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American politics, terrorism and Islam-IV
Allegations of Russian state terrorism
Habib Siddiqui
Russia's own record of terrorism isn't any better. Soon after capturing power in 1917 the Bolshevik party started behaving like a mafia-like organisation where, according to Russian historian Yuri Felshtinsky, "almost no one died by a natural cause." This includes poisoning of Lenin, Felix Dzerzhinsky, and Maxim Gorky by Genrikh Yagoda's NKVD agents on the orders of Stalin; murders of Sergey Kirov, Mikhail Frunze, Vyacheslav Menzhinsky, and Leon Trotsky; poisoning of Stalin by Lavrentiy Beria, and other similar episodes.
During the "Red Terror" (1918-1922) the mass repressions were conducted without judicial process by Cheka, the state security organisation. Just in the first two months, 10 to 15 thousand people were executed. Dzerzhinsky himself boasted, "[The Red Terror involves] the terrorisation, arrests and extermination of enemies of the revolution on the basis of their class affiliation or of their pre-revolutionary roles."
During the "Great Purge," orchestrated by Joseph Stalin in 1937-1938, also described as a "Soviet holocaust", estimates of the number of deaths run from the official figure of 681,692 to nearly 2 million. Of these, according to the declassified Soviet archives, during 1937 and 1938, at least 681,692 were shot dead - an average of 1,000 executions a day.
As much as America at one time terrorised her native Indian and Black population for decades, during the Stalin era millions of people, esp. Muslims from the Caucasus and Central Asia, were traumatised. They were uprooted from their ancestral homes and herded like cattle to live elsewhere. Internal reports show that some 43 per cent of those displaced victims died of diseases and malnutrition.
The people of Chechnya along with their fellow co-religionists in the neighbouring Ingushetia were dragged from their homes in 1944 on Stalin's whims to wastelands of Kazakhstan on a cooked up charge of collaborating with the Germans. Both these peoples were sentenced to penal servitude and subjected to systematic genocide, worse than those of the Siberian Gulag. For a time being they were declared an extinct people, who did not exist in Stalin's time. Thirteen years later, under Khrushchev, both these peoples were reinstated, told it was a mistake and invited to return to their homelands. Many did so on the foot. While Chechens still had a home to return to, the Ingush Muslims found their lands and houses occupied by Christian Ossetians. During Stalin's rule 300,000 Chechen and Ingush Muslims were massacred, almost half the entire population!
During the communist rule, while dissidents were routinely herded in the Siberian Gulags, assassination attempts on unfriendly foreign leaders remained a trademark of the KGB, quite in common with the CIA. According to the KGB-defectors at least ten foreign leaders were targeted for assassination by the Kremlin in the post-Stalin era. The list included (failed attempts on) President John F. Kennedy of the USA and Chairman Mao Zedong of China. The second President of Afghanistan Hafizullah Amin was killed by the KGB OSNAZ forces on December 27, 1979.
Presidents of the break-away Chechen Republic of Ichkeria - Dzhokhar Dudaev, Zelimkhan Yandarbeiv, Aslan Maskhadov and Abdul-Khalim Saidullaev - were killed by (Russian) FSB and affiliated forces. [Just before his death, Saidullaev claimed that the Russian government "treacherously" killed Maskhadov on March 8, 2005, after inviting him to "talks" and promising his security "at the highest level." To this day, President Maskhadov's dead body has not been returned to his family for burial. Like his Chechen predecessors, he was dubbed a "terrorist."]
As a matter of fact outside the Bosnian genocide, perpetrated against Muslims by Serbian Orthodox Christians, Russia's terrorism against the Chechens has simply no parallel in our time. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, while Yeltsin's Russia did not object to secession of her former Republics, she had a different qualifier for Chechnya where its inhabitants never accepted Russian domination since her annexation by the Czarist army back in 1859. Apart from obvious reasons of bigotry and double-standard, Russia did not want Chechnya to secede because of economic and internal political reasons.
Chechnya's vast oil reserves and control of the oil pipelines between the Caspian and the Black seas that go through the region as an oil-hub were deemed important for Russia's economy. Granting secession right to Chechnya was deemed to trigger similar secession movements from other smaller republics like Tatarstan. Russia thus ignored the October 1991 referendum that elected Dzhokhar Dudayev on the strength of his promise to free Chechnya from Russia and declared war against Chechnya in December 1, 1994, describing independence-seeking Chechens as terrorists.
Thus began the First Chechen War (1994-96), which, according to the BBC, ranks among the worst military engagements of the 20th century. It witnessed the murder of nearly a hundred thousand civilians, injury to over 200,000 and displacement of half a million people (40 per cent of Chechnya's pre-war population). President Yeltsin, following the footsteps of his murderous predecessors, demolished Grozny - the capital city of Chechnya. International monitors from the OSCE described the scenes as nothing short of an "unimaginable catastrophe," while former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev called the war a "disgraceful, bloody adventure," and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl described the events as "sheer madness." So massive was the "terror bombing" attack in Grozny that half its residential areas were damaged beyond repair. Its infrastructure destroyed by bombing, shelling, and street fighting during the struggle for Chechen independence.
In February 1996 the Russian forces in Grozny opened fire on the massive pro-independence peace march involving tens of thousands of people, killing a number of demonstrators. Rape of Chechen women became a weapon of war among Russian soldiers to terrorize the Chechen people. The First Chechen War came to an end shortly after Chechens were able to recapture Grozny and a ceasefire agreement was signed on August 31, 1996. Later a peace treaty was signed in the Kremlin on May 12, 1997 between Yeltsin of Russia and Maskhadov of Chechnya.
However, the Kremlin continued to plan invasion of Chechnya. To quote former FSB director and prime minister of Russia Sergei Stepashin, from an interview to Novaya Gazeta "the decision to invade Chechnya was made in March 1999... I was prepared for an active intervention. We were planning to be on the north side of the Terek River by August-September of 1999." But Russia required a pretext to enter the territory. Thus, the Chechen separatists were falsely blamed for apartment bombings in Moscow in September of 1999 that killed more than 300 civilians.
There are now enough credible proofs - thanks to investigative journalists like David Satter, Vladimir Pribylovsky and Anna Politkovskaya, historian Yuri Felshtinsky, and former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko - that the FSB staged a series of criminal activities, including the Moscow Apartment Bombings, to steer public opinion (in a way similar to American public reaction to 9/11) towards legitimising the resumption of the Second Chechen War and facilitating Vladimir Putin (a former FSB Director) and FSB to come to power in 1999. [Not surprisingly, as soon as three FSB agents were caught while planting a large bomb in the basement of an apartment complex in the town of Ryazan in September 22, all those bombings stopped.]
Second Chechen War
Thus began the Second Chechen War in which Russia's terrorism knew no bound. This conflict saw the first use of aerial-delivered fuel air explosives (FAE) in populated areas, notably in the village of Tando. During the early phase of the Russian siege on Grozny in October 25, 1999, Russian forces launched five SS-21 ballistic missiles at the crowded central bazaar and a maternity ward, killing more than 140 people and injuring hundreds. These missile attacks were followed by Russian artillery fires, directed toward the buildings, which caused massive destruction of infrastructure and civilian casualties. To quote the Wikipedia, "The enormous scale of the devastation prompted numerous comparisons with Hiroshima and other cities leveled during World War II."
The conflict also saw the use of cluster bombs and vacuum bombs dropped on villages, fleeing refugees hit by tank shells from Russian forces. Nearly a third of Chechnya's residents fled the war-ravaged country. The award-winning journalist John Pilger writes, "On 4 February 2000, Russian aircraft attacked the Chechen village of Katyr-Yurt. They used "vacuum bombs", which release petrol vapour and suck people's lungs out, and are banned under the Geneva Convention. The Russians bombed a convoy of survivors under a white flag. They murdered 363 men, women and children. It was one of countless, little-known acts of terrorism in Chechnya perpetrated by the Russian state, whose leader, Vladimir Putin, has the "complete solidarity" of Blair."
As to the fate of the capital city Grozny, in early February 2000 the Russian military lured the besieged militants to a promised safe passage, to which they agreed. However, the Russian Army had mined the path of 'safe passage' just the day before the planned evacuation, and concentrated most firepower on that point. As a result, a number of separatist leaders including the city mayor and military commander were killed.
The guerrilla leader Shamil Basayev and several other militants suffered injury. After entering the city, the Russians dynamited many buildings. In 2003 the United Nations called Grozny the "most destroyed" city on earth."
By June 2006, out of more than 60,000 apartment buildings and private homes destroyed, 900 have been rebuilt. Out of several dozens of industrial enterprises, three have been partially rebuilt. Most of the city's infrastructure was destroyed and many continue to live in ruined buildings without heating and running water, even as electricity was mostly restored since 2006, as the city has undergone substantial reconstruction.
Before the recent conflicts, Chechnya had a population of two million. During the wars, it was reduced to 800,000. Nearly a million Chechens were internally displaced. From the reports of human rights groups, Putin and Yeltsin killed more than 200,000 Chechens, including 35,000 children. Another 40,000 children were seriously injured. Shamil Basayev's wife, sister, uncle and child, including many of his family members (all unarmed civilians) were killed as a result of bombs dropped by Russian forces on his uncle's home in Dyshne-Vedeno.
There are now credible reports that the Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev, blamed for hostage taking, may have been a member of the GRU - the Russian Military Intelligence, working towards weakening the authority of the Chechen government. His free passage to Abkhazia in Georgia to fight alongside the pro-Russian elements definitely raises much suspicion.
According to the former FSB agent Aleksander Litvinenko and investigator Mikhail Trepashkin, the Moscow Theatre hostage crisis was also directed by an FSB agent. They also accused the FSB of becoming an international criminal organization that actually promotes and perpetrates terrorism and organized crime in order to achieve its political and financial goals. Many investigative journalists have also accused the FSB of staging many smaller terrorist acts, e.g., market place bombing in Astrakhan, bus stops bombings in the city of Voronezh, and the blowing up the Moscow-Grozny train, bombing in Moscow metro - all these to justify Russia's second invasion of Chechnya. Many journalists and workers of foreign NGOs were reported to be kidnapped by the FSB-affiliated forces in Chechnya who pretended to be Chechen terrorists.
In a Washington Post article, dated 2006, Anna Politkovskaya mentioned that most of the "Islamic terrorism cases" were fabricated by the Russian government, and the confessions were obtained through the torture of innocent suspects. To obtain confessions, victims' legs were broken under torture; kneecaps were shattered; kidneys badly damaged by beating; genitalia mutilated; eyesight lost; eardrums torn; and all front teeth sawed off. "The plight of those sentenced for Islamic terrorism today is the same as that of the political prisoners of the Gulag Archipelago... Russia continues to be infected by Stalinism," she wrote. She continued, "I recall the words of one torture victim at his trial: 'What will become of me? How will I be able to live in this country if you sentence me to such a long prison term for a crime that I did not commit, and without any proof of my guilt?' He never received an answer to his question. Indeed, what will become of all the rest of us, who tolerate this? What has become of us already?"
As we all know, neither Litvinenko, the former FSB agent who wrote the book - Blowing Up Russia: Terror From Within, exposing FSB's involvement with terrorist plots, nor Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya who wrote the books - A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya and Putin's Russia - survived Kremlin's target killing. The former was radiation poisoned to death by Russian agents in November of 2006 in London, and the latter was shot dead in the elevator of her apartment building in central Moscow on October 7, 2006.
The Kremlin is also accused of complicity in the poisoning of Ukrainian leader Viktor Yushchenko. It was also involved in attempts to denying him the seat of power in Ukraine.
Who can also forget the KGB's role in the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the liberalization programs of Alexander Dubcek in Czechoslovakia in 1968, and the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet forces in 1978-79? Dubcek's reforms, which were known as the Prague Spring or 'socialism with a human face', were for the most part reversed by new leaders installed by the KGB. The KGB was also involved in unsuccessful suppression of the Solidarity labor movement in Poland in the 1980s.
Nor should we forget Russia's support for Serbia's genocidal campaign against the Bosnian and Kosovar Muslims in the 1990s that killed nearly a quarter million unarmed people. Her support for the breakaway region of Abkhazia in Georgia unmasks her inherent double standard.
Putin's Russia is no better than Bush's America when it comes to state sponsored terrorism. In her book, A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya, Anna Politkovskaya writes, "We've all observed how the word "mercy" has been swept out of the government vocabulary. The government relies on cruelty in relation to its citizens. Destruction is encouraged. The logic of murder is a logic that is understood by the government and propagated by it. The way things are, you need to kill to become a Hero.
This is Putin's modern ideology. When capitalists can't get it done, comrades take over again. We know very well that they never forget to line their own pockets. That's how things stand: at the end of the seventh year of the war, and in the third year of the second campaign, Chechnya has been turned into a genuine cash cow. Here, military careers are speedily forged, long lists of awards are compiled, and ranks and titles are handed out ahead of time. And all you have to do is to kill a Chechen and submit the corpse."
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RUSSIA'S NEW PRESIDENT SPEAKS OUT
Medvedev questioned NATO's continuous existence and enlargement
Barrister Harun ur Rashid
Russian new President Dmitry Anatolevich Medvedev (42) took over his office as President of Russian Federation on 7th May, 2008. The inauguration marks the peak of his rise from obscurity as a Putin-era bureaucrat to commander-in-chief of a vast nuclear arsenal and leader of the world's largest energy producer.
Medvedev was duly elected on 2nd March as the President with 70.2 per cent of the vote.
It is reported that the turnout of voters was 67 per cent.
Medvedev has never before held elected office, will have to grapple with politically explosive price rises, unbridled corruption, and turbulent relations with the West.
Speaking in Berlin on 5th June, - on his first trip to the West since becoming Russian President, he rued a "shrinking of mutual understanding". Issues such as the US missile defence shield and NATO enlargement eastwards have dogged Russo-European relations.
Still, he and Chancellor Angela Merkel found common ground over a gas pipeline being built between the two countries. Merkel described the project of being of strategic importance, while Medvedev called it "a European undertaking of global significance" that would benefit the whole continent.
However, the project under the Baltic Sea has aroused concern in Poland and the Baltic republics, which fear being cut out of the supply route.
Medvedev's visit was closely watched in the West for any signs of a change in Russia's approach to Europe now that he has replaced Vladimir Putin. But some of the old issues were revived. Merkel called for more openness in Russian society.
And the new Kremlin leader warned the outside world against intervening in the case of jailed Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He said it was not an international issue.
The BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Berlin says that even if Medvedev did say everything his audience wanted to hear, there would still be those in Europe who would no doubt remain sceptical, convinced that Vladimir Putin - now prime minister - is still calling the shots.
While his one-day stay was not expected to allow for substantive progress on key issues, Medvedev's decision to make Germany his first Western stop held promise of warmer ties between Moscow and Berlin.
It became Medvedev's first landmark public appearance of international significance. The speech clearly showed which problems the new Russian President considered as vital.
One of the most talked-about subjects - the deployment of the US missile system in Eastern Europe and the expansion of NATO - became one of the most important aspects in Medvedev's speech He questioned the continuing existence of NATO and its policy in the current global situation.
One Russian journalist Nikolai Svanidze has said even if Medvedev occasionally expresses himself differently as President, when it comes to his background and way of thinking, he is clearly a European, a flawless European.
When the President emphasizes the importance of the constitutional state and private property, of the separation of powers and democracy, these are not just empty words. The independence of the courts is his hobbyhorse and core issue. Of course, all Russian politicians know that the eagle on our national coat of arms is looking in two directions: to the West and to the East, to Europe and Asia.
The importance of Germany to Russia is a continuation of the European policies of Putin, who speaks excellent German and, because of his years in Dresden, has a special affinity for the Germans.
Putin emphasized Germany, France and Italy as his main partners, and Germany was chief among them. It appears that Medvedev will continue Putin's foreign policy for a long time.
Again on 7th June, in his first major economic speech at St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, an annual event since 1990s, he indirectly criticized the US shortcomings.
He was quoted to have said: "Today, the centre of our attention will be global changes in the financial systems, on commodities and food markets. And, likewise, economic relations between various countries including relations between the former leaders of international development which are showing losses and new players that are ensuring growing rates of economic growth are to be strengthened."
During his speech he spoke of "economic egoism" and "economic nationalism" and made specific reference to the US overreaching its economic capabilities. He further said: "It turned out to be an illusion that one country, even the most powerful, could not take upon itself the role of global government. Moreover the dissonance between the formal role of the US in the world and its actual capabilities was one of the central causes of the current crisis."
Russian Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin supported the President's views and said that the tumble that Wall Street took on 6th June and the spike in oil prices as examples of the instantaneous effect of global financial markets.
Political observers say that foreign policy may not be currently Medvedev's top priority, although he spoke out his mind on security and global economic issues. He will focus on domestic policy, where he will demonstrate his independence.
Medvedev will have to deal with certain problems within Russia, namely, (a) the failure to modernize industry or agriculture, (b) the growing corruption in the country, (c) drunkenness of Russians, (d) the record number of murders and suicides, (e) the inadequate state of health care and (f) a shrinking population.
After the victory of Medvedev, Gorbachev echoed similar sentiment when he said that Russia needed to move on the path of modernization. He underscored the need "to modernize governance, create an innovative economy, re-emphasise education, and health, and as top priority, work to narrow the gap between rich and poor".
Observers say that much of Medvedev's efforts are expected to be spent on these issues if Russia wants admiration from Western countries. Russia can get it if it becomes at par in providing services to its citizens compared to those in Western countries.
The writer is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.
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BRITAIN'S DILEMMA
Inherent contradictions between US & EU rising
Nehal Adil
Ireland's rejection of Lisbon Protocol which was worked out by France and Germany to replace the European Constitution prepared by former French President Giscard d'Estaing and rejected by French voters in a referendum, has sent a shockwave in Britain. Traditionally anti-European Tories are gaining popularity. On the other hand the fringe Left is also against European Union. British Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown is in a fix. He has to move to the right to placate the conservatives and stand closer to the U.S. than to his European Union partners. On the other hand the Left is demanding the end of London -Washington entente.
The once powerful super power Britain, which dominated the world for two centuries, was marginalized in an European Union dominated by its traditional rivals France and Germany.
Britain had joined the European Union, according to its critics to serve the strategic interests of the United States as a 'Trojan Horse'. They say, this was exposed on the invasion of Iraq in which it parted from Franco-German alliance and joined the so called New Europe of Rumsfield or according to the left, the 'newly acquired American Empire in Eastern Europe' to support that invasion which took a toll of 1.2 million lives, according to conservative estimate.
The United States, while maintaining the hegemony over Europe under NATO alliance, does not want Europe to be an independent power centre. But European Union has smashed the American dream by absorving America's newly championed states of Eastern Europe within European Union. In fact, Russia, France and Germany have common interests in that these countries do not turn to become the launching pad of American hegemony in Europe. The British Left points out that both Rumsfield and his successor Robert Gates wanted to turn the newly acquired American 'satellites' in Eastern Europe as nuclear battle fields. That is why the so-called missile shield is being located in Poland and Czechoslovakia against the non-existent Iranian nukes. A newly resurgent Russia is opposed to that.
The European Union in principle is opposed to that. That is why France and Germany frustrated Ukrainian and Georgian bid for NATO membership.
No wonder, the President of the Czech Republic openly came out in support of the Irish referendum asking to burry the Lisbon Agenda forever. On the other the French President Sarkozy pointed out that eighteen countries have ratified the Lisbon protocol. He wanted the ratification protocol to continue. The British Labour like the rest of European social democrats support the European Union. They see in it a victory of the United Front of European workers.
With the end of Bush era, Europe is entering a new phase. How long the American hegemony over its newly acquired client states of Eastern Europe will last in the face of joined opposition of Old Europe and Russia bears a question mark.
The staunchest pro-American regime in Poland is gone. The economic crisis in the U.S. is hurting its satellites in Eastern Europe including Ukraine and Georgia, the newly resurgent Left points out.
Britain always targeted the Eastern Europe as its field of hegemony. France, Germany and Russia had historically opposed it. This led to the Napoleonic wars and the two world wars. The United States has replaced Britain as the world's sole super power. On the question of hegemony in the Eastern Europe, that eternal strategic challenge inherited from Attila and Chengis Khan has not been solved.
Thanks to George Bush, the world economy is in stagnation. Bush tried to present himself as a redeemer against impeding Iranian aggression, against a new Attila or Chengis Khan. But could that unite a fragmented Europe. The Europeans see their adversary not in the East but in the West. The Anglo-Saxons are in virtual occupation of Europe since the WW II, many point out the presence of American troops in Germany, Italy and Spain. They want to move in East Europe now.
Franco-German - even Italian-Spanish goal is to get out of it by an independent European Union deterrence. In this scenario Britain has to part with either European Union or the United States. Here NATO and European Union will stand in their inevitable contradictions.
Britain has to take a stand. Even today between Falkland and Gibraltar the sun never sets in the British Empire. But just what kind of British Empire...
Britain's Cayman Island and Gibraltar are the centre of global money laundering. Britain is called the centre of global terrorism. Just check up, a British official left its anti-terrorist file in a bus.
British press is in the forefront of rumour mongering. Despite Britain's great contribution in art and culture, it is the world's
foremost xenophobic country.
As such majority of Britons believe that it does not fit in Europe. That is why it has not joined the Schengen accord, it has not joined the European common currency - the euro.
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UN FRAMEWORK CONVENTION OF CLIMATE CHANGE
South presses for funds and technology to match North's initiative
Martin Khor
WIDE differences were evident between developed and developing countries at a two-week session of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that ended in Bonn last Friday.
This shows how hard it will be for governments to reach an agreement on how to go forward on fighting climate change on two fronts - Mitigation (preventing the situation worsening by reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions) and Adaptation (taking measures to reduce the impact of unavoidable climate change).
Scientists and an increasing number of politicians believe it is the greatest battle in the world today, as climate change threatens the very survival of humanity.
If drastic action is not taken to get emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases to "peak" by 2015 or 2020, and then halve by 2050, there will be devastating consequences on sea level rise, melting of glaciers, water supply, flooding, agricultural production and human health.
A working group on "long-term cooperative action" (LCA) is tasked with following up on a Bali Action Plan to conclude talks by the end of 2009 on new "commitments" for developed countries to cut their emissions and to provide finance and technology to developing countries, and on mitigation and adaptation "actions" by developing countries.
How the developed and developing countries should share their responsibilities and burdens in taking their respective measures continued to be the main source of differences in Bonn.
This came out in the many intense discussions on finance, technology, adaptation, mitigation and a "shared vision" for cooperation. As an eloquent Brazilian official put it: "We don't have a shared vision today. It has to be built."
Among the rich nations, there is a belief that all countries - or at least the developed countries and the "advanced developing countries" - have to act to cut their emissions.
If only the rich countries were to act, the "advanced" developing countries will have an economic advantage, and moreover the total emissions won't be reduced, or reduced enough.
The developing countries stress instead that they were not responsible for most of the Greenhouse Gases that are now concentrated in the atmosphere, and they must be given enough space to develop economically.
They cannot be expected to cut their emissions as they need to use current forms of energy for economic survival and growth - unless and to the extent they are assisted with finance and technology transfer that will enable them to carry out the technology and energy revolution required for both growth and emission reduction to take place simultaneously.
At the Bonn meeting, these different paradigms were at play. The developing countries, led by the Group of 77 and China, put forward more concrete proposals than they had previously done, on the financing resources and structure and on the technology transfer mechanisms they would like.
They called for a financial mechanism to be operationalised under the Convention itself, answerable to the member states in a democratic governance system, so that many billions of dollars of funds can be provided for developing countries to take mitigation and adaptation actions.
They also wanted mechanisms set up to help developing countries obtain climate-friendly technologies at low and affordable prices, and for them to make, adapt and design technologies themselves.
In their concept, "technology transfer" does not mean just the purchase or importing of equipment or machinery at market prices.
The G77 and China, which is coordinated at the LCA working group by Bernaditas Muller of the Philippines, said a "shared vision" must include not only the stabilisation of Greenhouse Gas concentrations in the atmosphere, but ensure this is done in a way that enables economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner, as provided for in the Convention.
She also stressed the principles of equity and "common but differentiated responsibilities". Developed countries have failed to pursue effective mitigation actions, even with the very low targets agreed to in the Kyoto Protocol, resulting in increasing adverse effects of climate change.
Malaysia, whose delegation was headed by Ambassador Selwyn Das, was an active participant. It told the meeting that a shared vision is not only about emission reduction targets.
"It also refers to targets for finance and technology," said Ambassador Das. "Simulations of scenarios of global emission reductions of certain percentages and what this means for developing countries are needed.
"If developed countries undertake certain percentage cuts, an important issue is what the residual cuts for the developing countries will be. The data and simulations would help advance discussions."
Several developed countries, including the United States, Japan and Canada, in many sessions, were explicit or implicit in their demand that developing countries should also act to cut their emissions, as part of the bargain for developed countries to do more.
They did not deny the need to provide finance and technology, but the US in particular put the onus on developing countries to create the conditions for the private sector to be attracted to invest in them.
This gave the impression that the Annex I countries (so called because the developed countries are listed in Annex I of the Convention) are not yet serious about committing to assist the developing countries.
The developing countries are likely to continue to argue that the extent to which they act depends on the extent to which they get the funds and technology to do so, which is also a major principle in the Convention.
The developing countries are also upset that while little funds have been made available under the Convention, Britain, Japan and the US are leading an initiative to put billions of dollars of climate funds into the World Bank, an institution they control.
The G77 and China strongly criticised this move, and stressed that if the climate talks are to progress, then the funds required by developing countries should come under the governance of the UNFCCC itself, where the action measures and the funding for these actions can be negotiated together.
The next round of climate talks is in Accra in August, at which more concrete proposals for finance and technology are expected to be discussed.
- Third World Network Features
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US-Mideast: Hiatus on road to nowhere?
Khody Akhavi in Washington
An informal truce between Israel and Hamas went into effect early Thursday morning, temporarily suspending a year of fighting that has left more than 600 Palestinians-many of them civilians-and 18 Israelis dead.
The guns fell silent at 6 a.m. amid scepticism that the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire will actually hold. Time will determine whether both sides halt their cross-border fighting in exchange for a partial and gradual easing of Israel's economic blockade of Gaza.
While welcomed by Washington, the fragile truce marks yet another failure for the George W. Bush administration's "transformative diplomacy" policy in the Middle East. In the current climate, the Bush administration's tacit support for the Egyptian-mediated ceasefire underscores its need to salvage the withering Annapolis process.
"Anything that helps maintain security for Israeli citizens that helps end the kind of violence that has been fairly constant along the border with Gaza is something that's positive," State Department spokesperson Tom Casey told reporters Thursday.
"I think the one caveat we have always said is that we don't think that any other track or any other negotiating path ought to be a substitute or a distraction from the primary set of discussions and negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians," he said, referring to US-led peace talks that have yet to result in substantive progress.
The White House has publicly ruled out direct negotiations with Hamas until it renounces violence and accepts Israel's right to exist, but the group's ability to exploit the consequences of its isolation over the last year forced Washington to soften its stance.
Beyond easing the immediate hardship to Gazans and stopping rocket fire into Israel, analysts here say the ceasefire will not lead to a substantive shift in peace talks.
"The ceasefire in Gaza will be a welcome respite, but a fundamental road to nowhere," said Aaron David Miller, an advisor to six US secretaries of state, during a panel on Capitol Hill last Wednesday.
The Israeli siege was meant to apply economic pressure on the population of 1.5 million Palestinians in the hopes that they would turn against the Islamist group, but that goal has backfired. The crisis has, instead, caused the Palestinians polity to split further.
Despite military and economic pressure, Hamas has consolidated its power in Gaza.
Hamas seized control of Gaza last June after the national unity government with Fatah leader and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas collapsed. Abbas has since governed the West Bank from the city of Ramallah.
Israel and Washington's embrace of Abbas has considerably weakened the Fatah leader, as he struggles to govern a divided polity while simultaneously pursuing Annapolis peace talks. But with Bush's term near its end, and with no discernible progress on the ground, there is a growing realisation that no such deal will take place.
"Any effective truce will further enhance the sense of the futility of [US-led] negotiations even though an improved security environment will create a more promising backdrop to those talks," said Daniel Levy.
In this new tenuous security environment, it appears that bridging the political divide between Palestinians remains the highest priority.
"Palestinian Humpty Dumpty has fallen off the wall and has cracked, and how can it be reassembled?" said Miller. "A unified Palestinian power is the only chance for any kind of agreement to be implemented."
"We are living our worst nightmare since 1967," said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat while visiting Washington last month.
In Israel, right-wing opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu blasted the truce agreement, saying it only gave Hamas more time to rearm for future confrontations.
"I would like to know, what did we achieve here exactly? Hamas will not stop rearming - (Hamas politburo chief) Khaled Mashaal said they wouldn't and the defence establishment already said the truce will be fragile."
"We didn't get Gilad back. We got nothing. The government is allowing Hamas to go about rearming before the next round of terror attacks," he said, referring to the Israeli solider captured by Hamas militants in a cross border raid in June 2006.
While both sides welcomed the truce, recent history suggests that it could be short-lived.
Israel has made the re-opening of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt conditional on progress towards the release of Shalit. Its phased approach to easing economic restrictions on Gaza reflects doubt that the ceasefire will last, and the army has already been instructed to prepare for a large-scale offensive operation if it collapses.
Tel Aviv also succeeded in getting Hamas to drop its longstanding demand that any ceasefire apply to the West Bank, in addition to Gaza.
- Inter Presse Service
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Prospects of major reforms in Sri Lanka uncertain
Jehan Perera in Colombo
It is a difficult task to implement reforms in a time of war when the pre-occupation is with issues of both physical and political survival, especially if those reforms are of a self-critical nature. In these circumstances it is not surprising that the fate of two major reforms of the government that can impact on the longer term prospects of the country hang in the balance. Both of them are connected with the government's ability to address the challenges presented by the ongoing war. These reforms are the implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution and obtaining justice through the Presidential Commission of Investigation into Serious Human Rights Violations.
The government has pledged to implement the 13th Amendment which became part of the country's supreme law in 1987 in response to an interim recommendation of the All Party Representatives Committee to find a solution to the ethnic conflict. The implementation of this reform reached a high point with the conduct of the Provincial Council election for the Eastern Province in May of this year. On the other hand, the appointment of the Presidential Commission of Investigation into Serious Human Rights Violations by President Mahinda Rajapaksa took place in November 2006 in the aftermath of several incidents of human rights violations that shocked the conscience of the nation and were flashed in the local and international media.
Future of reforms
The future of both reforms has come to a critical juncture. They could take the country into a positive direction in respect of conflict resolution, or they could fall into the limbo of good intentions that failed to materialize. The conduct of the Eastern Provincial Council election in terms of the 13th Amendment was fraught with controversy, charges of large scale pre-election intimidation and election-day rigging. But to their credit, the opposition appears to have reconciled itself to its loss at those polls. The opposition members of the Eastern Provincial Council belonging to the main opposition coalition gave their support to the newly appointed Chief Minister's first policy statement.
Chief Minister Chandrakanthan, better known as Pillayan, won the election pledging to make a difference to the war weary people of the east. There appears to be a sense in civil society that he is serious about rebuilding the torn fabric of communal harmony in the region, though he faces enormous challenges. His senior advisor Dr K Wigneswaran is a former government administrator, was a member of the Panel of Experts that was commissioned to come up with an acceptable political package to resolve the ethnic conflict by the All Party Committee, and a political activist with an unblemished reputation for non-violence, who could provide a counterpoint to Pillayan, with his background as a former LTTE military commander.
Tight control
The question is whether the government will honour its promise to fully implement the 13th Amendment that would devolve the necessary power and resources to the provinces. The new eastern administration's ability to provide a viable alternative to the LTTE's rejection of a united Sri Lanka would hinge on the government's willingness to place its trust in the system of devolution. It is an international phenomenon that countries that devolve power to restive regions are less likely to break up than countries that seek to centralise powers against the wishes of the people in the regions. The problem is that the government's nationalist allies, and sections within the government itself, are mistrustful of the devolution of powers to the Tamil-majority areas, and fear that devolved power to subjects such as police and land, could be misused to further the separatist agenda.
Unfortunately, the government's mistrust of systems and its preference to tightly control matters from the centre is also evident in its second major reform programme. The Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Serious Human Rights Violations is currently in the midst of a two-fold crisis. The COI was set up with a mandate to look into 16 serious incidents of serious human rights violations, in which the government's team of lawyers from the Attorney General's Department had not been able to do any successful prosecutions. Impunity cannot be accepted in any country that claims to be a democracy that is ruled by law. The COI was initially given a year in which to report its findings. Although its term was subsequently extended for a further year, it has been able to make considerable progress in two cases, which are now threatened by negative government action.
The two cases that the COI focused its attention upon relate to the killing of 17 aid workers in Muttur and 5 students in Trincomalee. The key witnesses in both cases are abroad as they have had death threats leveled against them and their families. The COI was using modern techniques of video conferencing to elicit important evidence from these witnesses. Some of the initial testimony that was given was extremely powerful and moving. Some witnesses were seen weeping as they spoke about the killing of their children and the harassment they subsequently underwent. The government is now refusing to provide funds for the video conferencing. The government's argument is that video conferencing from abroad, without government representatives being present, can lead to abuses such as the coaching of witnesses.
It is reported that some of the countries that earlier provided members of the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons to assist the COI have offered to pay for the video conferencing to take place, but the government has declined this offer. Instead the government has said that the issue of video conferencing can be resolved once a new law regarding Witness Protection is passed by Parliament. The new law would permit video conferencing only if government representation is provided at the site of the video conferencing. But one consequence of this course of action is that the obtaining of critical evidence by the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Serious Human Rights Violations has been crippled at the present time.
Addressing conflict
Another unfortunate action of the government is to call for the suspension of participation in the Commission of Inquiry with regard to the Muttur and Trincomalee cases of one of its commissioners, Dr Devanesan Nesiah. This is on the grounds of conflict of interest, as he has been associated with the Centre for Policy Alternatives which is intervening on behalf of victims. Any independent assessment would reveal that Dr Nesiah's association with the NGO is not a major one, and he is not known to speak or act on behalf of the NGO. However, nationalist groups have seized upon this relationship to seek to discredit Dr Nesiah and block his participation in the present inquiries.
Ironically, the government itself has been accused of a more serious conflict of interest. This is on account of the central role played by the Attorney General's department in the conduct of the investigations by the Commission of Inquiry. This point was highlighted by the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons who were appointed to advise the COI. It was the AG's department that was responsible for investigating the cases of serious human rights violations that are now before the COI, and which it is now assisting the COI to investigate again.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa has complaiened to the international media that Sri Lankan has not been faring too well in the propaganda war with the LTTE. The proper implementation of the 13th Amendment and expediting the work of the Commission of Inquiry would be positive evidence to the international community that the government is serious about long term conflict resolution. The goodwill towards the country could multiply into tangible benefits if the government is able to show its commitment to the devolution of powers and to the protection of human rights. The government needs to rethink its approach to the 13th Amendment and to the Commission of Inquiry to obtain justice that is seen by the world.
The recent decision of the World Bank to provide the country with significant economic assistance over the next three years, the repeated visits by EU delegations who are tasked with ascertaining whether Sri Lanka qualifies for the tax concessions of GSP+, and the most recent visit by a very high powered Indian delegation suggests that the international community stands ready to assist the government. The manner in which the government deals with the two issues of a political solution and the human rights crisis is most likely to be the criteria by which the international community would measure Sri Lanka's progress in terms of conflict resolution. The ability to turn international opinion around is within the power of the government.
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