Nava Thakuria in Guwahati

Bird flu or avian influenza has hit Manipur. It came to notice after the deaths of around a hundred chickens in Thangmaiban village near the state capital Imphal. The state veterinary department officials sent the samples of the dead birds to the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh) and the National Institute of Virolog, Pune, where those were declared positive.
   The Manipur government has already sounded an alert throughout the state. At the same time, other northeastern states like Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh with Assam have been put on alert. The Manipur officials informed that nearly 150,000 chickens would be culled within a week to prevent the virus spread.
   Avian influenza is an infectious disease of birds and it was first identified in Italy a century back. Though all kinds of birds are susceptible to the infection with the virus, some species are proved to be more vulnerable. Domestic poultry like chickens are more susceptible to the epidemic. The migratory wild ducks are reported as the natural reservoir of avian influenza viruses.
   India witnessed the first outbreak of bird flu in its territory last year, when Nandurbar and Jalgaon area of Maharashtra reported about the disease. No report of human infection was available in that incident, as the authority took prompt action. Even in Manipur, there are no immediate reports of human contracting the virus.
   The Imphal-based Regional Institute of Medical Science Hospital has set up a cell to deal with the situation. Burma reported about the H5N1 bird flu a few weeks back. The virus has already killed nearly 200 people throughout the globe. The World Health Organisation reports about 300 known cases of bird flu till date.
   The Imphal Free Press, a Manipur-based English daily, in one of its editorials argued that bird flu experience is new in Manipur “although there were a couple of occasions in the past when alarm levels shot up high”. The editorial also added, “Official culling of farm chicken in Imphal is due to begin within five kilometre radius of the farm in Chingmeirong where chicken deaths were first reported. Close to a lakh and a half fowls reared for meat or egg, would perish in the process. Many small-time farmers and even mid-sized ones would understandably incur heavy losses. Some would have been ruined too had it not been for the government’s generous plan to pay compensations to soften the impact.”

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Bush line distorts Iran’s
real interest in Iraq

Gareth Porter in Washington

As US and Iranian diplomats met in Baghdad recently for a second round of talks on Iraq, the domestic US political climate appears decidedly more supportive of an aggressive US posture toward Iran than just a few months ago, reflecting the apparent triumph the George W. Bush administration’s narrative on Iran’s role in Iraq.
   That new narrative threatens to obscure the bigger picture of Iranian policy towards Iraq, widely recognised by regional specialists. Iran’s strategic interests in Iraq are far more compatible with those of the United States than those of the Sunni regimes in the region with which the United States has aligned itself.
   Contrary to the official narrative, Iranian support for Shiites is not aimed at destabilising the country but does serve a rational Iranian desire to maximise its alliances with Iraqi Shiite factions, in the view of specialists on Iranian policy and on the security of the Persian Gulf region.
   Symptomatic of the toughening attitude in Congress toward Iran was the 97-0 vote in the Senate last week for a resolution drafted by its leading proponent of war against Iran, Sen. Joe Lieberman, stating that “the murder of members of the United States Armed Forces by a foreign government or its agents is an intolerable act of hostility against the United States.” The resolution demanded that the government of Iran “take immediate action” to end all forms of support it is providing to Iraqi militias and insurgents.
   That vote followed several months of intensive administration propaganda charging that Iran is arming Shiite militias in Iraq, and characterising Iranian financial support and training for Shiite militias as an aggressive effort to target U.S. troops and to destabilise Iraq.
   But this administration line ignores the fact that Iran’s primary ties in Iraq have always been with those groups who have supported the Nouri al Maliki government, including the SCIRI and Dawa parties and their paramilitary arm, the Badr Corps, rather than with anti-government militias. That indicates that Iran’s fundamental interest is to see the government stabilise the situation in the country, according to Prof. Mohsen Milani of Florida International University, a specialist on Iran’s national security policies.
   Milani argues that Iran’s interests are more closely aligned with those of the United States than any other state in the region. “I can’t think of two other countries in the region who want the Iraqi government to succeed,” says Milani.
   He believes the Iranians are so upset with the efforts by the Saudis to undermine the Shiite-dominated government that they may try to use the talks with the United States on the security of Iraq to introduce intelligence they have gathered on Saudi support for al Qaeda and Sunni insurgents.
   Trita Parsi, author of a new book on Iranian-Israeli security relations, agrees that Iran’s support for the Maliki government stands in contrast to the attitude of the leading U.S. Sunni ally in Middle East, Saudi Arabia. “Look at what the Saudis are calling the Maliki government—a puppet government,” he observes. “You’re not hearing that from Iran.”
   Dr. James A. Russell, a lecturer in National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School and a specialist on security affairs in the Gulf region, agrees that the two countries do indeed share common strategic interests in Iraq, at least in terms of rational, realist definitions of strategic interest.
   The problem, Russell says, is that the history of the relationship and domestic political constituencies pose serious obstacles to realising those common interests. Two such obstacles are “the very powerful political constituency for attacking Iran” and support for Israel, says Russell.
   James Dobbins, former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and director of the Rand Corporation’s International Security and Defence Policy Centre, agrees that Iran is not trying to destabilise Iraq. “They have been supportive of the government and hope it prevails,” he says. As for the chief source of instability in Iraq, the Sunni-Shiite conflict, Dobbins notes that “Iranians don’t see anything to be gained by Sunni-Shi’a conflict in Iraq”.
   Contrary to the impression conveyed by the Bush administration, Iran’s ties to Shiite militias do not represent a new development. They have been a constant in Iranian policy since the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime opened the way for Shiite militias to return from Iran in 2003.
   In August 2005 a Time magazine story reported that Iranians were providing support to what were then called “Shiite insurgents” but quoted Western diplomats as saying that they “appear to be acting defensively rather than offensively”. Those sources noted that the Iranian assistance to Shiite militias was “dwarfed by the amount of money and materiel flowing in from Iraq’s Arab neighbors to Sunni insurgents”.
   Iran specialists and regional analysts agree that Iran’s ties with militias who attack U.S. and British forces as well as government targets is essentially a way of ensuring that Iran will be on good terms with any future regime in Baghdad. “They’re trying to hedge their bets,” says Dobbins, “because they’re not sure who’s going to prevail.”
   Russell agrees that Iranian support for militias is not aimed at to destabilising Iraq but to establish good relations with every Shiite faction. “This is a logical step to protect their interests,” he says.
   The U.S. military presence is an obvious point of U.S.-Iranian contention over Iraq. Iran has shown a relatively high level of tolerance for the U.S. occupation in the past but has grown increasingly critical of that presence over the past year. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in May, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki charged that the U.S. military presence was a cause of instability rather than a solution for it.
   “We believe that sooner or later they have to decide to withdraw their troops from Iraq because that is the cause for the continuation of terrorist activities,” he said.
   The changing Iranian posture toward the U.S. presence may reflect the relative weakening of the al-Maliki government and the emergence of the fiercely nationalist Moqtada al-Sadr as a major political force. Sadr has brought the demand for a timetable for U.S. withdrawal to the centre of his political strategy in recent months.
   Given the uncertain political future of the country and the growing demand by Shiite militias—including those which have been affiliated with Sadr’s Mahdi Army—for support for armed activities against the occupation, Iran probably felt that it had little choice but to respond positively.
   Although the spokesman for U.S. command recently suggested that Iran has been supporting “rogue elements” fighting against coalition forces, last November U.S. intelligence officials confirmed that Mahdi Army units were being trained by Iranian ally Hezbollah in Lebanon with Sadr’s knowledge.
   But Iran may also share the interest of the al-Maliki government in having continued U.S. support for the development of Shiite security forces. “Tehran is not necessarily in favour of a complete pull-out,” says Russell.
   The actual degree of convergence between U.S. and Iranian interests on Iraq could still be a factor in the bilateral talks on the subject, despite the determination of the still powerful Vice President Dick Cheney to make sure they fail.
   *Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His latest book, “Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam”, was published in June 2005.
   — Inter Press Service

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Mainstream media colluded to boost
US Govt’s war efforts

Khody Akhavi in Washington

A shocking thing happens midway through Norman Solomon’s documentary film “War Made Easy”. While analysing the George W. Bush administration’s lead-up to the Iraq invasion, Solomon plays a news clip of Eason Jordan, a CNN News chief executive who, in an interview with CNN, boasts of the network’s cadre of professional “military experts”. In fact, CNN’s retired military generals turned war analysts were so good, Eason said, that they had all been vetted and approved by the U.S. government.
   “I went to the Pentagon myself several times before the war started and met with important people,” he said. “We got a big thumbs up on all of [the generals].”
   In a country revered for its freedom of speech and unfettered press, Eason’s comments would infuriate any veteran reporter who upholds the most basic and important tenet of the journalistic profession: independence.
   But the relationship between the press and government in the U.S. during times of war is changing. In Solomon’s film, it is just one example of the collusion between the government and the mainstream news media.
   “War Made Easy”, which is narrated by Hollywood actor and peace activist Sean Penn, begins as an anti-war film that decries the Bush administration’s interventionist rationale and misinformation campaigns during the post-9/11 era. Through a montage of video clips from cable news networks, presidential statements, and historical footage from previous U.S. military interventions, it compares the propaganda techniques of the past with the present, and draws striking parallels.
   Richard Nixon’s “Vietnamisation” rhetoric, which expanded the Vietnam War instead of ending it, sounds very similar to President Bush’s declaration that “as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.”
   The first half-hour of this 73-minute documentary spends too much time explaining to the audience much of what it probably already knows. But it redeems itself by delving into the insidious tactics used by the Bush administration in managing a war of choice, and how the mainstream media colluded with the U.S. government to boost the war effort.
   “Rarely if ever does a war just fall down from the sky. The foundation needs to be laid, and the case is built, often with deception,” says Solomon during an interview in the film.
   “War Made Easy” was produced and directed by Loretta Alper and Jeremy Earp for the Media Education Foundation, a non-profit that distributes educational programming “to reflect critically on the media industry and the content it produces,” according to organisation’s website. Its board of advisors includes prominent left-wing academics such as Noam Chomsky and Cornell West.
   Six years after the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, the U.S. news media’s tepid performance during the build-up to the war has been exposed and criticised by the very establishment that was supposed to hold political officials’ “feet to the fire,” as the journalistic proverb goes.
   In one interview clip from the Jon Stewart comedy show, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer shrugs and says, “We should have been more sceptical,” drawing a puzzled look from Stewart.
   “War Made Easy” does not dispute the idea that the press is self-correcting, is willing to investigate its own reporting lapses (as the New York Times did after the Judith Miller WMD scandal), and issue apologies and retractions. But it warns against the ostensible collusion between press and government. In Solomon’s view, the U.S. mainstream news media is cast as part and parcel of the Bush administration’s war apparatus, an echo chamber that packages, builds support for, and, through the vehicle of “leaked misinformation,” sells the war to the U.S. public.
   For example, in the lead-up to “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” CNN chairman Walter Isaacson sent a memo to his anchors and reporters asking them to “remind viewers why they are watching the war.” As video of the clean-up at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan rolls across the screen, one can’t help but thinking about Sep. 11.
   Solomon also labours over the parallels between U.S. government propaganda and how the rhetoric is now filtered into a more sophisticated media campaign, yet for all intents and purposes, fulfils the same goal. In short, it is more insidious than ever.
   In one scene, he describes how a Hollywood set designer was hired to build a news set (with polished backdrop and sleek high-definition televisions) for the public relations arm of the U.S. military during the Iraq war. Presentations by military commanders and officials resemble news broadcasts. There is no discussion of the facts, and what the government says is accepted without question.
   None of these revelations are exactly new, but the historical parallels between Vietnam and the Iraq war are becoming increasingly clear as the U.S. remains for a fifth year in Iraq. “War Made Easy” offers a timely criticism of the media, and portends an ominous future for the U.S. news viewing public should they sit back and accept without question the pronouncements of political leaders and evening news anchors.
   — Inter Press Service

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Jehan Perera

On the eve of the first public rally of the newly- floated “National Congress’, the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government put a brave face declaring that it had no reason to be concerned over “meaningless rallies with narrow political objectives”. The public show of the National Congress, an alliance of the United National Party (UNP) led by former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and the rebel Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) leader Mangala Samaraweera is seen as a test for the alliance to mobilise forces opposed to the policies of the Rajapaksa Government.
   Despite the outwardly calm demonstrated by the campaign managers of the Government, there are enough indications of nervousness within the ruling party particularly after the former President, Chandrika Kumaratunge, blessed the venture after hitting out at the policies of the Rajapaksa regime. Chief Government Whip Jeyaraj Fernandopulle claimed at a news conference here on Wednesday that the President who obtained a “great victory over the LTTE” is not going to lose sleep over such demonstrations. The ruling combine is portraying the alliance as a grouping of political elements jealous of the military successes.
   The alliance between the breakaway faction of the ruling party (SLFPM) headed by former minister Mangala Samaraweera and the UNP has re-energised opposition politics. The large show of strength at the inaugural meeting of the new alliance last week has caused anxiety in the government. A government response is to conduct celebrations throughout the country to keep alive patriotic sentiment in the aftermath of its military victory over the LTTE in the east. By itself this is unlikely to assuage the hunger for economic progress and normalcy in the lives of the majority of the electorate. The most recent increase in the price of petrol and cooking fuel, and the continuing reports of military encounters and associated costs of war, are an indicator of the difficulties that need to be overcome.
   
   Flux and violence
   This time of political flux and violence is an opportune one for reflecting on the past. The month of July in particular holds special significance on account of two events of momentous significance. The first is that it marks the 24th anniversary of the July riots of 1983. Most commentators consider the war for Eelam to have commenced with that anti-Tamil pogrom. In the context of the present government’s emphasis on Sinhalese nationalism, there was limited reference to these events that finally convinced the Tamil polity in the country that separation was the answer to their terrible plight. The presence of war and a dispirited Tamil polity offered little space for even civil society to publicly mourn the past.
   The second momentous event that took place in July was the signing, two decades ago, of the Indo Lanka Peace Accord in July 1987. Prior to this landmark agreement, the main hope of Tamil nationalists and militants alike was that India would continue with its political and military assistance that had taken separatist sentiment to the point of no-return. But the signing of the Indo Lanka Peace Accord should have ended that dream. It did not, and the political conviction of an entire generation on the need for Tamil separation has needed the succeeding two decades to fade away as being unachievable and unrealistic.
   The indications on the ground at the present time are that the LTTE is fighting a rearguard action on behalf of a cause that has diminished relevance to a generation of younger of Tamils whose aspirations for the future lie elsewhere. The departure of the LTTE is also a relief to many people in the east who, despite retaining their desire for equal rights and autonomy, feared above all losing their children to forced conscription.
   
   Continuing legacy
   The Indo-Lanka Peace Accord was signed by the leaders of the two countries to establish a sustainable political solution. It envisaged a new political framework of devolved power for the provinces, the merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces, the disarming of the LTTE and the meeting of Indian foreign policy imperatives in relation to Sri Lanka. The agreement also saw the entry into Sri Lanka of an Indian peacekeeping presence that came in the form of a large army called the Indian Peace Keeping Force. When the LTTE backed out of its commitment to go along with this agreement, to which it was not even a signatory, a terrible war broke out that marred the relations between the two countries.
   The present provincial council system that is operative in the country is today the sole remaining legacy of the Indo Lanka Peace Accord. If it had been implemented properly in law and in spirit it could have provided the basis for a sustainable political solution as envisaged by its architects. It could have saved the country at least 50,000 lives and led to an economy that could have generated an income stream for the people that is double that of today. Unfortunately, from the very beginning, the Indo Lanka Peace Accord was highly contested, with only a section of the government supporting it, and the LTTE and most of the mainstream political opposition parties opposed to it.
   The problem with the Indo Lanka Peace Accord was that it attempted to achieve too many controversial objectives in too short a time. There was no consultation with the main actors or information supplied to the population at large. Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa and National Security Minister Lalith Athulathmudali were two prominent dissenters from the agreement. The LTTE was informed but not consulted, and muscled into the process, and no one else was either consulted or informed. It did not take long before the agreement began to unravel. Not even the might of the regional superpower, that had stationed its battleships within sight of Colombo, could compel a solution.
   The desire for solutions that are imposed on others by virtue of superior power is a continuing saga in Sri Lanka. India’s present reluctance to get directly and openly involved in peace making in Sri Lanka may stem from its own learning experience from the past. But in Sri Lanka itself the lesson does not seem to have been learnt. The present strategy of the government is to impose a political solution upon a militarily weakened LTTE and a dispirited Tamil polity. The triumphant celebration that the government is conducting throughout the country is to take political advantage of its military victories.
   
   Not sustainable
   There is no denying that the government has been more successful than anticipated in taking the military battle to the LTTE and forcing them to retreat. On the other hand, the Indo Lanka Peace Accord shows the danger of giving priority to imposed solutions in the resolution of long standing disputes such as the ethnic conflict. Today in the east, all the LTTE’s political offices in the east have been closed, and most of them have been replaced by cadres of the Karuna group who work in collaboration with the government. Their multi coloured streamers flutter in the wind on the streets on which their offices are located. Karuna cadres also stand as the eyes of the security forces to tell them if there is LTTE infiltration back into the east. It would seem to be an uphill task for the LTTE to stage a comeback into the areas they have lost.
   But this was also the situation two decades ago when the Indian Peace Keeping Force cleared the LTTE out of the east. In place of the LTTE, the Indian decision makers put the EPRLF to govern the east, and even had an election carried out to legitimise the new dispensation. But this reconfiguration of power was not sustainable and it collapsed with the IPKF’s withdrawal from Sri Lanka at the behest of President Premadasa. Despite the battering they had received at the hands of the IPKF, the LTTE were soon back again. Whether the LTTE will be able to stage a similar come back two decades later will depend on how the situation evolves.
   In the east there is a vast reservoir of grievance that can once again lead to an LTTE come back in the east unless the government comes up with a hearts and minds strategy, the likes of which Sri Lanka is yet to see. The urgent need today, as it has been for the past two decades, is for a viable political package that can meet with Tamil aspirations, a whole hearted reconstruction programme for the north and east, and a genuine willingness to engage in peace talks with the LTTE. Unfortunately, the present government has not yet been able to even make a start on any one of these three essentials for sustainable peace.

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