DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON
SECTION: NATIONAL SECURITY - GENERAL
SUBSECTION: ALL
Revised 8/20/99
GENERAL
WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS
COMMERCE DRIVEN
MISCELLANEOUS AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST
MISCELLANEOUS EUROPE AND NORTH/SOUTH AMERICA
GENERAL
Center for Security Policy 8/10/98 "History appears increasingly likely to remember the Clinton presidency as the era in which the world's only superpower lost its grip. As a result in no small measure of Mr. Clinton's fecklessness in the conduct of foreign policy and his misfeasance (if not malfeasance) in providing for the national security, the international environment of Pax Americana he inherited has given way to one that might be characterized as "Pack Up, Americans." .The more telling evidence of the free- fall that has occurred on Mr. Clinton's watch in American prestige and ability to influence -- if not actually to dictate -- international events can be found in the following: Iraq.. In short, so weak has the U.S. position become, so inexorable is the pressure to terminate the Iraqi sanctions regime and, therefore, to pretend that Saddam has complied with his disarmament obligations, that it is now a matter of time, perhaps just weeks, before what is left of the international sanctions start coming undone.Kosovo .The common theme is that, here again, America's adversary is acting with impunity, confident that his friends like Primakov in the Kremlin and Chirac in the Elys‚e Palace will protect him from any appreciable retribution.Iran.the Clinton Administration refuses to deploy defenses to protect its people against such a threat. Just as it has chosen to ignore evidence of Iranian involvement in the penultimate terrorist attack on U.S. personnel abroad -- the murderous destruction of Saudi Arabia's Khobar Towers, Mr. Clinton prefers to rely upon Primakov's lies that Russia is not assisting Iran's missileers and futile diplomatic efforts to dissuade North Korea from doing so. Thanks to the Clinton team, the precipitous decline in America's credibility and perceived willingness to use its power effectively assures that U.S. citizens and interests around the world are going to be increasingly in peril.
Washington Times 9/1/98 William Bennet, Jack Kemp, Jeane Kirkpatrick ".On the final day, they were close to finalizing the historic agreement. But Mr. Gorbachev insisted that the United States immediately halt development of our ballistic missile defense system. To Mr. Reagan, who had promised the American people he would not give away America's right to defend itself, that was unacceptable. He was excoriated by his critics. But history proved him right. The Clinton administration's refusal to deploy an anti-ballistic missile system has compromised our defenses in precisely the way Mr. Reagan would not allow Mr. Gorbachev to do. Is this acceptable in an era when terrorists such as Osama bin Laden organize against our nation and our citizens? . We already know that at least 20 countries may be developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. If any one of these countries were to launch a missile on the United States today, we would be unprotected. The Rumsfeld Commission found that the threat is "broader, more mature and evolving more rapidly than had been reported in the estimates and reports by the Intelligence Community," and that the ability of the CIA to provide timely estimates of the threat "is eroding." Several countries will be capable of producing a nuclear missile within five years. A little more that a a month ago, reflecting a clear intelligence breakdown, Iran tested a missile capable of traveling 800 miles - far enough to reach Israel. And during the last two weeks, we've learned of possible nuclear weapons advances in North Korea. "
Washington Post 8/20/98 Jim Hoagland "Count among Bill Clinton's victims this week his secretary of state, his national security adviser and his foreign policy at large. President Clinton has undermined his people and his policies with a recklessness and a disregard for America's standing in the world that is monumental and unpardonable.. But Clinton's tardy and grudging admission of wrongdoing in the Oval Office and of his mendacity converts weakness in foreign policy into potential disaster. Clinton has erased the large margin of error he has assigned himself in dealing with threats and challenges abroad. His plight will encourage rogue regimes in Baghdad, Belgrade, Pyongyang and elsewhere to test his attention to their depredations and his resolve in deterring or punishing those acts. It will encourage allies to resist even more strongly U.S. pressure to do things they do not see as in their interest. On the day Clinton spent four hours dueling with prosecutors over the salacious details of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, it was disclosed that the Looney Tunes government of North Korea has been cheating on its 1994 accord with Washington to stop working on nuclear bombs. It was a telling coincidence, pointing up the misallocation of presidential and national attention and energies the Lewinsky affair has spawned. In determining their attitude toward Clinton's fate, the Republican majority in Congress must factor into their actions an increasingly uncertain international "
Vanity Fair 3/99 Christopher Hitchens "....Not once but three times last year, Bill Clinton ordered the use of cruise missiles against remote and unpopular countries. On each occasion, the dispatch of the missiles coincided with bad moments in the calendar of his long and unsuccessful struggle to avoid impeachment..... Did, then, a dirtied blue dress from the Gap cause widows and orphans to set up grieving howls in the passes of Afghanistan, the outer precincts of Khartoum, and the wastes of Mesopotamia? Is there only a Hollywood link between Clinton's carnality and Clinton's carnage? Was our culture hit by weapons of mass distraction?...In the even, only one person was killed in the rocketing of Sudan. But many more have died, and will die, because an improvished country has lost its chief source of medicines and pesticides. The rout continues. In fact, it becomes a shambles. Let us suppose that everything the administration alleged about El Shifa was - instead of embarrassingly untrue - absolutely verifiable. The Sudanese regime has diplomatic relations with Washington. Why not give it a warning or notice of, say, one day to open the plant to inspection? A factory making deadly gas cannot be folded like a tent and stealthily moved away..... Mr. Bearden is one of the Central Intelligence Agency's most decorated ex-officers, having retired in 1994 without any stain from assassination plots, blackbag jobs, or the like. During his long service, he was chief of station in Sudan, where he arranged the famous airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. He also directed the C.I.A. effort in Afghanistan. (His excellent new thriller, The Black Tulip, carries a 1991 photograph of him standing at the Russian end of the Friendship Bridge, across which the Red Army had marched in defeat.) Nobody knows clandestine Sudan and clandestine Afghanistan in the way he does. We speak on background, but after some fine-tuning he agrees to be quoted in exactly these words: "Having spent 30 years in the C.I.A. being familiar soil and environmental samplings across a number of countries, I cannot imagine a single sample, collected by third-country nationals whose country has a common border, serving as a pretext for an act of war against a sovereign state with which we have both diplomatic relations and functioning back channels." ..."
Los Angeles Times 2/25/99 Jim Mann "...It's high time to draw up a Devil's Dictionary of the Clinton administration's foreign policy--a compendium of the favorite buzzwords, translated into plain English. What makes the subject ripe is the mess the State Department got into over the idea of a "rogue state," a vague but catchy phrase the administration has often applied to the likes of Libya, Iraq and North Korea.... Would China, for example, fit under that umbrella? Since the administration has trouble explaining such ideas, let's try to come up with some of our own definitions: Rogue State A country that meets two conditions: It does things the Clinton administration doesn't like AND it is one that the administration doesn't want to do business with. If the country is a big commercial market or strategically important, the term might not apply, regardless of the country's behavior. Thus Libya is a rogue state, China is not, and Iran seems to be in transition. Engagement The administration's policy toward countries that do bad things and that might otherwise be declared rogue states but that the Clinton administration DOES want to do business with. Cookie Cutter Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's derogatory term for logical consistency. Albright is regularly asked why America tries to isolate Communist Cuba even as it applies its policy of engagement toward China. She has a stock, dismissive answer. "We do not have a cookie-cutter approach to policy," she says with great force, as if that explained everything. Agreed Framework A deal the Clinton administration negotiates with a rogue state and doesn't want to have to submit to Congress..."
American Spectator 3/99 Benjamin J. Stein "…I cannot possibly believe what is happening. Here it is, the day before the House of Representatives is to vote on the impeachment of Bill Clinton, and what is Bill Clinton doing? Suddenly, after years of near total inaction, without any particular provocation, without a United Nations command to do it at any specific time, with several big powers opposing the move, Clinton is bombing Iraq with cruise missiles and throwing thousands of tons of high explosives at various targets. The transparency of this murderous fraud would be funny if it were not for innocent people getting killed…. Something Freudian is going on, as well. Clinton is symbolically murdering his critics here at home by his projected acts of killing in Iraq. I never thought I'd feel afraid of a U.S. president, but Clinton is out of control…."
Fox News Wire 3/28/99 Reuters "…A suspected Kurdish rebel suicide bomber killed herself and injured 10 other people Saturday in a dramatic attack at the heart of Turkey's commercial capital Istanbul. Turkey has been hit by a wave of violent protests since the capture of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan last month. Anatolian news agency said a woman carrying hand grenades on her body and in a bag launched the attack near a riot police bus in the bustling Taksim Square, the main shopping and entertainment quarter on city's European section…."
BBC NEWS 3/28/99 "… Sri Lanka has the second highest number of disappeared people in the world, according to a new United Nations study. The UN study says that since 1980, 12,000 Sri Lankans have gone missing after being detained by security forces. Most of them are said to be young Tamil men accused of supporting the Tamil Tiger rebels fighting for a homeland in the north east of Sri Lanka. More than 55,000 people have been killed over the issue in the past 27 years. Only Iraq had more cases of disappearances, with 16,384 missing, according to the study by the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. …."
Radio Prague -- 11/14/97 "…Today's papers are rife with speculation over the latest Czech Iraq-gate scandal - whether or not the Czech armaments firm Omnipol has been having secret talks with Iraq on the sale of the Czech- made Tamara radar system. All the papers seem to have their own theory. PRAVO reckons the whole idea is so far fetched that it looks as though someone is deliberately trying to discredit the Czech Republic and the Tamara system itself - which is capable of detecting aircraft even if they have sophisticated anti-radar devices…."
Prague Business Journal – 3/22/99 "… The Tamara radar system made the Czech Republic famous because of its ability to detect stealth aircraft. Now, Czech companies are trying to make a name for themselves as specialists in detecting and preventing unauthorized cyber-attacks as well…."
STRATFOR's Global Intelligence Update 3/28/99 "…In examining the options, it seemed clear to us that two things would happen. First, the Russians would do everything to encourage the Iraqis to pin U.S. forces in Iraq. Second, the Russians would encourage Serbian intransigence over Kosovo. By covertly supplying critical military supplies and providing public political support, Russia created a space in which both the Serbs and Iraqis could resist U.S. military pressure. Ideally, from the Russian point of view, the United States would find itself in a position where, for the first time since World War II, it was conducting air campaigns simultaneously in two widely dispersed theaters. The ideal for the Russians was an ineffective, prolonged campaign in Iraq and an intensive one in Serbia. Neither can succeed, neither can end, both will together sap U.S. military strength while straining the American alliance system.This should not be thought of as some conspiracy theory. The Russians did not create the current situation. All they did was provide limited resources and encouragement to two isolated nations that the United States, of its own volition and inertia, was committed to redefining. ….The Russians want to bring down the Americans several notches in order to increase their leverage. Coordinating two rogue states is a Russian specialty. They are doing it well. This puts the Russians in an excellent position. The head of the IMF is in Moscow today. A Russian delegation is in Belgrade, having first met with Richard Holbrooke, architect of the current U.S. Serbian policy. Having demonstrated their willingness to resist the United States and their ability to do so, the U.S. must either dramatically escalate the air war and introduce ground forces, or it must negotiate from a much weaker position than before….. But the big story now is Russia’s relationship with China. In 1972, China and America ganged up on Russia in order to stop its tremendous momentum. Today, the players shift their partners but the game remains the same. Russia and China have a joint, strategic interest in hemming in the United States. With U.S.-Russian relations in terrible shape and U.S.-Chinese relations in nearly as bad disarray, the danger to the American global position is substantial. China and the U.S. are having a summit in a few weeks. With Russia on the knife’s edge of hostility or cooperation with the U.S., China is an extraordinary position to demand concessions, and failing to secure them from the U.S. to then realign itself with the Russians. These are the fundamental issues facing the U.S. The Kosovo issue is and was a side issue. The key to the lives of the Kosovars is not in Washington but in Belgrade and Moscow. Serbia wants guarantees of a unified, sovereign nation. Russia wants a sphere of influence. So does China. The real issue is does the United States know what it wants, and knowing it, is it achievable and at what cost? There are far greater stakes on the table than Kosovo. That was obvious in January and that is obvious today…"
Richmond Times-Dispatch 4/12/99 "...In 1992, George Bush sent U.S. troops to Somalia. Their mission? To feed a people threatened by famine. In 1993, Bill Clinton expanded Operation Restore Hope to include nation-building. The exercise ended in death and humiliation in Mogadishu. In 1994, the U.S. "invaded" Haiti to restore to power Jean-Bertrand Aristide - and to promote Haitian democracy. Although boats crowded with Haitian refugees no longer wash ashore in Florida, the democratic dream remains unrealized. The U.S. occupation accomplished next to nothing....Somalia and Haiti offered entirely different scenarios. Democracy cannot be imposed. Efforts to use the U.S. military to do just that were doomed. The Clinton approach was flawed not only in execution but in concept. ..."
The Hindu 4/13/99 Sriprakash Loya "...Sir, The refugees fleeing Kosovo are being accepted by the European countries. The U.S. and Canada have also agreed to accept them. Even far-flung Australia, which traditionally has been averse to any such influx, has welcomed 4,000 refugees on its soil. All these first world countries have been magnanimous towards these refugees. But, recollect the fate of the recent refugees from Kurdistan, Afghanistan and Northern Algeria. Go back a few years and think of the boat people accepted by none. Also, everyone knows the fate of the refugees from Cambodia, Vietnam and then the ten million refugees on our own land in 1972 from Bangladesh. No first world country has ever discussed their fate, leave alone accept them. Should we conclude, therefore, that the colour of the refugees matters? - Sriprakash Loya, Secunderabad ..."
Wall Street Journal 4/9/99 Paul Gigot Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...EXCERPTS "The only good news about Kosovo is that it is reminding Americans that the presidency is about more than shorter suburban commutes. It may even cause challengers to Al Gore in 2000 to ask, Is the world safer than it was eight years ago? That question should be a staple of every presidential election. But U.S. victories over communism and in the Gulf War meant that Bill Clinton inherited a world with fewer threats to America than anytime since before World War I. ......Which means that the media and maybe the voters will listen to the argument that his presidency has been squandering the strategic depth it took decades to build. Let's scan the globe for a six-year scorecard:.."..."
Center for Security Policy's Roundtable discussion ANA Hotel DC 7/15/97 "...International instability was viewed as the most pressing reason for the maintenance of a viable nuclear deterrent force. Not only do the four other "declared" nuclear states and the "threshold" states still retain their arsenals, but there is an increasing threat that other, rogue nations will soon have nuclear capabilities with which to threaten American security. Secretary Weinberger expressed the view that as long as any nation has even one nuclear weapon, the United States will require a deterrent of its own..... The increasing threat posed by China was also the subject of discussion. The People's Republic of China already possesses 17 nuclear-tipped missiles capable of striking the United States. It has, moreover, embarked upon a massive nuclear, as well as conventional, forces build-up. China has two major missile programs in development with Russian, Ukrainian and/or Belarusian assistance: a ground-based, mobile ICBM, and a sea-launched ballistic missile. ...The discussion also addressed the deterrent requirements arising from the emerging threats posed by rogue states like North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya and others. All of these nations have displayed a determination to acquire weaponry of mass destruction; to varying degrees, they have specifically sought nuclear weapons capabilities. This menace is only likely to increase as the means to deliver chemical, biological and/or nuclear weapons over long distances -- via ballistic missile or cruise missile -- become available to such states as a result of technology transfers and/or indigenous developments. On this point, there appeared to be widespread agreement among the Roundtable participants that it could be a matter of only a few years before one or more of these states acquires delivery systems of sufficient range to pose a direct threat to the U.S. -- not the minimum of fifteen years projected by the Clinton Administration's 1995 National Intelligence Estimate...Most recently, President Clinton and Secretary of State Albright have virtually promised the Baltic States admission in the next round of NATO enlargement. It was noted that such a step would appear to renew a requirement for extended deterrence -- i.e., the threat of nuclear response in the event of a non-nuclear attack -- in a place where the United States and its allies would clearly not enjoy conventional superiority over potential adversaries. There is little indication that such considerations are being factored into Clinton Administration thinking concerning the extension of new security guarantees to Eastern Europe..... "
WorldNetDaily 4/19/99 Rep. Richard Pombo "... But what did surprise me in my dealings with the president -- beyond the tawdry details of a rootless personal life -- was his relentless effort to weaken America's fighting ability while both transferring highly classified technology to America's major military competitor and involving our country in numerous, questionable military ventures around the world. In 1992, the United States seemed invulnerable. We had, after nearly half a century in the shadow of nuclear Armageddon, backed down the Soviet Union and unleashed the forces of freedom and democracy among its former captives. We had demonstrated the technological superiority of American weaponry and sent Saddam Hussein packing back to his Baghdad bunker. When President Bush passed the torch to Mr. Clinton, he passed the Reagan/Bush legacy of a strong, respected and victorious America. In six-and-a-half short years that hard-earned legacy has been squandered...."
The Washington News Letter 5/3/99 Marvin Lee "...The London Sunday Times, in its May 2 edition, confirms allegations made by former Clinton employee L. D. Brown in his new book "Crossfire." The allegations, first reported in last week's Washington Weekly, reveal a covert operation to channel money to one side of the Northern Ireland conflict, the IRA. The Times spoke to a left-wing member of the British Parliament named by L. D. Brown as a consultant to the scheme. Ken Livingstone, Labour MP, "did corroborate key parts of Brown's story about the project," write Phelim AcAleer and Kevin Dowling. The Times also cites a written job offer from T. John McBrearty, who sought to involve L. D. Brown in the project and offered him $300,000 for his cooperation with the Clinton administration at a time where L. D. Brown was a witness in multiple investigations of the President. "What we are looking at here is jobs for the boys in exchange for a ceasefire, the peace process and a diplomatic triumph for the US," quotes the Times. "The Clinton White House had agreed to put up between $100m and $150m. The link with them was [Nancy] Soderberg. It was made clear there would be no problem getting money from the White House," Livingstone told the Times. Nancy Soderberg was identified to L. D. Brown as the White House contact person for the covert Northern Ireland operation. She was at the time Deputy Staff Director at the White House National Security Council and Clinton's main advisor on Ireland...."
Reuters 5/3/99 "...Sandinista party leader and former revolutionary president Daniel Ortega urged the Nicaraguan people on Saturday to overthrow the government in response to the death of two people during a transport strike. "If the people, united and mobilised, decide to remove this government I don't see that that would be a problem," Ortega said in a speech after leading 5,000 supporters in a march to commemorate International Labour Day...."
The Orlando Sentinel Online 5/6/99 Charley Reese "....While the United States is committing a crime against Yugoslavia, where we have no legitimate strategic or national interests, President Clinton's Chinese friends have been busy little bees, 90 miles from our shores. Chi Haotian, minister of national defense, got together with Raul Castro, big brother Fidel's minister of defense, and decided that working together was a very good idea....You can expect to see Chinese investments in Cuba, and you will see Castro join forces with the Communist Chinese to drive Taiwanese interests and businesses out of Latin America and the Caribbean.....As they say, much is afoot to the south of us. It makes you wonder why the United States is bogging itself down in the no-win mire of the Balkans. My guess is that flawed decision can be attributed to the fact that underneath his mask of sanity, President Clinton has a screw loose. I suspect that before his term ends the cowardly Democrats in the House of Representatives and Senate who chose partisanship over duty will regret they missed their opportunity to get this captain off the ship. Probably what will shock most Americans in the months ahead is the discovery that the United States has few to no friends in Latin America, and among the few, the fervor is faint to absent..... "
Omaha World-Herald 5/6/99 Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...It's strange to contemplate: A president asking Congress to not give him flexibility in a crisis. Usually a president seeks the maximum maneuvering room. The resolution was not telling Clinton to invade Yugoslavia. It was simply expressing Senate support for that option. .....The fact that Clinton worked to defeat McCain's resolution confirms the opinion of the doubters. He does not want a green light on ground forces because he does not want to be responsible for deciding whether to use them. He is afraid to lead...."
World Tribune 5/6/99 "...The United States and Libya are engaged in secret talks in an effort to improve relations after nearly 20 years of enmity, an Arab newspaper reported on Wednesday. The Saudi-owned A-Sharq al-Awsat said on Wednesday that Libyan and U.S. representatives are holding secret talks in Italy to normalize relations. They said the talks were arranged by Egypt. The effort began last month after Libya handed over two suspects in the 1989 TWA bombing for trial in the Hague. Most of the 270 passengers killed in the bombing were Americans...."
The Hindu 5/7/99 UNI Freeper Jai "...Shri Lanka has complained to the United Nations about the LTTE's move to use the Electronic Mail and Internet to spread propaganda and disinformation to discredit the island nation. "Terrorist groups is general, and the LTTE in particular, continue to abuse electronic mail and global information superhighway -- the Internet -- to undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of countries, including Shri Lanka," Dharshana Perera, Shri Lanka's representative at the United Nations Committee on Information, said. The Shri Lankan representative singled out the LTTE as one of the biggest culprits which continue to "wage a ruthless terrorist campaign against the democratically elected Government of Shri Lanka." Blasting the LTTE for blatant abuses, he said the LTTE and its front organisations continue to disseminate false propaganda and complete distortion of facts in their effort to discredit the Shri Lankan State and mislead the international community. ..."
New York Times 5/16/99 "...It is hard to imagine a more damaging American security failure than the serial hemorrhage of nuclear-weapons secrets and other military information to China over the last two decades. Each new disclosure adds to a picture of breathtaking incompetence by Federal agencies and lack of vigilance by Republican and Democratic administrations alike. The United States might as well have dumped its most sensitive defense secrets on Pennsylvania Avenue for Chinese spies to pick up. Then there is the Clinton Administration's inert response to possible Chinese campaign contributions in 1996, and the Justice Department's lack of interest in tens of millions of dollars that flowed from China into a small Los Angeles bank the same year. Little wonder both Republicans and Democrats in Congress want to know whether the Administration willfully ignored all these Chinese provocations so it could improve relations with Beijing. In recent weeks, Jeff Gerth and James Risen of The Times have described three serious security breakdowns, two at nuclear weapons laboratories and one involving work by a private defense contractor. In all cases, there seems to have been a loss of critically important information to China that could be used to modernize Beijing's small arsenal of nuclear weapons or help it develop other military technologies. In each instance, security measures were lax and Federal criminal investigations proved ineffectual..... This is no way to run a government....."
The London Telegraph 5/15/99 Ben Fenton "An American scientist convicted of spying for China worked closely with British military and visited Scotland as part of a secret team working on a method of tracking nuclear missile submarines. The information available to Peter Lee as a prominent member of the UK/US Radar Ocean Imaging Programme (ROIP) is almost certain to have compromised the security of Britain's Trident nuclear deterrent. Lee is at the centre of a spy scandal in America that has been compared to the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who provided Russia with America's nuclear secrets in the early 1950s. He and his namesake Wen Ho Lee are believed to have handed China enough information to update their relatively primitive nuclear arsenal in years rather than decades. The information obtained by The Telegraph is the first clear indication that Britain's nuclear deterrent has been put at risk. According to court documents made available to this newspaper, Peter Lee was a member of the ROIP for at least six years before the FBI discovered he was divulging details of the technology to Chinese military scientists...."
New York Times 5/17/99 Mireya Navaro "....Guatemalans on Sunday appeared to have voted down constitutional changes to recognize officially for the first time the rights of the country's Mayan majority, a rejection that supporters of the measures said would set back efforts to consolidate peace after a 36-year civil war. Electoral officials said on Sunday night that turnout for the referendum was extremely poor, about 21 percent of Guatemala's 4 million registered voters, because of Guatemala's high illiteracy rate and the scarce effort to inform residents about the proposals. But preliminary results for Guatemala City, where nearly half of all eligible voters reside, indicated a vote of 77 percent to 23 percent against 50 amendments to the Guatemala constitution. In a country where the indigenous majority has faced genocide and poverty and long been excluded from power, the reforms would have declared Guatemala "multiethnic" and for the first time granted equal status to the languages, religions and customary laws of the Mayan peoples, who account for about 60 percent of the population...."
Washing ton Post 5/17/99 Anthony Faiola "...Such feelings [anti-NATO/US] are common in Argentina -- and in many other parts of the world far from the conflict over Kosovo. As the air war against Yugoslavia concludes its eighth week, and blunders like the bombing that reportedly killed nearly 90 ethnic Albanians at Korisa and the strike on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade grab headlines worldwide, NATO's warplanes are inflicting collateral damage of another kind -- on the alliance's international reputation. And Uncle Sam, NATO's dominant power, is bearing the brunt of people's anger. Here in Argentina, one of Washington's closest Latin American allies, a poll last week showed that 64 percent of the public opposed the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia. More respondents had a negative opinion of NATO than of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. In Latin America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and other regions with little direct interest in the conflict, opposition is surfacing in statements by elected officials, newspaper editorials, opinion polls, public protests, Internet banter and street graffiti. Increasingly, there is little subtlety in NATO-bashing. "NATO is blindly bombing Yugoslavia," Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said in a fiery political speech in India last week. "There is a dance of destruction going on there. Thousands of people rendered homeless. And the United Nations is a mute witness to all this. Is NATO's work to prevent war or to fuel one?" In the view of analysts here and elsewhere, the anti-NATO backlash shows how Washington's portrayal of the conflict as a humanitarian mission is being superseded by lingering anti-Western feelings in countries with bad memories of U.S. intervention and European colonialism...."
EWTN 5/19/99 Freeper marshmallow "..."We do not want the state to substitute the role of the parents," Fr. Welch added. "Mrs. William Clinton not withstanding, it dosen't take a village to raise a child, it takes a caring and responsive family to do so. Instead of state intervention, the families in Puerto Rico need state support. Any legislation affecting minor children must be based on the moral convictions of Puerto Rico - not the government, and certainly not the United Nations." ..."
NewsMax 5/18/99 Linda Bowles "...Chinese ambassador Li Zhaoxing looked like a prison camp commander extracting a written confession from a prisoner as he stood over Bill Clinton in the Oval Office. His scowl was menacing as he watched the president sign a book of condolences for victims of the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade..... Given China's domestic tyranny and repression of its own people, the brutalization of Tibet, the persecution of Christians, the theft of U.S. nuclear and military secrets, armed threats against Taiwan, the transfer of nuclear and missile technology to rogue nations who hate America, the trashing of the American embassy in China, the terrorization of our ambassador and his family, and the illegal funneling of millions of dollars to the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign, you have to wonder why we are not the ones demanding an apology and breaking off negotiations. By our actions, we have effectively ceded the moral high ground to one of the most tyrannical dictatorships on the planet Earth. What happened to us? How did we wind up in this weak and humiliating posture? The answer is simple. What happened to us was "collateral damage."... It is the damage done to international relationships and to the image of America as the moral leader in the post Cold-War world. On April 25, following a 50th anniversary summit, NATO issued a Washington Declaration. In effect, NATO formally announced its intention to preemptively deal with human rights violations and perceived threats beyond the borders of its member nations. Surely, it was no surprise that the non-NATO world reacted with apprehension and resentment. Why would they not? NATO had just thrown down the gauntlet.....Throughout the non-NATO world, America is increasingly seen as an aggressor nation, the new "Evil Empire," demonstrably unfit to preach to other nations about human rights and democratic freedoms. The perception grows that America has fallen from grace and lost its image as the light and hope of the world. The view is taking hold that the American people have scrapped their Constitution, abandoned their founding principles, and put themselves in the heavy hands of an elite band of liberal globalists....."
WORLD Magazine 5/14/99 Mindy Belz "...Even before the war in Kosovo soured U.S. relations with Beijing, war-game strategists were planning for an eventual confrontation with China. While the Clinton administration worries over copyright infringements and smoothing China's way into the World Trade Organization, military analysts see armed conflict with China as the second most likely threat facing the United States (confrontation on the Korean Peninsula being the first)....The January report also predicted, "Russia will begin the process of recreating the old Soviet empire in 1999 ... the Westernizers who dominated Russia for the past decade are being replaced by Slavophiles, who will seek to root out Western influence while they liquidate the Westernizers." Proof of those predictions lies in Russia's opposition to recent NATO campaigns. Yet Washington continues to court Russian officials who call NATO forces "aggressor states" and orate about hands "stained with the blood of bombs," in the words of defense minister Valentin Sergeyev.... North Korea looks desperate under its third year of famine and a crumbling economy. It could be poised to lash out at its prospering southern nemesis. A surprise attack of missiles and artillery from the north could quickly devastate Seoul and its 11 million inhabitants, who live just 35 miles south of the border. In a ground assault, the 36,000 U.S. troops stationed at the border to supplement the South Korean army would be met by 1.2 million soldiers from North Korea quicker than even Bill Clinton can say, "Call up the reserves." ....Little needs to be said about Iraq, given its high-profile conflicts with the United States and UN weapons inspectors in just the last year. Iraq stands fourth-behind Russia, China, and North Korea-in overall military capabilities, according to Defense Department statistics. But it ranks first in demonstrated willingness to use what it has.....In times past, two events currently underway would have been seen as sure fire-starters: a Palestinian declaration of statehood and Washington support for it. So far, trends in both directions have caused no flames, as tensions have been on hold leading up to national elections in Israel this month....For 15 years, Sudan has fought a civil war between the Muslim-dominated north and the Christian- and animist-controlled south. ...Second, the United States inserted itself into this flashpoint when it bombed a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan following last year's attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa. Evidence linking the factory to Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden, believed to be the mastermind behind the embassy attacks, proved much less than conclusive. ....The tête-à-tête with Iran's Islamic fundamentalist regime may have softened from 20 years ago, but the United States faces essentially the same threat in Tehran's rooted opposition to all things American.....Policy analysts say the conflict in Congo is the most serious threat to peace in Africa since the end of the Cold War, perhaps since the end of the slave trade..... U.S. foes like Libyan dictator Muamar Ghadhafi have stepped into the fray to broker a peace agreement and, if they see a toehold, threaten more U.S. interests in Africa than just safari and game preserves...... The fall of the Soviet Union prompted oil scouts to dream of a rise in production from largely untapped petroleum reserves beneath the Caspian Sea. Geologists say the Caspian basin could yet possess 200 billion barrels, nearly equal to the combined proven reserves of Iran and Iraq..... The littoral nations cannot agree on who owns what portions of the sea...... Of 273 terrorist attacks worldwide last year, 77 were bombings of multinational oil pipelines in Colombia. In those attacks, 71 people, including 28 children, were killed, according to the U.S. State Department. ...."
The Daily Republican Newspaper 5/20/99 Tony Artero "...Illegal Chinese aliens are invading Guam. But, the Clinton administration is according these aliens greater economic opportunity than Americans on Guam who have fought in wars defending America's interest. .....The slogan that "Guam is where America's day begins" has been turned on its head by the spectacle created by the White House and Congress by the subtle recognition of a new idiom, "Guam, the back doormat to the United States." The practice of according illegal imigrants swarming the beaches on Guam with diplomatic status is as appalling as any miscarriage of justice in American History. The political mythology that Guam is obligated to render political asylum to Communist Chinese smugglers and spies simply because they are on American soil is an affrontory to Guams heroic contributions to the American victroy at sea in World War II. The Clinton administration has reduced Guam to "doormat status" and must take ultimate responsibility for the human disaster overwhelming Guam's civilian capacity to maintain civil order and protect U.S. citizens from risks to health and safety. Every day more of these Chinese derelicts arrive vessels founder on our reefs or run aground in our harbors...."
5/25/99 AP Freeper Thanatos "...President Hugo Chavez said Monday that he will deny a request by the United States to use Venezuela's airspace for anti-narcotics flights in the region. The United States wants to use Venezuela's airspace for flights from three new staging centers being set up in Ecuador and the islands of Curacao and Aruba, which are located off Venezuela's western coast...."
AP 5/24/99 Manila "...About 200 protesters scuffled with riot police outside the U.S. Embassy i n Manilla today, demonstrating against a pact that would allow large-scale U.S. military exercises in the country. The activists, belonging to the National Democratic Movement, ran past riot police and destroyed a plastic cover protecting th e U.S. government seal at the embassy's entrance. Police pushed them back with shields and truncheons, injuring at least one protester....."
Washington Times 5/25/99 Jennifer Bauduy "...The preoccupation with American forces' safety that is shadowing debate about a ground war in Kosovo has meant a life behind barbed wire and sandbag walls for hundreds of U.S. troops in Haiti. There are about 500 U.S. soldiers remaining in Haiti, the impoverished Caribbean nation that the United States occupied in 1994 in one of the last major deployments of U.S. forces before NATO attacks on Yugoslavia began two months ago...."
5/27/99 BBC News Freeper Thanatos "...Senators in the Philippines are to vote on whether to accept a controversial agreement reviving military ties with the US. Supporters of the agreement say it will help the Philippines in its armed confrontation with China; opponents say the agreement will restore a quasi-colonial relationship between the United States and the Philippines. What the Senate is voting on is deceptively mundane: a Visiting Forces Agreement, or VFA, setting out the conditions under which United States forces can come to the Philippines to conduct military exercises...."
San Diego Union-Tribune 5/26/99 Marjorie Cohn Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...NATO tells us the bombs fall to stop reprehensible ethnic cleansing. If that is true, why does NATO's leader, the United States, support a government in Colombia whose "cleansing" policies rival those of Slobodan Milosevic's regime in Kosovo? During the past decade, Colombian military and paramilitary violence has killed tens of thousands of civilians. It created nearly as many refugees as the bombing of Kosovo and resulted in the worst human-rights abuses of the early 1990s, according to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. NATO is exercising military power in Kosovo, not to stop human-rights atrocities, but to establish control of an area that will be important to the economic growth of Western nations in coming decades...."
Scmp.com 5/29/99 RAISSA ROBLES "...The Supreme Court was asked yesterday to stop a military exercises accord with the US approved by the Senate on Thursday. The move came as Washington debated a resolution that could send swift military aid to the Philippines..... Congressman Dana Rohrabacher told Philippine congressman Roilo Golez yesterday that he had managed to insert an amendment favourable to Manila in a resolution being deliberated by the US House of Representatives. An amendment to House Resolution 1908 would allow UH-1 helicopters to be donated to the Philippines, along with A-4 aircraft and the Coast Guard cutter Point Evans, said Mr Rohrabacher, who had accompanied Mr Golez on an aerial tour of the Spratlys in December....In urging the amendment, Congressman Rohrabacher said: "The ongoing Chinese construction of naval bases in the Spratlys and repeated incursions of warships and fishing fleets into Philippine territorial waters, have increased the urgency of our long-time ally's need to modernise its naval and air patrol capabilities." Mr Rohrabacher called the Philippines a "frontline nation against the growing designs of China to militarily control the Pacific in the 21st century"...."
Fox News 6/8/99 "...A U.S. proposal to defend democracy throughout the Western Hemisphere was shelved Tuesday after Mexico and other nations in the Organization of American States (OAS) said it smacked of interventionism. The measure, which had been set to be adopted at the OAS's annual general assembly meeting in Guatemala, would have allowed OAS members to turn to a "Group of Friends'' to help prevent political crises such as a coup..... "Every action by the OAS has to be based on the principle that each country needs to find its own solution for its problems,'' Peru's Foreign Minister Fernando de Trazegnies told delegates Tuesday. "When somebody suddenly storms my house and comes in, I don't consider him a friend,'' de Trazegnies said...."
newsmax.com 6/9/99 Carl Limbacher and Caron Grich "...The Clinton administration has also offered the promise of greater U.S. defense cooperation with Azerbaijan. For example, NATO, through its Partnership for Peace program, has established the Central Asian Peacekeeping Battalion, or CENBAT," reports Jofi Joseph in a January 1999 case study on "Pipeline Politics" for Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. "As part of one of the first joint exercises involving American soldiers and the CENBAT force, 500 members of the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division parachuted into Kazakhstan (Azerbaijan's oil rich neighbor across the Caspian Sea) after a 23- hour flight from Ft. Bragg. The impressive display powerfully represented the strategic reach of the U.S.; the Kazakhstan deputy foreign minister stated, 'Five years ago, no one here could even dream of such things as American soldiers dropping out of the sky into a remote area of Kazakhstan.' " Prof. Joseph adds, "Evolving closer defense ties with Azerbaijan's neighbors sends a clear signal that the U.S. and NATO are interested in the security of the region, of which Azerbaijan is one of the most valuable pieces." ...."
Stratfor.com 6/10/99 Global Intelligence Update "...During a meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) the U.S. proposed the creation of a multinational force to guarantee the security of the Western Hemisphere. At the same time, the U.S. is reportedly pushing a plan to support Colombia's neighbors with aircraft and intelligence in their efforts to contain Colombian guerrillas. With its OAS proposal in the long term and its Colombia plan in the short term, the U.S. appears eager to become more actively involved in resolving Latin America's long running conflicts. This promises at best a mixed blessing for U.S. businesses currently operating in Colombia and throughout the region, as greater U.S. involvement will draw greater reaction from the region's rebels...."
6/12/99 AP Freeper Thanatos Angola "...With UNITA guerrillas in control of most of this vast country in southwest Africa, army officials are planning a new offensive on the rebels' command center in hopes of bringing the two-decade civil war to a close. The assault -- perhaps as soon as this month -- will be aimed at crushing the rebels' strongholds and choking off the diamond revenues that keep them fighting. A 1994 peace accord unraveled in December, when lingering hostility and mistrust between the two sides erupted into renewed fighting. Since then, UNITA -- a Portuguese acronym for the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola -- has taken control of 80 percent of Angola...."
Reuters 6/12/99 "....Heavy fighting raged on the western end of Eritrea's border with Ethiopia Saturday after Eritrea said 2,400 Ethiopian soldiers had been killed in two days of clashes. Ethiopia branded the casualty report a fabrication. Eritrean television and radio said late Friday that 2,400 Ethiopian troops were killed and 4,000 were wounded, while Eritrea had taken 80 prisoners, shot down one Ethiopian MI 35 helicopter gunship and destroyed three tanks. "The fighting is continuing,'' Eritrean presidential spokesman Yermane Gebremeskel told Reuters Saturday. "The casualty toll was high because the Ethiopians concentrated their attack - they used two divisions in the attack which is about 20,000 soldiers,'' he said.... "This is the usual Eritrean fabrication aimed at getting media attention,'' government spokeswoman Selome Taddesse told Reuters...."
Mercury News 6/4/99 AP "...Anti-nuclear activists said Friday that corruption was behind personnel changes on a panel overseeing safety at a planned nuclear research reactor in Thailand. The Bangkok Post reported on Friday that Darakant Mongkolphantha, a nuclear safety expert who was in charge of the panel, had been replaced with a non-nuclear engineer by Thailand's Office for Atomic Energy for Peace, a government agency...... The paper said three other safety experts on the panel had also been replaced with engineers.....According to her group, General Atomics recently asked the OAEP to change its contract to allow it buy uranium from Russia instead of the United States. ``If the OAEP buys fuel from the U.S., we have an agreement that allows us to send nuclear waste back to the U.S. for disposal. But we have no deal with Russia,'' she said....."
Hong Kong Standard 6/1/99 Cary Huang "...THE Nato strikes against Yugoslavia, and the resulting tension with Russia and China, have dramatically changed the prospects for global politics in the post-Cold War era. The development would prompt, at its worst, the birth of a new military bloc aimed at keeping US-led Western supremacy in check, and would be a major setback for arms controls and disarmament....Russia and China begin from the standpoint that bilateral military unions operating in the Asian-Pacific region should have strictly defensive objectives. They must not target third countries or upset the regional balance of power. They have to adapt themselves to multilateral efforts aimed at ensuring security. Beijing and Moscow reject the inclusion of any of their territory in the projected arc of US-Japanese operations. Beijing, Moscow and New Delhi believe that upgraded US-Japan military ties are widening the American presence here and significantly increasing Japan's military might. And the recently escalating tension between the world's developing giants and the West reinforces the belief among the trio that the US is forging ahead with a global military alliance to encircle and contain the world's non-Western powers in next millennium....."
Reuters [OL] 6/2/99 Freeper Mark Egan "...The recent Asian financial crisis plunged millions into poverty and could derail long-held goals of poverty reduction and social improvements in the world's poorest countries, the World Bank said Wednesday. The Bank said the Asian crisis, which began in 1997 in Thailand and spread through the region and beyond, showed that economic reforms can increase inequalities if they fail to include a social safety net for the poorest...."
Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau 6/5/99 Joyce M. Davis "...``When this ends, it's the end of NATO in its current form,'' said Stephen Fischer-Galati, a University of Colorado history professor and an expert on Eastern Europe. ``I am quite convinced that the Europeans are going to establish their own security organization, keeping the United States at a safe distance.'' .....William Stuebner, a specialist in international law at the congressionally funded United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., says the bombing is bound to have an effect on conflicts around the globe and on U.S. relations with other countries. ``We can spin this all we want and say that we've won, but there will be serious repercussions from NATO's actions in Yugoslavia,'' he said. U.S. ties to China and Russia became strained, as both countries opposed the bombing, and China even suffered casualties when its embassy in Belgrade was bombed. Both Chinese and Russian officials fear that NATO has become so bold that it could decide to interfere in their internal affairs, Stuebner and other analysts say Early on, the NATO offensive stirred China's worst fears about U.S. willingness to use military power to get its way. Beijing argued that NATO was a pawn of the United States and that the Kosovo crisis was an internal matter for Yugoslavia to resolve. What really bothered Beijing, China specialists say, was the precedent set by NATO's action..... Many in Russia believe they face a more immediate threat, with NATO already at their borders....``The most important result (of the Kosovo crisis), which was foreseeable from the first day of the conflict, was that many countries who don't have nuclear weapons will take a new look at this option,'' said Martin van Creveld, professor of military history and strategy at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. ``They will say to themselves, `We want to make certain that nothing like this ever happens to us.' Suppose I were an Indonesian, Algerian or Nigerian: All these countries have severe ethnic problems.'' ..."
EWTN.COM 6/12/99 "...In spite of the aggressive posture of its promoters, a play was forced to cancel its public appearances in the Mexican city of Queretaro after pressure exercised by the citizens, who disapproved the hostile posture toward the Church and the shameless moral relativism proposed by the play. The play "For women only" was initially presented to a public of 5000 people. From that moment the Church, in the voice of the bishop and of diverse committed laymen, denounced the play and organized a gathering of signatures that was supported by more than 50 thousand Queretans opposed to a second presentation. Approximately twenty social and religious organizations prepared a document where they requested the respective authorities the immediate cancellation of the play. It was not necessary to wait for a formal prohibition from authorities, since the Municipal Committee of the Party of the Democratic Revolution -organizer of the play-, in view of the obvious rejection of the population, announced presentations would be cancelled...."
Associated Press Tom Raum 6/15/99 "...Imagine Russian soldiers in a military standoff with NATO troops on a European airfield. Consider the United States hitting a Chinese diplomatic mission with a missile. Add in the naval gunfire between North and South Korea, and sometimes it's hard to remember the Cold War is over. U.S. policy-makers are suddenly confronted with far larger security issues than those initially at stake in Kosovo.....While NATO's air campaign achieved the stated goal of forcing a Serb withdrawal from Kosovo, it also rekindled Cold War tensions......Cordesman sees a fundamental difference between today and the years of nuclear confrontation between a massive Soviet military and the West. Still, he said, it's ``very dangerous for Americans to believe the diplomatic rhetoric'' that minimizes present dangers.....U.S. officials reiterated on today that they expected the stalemate with Russia to be eased. Moscow has given ``assurances at a variety of levels'' that it won't add to the 200 soldiers at the airport in Pristina, said State Department spokesman James Rubin. As he spoke, an 11-vehicle Russian convoy rolled through Kosovo on its way to Pristina to resupply the Russian troops. And concerns were raised that Russia might try to send in reinforcements by air......``I'm not sure Yeltsin is in total control of the military,'' said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., chairman of a congressional group that meets with members of the Russian Duma.....``This is extremely serious. All it takes is for one Russian or one American to misfire,'' Weldon said.... At the same time, the United States dispatched additional aircraft to patrol the area, and there was talk of sending additional U.S. ships or other resources...."
The Associated Press 7/17/99 Dan Perry "...In an explosion of fury on the Fourth of July, thousands of Puerto Ricans converged on a U.S. Navy base, waving a U.S. flag with skulls for stars and condemning the ``Evil Empire.'' Two days later, Gov. Pedro Rossello, who may well be the most pro-American leader Puerto Rico ever had, asked the United Nations to declare the island a colony whose status must be resolved next year. This is not how it was meant to be a year ago, when Rossello stood near the beach where U.S. troops invaded in July 1898, exuberantly waved a 51-star flag and promised the island taken from Spain would soon be a U.S. state...."
Detriot News 7/16/99 Chris Stewart and David Forsmark "….The Clinton Doctrine, in essence, states that, in an effort to stop racial or ethnic slaughter within another nation's borders, the United States and NATO should be willing to engage in something called "humanitarian warfare" - a chillingly Orwellian phrase, even by this administration's standards of torturing language. It is based on the purported success of the United States in the Kosovo war. The premise of this policy is extremely dangerous to the future of our military preparedness because it is based on political spin, not competent analysis…If this doctrine is accepted as our national policy, plan on U.S. troops being stationed in Bosnia and Kosovo for generations to come. And you can add Turkey, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, the Sudan, Russia and China to the list of potential future bombing targets…."
EWTN 7/19/99 "…The Catholic bishop of El Obeid in Sudan, writing for the US newspaper The Boston Globe, chided Western nations for ignoring ethnic cleansing in Sudan even as they intervened in Kosovo. Bishop Macram Max Gassis said the militant Islamic government of Sudan has waged a decade-long campaign of ethnic cleansing in southern Sudan that has left nearly 2 million people dead -- more than the entire population of Kosovo -- and has left more than 4 million displaced, the largest refugee population in the world….The bishop also asked the reason for being ignored. "I pray that the reason for the indifference ... is not that we are black while the Kosovars are white, not that we are Africans rather than Europeans," he said…."
Itar-Tass 7/19/99 "…Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze eyes a Kosovo scenario for separatist Abkhazia and does not rule out a NATO presence in the region where calm is currently maintained by Russian peacekeepers. However, the president said a UN Security Council decision will be necessary for that…."
Chicago Tribune 7/29/99 Eric Reeves "...The ongoing catastrophe in Sudan stands as the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world today... A carefully assembled set of data for the U.S. Committee for Refugees makes evident that almost 2 million people have perished in the most recent phase of Sudan's ongoing civil war. As many as 5 million refugees have been created, making the refugee problem the greatest of its kind in the world. And at the height of last summer's famine, more than 2 million more people, mainly children, were at risk of starvation. And the catastrophe continues: famine, epidemic disease, human enslavement and scorched earth warfare remain defining features of the landscape in the south, where the civil war has been so devastatingly concentrated And yet Americans remain painfully unaware of the catastrophe. How can this be?.... it bears the curse of being in Africa, where any policy success is almost surely destined to be overshadowed by Clinton's abysmal moral failure in the Rwandan genocide. Africa can contribute nothing to the "Clinton legacy" that is being cobbled together, and so--despite its vast geographic, political and cultural variability--a continent has been relegated to the extreme periphery of White House attention....And the news media--television most egregiously, but newspapers as well--have made the marginalizing of Sudan almost effortless. Not one major American newspaper, for example, reported on a resolution passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on June 15 declaring the Khartoum regime's conduct of civil war in the south of Sudan to be "genocidal." Could this have been declared at any time during the past 50 years of any European or Western government without explosive news coverage? Why is Sudan's death struggle so entirely unworthy of national attention? ..."
Long Island Newsday 7/29/99 Mark Simon "...MORALITY? As I have read over the last few weeks of NATO's "moral victory" over Serbian dictator, Slobodan Milosevic, I've reflected on the almost simultaneous, allegedly CIA-aided capture, subsequent conviction and death sentence in Turkey of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan and the moral imperative in U.S. foreign policy. The United States and NATO took nine long years to confront Milosevic over Kosovo, nine years in which the Kosovo Albanians mounted a truly remarkable, nonviolent campaign against Serbian apartheid, aggression and the beginnings of ethnic cleansing-that is, routine harassment, beatings, torture and murder. The Kurds in Turkey, by contrast, don't even have the dubious benefit of a NATO military intervention. Striving for a measure of autonomy, they are up against the Turkish military, with the second largest army in NATO-and the worst human rights record. Why does the West turn a proverbial blind eye? The answer has little to do with morality..... "
Associated Press 7/29/99 "...The U.S. Navy owes the Puerto Rican government $8.8 million for water it has been drawing from a river since 1985 without a permit, the island's Department of Natural and Environmental Resources says. Department secretary Daniel Pagan said the Navy failed to present a permit to draw water from the Rio Blanco in the eastern town of Naguabo, near Naval Station Roosevelt Roads in Ceiba, The San Juan Star newspaper reported Thursday...."
Reuters 7/31/99 "...The Roman Catholic archbishop of Cali, Colombia's second largest city, on Saturday excommunicated the members of a Marxist guerrilla group responsible for the abduction of 143 of his churchgoers. The Cuban-inspired National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia's second largest guerrilla group, ignored a June 30 deadline set by the church to free the remaining 36 hostages seized at gunpoint while attending mass on May 30 in an affluent Cali suburb..."
Baltimore Sun 7/30/99 Lawrence Pezzullo Nancy Jackson "...REMEMBER Haiti? That's the Caribbean island-nation where the United States intervened militarily five years ago with 20,000 troops to restore democracy and billions of dollars in assistance. Currently, it is being threatened by the very leaders who were the beneficiaries of our military intervention and financial largess. If left unchecked, Haiti's trouble could boil over and hurt Vice President Al Gore's presidential campaign. Of course, there have been some improvements. Haiti now has an elected government, though, in January, President Rene Preval closed down the parliament that had the temerity to question the executive branch. Haiti's corrupt and oppressive military has been eliminated, but violence continues. The latest example was the summary execution by Haitian police of 11 handcuffed youths in broad daylight. ..."
LISBON, Portugal (AP) 8/3/99 "...Eyewitnesses said Angola's UNITA rebels drove 50 villagers from their homes in a northern town, fatally shot them and dumped their bodies in a nearby river, the Portuguese news agency Lusa reported Tuesday. The massacre is alleged to have taken place early Sunday in Quipacassa, Lusa said. ..."
Xinhua via NewsEdge Corporation 8/5/99 "...Devil worship is widespread in Kenya with rituals of human sacrifice and nudity in prayers, the Daily Nation newspaper Wednesday quoted a report of survey as saying. The report titled the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Cult of Devil Worship in Kenya was recently released to religious organizations but never made public, the paper said. The report, compiled by prominent religious leaders and presented to President Daniel arap Moi in 1995, claims that the tentacles of evil sects reached into schools, churches and even government offices ..."
AP George Gedda 8/16/99 "…The Senate's Democratic leader and a fellow farm-state senator spoke strongly for lifting an embargo on food and drug sales to Cuba after returning Monday from a visit that included a seven-hour meeting with Fidel Castro. They said they told the Cuban president, however, that no further easing of the decades-long sanctions can be considered until Cuba improves its human rights record...."
XINHUA 8/17/99 "… Ebrahim Samba, regional director for Africa of the World Health Organization (WHO), Sunday told the daily Herald that the Center For Disease Control in Atlanta, the United States, had proof that the first patient died between 1961 and 1962 of a "rare disease"…. "All the bad things are said to emerge from Africa, while all the good come from the West. The West should, therefore, send a letter of apology to Africa for being wrongfully blamed," said Samba…"
Reuters 8/17/99 "…The governor of a Venezuelan state said Monday he had instructed his police force not to step in to save criminals from being killed by angry local communities. ``The police will not intervene to protect any crook, rapist, assailant or murderer,'' said Lara state governor Orlando Fernandez. ``I have to look after honest and decent people,'' he told the local Union Radio station. Fernandez's decision came amid growing concern in the South American country of 23 million people over a sudden rise in crime…..``I have to set priorities. ... I'm too busy to be protecting criminals,'' said Fernandez, whose small, mostly agricultural state is located in central Venezuela…."
San Francisco Chronicle 8/19/99 Winifred Tate "…THE LONG-NEGLECTED conflict in Colombia is emerging as Latin America's major crisis and pulling the United States ever more deeply into an unwinnable war. Escalating political violence, an entrenched insurgency, increasing illicit drug production and growing concern from Colombia's neighbors about the conflict spilling over have policymakers in Washington searching for a solution to the problems besetting Colombia….. Though the Colombian army has declared itself ``reformed,'' the nation's military is far from a new institution. Military collusion with paramilitary activity on a local and regional level continues, and paramilitary violence has escalated in the past six months. These groups target alleged guerrilla sympathizers, but their net of terror has been cast wide over a growing number of Colombian peace leaders and members of civil society. More than 400 people have been killed or ``disappeared'' in the first three months of this year alone, and tens of thousands more have been forced to flee their homes…."
AP 8/20/99 George Gedda "…Less than three months after President Kennedy's death, Cuban leader Fidel Castro told President Lyndon Johnson he was eager for Johnson to prevail in the 1964 election - and even invited him to take ``hostile action'' against Cuba if it would be to his political benefit, newly published documents show. Castro also invited Johnson to continue a U.S.-Cuban dialogue that Kennedy had initiated in the months before his assassination. Castro's comments are contained in a series of once-secret 1960s documents on U.S.-Cuban relations that were obtained by Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archive, a research group at George Washington University….. It was a time when the conservative wing of the party was poised to seize power after long years of dominance by moderates. That summer, the GOP nominated one of those conservative rebels, Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, to run against Johnson in the 1964 presidential election…. "
WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS
National Journal 4/3/99 "…Sudan -- Conflict: 16-year civil war… Death Toll: Estimated 1.9 million since 1983 Administration Action: $1 billion in food relief…"
National Journal 4/3/99 "…Tibet -- Conflict: Ever since China seized Tibet in 1949… Death Toll: Estimates range as high as 1.2 million. Administration Action: In 1994, "de-linked" trade matters from Beijing's record on human rights; in 1997, appointed a special coordinator for Tibetan issues…"
National Journal 4/3/99 "…Rwanda -- Conflict: Extremists among Hutu majority in 1994 launched genocide against Tutsi minority. Death Toll: 800,000, perhaps 1 million Administration Action: Pentagon provided massive humanitarian aid …"
National Journal 4/3/99 "…Angola -- Conflict: 25-year civil war…. Death Toll: 1 million over 25 years; 300,000 since 1992 Administration Action: U.S. diplomats, along with Portugal and Russia, monitor the ailing 1994 peace agreement …"
National Journal 4/3/99 "…Somalia -- Conflict: Ouster of dictator in 1991 unleashed a civil war that still rages. Death Toll: About 300,000 in the ensuing famine in 1992 and 1993; more since Administration Action: Intervened from late 1992 to late 1994 with 25,000 troops; 30 troops died, including 18 in a bloody Mogadishu firefight …"
National Journal 4/3/99 "…Liberia -- Conflict: Seven-year civil war … Death Toll: As many as 250,000; 700,000 displaced Administration Action: Helped finance 10-nation peacekeeping force, spent $7.5 million to help ensure a fair 1997 election …"
National Journal 4/3/99 "…Bosnia and Herzegovina -- Conflict: Move for Bosnian independence in 1991 aroused opposition from Serbs…. Death Toll: More than 200,000; hundreds of thousands displaced Administration Action: Economic embargo, bombing, and intervention by 20,000 U.S. troops; 6,000 U.S. troops remain …"
National Journal 4/3/99 "…Indonesia -- Conflict: East Timor… annexed in 1975, fights for independence. Death Toll: As many as 200,000 Administration Action: Supports international peacekeeping or observer force and a "peace and stability council" for fractious region …"
National Journal 4/3/99 "…Algeria -- Conflict: Seven-year civil war … Death Toll: Between 65,000 and 80,000 Administration Action: Participated in 1998 U.N. fact-finding trip, offered to send observers for a new election …"
National Journal 4/3/99 "…Sri Lanka -- Conflict: Since 1983, secessionist Tamil guerrillas have waged a war against the Sinhalese Sri Lankan majority. Death Toll: 56,000 Administration Action: Regards the Tamil Tigers as terrorists, helps train anti-terrorist squads for the Sri Lankan government …"
National Journal 4/3/99 "…Chechnya -- Conflict: 21-month war between Russian forces and separatist Muslims ended in cease-fire in 1996. Death Toll: 40,000 Administration Action: Clinton letter to Yeltsin saying conflict could not be settled militarily …"
National Journal 4/3/99 "…Turkey -- Conflict: 15-year military and terrorist effort by Kurdish separatists to establish autonomy in southeast Turkey Death Toll: 37,000 Administration Action: Military aid to Turkey, a NATO ally; helped Turkey track and arrest Abdullah Ocalan, leader of Kurdish separatist movement"
National Journal 4/3/99 "…Nagorno-Karabakh -- Conflict: Muslim Azerbaijan and Christian Armenia fought a five- year….. Death Toll: 35,000; hundreds of thousands of refugees Administration Action: Diplomatic efforts, with France and Russia, to draw up a peace agreement; also $12.5 million in humanitarian aid" …"
National Journal 4/3/99 "…Kashmir -- Conflict: Some Kashmiri rebels want independence from India; some want association with Pakistan. Death Toll: 25,000 in past nine years Administration Action: Offers of mediation if both sides request it …"
National Journal 4/3/99 "…Democratic Republic of Congo -- Conflict: Two-year civil war, largely a fallout from Rwandan civil war and collapse of 30-year rule of Mobutu Sese Seko, in what was called Zaire" Death Toll: As many as 10,000 in past year Administration Action: Active diplomacy working toward cease- fire, including the appointment of a special envoy to African Great Lakes region …"
National Journal 4/3/99 "…Eritrea -- Conflict: Fierce border dispute between Eritrea and Ethiopia Death Toll: 10,000 in recent months Administration Action: Active but unnoticed diplomacy, including brokering an agreement by both sides not to use airpower and sending a special envoy to the region…"
National Journal 4/3/99 "…Sierra Leone -- Conflict: Civil war, with rural rebels trying to depose elected urban government Death Toll: 3,000 since January Administration Action: Supports a multinational military force to keep elected government in power …"
National Journal 4/3/99 "…Northern Ireland -- Conflict: 30 years …Death Toll: 3,200 over 30 years Administration Action: Extensive multiyear involvement, including special ambassadors, participation in peace talks, and personal intervention by President Clinton …"
National Journal 4/3/99 "…Kosovo -- Conflict: Albanian Kosovars seek independence after 10 years of suppression by Serbian government. Death Toll: 2,000 in past year; 250,000 displaced Administration Action: Diplomatic pressure culminating in NATO air strikes…"
National Journal 4/3/99 "…Haiti -- Conflict: Civil strife and political assassinations began in 1991 when military elite overthrew elected president. Tens of thousands of boat people fled to Florida. Death Toll: Hundreds Administration Action: 20,000 troops intervened in 1994; no U.S. combat deaths; 500 U.S. troops remain…."
Insight 5/10/99 Aimee Howd "...What is happening in Sudan is not a product of a natural disaster or of tribal insurrections. Rather, such atrocities are part of a systematic and unceasing war Sudan's radical Islamic regime, the National Islamic Front, or NIF, is waging against its non-Muslim and moderate-Muslim citizens in the southern third of the nation. . It is a "zero-sum conflict," says Francis Deng, who served as ambassador from Sudan to the United States under an earlier and more democratic government. "It is genocidal. . . . The bare existence of southern Sudanese with any sense of dignity and self is seen as a threat by the [Arab] north. Either you assimilate them or you eliminate them, unless you partition the country." . Sudan is one of just three officially fundamentalist Muslim states in the world. Since a 1989 coup in which Gen. Omar al-Bashir overthrew the elected government and installed Sheik Hassan al-Turabi as leader of Sudan, nothing has deterred the government from its determination to Islamize the entire nation according to sharia law. To be a member of a minority group -- whether ethnic, racial, religious or political -- is to be a second-class citizen at best. For the most part, it is to be marked by radicals for extermination....Indeed, according to the 1999 report of the U.S. Committee for Refugees, a Washington-based advocacy group, the mostly Christian and animist people of southern Sudan have suffered more war-related deaths during the last 15 years than any single population in the world -- an estimated 1.9 million people having died there. Sudan's death toll is greater than the number of fatalities suffered in current and recent conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Somalia and Algeria combined. In addition, at least 4 million people now are internally displaced within the country, huddled in refugee camps because government armies and militias have driven them from their homelands -- burning and looting their farms, slaughtering the men and kidnapping, raping and enslaving any women and children who did not escape...."
HREF='http://www.smh.com.au/news/9904/24/pageone/'> 4/24/99 MARK DODD in Dili, PETER COLE-ADAMS, and HAMISH McDONALD - The Sidney Morning Herald Freeper DonMorgan "...Diplomats, church leaders and human rights groups were last night gathering the names of more than 100 people they believe killed in a new onslaught by Indonesian-backed militias in East Timor. Church sources in Suai, 200 kilometres south-west of the East Timor capital, Dili, told the Herald that 10 mostly young men had been killed in the town but they believed many more had been executed by the Ratih militia, which attacked local villagers in February. The sources said several died on Thursday evening, a day-and-a-half after the Indonesian Armed Forces commander, General Wiranto, and Dili's Bishop Belo got the pro-Indonesian militias to pledge peace at a ceremony in Dili. "Day by day the experiences are very bad," the source said, asking that his name not be used. "We hope that the international [community] and the Australian Government will send here the force of the United Nations. The people here are very, very afraid ..."..."
Ottawa Sun 4/20/99 R. CORT KIRKWOOD "...Public outrage over mass murder depends on who the murderer is and who is being murdered. At least that is what Insight magazine reports about the difference between events of the last few years in Kosovo and events of the last 15 in Sudan. In the skies over Kosovo and Yugoslavia, American warplanes are pounding away at the positions of the Yugoslav Army to stop its genocidal campaign against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. In the skies over Sudan, American warplanes are .... Well, they aren't doing anything to stop the genocide of Christians and others who have committed the unpardonable crime of being different from those who run Sudan's National Islamic Front, which in turns runs Sudan..... The numbers are staggering. According to the U.S. Committee on Refugees, "the mostly Christian and animist people of southern Sudan have suffered more war-related deaths during the last 15 years than any single population in the world -- an estimated 1.9 million people have died there. Sudan's recent death toll is greater than the number of fatalities suffered in current and recent conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Somalia and Algeria combined. In addition at least 4 million people are now internally displaced." If that's not bad enough, "Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria and other Islamic states fund the government in its $1 million-a-day attacks." ...Actually, it's more than racism. It's a double standard that allows certain groups, meaning those traditionally viewed as "oppressed," literally to get away with murder, especially of those traditionally viewed as "oppressors." ...The double standard explains why liberals condemned oppression in South Africa for years, but ignored it in communist Angola. The difference between the two was that anti-communist whites were murdering blacks in South Africa, but communist blacks were murdering blacks in Angola. However the hierarchy is established, one thing is for sure: Christians aren't part of it. Especially the black Christians under siege from black Muslims...."
NY Times 4/30/99 AP "...Army officers seized power in the Comoros Republic today, saying the military could not allow the Indian Ocean nation to descend into chaos following failed peace talks. Radio Comoros broadcast a statement by Army Chief of General staff Assoumani Azzali that said President Tadjiddine Ben Said Massonde had been removed from power. He and other government officials had been asked to remain in their homes...."
London Evening Standard 5/19/99 Max Hastings "...One of the biggest hits in America this year is a book entitled Black Hawk Down. It tells the story of the disastrous American special forces operation in Somalia on 3 October 1993. A bungled attempt to hit the headquarters of the Habr Gidr clan cost the lives of 18 Americans, the destruction of two Black Hawk helicopters, and precipitated President Clinton's hasty decision to pull out of the country altogether. The author of the book, Mark Bowden, describes how the Americans who took part in the bitter 15-hour battle came home "to a country that didn't care or remember. Their fight was neither triumph nor defeat; it just didn't matter". He quotes a State Department official's comment on such countries as Somalia and Bosnia, where Americans have been profoundly dismayed to discover a mis-match between their own desire to bring peace and the inhabitants' yearning instead for triumph over their enemies: "People in these countries ... don't want peace. They want victory. They want power... Somalia was the experience that taught us that people in these places bear much of the responsibility for things being the way they are. The hatred and the killing continue because they want it to. Or because they don't want peace enough to stop it."..."
6/12/99 AP Calvin Woodward "...Only as Kosovo comes under international control will officials get any firm sense of how many ethnic Albanians were killed by Serb forces during the conflict. Only with time may the world find out how many Serbs were killed by NATO bombs...Death tolls or estimates in a sampling of conflicts fought in the 1990s:
AFGHANISTAN: 2 million, 1979-1992...
ALGERIA: 75,000, 1992-1998...
ANGOLA: 500,000, 1975-1999...
BOSNIA: 250,000, 1991-1995...
BURUNDI: 200,000-250,000, 1993-1999....
CHECHNYA: 18,000 to 100,000, 1994-1996...
COLOMBIA: 30,000, 1960s-1999....
ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: unknown, 1998-1999...
GUATEMALA: 200,000, 1960-1996...
ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS: 125,000, 1948-1997...
KOSOVO: Western officials believe as many as 5,000 Serb soldiers or police died; Serb sources have cited a civilian death toll of about 2,000 and at least 500 deaths among their security forces. An estimated 2,000 people died under a crackdown on Kosovo's ethnic Albanian rebels before NATO started bombing. Among NATO forces, two Americans died in a helicopter training mission in northern Albania.
LIBERIA: 150,000, 1989-1997.....
NORTHERN IRELAND: 3,250, 1968-1998....
PERSIAN GULF WAR: 4,500 to 45,000, 1991....
RWANDA: 500,000 to 800,000, 1994....
SIERRA LEONE: 14,000, 1991-1999...
SPAIN: 800, 1961-1999...
SRI LANKA: 58,000, 1983-1999...
SUDAN: 1.5 million-1.9 million, 1983-1999....
TURKEY: 37,000, 1984-1999....
------ Sources: The Associated Press, State Department, Center for Defense Information, World Almanac..."
Associated Press 6/14/99 "....Ethnic violence has flared in the Pacific nation of the Solomon Islands, with clashes leaving two people dead and forcing more than 1,000 others to flee their homes, authorities said Tuesday. Militants from the self-styled Guadalcanal Liberation Army set up roadblocks outside the capital Honiara over the weekend and were forcing out ethnic rivals from the neighboring island of Malaita, police said. One person died from wounds inflicted during a clash at one of the illegal roadblocks, Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio reported Monday. Details on the other death were not immediately known. Solomons Islands Police Commissioner Frank Short said that as many as 1,000 people had been forced out of the village of Kakibona, ABC reported. Other villages were also being cleared and up to 10,000 refugees were expected to arrive in Honiara in the next few days, New Zealand Press Association reported...."
Russia Today 6/15/1999 AFP "...Azerbaijani and Armenian forces clashed for more than four hours Monday in the biggest fight between the two neighbors since they signed a cease-fire five years ago, the Azeri Defense Ministry said. Ministry spokesman Ramiz Melikov said that some 300 Armenian troops attacked Azerbaijani positions in the Terter region, around 300 kilometers (186 miles) west of the capital, but were repulsed with heavy losses. He said that Armenian units near the village of Oratag tried three times tried to take Azerbaijani positions in the town of Gyzyloba. "This is the first time in the history of the cease-fire that Armenia has used a force of 300 men," Melikov continued, adding that two died and four were injured on the Azerbaijani side...."
http://www.independent.co.uk/stories/B1806909.html 6/18/99 Lloyd Parry "…AT LEAST three people have been killed and a state of emergency declared in the Solomon Islands after an explosion of ethnic fighting. The Red Cross said that 10,000 people were trying to flee the main island, Guadalcanal, where native people have attacked immigrants from the outlying islands. The government of the South Pacific nation has appealed to the self-styled Guadalcanal Liberation Army (GLA) to lay down its arms and has asked for police support from Australia and New Zealand. The Commonwealth Secretariat in London said it had been asked for assistance by Bartholomew Ulufa'alu, the Prime Minister, and was sending Sitiveni Rabuka, former prime minister of Fiji, to visit the islands. The trouble centres on people from the island of Malaita, many of whom have migrated to the capital, Honiara, which is on Guadalcanal. Malaitans, who include the prime minister, dominate the government, civil service and business….."UPI Spotlight 6/18/99 "…Four Russian border guards have been killed by Chechen rebels, and a fifth man has been kidnapped in an overnight attack on a checkpoint on the border between Russia's southern Stavropol ("STAHV-roh-pol") region and the rebellious republic of Chechnya, Interior Ministry officials say (Friday). …."
National Post Online 6/30/99 Peter Goodspeed "...While the west wrung its hands over the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo, up to 50,000 people have been killed or wounded in a border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. International relief agencies are warning that hundreds of thousands of refugees are in desperate need of food and water. Driven from their homes, they have been forced to seek shelter in caves or are living out in the open. "Ethiopia's civilian victims of war have been relegated to the shadows," said relief agency Refugees International. Right now, half a million soldiers are involved in battles that look like something out of the First World War, with tens of thousands of troops engaged in trench warfare and hand-to-hand combat along the bitterly disputed border...."
BANGKOK POST 6/30/99 Alan Dupont "...But look more closely and other, less familiar sources of conflict are discernible. One of these is the worrying depletion of the world's stock of natural resources. Continuing high levels of population growth, rising consumer demand and environmental degradation are increasing competition for resources that were once considered inexhaustible or renewable. Fish is a prime example. After increasing five-fold between 1950 and 1990, the world's annual fish catch has stabilised at around 122 million tonnes despite a huge expansion in the size and capacity of fishing fleets. Per capita fish availability has actually declined because of rising populations and overfishing, and the price of seafood has steadily increased since 1990 - a classic indicator of pending scarcity. Reversing this trend will be difficult, notwithstanding advances in aquaculture. The World Bank has warned that "the current harvesting capacity of the world's fleet far exceeds the estimated biological sustainability of most commercial species". In 1998, there were around 1.2 million vessels in the global fishing fleet, an increase of over 15% since 1989. The bulk of these ships operate in Asian waters. ..."
MENL worldtribune 7/1/99 "...Twelve Kurdish insurgents were killed in a clash with Turkish military forces near the Iraqi border, the Anatolia news agency reported on Wednesday. The agency did not say when the clash took place. It said the fighting was in southeastern Turkey near the Iraqi border, a hotbed of insurgency. But the report came one day after the death sentence handed down on Kurdish Workers Party leader Abdullah Ocalan. Ocalan's PKK party has threatened revenge attacks on Turkish cities...."
The Associated Press 6/19/99 "...Citing death threats from militant supporters of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the U.S. Republican Party has shut down its democracy-building program in Haiti, its president said Saturday. ``In other countries, we've been worried about our staff getting caught in the cross fire. In Haiti, we're afraid they'll get caught in the cross hairs,'' Lorne Craner of the International Republican Institute told The Associated Press. ``The gunmen who threatened our staff said they were in Mr. Aristide's camp,'' said Craner. ``They said it's time for us to stop our activities or they'll kill us. They said only Aristide has the right to represent the people.''...."
Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau 6/20/99 Jodi Enda "...Last month, the president directed his top foreign-policy advisers to study the genocide that took hundreds of thousands of lives in Rwanda to see if the United States could have intervened effectively. Now, as American forces settle in to the job of policing part of Kosovo, Clinton is re-examining the massacres in central Africa, as well as ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo, in an effort to create a ``Clinton Doctrine'' to govern when and how America should intervene in foreign conflicts. Adopting such a doctrine, even a flexible one, could have far-reaching effects on U.S. foreign policy and military posture. It would have to grapple, for example, with commitments to such hot spots as Taiwan and Korea, with how Washington would respond to violence in breakaway regions of Russia or China, and with the proper response to tragedies in places such as Rwanda that have never been central to America's interests. An ambitious Clinton Doctrine also could force the administration, the Pentagon and Congress to rethink the size and especially the shape of America's military, increasing the demand for light, mobile forces, air power and naval and air transportation. According to the doctrine that is taking shape, the United States is prepared to use its military might or economic and political power not merely to protect its own interests, but also to prevent genocide, according to administration officials. But this will not apply everywhere. ``Where we have a compelling national interest and where there is a moral imperative and where we have a capacity to act, then we have an obligation to act,'' national security adviser Samuel Berger said in an interview. ``One has to be careful about committing American forces where there's not a national interest.'' ...."
UK Independent 6/22/99 Alex Duval Smith "...The plight of a million displaced ethnic Albanians has diverted attention away from 5.3 million Africans who have fled their homes to escape wars, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata. Speaking yesterday in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, at the start of a 10-day tour of the Great Lakes region, Mrs Ogata said the need for aid to refugees in Kosovo should not overshadow the requirements of victims of other conflicts. "Kosovo as an emergency appeal is getting a quicker response because of its proximity to important aid agencies, the media and world powers. Some of the [African] programmes do not get money, especially dragged-on refugee situations that do not lead to solutions. "The Europeans are very much interested in Kosovo refugees. Maybe they are less interested in Africa," she said. According to UN figures, 15 times more money - $1.60 (£1) - is spent each day on each refugee from Kosovo, than on each African in a similar situation (11 cents or 7 pence). The UNHCR devotes 50 per cent of its resources to African refugees. Mrs Ogata's tour is to include Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Tens of thousands of people have fled eastern Congo for Tanzania since rebels began a campaign 11 months ago against President Laurent Kabila. Both Burundi and Rwanda have seen decades of political unrest which has forced hundreds of thousands of people to seek refuge abroad, mostly in Tanzania. Mrs Ogata's trip will also take her to a camp in Congo which is home to about 145,000 refugees from Angola's 24-year civil war. Mrs Ogata said there were currently 700,000 refugees in the Great Lakes region but that the crisis was more than one of statistics.... According to UN figures from the beginning of this year, Africa has 3.3 million refugees and 2.1 million people who are displaced within their own countries. The total represents about one-third of the world's 16.8 million refugees and displaced people...."
COMMERCE DRIVEN
7/21/98 White House Affairs Reuters "A Senate committee said Tuesday it would hold back U.S. funding for the World Bank until Congressional experts review allegations of corruption in bank lending operations. The Senate Appropriations Committee approved legislation by Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell that included $800 million for the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA) credit program for poor nations. But under the measure, funds for the World Bank would not be released until the General Accounting Office (GAO) completes an audit of the bank. ``The committee is concerned by recent reports of corruption,'' a statement from the panel said. The World Bank said last week it had hired outside auditors to investigate possible embezzlement and kickbacks involving its own officials.The GAO has already launched a review of the World Bank's sister institution, the International Monetary Fund. The Clinton administration wants Congress to provide $18 billion to the IMF to replenish reserves drained by multibillion-dollar rescue deals for Indonesia, Russia, South Korea and Thailand
http://www.house.gov/jec/press/1998/11-12-8.htm 11/12/98 Joint Economic Committee (House Majority) ".The International Monetary Fund's movement to normalize its relations with Iraq was greeted today with dismay and concern by Joint Economic Committee (JEC) Chairman Jim Saxton (R- N.J.). The IMF is planning to send a mission to Iraq to lay the foundations for normalizing relations, and to consider Iraqi requests for technical assistance. In an interview with an Arab newspaper based in London, a high-level IMF official first disclosed the IMF plans. According to IMF official Paul Chabrier, "Despite the existence of tension and friction between Iraq and the United Nations, I think we are moving towards a form of normalization with it (Iraq).". "The use of U.S. taxpayer dollars to assist Iraq, Libya, or other such nations through the IMF is unacceptable. The Treasury Department should be attempting to stop such missions and expel members who sponsor terrorism. This episode also underlines the rather low membership standards of the IMF ( standards which need to be significantly tightened for a number of reasons.."
Aviation Wek and Space Technology Joseph C Anselmo 8/3/98 ".''AMERICAN CORPORATIONS should not serve as mini-State Departments,'' Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, told Armstrong at a July 29 hearing of the panel's subcommittee on proliferation."
Aviation Wek and Space Technology Joseph C Anselmo 8/3/98 ".Defense Secretary William Cohen, in a July 16 letter to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), and House National Security Committee Chairman Floyd Spence (R-S.C.), said he would recommend that Clinton veto the defense authorization bill if Congress retained, among other things, language ''relating to export prohibitions or controls of missile and satellite components and technology.'' ."
Jane's Defence Weekly 11/4/98 Bryan Bender ".US moves to "Commercialize" Foreign Military Sales.4 Nov 1998 /** disarm.armstra: 337.0 **/** Topic: (United States) US Rethinks FMS Program **** Written 10:33 AM Nov 3, 1998 by rstohl@cdi.org in cdp:disarm.armstra **Jane's Abstracts For personal, noncommercial use only For full text of article, please see Jane's Defence Weekly, October 14, 1998, pp. 4 For further information see http://www.janes/com "USA rethinks foreign military sales" By Bryan Bender Many foreign nations and domestic defence firms criticize the foreign military sales (FMS) program run by the Department of Defense (DoD) as too restrictive and prefer direct commercial sales. The Pentagon is planning to revamp the program. One proposed restructuring plan includes updating the FMS program's industrial security restrictions.."
UPI S 2/22/99 "...The Commerce Department says it found more than 60 cases of bribery in major international contracts with a value of $30 billion. At a gathering in Washington of high-level government and private-sector leaders, Commerce Secretary William M. Daley said (Monday) that corruption in a global problem...."
AP via Florida Times-Union 3/14/99 Laura Myers "…Saddam Hussein's Iraq keeps taunting U.S. pilots. China is accused of stealing American nuclear secrets. A Kosovo peace agreement remains elusive. Across the globe, President Clinton's foreign policy is under siege. Foreign policy experts say the administration is pursuing short-term gains at the cost of lasting solutions. ``The Clinton administration kicks the can down the road and hopes for the best,'' said Ted Galen Carpenter of the conservative-leaning Cato Institute. ``The problem with American diplomacy is we want results now. Long-term goals get little attention.'' …``Albright's performance was weak at Rambouillet,'' said Thomas Keaney, head of the foreign policy institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. ``If the State Department was surprised by the Kosovars, that's a real indictment on their conduct of foreign policy….``America needs to quickly change directions and leave behind this chilling comedy of errors that has defined our foreign policy,'' said House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Tex…. Meanwhile, the U.N. weapons inspectors have been off the job since mid December, opening the way for Saddam to possibly rebuild his chemical and biological weapons…. China, a growing power, is perhaps the most complicated challenge. The world's most populous nation with 1.3 billion people, it offers a huge market for U.S. products while at the same time has the potential of becoming a military threat, analysts say….U.S. and Chinese officials have been negotiating to seal a deal in time for the meeting for China to join the World Trade Organization. A WTO agreement would lower Chinese tariffs on goods. That could help reduce the $57 billion trade deficit with the United States, but also would protect Beijing from bilateral trade sanctions…."
AP 4/1/99 "...A magistrate cleared the way today for digging to begin at a site in northern Sri Lanka where government soldiers allegedly killed and buried hundreds of ethnic Tamils. Excavation at the site in the northern Jaffna peninsula will be carried out June 6, nearly one year after a soldier first made the allegation, said senior state counsel Yasantha Kodagoda. Magistrate N. Arulsaharam set the date after examining a report by the Criminal Investigation Department on soil tests conducted last month. Kodagoda refused to discuss the report. The soldier, whose name has not been released, said he knew at least 400 bodies of Tamils were buried in mass graves near Jaffna city. He has been convicted of raping and murdering a Tamil teen-ager...."
MISCELLANEOUS AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST
Nelson Mandela first presented a medal to Omar Gaddafi and then to Bill Clinton when he was in South Africa. Mandela has concluded a arms-for-oil deal with Gaddafi and is soon to receive the Congressional Gold Medal.
AMF (Arkansas) Kabila (Zaire) - mineral and diamond mining rights
Syria, which has not signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, now has an active chemical weapons programs and has armed missiles, warplanes and artillery shells with sarin.
After two years, the investigation into who blew up the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia killing 19 US airmen came to a dead end. Only one of the dozens of investigators remain in Saudi Arabia. There is no prospect for justice.
November 1997 - Top executives of five major U.S. arms makers wrote to the president, pleading for permission to bid on a contract to sell $4 billion worth of attack helicopters to Turkey. The State Department had blocked such permission because of Turkey's sorry record on human rights. But the five signatories represented firms that had contributed a total of $1.7 million to the Democratic Party and its candidates in the 1996 elections. In five weeks, just before the year-end deadline that Turkey had set for bids for its helicopter contract, the State Department reversed course and gave the companies the green light.
Pan Am Flight 103 tragedy in Lockerbie, Scotland v the foreign minister of Libya, Omar Mustafa Muntasser getting a visa by our embassy in Tunis. Khadafy and Muntasser have steadfastly refused extradition demands for Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah - the two thugs we know were behind the monstrosity of Lockerbie.
7/3/98 New York Times James Risen: "A yearlong internal investigation by the CIA of unauthorized contacts between a Democratic Party leader eager to help a wealthy party donor and the CIA has found that no laws were broken by officials at the spy agency, government officials say. " In late 1995, Donald Fowler, the DNC national chairman tried to enlist the CIA's help ("Bob") to open White House doors for Roger Tamraz. A supervising attorney in the CIA's general counsel's office did not notify senior officials (John Deutch) of the political contacts. "Investigators were not able to explain the disappearance of internal memorandums sent to top CIA officials notifying them of Fowler's efforts to get the CIA to help Tamraz meet with President Clinton, despite objections from the National Security Council. .The highest- ranking official to receive 'Bob's' memo was William Lofgren, chief of the division in which 'Bob' worked. He told investigators that he had placed it in his outbox for delivery to senior officials. Investigators say it disappeared, however, and senior CIA officials never received it. But the inspector general's report found no evidence of wrongdoing by Lofgren, who later retired and worked briefly as a business consultant for Tamraz. "
On Mubarak visiting Gadhafi "The air embargo was imposed in 1992 after Gadhafi refused to hand over two Libyans suspected in the 1988 bombing of an American airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people.
"We (Arabs) are one nation and these borders are illusionary. Libyans come to visit us and Egyptians visit Libya,'' Mubarak told reporters with Gadhafi sitting beside him."
AP 7/10/98 Barry Schweid "The mother of a young woman killed in the terrorist attack on a Pan Am jetliner in 1988 accused the Clinton administration today of betrayal for not trying to block a visit to Libya by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak."They have absolutely betrayed us, and they don't care about the American victims of terrorism,'' said Susan Cohen in a telephone call to The Associated Press from her home in Cape May Courthouse, N.J. ""
8/6/98 AP Wall Street Journal " Simultaneous bombings killed at least 50 people and injured dozens on Friday near the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, seriously damaging both buildings, witnesses said. ."
7/30/98 Miami New Times JimDeFede ".Just about everything associated with Foutanga Dit Babani Sissoko can be described as amazing. He first came to the attention of law enforcement agencies here in Miami during the summer of 1996, when two of his employees purchased a pair of Vietnam-era helicopters and sought to have them shipped to the West African nation of Gambia, where Sissoko owned a hotel and a casino. Those particular helicopters needed a special export license. Rather than apply for the necessary permits, the pair tried to smuggle them out of the country and were caught by Customs agents at Miami International Airport. The two Sissoko lackeys then attempted to bribe a Customs agent. The agent reported the bribe to his superiors, who then set up a sting operation that ensnared Sissoko. In secretly recorded telephone conversations, Sissoko promised additional payments to the Customs agent if he allowed the helicopters to be shipped without the permits. As a result, and unbeknown to Sissoko, an international warrant was issued for his arrest on charges of attempting to bribe a U.S. Customs agent.In the meantime, Sissoko concentrated on his chief priority -- starting up his own airline, Air Dabia. For more than a year he had been buying passenger jets and other aircraft in the United States -- apparently with money provided by the Dubai Islamic Bank. One of the individuals Sissoko did business with was John Catsimatidis, CEO of a New York supermarket chain, who sold Sissoko a pair of jetliners for three million dollars. Catsimatidis also happened to be a major Democratic Party fundraiser. Last year he told the New York Times he had initially approached Sissoko in 1996 about donating to the Democratic Party. Indeed, two months before the 1996 presidential election, Sissoko was invited to attend a dinner party with President Clinton in Washington. He accepted. Unfortunately Sissoko was unable to go. Just days before the September 6, 1996, White House gala, he was arrested by Interpol in Geneva, Switzerland, on warrants issued in Florida. In October he arrived in Miami in handcuffs and was subsequently released after posting a $20 million bond -- the largest bond ever issued in a criminal case in the federal Southern District of Florida. .In addition, the Herald never reported Sissoko's heavy-handed attempts to have the bribery charges against him dropped. In addition to a team of powerful local attorneys, he also employed former U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh to pressure Justice Department officials. During the process, Bayh and others sought to destroy the reputations of the prosecutors in Miami who were handling the criminal case. Sissoko even enlisted the support of several current members of Congress, most notably Jacksonville's Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.), who personally spoke to Attorney General Janet Reno on Sissoko's behalf. Brown's actions have come under intense scrutiny in recent months, after the St. Petersburg Times reported that, following Brown's contact with Reno, her daughter received a $60,000 Lexus from Pouye, Sissoko's chief financial officer. Ellison says it appears the money used to purchase that car came from the Dubai Islamic Bank. In Ellison's opinion, Representative Brown's conduct in the Sissoko case has been "highly immoral and a breach of her duty to her constituents." Brown has denied she did anything wrong. .."
8/7/98 BBC/AP "The "Islamic Jihad Group", led by Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri - who is currently residing in Taleban-controlled areas in Afghanistan - has vowed to take revenge against the United States, which it is accusing of involvement in the arrest of a number of Egyptian Islamists - among them the leading figure in the organization, Ahmad Ibrahim al-Najjar, who was sentenced in absentia to death by the High Military Court in Cairo in connection with the Khan al-Khalili case - while they were in the Albanian capital Tirana, and in their extradition to Egypt. The "Information Office of the Jihad Group in Egypt" yesterday issued a statement - a copy of which has been received by Al-Hayat - entitled "About the extradition of three of our brothers," in which it says that "the US government, in coordination with the Egyptian government, arrested three of our brothers in some East European states, where the first brother, known as 'Tariq,' was arrested while he was with his Albanian wife in an East European state known for its hostility towards Muslims.."
BBC 8/11/98 "The United States says several of its embassies around the world have received new threats since the bomb attacks in Kenya and Tanzania on Friday.."
Conservative Current 8/14/98 Pat Buchanan "As the talking heads of the cable channels chatter on about what Bill Clinton should tell the grand jury -- the truth is among the options being discussed -- an event of epochal significance is taking place beyond our shores. The Global Economy is careening toward disaster, and the Clintonites seem clueless about how to stop it.."
The Village Voice Nat Hentoff 8/18/98 "When the president and his spiritual adviser, Jesse Jackson, were in Africa earlier this year, a group of fifth-graders in Denver intently followed the coverage of the journey on television. They desperately hoped Clinton and Jackson would say something about the thousands upon thousands of black Christians and animists who have been enslaved in the Sudan with the encouragement and support of the totalitarian fundamentalist National Islamic Front--the government based in the North. These fifth-graders have become very knowledgeable about the horrifying chattel slavery in the Sudan. And when Clinton acted as if it didn't exist, they were furious, and one of the students wrote him, ''Why aren't you doing anything about this?'' There was, of course, no answer. As for Jesse Jackson's continued silence, he knows about the slavery in the Sudan. I have left him several messages, as have others. It may be that he doesn't have the courage to speak out because he doesn't want to offend Minister Farrakhan, who has been honored in Khartoum, the capital of the Sudan. Jackson has been careful in the past not to directly antagonize the commander in chief of the Nation of Islam.."
8/16/98 AP "Maintaining an unusually high level of alert, the State Department on Sunday issued an updated "worldwide caution'' to U.S. travelers because of the recent bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa and threats to U.S. interests abroad. An accompanying statement specifically warned "against all travel to Pakistan'' and announced that it has ordered the departure of all non-emergency personnel and families of employees from the embassy at Islamabad. It also ordered U.S. personnel in those categories out of consulates in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar.."
Washington Times Adam Entous 8/20/98 Reuters "Corrupt Indonesian officials may have pocketed or diverted more than 20 percent of World Bank development funds to the world's fourth most populous country, according to an internal World Bank document from 1997. The World Bank, which is investigating separate reports of corruption among its own staff, confirmed the contents of the year-old Indonesian memorandum yesterday.
USA Today 8/24/98 "The Clinton administration has agreed to allow two Libyans charged in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland to be tried by a Scottish court in the Netherlands, an administration official said Monday. .''It's appalling,'' said Susan Cohen, whose daughter, Theodora, died in the attack. ''It's a desecration. It's the one thing that the U.S. government said it would never do. ''What does it say about the integrity of the American legal system when a terrorist takes the line that he can't get a fair trial in America and wants it in a neutral country - and we agree to hold a trial somewhere else? Why should a terrorist have a right to decide where he is tried?'' ."
Weekly Standard Tucker Carlson 8/24/98 "The day after terrorists blew up two U.S. embassies in East Africa, Sandy Berger, President Clinton's national security adviser, held a meeting at the White House to discuss the American response to the bombings. The secretaries of state and defense, along with the attorney general and the heads of the CIA and the FBI, were there. Absent from the table, however, was Bill Clinton. After a morning engagement with his personal lawyer, the president took the rest of the day off and played golf.."
Hindustan Times 8/26/98 "In a significant development, Pakistan has confirmed that the US deputy chief of joint staff visited Islamabad on the night of the US missile attacks on Afghanistan and hinted at the impending action, and that the matter was brought to the notice of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif immediately. The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said Gen. Joseph Ralston had stopped over at Islamabad from 0730 hrs to 1030 hrs (local time) on Aug. 20 and was received at the airport by army chief and chairman of joint chiefs of staff committee Gen. Jehangir Karamat. The same night around 1030 hrs the US launched Cruise attacks on suspected terrorist camps run by Saudi exile Osama Bin Laden inside Afghanistan leading to widespread protests in Pakistan and the government was blamed of being in the know of the attack. The Sharif Government had, however, vehemently denied this charge.."
Reuters 8/25/98 "As U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin enjoys a last week of summer vacation, a nightmare scenario is threatening to unfold for the global economy that could be beyond the reach of U.S. policymakers. The financial crisis that started in Asia last year once looked manageable, but analysts warned Monday it may turn into a global epidemic. Billions of dollars in international emergency aid have failed to contain the turmoil. There is hardly an emerging market left that has been spared. Russia's economy is crumbling fast, and now Latin America threatens to become the next victim.."
Electronic Mail and Guardian Johannesburg 8/25/98 "A RADICAL group calling itself Muslims Against Global Oppression have claimed responsibility for a bomb blast at the Plant Hollywood restaurant in Cape Town on Tuesday evening which killed a woman and wounded 24 other people. Police say the casualties might rise. A member of the organisation telephoned a local radio station, Cape Talk, to say that the "jihad" (holy war) had begun. He did not elaborate..."
Hong Kong Standard 9/3/98 "The Saudi Arabian government is secretly funding the Afghan Taleban militia, according to a report. The Independent newspaper quoted an ex-senior Pakistani official as saying: ``The US provided the weapons and the know-how, the Saudis provided the funds and we provided the training camps . . . for the Islamic legions in the early 1980s and then for the Taleban.'' .Had US intelligence operatives ``had a deeper understanding of the religious situation in Saudi Arabia'', says Obaid, they might have been able to prevent the 1996 bombing at Dharan."
The Times (London) 10/25/98 Hugh McManners ".Britain's nuclear missiles may soon be retargeted for strikes at new enemies including Iraq, Libya and North Korea. The biggest threat is now from biological and chemical weapons held by small nations with extremist governments, rather than nuclear powers. The change is proposed in a confidential Ministry of Defence study that reviews the strategy in which missiles have been pointed at the former Soviet Union ever since Britain acquired nuclear weapons.."
NY Post 12/12/98 Andy Geller ".Abu Abbas, cruel mastermind of the hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro, has been invited to hear President Clinton address the Palestinian National Council on Monday. But an aide to the former Palestinian guerrila leader said he probably won't show. The United States had sought Abbas for years in the killing of New York tourist Leon Klinghoffer, who was murdered when the Italian liner was hijacked by members of Abbas' guerrilla band in 1985. The 69-year-old wheelchairbound Klinghoffer was shot dead and then dumped overboard. Abbas is a member of the council, the top Palestinian decision-making body. His aide said Abbas was in Iraq on business.." Freeper mass55th adds ".And they bitch because Bob Barr accepted an invitation from a fellow Congressman and addressed an ALLEGED white supremacy group? After drug dealers and arms traffickers visiting the first felon in the White House, and his being received in Tiananmen Square in Communist China, why would it surprise us that Bill Clinton may be rubbing elbows with a wanted terrorist?."
newsmax 1/8/99 ".A Letter To The President Oliver North January 8, 1999 Dear Mr. Impeached President, First, a belated Happy New Year to you and Mrs. Clinton. Hopefully your holiday was pleasant. I know how trying the season can be, facing the prospect of a trial. I well remember what it was like for me and my family back in the 1980s when the Democrats who controlled Congress probed every aspect of our personal lives and then dispatched a vicious prosecutor to tear into what was left. .But you have said numerous times recently that you are not going to let any of this interfere with your "doing the job" you were "elected to do." That's why I'm writing to you now. I don't mean to complain, but I have a legal problem of my own that seems to be part of your "job." During the Christmas holidays, while you were walking on the beach at Hilton Head, Muammar Qaddafi, the despotic nut-case that rules Libya, filed an indictment, an arrest warrant and an extradition request against me and eight other Americans. The Libyans say that all nine of us have to be turned over for trial in Tripoli because we were involved in the 1986 bombing raid on Libya after their brutal terrorist attack in Berlin that killed two U.S. servicemen..."
Wall Street Journal 1/13/99 Mark Mitchell ".KINSHASA, Congo--Burly Zimbabwean commanders boast of battlefield victories. Angolan soldiers, automatic weapons slung over their shoulders, quaff Primus beer. A pilot from Sudan confides to me his grim stories of massacres committed by troops from Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. There are cackles and the clink of glasses from a dark corner, where a European ambassador entertains a newly acquired lady friend. Such is a recent scene in the lobby bar of Kinshasa's Intercontinental Hotel, home to some of the characters involved with the biggest war in Africa since World War II. Seven regional powers, all with wildly diverging and nefarious aims, have armies battling in Congo, formerly Zaire. At least another eight African states--from Libya to South Africa--are working behind the scenes in the five-month-old conflict. The Congolese forces in the middle of this mess-- President Laurent Kabila's army and a fractured rebel movement--seem resigned to mutual destruction.People throughout the world often believe that America either is the source of their problems or has the answers to them. The U.S. didn't cause the war here, but a case could be made that the fighting has worsened partly because of President Clinton's incoherent foreign policy.."
PBS 1/26/99 PBS Frontline Freeper arturo ".Starting the episode with the President posturing at the dedication of the Holocaust Center, and ending with clinton posturing at the Rwanda airport, where, as the narrator stated, the engines of Air Force One were never even turned off, Frontline was scathing in its treatment of the clinton administration's role in the massacre of 800,000 Rwandans.."
Atlantic City Press 7/25/98 "Greece said Friday its foreign minister was justified in calling President Clinton a liar because his administration has backed away from promises to resolve the Cyprus Dispute. "Mr (Theodoros) Pangalos said a truth. He didn't make up or imagine things in order to make a statement," said government spokesman Dimitris Reppas. On Thursday, Pangalos described pre-election promises made by Clinton to help resolve the 24-year division of Cyprus as "gross lies." ."
Daily Republican 3/4/99 Freeper hope Tatsudo Akyama "…Meanwhile, a Clinton administration spokesperson said nothing about the death of the Americans in a prepared statement, "...the rebels who kidnapped the tourists on Monday and killed their Ugandan guides, will be brought to justice." …"
Associated Press 3/15/99 Anwar Faruqi "…The United Arab Emirates says it may pull out of an $8 billion deal to buy 80 F-16s from Lockheed Martin Corp. because it wants the jet fighters equipped with technology that is restricted by Washington. The UAE wants software codes for the F-16 Fighting Falcons' electronic warfare systems that would enable the planes to discern whether other aircraft are friendly or hostile. The United States does not allow release of the full codes…. "We are still studying the deal with our friends. We have asked for certain requirements. If they are not met, then the UAE has other options in the international market,'' Sheik Mohammed said at the International Defense Exhibition, the Middle East's largest arms show…."
Global Intelligence Update 3/15/99 Freeper Brian Mosely "…Saudi Arabia has signed a protocol with Afghanistan's Taleban militia, allowing only Taleban-certified Afghans to participate in the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Saudi Arabia's de facto recognition of the Taleban government suggests that the rumored split between the Taleban and Osama bin Laden may have some basis in fact…."
AP BREAKING NEWS 2/27/99 "…President Robert Mugabe lashed out at whites and declared the government would relaunch efforts to seize 520 white-owned farms in Zimbabwe and give the land to blacks, state media reported Saturday. A court ruled in January that the government had been late in filing paperwork to seize the farms, which comprise 2 million acres. Mugabe said the correct procedural steps would be taken to continue the process, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation reported. In comments to his party's central committee Friday, he criticized whites ``who have sworn to resist, at each and every stage, the land acquisition and resettlement process we are pursuing.´´…"
http://www.newsday.com/ap/rnmpin1x.htm 3/30/99 Freeper thanatos "…Rebel forces in the Congo have massacred civilians and enforced a reign of terror that overshadows the widespread human rights abuses committed by the government, a U.N. expert said Tuesday. In his report, Chilean lawyer Roberto Garreton accused both the government and the rebels of violent abuses while fighting a war since August in the Central African nation. ``Both parties to the armed conflict have disregarded the rules of international humanitarian law, particularly the rebels, who display unusual cruelty,'' he said. …"
AFP 3/31/99 Yahoo! News "…A report on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda says Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) troops committed atrocities against civilians after ending the massacres of Tutsis and moderate Hutus, its joint authors said here Wednesday. However, investigators inside Rwanda focused mainly on the butchery by Hutu extremists. They found that the "genocide grew by stages and makes clear that the slaughter could have been interrupted at any one of several points if the international community had been willing to act," the report says. The inquiry, which runs to more than 900 pages, is called "No Witnesses Must Survive: The Genocide in Rwanda". The authors said it contains thousands of previously unpublished reports from, and concerning, the genocidal government. Independent investigators from the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and US-based Human Rights Watch (HWR) found that at least 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred in 1994, confirming previous accounts that the overall toll could be as high as 800,000…… "The organisers of the genocide were originally a small group, but they struck so swiftly and ruthlessly on April 6, 1994, that they gave the impression of a far larger force," according to the FIDH and HWR/Africa. "Within days, they took control of the military and adminstrative hierarchy and won the support of important political leaders,A it said…… But investigators also lashed out "various international actors in the genocide". The FIDH and HWR stated that in addition to the "generally acknowledged warnings of the catastrophe, (the report) adds dozens of other indicators that were known at least to the chief players in Paris, Brussels, Washington and at the UN. Various international leaders understood the importance of these warnings, but they cared too little to respond effectively to them." The report made sharp and detailed attacks on Belgium, the United States and Britain for their various roles. UN troops were in Rwanda when the atrocities began, but Washington and London saw that they were pulled out…."
Los Angeles Times 4/14/99 Ann Simmons Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...EXCERPTS "Aid: Human rights officials say Yugoslavia mission contrasts sharply with the lack of such efforts in places like Rwanda. NAIROBI, Kenya--NATO's decision to use military force in Kosovo has reinforced the view among many Africans that the world community is less inclined to intervene to halt conflicts here than it is in many other regions. ...."We continue seeing double standards applied, and that is not good for the global village as a whole," said Ngande Mwanajiti, executive director of the International Inter-African Network for Human Rights, or AFRONET, which is based in the Zambian capital Lusaka. "The question to be asked is [whether] Africa is considered part of the international community." ..."
Associated Press 4/15/99 Hrvoje Hranjski Rwanda "...A Roman Catholic bishop was arrested yesterday for allegedly participating in the country's 1994 genocide. Justice Minister Jean de Dieu Mucyo said Bishop Augustin Misago was being held in ''preventive detention'' until authorities decide whether to try him in Kigali or in his diocese of Gikongoro, in southern Rwanda. Mucyo declined to elaborate on the charges but said they were serious and related to allegations of a Misago role in the genocide of more than 500,000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus. President Pasteur Bizimungu and Tutsi survivors of the massacres in Gikongoro Prefecture said the bishop had refused shelter to Tutsis trying to escape death from Hutu mobs and, in one case, was responsible for sending to their death 19 schoolgirls he had ordered expelled from the Kibeho high school, 60 miles south of Kigali....Relations between the government and the Roman Catholic church have been tense. Groups of genocide survivors have demanded a public apology from the clergy for the killings in churches and missionary-run schools, where thousands of Tutsis were hacked and burned to death by Hutu soldiers and militiamen, often with the complicity of the priests...."
AP Headlines 4/13/99 "...Hundreds of people fleeing Sierra Leone's civil war perish each week from disease in crowded state-run refugee camps and in communities behind rebel lines, the country's health minister said Tuesday.
At least 25 children recently died in an epidemic of chicken pox at a camp in the government-held eastern town of Kenema, while other casualties were reported in camps in the capital, Freetown, Ibrahim Tejan-Jalloh said. Doctors had been airlifted to Kenema to contain the outbreak, he said. Epidemics of measles, dysentery, scabies and influenza were also killing refugees already weakened by hunger and exhaustion in both government and rebel-controlled regions of the densely-forested West African country, Tejan-Jalloh...."
Houston Chronicle 4/9/99 Roger Winter "...A year ago, President Clinton traveled to Rwanda, where he acknowledged what I believe is the greatest moral failure of his administration. In a brief stopover at Kigali airport, during which the engines of Air Force One were never shut down, Clinton bit his lip in the mask of contrition that Americans have grown so familiar with during the last year. "We come here today partly in recognition of the fact that we in the United States and the world community did not do as much as we could have and should have done to try to limit what occurred in Rwanda," he said. Later he added: "We did not act quickly enough after the killing began. We did not immediately call these crimes by their right name: genocide." In fact, the Clinton administration studiously avoided dealing with the highly organized campaign by fanatical killers who were determined to exterminate a huge portion of Rwanda's population in 1994. These killers achieved almost 80 percent of their goal. Between 800,000 and 1 million men, women and children were butchered, most by machete, many in the churches into which they had fled. I was in Rwanda during the height of the genocide, traveling from village to village trying to document murder and mutilation on an unfathomable scale....The first body I saw was an older man who looked as if he had been murdered as he tried to escape by leaping through an open window. He was hacked to death. I could see through the windows the rooms were full of others. I entered each room, struggling to breathe, while photographing the bodies. They had clearly been dead for more than a week. All had been mutilated -- genitals or breasts hacked off, limbs severed, skulls split. Of all the dead, there was a little boy perhaps a year old who caught my attention. He apparently had been held by one arm while his other arm and a leg had been hacked off, then his crotch cut out. He had swollen and baked since death. It appeared rats had nibbled his torso. Across Rwanda, nearly 1 million civilians were massacred like this in just 100 days. The human-rights community, including my organization, was in Rwanda during the early days of the genocide. What we saw horrified us, and we rushed to Washington to report our findings to government officials at as many agencies and as many levels as we could. In what I view as a willful act of negligence, the Clinton administration was afraid to label this wholesale massacre as "genocide." By calling it genocide, then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher would have had to acknowledge that the United States had a moral obligation to intervene. As the Clinton administration feigned ignorance, thousands died horrific deaths every day. It insults their memory to pretend our government did not comprehend what was going on. One year after the president's apology and five years after the beginning of genocide in Rwanda, I still weep for that little boy, so near in age to my own grandson. And despite my usual pride in our country and its people, I am deeply, deeply ashamed of how we failed him...."
The Wall Street Journal Europe 4/30/99 "...With everyone's attention glued to Kosovo, it is easy to forget that bullets are flying and refugees are taking cover in a lot of other places as well. Indeed, no fewer than 20 wars, all of them bad and most of them unnoticed in the West, are being waged in various parts of the world. Some of the bloodiest battles--bloodier even than those in Kosovo--are taking place in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where President Laurent Kabila's troops and a hodgepodge of rebel groups and armies of at least seven nations have been fighting each other since August. Thousands of soldiers have died and reports of mass slaughters of civilians come out of the country on what seems like a weekly basis. The tented camps in Macedonia and Albania, as squalid as they are, seem almost luxurious in comparison to the malaria- and cholera-infested refugee settlements that have cropped up along the Congolese borders with Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. America and Europe cannot, of course, send their military to attend to all of the world's human tragedies. But the lack of even sustained diplomatic gestures from the West has created a void in Congo that has been filled by some unlikely peace-makers. The most prominent of these is Libya's dictator, Moammar Gadhafi, who has declared himself to be the "leading peace coordinator" for Central Africa...."
NY Times 5/8/99 AP "...Fear and death stalk the people living near Congo's border in western Uganda. Rebels raid villages, slaughter the residents, steal their meager belongings and chase the survivors into the dense tropical forests. Sarile Mukoko knows firsthand the brutality inflicted by the insurgents. ``They first cut her throat,'' Mukoko said, describing an attack he and other relatives watched last month from a hiding spot in the bushes. ``She was pregnant and they used a long sharp knife to rip open her abdomen,'' he said. ``There were twins and they threw them into the bushes.'' ....Mary Mwindu remembers when rebels came to her village in April and shot dead six of her relatives -- including two brothers. Now she and her husband and six children wear rags for clothes and use papyrus mats for beds. They live in a small thatched hut. ``This is the end of the world for us,'' Mwindu said. ``We do not hope to go back to our home because of the rebels. They are very powerful and I do not think the army can manage them.''..."
BBC Online 6/7/99 "...Ethnic violence in the oil-rich Niger delta is reportedly raging out of control, with hundreds of people fleeing the fighting. Despite the deployment of government troops on Friday, many buildings in the regional capital, Warri, have been set alight and eyewitnesses say there has been constant gunfire. One resident contacted by telephone said the situation was more violent than it had ever been...... The clashes are part of a long-running and complex feud over land and local government involving two main ethnic groups - the Itsekiris and the Ijaws. A third group, the Urhobos, also appears to have joined in the confrontation, reportedly on the side of the Ijaws...."
The Electronic Telegraph 6/14/99 Anton La Guardia "...IN his closing act of foreign policy, President Mandela lent his prestige yesterday to hasten Libya's international rehabilitation. He gave an open-armed welcome to Col Gaddafi, who arrived in Cape Town for a three-day official visit as part of his first tour abroad since sanctions against Libya were lifted in April. As Mr Mandela prepares to hand over power to his successor, Thabo Mbeki, at a lavish ceremony on Wednesday, Col Gaddafi's visit is a sign that he is being given pride of place among the dozens of presidents, royalty and prime ministers due at the festivities. "I have said that I would never desert my friends who were with us when we were all alone," said Mr Mandela. Those who disapproved could "go jump in a pool". Col Gaddafi replied that he felt honoured. "It is a dream to be here, when the country is free, with my brother freedom fighter Nelson Mandela," he said..."
The Associated Press Jasper Mortimer 6/20/99 "...On the surface, Egypt's Christians appear to be doing well. They have no qualms about wearing crucifixes in public. They socialize freely with members of the Islamic majority. Their entrepreneurs are among the barons of the private sector. Still, members of Egypt's Coptic Christian Church say they are victimized by discrimination born of favoritism toward Muslims and resentment over Copts' prominence during the days of the monarchy. The law severely restricts the right of Copts to build churches. Schools ignore Coptic history. Local media give minimal coverage to issues affecting the Coptic community. Copts are underrepresented in politics and the public sector, which employs a third of Egypt's workforce. Responding to complaints, the government has made it easier to repair, if not build, churches. And the most recent Christmas Mass at Cairo's cathedral was televised live for the first time. ``There is no discrimination against any Egyptian whatsoever on the basis of religion,'' said Nabil Osman, chief government spokesman. But citing their community's absence from government posts, Copts challenge that denial. Just over 1 percent of parliament's members are Copts, far below their overall share of Egypt's population - 10 percent, according to the U.S. State Department...."
FOX NEWS___AP 7/11/99 "…Some 150,000 people have been trapped without food after heavy fighting resumed in southern Sudan, the U.N. World Food Program said Saturday. Thousands of people have fled their homes because of the fighting and had penetrated deeper into the Western Upper Nile region, the agency said in a statement. "It's a desperate situation and the turmoil just carries on,'' said David Fletcher of WFP. "If we don't get access to them soon, we could be faced with a very serious situation in a matter of weeks.'' …"
7/16/99 Reuters Evelyn Leopold "… Secretary-General Kofi Annan recommended on Friday a "large and expensive" peacekeeping mission for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and said up to 90 military observers should be deployed immediately. Annan told the Security Council in a report that in order to be effective, "thousands of international troops and civilian personnel" as well as 500 military observers would eventually be needed to help maintain a ceasefire in the vast central African country. But he gave no numbers for a potential U.N. force that other officials have estimated at 10,000 to 20,000 troops…."
AP 7/16/99 "…UNITA rebels allegedly rounded up about 50 women and children at a market, shot the women point-blank and threw the children into a nearby river, state-run media reported Friday. The alleged massacre occurred Tuesday at Sachitembo, a village 330 miles southeast of the capital, Luanda, according to Angop news agency and the state-owned daily Jornal de Noticias, which cited witnesses…."
AP Wire 7/22/99 George Mwangi "...AIDS killed 1.4 million people in eastern and southern Africa last year, overtaking armed conflicts as the No. 1 killer in the region, the U.N. Children's Fund said today. The epidemic, which has hit this portion of the African continent harder than anywhere else in the world, has left 6 million children orphaned in eastern and southern Africa, amounting to 70 percent of the world's AIDS orphans, said UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Stephen Lewis. ..."
Universal Press Syndicate 7/28/99 Joseph Sobran "...The African country of Mauritania has a problem: slavery. This is compounded by a second problem: Most Mauritanians don't think of slavery as a problem. Boubacar Ould Messaoud, a Mauritanian abolitionist and former slave, held a press conference in Washington the other day to inform the West about the question. As quoted by Laura Vanderkam of The Washington Times, Mr. Messaoud said: "Today in Mauritania they've arrived at the 'perfect slave,' one who's completely assimilated to the master's family. They don't need physical chains because people are mentally enslaved. Slavery is so embedded, people don't know anything else. ... "Mauritania is not like the Sudan, where slaves are captured and sold. Slavery in Mauritania has existed since long before American slavery. It can't just be abolished overnight. The social climate has to change so we no longer have the mentality of slavery."..."
AP 8/11/99 "...The United Nations' chief prosecutor is pressing for joint trials of suspects in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, a move she says would help shrink a large backlog of cases. Louise Arbour, who also oversees the tribunal for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, has openly criticized the pace of the Rwandan court. The court began work in 1995 and has completed only four trials. It has 38 jailed suspects awaiting trial for participating in the Hutu-dominated army's slaughter of more than half a million minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Arbour said Monday that joint trials of four to five suspects at once would be cheaper and more efficient. It would mean key witnesses would only have to appear once in the court, located in remote northern Tanzania...."
8/8/99 Caracas "...A powerful Constitutional Assembly dominated by supporters of President Hugo Chavez will declare Venezuela "in emergency'' Thursday, giving it the power to take action in virtually all areas of public life to root out corruption. "It's a declaration of competence,'' Constitutional Assembly First Vice President Isaias Rodriguez told reporters Tuesday. "The assembly will declare Thursday its competence to deal with national problems.'' ..."
Reuters 8/11/99 "...More than 1,000 mainly white South African gun owners marched through the city to the gates of parliament Wednesday in protest at planned draconian curbs on firearm ownership. Chanting "crime control not gun control'' and carrying banners echoing the U.S. gun lobby with slogans such as "don't disarm law abiding citizens,'' the marchers handed a petition to a representative of the Safety and Security Ministry. There are four million registered firearms in South Africa - or one for every 10 men, women and children - and Reverend Peter Hammond told the crowd he calculated there were up to nine million illegal guns including two million AK47 assault rifles. The march was organized by Hammond's United Christian Action and the South African Gunowners Association (SAGA). Leading opposition politicians said they also supported it. The proposed new law would limit handgun ownership to one per person as well as restricting magazine capacity to nine rounds. A license would cost 500 rand ($80) and have to be renewed every five years....."
MISCELLANEOUS EUROPE AND NORTH/SOUTH AMERICA
Statements that Cuba is no longer a threat to the U.S.
Barrelo/Intriago - Llanes
COSCO/Long Beach - China
O'Leary won a policy battle against stiff opposition from Pentagon and national security lobby for technology to use supercomputer models to halt further U.S. nuclear testing and persuade the other leading nuclear powers to sign a test ban treaty.
Two mothballed U.S. military transport planes (Lockheed Hercules C-130s) fell into the hands of notorious Mexican drug runners, Arellano Felix brothers Benjamin and Ramon (Tijuana drug cartel) air- frieght connection: Aero Postal . The planes were sold to T&G Aviation who received permission from State to ship them to Guadalajara. DEA revealed that Luis Carlos Herrera-Lizcano, a top Cali and Medell¡n cartel operative, had tried years before to buy mothballed C-130s from the Australian government through an attorney and corporate secretary for T&G - but no connection with the T&G was detected by the Clinton Administration.
Because time is running out and talks have stalled, there is a strong possibility that the American presence in Panama will disappear as of the Dec. 31, 1999, canal transfer date.
Sen. James M. Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who heads the subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that President Clinton leaned on military commanders to cover up serious shortcomings in the armed forces, including the effects of the Bosnian deployment on preparedness and the extent of the missile threat to the United States.
7/26/98 Robert Novak Chicago Sun Times "House Republican investigators say they have been told by South Florida sources that they were solicited for Democratic campaign contributions by convicted fund-raiser Howard Glicken with the promise that, in return, the 2000 Democratic National Convention would be held in Miami.Burton committee investigators for many months have been preparing the way for ``Southern Front'' hearings. They would show that clandestine funds were coming into the Clinton-Gore campaign from Latin America at the same time as illegal money flowed from Asia. .."
WorldNetDaily Charles Smith 8/4/98 ".In 1994, Silicon Graphics, along with Tandem and several other major computer companies, hired Tony Podesta to lobby for them. Tony Podesta is the brother of John Podesta, Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary for Bill Clinton. In 1994, John Podesta was also in charge of Clinton computer technology export policies such as high speed systems and encryption. In 1994, Tandem, Silicon Graphics and even Cray Super-Computers were all suddenly authorized to travel with Ron Brown to Russia, India, China and other points on the globe. In 1995, during John Podesta's employ at the White House, a lobbyist from Tony Podesta's company attended a secret meeting at the White House on super-computer exports. The group of computer companies then represented by Podesta have already admitted in writing they attended "classified" briefings held by the Clinton administration. Today, John Podesta is rumored to be seeking the job of Erskine Bowles as Chief of Staff. In 1997 the GAO wrote a report on what Silicon Graphics exported. "Silicon Graphics sold four computers to Chelyabinsk-70 in the fall of 1996 for $650,000," states the 1997 GAO report on super-computer exports. Chelyabinsk-70 is well known as a major Russian nuclear weapons lab.."
BBC World News 8/15/98 "At least 25 people, including an 18-month-old infant, have been killed in the worst paramilitary bombing since the start of the Northern Ireland conflict 30 years ago. Political leaders have been joined by the Queen in expressing their sympathy for the bereaved and those injured in the explosion, who could number as high as 100. Martin McGuinness, the chief negotiator for Sinn Fein, said: "This appalling act was carried out by those opposed to the peace process. "."
Reuters 8/25/98 "As U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin enjoys a last week of summer vacation, a nightmare scenario is threatening to unfold for the global economy that could be beyond the reach of U.S. policymakers. The financial crisis that started in Asia last year once looked manageable, but analysts warned Monday it may turn into a global epidemic. Billions of dollars in international emergency aid have failed to contain the turmoil. There is hardly an emerging market left that has been spared. Russia's economy is crumbling fast, and now Latin America threatens to become the next victim.."
Reuters 9/2/98 "Finance officials from Latin America's nine main economies will meet at the IMF Thursday to discuss the fallout from global markets turmoil amid worries that Colombia's devaluation could hurt other currencies in the region. The International Monetary Fund invited finance ministers and central bank governors to a two-day ``regional surveillance'' meeting to exchange views on how best to cope with the emerging markets rout sparked by the rouble crisis."
The Times (London) 10/25/98 Hugh McManners ".Britain's nuclear missiles may soon be retargeted for strikes at new enemies including Iraq, Libya and North Korea. The biggest threat is now from biological and chemical weapons held by small nations with extremist governments, rather than nuclear powers. The change is proposed in a confidential Ministry of Defence study that reviews the strategy in which missiles have been pointed at the former Soviet Union ever since Britain acquired nuclear weapons.."
Irish news 12/14/98 Freeper Big Dog summary ".The Irish News is reporting tonight that the IRA are ready to resume a violent campaign of Bombing and shooting as we approach Christmas. The move comes in spite of North south Elected governments, a withdrawel of British troops, 400 terrorists released, and a United Ireland in it's embyonic stage. The IRA has had all of it's demands met and now it is time to see what happens when a president and a Prime Minister decide to grant terrorists all of their wishes. According to the Good Friday agreement, in exchange for all of the above concessions, the IRA would give up their weapons of Mass destruction. I visited N.Irealnd less than a month ago and I witnessed the most unbelievable turn of events. The Orange order, an organization founded on Christianity requiring it's members to be Christians was not allowed to March home from Church. ."
Washington Times 1/15/99 Tom Carter ".Haiti stands again on the edge of chaos, with its parliament dissolved, its president threatening to rule by decree and its police still unable to rein in the gunmen who wreak political terror on the streets of the capital. A 17-month constitutional crisis came to head on Monday when President Rene Preval, a protege of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide, shut down the hostile legislature, claiming its legal standing had expired. Edgard Leblanc, president of the General Assembly, denounced the decision in a telephone interview with The Washington Times, calling it "a coup d'etat against the democratic institutions, the parliament, the mayors and the local officials." The decision was also a slap in the face of senior Clinton administration officials, who have streamed to the capital, Port-au-Prince, in recent months, trying to shore up the shaky experiment in democratic government imposed with a U.S. invasion in 1994.."
The Marshfield Mail 1/27/99 Jack Anderson Jan Moller ".Renee Preval, Haiti's elected president since 1996, has tired of democracy. He's disbanded his country's parliament and will rule by decree-at least until next year, when he's expected to turn things over to former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Shortly after his announcement, Preval's sister was shot and her driver killed in Haiti's capital of Port Au Prince, prompting foreign organizations to pull out their workers from fear of violence. Revolution in a tiny, impoverished country like Haiti normally wouldn't be big news in self-obsessed Washington. Except the coup comes barely four years after Bill Clinton sent 20,000 American troops there to restore Aristide to power after a 1991 military coup.."
The Progressive 2/15/99 Sam Smith ".Twenty scientists from around the world have come to the defense of a British researcher forced out of his government funded post for reporting that lab rats suffered a reduction in brain size, liver damage, and a weakening of their immune system after being fed genetically modified potatoes for only 10 days. The development of the animals' kidney, thymus, spleen and gut were also affected.. And the BBC quoted another scientist as saying "We simply do not have sufficient understanding of the principles of physiological regulation to enable us to categorize these genetic modifications that will pose a risk and those that do not." ..Prime Minister Tony Blair has rejected altered food protests from consumers, scientists and environmental groups. The London Independent reports that "Bill Clinton has personally intervened with Tony Blair to stop Britain from halting the controversial production of genetically engineered foods. The US President telephoned the Prime Minister during the summer to try to persuade him that genetically modified crops--worth millions of pounds ($$$$) to the U.S. economy --would not be bad for Britain... The Clinton Administration has close links with Monsanto, (note: Tippers brother is head of Monsanto) --the powerful biotechnology conglomerate which develops the seeds for GM crops.. "
Political Review 2/19/99 D. K. Zimmerman ". President Clinton flew off to Mexico to flaunt his personal failure to faithfully execute another legally mandated presidential duty. Annually, thirty countries must be certified by the administration as continuing to do their share in stopping drug traffic. Loss of this certification requires severe trade restrictions. Every responsible agency, the State Department, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the CIA and even the FBI, confidentially reported Mexico's failure to play ball. American agencies have repeatedly supplied Mexican authorities with Mexican nationals' names, requesting their extradition or apprehension. The Mexicans simply refuse. One agency went so far as to supply Mexicans the names, phone numbers, and addresses of two particular drug chieftains. They haven't even been picked-up for questioning..Clinton's response on Monday? Mexico's cooperation with our drug interdiction efforts "has clearly improved under President Zedillo's leadership." He will not only re-certified them, he has proposed extending billions of dollars in special trade loans to Mexico.."
Miami Herald 3/4/99 Andres Oppenheimer and Juan Tamayo "…A spate of construction at the Russian spy base in Cuba that included three new satellite dishes, a parking lot and even a swimming pool has sparked a debate in Washington over whether Moscow is upgrading or merely maintaining the facility. Many in the U.S. intelligence community and conservatives in Congress argue that the construction amounts to a dangerous expansion of the Lourdes base near Havana that could endanger U.S. military interventions in foreign trouble spots like Kosovo. In a classified briefing to several members of Congress and aides Feb. 24, CIA and other U.S. intelligence officials said the Russians had ``intensified their activities in Lourdes, according to three people with access to the briefing. The number of satellite dishes has doubled from three to six and workers built new buildings, new parking lots and a swimming pool for the Russian military technicians who run the base, the sources said…"
Associated Press 3/16/99 "…Stunned by allegations of cronyism and fraud in their ranks, the European Union’s chief executive and 19 other senior officials resigned early today, throwing the powerful trading bloc into turmoil. Jacques Santer, president of the European Commission, and his fellow commissioners took the unprecedented action after an investigative panel issued a report accusing some of them of maintaining lax control over aid programs and putting friends and relatives on the payroll…."
Washington Times 3/23/99 Shelley Emling "...In the fall of 1994, President Clinton confounded his critics by successfully using 20,000 U.S.-led forces to overthrow a brutal military regime here and give democracy a second chance. Almost no blood was shed. A triumph in foreign policy was declared. But today, after nearly five years of pouring more than $2.2 billion of U.S. taxpayers' money into Haiti, there is little to feel triumphant about....A foreboding came in January when Haitian President Rene Preval dissolved the parliament, effectively implementing one-man rule. Government gridlock over economic reforms had already frozen nearly $1 billion in aid pledged by international financial institutions - partly underwritten by the United States - that might have aided development....An analysis of the Clinton administration's aid program here by Cox Newspapers shows instead that despite U.S. efforts, roads are crumbling, electricity and clean water are scarce, and many children still go hungry as per-capita annual income has fallen from $260 in 1994 to $225 today...He said the World Bank, which recently suspended about half of a $50 million loan to Haiti for road construction because officials failed to report how they used the money, has determined that it is no longer "responsible" to negotiate new projects with Haiti..."
3/26/99 Miami Herald Michael Norton "…President Rene Preval appointed a new government by decree Thursday in an attempt to end nearly two years of crisis and regain the confidence of the international community. Haiti's new government, packed with Preval allies, was immediately criticized by his political opponents. But it is likely to be welcomed by Haiti's business sector and an international community frustrated by the country's long political stalemate. ``We've taken a big step forward,'' Premier Jacques-Edouard Alexis said on the radio. The new government is expected to organize elections -- a difficult prospect in a country where allegations of fraudulent vote-counting and rigged ballots have prompted most parties to boycott the electoral process. ``This government didn't get parliamentary approval. It will pursue Preval's anti-democratic project'' to concentrate power in the president's hands, said…."
Atlanta Journal and Constitution 5/2/99 Shelley Emling Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...In Haiti, there is mounting opposition to the U.S. presence --- the Parliament has passed a law ordering foreign troops off Haitian soil, although it has not been enforced. And in Washington, key Republicans, who portray the mission as a failure, also have called on Clinton to remove the troops. "Our soldiers are down there with giant bull's-eyes on their backs, and they need to be pulled out, and right now," said Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. "This is supposed to be a peacekeeping mission yet these folks are at risk in an increasingly dangerous situation." Even so, the Clinton administration has yet to present a clear exit strategy in Haiti or immediate plans for the withdrawal of troops...."
Reuters 5/5/99 "...In a short ceremony, U.S. troops rolled up the flag of the drug busters unit that had been stationed at Howard Air Force Base, located at the Pacific mouth of the Panama Canal. Two years of talks between the United States and Panama to turn Howard Air Force Base into a multilateral counter-narcotics center failed last September. Without a new agreement, the United States must abide by a 1977 treaty which dictates the pullout of U.S. troops and the handover of control of the Panama Canal from the United States to the Panamanian government by Dec. 31. The United States has already transferred the headquarters of its anti-drug trafficking operations to Key West, Florida and will operate surveillance flights from stations in Ecuador, Aruba and Curacao, Air Force officials said. At its peak, the task force in Panama consisted of about 2,000 soldiers who were involved in anti-drug intelligence gathering activities in Latin America's Caribbean, Andean, and Central American regions. ..."
Palm Beach Post 5/6/99 Shelley Emling Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...The latest sign that U.S. troops are increasingly in danger from the very people they're here to help came abruptly at dawn on April 23. Dozens of soldiers had assembled near the front gate of the American military compound known as Camp Fairwinds for an early run in the steamy Haitian heat. Suddenly, gunshots rang out. ...the Clinton administration has yet to present a clear exit strategy in Haiti or immediate plans for withdrawal of troops. ..."
AFP 5/14/99 "... The menace of China's nuclear war machine returned to haunt leading British and US media outlets on Friday, as highly placed US defence sources warned against serious breaches of national security. Britain's nuclear submarine fleet may be in danger following the theft of secret information that has been passed to China, according to the BBC. The story hit the airwaves on the same day that the New York Times quoted US intelligence officials as saying that China is preparing to deploy missiles with a nuclear warhead designed from stolen US secrets..... A senior member of the US Senate Intelligence Committee told the British state broadcaster that a "significant breach of security" may have "compromised" British and US nuclear submarines....."
Orlando Sentinel 5/6/88 Charlie Reese "... While the United States is committing a crime against Yugoslavia, where we have no legitimate strategic or national interests, President Clinton's Chinese friends have been busy little bees, 90 miles from our shores. Chi Haotian, minister of national defense, got together with Raul Castro, big brother Fidel's minister of defense, and decided that working together was a very good idea. Right next door to the still-active Russian electronic spy base, the Chinese will help Fidel build a brand-new electronic spy facility of his own and train his people. In return, the Chinese will have permanent presence and will share the intelligence data collected by the Cubans....."
Reuters 6/4/99 "...The United States on Friday welcomed the European Union's decision to give itself defence powers for the first time in a drive to gain geopolitical clout but noted some conditions for independent action. ``We welcome the commitment of our European friends and allies to enhance their military capabilities, both as a contribution to the alliance and for autonomous European military actions when NATO is not engaged,'' said U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin. In Cologne on Thursday, European Union leaders agreed to give the 15-nation bloc defence powers and reduce military dependence on the United States. A declaration issued at an EU summit said: ``The Union must have the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises without prejudice to actions by NATO.'' ...."
AP 6/24/99 "...Two anti-Castro groups filed a lawsuit Thursday against two dozen U.S. and foreign companies doing business with Cuba's government, saying the companies are aiding the oppression of island residents. The Cuban Committee for Human Rights and the Independent Federation of Electric, Gas and Water Plants of Cuba filed the suit, which seeks $1.35 billion for Cuban workers and an order banning the companies from doing business with Cuba. ``These companies are nothing but collaborators,'' said Eduardo J. Navarro, attorney for the plaintiffs...."
Yahoo AFP 6/28/99 "...Cuban President Fidel Castro Monday warned his Latin American counterparts that NATO could one day bomb their countries as it did Yugoslavia, a participant at the Rio summit reported.Brazilian Senator Eduardo Suplicy said Castro made the remarks in a speech during the summit of European, Latin American and Caribbean leaders...."
AP 6/27/99 "...The New York Stock Exchange chairman delivered an unusual sales pitch to the leftist guerrilla commander: Make peace and expect economic benefits from global investors. "We are very aggressive in trying to pursue international markets and opportunities," NYSE Chairman Richard Grasso said in an interview Saturday night at his Bogota hotel. Grasso met earlier in the day with Raul Reyes, head of the international commission of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, to discuss the promise of capitalism...."
Stratfor.com 7/22/99 ".... On July 20 Colombian President Andres Pastrana blamed the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) leadership for the postponement of the peace talks that were to have started earlier this week. He also stated, in no uncertain terms, that the Colombian government and people have limits to their patience. Pastrana warned that if the peace talks fail or don't happen, the Colombian military is ready for war. Until recently, Pastrana has been very devoted to reaching a peace accord with the FARC. ...A recent poll in Colombia found that 66 percent of Colombians favored direct U.S. military intervention in Colombia. In Miami approximately 3,000 people gathered on July 20 in front of the Claude Pepper Federal Building to call attention to the situation in Colombia..."
Washington Post 7/28/99 Karen DeYoung "... But all that changed in May, said [Peter] Nathan. This time, he said, U.S. officials from the several departments that manage the trade embargo against Cuba "can't do enough for me. They've been incredibly helpful." Officials have even suggested that he expand his list of U.S. companies hoping to do business with the Cuban government. Last week, invitations for the event, scheduled for next January, went out from Nathan to 5,000 American providers of everything from medicine and dental equipment to ambulances and pacemakers -- all vaguely classified as "drugs," the only products exempt from the embargo...."
Washington Post - AP Breaking News 8/6/99 "...More than 600 cases of dengue -- including 10 cases of potentially deadly hemorrhagic dengue -- have been reported to Costa Rican health authorities in the last two weeks. The epidemic has been concentrated on the Atlantic Coast near the port city of Limon, 100 miles east of San Jose, officials said...."
Fresno Bee 8/2/99 "...Five American soldiers were killed in a plane crash the other day in a mountainous region of Colombia.... The deaths call attention to a U.S. aid program that has grown rapidly, partly because Washington has more confidence in Colombia's new president, Andres Pastrana, than in his corrupt predecessor, and partly because of a perception that the threat to this country posed by Colombian traffickers is increasing. ....A larger problem is that U.S. aid is meant to target only Colombia's narcotics traffickers, not a 35-year-old leftist insurgency. Yet the two have become virtually indistinguishable as guerrillas extort tribute from coca growers and traffic in drugs as well..... The Pentagon insists that U.S. combat troops will not be used in Colombia. Good. But Americans have heard that before, about Vietnam, and rebels say they regard U.S. advisers as targets...."
Washington Post 8/7/99 Thomas Lippman "...The economic distress of the nation's farmers trumped 30 years of foreign policy ideology this week as the Senate voted to lift the U.S. embargo on the sale of food and medicine to Cuba. Farm-state senators from both parties rallied to support an amendment to the $68 billion agriculture spending bill that would lift most unilateral U.S. embargoes on the export of food and medicine to Cuba and other countries. It also would prohibit the president from imposing such bans in the future without the consent of Congress. If enacted, the measure would sharply curtail use of a standard weapon in the foreign policy arsenal, the denial of access to U.S. agricultural bounty, medicine and medical technology. The House version of the spending bill contains no similar provision, so the outcome will be determined by a House-Senate conference...."
Fox News Wire 8/8/99 AP "...The Honduran government has found a grave site containing human remains, proving that the military covered up clandestine graves at a former training base for Nicaraguan contras, justice officials said Sunday. "We have sufficient evidence that there was torture and human sacrifice'' on the site, the Attorney General's office said in a statement...."