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Tuesday, July 27, 2004
"Israeli" troops kill schoolgirl
From correspondents in Gaza City
A 12-year-old Palestinian schoolgirl was shot dead by Israeli soldiers at a refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip today, medical sources said.
The circumstances surrounding the killing of Sara Zarob in the Khan Yunis refugee camp were not immediately clear.
Her death brought the overall toll since the September 2000 start of the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, to 4198, including 3201 Palestinians and 926 "Israelis".
Source: The Australian
AS: Just counting the numbers... day by day loss without a reason.
# ANTENNA SHARON | 5:23:00 pm |
ABU GHARIB REVISITED - Male Rape Witness Statement from Taguba Report
WARNING this report contains graphic descriptions of torture and rape .pdf format.
See also:
Seymour Hersh : The US government has videotapes of boys being sodomized at Abu Ghraib prison
Sworn Statements by Abu Ghraib Detainees
These documents, obtained by The Washington Post, are the offical English translations of previously secret sworn statements by detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Some of the names have been withheld from these statements by washingtonpost.com because they are alleged victims of sexual assault. These files are in PDF format.
Some of the descriptions in these statements may be disturbing because of their sexually explicit or graphic nature.
Nori Samir Gunbar AL-YASSERI, Jan. 17
Hiadar Saber Abed Miktub AL-ABOODI, Jan. 20
Shalan Said ALSHARONI, Jan. 17
Abd Alwhab YOUSS, Jan. 17
Thaar Salman DAWOD, Jan. 17
Mustafa Jassim MUSTAFA, Jan. 17
Mustafa Jassim MUSTAFA, Jan. 18
Kasim Mehaddi HILAS, Jan. 18
Ameen Sa'eed AL-SHEIKH, Jan. 16
[Name Withheld], Jan. 21
Mohanded Juma JUMA, Jan. 18
Asad Hamza HANFOSH, Jan. 17
Abdou Hussain Saad FALEH, Jan. 16
Hussein Mohssein Mata AL-ZAYIADI, Jan. 18
 in order to read all this files.
Source: Information Clearing House
AS: I'm totally lost word with this so called Civilised Act. Astagfirullah al'azim... when human acting likes animal, that we called it Humanity Tragedy.
# ANTENNA SHARON | 4:57:00 pm |
Monday, July 26, 2004
"Israel" lashes out at EU stance
UNITED NATIONS, New York Israel expressed doubts Wednesday about the reliability of the European Union in the Middle East peace process after EU nations backed an Arab-sponsored General Assembly resolution demanding that Israel abandon and dismantle its separation barrier on the West Bank.
The vote followed a fierce dispute between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel and President Jacques Chirac of France over Sharon's call for Jews to emigrate from France because of "the wildest anti-Semitism." And the Israeli foreign minister said earlier this week that the EU position on the resolution would signal whether it should have a prominent role in peace negotiations.
"Israel is particularly disappointed by the European stand," an Israeli Foreign Ministry statement said.
"The willingness of the EU to fall in with the Palestinian position, together with its desire to reach a European consensus at the price of descending to the lowest common denominator, raises doubts as to the ability of the EU to contribute anything constructive to the diplomatic process."
Israeli officials said Wednesday that construction of the barrier would continue. "Building of the fence will go on," Raanan Gissin, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, told Reuters.
The European Union, along with the United Nations, the United States and Russia, make up the so-called quartet whose road-map plan calls for separate sovereign states for the Palestinians and Israelis.
The vote Tuesday went overwhelmingly against Israel, with 150 in favor, 6 against and 10 abstaining.
Last-minute amendments agreed to by the measure's sponsors during a hastily called two-hour recess succeeded in gaining the support of all 25 members of the EU and more than 30 other nations that had abstained the last time the matter came before the Assembly.
In that vote - a resolution on Dec. 8, 2003 that asked the international court to rule on the barrier's legality - there were 74 abstentions, many of them influenced by the European view, with 90 votes in favor and 8 against.
"Thank God that the fate of Israel and of the Jewish people is not decided in this hall," Israel's ambassador, Dan Gillerman, told the delegates after the result was posted on the electronic board next to the dais.
Nasser al-Kidwa, the Palestinian observer at the UN, described the outcome as "magnificent."
"The debate is completed," Kidwa said. "It is now time for implementation and compliance and at a later stage for additional measures."
Voting against the resolution with the United States and Israel were Australia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau. Abstaining were Cameroon, Canada, El Salvador, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Uganda, Uruguay and Vanuatu.
The United States voted against the measure because, despite the revisions, it remained "unbalanced" and erred in assigning a problem to the courts that rightly should be solved through political negotiations, said James Cunningham, the deputy U.S. ambassador.
"The resolution diverts attention from where it should be on the practical efforts to move the parties towards realization of the ultimate goal of two states living side by side in peace and security," he said.
Resolutions from the 191-member General Assembly are nonbinding and largely symbolic, unlike those passed by the 15-member Security Council. Israel had said in advance that the vote would not alter its resolve to continue construction of the barrier.
Kidwa said before the vote that he would push for a binding Security Council resolution, even though such a move would draw an American veto. The United States vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning the barrier last October.
"The threat of veto will not thwart us, and all others who respect and uphold international law," Kidwa said in the debate on Friday that led to the vote.
The vote had been postponed twice since then in an effort to give Arab and EU diplomats time to reach agreement on language that would persuade European countries to change their stance of abstaining on such measures to one of support.
After the recess Tuesday evening, two paragraphs were added to the resolution that satisfied European demands.
The first called on the Palestinian Authority "to undertake visible efforts on the ground to arrest, disrupt and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning violent attacks" and on the Israelis "to take no action undermining trust, including deputations and attacks on civilians and extra judicial killings."
The second added paragraph reaffirmed "that all states have the right and duty to take action in conformity with international law and international humanitarian law to counter deadly acts of violence against the civilian population in order to protect the lives of their citizens."
Gillerman disparaged these phrases as "grudging references to terrorism" and "carefully crafted, often constructively ambiguous phrases." He said that adopting the resolution was "pandering to an agenda that sought to focus on the response to terrorism but to marginalize the gravity of terrorism itself."
Under the resolution, the Assembly demanded that Israel act on the decision by the International Court of Justice in The Hague on July 9 that the barrier built on West Bank land to shield Israeli settlements was illegal and should be torn down. It also requested the secretary general to compile a register of damages to be used in calculating reparations owed. The barrier includes electronic fencing, concrete and wire walls and trenches and guard towers, all of which Israel asserts is needed to ward off Palestinian attackers and suicide bombers.
It is, Israel says, a necessary defensive response to the Palestinian leadership's failure to hold back the attackers.
Source: New York Times
# ANTENNA SHARON | 7:25:00 pm |
Friday, July 23, 2004
"Israel" warns Britain over UN barrier resolution
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
22 July 2004
A senior British diplomat was among three EU ambassadors summoned by Israel yesterday to be warned that the EU had put in jeopardy its role in the Middle East peace process by backing UN condemnation of the 450m separation barrier.
Israel's angry reaction to the EU's failure to back US opposition to the general assembly resolution came as it once again vowed to continue building the barrier in the wake of the International Court of Justice's ruling that its route through the occupied West Bank was illegal.
Yoav Biran, the Foreign Ministry's director-general, told the diplomats that Israel was disappointed "with the European position, the willingness of the European Union to toe the same line as the Palestinians".
The diplomats - the UK's charge d'affaires, the Dutch Ambassador and the European Commission's envoy in Israel - make up the current "troika" of representatives from the EU dealing with foreign affairs.
Source: Independent UK
AS: "Israel" what can I say, I'm at the TOP of the world.
# ANTENNA SHARON | 2:20:00 pm |
"Israel" shows contempt for international opinion
Wu Yixue
2004-07-22 06:18
A resolution, a breach, then a new resolution.
That seems to be the unbreakable cycle in Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.
In this seemingly endless process, helpless Palestinians have never given up hope on United Nations resolutions to end their suffering, though the resolutions have rarely improved their situation.
As the stronger side, Israel has gained a reputation in the international community for not putting much stock in UN resolutions.
Tuesday was another inspiring date for most Palestinians. The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution demanding Israel comply with a world court ruling to tear down the West Bank "security barrier" being built deep into Palestinian territory.
Palestinians have reason to cheer because the 150-6 vote in the 191-member world body shows that international sympathy is overwhelming on their side.
Just as Palestinian UN observer Nasser Al-Kidwa said, the resolution could be the most important one since 1947, when the General Assembly passed Resolution 181 for the creation of independent Jewish and Arab states in the British-ruled Palestinian territory.
The latest resolution was the world body's order for Israel to "cease and desist" building the barrier, which Israel claims is aimed at protecting Israelis from suicide bombings by Palestinian militants.
But construction of the barrier has caused extreme hardships and inconvenience to the normal lives of Palestinians.
On July 9 the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the top UN legal body, ruled the barrier was illegal. It demanded Israel dismantle the barrier and pay reparations to Palestinians harmed by its construction.
However, the UN resolution, like the ICJ ruling, could not effectively stop Israel from doing what it wants.
Following its passage, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman called the resolution "one-sided and totally counterproductive."
He said Israel, in compliance with international law, will continue constructing the barrier that can save the lives of its people.
When saying this, did the Israeli ambassador consider the Israeli supreme court's standards for international law, or those established by the world court?
Israel, backed by the United States, will no doubt continue defying international opinion.
But the Israelis should ask themselves where this will lead - to enduring peace with Palestinians, or enduring conflict.
Source: China Daily
AS: What the "heck" to the world resolution if their BIG Brother still at the back.
You all must notice this Deliberate Deceptions: Facing the Facts About The U.S.-Israeli Relationship
# ANTENNA SHARON | 2:00:00 pm |
Thursday, July 22, 2004
Naji al-Ali: The timeless conscience of Palestine
Arjan El Fassed, The Electronic Intifada, 22 July 2004
On Wednesday July 22 1987 at five in the afternoon, Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al-Ali parked his car in southwest London, and walked a few meters towards the offices of the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas where he worked. He was shot in the head by a gunman, dressed in a denim jacket, who walked calmly away down Draycott, near Sloane Square and vanished.
One of the first on the scene was Andre Muller, aged 27, of Putney, who was working in the Peter Jones store adjacent to Ives Street. He was summoned to the scene because of his first-aid skills. He said: "I felt his pulse to see if he was breathing and a few minutes later the police came along and told me to stay with him."
After five weeks in a coma on a life support machine at St Stephen's hospital and the neurosurgical department of Charing Cross hospital in London, Naji al-Ali died at 5am on Saturday, August 30, 1987 at the age of 49.
A friend of Naji al-Ali was quoted saying that he had been warned his life was in danger in a telephone call from a senior member of the PLO in Tunis. The telephone call, two weeks before the murder, came after the publication of a cartoon attacking a female friend of PLO leader Yasser Arafat. "The cartoon was famous in the Arab community," the friend said. The caller said: "You must correct your attitude."
"Don't say anything against the honest people, otherwise we will have business to sort you out," the caller continued. Naji al-Ali ignored the warning and published a cartoon lampooning Arafat and his henchmen on 24 June.
Naji al-Ali came to London in 1985. He was married and had five children. The editor of Al-Qabas, who was quoted in the London Times said that Naji al-Ali had received more than a hundred death threats over the years. "I don't know who could be responsible because he has been a critic of so many groups. But because of the way things are in Arab politics, nothing surprises me," he said. "Our paper is an independent one and is not a strong critic of any particular group, so I cannot see why there should be an attack on us. I think it was meant as a direct attack on him."
In an article in Middle East International (10 October 1987), Professor Hisham Sharabi of Georgetown University wrote:
"Who is responsible for the murder of Naji al-Ali? Who is responsible for the murder of tens of Palestinians -- we all know who they are -- who paid for their freedom of conscience with their lives?"
"It was our silence and our fear that made us accept without protest the curtailment of free discussion and to allow terrorism to determine the way our differences are settled. History has shown that when liberation movements stifle liberty they become incapable of carrying out the task of liberation; they close in upon themselves and blindly submit to violence. There is in the murder of Naji al-Ali a lesson, which if we fail to understand we will lose the ability to liberate ourselves and to determine our destiny [...] Without free and uninhibited debate, the achievement potential the Palestinians have in all fields will continue to be repressed or wasted, and with it their ability to confront and solve their problems. If the catastrophe toward which the Palestinians now seem to be heading is allowed to occur, they will have no one to blame but themselves."
Naji al-Ali is one of the most influential commentators on Palestine. His works influenced all kinds of people, who used to wait impatiently every morning, to see his drawings on the last page of many Arab dailies. Every cartoon that al-Ali drew, featured his famous hand-made character-the bare-foot little boy 'Hanthalah' who turned his back to the world and who became a trademark throughout his long career. The idea came to him when he was working in Kuwait during the early 1960s. "I created this character to symbolize my lost childhood," he said.
"This child, as you can see is neither beautiful, spoiled, nor even well-fed. He is barefoot like many children in refugee camps. Those who came to know 'Hanthala,' as I discovered later, adopted him because he is affectionate, honest, outspoken, and a bum. He is an icon that stands to watch me from slipping. And his hands behind his back are a symbol of rejection of all the present negative tides in our region."
Frequently detained by police and frequently censored, al-Ali was expelled from Kuwait in 1985. He moved to London where he continued to work until he was shot. Naji Al-Ali's death marked the end of an era, and ironically the beginning of the Intifada in occupied Palestine.
Born in Al Shajarah village near Nazareth in 1937, he was a victim of the Nakba in 1948. His family was forced to leave to Ein Hilwa refugee camp in south Lebanon. His artistic career began in Lebanon during the late 1950s. "I started to use drawing as a form of political expression while in Lebanese jails. I was detained by the Deuxième Bureau (the Lebanese intelligence service) as a result of the measures the Bureau were undertaking to contain political activities in the Palestinian camps during the sixties. I drew on the prison walls."
The late Palestinian novelist Ghassan Kanafani, who owned al-Horiya magazine in Lebanon, and who was assassinated in Beirut in 1971, saw some of his drawings and encouraged him to continue, and eventually published two cartoons in his magazine.
The years spent in the refugee camp influenced Naji al-Ali immensely, and it was there that he first witnessed the constraints imposed on the Palestinian people. He swore then to immerse himself in politics and serve the Palestinian revolution by all the means at his disposal. Al-Ali was originally trained as a mechanic, but his first love was always drawing, which led him to a one-year art course at the Lebanese Art Academy. It wasn't until later, when he worked as a journalist in Kuwait, where he first worked as an editor, reporter, and even as a secretary, at Al Tale'ah weekly magazine.
"I was able there to express my feelings and thoughts through the medium of cartoons." Al Ali said. He often defined himself as a realist, one aligned to his social class, the poor. This point of view was apparent in the majority of his cartoons. "The poor people are those who suffer, are sentenced to jail, and die without shedding tears," al-Ali once said. Later on, he returned to the old camp in south Lebanon, and found work with Al-Safir newspaper, but he was dismayed at the change in attitudes.
"When I left the camp, everyone held dearly to the idea of liberating the whole of Palestine, but on my return, I found that people were content with liberating less than half of it," al-Ali was once quoted. He thought that the pursuit of money was responsible for the change in principles.
During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Al-Ali was forced to leave his home again, but this time on ships filled with hundreds of Palestinian fighters. After several years of displacement, he finally settled back in Kuwait, where he found work with the prominent Arab daily, Al-Qabbas. He soon found pressure and threats from certain political groups, and was forced to move to Al Qabass' branch in London. It was his last move before his death in 1987.
Naji Al-Ali used only simple lines and traces to depict his ideas and thoughts onto paper. His works and thoughts were impressive and unusual.
In 1992 an Arabic motion picture about his life was made. The movie "Naji al-Ali" featuring Egyptian actor Noor El-Sharif gained widespread admiration and respect from around the Arab world.
Ten months after Naji al-Ali was shot, Scotland Yard arrested a Palestinian student who turned out to be a Mossad agent. Under interrogation, the Jerusalem-born man, Ismail Suwan, said that his superiors in Tel Aviv had been briefed well in advance of the plot to kill the cartoonist.
By refusing to pass on the relevant information to their British counterparts, Mossad earned the displeasure of Britain, which retaliated by expelling two Israeli diplomats from London. A furious Margaret Thatcher, then prime minister, closed Mossad's London base in Palace Green, Kensington. Undeterred by the British reaction, Mossad used forged passports of another Western government to send its agents to Tunisia to lay the groundwork for the assassination of Abu Jihad.
Israel and Britain had been in contact for several months via diplomatic channels concerning Suwan's revelations that he had worked with the Mossad. Newspapers reported that the action was partially a result of accumulating British grievances against the Mossad, including the abduction of Mordechai Vanunu and the use of British passports, found in a phone booth in West Germany in 1987. However, despite the arrests by Scotland Yard and an investigation by MI5, the assassin's identity has never been revealed.
Throughout history artists have faced the threat of violence when their work offended the state or the political elite. The late Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al-Ali produced thousands of cartoons satirizing the powers that be in the Middle East, and paid the ultimate price for his expression.
Naji al-Ali is still the most popular artist in the Arab world, loved for his defense of the ordinary people, and for his criticism of repression and despotism. Paradoxically, strict censorship and widespread illiteracy in the Arab world helped him to achieve his remarkable success. His unrelenting cartoons exposed the brutality of the Israeli army and the hypocrisy of the PLO, earning him many powerful enemies.
Source : The Electronic Intifada
# ANTENNA SHARON | 11:28:00 am |
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
From the Hague to Mas'ha
Tanya Reinhart, The Electronic Intifada, 15 July 2004
The International Court of Justice has determined that Israel "has the right, and indeed the duty, to... protect the life of its citizens" but that "the measures taken are bound nonetheless to remain in conformity with applicable international law." The Court found the present route of the separation fence or wall to be a serious and egregious violation of international law.
In an interview given last weekend, Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe (Bogie) Ya'alon contested the applicability of international law. Such a system was appropriate for the conditions of World War II, he declared, but not for the present war on terror. Apparently, as Ya'alon envisions it, in this war the armed forces are bound only by their own law. Indeed, a battle is being waged in the world today over the status of international law.
While the US and Israel are agitating for its nullification, the rest of the world understands that international law, as the framework that governs the conduct of states, is a necessary apparatus for the preservation of society. Even if it does not always function perfectly, without international law there is a danger that large segments of the human race will simply be wiped out, as we Jews learned through our own terrible experience during World War II.
The International Court's ruling lists the numerous articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention that the present route of the barrier violates, noting that "there is also a risk of further alterations to the demographic composition of the Occupied Palestinian Territory resulting from...the departure of Palestinian populations from certain areas" (paragraph 122). In simpler language, the Court is warning of transfer.
The word "transfer" evokes the collective memory of trucks arriving in the middle of the night to transport Palestinian villagers across the border, which happened in a number of places in 1948. But transfer on that model is not possible in today's world. Now transfer must be accomplished more slowly and surreptitiously. The current barrier cuts off 400,000 Palestinians from their source of livelihood and imprisons them in isolated enclaves. With no means of subsistence, they will be forced to leave those enclaves over the next few years to seek employment at the peripheries of West Bank cities and towns. In this way, sections of the West Bank that border on Israel will be "cleansed" of Palestinians.
In Qalqilya and Tul Karm, where the fence was completed a year ago, it is already happening. It would have been possible to build the fence on the Israeli side of Qalqilya, as the original plan proposed. That is a much shorter route, and would have been easier to guard and protect than the present line, which surrounds Qalqilya on all sides and cuts through West Bank territory. But the builders of the barrier along its present route were guided not by security considerations but rather by the old vision of redeeming the land and purifying it of Arabs. The only difference is that today it is possible to hide this behind talk of a war on terror.
A year ago, the wall extended from Tul Karm and Qalqilya to the town of Mas'ha, near the Jewish settlement of Elkana. Like others before them, the people of Mas'ha were expected to sit and watch as their olive groves their source of income for centuries were transferred to the Israeli side of the wall. But the people of Mas'ha united to show that another way is possible. They erected protest tents next to the route of the bulldozers and called upon Israelis to join them. For months, Israelis and Palestinians sat together in the path of the wall that was being built day by day. Nazeeh Shalaby, a farmer from Mas'ha who lost all his land, was the moving spirit in the camp. "Until you arrived," he told me this week, "I didn't have any idea that there were Israelis who want to live with us in peace."
The protest camp at Mas'ha didn't succeed in stopping the wall. The encampment was evacuated and the army used live ammunition on the Israeli protestors who climbed and shook the fence. Gil Na'amati of Kibbutz Re'im lost there his knee. But now the International Court has ruled that Israel must immediately dismantle the sections of the wall that have been built inside the West Bank and move them to the Green Line. This should begin at once with the dismantling of the wall at Mas'ha
Prof. Tanya Reinhart is a lecturer in linguistics, media and cultural studies at the Tel Aviv University. She is the author of several books, including Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948. This article was first published in Hebrew in Yediot Aharonot, on July 15, 2004. Translated from Hebrew by Edeet Ravel and Mark Marshall.
# ANTENNA SHARON | 12:26:00 pm |
Friday, July 16, 2004
Gallery of Palestinian Second Intifada (Part Two)
How the cruelty transformed Palestinian Muslims into Intifada the Uprising ...
# ANTENNA SHARON | 11:11:00 am |
Thursday, July 15, 2004
Gallery of Palestinian Second Intifada (Part One)
A Palestinian refugee burns the Israeli flag during a demonstration organized by the Muslim Brotherhood Movement in Al-Whihdat refugee camp in Amman Friday, April , 20, 2001. The demonstration was held in solidarity with the Palestinians in the Wast Bank and Gaza. (AP Photo/Yousef Allan)
An activist burns an Israeli flag as Islamist leader Hamzi Mansour (C) looks on during a demonstration after Friday Prayers at Wehdat Palestinian refugees camp in Amman April 20, 2001. Hundreds of pro-Islamists participated in a rally on Fir day to support the Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and called on the Jordanian government to send the Israeli ambassador out the country. (Ali Jarekji/Reuters)
# ANTENNA SHARON | 6:57:00 pm |
US, Israel behind beheadings, kidnappings in Iraq: Khamenei
Wednesday July 14, 2004
TEHRAN: Iran’s supreme leader on Tuesday accused US and Israeli "agents" of being behind the wave of beheadings and kidnappings in Iraq, not Muslims, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also described terrorism as a "loathsome, horrible phenomena" and that fighting it was "of great importance." In comments made during a meeting with visiting Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, Khamenei said: "We seriously suspect the agents of the Americans and Israelis in conducting such horrendous terrorist acts and cannot believe the people who kidnap Philippines nationals, for instance, or behead US nationals are Muslims." The state-run agency, which carried Khamenei’s comments, did not elaborate on his remarks.
Khamenei also renewed his criticism of "Western countries" that back dissidents regarded by Iran’s hard-line Shiite Muslim regime as terrorists. He was apparently referring to fighters belonging to the Iranian exile group, Mujahideen Khalq. The supreme leader said Western countries have double standards by claiming that "terrorists are now living freely under the supportive umbrella of those Western countries, which claim to be the standard bearers of the international campaign against terrorism."
# ANTENNA SHARON | 5:30:00 pm |
We Cannot Believe Muslims Are Behind Terrorism In Iraq: Leader
Tehran Times Political Desk
TEHRAN (MNA) -- Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in a meeting with visiting Prime Minister of Singapore Goh Chok Tong stressed the need to continue the international campaign against terrorism. Referring to the Singapore premier's comments on the campaign against terrorism, Ayatollah Khamenei added, "Terrorism is a loathsome, horrible phenomenon and the Islamic Republic of Iran has deeply felt its consequences for many years, and that is why we consider the campaign against terrorism to be essential."
The Supreme Leader added, "The terrorist attacks in Iran in the early 1980s, in which 72 prominent personalities were martyred on one occasion and a president and a prime minister on another, were organized by those terrorists who are now living freely under the supportive umbrella of those Western countries that claim to be the standard-bearers of the international campaign against terrorism. "When those horrendous terrorist attacks took place in Iran, none of the current ‘pioneers’ of the campaign against terrorism even condemned those loathsome acts." Ayatollah Khamenei also referred to the assassination of 11 Iranian diplomats and journalists in Afghanistan by Al-Qaeda and Taleban terrorists, saying, "Even then, neither the Americans, nor the Europeans, who are now pursuing Al-Qaeda agents as members of the most dangerous terror organization, showed any reaction at all."
Referring to the ongoing terrorist activities in Iraq in which the nationals of various countries are taken captive and threatened with beheading, Ayatollah Khamenei said, "We seriously suspect the agents of the Americans and Israelis are behind such horrendous terrorist acts and cannot believe that the people who kidnap Filipino nationals, for instance, or behead U.S. nationals are Muslims."
The Leader referred to the Islamic Republic of Iran's policy of expanding ties with Asian countries, including Singapore, saying, "When all conditions are equal, Iran prefers to do business with Asian partners, rather than countries in other parts of the world."
On Iran's good relations with Singapore, he said that the potential for broadening ties is now more evident than ever before in both countries.
During the meeting, which President Mohammad Khatami also attended, Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong referred to the important geographic position of Iran, the great economic potential of the country, and the remarkable stability the Islamic Republic of Iran enjoys despite the shaky situation in the Middle East. He added, "In our talks in Tehran we are determined to broaden and strengthen our bilateral ties with Iran to an unprecedented level."
Elsewhere in his remarks, he said that terrorism is a serious threat for all countries nowadays and Singapore, bearing in mind the developments in the Middle East and the terrorist activities in Iraq, is concerned that terrorism could spread to other parts of the world.
He went on to say that Singapore considers the campaign against terrorism to be an important issue and tries to play its role in that campaign alongside other countries.
Source: Tehran Times
# ANTENNA SHARON | 4:37:00 pm |
Friday, July 02, 2004
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq
Justice as Photo-Op
By ROBERT FISK
The Independent
Now it is time for bread and circuses. Keep the people distracted. Show them Saddam. Remind them what it used to be like. Make them grateful. Make Saddam pay. Show his face once more across the world so that his victims will think about the past, not the present. Charge him. Before the full majesty of Iraq's new "democratic" law. And may George Bush win the next American election.
That's pretty much how it looked from Baghdad yesterday. Forget the 12-hour power cuts and the violence and the kidnappings and the insurgency. Let's go back again to the gruesome days of Baathist rule, let's revisit once more the theatre of cruelty--back to all those war crimes and crimes against humanity with which the Monster will be charged. Let's take another look at Tariq Aziz and "Chemical" Ali and the rest. Isn't this why we came to Iraq--to rescue the Iraqis from the Beast of Baghdad?
When Saddam was "handed over" yesterday to Iraqi officials by the Americans --we don't know how--he apparently wanted to know if he would have the right to a lawyer (never a previous concern of his where prisoners were concerned). Salem Chalabi, a close relative of the convicted fraudster and former Pentagon favourite Ahmed Chalabi, is leading the Iraqi tribunal's work. So no surprise Saddam asked for counsel.
Saddam was freighted up from his close security prison cell in Qatar for his meeting with "Iraqi justice"--exactly what that means was not clear although most Western journalists used the phrase--and will today face an Iraqi judge who will formally accuse the ex-dictator of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The trouble is, we haven't got the charges against Saddam quite put together yet. It will take at least a year to decide the exact details of what he's going to be accused of.
The gassing of Halabja? Of course. The mass killings of Shia after the 1991 rising? No doubt. The torture of innocent Iraqis at Saddam's Abu Ghraib prison? Although that might not be a place name that the tribunal--or the Americans--want to hear right now. And will the death penalty be used? Quite possibly--at least, that's what an awful lot of Iraqis would like. It was, after all, Saddam's favourite punishment. Could "Chemical" Ali of Halabja notoriety escape such a sentence?
Then there's the little problem of the Iraqi tribunal whose "judges" all turn out to be lawyers without, apparently, any judicial skills. Many are Iraqis who spent years in exile--the kind with whom a growing number of Iraqis who stayed and endured Saddam's rule are increasingly disenchanted. A judge, so we are told, will formally read a written text against Saddam. We don't know where. We don't even know when--today presumably. The old "occupying" power--in other words the new "occupying" power if you find the country's new independence a bit hard to swallow--has let it be known that there may be "media access" when Saddam appears.
So one of those familiar "pools" will no doubt be created--I will put my bets on CNN and the loony right Fox News as certainties--and we'll all be able to study Saddam at the critical moment when he begins to "face up to his crimes", or whatever cliché we produce for the occasion. For justice, read photo-opportunity.
Journalists will do their best to turn all this into a success story. Even yesterday, the BBC was telling viewers that Saddam's appearance in court was "exactly what Iraqis have been waiting for". Alas, Iraqis have been waiting for electricity and safety and freedom from crime and elections far more than the trial of the miserable old murderer who will be paraded before us.
As an Iraqi woman financial consultant--no friend of the Baath party--put it to me yesterday: "This is a childish play, written by children for children. We have real needs and they want us to go and watch a play."
For if the handing over of "full sovereignty" to an American-chosen Iraqi government had about it an Alice in Wonderland quality, today's interlude with Saddam will mark the appearance of the Cheshire Cat. Maybe he will smile. Maybe he will shout his defiance of the judge--and have to be restrained.
Heaven forbid he will accuse the new "interim" government of being puppets of the United States. Or, worse, remind the court of his own long relationship with US governments. But most assuredly, like the Cheshire Cat, he will fade away again, put back in his box for another 12 months until the "Trial of the Century".
Source: Counter Punch
# ANTENNA SHARON | 12:05:00 pm |
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