and through what only hours earlier had been the impenetrable part-iron, part-concrete southern wall incarcerating Gaza's 1.5 million residents.

"I don't know who did it," he said cheerfully. "But this is an agreement between two peoples, not between governments."

Mr Najar, 38, had been up early to make the most of the fact that bulldozers had finished the job begun by the militants who had blown the wall wide open with 17 separate explosive charges in the early hours of yesterday. He was returning from Egypt finally in possession of the means of earning the livelihood a seven-month Israeli blockade had gradually denied him: tyres, car batteries, diesel and spare parts, costing some $1,300 (£650).

Like hundreds of others, he had hired a donkey cart to bring the goods unloaded from an Egyptian taxi across what was once the feared 200-metre-wide Israeli-patrolled Philadelphia corridor, and was now a giant shoppers' car park.

And certainly the steel-helmeted Egyptian border guards standing by their armoured personnel carriers seemed pleased enough to see the tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children who squeezed between the now flattened eight- metre concrete slabs of wall or scrambled across the furrows in the now uselessly prone and twisted corrugated iron barrier.

One, in camouflage fatigues, surrounded by curious small boys and standing by Rafah-Sinai's Shuhada Mosque, but with no visible weapon and refusing to give his name, said: "Everything is good. We are very happy at what happened." Had his unit received instructions on how to handle the day-long mass Palestinian break-out? "Nobody told us anything," he replied.

This may not have been quite the collapse of the Berlin Wall. But if anyone doubted the impact of a prolonged siege on an imprisoned people, they had the evidence yesterday.

With Gaza City's streets abnormally light of traffic because of the fuel shortages, the cars, vans, cattle trucks, packed with Gazans seeking everyday household wares, crowded the main Salahadin north-south artery of the Gaza Strip clogging the approaches to the border, confident of filling their jerry cans of petrol and diesel after queueing patiently on the other side. "We are going to heaven," shouted one teenager.

Egyptian Rafah had never seen anything like it, and by early afternoon many of the stores had emptied of goods. As the Egyptian money changers scrambled through the gate in the wire fence on their side of the border, their pockets stuffed with bank notes, the exchange rate in the micro-market of northern Sinai rose from seven Israeli agorot to one shekel for an Egyptian pound.

Israel will understandably see the endless two-way traffic through a gap in the border at least a kilometre wide as a major security headache. It complained yesterday that the breach meant that "potentially anyone could enter" Gaza. And no one, not even the discreetly positioned Hamas paramilitaries monitoring the exodus from the Palestinian side – and in places levying taxes on the incoming cartons of Egyptian cigarettes – could tell exactly what each cart, sack and can contained.

But even if, as seems highly probable, Hamas were themselves responsible for blowing open the wall, it was the huge masses of civilian Palestinians starved since June of any goods other than the absolute basics – and for much of the past week even of those – which then overwhelmed the border yesterday.

Men such as Mohammed al-Sheikh, 30, a butcher from Deir el Balah in central Gaza, where the price of beef has almost doubled to £7.50 a kilo, had simply taken an Egyptian taxi to the village of Sheikh Zied and walked back to the border leading the frisky black and white cow he had bought for 4,000 Egyptian pounds, or £360.

Or Marwan Talah, a 25-year-old farmer from Gaza City whose haul included six brown shaggy-haired sheep from Al Arish and two bags apiece of chemical fertiliser and the all-precious Egyptian Portland white cement which nearly every Gazan seemed to have bought sacks of yesterday. The months' long absence of cement imports through the closed Karni cargo crossing has not only halted construction throughout Gaza, but meant that its families can no longer provide the slabs to cover the graves of their dead.

But they had not all come for the medicine, flour, cooking gas, tobacco, chocolates, ovens – and, in at least one case, a $1,000 Chinese-made motorcycle – or much else unobtainable or prohibitively expensive in Gaza.

Kifa Zorab, 33, married with her five children in tow, was excited to be crossing the border to see her family in Egyptian Rafah. "We are going to see my mother-in-law," she explained with a smile. "Half my loved ones are in Gaza, and half on the other side. We're so happy; we're so relieved. It feels like a festival, like the Eid. And the Eid [the great mid-winter Muslim festival of Eid al Adha, where in normal times children are showered with gifts] was not good this year."

Inside the ironically still closed and guarded official border terminal, a uniformed Hamas "Brigadier General" stood beside Dr Atef Mohammed, a senior pharmacist waiting for his staff to bring urgently needed medicines back across the border. "It's excellent," said the Brigadier. "We have no problem with the Egyptians." He insisted that "nothing was planned".

True or not, civilian Mohammed Al Qadi, 55 summed up the outcome as he handed out Egyptian sweet wafers to everyone. "We felt it was a prison," he said with more optimism than certainty, "And now the prison gates have been opened."

Countercurrents.org

PPP is not looking for crumbs of power

Asif Ali Zardari discusses the assassination Benazir Bhutto, his concerns about Pakistan's ability to hold free elections, and plans for the PPP
Ashish Kumar Sen

Ashish Kumar Sen: You have refused to allow investigating authorities to exhume Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto's body. How can the controversy surrounding her death be laid to rest without this being done?

Asif Ali Zardari: How can we trust the regime to handle this investigation? All of us know that Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. The doctors who first tried to revive her had clearly stated that they saw bullet wounds - entry and exit. The doctors were then threatened and hushed up. The authorities have all along been trying to cover up and changed their versions.

In medico-legal cases it is the responsibility of the government to carry out a postmortem. The doctors examined her but now the regime says that they are not aware. I came from Dubai after six hours of the event when the body had already been sealed in the casket. Within no time the crime scene was hosed down. Three different versions of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto's death were given in three days by the highest officials in the country.

Under such circumstances, how can we expect Pakistani authorities to conduct a fair and honest investigation, even if after exhuming the body? What good would be done by desecrating the last remains of my wife when the entire investigation is being controlled and manipulated by the regime and a massive cover up is quite obvious?

The question of exhumation of the body is a diversion from the real issue. Why the doctors' statements were not formally recorded and their findings altered if there was even the slightest doubt about the cause of death? There was no doubt whatsoever, which is why the police also did not seek an autopsy and the doctors and police officers are being pressured to keep quiet or change their statements.

This is why we are asking for a UN investigation into the assassination. While we would assist the Scotland Yard investigators who have been called only to assist the Pakistani investigators and not to carry out independent investigations, we are concerned at how tightly the international experts' involvement in investigation is being controlled by this regime.

We need a larger political investigation under the auspices of the UN which will be an independent probe to identify the sponsors, financiers, organisers and perpetrators of the crime. The regime says that al Qaeda is involved. It has also been claiming that al Qaeda operates from across the Pakistani borders. So if by government's own admission it is a case of international terrorism, why it should not invite UN investigators? We also need an investigation into why the government changed its version and into the cover up that followed the assassination.

Had the regime investigated the October 18th massacre that targeted Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, she may be alive today. Instead of hunting down the assailants, the regime covered up that probe as well, providing impunity to terrorists that struck the first night she landed in Pakistan.

Ashish Kumar Sen: The Bush Administration continues to see President Musharraf as a steadfast ally. Are you concerned that this relationship may undermine the growth of democracy in Pakistan?

Asif Ali Zardari: Yes. As long as the remnants of dictatorship receive international support, democracy in Pakistan will be undermined. Since 9/11, Pakistan has received over $10 billion in overt and covert assistance. No one knows how it has been spent. Many think that this assistance has propped up the dictatorship rather than the people of the country.

Ashish Kumar Sen: Should US aid to Pakistan be made conditional?

Asif Ali Zardari: The people of Pakistan should continue to receive international economic assistance. However, international assistance particularly the military assistance needs to be linked to democratic progress and free and fair elections. The regime in Pakistan should be made to understand that the international assistance is for the people, the 170 million people of the country. So if the regime uses international aid to wage war against its own people it will not be regarded as aid to the people of Pakistan. The first step toward ensuring Pakistan's transition to democracy is free, transparent and fair elections on February 18, in accordance with the Constitution, under an independent Election Commission to guarantee that such elections are free and fair, and under open international and independent monitoring of such elections. The international community must ensure free, fair and transparent elections, the release of all political prisoners including judges and lawyers, the freedom of the media and the normal pursuit of political activity with full security of all national political leaders. We urge that international aid to Pakistan be further expanded to include economic and social development under an elected, democratic government.

Ashish Kumar Sen: Mr Musharraf in a recent interview said Ms Bhutto was in part to blame for her death since she emerged from the sunroof of her car. What is your reaction to this comment?

Asif Ali Zardari: It is outrageous. It goes to show how inconsiderate and insensitive the regime is. They blame the victim instead of taking responsibility for their own security failures. Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto was campaigning for the election. Our party has grassroots support - and in a campaign, you reach out to the people on the ground; speak to them, hear their views, explain your election mandate and establish a sort of personal rapport. It is offensive to suggest that she was responsible for her assassination whereas it fact the regime failed to protect her, or may one say, connived in her assassination. Government leaders, including Musharraf and his chief ministers have held rallies but had enough security to protect them from assassination. Former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and former interior Minister Aftab Sherpao were both attacked after rallies in similar circumstances. Both had security cordons that protected them. Neither was even mildly injured in the attacks. Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto was martyred not because, in defiance of what the regime wanted, she was reaching out to the people. She was martyred because of the failure or complicity of the regime in failing to protect her.

Ashish Kumar Sen: In the same CBS interview Mr Musharraf said he shared a rocky relationship with your wife and accused her of shifting the goal posts. What did she think of him?

Asif Ali Zardari: Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto rightly thought of Musharraf as untrustworthy and that view of him is shared by millions of Pakistanis and people all over the world. Over the years, the regime offered several "packages" wanting her to stay out of the country and politics, which she refused.

When his support base began eroding after Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry's dismissal, he offered reconciliation to PPP to relieve pressure on him. Then, he went back on his word - he did not provide her security, refused to provide a level playing field for free election, refused to remove ban on third term prime minister (a ban introduced in the law through executive fiat to banish Nawaz Sharif away from politics), imposed emergency and suspended the constitution. Shaheed Mohtarma Bhutto wanted a transition to democracy and she was promised it Musharraf did not want a transition to democracy. He declared virtual Martial Law. It eroded the basis of talks and negotiations.

The regime is wrong in asserting that Mohtarma Bhutto shifted the goal posts. As a matter of fact Musharraf went back on his word. He has been running with the hare and hunting with the hound. And I think Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto's assassination is the ultimate in deception.

Ashish Kumar Sen: Are you confident that the elections of Feb 18 will be free and fair?

Asif Ali Zardari: In the current state the elections cannot be free and fair. Indeed international bodies like the International Crisis Group (ICG) have already catalogued how the dice has been loaded against the democratic parties particularly the Pakistan People's Party. Pre-poll rigging began several months ago. Shaheed Mohtarma Bhutto planned to give a consolidated report of complaints of rigging from across the country to the two US Congressmen later on the day she was martyred. The report had just been completed and was to be released to the international community the day after the rally. Our party released this report earlier this month. The report shows how far the Musharraf regime has gone and is planning to go to rig the election. The electoral rolls are flawed. The Election Commission is far from independent. The media and judiciary are not free. The district governments and intelligence agencies are openly engaged in electoral fraud and then there are the plans for Election Day.

Ashish Kumar Sen: The US had worked behind the scenes to try and cobble a power sharing agreement between Ms Bhutto and Mr Musharraf. In an interview, Pakistan's Ambassador Mahmud Ali Durrani said Mr Musharraf was open to the idea of joining in a coalition. Would the PPP consider such power-sharing should the need arise?

Asif Ali Zardari: Musharraf has shown that he does not respect the constitution and considers his own word above that of the law. Coalitions and power sharing are concepts under normal politics and constitutional rule. The PPP is a democratic political party that led the nation in evolving consensus on the 1973 constitution. We have paid a heavy price for our struggle for democracy - the assassinations of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, the imprisonment of thousands of our members and workers over the years, my own imprisonment for eleven long years in two separate spells. We are open to all options to ensure restoration of democracy but we will not become part of any excuse to maintain the current regime. So much depends on what direction things are taking. We are not looking for crumbs of power from a dictator's table. We will take our rightful share in power under the constitution after a free and fair election.

Ashish Kumar Sen: Is the PPP open to the idea of sharing power with Nawaz Sharif's party under similar circumstances?

Asif Ali Zardari: The PPP and Mr Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) are signatories to the Charter for Democracy. We have been allies in the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD). We have a common cause in opposing the dictatorship. All questions about sharing power are premature. Decisions in this regard will be taken by the Party's central executive when the time comes. The first question facing all of us is getting free and fair elections and returning Pakistan to the path of democracy. But power cannot be carved up on a dictator's table. For us legitimate power can only accrue from the power of the ballot, not the bullet.

Ashish Kumar Sen: If the PPP comes to power would it seek to impeach Mr Musharraf?

Asif Ali Zardari: The PPP has just lost its leader. I have just lost my wife. My children have lost their mother. Our party is facing massive repression and threats to our security. Pakistanis are engaged in a struggle for the restoration of democracy. I think these are the realities we face. This question is hypothetical. For now, we are focused on the elections.

Ashish Kumar Sen: Do you believe the Supreme Court judges fired by Mr Musharraf should be reinstated and would your party do this if it wins the Feb 18 election?

Asif Ali Zardari: The PPP has been unequivocal in demanding independence of the judiciary. Lawyers belonging to the PPP, most notably Aitzaz Ahsan, were prominent in the struggle for rule of law that followed the ouster of the Chief Justice by the government in March. From the footage of the rallies of that period it is clear that the crowds all waved PPP flags. At that time the issue was simple: To get the Chief Justice restored to his office. We will have to find a way around it and our approach will be institutional, not centered on individuals. The PPP manifesto and the Charter of Democracy it signed with the PML (N) clearly state that we will re-establish the judiciary's independence under the constitution and we plan to do just that if we win the election and form the government.

Ashish Kumar Sen: Some critics have voiced concern that leadership of the PPP is being handed down like a "family heirloom." How do you react to this?

Asif Ali Zardari: Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto let her wishes about the party leadership e known in her will. The will was read out at the meeting of the PPP Central Executive Committee after her assassination. The CEC elected the new leadership in accordance with Mohtarma's will. The decision to elect me and our son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as co-Chairmen of the PPP was made by the party's Central Executive Committee. Even if it was in accordance with the late leader's will, it is wrong to say this is the transfer of a family heirloom or anything like that. The Party leadership felt that in the current chaotic condition in the country and in the Party, I could effectively hold the Party together and lead them into elections. In the sub-continental politics and also in Pakistan the family tree has significance. It was the party's decision, which was fully backed by the rank and file. In fact, according to a recent Gallup poll, a majority of Pakistanis (53 percent) think that it was the right decision taken by the Party. Pakistan is not the only country where members of a political party see a family as representing their aspirations.

The PPP's central executive committee took a unanimous decision to endorse Bhutto's will but appointed Bilawal Bhutto, not myself as the Chairman. I was chosen to run the day to day affairs of the Party. This equation distributes decision making in a collegial framework. The party surely has a right to choose its own leadership. This is not the same as passing down leadership like furniture. The Chair we now occupy is a bloody one. It is not one that everyone wants.

Ashish Kumar Sen: What role do you foresee for Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan in the party? Do you intend to reach out to leaders like Aftab Sherpao who split from the party?

Asif Ali Zardari: Foreign media speculates more about individuals within our party than our own members do. The PPP is an institution which has several brilliant leaders and talented workers - with some of the most experienced administrators and articulate individuals in the country. Aitzaz Ahsan has worked for the cause of democracy and for the PPP for years. We seek his immediate release from detention so that he can come and play the central role in the party's struggle that he has played in the past. I am personally reaching out to all of party leaders and rank and file, including Aitzaz Ahsan. My goal is to strengthen the Party together and lead the PPP into elections and restoration of democracy. Specific roles of individuals have not yet been discussed. The time to do that will also come.

Ashish Kumar Sen: Does the PPP intend to field Amin Fahim as its prime ministerial candidate?

Asif Ali Zardari: Mr Fahim is one of the most experienced and respected members of the Party. The issue of the Prime Minister will be decided only after elections in the light of our strength in the Parliament. It is pre-mature to talk of Prime Minister even as elections have not been held and we do not know which Party gets how many parliamentary seats.

Ashish Kumar Sen: You have been a controversial figure in the past. Do you believe you can unite the PPP?

Asif Ali Zardari: Pakistanis know their history and they know who was made controversial for what reason and by whom. The PPP stands united. I hope to keep things that way. As for the controversy, I have spent eleven years in prison, three years on one occasion and eight and a half years on another, without ever being convicted of any crime.

This was the price I had to pay for being the spouse of the Pakistan's symbol of democracy and I paid it willingly because I shared my wife's commitment. As for how the allegations and accusations are hurled against opponents for political reasons I would like to remind that even the Chief Justice was accused of corruption and unceremoniously thrown out when the regime found him inconvenient. He was reinstated under public pressure only to be sacked again through imposition of martial law and emergency.

Ashish Kumar Sen: What is your vision for the PPP and how do you intend to go about implementing it?

Asif Ali Zardari: The PPP will continue to be a force for democracy and social change as it was envisioned by its founder Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. Once we have successfully fought for the restoration of democracy and the end of dictatorship in the country, we will be able to expand the PPP as a modern, democratic political party. It is not easy to operate a normal political party under abnormal circumstances. The PPP is the only party that has openly identified extremism and dictatorship as the twin challenges that threaten our survival. Fighting militancy was Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto's vision for a stable, modern Pakistan and I will do all I can to realise this dream. I hope that we can normalise Pakistan's politics and then we will show everyone how the PPP would be a social democratic party like any in the world.

Ashish Kumar Sen: How soon do you expect Bilawal to start playing an active role in the party? He has indicated he wants to focus on his studies for now - what would you like him to do?

Asif Ali Zardari: I fully support his decision. I would like him to concentrate on his education - and take up political duties only when he is ready. I would want his privacy protected. As a father I want him to go through the rest of his youth as normally as is possible under the circumstances. In his press conference in London he also passionately appealed to the media to respect his privacy to complete his education.

Outlook India

Escape from Gaza or Voluntary Transfer?

By Mike Whitney

24/01/08 "ICH" -- -- Forget everything you've read about the “Great Escape” from Gaza. It's all rubbish. The whole farce was cooked up in an Israeli think tank as way to rid Palestine of its indigenous people. Here's an excerpt from the Israeli newspaper Arutz Sheva which explains the real motive behind the incident:

“MK (Israeli Knesset member) Aryeh Eldad is hailing the Arab exodus to Egypt as proof that voluntary transfer is indeed an option.”

“The Israeli left continues to claim that there is no such thing as voluntary transfer, and simply ignores reality,” Eldad said. (Arutz Sheva)

Voluntary transfer. Bingo.

So the fleeing Palestinians just fell into a trap. Now they've been banished to Egypt by their own volition. We'll have to wait and see how many are allowed to return.

The media has played its traditional role in the Gaza fiasco, trying to make it look like Hamas' "terrorist masterminds" struck a major blow against Israel. It's just a way of diverting attention from Israel's role in the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Here's the way Ha'aretz summed it up:

“Hamas chalked up a real coup. Not only did the organization demonstrate once again that it is a disciplined, determined entity, and an opponent that is exponentially more sophisticated than the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Israel, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority are now forced to find a new joint border control arrangement, one that will probably depend on the good graces of Hamas....The Hamas action yesterday was anything but spontaneous. It was another stage in the campaign that began in Gaza's night of darkness on Sunday. As Gaza was plunged into widely televised blackness, Palestinian children armed with candles were brought out on a protest march and organized into prime-time demonstrations in support of the Egyptian and Jordanian branches of the Muslim Brotherhood.” (“Gaza border breach shows Israel Hamas is in charge, Ha'aretz)

Nonsense. Israel is not the victim any more than Palestinian children are "armed" with candles. The candles are a symbol of hope; something that is sadly lacking under Israeli rule. The truth is that Israel was getting battered in the media for cutting off food, water, energy and medical supplies to 1.5 million civilians (some of whom died in the hospital when the power was turned off on their respirators) so they looked for a way to do an about-face without appearing weak. Ha'aretz would like us to believe that our sympathy for starving women and children is the result of the propaganda we've seen in the "Palestinian-owned” media.

What a laugh; the “Palestinian-owned” media.

Hamas poses no threat to Israel and it controls nothing; certainly not the border. They've even suspended all suicide attacks since they won democratic elections a year and a half ago. But that is not enough for Israel whose goal is to extinguish any trace of Arab solidarity or Palestinian nationalism. Nearly all of the 4,000 articles now appearing on Google News follow this same absurd narrative about 'clever terrorists' who've out-foxed Israel and liberated their people. It's just another way of concealing the criminal brutality of the 60 year long occupation. In truth, Hamas probably had nothing to do with the destruction of the wall. It's just part of Israel's plans to exile more Palestinians.
According to the article in Arutz Sheva, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak decided to follow orders from Hamas' chief Khaled Mashall and “ignore Israeli calls to close the border. Mashaal seemed to indicate that Hamas was asserting sovereignty over northern Sinai, calling upon the Arab world to take advantage of the Islamist group's new stronghold to provide aid directly without Israeli interference.”

Now, that's a stretch. In other words, US puppet Hosni Mubarak—-who gets $2 billion a year in aid from the United States---has suddenly decided to take orders from the head of a group that is on the State Dept's list of terrorist organizations so that he can fulfill his obligations as a “loyal Arab”?

Ridiculous.

Besides, Hamas has no interest in northern Sinai or any other territorial ambitions. Its only purpose is to resist Israeli occupation.

So far an estimated 350,000 residents of Gaza have fled across the border since Wednesday. The Egyptian police have done nothing to stop them from entering the country. "A significant number have remained in Egypt...traveling south to Egyptian population centers.”

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on 1-24-08 that:

“Israeli officials proposed that Egypt take over responsibility for sustaining the Gaza Strip.

Israeli media quoted members of the Olmert government as saying Thursday that, after Palestinians overran the Gaza-Egypt border, there was an opportunity to demand that Cairo take care of the needs of the coastal territory.

"We need to understand that when Gaza is open to the other side, we lose responsibility for it. So we want to disengage from it," Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai told Army Radio. "We are responsible as long as there is no alternative." (JTA)

Are we expected to believe that in the last 24 hours Israel decided willy-nilly to relinquish control over parts of the Gaza Strip? Israel has devoted a considerable amount of time to building settlements in a way that removes any possibility of creating a contiguous Palestinian state. It is highly unlikely that their plans for Gaza are taken any less seriously. In fact, we are probably seeing a manifestation of those plans right now via the expulsion of 350,000 Palestinians.

The Jerusalem Post's Yaakov Katz clarifies how the destruction of the border wall serves Israel's long-term policy objectives:

“Without even knowing it, Egypt helped Israel on Wednesday to complete the disengagement from the Gaza Strip. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said he opened the crossing for Gazans since they were "starving due to the Israeli siege," what he did proved to the world that his country is perfectly capable of caring for the Palestinians when it comes to food and medical care.

Wednesday's events and particularly Mubarak's decision to open a floodgate into his country for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, demonstrated that there are alternatives to Israel when it comes to being Gaza's provider. " (Jerusalem Post)

That says it all, doesn't it? The Palestinians are regarded as a mere nuisance and a drain on Israeli resources. Now that the wall has conveniently been knocked down, the problem appears to be solved.

Hamas had nothing to do with blowing up the wall. And if they did, they were just unwitting accomplices in Israel's masterplan to drive more Palestinians off the land and to absolve themselves of any responsibility for the ones that remain.

This is just another grim chapter in Bush's “New Middle East”.

The Information Clearing House

Alarming rise in crimes against women in India

The Marine Drive that connects Puri to Konark in Orissa is a gorgeously picturesque sight. You can see the waves crashing against the shore even as trees play hide and seek with the Bay of Bengal. For the 27-year-old married woman Sobha (name changed) who stays in a village near Puri, Marine Drive will now be a ghastly memory that will haunt her forever. On November 3, 2007, Sobha and her uncle boarded a bus to go to Konark, trying desperately to avoid a gang of motorcycle riding youngsters who were hounding her and passing lewd remarks. Minutes after the bus rumbled on the smooth road, the bikers stopped the bus and dragged Sobha out even as the driver, the conductor and almost 50 other passengers remained impotent mute witnesses. Sobha was repeatedly gang-raped by five youngsters, her life crashing even as the waves crashed at the shore.

Less than two hours after revellers rang in the year 2008, Mumbai lost whatever semblance of shame it was holding on to in the posh suburb of Juhu. A marauding mob of wolves pounced upon two NRI females, stripped their clothes, groped them, molested them and fell upon them like a pack of wild dogs before a conscientious traffic cop rescued the females.

Bitti Mohanty is the son of a Director General of Police. In 2006, he was accused of raping a German tourist in Rajasthan and sentenced to 7 years rigorous imprisonment by the court. Yet, the high and mighty have their own ways and in November 2006, Bitti jumped parole and is still absconding; even though his DGP dad B.B. Mohanty languished in a jail in Jaipur on charges of abetting Bitti’s escape.

Twentythree-year-old Samlin Jenita had married an NRI and gone to the United States to chase her dreams. In 2007, she was airlifted back to Chennai in a critical condition with multiple bone fractures and other serious injuries. Fed up of even torture to make Samlin fetch more dowry, her NRI in-laws simply threw her out of a speeding car. It was only a good Samaritan in the form of a Pakistani doctor that saved her from certain death in the US.

Welcome to India Shining, India Rising and a perverted India pining. In 2006, there were close to 20,000 cases of ‘reported’ rape; that works out to 55 a day. There were more than 36,000 ‘reported’ cases of molestation in the same year; almost 100 every day. And close to 18,000 women were abducted and kidnapped in 2006; close to 50 every day. Each day in 2006, about 22 women were tortured to death for dowry; not to speak of more than 170 each day that were harassed and tortured for dowry. The figures for 2007 are not out. But the unprecedented rise in violent crimes against women across India shows disturbing signs of social behaviour and the efficacy of the criminal justice system.

Incredible India is fast gaining notoriety as the rape capital of the world. (Of course, Manmohan Singh can claim that the great Indian civilisation scores over the upstart United States led by George Bush: more than 200 women are raped every day in the land of golden opportunities) Says Ambika Soni, Union Tourism Minister, “Reports of attacks on tourists that are coming from various states is very disturbing. This is certainly going to impact the tourism industry in India.” Forget the tourism industry for a while. The animal like behaviour of males –both individually, in groups and as a mob – reflect very poorly on the changing attitudes in Indian society. Says Dr Vandana Prakash, Clinical Psychologist at Fortis Hospital, “Crimes against women (especially rapes) have always been there, but cases of molestation have risen dramatically, particularly in the metros. One factor to blame is the media. The way the news is presented and the treatment it is given acts more as a stimulant than a deterrent”. Surely, Indian news channels need to ponder a while even as they chase TRPs like louts chase women.

No doubt, media must take its part of blame for sensationalising stories of molestation and rape rather than treating the stories and victims in a dignified and compassionate manner. (One senior Lok Sabha MP says, on condition of anonymity, that loutish and aggressive behaviour of parliamentarians increased dramatically after they became aware that Lok Sabha proceedings were being telecast live to the whole nation!). Yet, in many ways, this sudden spurt in crimes against women is also a reflection of the struggle between Bharat and India. India belongs to the upwardly mobile. Westernised and well-heeled urban Indians for whom air kisses and even smooching inside parked cars is par for the course. Bharat belongs to Indians who yearn for the better things of life and yet have been denied the privileges that an ‘Indian’ enjoys because of background, lack of education and the requisite skill sets. This tussle between the traditional haves and have-nots is becoming an explosive mix in the country. Says Dr Sameer Malhotra, senior Psychiatrist at Fortis: “Fragile self-esteem, anti-social traits, drug use, peer influence, changing social norms with emphasis on materialism, seeing and using women as commodities to promote materialistic gains and aggression and stimulation as part of ‘manliness’ are some factors behind the growing incidents of crimes against women.” That helps explain the savage behaviour of many Indian males, but it is no comfort to the more than 100,000 ‘reported’ victims of sexual harassment of some kind every year. It is said, if you take into account the unreported cases, at least one million women a year suffer from some abuse or other. “Says activist Madhu Kishwar, “Even upwardly mobile women can’t claim that they are safe”. Kishwar was recently assaulted by a mob of goons in a Delhi neighbourhood where she was promoting a model scheme for street hawkers.

But how is it that about 2,500 girls, teenagers and women get abused, harassed, molested, sexually assaulted and tortured even as Indian law and the Indian courts take increasingly deterrent steps? Indian women only have to thank the hopelessly outdated, inefficient, callous and cruel justice delivery system. Says well-known lawyer Prashant Bhushan, who has been battling for a more efficient and transparent judicial system for years, “The legal system in this country is kind of moribund. It is extremely inaccessible for the middle class and the poor. It is no surprise in that case that crimes against women are increasing. If rich culprits, or any culprit for that matter, are not brought to book it will only encourage them.” Look at the case of Bitti Mohanty. The son of DGP of Orissa, Bitti, managed to obtain parole despite a 7-year-term and promptly jumped parole. It is only a sustained media campaign of 15 months that saw his DGP dad being arrested. But of course, policy makers keep trying to find out ways and means to prevent the rise and rise of these ghastly crimes that shame Indian society. Says the State Minister for Home, Government of India, Sri Prakash Jaiswal: “An inter-ministerial committee, comprising social justice, tourism and women and child welfare ministries, has been formed which will look into the matter and accordingly, the Union Home Ministry will suggest steps to state governments during the chief ministers' meeting to be held in Delhi.” Minister Jaiswal is, no doubt, genuinely worried and concerned at the alarming rise in such crimes, but each day that the Committee deliberates will see more than 150 women ‘report’ molestation and rape. The next time someone tells you that India is a land that worships the female form, all you need to do is snigger and laugh. Don't worry, we are just like that.

The Sunday Indian