BBC
11 May, 2005 Aids 'genocide' advert condemned By Roland Pease BBC Science
correspondent The UN said the advert was "wrong and misleading" Medical researchers
and health organisations have condemned an advert promoting vitamin supplements
as a safe and effective way to treat HIV/Aids. The full-page advert, published
in the International Herald Tribune and the New York Times, says anti-retroviral
drugs are a form of genocide. Anti-retroviral drugs are the most effective
treatment for HIV/Aids. The advertising campaign started last year in South Africa,
where Aids workers were quick to condemn it. Dr Matthias Rath has taken his argument
to the international stage by placing the colour advert in two prestigious newspapers.
Headlined "Stop Aids genocide by the drug cartel", it asserts that antiretroviral
drugs undermine the body's immune system, and that "micro-nutrients alone can
promote the defence against Aids". But Harvard researchers, whose work is cited
in the advert, complain that Dr Rath has misrepresented their results on the effect
vitamins have on the progression towards Aids. Their study did show multivitamin
supplements slowing the progress of the disease, they say, but the pills can only
postpone the moment when anti-retrovirals will be needed. Indeed, a quarter of
the patients on their vitamin treatment went on to develop full-blown Aids or
died during the trial period - only a marginal improvement on the one-third of
those who were on placebo treatments. A joint statement from the World Health
Organization, the UN children's fund Unicef and UNAids described Dr Rath's adverts
as dangerous and unhelpful. The fear is that those in greatest need of anti-retroviral
treatments will instead turn to easier, but ineffective alternatives. Dr Rath
has long advocated the health benefits of vitamins, in conditions as diverse as
cancer, heart failure and osteoporosis. The profits from his vitamin marketing
company go to support his health foundation.
NYT 11 May 2005 Being Brash to Stir Things Up By JON PARELES System of
a Down doesn't mind taking some cheap shots. The band played Irving Plaza on Monday
night fresh from its appearance on "Saturday Night Live," where its leader, Serj
Tankian, used a four-letter word and caused the predictable brouhaha, which gave
him something to brag about onstage. Televised profanity was just the thing to
stir some interest in the band's brief new album, "Mezmerize" (American/Columbia),
to be released on Tuesday, but didn't get much exposure in the band's set, which
drew mostly on its 2001 album, "Toxicity" (American/Columbia). Mr. Tankian's other
stage banter was about sex, drugs and pumping up a crowd that had already turned
the floor into a bruising mosh pit. The music was made for that: thrashing, stop-start
rock that slowed down and got melodic just long enough to give fans a breather
before the next blast of fast power chords and strobe lights. In concert, System
of a Down's songs are like throttles governing the speed and impact of the crowd.
But for all its muscle, the band has more on its mind than brute force. System
of a Down, whose members are Armenian-American, sings about genocide, war, religion,
oppression and freedom. Between the salvos of speed metal, the songs switched
- sometimes instantly - to minor-mode tunes that hinted at Eastern European origins,
and the nasal bark that Mr. Tankian used for fast passages turned to a sustained,
almost mournful tenor. For all his sardonic vocal mannerisms, Mr. Tankian rarely
jokes; even "Cigaro," the hyperbolic sexual boast from "Mezmerize," turned out
to be about greed and overconsumption: "Burning through the world's resources,
then we turn and hide." System of a Down can get away with slinging a lot of messages
as long as the music keeps pummeling.
Scripps
Howard News Service 11 May 2005 Professors challenge image of 'The Good War'
By LANCE GAY The gunfire ended 60 years ago, but the bitterness over World
War II rages on. Protests in the Baltics over how Soviet troops came to occupy
the region in 1940, and recent demonstrations in China over the cruel treatment
by Japanese soldiers before and during the war show how sensitive the conflict
remains. The war produced powerful myths that have led historians to comb through
tons of dusty documents to unravel. The BBC recently detailed how wartime spinners
hid the debacle of Germany's 1940 blitzkrieg into France by highlighting the heroic
stories of an armada of small British ships crossing the British channel to rescue
300,000 British Tommies stranded on the beaches of Dunkirk. The collapse of
the Soviet Union in 1991 shattered the myth the Soviets peddled that Russian troops
were stationed in Central Europe to protect the region. It also gave Poles, Czechs
and others in Central Europe their first look at a more accurate history of their
two-front wars against the Nazis and the Soviets. After decades of Communist
dissembling, Russian officials now acknowledge that 27 million Soviets died -
a stunning figure the Soviet regime refused to disclose, choosing lower casualty
numbers. Some myths were woven during the war to hide secrets. The "wizard war"
of electronics and radar was not disclosed until long after the war ended, and
the United States only recently declassified the Venona papers detailing how code
breakers monitored the activities of Soviet rings stealing America's nuclear secrets
during the war. Details of how the U.S. Navy used code breaking to monitor the
whereabouts of Japanese forces in the Pacific provide explanations for victories
in the Coral Sea and Midway that at one time were credited to naval expertise.
"War captures the essence of many myths. It's so troubling, disturbing and upsetting
an event it rips apart the fabric of history, and has got to be justified by some
powerful force," said Peter Kuznick, a history professor at American University
in Washington. The United States developed its own myth of World War II as the
good war, Kuznick noted. "There is near-universal agreement that the United
States was the good guy in World War II, and that this was a legitimate war that
should have been fought, and should have been won," he said. But he said that
myth covers over some strategies that modern historians now are questioning, including
the military necessity of firebombing Japanese cities and the decision to use
the atomic bomb on a nation whose military forces already had been destroyed on
the battlefield and driven back to their homelands. Japan also emerged from the
war with its own myths of the heroism of Japanese troops. That myth doesn't accommodate
the Japanese atrocities in the 1937 rape of Nanking, China, or the cruel treatment
given American and other prisoners of war in Japanese camps. Kuznick said highlighting
military atrocities dishonors the deaths of Japanese soldiers in the eyes of Japanese
right-wingers, although he said Japanese academics are much more open about discussing
this issue. University of Pittsburgh professor Donald Goldstein said Hollywood
has been responsible for finding new war myths to promote, and amplifying others.
Goldstein points to the myth of the superiority of Western bridge design that
is the plot of the Oscar-winning "Bridge over the River Kwai." He said there also
are glaring mistakes in the 2001 movie "Pearl Harbor," in which Japanese aircraft
are fitted with bomb sights they didn't actually have, Japanese pilots flew Zero
models that weren't produced until the war ended, and the bombs hit Spruance destroyers
also built after the war. "The problem is that kids believe that's the way
it happened," Goldstein said. "They say that bad history is better than no history
because it gets people interested in reading more about it. But these kids today
are not going to the bookstore. I'm teaching it, I know it," he said. Goldstein
said he wouldn't be upset if Hollywood declared its movies were not accurate,
but he said moviemakers use historical accuracy as part of their public-relations
campaigns to persuade Americans to come to the theater. He credits movies
like "Tora, Tora, Tora" and the first half of "Saving Private Ryan" for their
accuracy. Goldstein is less charitable about "The Thin Red Line,'' involving Guadalcanal,
which he said is "awful history." Harvard Sitkoff, a history professor at the
University of New Hampshire, said Hollywood has an enormous effect on students
today because of the impact of TV, film and music on younger generations. "They
often come with a lot of myths firmly implanted in their brains, and they're difficult
to dislodge because the quality of filmmaking is very good, and powerful images
stay with us," he said. Sitkoff said Hollywood is too wrapped up in the message
of World War II as "the good war," while glossing over the negative aspects of
war - the impact of firebombing raids, the labor strikes in America and problems
on the home front. He said historians are beginning to detail some of the negative
aspects of the war. "A lot of things don't work with the good-war idea," he said.
War myths are difficult to dislodge, historians say, especially if they become
part of the narrative of how government stays in power. Peter Balakian, a Colgate
University professor of English and author of "The Burning Tigris: The Armenian
Genocide and America's Response," said Turkey still refuses to acknowledge the
1915 massacre of Armenians and Christians. He said that after the loss of the
Ottoman Empire in World War I, Turkish leaders deliberately suppressed any mention
of the genocide. "It was an attempt to sanitize the past and make the new Republic
good and wonderful," he said. Turkey even made it a criminal offense to refer
to the cleansing, although books published in the West still note the documentary
evidence. "I think the truth eventually does come out. The Soviet Union dis-armored
itself of its institutionalized myths that involved things they said did not happen,"
he said. "The smaller the world becomes, the harder it is for totalitarian regimes
to hold onto these ideas." On the Net: www.worldwar-2.net www.warmuseum.ca
NYT
12 May 2005 How Hip-Hop Music Lost Its Way and Betrayed Its Fans By BRENT
STAPLES African-American teenagers are beset on all sides by dangerous myths about
race. The most poisonous one defines middle-class normalcy and achievement as
"white," while embracing violence, illiteracy and drug dealing as "authentically"
black. This fiction rears its head from time to time in films and literature.
But it finds its most virulent expression in rap music, which started out with
a broad palette of themes but has increasingly evolved into a medium for worshiping
misogyny, materialism and murder. This dangerous narrowing of hip-hop music would
be reason for concern in any case. But it is especially troubling against the
backdrop of the 1990's, when rappers provoked a real-world gang war by using recordings
and music videos to insult and threaten rivals. Two of the music's biggest
stars - Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. - were eventually shot to death.
People who pay only minimal attention to the rap world may have thought the killings
would sober up the rap community. Not quite. The May cover of the hip-hop
magazine Vibe was on the mark when it depicted fallen rappers standing among tombstones
under the headline: "Hip-Hop Murders: Why Haven't We Learned Anything?" The
cover may have been prompted in part by a rivalry between two rappers that culminated
in a shootout at a New York radio station, Hot 97, earlier this spring. The events
that led up to the shooting show how recording labels now exploit violence to
make and sell recordings. At the center of that Hot 97 shootout was none other
than 50 Cent, whose given name is Curtis Jackson III. Mr. Jackson is a confessed
former drug dealer who seems to revel in the fact that he was shot several times
while dealing in Queens. He has also made a career of "beef" recordings, in which
he whips up controversy and heightens tension by insulting rival artists. He was
following this pattern in a radio interview in March when a rival showed up at
the station. The story's murky, but it appears that the rival's entourage met
Mr. Jackson's on the street, resulting in gunfire. Mr. Jackson's on-air agitation
was clearly timed to coincide with the release of "The Massacre," his grotesquely
violent and misogynist compact disc. The CD cover depicts the artist standing
before a wall adorned with weapons, pointing what appears to be a shotgun at the
camera. The photographs in the liner notes depict every ghetto stereotype
- the artist selling drugs, the artist in a gunfight - and includes a mock autopsy
report that has been seen as a covert threat aimed at some of his critics. The
"Massacre" promotion raises the ante in a most destructive way. New artists,
desperate for stardom, will say or do anything to win notice - and buzz - for
their next projects. As the trend escalates, inner-city listeners who are already
at risk of dying prematurely are being fed a toxic diet of rap cuts that glorify
murder and make it seem perfectly normal to spend your life in prison. Critics
who have been angered by this trend have pointed at Jimmy Iovine, the music impresario
whose Interscope Records reaped millions on gangster rap in the 90's. Mr. Iovine
makes a convenient target as a white man who is lording over an essentially black
art form. But also listed on "The Massacre" as an executive producer is the legendary
rapper Dr. Dre, a black man who happens to be one of the most powerful people
in the business. Dr. Dre has a unique vantage point on rap-related violence. He
was co-founder of Death Row Records, an infamous California company that marketed
West Coast rap in the 1990's and had a front-row seat for the feud that led to
so much bloodshed back then. The music business hopes to make a financial killing
on a recently announced summer concert tour that is set to feature 50 Cent and
the mega-selling rap star Eminem. But promoters will need to make heavy use of
metal detectors to suppress the kind of gun-related violence that gangster artists
celebrate. That this lethal genre of art has grown speaks volumes about the
industry's greed and lack of self-control. But trends like this reach a tipping
point, when business as usual becomes unacceptable to the public as a whole. Judging
from the rising hue and cry, hip-hop is just about there.
www.northjersey.com
13 May 2005 60 years later, genocide is alive and well Friday,
May 13, 2005 By ALFRED P. DOBLIN HERALD COLUMNIST Imagine if the entire population
of Newark was eliminated. An estimated 300,000 people have died in the Darfur
region of Sudan, slightly more than the total population of Newark. Nearly 2 million
people have been displaced in Darfur. No one notices. The U.S. Senate passed the
Darfur Accountability Act, a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by Sen. Jon Corzine.
It imposed strict sanctions against the Sudanese government that has allowed the
genocide to continue in Darfur. Despite Senate support, the amendment was
removed in committee from the supplemental funding bill for troop support in Iraq
and Afghanistan. The final bill that passed both the Senate and the House does
little for the people of Darfur. In a teleconference on Wednesday, Corzine, fresh
from a trip to Chad and Iraq, discussed his frustrations with the Bush administration's
inaction on Darfur. Corzine was denied entry into Darfur, but visited refugee
camps in Chad. He noted the conditions in the Chad camps were better than he had
witnessed on a previous visit to Darfur. Refugees are receiving basic levels of
nutrition, but disease is spreading, particularly Hepatitis E. There are few doctors
for the thousands of refugees. The influx of these displaced people is taking
a toll on the people of Chad. "They are getting at the end of their rope," Corzine
said. Government officials in Chad are concerned about the growing instability
of the situation. It could lead to a rebellion in the eastern half of Chad. According
to Corzine, there are theories the Sudanese government is orchestrating that unrest.
If that happens, not only will Darfur refugees be endangered, but so will the
people of Chad. Thousands of people confined in a small area for an indefinite
period is a breeding ground for terrorists, according to Corzine. "It is hard
to understand how the administration is backing away from this," he said. The
Bush administration may have concerns that a more aggressive approach to stopping
the genocide will dissolve a north-south peace resolution in Sudan. The administration
also may be treading lightly because it sees the Sudanese government as an ally
in fighting the war on terror. The question is: Which war on terror is worse?
The war in Iraq or the systematic extermination of hundreds of thousands of
people in Darfur? Corzine said, "The U-turn (in U.S. policy in Darfur) is unacceptable."
The United States does not have high-level diplomats devoted solely to Sudan or
working with the African Union. A diplomatic resolution soon is improbable. Ironically,
as Congress was stripping the Darfur Accountability Act from the supplemental
bill, President Bush was traveling in Europe to mark the 60th anniversary of the
surrender of Nazi Germany. The whole world looked back at the horror of the
Nazi killing machine while it failed to notice that new seeds of genocide have
found fertile ground and grown. Speaking in Latvia, President Bush said: "Causes
can be judged by the monuments they leave behind. The Nazi terror is remembered
today in places like Auschwitz, Dachau, Rumbula Forest, where we still hear the
cries of the innocent, and pledge to God and history: never again." Those words
ring hollow against the litany of recent genocide: Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda and
now, Darfur. The Nazi terror only was possible because powerful nations failed
to take action sooner. That list includes the United States. The same is true
about genocide in Darfur. Congress, claiming the moral high ground, legislated
itself into the private family decision of whether Terri Schiavo should remain
on a feeding tube. That same Congress did not see the moral imperative in stopping
genocide in Darfur. The congressional high ground is six feet under. A population
the size of Newark has been wiped off the face of the Earth. "Never again." Until
the next time. Alfred P. Doblin is the editorial page editor of the Herald News.
Reach him at doblin@northjersey.com
AP
14 May 2005 McCain Speaks At OU Graduation NORMAN, Okla. (AP) _ Sen. John McCain
defended U.S. policies in Iraq and Afghanistan and encouraged University of Oklahoma
graduates to stand up for human rights and against genocide. ``We are all
responsible to promote human rights ... to use your liberty to make others free,''
McCain, R-Ariz., told more than 6,000 students and their families at the spring
2005 commencement ceremony at The Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. McCain
said the use of force was necessary to bring democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan.
He also said something must be done about mass killings in parts of the world.
``Genocide is not a thing of the past,'' he said, recalling the deaths of millions
of Jews and others at the hands of the Nazis during World War II, the thousands
killed in Kosovo and Rwanda and the current problems in the African nation of
the Sudan. McCain singled out the Sudan as a place where action, including
the use of force, was needed. In Sudan's western Darfur region, 180,000 people
have died since fighting erupted in February 2003. ``Today we know what is happening
and the world must not stand by and do nothing,'' he said. After McCain received
a standing ovation for his remarks, President David Boren added as a postscript.
He said the university is a diverse family from across the globe and it is the
responsibility of the graduates and the school to stand up for the rights of all.
The university awarded McCain and three others honorary doctorate degrees. Others
receiving them were Peggy V. Helmerich, Tulsa; G.T. Blankenship, Oklahoma City
and Walter Neustadt Jr., formerly of Ardmore and now living in Dallas. A graduate
of the U.S. Naval Academy, McCain was a military pilot who was shot down over
Vietnam and was held as a prisoner of war for more than five years. After his
release he continued in the Navy, completing 22 years before retiring in 1981.
He was elected to Congress in 1982, then elected in 1986 as U.S. senator from
Arizona. He is now serving his fourth term. In 2000, McCain ran unsuccessfully
for the Republican nomination for President. He is currently chairman of the Senate
Committee on Indian Affairs, and serves on the Armed Services, and Commerce, Science,
and Transportation committees.
WP 15
May 2005 Beyond Darfur Sunday, May 15, 2005; Page B06 THIS PAGE has
urged tougher pressure on Sudan's government, which promotes genocide in the western
province of Darfur. But such pressure could also yield benefits elsewhere. Sudan's
government has backed murderous militias in other parts of the country, and may
be tempted to do so again in response to a regional rebellion brewing in the east.
Sudan's rulers need to hear the message that sponsoring horrific death squads
is not an acceptable practice, in Darfur or anywhere. A good example of the potential
gains from pressuring Khartoum is provided by the Lord's Resistance Army, which
terrorizes parts of southern Sudan and northern Uganda. Thanks to the LRA, northern
Uganda has been in a state of low-level war for 18 years. Thousands of children
have been kidnapped to serve as soldiers or sex slaves, and perhaps 1.6 million
people have been driven from their homes. The LRA's leader, a self-styled messiah
named Joseph Kony, has received arms and a safe haven from Sudan's government.
In return he has attacked Sudanese civilians, acting as a proxy for the government
in its long war with the southern rebels. That war recently ended, at least on
paper. But Sudan's government continues to provide sanctuary to the LRA, raising
questions about its commitment to the peace; meanwhile, LRA fighters cross into
northern Uganda to prey on civilians. Every night children walk into the center
of the provincial capital, Gulu, to sleep on the streets. It's safer there than
on the outskirts of the town, where the LRA kidnappers come calling. The United
States and its allies have sometimes viewed Sudan's various conflicts as separate
issues: If you try to solve one you have to de-emphasize the others. For a while
last year they made a north-south peace accord the priority, letting Darfur take
second place; today they emphasize Darfur and feel they cannot simultaneously
press for the arrest of LRA leaders. But the truth is that all these conflicts
reflect the same challenge: The willingness of Sudan's government to sponsor
atrocities. It will take a common effort from the United States, Europe, Russia
and (most awkwardly) China to pressure the Sudanese regime into changing its ways.
But the diplomatic effort is worthwhile: The stakes are bigger even than the awful
genocide in Darfur.
Asia-Pacific
Bahrain
Crisis
Group 6 May 2005 Bahrain's Sectarian Challenge If steps are not urgently
taken to address the grievances of Bahrain's Shiites, the country could face escalating
violence. Despite a reform package in its fourth year, the government has
done virtually nothing to tackle sectarian discrimination and tensions; indeed,
it has exacerbated them by increasingly resorting to authoritarian measures to
maintain order. The Shiite leadership's control over more confrontational elements
within its community is showing signs of wear. Government and opposition moderates
need to act quickly. The government must end discriminatory practices and follow
through on promised reforms. The opposition should exercise restraint and work
with sectors of the state that are willing to accomplish change on the ground.
The international community, the U.S. in particular, should praise Bahrain's reformist
rhetoric a little less, and urge the government to uphold its pledges a little
more. Crisis Group reports and briefing papers are available on our website: www.crisisgroup.org
Cambodia
Reuters
29 Apr 2005 UN gives go-ahead for Cambodian Khmer Rouge trials By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS, April 29 (Reuters) - The United Nations announced on Friday
that legal requirements had been met for trials of surviving Khmer Rouge leaders,
nearly three decades after Cambodia's genocide began. An estimated 1.7 million
Cambodians -- around a third of the country's population -- died of starvation,
forced labor, disease or execution during the Khmer Rouge "killing fields," from
1975 to 1979. But to date no Khmer Rouge leader has ever faced justice for
the atrocities. A U.N. statement also said that enough money had been raised to
fund the special tribunals, which will have a sprinkling of international judges
and prosecutors working alongside their Cambodian colleagues. The United Nations
had to certify that the Cambodian court met international justice standards. Nations
at a pledging conference promised about $38 million for the court action. Japan
said it would contribute $21 million. Cambodia will pay some $13 million for the
court, estimated to cost $56.3 million over three years. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan notified Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in a letter "that the legal
requirements" the United Nations had demanded "had been complied with." He also
said "sufficient pledges and contributions are now in place to fund the staffing
of the Extraordinary Chambers and their operations for a sustained period of time,"
the U.N. announcement said. The Khmer Rouge's leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.
Many fear other aging leaders will die before the legal process ends. Up to 10
Khmer Rouge are expected to be tried. Critics have accused Cambodia of foot-dragging
over a tribunal, as some current government officials were once members of the
Khmer Rouge, including Hun Sen, a former regimental commander. The Khmer Rouge
regime was overthrown by Vietnam-backed rebels in 1979, who them put Hun Sen in
power. The international community has been pouring money into Cambodia since
the early 1990s to help rehabilitate a nation devastated by three decades of civil
war and the genocidal rule of the Khmer Rouge. But a a third of the 13 million
population still lives on less than $1 a day.
Guardian
UK 2 May 2005 Khmer Rouge to face UN tribunal John Aglionby, south-east
Asia correspondent Monday May 2, 2005 The Guardian A tribunal to prosecute
members of Cambodia's former Khmer Rouge regime for the deaths of an estimated
1.7 million people is to be established, after eight years of negotiations over
legal and financial conditions. Cambodia's government welcomed the UN announcement
in New York on Friday. But diplomats and human rights activists said yesterday
they remain unconvinced that the impoverished country's people would see justice
for the 1975-79 genocide in which almost a quarter of the population were killed
or died from disease and starvation. It is not clear how many members of the
Maoist Khmer Rouge will be tried. Pol Pot, its brutal leader, died in 1998, but
many senior lieutenants are still alive, albeit in frail health. Two are in custody:
Ta Mok, 78, known as the Butcher; and Kang Kek Ieu, 62, nicknamed Duch. They were,
respectively, head of the south-western region and commander of the notorious
Tuol Sleng prison in the capital. Two of the most prominent people at liberty
who could well face justice are Nuon Chea, Pol Pot's deputy, and Khieu Samphan,
the Khmer Rouge regime's head of state and public face. The UN secretary general,
Kofi Annan, told the Cambodian prime minister, Hun Sen, in a letter that the legal
requirements for the tribunal had been complied with. He added that "sufficient
pledges and contributions are now in place to fund the staffing of the extraordinary
chambers and their operations for a sustained period of time". The UN had been
demanding pledges for a three-year tribunal and commitments for the first 12 months.
The international community has promised about £22.6m of the £29.5m estimated
budget, with Phnom Penh contributing the rest. The tribunal will comprise
mainly Cambodian judges and prosecutors, but the agreement of at least one international
judge will be required to obtain a conviction. "We welcome Annan's statement,"
a Cambodian government spokesman, Khieu Kanharith, said on Saturday. "We want
this [tribunal] to be formed as soon as possible." Such enthusiasm is probably
not genuine, according to Kek Galabru, the president of the Cambodian human rights
group Licadho. "If the government really had the political will to establish this
tribunal we should have had one already," she told the Guardian. "So we are not
sure that the tribunal will happen, even though the government has no more excuses
to delay." Phnom Penh-based diplomats are equally sceptical. "The government has
undoubtedly been dragging its heels on this, and at times actively working against
the formation of a tribunal," one senior western diplomat said. The government's
attitude was so uncooperative two years ago that the UN pulled out of the tribunal
negotiations. The process was further delayed last year when Cambodia's political
system was deadlocked after a general election produced a hung parliament.
The Christian Science Monitor 3 May 2005 Privatization of genocide memorial
stirs anger in Cambodia By Simon Montlake CHOUENG EK, Cambodia — The burial
pits are shallower, their banks softened by wind and rain. Still, a few fragments
of bone and faded cloth poke through the red soil. The bitter harvest of Cambodia's
"killing fields" is hard to miss. Inside a concrete pagoda, a knot of European
tourists gazes silently at the 8,985 skulls on display. Tour guides point out
the rusted iron bars used to silence the men, women and children that the Khmer
Rouge had deemed enemies of the state during their murderous reign in 1975-79.
"Don't be afraid, you're going to a new home," the blindfolded captives were told
before their nighttime execution. In a move that has stirred public anger, this
memorial to the genocide that haunts Cambodia has been given to a private company.
Under a 30-year concession that started Sunday, JC Royal will "develop and
renovate the beauty of Choueng Ek" to attract more paying tourists. Critics said
such profiting is unconscionable. "This is the memory of the nation. It doesn't
belong to city hall. It belongs to the survivors," said Youk Chang, director of
the Documentation Center of Cambodia. The site's manager, who first revealed the
privatization, has accused the government of "using the bones of the dead to make
business." The municipality of Phnom Penh, which owns the site, said the new owner
is forbidden to move the skulls and other remains. The national government has
sought to dampen criticism by saying profits would go to a local charity run by
a senior Cabinet minister, Chea Vandeth. Local media have speculated about the
ownership of JC Royal, a Japanese company run by Vandeth. The dispute comes as
Cambodia inches closer to holding a war-crimes tribunal for the surviving Khmer
Rouge leaders. The United Nations said last week that it had sufficient funding
and asked the government to start organizing the long-awaited trials. Some observers
are dubious about the formula for judging suspects and the government's resolve
to investigate the past. Choueng Ek is one of hundreds of sites across Cambodia
that testify to the mass killings which, with overwork and starvation, caused
the deaths of some 1.7 million people. Thousands of tourists visit each year.
Many also visit Tuol Sleng, a grisly detention center in Phnom Penh that is now
a museum. Some activists welcome the new ownership of the killing fields. They
point to a contract that requires upgrading the unpaved road to the site and building
a museum and documentary-film studio. "If a private company can do it better,
why not? If they can bring in international visitors and tell them something about
our tragedy, all well and good, so we don't repeat it," said Lao Mong Hay, head
of legal reform at the nonprofit Center for Social Development in Phnom Penh.
Outside the dusty entrance to Choueng Ek, Hang Dul holds out a baseball cap and
asks for a dollar. A former government soldier who lost his left leg to a land
mine, he's keen for more tourists. He also wants unsettling truths to linger in
Cambodia's future generations. "I must tell my children about the genocide," he
said.
China
NYT
9 May 2005 Issue in China: Many in Jails Without Trial By JIM YARDLEY ZIBO,
China - For a Chinese government that regularly promises its citizens a society
governed by the rule of law, the case of a neatly dressed man named Li is a reminder
of what still remains outside the law. Here in a bleak stretch of eastern
China, Mr. Li, 40, spent two years in a prison called Shandong No. 2 Labor Re-education
Camp. Mr. Li, who spoke on condition that only his surname be used, and other
followers of the banned spiritual group Falun Gong have been jailed here despite
never having a lawyer or a trial - rights granted under China's criminal law.
That is because Shandong No. 2 is part of a vast penal system in China that
is separate from the judicial system. Falun Gong members are hardly the only inmates.
Locked inside more than 300 special prisons are an estimated 300,000 prostitutes,
drug users, petty criminals and other political prisoners who have been stripped
of any legal rights. In a nondemocratic country like China, such abuse of legal
rights might not seem surprising. But this system, a relic of the Mao era, is
presenting a dilemma for a modern Communist Party that faces pressure at home
and abroad to change the system yet remains obsessed with security and political
control. The government this year is expected to begin privately considering whether,
and how, to change the system. At the same time, the European Union has stated
that for China to achieve one of its most prized diplomatic goals - the lifting
of Europe's arms embargo - it needs to make a significant gesture on human rights.
Human rights advocates agree that few gestures would be more significant than
abolishing or changing this system, which is known as reform through labor re-education.
But unlike releasing a political prisoner, a common Chinese good-will gesture,
changing labor re-education could force the Communist Party to give up a major
tool it has used to maintain its hold on power. "It is important for the power
holders that a system like labor re-education stay in place," said Gao Zhisheng,
a lawyer in Beijing and an advocate of changing the legal system. The crackdown
on Falun Gong followers like Mr. Li is a case in point. The government had paid
sporadic attention to Falun Gong until April 1999, when 10,000 followers held
an unannounced protest and surrounded the leadership compound in Beijing. The
government quickly ordered a crackdown on the group. The existence of labor re-education
meant the police could sweep up masses of people without the time and complications
of court trials. "If they wanted to imprison these tens of thousands of followers
through normal judicial processes, it would have been impossible because what
these people were doing was not a crime," Mr. Gao said. In fact the government
did not approve an anticult law aimed at the group until months after the crackdown
began. For advocates of changing China's legal system, the heart of the debate
is not Falun Gong but the broader push for systemic change to establish "rule
of law." Chen Xingliang, deputy dean of the Beijing University Law School, said
these advocates wanted to transform labor re-education into a misdemeanor system
where detainees would have a right to a lawyer and a trial before a judge. Sentences,
which can now reach a maximum of four years, would be limited to about 18 months.
And, most significantly, authority would shift from the police to China's judicial
branch. "I think this is a crucial issue because it goes to the very legitimacy
of the proposed correctional system," Mr. Chen said. The domestic debate is occurring
as key members of the European Union this month expressed reluctance to lift the
arms embargo by June, as they once had strongly suggested. European officials
have emphasized that that they want China to make "concrete" improvements on human
rights. One idea that has been suggested is ratifying the United Nations International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. "Pigs will fly before they can ratify
with reform through labor re-education in place," said John Kamm, executive director
of the Dui Hua Foundation, a group that negotiates the release of political prisoners
from China. "It's a violation of every due process right in every human rights
law." Labor re-education camps opened in 1957. The system has become a quick,
easy way for the police to imprison people in infractions that violate the social
order. Critics say the system gives the police so much latitude that they can
arbitrarily choose whether to file criminal charges against someone or simply
place that person in labor re-education. Meng Hongwei, a vice minister of
public security, said China had made substantial progress in establishing "rule
of law" and defended labor re-education as a necessary tool to rehabilitate youthful
lawbreakers. "There is a great misunderstanding of the system in many areas of
the world," he said, portraying it as a short-term intervention to prevent people
from later straying into more serious crimes. "We should treat them as a doctor
treats a patient, as a teacher treats a student, and as a parent treats a child
who makes a mistake," Mr. Meng said in an interview last year. Conditions and
treatment in the more than 300 prisons in the system are said to vary. All inmates
are expected to do some type of factory work or manual labor. Some imprisoned
intellectuals have described fairly mild conditions, while other people have reported
much harsher treatment. Outside China, Falun Gong is waging an aggressive campaign
to publicize its allegations of mistreatment, which the Chinese government has
denied. It is impossible to prove or disprove all of its specific allegations
- a catalog of torture, which Falun Gong portrays in graphic posters and fliers.
But there is no question that Falun Gong remains banned in China. In interviews
in China, five Falun Gong followers traveled hundreds of miles to avoid government
security agents and described their experiences in labor re-education camps.
Mr. Li arrived in 2000 after spending 10 days in a police holding cell. His family
was not notified until he had begun serving a two-year sentence. He said guards
often jolted inmates with electric cattle prods to get them to renounce Falun
Gong. "The pain was indescribable," he said. "My body jumped in the air." Two
female inmates described repeated humiliations. Menstruating women were shackled
standing against a board and then prevented from sleeping or going to the bathroom
for several days. Specialists say political prisoners constitute 5 percent to
10 percent of the total labor re-education inmate population, while as much as
40 percent of inmates are drug offenders. Drug users are expected to kick their
habits while in the camps. Xiao Xue, 33, a former heroin addict, was jailed for
two years at a labor re-education camp for drug users in western Yunnan Province.
She said inmates were never abused, but did not receive any meaningful treatment.
She said she resumed using drugs use upon her release. "A lot of people who have
gone to labor re-education camps still continue using drugs," she said, referring
to after their release. She said she later kicked her habit. Murray Scot Tanner,
a China specialist at the RAND Corporation, a policy research organization, said
the ease of jailing people in labor re-education camps has led the police to warehouse
people "for an increasing number of social problems." He added, "It is administratively
convenient because it allows the Chinese system to avoid coming up with a number
of more modern rehabilitation and treatment programs." The expense of creating
those programs, and the question of what would be done with the 300,000 people
in the camp system, are issues slowing efforts for change. Another is the absence
of any broad public outcry or anger about the system. "A lot of the public
also wants more security," said Mao Shoulong, a professor and specialist in public
administration at People's University in Beijing who wants to abolish the system
but notes that public attitudes toward even petty criminals can be harsh in China.
"When the Chinese see a thief, they want him beaten to death." China's court system
remains relatively weak, but advocates of a stronger system have won some recent
related victories in curbing police arrest powers and strengthening death penalty
appeals to increase the rights to criminal defendants. Still, Mr. Chen, the law
school deputy dean, said those changes "will be empty if they don't change labor
re-education." "The criminal procedure law is now quite strict but labor re-education
is a black hole," he added. Mr. Gao, the Beijing lawyer, said Falun Gong followers
were still being jailed and labor re-education camps were also now being used
to jail some of the petitioners complaining at government offices about corruption
or illegal land seizures. "Unless there are massive structural changes in the
way power is organized and allocated in China, there is going to be no change,"
he said.
India
BBC
11 May 2005 Blast in Kashmir summer capital At least one person has been killed
and 34 others wounded in an explosion in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered
Kashmir. The blast took place in the Jawaharnagar area and damaged a number
of houses and vehicles, officials say. "This is one of the most powerful explosions
I have ever seen," a policeman told the AFP news agency. This is the first
explosion in Srinagar after the launch of cross-Kashmir bus service last month.
Group's claim Doctors at a Srinagar hospital say many of those wounded have severe
injuries. They include a paramilitary officer and five soldiers. There are conflicting
reports over the cause of the explosion. A paramilitary officer, Hari Lal, told
the Associated Press it was caused by two landmines planted by suspected militants.
But other reports say that the explosion may have been caused by a car bomb.
The BBC's Altaf Hussain in Srinagar says a militant group Al-Nasirin has said
it carried out the attack. The group has warned of more such attacks in future.
At least 35,000 people have died in 14 years of insurgency in the disputed region
of Kashmir, claimed by both India and Pakistan. The two nuclear rivals have fought
two wars over the territory but embarked on a peace process 18 months ago.
Times
of India 12 May 2005 BJP's riot defence: Govt killed Hindus too TIMES NEWS NETWORK[
THURSDAY, MAY 12, 2005 11:38:26 PM ] Sign into earnIndiatimes points NEW DELHI:
BJP's deputy leader in Lok Sabha VK Malhotra on Thursday chose to defend Gujarat
Chief Minister Narendra Modi against charges of "genocide" and said the killing
of 254 Hindus, mostly in police firing – as reported by government in Parliament
- showed how the state authorities took "effective steps" to check violence in
Gujarat. In a written reply, minister of state for home affairs Prakash Jaiswal
had informed Rajya Sabha on Wednesday that 254 Hindus and 790 Muslims were killed
in Gujarat in the 2002 riots. "Congress president Sonia Gandhi in her poll campaigns
had repeatedly termed the violence as a genocide. While any casualty is unfortunate,
the figures given by the government in the Parliament does not constitute any
genocide, like the manner in which millions of Jews were killed," Malhotra had
boldly announced within hours of Bhandari's views becoming public. While any
casualty is unfortunate, the figures given by the government in Parliament do
not constitute any genocide, like the manner in which millions of Jews were killed
by Hitler," BJP parliamentary party spokesman VK Malhotra said. Malhotra further
said most of the 254 Hindus were killed in police-firings and "this showed how
effectively the state dealt with the situation." Driving a point home, he noted
not a single person was killed in police-firings in the riots, including the Bhagalpur
and the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, occurred during the Congress regimes. Meanwhile,
senior BJP leader Sunder Singh Bhandari has fired a missile against Gujarat CM
Narendra Modi by comparing the Godhra riots to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi,
even as the party was reading the fine print in a Parliament reply to disprove
that there was "genocide" in Gujarat.
NDTV.com
13 May 2005 Anti-Sikh riots: Justice delayed yet again Swati Maheshwari
Watch story Friday, May 13, 2005 (New Delhi): Despite assurances by both the
Law Minister and the Home minister, the Parliament session once again ended without
the Congress government tabling the report of the Nanawati commission on the anti
Sikh riots of 1984. NDTV revisited those areas of the national capital, which
witnessed the massacre, the worst ever in the history of independent India where
nearly 3000 Sikhs lost their lives. Those who survived the massacre but lost their
families see this delay by the Congress as just another mockery of the justice
they have been waiting for in the last twenty years. Surjit Singh's world came
crashing down on a Wednesday afternoon in November 1984. He was just 13 when
he lost his entire family in the anti-Sikh riots following Indira Gandhi's assassination.
From Wednesday to Saturday when the army was called in, he only saw murder and
mayhem, arson and destruction in the small east Delhi colony. "I survived because
my mother made me cut my hair. I roamed around and saw everything. The police
disarmed us and then let the mob in," said Surjit. Milap Singh who lost all
his four sons says the tragedy has been compounded by the fact that no one has
been punished for the massacre. He says he has little hope of seeing justice for
his sons' deaths in his lifetime. "If not here, I will wait for justice in God's
house," said Singh. Ministers let off The Congress may have apologized to the
Sikhs for the massacre but the fact remains that hardly anyone has been held accountable.
In the past 20 years two commissions and eight committees were set up to investigate
the massacre. Cases were recommended against Congress leaders HKL Bhagat, Sajjan
Kumar and Jagdish Tytler, who were accused of instigating and organizing the riots.
This however, was never done. Former MP HKL Bhagat and Sajjan Kumar were let
off by courts for the lack of credible evidence even in cases based on the testimony
of victims. The Kapoor and Mittal committees recommended cases against 72 police
officers for their connivance in and gross negligence during the riots. This too
was not done. Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler were given Congress tickets
in the Lok Sabha elections despite the fact that the Nanawati Commission had issued
notices to them. Reason for delay? H S Phulka has been fighting the legal battle
for many of the survivors and he says he does not understand the delay in tabling
the report. "Nanavati commission report was submitted in February and has still
not been tabled. Till today not made public. The other report of Godhra was made
public the same evening. What is the justification for not making it public?"
said H S Phulka, lawyer. The story of the 84 riots is a story of travesty of justice
at every level. And by not tabling the report for no credible reason, the message
the Congress seems to be sending out is that a 21 year long wait for justice is
perhaps for them not long enough.
Indonesia
NYT
15 May 2005 Indonesians to Avoid Trials for Crimes in East Timor By SETH
MYDANS International Herald Tribune DILI, East Timor - After ducking and dodging
for more than five years, it appears that the Indonesian officers responsible
for the devastation of East Timor in 1999 have reached safe ground and will avoid
prosecution under a new agreement signed by the leaders of both countries. The
agreement, signed in March, creates a Commission of Truth and Friendship that
would, in the words of East Timor's foreign minister, José Ramos-Horta, "resolve
once and for all the events of 1999" and "finally close this chapter." But
because of the immunity it provides from prosecution, the agreement has become
the source of new controversy. In parallel, the United Nations has formed a Commission
of Experts that will carry out a review of the judicial processes in Indonesia
and East Timor. After 24 years of occupation in this former Portuguese colony,
Indonesia was forced to pull out its troops by a binding United Nations-sponsored
referendum in September 1999. As they retreated, they orchestrated a campaign
of destruction in which much of East Timor was razed. An estimated 1,400 people
were killed in 1999 and another 250,000 were forced into exile after the vote.
The Truth and Friendship commission, made up of five members from each nation,
is weaker than attempts around the world in recent years to find ways to call
to account the perpetrators of mass atrocities. The commission will have the power
to recommend amnesty for those involved, but, as it states explicitly "will not
lead to prosecution." It will "emphasize institutional responsibilities" instead
of identifying and blaming individual perpetrators. It will have the power to
recommend rehabilitation for those "wrongly accused," but not to propose rehabilitation
or reparations for victims. Mr. Horta said recently that East Timor was bending
over backward to accommodate Indonesia because of the futility of pursuing culprits
who are outside its jurisdiction and because of the priority this tiny nation
or 900,000 people placed on good relations with its powerful neighbor. Critics
say the two nations are putting their national interests ahead of universal principles
of justice. "Crimes committed against humanity are a matter of concern for the
entire international community," the Judicial System Monitoring Program, an independent
East Timorese legal organization, said in a statement. "They cannot be ignored
or disposed of as a matter of bilateral political concern." Prosecutions in crimes
against humanity have spread since the early 1990's when international criminal
tribunals were set up for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. An International Criminal
Court opened in 2002 as a permanent and independent court for judging war crimes.
A different model of mixed international tribunals, with national and foreign
judges, is being pursued in Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Kosovo and in East Timor itself.
Each of these, like the new Truth and Friendship commission, sets a precedent
and sends a signal to both perpetrators and victims in the future. The creation
of the commission does not rule out the possibility of an international tribunal,
but analysts say that is extremely unlikely soon. The United Nations has an unusual
stake in the case of East Timor, where it was a victim of the violence surrounding
the referendum. Thirteen United Nations workers were killed, its property was
vandalized and its staff members were surrounded and threatened. The United Nations
Commission of Experts, formed in February, will review the failure in both countries
to fulfill a United Nations resolution demanding that "all those responsible for
such violence be brought to justice." More than five years later, no Indonesian
has been punished. The Truth and Friendship agreement is seen by many analysts
as an attempt by both countries to preempt the work of the United Nations commission.
Indonesia has shown reluctance to cooperate with it. In Indonesia, an ad hoc tribunal
was created in 2000 in a deal to avoid international prosecutions by the United
Nations. Doubts about the government's good faith appeared to be confirmed
when all 16 Indonesian defendants went free in politicized trials. In East Timor,
a court set up with United Nations help has indicted nearly 400 people, of whom
more than 300 are in Indonesia. The authorities there have refused to extradite
them for trial in East Timor. The result is that the only people who have
been imprisoned for the violence are low level members of East Timorese militias
that an independent Indonesian inquiry found had been directed by Indonesia.
Iraq
BBC
1 May 2005 Bombing of Iraqi Kurds kills 25 An apparent suicide attack in
Iraq has left at least 25 people dead and injured more than 30 others. The bombing
is reported to have targeted a Kurdish funeral in the northern town of Talafar,
near Mosul. Earlier, at least five policemen and four civilians were killed in
two separate attacks in Baghdad. In another development, Iraqi police said they
had arrested several men over the kidnapping and killing of British aid worker
Margaret Hassan. Hostage video Details of the attack in northern Iraq are still
sketchy, but local officials say a suicide car bomber drove into mourners attending
the funeral of a Kurdish official. The official, Taleb Wahab, was a member of
the Kurdistan Democratic Party. He was killed by insurgents in Mosul on Saturday.
Reports say gunmen then blocked the road, attacking US troops, Iraqi police and
ambulances who were trying to reach the scene of Sunday's suicide bombing. In
the latest spate of attacks in Iraq since Friday, some 90 people have been killed.
Correspondents say insurgent activity has intensified in the past two weeks, as
Iraq's leaders struggle to complete the formation of a new government. An incomplete
cabinet was installed on Thursday, but key ministries, including defence, remain
vacant. In the Hassan case, in addition to the arrests, police said they had found
documents, clothing and a handbag belonging to the Dublin-born director of Care
International in Iraq, who was abducted on 19 October 2004. A video showing her
apparent death was released a month later but her body has never been recovered.
News of the arrests came as a video was released on Sunday showing an Australian
citizen believed to have been kidnapped in Iraq. On the tape, the man identifies
himself as Douglas Wood, saying he is 63 and lives in the US.
www.heraldsun.news.com.au
2 May 2005 Saddam massacre site found Jamie Walker Samawah MASS graves
have been found in the area of southern Iraq to be patrolled by Australian troops.
They reveal a previously unknown massacre of up to 1500 people by Saddam Hussein's
security forces. News of the grisly find emerged at the weekend as Defence
Minister Robert Hill paid a flying visit to Diggers based outside the provincial
capital of Samawah. US investigators have so far exhumed the remains of 113 people
-- all but five of them women, children and teenagers -- from trenches believed
to be near the town of Al Khidr, about 25km south of Samawah. They are thought
to be victims of Saddam's bloody crackdown on Iraq's Kurdish minority in the late
1980s. The Americans were refusing last night to detail the exact location of
the mass graves, saying the site needed to remain secret to preserve evidence
that could be used in the prosecution of the former Iraqi dictator. A surprised
Senator Hill said he had not been told of the discovery, but the Australian Government
would consider any request for help from Iraqi authorities. He was unsure, however,
what practical help Australia could offer. Up to 1500 bodies are believed to have
been dumped in the grave, making it one of the largest of the 300-odd burial sites
so far linked to Saddam's atrocities. In a particularly cruel twist, many of the
bodies were clad in distinctive Kurdish dress, suggesting the victims may have
donned their best clothes in the belief they were being moved. Saddam's security
forces forcibly removed hundreds of thousands of Kurds from their lands in northern
Iraq, and killed thousands more, during a brutal 1987-88 campaign to punish them
for siding with Iran in its decade-long war against Iraq. Spending just four hours
on the ground in Iraq, Senator Hill was forced to play down local expectations
that the incoming Australian troops would be involved in reconstruction. Samawah
still does not have a reliable power supply or constant running water. Community
leaders argue the city needs essential services more than foreign troops. But
after talks with Governor Muhammad Ali al-Hassani, Senator Hill said the Australians'
mission was to train a new battalion of the Iraqi National Guard and provide area
security for Japanese military engineers working across Al Muthanna province.
"Reconstruction work in Australia is done by the private sector, so we need to
show the private sector that it is a peaceful and stable environment in which
they can make a contribution," Senator Hill said. "The Governor has said to me
that this province is already safe and stable -- what we need to do is to convince
the international community of that fact. "I think then you will start to see
the international assistance on the ground that you would like in reconstruction
projects." Senator Hill also met the commander of the 850-strong Japanese Self
Defence Force contingent, Col. Kiyohiko Ota, and reviewed his soldiers. Lunching
with Australian troops at their fortified base of Camp Smitty, Senator Hill inquired
about the living conditions. "Better than Baghdad," a soldier replied.
BBC
2 May 2005 Woman soldier admits Iraq abuse Pte England's defence argue she was
acting under orders An American woman soldier has pleaded guilty to charges
of abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq, at a court martial in Texas.
Lawyers say Private Lynndie England agreed to a plea deal that will reduce her
maximum jail sentence to 11 years. Images of Pte England smiling and pointing
at naked Iraqis sickened America and the rest of the world. She is one of nine
soldiers who were charged with mistreating Iraqi captives at Abu Ghraib in late
2003. Some have pleaded guilty and have been sentenced to jail. The defence has
always contended that Pte England and other soldiers were acting on orders of
army intelligence officials, who wanted to soften up prisoners before they were
interrogated. It is alleged that it was a policy which was sanctioned at the highest
level. But four top army officers were cleared last week of any wrongdoing at
Abu Ghraib. Only one senior soldier, Brig Gen Janis Karpinski, has been relieved
of her command as a result of the scandal. 'Following orders' The hearing
is taking place at the Fort Hood military base in Texas. Pte England, 22, had
been facing nine charges carrying a potential 16 years in prison. ABU GHRAIB SCANDAL
Sentenced: Spc Charles Graner Pte Jeremy Sivits Sgt Ivan Frederick Spc Megan Ambuhl
Spc Armin Cruz Spc Roman Krol Sgt Javal Davis Facing trial: Pte Lynndie England
Spc Sabrina Harman In pictures: Prisoner abuse Profile: Lynndie England Q&A: Prison
abuse scandal Her lawyers have said she would plead guilty to seven of the charges
in return for a lighter maximum sentence. Last year she became pregnant by fellow
soldier Charles Graner, who was accused of being the ringleader of the abuse at
Abu Ghraib. Graner was convicted by a court martial and sentenced to 10 years
in jail. Pte England has since given birth to a baby boy. Her legal team will
argue she was under the control of an older man. Defence lawyer Rick Hernandez
has said there were other mitigating factors. "We're going to delve into her mental
health issues, her severe learning deficit, who Lynndie England is as a person
and how she got to the situation where she is," he said.
BBC
4 May 2005 Scores die in Iraqi Kurd attack At least 45 people have been killed
in a suicide bombing at a political party office in the Kurdish city of Irbil
in northern Iraq, authorities say. Reports say the attacker targeted a group of
police recruits gathered at a Kurdistan Democratic Party office, which serves
as a recruiting centre. The bombing follows a sharp rise in attacks by insurgents
across Iraq. It comes a day after the new Iraqi government was sworn in although
some key ministries are yet to be filled. Members of Iraq's police force and police
recruitment centres have frequently been targeted by bombers who view them as
collaborators with US-led forces. Last month, at least 101 people were killed
in twin suicide bombings in Irbil, about 350km (217 miles) north of Baghdad. Chaotic
scenes The Associated Press news agency described scenes of chaos as ambulance
and taxis ferried victims to local hospitals following the latest bombing. The
blast comes as negotiations continue to fill several vacant posts in the new Iraqi
cabinet set aside for Sunnis. The BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says Iraqi Prime Minister
Ibrahim Jaafari must bring credible Sunnis into his government to undercut the
insurgency. The minority Sunnis, who largely boycotted Iraq's historic elections
in January, lost power following the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Israel
www.haaretz.com
5 May 2005 IDF suspends commander of force that killed two Palestinians
By Arnon Regular, Haaretz Correspondent, Haaretz Service Israel Defense Forces
Central Command chief Yair Naveh on Thursday suspended a senior Combat Engineering
Corps officer who commanded a force that shot dead two Palestinian teenagers in
the West Bank on Wednesday. Naveh said the conduct of the deputy company commander
was defined as "unreasonable." Oudai A'asi, 14, and his 15-year-old cousin
Kamal A'asi, both from the West Bank village of Beit Lakia, were shot dead while
throwing stones together with dozens of other protestors at a separation fence
work site next to a village north of Highway 443. Advertisement Around 6 P.M.,
some 200 youths arrived on the scene and began throwing rocks at bulldozers and
at the five soldiers who arrived on the scene in a jeep. Palestinians on the scene
said the soldiers initially opened fire with rubber bullets and tear gas grenades
and at a certain point began firing live ammunition in the air. Palestinian
sources said the cousins, 14-year-old Uday Asi and 15-year-old Kamel Asi, were
hit by live ammunition. Ramallah hospital officials said Uday was hit in the hip
and thighs and Kamel was hit in the chest. One IDF soldier was lightly wounded
by Palestinian stone-throwers. Nineteen-year-old Karem Yusuf, who was near
the two casualties, described the scene. "I saw two soldiers but it is possible
there were more," he said. "Near the soldiers was a group of 10 youths and around
them were some 200 more. The distance from the first group to the soldiers was
about 20 meters. Kamel and Uday were next to me when they were shot. A soldier
fired several shots and I saw that Kamel was wounded in his chest." The IDF said
that "according to an initial investigation, a small IDF force securing the separation
fence work site was surprised when hundreds of youths attacked them. The force
made use of riot control weapons but at a certain point there was a danger to
their lives and the force's commander ordered they fire first in the air [with
live ammunition] in an attempt to disperse the demonstrators. When this had no
effect, he opened fire at the legs of several demonstrators in an attempt to disperse
them. The circumstances of the event will be examined." "This is a violation of
the cease-fire," Nabil Abu Rudeineh, advisor to Palestinian Authority Chairman
Mahmoud Abbas, told Reuters. "Israel is looking for excuses to raise tensions
and to depart from implementing the Sharm (el-Sheikh) understandings." In a separate
incident Wednesday night, Border Police troops arrested a Palestinian carrying
a handgun northwest of Hebron, the radio reported. On the border with the central
Gaza Strip on Wednesday night, IDF soldiers arrested two unarmed Palestinians
attempting to infiltrate across the boundary fence into Israel.
Japan
AP
10, 2005 Japanese Nationalists Use Wartime Facts TOKYO (AP) -- The Japanese
authors of a nationalist history book that sparked angry protests in China defended
their work Tuesday, saying the writings accurately reflect the facts. Nobukatsu
Fujioka and Hidetsugu Yagi, members of the Japanese Society for History Textbook
Reform, said their book is meant to correct exaggerated accounts of Japanese atrocities
in other books. ''We wanted to create a history textbook that would be free
of defunct historical theories,'' Yagi told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents
Club of Japan in Tokyo. The Japanese Education Ministry's approval in April of
the latest version of the New Japanese History book triggered fierce opposition
by critics in Japan and elsewhere. Opponents argue the text glosses over Japanese
atrocities during its conquest of East Asia in the 1930s and 40s, particularly
the 1937-38 Rape of Nanking, in which historians generally agree Japanese troops
slaughtered thousands of civilians, and Tokyo's policy of forcing women to work
in wartime brothels. The book does not bring up the wartime brothels, and mention
of the killings in Nanking is relegated to a footnote. Anger over the book
and other tensions between China and Japan -- including territorial disputes and
other historical disagreements -- boiled over in a series of violent demonstrations
in China. The protests, however, have died down and government officials from
both countries have met to smooth over the troubles. Fujioka and Yagi argued on
Tuesday that accounts of the wartime brothels are not historically accurate, and
they also took issue with the idea that Japanese troops slaughtered large numbers
of civilians in Nanking. ''The people who died were killed as the result of
a combat and not the result of a massacre,'' Fujioka said, suggesting the vast
bulk of the deaths were the 15,000 Chinese enemy soldiers who were killed. Chinese
tallies say up to 300,000 people died. The writers said Japanese history teaching
in the past had been the result of the ''psychological trauma'' of Japan's defeat
in the war, which led historians to despise everything about militarist Japan.
The writers blamed left-wing teachers for blocking the spread of their book, which
is used in only a tiny percentage of Japanese schools.
www.japantimes.co.jp
14 May 2005 Court says no damages for '32 massacre Ruling upheld that China
atrocities took place, but state shouldn't pay The Tokyo High Court on Friday
upheld a lower court ruling acknowledging that a 1932 massacre by the Imperial
Japanese Army in China's Liaoning Province took place but rejecting a damages
suit by three survivors. Yang Baoshan (center), one of three survivors of
the 1932 massacre by the Imperial Japanese Army in China's Liaoning Province,
walks out of the Tokyo High Court on Friday after the court dismissed their compensation
suit. In handing down the ruling, presiding Judge Kimio Miyazaki said the state
used its power to cause the incident but that the state is not liable to compensate
the victims, citing the government's argument that it is not responsible for any
damage caused by the exercise of state power under laws in force at the time of
the incident. The Civil Code under Meiji Constitution, which was in effect
from 1890 to 1947, said the state did not have to compensate people affected by
the use of state power. "The plaintiffs suffered great emotional anguish and we
cannot say that Japan made sufficient compensation, but war compensation issues
should be a diplomatic issue decided between governments," Miyazaki said. In
June 2002, the Tokyo District Court made a landmark ruling when it acknowledged
the existence of such a massacre by the army -- a first time for a Japanese court.
However, the court rejected the demand for compensation. The three plaintiffs
-- two men and one woman, who were between 4 and 9 years old at the time -- sought
20 million yen each in compensation from the government. Mo Desheng, 80, Yang
Baoshan, 82, and Fang Surong, 76 claim they lost their families and were brutalized
by the Japanese Imperial Army in a suburb of the city of Fushun on Sept. 16, 1932.
The plaintiffs had argued the massacre violated Chinese and international laws,
and sought compensation under those laws. They have also said the Japanese government
and the Diet must take responsibility for their failure to create a war redress
law or take other measures to address the atrocities. The State Redress Law was
enacted in 1947, but does not cover the plaintiffs' claims. In what is known
as the Pingdingshan Incident, the Imperial army rounded up about 3,000 people
in the district and killed most of them, claiming they cooperated with Chinese
guerrillas fighting against Japan. Following the mass execution, the Imperial
soldiers reportedly burned the bodies and buried them by triggering a landslide
with dynamite. China excavated part of the site in 1970 and displayed the findings
in a museum. The Japanese government had asked the court to reject the suit,
saying the government of Japan before World War II had declared itself free of
any responsibility for damage in any circumstance with regard to the exercise
of state power. The government had also said that the plaintiffs' right to claim
compensation had expired under a 20-year statute of limitations under the Civil
Code.
Kyrgyzstan
27
Apr 2005 Focus on major players ahead of presidential polls [ This report
does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] © IRIN Former president
Askar Akayev was toppled from power in March BISHKEK, 27 Apr 2005 (IRIN) - The
current political agenda in Kyrgyzstan, where opposition-led protesters overthrew
the regime of former president Askar Akayev in March, is dominated by upcoming
presidential elections in early July. TWO KEY FIGURES RUNNING FOR THE PRESIDENCY
Several political leaders have announced that they will run for the presidency,
but most observers believe that the contest will be between two leaders; prime
minister, acting president and leader of the National Movement of Kyrgyzstan (NMK),
Kurmanbek Bakiev, who was among those who led the protests that toppled Akayev's
regime on 24 March and the head of the Ar-Namys political party, Felix Kulov,
who was jailed under Akayev for more than four years. "The political struggle
between different [political] groups is caused by the upcoming presidential elections,"
Marat Kazakbaev, political analyst and coordinator of the Citizens Against Corruption
NGO, told IRIN in the capital Bishkek. "The country's political world divides
into several groupings, but the strongest groups belong to those of Kulov and
Bakiev. The political battle for presidency rests between them," Kazakbaev added.
Bakiev was appointed prime minister and thus acting president by the new parliament
following the ouster of Akayev from power. Immediately after coming to power Bakiev
said he would run for the top job. Bakiev, a prime minister under Akayev, and
his team, are campaigning to fight against corruption and nepotism at the governmental
level, as well as tackling social injustice. The group's main support base is
the poor and that part of the intelligentsia who were deeply dissatisfied under
the previous regime. Politics in Kyrgyzstan are fairly clan and region-based.
Political observers say Bakiev represents southern elites, who felt they were
left out during Akayev's rule, while Kulov, who is originally from the north,
has strong support in that region. Kulov, a former security general, vice-president
and governor, was jailed on corruption and embezzlement charges in 2001 that many
international organisations said were politically motivated. The ex-head of the
security ministry was released from jail the day the regime fell and put in charge
of security bodies to restore order in the capital. The country's judiciary has
acquitted Kulov of the embezzlement charges, paving the way for his participation
in the presidential elections on 10 July. On Monday, he announced he would stand
for the president's office in July. "I have a strong belief that I should run
for the presidency," he told journalists in Bishkek. Kulov prioritises stabilisation
of the current political situation, providing security and preventing an exodus
of the country's diminishing Russian-speaking minority. Along with Kulov and Bakiev,
several other candidates announced they would run for the country's top job. Among
them is Jenishbek Nazaraliev, a doctor specialising in the treatment of alcohol
and drug addiction, who was once an active opposition supporter during Akayev's
reign. Nurbek Turdukulov, a deputy minister under Akayev's last government and
currently top manager of the country's only GSM operator Bitel, which had alleged
links to Akayev's family, has also indicated he would run. PRO-AKAYEV SUPPORTERS
Supporters of deposed president Akayev are also participating through the Alga,
Kyrgyzstan political party, described as a pro-Akayev or family party given that
Akayev's daughter Bermet played an important role in its founding. The party became
known for its widespread use of "dirty" methods during the parliamentary elections
in February and March, which initially sparked the protests that overthrew the
former president. Some believe that the group is silently undermining the new
authorities, having a vested interest in the failure of the new government and
in promoting nostalgia among some for the former regime. Although they have not
publicised their platform, some reports suggest that their main motto is: "The
former regime was not that bad, at least, it was maintaining stability in the
country." Their support base comes from a considerable number of government employees
and officials, and representatives of the middle class, in other words those who
had a good life under the former regime. The supporters of the group include part
of the intelligentsia, senior officials nominated and patronised by Akayev, who
managed to concentrate substantial resources in their hands. CRIMINAL GROUPS VYING
FOR INFLUENCE Another element influencing the political scene, local analysts
say, is semi-criminal groups, with their vested business interests. Sania Sagnayeva,
an expert with the International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based think tank
in Bishkek, told IRIN that during the change of power in some instances criminal
elements were active in the first stage of affairs to drive politicians to secondary
roles. Earlier this month, a group of experienced police officers in the south
sent an appeal to the country's new leadership complaining about a "groundless
and unjustified" change of staff within government offices, including the police,
with those having alleged links with criminal groups. A senior police official
in the southern province of Osh, who did not want to be identified, told IRIN
that the criminal groups were trying to establish control over financial flows
and drug trafficking in the region. Southern Kyrgyzstan lies on one of the major
drug-trafficking routes from Afghanistan to Russia and western Europe. "Not less
than one-third of posts within administrative offices in the region might fall
into the hands of semi-criminal groups, allegedly presenting themselves as active
members of the revolutionary events," Salima Sharipova, a prominent female public
figure in the region, told IRIN in Osh. Fear of possible control by pro-criminal
groups in the administrative bodies, according to local NGOs, is a growing concern
and a major worry for ordinary citizens. The platform that these groups are presenting
is power of the people at all the levels, especially at the local level. But observers
claim that their real motives are to secure their interests by controlling key
posts in the government. Analysts say these groups have found backing among the
unemployed and the poor, aspiring for social justice and fairness. The group also
relies on young people who depend on these groups and therefore have a vested
interest in their bosses' success. EXPECTATIONS OF PEOPLE ON THE STREETS Ordinary
people say the issue of stability remains paramount after the euphoria of the
revolution has waned. "It is good that the corrupt family and clan-based regime
has gone. But the new government is facing a severe shortage of time. The initial
euphoria is diminishing and people are questioning what has been achieved," Sadyrbay,
64, a local pensioner in the southern city of Osh, told IRIN. "If there is no
stability in the coming several months and people do not see tangible results
from the regime change, the new authorities will lose all credit." "Nobody regrets
that Akayev is gone, but the new authorities have shown their inability to tackle
the challenges lying ahead of them. People need to see that real change is taking
place," Almaz, a university student in Bishkek, told IRIN. But others were less
optimistic. "One corrupt government official replaced the outgoing one and that
is all," Zakirbek, a 49-year-old teacher, told IRIN, pessimistically. "The new
government turned out to be very soft, while they need to be tough during this
difficult period," Alymbai, another teacher from Osh, told IRIN. "As you see,
some people have started to illegally occupy land, mobs change one official after
another. They need to put an end to that lack of authority, otherwise the country
will fall into chaos and civil conflict. We do not want to even imagine the consequences
of such a scenario," he warned. Meanwhile, there is growing interest in emigration
and leaving the country altogether, especially among the Russian minority. "First
of all, the new authorities have not clearly proclaimed their position towards
minorities. This uncertainty makes people want to run away. Secondly, the looting
of businesses, shops and companies has led to the unemployment of Russians in
the city," Valerii Vishnevskii, chairman of the Slavic Fund, a local civic group
to tackle the problems of the Russian minority, told IRIN in Bishkek. Anatoliy
Klyus, head of the Russian cultural association, Commonwealth, in Osh, said that
ethnic minorities were concerned over a lack of substantive authority and the
administration's inefficiency. Ethnic minority groups expect solid measures from
the new authorities to stabilise the situation and establish a clear ethnic policy,
Adyljan Abidov, head of the local Civic Initiatives Support Centre NGO, told IRIN
in Osh, adding that ethnic minorities were also interested in whether representatives
from these groups would be able to take part in the new government.
Crisis
Group 4 May 2005 Kyrgyzstan: After the Revolution The ousting of President
Askar Akaev in March, ending his increasingly authoritarian fourteen-year rule,
was a major step, but as Kyrgyzstan heads toward July presidential elections,
the risk of instability remains high. New leaders need to undertake serious
reform to redress imbalances created by Akaev's centralisation of power and weak
state institutions. They must also confront a looming economic crisis, a wave
of land seizures, criminal groups that pose a growing security risk, and, ultimately,
the north-south split. The first priority is re-establishing control throughout
the country and holding free and fair elections. There is a limited amount the
international community can do to help. The Kyrgyz have created their chance to
move forward. It is up to their leaders to make sure ordinary people see real
change, not merely different names at the top. Crisis Group reports and briefing
papers are available on our website: www.crisisgroup.org .
Myanmar
AFP
Myanmar ethnic group surrenders arms: reportYANGON, April 30 (AFP) - More
than 800 members of a former ethnic army in Myanmar's Shan state have handed over
their weapons to the military government, 14 years after signing a ceasefire,
state media reported Saturday. Palaung State Liberation Army (PSLA) in northern
Shan state, which had signed a ceasefire in 1991, handed over the weapons after
a series of talks with the military, the official New Light of Myanmar newspaper
said. "It has full confidence in the tatmadaw (military) government and has made
a resolve to always stay loyal to the state," the newspaper quoted PSLA chairman
Aik Mone as saying. He also reportedly called on other ethnic groups to abandon
their arms. No reason was given for the decision to give up their weapons. Lieutenant
General Thein Sein, first secretary of the junta's ruling State Peace and Development
Council (SPDC), and other top military officials attended the handover ceremony
in Mangton Township in northern Shan State, the paper said. The PSLA surrendered
420 assorted arms, including mortars, guns, rocket launchers, pistols, walkie-talkies
and among others, the paper said. Despite the ceasefire, the newspaper said the
PSLA's weapons had contributed to unrest in the region and that the armed group
was extorting money from residents in northern Shan state. PSLA is the second
ethnic group to surrender its weapons this month, after the 11th Brigade of the
Shan State National Army handed over its arms. Seventeen armed ethnic groups and
splinter groups have signed ceasefires with the military government.
BBC
8 May 2005 Junta opponents deny Burma blasts The government blamed the
attacks on insurgents Opponents of Burma's military regime have denied involvement
in blasts on Saturday which left 11 dead in Rangoon. The bombs - at two busy supermarkets
and a Thai trade fair - were the worst attacks of their kind in many years.
The junta quickly blamed three ethnic groups, as well as the self-proclaimed pro-democracy
government in exile. The Karen and Shan groups denied any involvement, while the
opposition party - led by democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi - condemned the violence.
The near-simultaneous blasts struck at about 1500 local time (0800 GMT) on
Saturday. According to the official New Light of Myanmar newspaper, the bombs
had been hidden inside bags and triggered by timing devices. Along with the
11 dead, more than 150 people were injured in the blasts that caused serious damage
to the buildings, pictures on state TV showed. Although one device exploded
at the Thai trade fair, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said he believed
his nationals had not been explicitly targeted and that the matter was an internal
Burmese affair. A C-130 cargo plane flew into Burma on Sunday to bring home the
200-plus Thai nationals who were participating in the fair. Heightened alert
Security in Rangoon had been stepped up since a bomb blast at a market in the
second city of Mandalay nearly two weeks ago. Two women died and 13 people were
hurt in that attack. At the time, the military government blamed an unnamed
group of insurgent destructive elements who, it said, wanted to disturb the stability
of the country. Burma has been ruled by a repressive military junta for the last
decade and a half, prompting economic stagnation and international condemnation.
The junta has been led by three generals wielding almost absolute power. But in-fighting
and a lack of transparency have generated regular rumours of power struggles at
the top. On Sunday, those accused by the junta of involvement in the blasts suggested
the military themselves may be involved. "We don't know exactly who was behind
it," said Sann Aung of the Thai-based National Coalition Government of the Union
of Burma, which has led a government in exile since the military rejected Aung
San Suu Kyi's 1990 election victory. "The regime may have caused this bomb blast
and then blamed the opposition," he said, quoted by the Reuters news agency.
Nepal
washingtonpost.com
30 Apr 2005 Nepal King Lifts State of Emergency By BINAJ GURUBACHARYA The
Associated Press Saturday, April 30, 2005; 5:35 PM KATMANDU, Nepal -- Nepalese
soldiers shot and wounded five activists on a college campus and authorities banned
protests in parts of the capital on Saturday, as King Gyanendra's decision to
lift a three-month-old state of emergency apparently did little to restore democracy
or ease tensions. Gyanendra imposed emergency rule in the constitutional monarchy
on Feb. 1, after firing the government, seizing absolute power and suspending
civil liberties in a move condemned at home and abroad. He justified the move
by saying the ousted leaders had failed to hold parliamentary elections or quell
a communist insurgency. The government announced on Saturday that the state of
emergency had been lifted. But, despite the move, the king still rules without
an elected government or parliament and there has been no word on the release
of hundreds of political workers jailed under emergency rule. "There is a lot
more the king has to do, like free political leaders and lift all restrictions,
before we can say emergency rule has been totally lifted," said Mahesh Acharya
of the Himalayan country's largest political party, the Nepali Congress. Later
Saturday, authorities stepped up security around Katmandu and banned protests
in parts of Katmandu, even as major political parties prepared for rallies Sunday
to observe May Day _ the traditional labor holiday. Elsewhere, Royal Nepalese
Army soldiers shot and injured five student activists at a college campus in the
town of Mahendranagar, about 400 miles west of Katmandu. An army official in Katmandu
said on condition of anonymity that soldiers raided the college on Saturday after
getting a tip that Maoist insurgents were meeting there. The soldiers fired at
students because they tried to flee, he said, but he acknowledged there were no
rebels on campus. This Himalayan country has been in turmoil since Gyanendra,
55, suddenly assumed the crown in 2001 after his brother, King Birendra, was gunned
down in a palace massacre apparently committed by Birendra's son, the crown prince,
who also died. Ten members of the royal family were killed. Although the constitution
limits emergency rule to three months _ a period expiring Sunday _ the king had
been widely expected to extend it. The surprise lifting of the state of emergency
followed the king's return on Friday from visits to China, Indonesia and Singapore,
where leaders pressed him to restore democracy. On the sidelines of an African-Asian
Summit in Indonesia days ago, Gyanendra met several leaders including Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh of India and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. Annan urged Nepal
to "return to constitutional rule as soon as possible," adding that he had made
this clear to the king. The meeting with Singh was crucial, because India _ a
key arms source for Nepal's fight against the communist insurgency _ suspended
military aid after Gyanendra's power grab. Singh agreed to resume it after Gyanendra
reportedly assured him that Nepal would restore democracy. India's External Affairs
Minister Natwar Singh welcomed Gyanendra's announcement Saturday, but said the
process should move ahead with the release of political detainees, lifting of
media curbs and installation of an interim government representing all parties.
New
Zealand
washingtonpost.com 3 May
2005 New Zealand Boosts Visa Controls By RAY LILLEY The Associated Press Tuesday,
May 3, 2005; 4:22 AM WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- New Zealand's government Tuesday
ordered an overhaul of the way it processes visa applications after admitting
that two former officials from Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime entered the country
_ and that one had applied for residency. "We will act to defend our borders"
against immigration cheats, Prime Minister Helen Clark said after an unnamed former
Iraqi diplomat and his wife were ordered to leave the country. In a separate case,
Immigration Minister Paul Swain ordered that the entry visas granted to a second
Iraqi man and his wife also be revoked, and the couple ordered to leave. Anti-immigration
lawmaker Winston Peters identified the man as former Minister for Agriculture
and Agrarian Reform Amer Mahdi Alkhashali." "He was in Saddam Hussein's government
at the same time that hundreds of thousands of Kurds were losing their lives under
a regime of genocide," Peters told parliament. Swain called a news conference
to admit that an Iraqi man of that name was in the country, traveling on an Iraqi
passport but said he was unable to confirm the man was a former Cabinet minister
or senior official in Saddam's regime. "He's not a security risk ... but clearly
he's a person in the Saddam regime, shouldn't be here and needs to go," Swain
told TV One's "CloseUp" current affairs program. Swain then announced that officials
in New Zealand would immediately begin processing visa applications from people
in what he called 54 "high risk states." He said he had lost confidence in overseas
staff who currently process the visas. Swain did not explain what the category
"high risk states" meant, but said it included Iraq. It emerged later that both
Iraqi men had had their entry visas approved by New Zealand Embassy staff in Bangkok,
Thailand's capital. The embassy in Bangkok processes all visa applications from
Asia and the Middle East, which account for about 90 percent of requests from
54 countries deemed "high risk." It was at the center of corruption charges in
2003, but Swain said Tuesday he had been assured by officials that there was now
no corruption in the Bangkok office. "Clearly there is going to be a further look
into that," he said.
Palestinian Authority
BBC 14 May 2005 Stigma of life
in 'Traitors' Village' By Tim Butcher BBC, Dahaniya In Gaza, a community of
Arabs accused of collaborating with Israel live under Israeli protection. I knew
he was a collaborator, and he knew I knew he was a collaborator, but the 50-year-old
sheikh still danced around the issue. "It is you who said 'collaborator'. I say
I am someone who had to do something because my life was in danger.'' He was looking
at me askance, from under a pristine, white headdress, pulling on a cigarette
as he skilfully delivered this subtle piece of semantic revisionism. Sheikh Shtiwe
Shtiwe Ermillat has said this a thousand times before, I thought to myself, as
our conversation continued. It is here Arabs who helped the Jewish state have
ended up, corralled together in a sort of dusty witness protection programme The
tribal elder was charming, he was candid and, for a brief moment, he was almost
convincing, but I could not help wondering how his reasoning would stand up to
a mob of Palestinians if they ever got a hold of him. Outside his modest single-storey
home I saw the answer. Less than a grenade's throw away, was a high, well-maintained
security fence manned round the clock by heavily-armed Israeli soldiers. Protection
The sheikh and the 350 other Arabs who live in this tiny, dusty corner of Gaza
- Palestinian land occupied by Israel since the 1967 war - have to be protected
by the Jewish state. In the eyes of many Palestinians, the village of Dahaniya
is "the village of traitors'". Arabs who helped the Jewish state have ended
up here, corralled together in a sort of dusty witness protection programme. Some
are Egyptian, Bedouin tribesmen who helped the Israeli army during its 1970s campaigns
in the nearby Sinai peninsula, and others are Palestinians, who sold out, working
as informers for Israel's notoriously unscrupulous Shin Bet spy agency during
the first and second intifadas. Attack No-one from the village is allowed through
the security fence into Gaza any more. Ten years ago a woman from here went to
the market in the closest Gazan village of Rafah. With Israel's transfer this
summer of Gaza to Palestinian control, what is to become of the "village of traitors''?
She was kidnapped, beaten, held incommunicado for a month and only released after
the intervention of senior Israeli intelligence figures. No-one doubts what would
have happened if it had been a man, not a woman. "They would have turned him into
kebab,'' Abed Shtiwe said trying to make a joke. None of the villagers I was with
laughed. I could not help feeling sorry for many of them. Handover In the eyes
of most Palestinians, they sold their souls by working with Israel, but what have
they got in exchange? The right to live in a sandy, litter-strewn village, surrounded
on all sides by hostile Israeli soldiers. Last year the village soccer pitch was
churned into a building site by Israeli tanks. There was no explanation, no apology.
But the Dahaniya question is about to come to a head. With Israel's transfer this
summer of Gaza to Palestinian control, what is to become of the "village of traitors''?
The problem is that not many Jewish Israelis want Arab collaborators moving in
next door A high-level defence ministry committee has convened to consider
all options, but one thing is certain, it will not be safe for all the villagers
to remain. Mohammed Shtiwe, the 17-year-old son of the sheikh, spoke for many
when he said he wanted a future in Israel. "All my life I have lived under Israeli
control. I don't even know any Palestinians well. My future must be in Israel,''
he said. Stigma Tatty though the village is, by the standards of Gaza, it is rather
upmarket. Many of the men are given day passes to enter Israel to work, mostly
as farm labourers. The work is hard and not that well paid, but by comparison
with the Palestinians in Gaza, which is famously crowded and devoid of employment,
the villagers of Dahaniya are well-off. "We were allowed a family day last year
when my cousin from Gaza came here. And when he saw my jeans, he said: 'Those
cost £75. How can you afford jeans that cost £75?'" Mohammed explained. "Sometimes
I speak to them on the phone and they tell me they have no work, no money and
no future. I don't want to be a part of that.'' The problem is that not many
Jewish Israelis want Arab collaborators moving in next door. They might have helped
Israel, but the stigma of being a collaborator is an ugly stain for any community.
'Old Testament-style brutality' Earlier this year, Palestinians elsewhere in
the occupied territories meted out justice to a convicted Arab collaborator. In
front of a large crowd, Muhammad Mansour was beaten, shot at close range in the
side of the head and then the mother of one of the men he betrayed was then called
forward to stab his lifeless corpse and pluck out his eyes. It was a display
of Old Testament-style brutality and I wondered if it might one day be applied
to the villagers of Dahaniya. Many of them, like the 17-year-old Mohammed,
are the sons or grandsons of Arabs who collaborated, so perhaps they would be
let off. But does not the Old Testament say something about the sins of the
father being visited on his offspring?
Thailand
TNA
28 Apr 2005 Prayers, religious ceremony mark mosque massacre anniversary PATTANI,
Apr 28 (TNA) – Islamic leaders and local residents today led a quiet day of
Muslim prayers to mark the first anniversary of the massacre at Krue Se Mosque
in Thailand’s southern border province of Pattani, where 32 suspected Muslim militants
hiding in the mosque were gunned down by the military. Coinciding with the
maulit ceremony to mark the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, today’s event saw
local leaders, tambon officials, members of the Krue Se mosque committee and local
residents from tambon Tanyonglulo conduct a sessions of afternoon prayers for
peace in the troubled southern border region. But despite the peaceful nature
of the event, the suspicions of the security services appear to have been roused,
and a heavy security presence of police and military officers moved into the area
yesterday to ensure strict order. Pol. Maj. Gen. Thani Thawichsri, Deputy Commissioner
of the Provincial Police Region 9, denied that the security services had singled
out the anniversary of the Krue Se massacre as a reason for an increased security
presence, but noted that militants were constantly looking for openings to carry
out attacks.
Uzbekistan
washingtonpost.com
14 May 2005 Uzbek Crowd Storms Prison In Anti-Government Protest At Least 12
Killed In Day of Clashes By Peter Finn Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday,
May 14, 2005; A18 MOSCOW, May 13 -- Widespread resentment over a government campaign
against alleged Islamic extremists in the Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan
exploded into violence Friday when protesters stormed a prison and released thousands
of inmates. Many of the freed prisoners joined in an anti-government revolt in
which at least 12 people had died by day's end. The clashes in the eastern city
of Andijon climaxed with troops opening fire on protesters in a central square
and storming a nearby government building where a number of police officers were
being held hostage, according to news reports, government statements and telephone
interviews with residents. Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic that hosts a U.S.
air base used in the war in Afghanistan, has an authoritarian government that
has tried to suppress all but officially sanctioned Islamic groups. Friday's violence
broke out less than two months after the government of neighboring Kyrgyzstan,
which also has a U.S. base, was toppled by protests that began in the provinces.
Facing one of the most serious challenges to his 15 years of rule, President Islam
Karimov flew to Andijon on Friday, apparently seeking to prevent the unrest from
spreading, reports from Uzbekistan said. Karimov has yet to appear in public in
the city. The riots were sparked by the prosecution of 23 local businessmen on
charges of membership in an illegal group called Akramiya, which supports jailed
Islamic leader Akram Yuldashev. Uzbek authorities also charge that the businessmen
had ties with a larger radical Islamic network called Hizb ut-Tahrir, which seeks
the restoration of the Caliphate, or a super-Islamic state. The government has
linked Hizb ut-Tahrir to a series of bombings last year in Tashkent, the capital.
Activists with the organization insist that they reject violence, although they
propagate vitriolic anti-Western and anti-Semitic views. The government has responded
harshly; carrying a Hizb ut-Tahrir leaflet is punishable by several years in prison.
Protesters fled the square after the shooting Friday, and government forces appeared
to be in control of the area late in the day, though sporadic gunfire continued.
Opposition figures said the death toll was much higher than the 12 reported
by government statements and news agencies. In a statement on national television,
the government said negotiations for the release of the captives had failed and
it was compelled to use force because rioters were also holding women and children
hostage. In statements to local reporters, the protesters denied that they had
seized women and children. Separately on Friday, in Tashkent, a suspected suicide
bomber was shot and killed outside the Israeli Embassy. Uzbek officials later
said the man was carrying a wooden object that guards mistook for explosives as
he approached the embassy. In July 2004, the U.S. and Israeli embassies in Tashkent,
as well as the general prosecutor's office, were targeted by suicide bombers.
Four Uzbeks were killed in those attacks, and seven people, all locals, were injured.
Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Uzbekistan granted
American forces rights to establish an air base, which has been used to support
the Afghan war. The United States also maintains close counter-terrorism and intelligence
cooperation with Uzbek authorities. The Bush administration has praised Uzbekistan
for its cooperation in the war on terrorism. Human rights groups have documented
widespread cases of torture and abuse in the country, which they say have generated
anger against the government of the largely Muslim country. The indicted Andijon
businessmen have denied the charges against them. Their relatives and supporters
had been peacefully protesting outside the courthouse since the trial began in
February. The prosecution of the businessmen, and the closure of their enterprises,
has resulted in the loss of as many as 1,000 jobs, residents told the BBC. As
the trial finished this week, prosecutors called for lengthy prison sentences
for all of the defendants, sparking a wave of anger across the city, according
to Saidzhakhon Zainabitdinov, chairman of a local human rights group. "The prosecutor's
speech caused these huge rallies," Zainabitdinov said in a phone interview from
Andijon. "All the protests became more intense." Early Friday morning, shortly
after midnight, a group of armed men stormed the local prison, freeing at least
2,000 prisoners, including the 23 businessmen, according to Zainabitdinov.
Intense gunfire continued, and by daylight, large groups of armed men were roaming
the streets and had taken control of a number of government buildings in the city
center. There were also reports that a number of soldiers and police were taken
hostage by the protesters, including 10 policemen tied up in the main local government
building. "If the army is going to storm, if they're going to shoot, we are ready
to die instead of living as we are living now," Abduvosid Egomov, one of the freed
businessmen, told the Associated Press from inside a seized government compound
in the city center Friday afternoon. "The Uzbek people have been reduced to living
like dirt." Another one of the freed businessmen, speaking to the Andijon correspondent
for a Russia-based Uzbek news site, called on Russian President Vladimir Putin
to mediate between the protesters and government forces. "We don't want mass
bloodshed and victims," the businessman, who described himself as one of the 23
defendants, told the Ferghana.ru Web site. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov said Friday evening that the situation was stabilizing and was an "internal
matter" for the Uzbek authorities. As well as convicted criminals, the Andijon
prison held many political prisoners who were accused or convicted of Islamic
extremism and links to terrorist organizations. Human rights groups say many of
those swept up in the government's campaign were innocent of the charges or merely
religious dissenters. The arrests, coupled with the area's grinding poverty, have
led to resentment that has further radicalized the population, according to analysts.
"There is acute dissatisfaction with Karimov's regime, and it's fueled by police-judicial
terror against non-sanctioned Islamic movements and very strong poverty," said
Sergei Panarin of the Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow. "If you don't provide
any room for a constitutional opposition, eventually you are going to get an opposition
that has a religious or Islamic character."
Reuters
15 May 2005 Uzbeks Bury Dead After Troops Fire On Protesters By REUTERS
Filed at 7:37 p.m. ET ANDIZHAN, Uzbekistan (Reuters) - Families of hundreds
killed in Uzbekistan when troops opened fire to quell protests buried their dead
on Sunday as witnesses told of bloody mayhem in which women and children were
shot ``like rabbits.'' In a single incident in Andizhan on Friday, witnesses said
soldiers had fired on a crowd including women and children and their own police
comrades who were begging them not to shoot. Hundreds of bodies lay overnight
outside the eastern town's School No. 15 after the massacre until they were removed
in the early hours on Saturday, the witnesses, who did not wish to be named, said.
Islam Karimov, autocratic president of the mainly Muslim Central Asian state,
said troops were given no order to fire in Andizhan. He blamed the violence on
rebels belonging to the outlawed Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Hizb ut-Tahrir
denied involvement. A Russian news agency, meanwhile, reported Uzbek troops
had fired on civilians trying to flee into neighboring Kyrgyzstan to escape the
violence in their homeland. Uzbek troops moved in on protesters on Friday after
armed rebels freed comrades being held in jail during their trial for religious
extremism. They took 10 police hostage and occupied Andizhan's local government
building backed by several thousand sympathizers. ``They shot at us like rabbits,''
a boy in his late teens said, recalling the horror of troops rampaging through
the town square where some 3,000 protesters had rallied to support the rebels.
Two days after the uprising in Uzbekistan's Ferghana Valley, blood and body parts
could still be seen on sidewalks and in gutters in the center of this leafy city
of 300,000 people. The United States, for whom Karimov is a close ally in
the war on terrorism after providing Washington with an airbase in 2001, has urged
the conflicting sides to show restraint. It says political change in the tightly
controlled ex-Soviet state should come only through peaceful means. In Britain,
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw denounced ``a clear abuse of human rights, a lack
of democracy and a lack of openness'' and called on Uzbekistan to allow in the
Red Cross and foreign observers to establish what happened. Tashkent reacted angrily,
Russia's RIA news agency said, saying Uzbek forces had not fired on demonstrators.
Karimov on Saturday said 10 police and troops had been killed and a higher number
of rebels had also died, but he gave no figure for civilians killed. Human
rights campaigner Saidzhakhon Zainabitdinov estimated up to 500 people may have
been killed in the ensuing operation to crush the protests, which would make it
the bloodiest incident in Uzbekistan's post-Soviet history. BURYING BODIES
At one of Andizhan's cemeteries, grave digger Wahhabjon Mominov said on Sunday
he had already dug four graves in the morning to take victims of Friday's violence.
The facade of the two-storey School No. 15 was pockmarked with at least 20 bullet
holes. Pools of wet blood mixed with water and dirt could be seen in the blocked
open drains. A blood-soaked baseball cap lay in bushes. Witnesses said that on
Saturday, when soldiers started removing bodies, a handful of wounded tried to
get away but were shot dead on the spot. ``Those wounded who tried to get away
were finished with single shots from a Kalashnikov rifle,'' said one witness,
a businessman. ``Three or four soldiers were assigned to killing the wounded.''
The bloodshed prompted up to 4,000 people to flee to the closed border with Kyrgyzstan.
``There have been about 1,000 people in the column I was in moving toward the
border,'' Russia's Interfax news agency quoted one of the refugees as saying.
``Uzbek troops shot at us several times although we shouted to them that we are
civilians,'' he said. ``The last time we came under fire was when we were breaking
through to Kyrgyzstan. There were wounded and as far as I know four people were
killed.'' Nearby southern Kyrgyzstan, also part of the Ferghana Valley, is home
to many ethnic Uzbeks and was the starting point for violent protests earlier
this year which led to the overthrow of President Askar Akayev. The Kyrgyz coup
followed the peaceful overthrow of established leaders in Ukraine and Georgia.
The firm rule Karimov exerts on his country would appear to rule out any such
peaceful revolutions taking place in Uzbekistan.
Vietnam
BBC
29 Apr 2005 The legacy of Agent Orange Vietnam doctors believe the effects
of Agent Orange are ongoing Thirty years after hostilities ended between the
US and Vietnam, relations remain strained by one of America's most notorious weapons
during the war, the chemical Agent Orange. The Vietnamese believe that the powerful
weed killer - the use of which was intended to destroy crops and jungle providing
cover for the Vietcong - is responsible for massively high instances of genetic
defects in areas that were sprayed. Nguyen Trong Nhan, from the Vietnam Association
Of Victims Of Agent Orange and a former president of Vietnamese Red Cross, believes
the use of Agent Orange was a "war crime". He told BBC World Service's One
Planet programme that Vietnam's poverty was a direct result of the use of Agent
Orange. "They are the poorest and the most vulnerable people - and that is why
Vietnam is a very poor country," he said. "We help the people who are victims
of the Agent Orange and the dioxins, but the capacity of our government is very
limited." Contaminated areas Campaigners such as Mr Nguyen believe they have been
left with little choice but to resort to legal action, and in 2004 took the chemical
companies that produced Agent Orange to court in the US. But last month an American
Federal District Judge dismissed the case on the grounds that use of the defoliant
did not violate international law at the time. An appeal has been lodged against
this decision. The US sprayed 80m litres of poisonous chemicals during Operation
Ranchhand. There were many Agents used, including Pink, Green and White, but Agent
Orange was used the most - 45m litres sprayed over a 10th of Vietnam. It was also
used - mostly in secret - over parts of neighbouring Cambodia. It's not going
to go away, because it affects a huge number of people in Vietnam Andrew Wells-Dang,
Fund for Reconciliation and Development But Agent Orange in particular was laced
with dioxins - extremely toxic to humans. Dioxins accumulate in the body to cause
cancers. Anyone eating or drinking in contaminated areas then receives an even
higher dose. Spraying stopped in 1971, after more than 6,000 missions and growing
public disquiet. But the ground in many areas of Vietnam remains contaminated
by Agent Orange. A number of people in these areas believe they are victims
of the chemical. One woman said the herbicide had caused a skin disease which
gave her "great suffering". "If the US and Vietnamese governments could care for
people like me, that would be comforting," she added. Another man said his legs
have "wasted away" as a result of Agent Orange. "When I realise I have been contaminated
with poisonous chemicals, and the US government hasn't done anything to help,
I feel very sad, and it makes me cry," he added. "Now I always get severe headaches.
My first child has just died - he had physical deformities. The second one is
having headaches like me." Cancers and disease Food and supplies are still delivered
to victims of Agent Orange. Many were not born when the US sprayed the area -
but there is strong evidence the chemicals are still having an effect. A disproportionately
large number of children in the areas affected are born with defects, both mental
and physical. Many are highly susceptible to cancers and disease. And Vietnamese
doctors are convinced Agent Orange is to blame. Agent Orange was intended to defoliate
the jungle "This is due to the US sprayings," said Dr Hong Tien Dong, village
doctor who has lived in the area all his life. "Before, in this area, the environment
was quite clean. "Now it has become like this." In the late 1990s, a Canadian
study tested soil, pond water, fish and duck tissue, as well as human blood samples,
and found dangerously high levels of dioxin travelling up the food chain to humans.
Dioxin concentrations have been found to be 13 times higher than average in the
soil of affected areas, and, in human fat tissue, 20 times as high. A Japanese
study, comparing areas sprayed with those that were not, found children were three
times more likely to be born with cleft palates, or extra fingers and toes. There
are eight times as many hernias in such children, and three times as many born
with mental disabilities. In 2001, scientists found that people living in an
Agent Orange "hotspot" at Binh-Hoa near Ho Chi Minh City have 200 times the background
amount of dioxin in their bloodstreams. Humanitarian opportunity America "normalised"
relations with Vietnam 10 years ago, and the country has now embraced the free
market. No representative of the US government in Vietnam would talk to One Planet
about Agent Orange. However, in 1984, chemical companies that manufactured the
Agent paid $180m into a fund for United States veterans following a lawsuit. They
did not, however, admit any wrongdoing. Meanwhile in 2004 - at the same time Mr
Nguyen first brought his lawsuit - a joint-US-Vietnamese project to examine the
long-term genetic impact of Agent Orange was cancelled. US Vietnam veterans
won money from Agent Orange makers in 1984 Some Americans in Vietnam fear that
the legacy of Agent Orange is overshadowing the new friendship between the two
countries. "Many of the other obstacles have been dealt with - trade and exchange
and diplomatic relations," said Andrew Wells-Dang, from the Fund For Reconciliation
And Development - an American organisation set up in the 1980s with the aim of
improving relations between the countries. He pointed out that the US has provided
funding for clearing mines that it dropped on Vietnam during the war. "We think
the US should do the same with Agent Orange," he added. "It's not going to go
away, because it affects a huge number of people in Vietnam. "We would see this
as an opportunity for the US to take humanitarian action so that it doesn't become
an obstacle between the countries.".
Europe
Armenia
2
May 2005 www.armenialiberty.org Kocharian May Meet Erdogan In May By Heghine
Buniatian President Robert Kocharian could meet Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan later this month to discuss ways of normalizing relations between Armenia
and Turkey, his spokesman told RFE/RL on Monday. Victor Soghomonian, the presidential
press secretary, did not deny a Turkish newspaper report saying that the two leaders
plan to follow up on their high-profile exchange of letters which was sparked
by worldwide commemorations of the 90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide in
Ottoman Turkey. But he added that “there are no concrete agreements yet” on the
venue and date of their meeting. Citing sources in Erdogan’s office, the “Zaman”
daily reported on Sunday that the meeting is likely to take place in Warsaw on
the sidelines of a summit of Council of Europe member states scheduled for May
15-16. “The high-ranking officials of the two countries will for the first time
discuss the genocide claims face to face,” the paper said. A government source
in Yerevan confirmed that the likelihood of the meeting between is great. Armenian
and Turkish leaders have had sporadic face-to-face encounters in the past but
made no progress towards the improvement of bilateral ties after them. The first-ever
talks between Kocharian and Erdogan would inevitably address the latter’s calls
for the creation of a Turkish-Armenian commission of historians that would look
into the 1915-1918 mass killings of Armenians and determine if they constituted
a genocide. The Turkish premier formally conveyed the offer to Yerevan in a letter
to Kocharian last month. The Armenian leader effectively turned down the offer,
saying Ankara should instead drop preconditions for establishing diplomatic relations
with Yerevan and opening the Turkish-Armenian border. He also suggested that the
two governments set up a commission that would tackle all issues of mutual concern.
Reacting to Kocharian’s letter, Erdogan said the lifting of the Turkish embargo
is conditional on an end to the Armenian campaign for international recognition
of the genocide. In a newspaper interview published on Friday, he clarified that
“political relations” with Yerevan could be established parallel to the joint
genocide study. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, however, was quick to quash
speculation about a major softening of Turkish policy on Armenia. Commenting on
Erdogan’s statement, Gul said Ankara has no plans to reopen the Armenian border
or establish diplomatic ties.
Austria
BBC
15 May 2005 'We should talk more about our past' By Bethany Bell BBC correspondent
in Vienna Austria is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its State Treaty,
which marked the end of 10 years of allied occupation after World War II. The
debate on Austria's Nazi past is still open Despite having been annexed to
Hitler's Third Reich, Austria did not share the fate of post-war Germany. In 1955
it was granted full independence and escaped the yoke of Communism. The anniversary
has re-awakened the emotional debate as to whether Austria has done enough to
confront its Nazi past. On 15 May 1955, the Austrian Foreign Minister, Leopold
Figl, a concentration camp survivor, stepped out on the balcony of the Belvedere
Palace in Vienna brandishing the newly-signed State Treaty. "Österreich ist
Frei" - he declared - Austria is free. It was the end of 10 years of occupation
by Britain, the United States, France and the Soviet Union. Fifty years on, the
event is being marked by a huge party at the Belvedere - thrown by the Austrian
government. Victims or perpetrators? But some Austrians are concerned that
the festivities gloss over Austria's dark Nazi past. Brigitte Bailer from the
Archive for the Austrian Resistance says she sometimes gets angry at the tone
of the official ceremonies. "They leave out what role the Austrians had in the
National Socialist regime. Nobody asks why these occupation forces stayed
in Austria. "I think that's the worst way to present history to take some dates
out of context. That way people are made to believe again that we are just victims,
that history was unjust to the poor Austrians and all the uncomfortable questions
are left out." It was the Allies who described Austria as Hitler's "first victim".
But they also added that the country bore responsibility for its part in the war.
For many years, official Austria clung to the victim description. It can't
only be the question of condemning some people who took part in the Nazi tyranny
and who persecuted Jews and minorities Werner Fasselabend Things began to change
in the 1990s when Chancellor Franz Vranitzky acknowledged responsibility for Austrian
involvement in Nazi crimes. In 1995, a fund to compensate Nazi victims was set
up, and several other restitution packages have since been agreed. The Austrian
President Heinz Fischer told the BBC that coming to terms with a brutal past was
always painful, but that Austria's role as perpetrator was now established beyond
doubt. But shadows of the past remain. Painful memories Jörg Haider's far-right
party has been part of the coalition government since 2000. And the argument over
victim and perpetrator is still very much alive. "It can't only be the question
of condemning some people who took part in the Nazi tyranny and who persecuted
Jews and minorities," said Werner Fasselabend from the ruling conservative party.
"On the other hand you also have the situation that after the war, there wasn't
really freedom for Austria and the Russians came and raped the women." Some Austrians
feel there is too much emphasis on this period. But many others disagree. Recently
there was widespread outcry after a far-right politician questioned the existence
of the gas chambers. Veronika Mandorfer, a Vienna school teacher, said talking
about the past is essential. "There are still too many things that have been covered
up," she said. "My father never told me, but it was only two years ago that
he told his grandchildren that when he was drafted into the army, he passed the
Mauthausen concentration camp. He had never, ever talked about it before." However
things are moving on. Students in Mrs Mandorfer's class have been talking to their
grandparents about the period as part of a school project. "Many people died,"
said 13-year-old Gabi. "They didn't have a chance to live. It wasn't fair. I think
1945 is better because it was the end of the war.".
Belgium
zaman.com
7 May 2005 Armenians Take Initiative to Remove Court Condition in Belgium
By Selcuk Gultasli Published: Saturday Belgian Armenians intensified their activities
to amend the draft bill, which contains a provision for jail sentence and fine,
for those who deny the Armenian "genocide". Claiming that there are too many requirements
for the jail sentence and the fine in the bill, Armenian groups took the support
of 15 senators required to amend the bill. Hence it passed the Parliament and
will be discussed in the Senate and may be sent back to Parliament for re-negotiation.
The news that the draft may be amended increased the discomfort of the Belgian
Turkish society as it was making efforts to stop the present bill. The draft
accepted in Parliament with 108 "yes", 21"abstain," and zero "no" on April 21,
makes the decision of an international court necessary for the penalty to be imposed.
The fact that there is not any court decision that recognizes the Armenian "genocide"
prompted Belgian Armenians to take action. Armenian associations bombarded Belgian
senators with messages for the last two weeks to remove the requirement of court
approval. The signatures of 15 senators, who will set up the debate for the draft
upon the intensified efforts of Armenians, were gathered two days before, on May
5. If 15 signatures had not been gathered, the draft would have been accepted
in Parliament in its original form and court approval would have been required
for the penalty to be imposed. In the new draft, it is highlighted that European
Parliament (EP) decision or any country to enact legislation will be enough for
the ones who deny "genocide" to be imposed penalty. The EP accepted the Armenian
"genocide" with a controversial decision in 1987 and recognized "genocide" with
legislation enacted in France in 2001.
Reuters
8 May 2005 Belgium to put two Rwandans on trial over genocide By REUTERS Filed
at 6:33 a.m. ET BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgium will put two Rwandan men accused
of playing a role in their country's 1994 genocide on trial on Monday under a
controversial war crimes law. Prosecutors accuse half-brothers Etienne Nzabonimana
and Samuel Ndashyikirwa of helping machete-wielding militias kill some 50,000
people and rewarding them with beer. The trial is the latest in Belgium to
concern the brutal ethnic bloodbath that killed 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus
in just 100 days in the former Belgian colony. It is to last seven weeks and call
on some 180 witnesses -- some of them flown in to Brussels from Rwanda. The court
will try the two men under a universal jurisdiction law allowing Belgium to try
war crimes suspects even if they are not Belgian and their crimes were committed
abroad. Prosecutors accuse them of helping the ``Interahamwe'' extremist Hutu
militia by lending them trucks and plying them with beer after the killings, among
other crimes. Nzabonimana and Ndashyikirwa, who were successful businessmen
in their home towns of Kibungo and Kirwa in the country's southeast, insist they
are innocent. Belgium has reformed the law on universal jurisdiction since it
convicted four Rwandans, including two nuns, in 2001, for their role in the genocide.
Lawsuits swamped the courts after that trial, as people filed grievances against
former U.S. President Bush senior and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon among
others, causing Belgium a diplomatic headache. Under the reformed law, the
suspect to be tried must live in Belgium -- which was the case for Nzabonimana
and Ndashyikirwa when they were arrested in 2002.
Cyprus
Zaman.com
28 Apr 2005 Cypriot Greek Confessions over Massacre and Dissolution Cypriot
Greek leader Tasos Papadopulous' "genocide plan" was the final link in a "series
of crimes and confessions" by the Cypriot Greeks against Cypriot Turks and Turkey.
Mihalis Papapetru who was a spokesperson during the Glafkos Klerides period
, said in a statement he gave this month that "State and non-State elements including
me trained students to use weapons in order to kill Turks." Greek Member of Parliament
Hristos Burguridis had pointed out in his statement in December that the attitudes
towards Turks were criminal and said, "I am ashamed of what I did against Turks;
a Turkish woman breast-fed me as a baby." Former member of the National Organization
of Cypriot Combatants (EOKA), Andreas Dimitriu said in regard to the Tashkent
massacre, an example of just one genocide committed against Turks 30 years ago:
"Whatever we did we did with the legitimate forces of the state." Greek Justice
and Public Order Minister Doros Theodoru confessed that the administration had
hampered finding a solution for the Cyprus issue in his statement last month.
In a statement he delivered over the weekend, Former Greek Leader Klerides had
declared that the issue had come to the point of finding a solution in 1973 and
confessed: "If I had said we were reaching an agreement with Turks, there would
not have been a military operation 1974; I made a huge mistake."
France
The New Times (Kigali) 29 Apr
2005 Apologize for Genocide, French Film Directors Tell Paris By James
Munyaneza Kigali Two French filmmakers have accused their government for failing
to own up to its evident dark hand in Rwanda's 1994 Genocide. David Raphael Glucksmann
and Pierre Mezerette, producers of 'Tuez Les Tous' (Kill them all), a movie that
tries to depict the French government's role in the Genocide, say it is time the
current administration under Jacques Chirac recognizes the heinous support its
predecessor regime of Francois Mitterrand gave to the genocidal leadership, which
culminated in the deaths of an estimated one million ethnic Tutsis and Hutu moderates.
The youthful directors, both in their mid-twenties, were addressing a high-profile
audience shortly after the screening of the film at Intercontinental Hotel. Annick
Kayitesi, 25, the only survivor in her family, played a leading role in the making
of the movie. The crowd included Prime Minister Bernard Makuza, cabinet ministers,
MPs, the French Ambassador Dominique Dercherf and other members of the Diplomatic
Corps. "This film is an alarm to our government that it should not continue with
the silence. We hope it will make our President come to Kigali one day and apologize,"
a troubled Raphael told the audience of about 400. The film that is presently
being shown in many corners of the country, premiered in Kigali on the night of
April 7, at Amahoro National Stadium, the day when Rwandans commemorated the eleventh
Genocide anniversary. The film, which was largely shot in Rwanda and bits
in the French capital Paris and UN Headquarters in New York, shows a strong direct
military and political backing the French government gave to both the governments
of Juvenal Habyarimana and Theodore Sindikubwabo, in the execution of the hundred-day
mayhem. It depicts a direct French military involvement in the 1990-94 war
and Genocide, with the first arrival at Kigali International Airport (then Kanombe
Airport) on October 4, 1990 - three days after RPA's invasion - of a contingent
of French soldiers to bolster Habyarimana's forces after he had talked to Mitterrand
by telephone. It shows how the Mitterrand repeatedly denied his forces' involvement
in the war, and yet in reality they were fighting alongside government forces
in Cyumba and Kisaro (then Buyoga) districts in Byumba, Ruhengeri and Kibuye provinces.
The film also blames the slaughter of an estimated 50,000 Tutsis in Bisesero,
Kibuye province - who had for weeks resisted the Interahamwe - on the arrival
of French troops on June 28, 1994, under what was called 'Operation Zone Turquoise'.
"The French government should recognize what it did, come to Kigali and apologize,"
said Mezerette, adding: "The truth is far beyond what we say in the film." Youth,
Culture and Sports Minister Joseph Habineza praised the French producers, saying:
"It is an encouragement and manifestation that there is no problem between the
French and Rwandese peoples. The problem only lies with the French government."
However, French Ambassador to Rwanda, Decherf, said his government was studying
the extent of Paris' role. "The work is being done to clarify the exact responsibility.
There is no denial of the responsibility in principle, we have to see through
the historical truth and what exactly is the extent of the responsibility... this
is a political move," Decherf said. Meanwhile, Joan Wangui reports that the film
producer Raphael Glucksmann said that the idea of producing the film was to show
the world's failure in stopping the Rwandan Genocide and the foreboding French
role in the massacres. "Our film depicts the role that French soldiers played
in training the militia, prior to the Genocide," he said adding that his idea
to produce such a film was to 'inspire fellow Frenchmen to accept their role in
the Genocide and ask for pardon'. Glucksmann together with two members of
his team met President Paul Kagame to discuss more about the film and the signals
it sends to both the Rwandan and French governments. Glucksmann told reporters
that he admitted to President Kagame that France was indeed ashamed of its role
in the Genocide. "I told him boldly that France is ashamed for having participated
in the 1994 Genocide and my idea for the movie was none other than show our role,"
he said. Both governments have been at loggerheads since 1994, and Rwanda will
soon institute a Commission of Inquiry into the French government's role in the
Genocide. Ambassador Dercherf says Paris is ready to cooperate in the investigations.
The film comes in the wake of the production of numerous genocide films that detail
the 1994 Genocide. They include, a Hundred Days, Sometimes in April and Hotel
Rwanda. Their similarity lies on the fact that they all show the failure of the
West in stopping the Genocide. "The only way France can renew and reinforce its
relationship with Rwanda is by first accepting its past mistakes and asking for
forgiveness. Failure to do this will be like building a house on sand, with no
concrete foundation," Glucksmann noted.
www.turkishweekly.net
13 May 2005 Algeria Asks France to Recognize Algerian Genocide Algeria asks France
to admit its responsibility in genocide-like massacres and human rights abuses
in Algeria before the independence. "The paradox of the massacres of May 8, 1945,
is that when the heroic Algerian combatants returned from the fronts in Europe,
Africa and elsewhere where they defended France's honor and interests… the French
administration fired on peaceful demonstrators." Bouteflika said in a speech this
week. French colonial forces mounted an air and ground offensive that lasted for
several days against several eastern cities, particularly Sétif and Guelma, in
response to the independence demonstrations. The Algerian government says the
French offensive left 45,000 people dead in these demonstrations. More than 1.5
million Algerians were killed in the War of Independence. Many were tortured by
the French troops, however Paris has never officially accepted its responsibility
and never apologized from Algeria. Experts say that France has to recognize
massacres in Algeria, if not genocide and must pay compensations to Algeria and
the families of the victims. It marks one of the darkest chapters in the history
of Algeria and France, which ruled the North African country brutally from 1830
until 1962. France's ambassador to Algeria said in February that the Setif massacre
was an "inexcusable tragedy," the most explicit comments by the French state on
the event. "The Algerian people are still waiting for ... the declarations of
the ambassador of France to be followed by a more convincing gesture," Bouteflika
said in his speech. Several remembrance events were held across oil-rich Algeria,
with more than 20,000 people, including ministers, taking part in a march on the
same route protesters took in Setif in 1945. The repression sparked the anti-colonial
movement and a long war of independence, costing the lives of 1.5 million Algerians,
according to the government. “Massacres committed in Algeria is one of the
most vivid examples of genocide in the past” said Dr. Davut Sahiner. “It was worse
than Bosnia masscares or genocide in Hocali” added Dr. Sahiner. "The Algerian
people have always been waiting for France to admit the acts perpetrated during
the colonization period and the liberation war to pave the way for broader and
new friendship and cooperation prospects," Bouteflika said. However Paris rejects
all Algerian calls and ironically question other countries’ human rights records.
LAND MINES Algeria also called on international help in removing millions of land
mines France planted along its borders with Morocco and Tunisia during its war
of independence. "We cannot detect anti-personnel mines with the technical means
at our disposal," Junior Interior Minister Dahou Ould Kablia told an international
anti-personnel mines conference in Algiers. Algeria says it has got rid of 8 million
French mines but still has another 3 million to clear. French Foreign Minister
Michel Barnier said in an interview published on Sunday in Algerian daily El Watan
that both countries needed to "look together at the past, in order to overcome
the chapter most painful for our two peoples", but Barnier did not give any clue
whether France will accept genocide committed in Algeria or not. French officials
do not think that France should pay compensation to the victims of Algerian Genocide.
After seeing its diplomatic and economic influence over Algeria weakened in recent
years as the United States developed more oil interests and power in the region,
France is trying to regain the upper hand. France sees the northern Africa as
‘French influence area’. Many Algerian political figures and historians, who
call the massacre genocide, not only want an apology but demand compensation.
"Sixty years later, France does not recognize its crimes against humanity," Algerian
French-language newspaper La Tribune said on its front page. TENSION Accusations
from Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika that France used similar crematoriums
in Algeria as were used during the Nazi regime have caused tension between two
countries. "The occupiers had chosen the way of genocide and termination. This
went on during the fatal occupation process. Who remembers the shameful crematoriums
that the occupiers built in Guelma? Those crematoriums are the same as the Nazis'
death crematoriums" Bouteflika's messages were read in a panel in Setif University.
Muselier, visiting Algeria to negotiate over French graves, gave a statement in
Algeria saying, "Clarifying the realities is the responsibility of historians
and researchers. Both governments have agreed to encourage research on the issue."
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier had also determined formerly that historians
should be encouraged to examine the period. However France had accepted laws
which blame other countries of being committing genocide. French politicians had
argued that Armenian genocide allegations could not be left to historians. Dr.
Mary Somcan says “French attitude is a clear double-standard”. “France made
many massacres in their colonies. Algerian example is one of the worst one. However
French politicians never accept their responsibility. Strangely they just question
other nations’ mistakes. They blame Americans, British or Germans. They abuse
Armenian issue to prevent Turkey’s EU bid. But it is understood that their hand
are bloody and dirty”. The French Foreign Ministry announced Wednesday that examining
and overcoming the past in the Algerian war and the colonial period would provide
a common history and they believed that this would bring France and Algeria closer
together. The Ministry said that in February the Algerian Ambassador in France
had described the incidents as an "unforgivable tragedy and massacre". No French
President or diplomat mention the word of ‘genocide’ for the Algerian Genocide.
Abdulkerim Gazali, editor of the Algerian newspaper La Tribune, likened France's
occupation of an independent and sovereign Algeria to Nazi Germany's occupation
of many European countries and claimed this was racism. "According to which principles
do the crimes of the French colonial period differ from Nazis?" he asked. "How
dare France refuse to give the same rights to Algeria, when France went on blaming
the post-Hitler Germany and demanding penitence from it?" Compiled by Jan SOYKOK,
JTW News agencies 13 May 2005
Germany
See Turkey
BBC 1 May 2005
Dachau survivors mark liberation The Dachau camp was liberated by US troops
in 1945 Hundreds of people who survived the Dachau concentration camp in southern
Germany have gathered to mark the day they were liberated by US troops. Some 30,000
people died in the camp before it was liberated by US soldiers on 29 April 1945.
Dachau, near Munich, was the first camp to be built by the Nazis in March 1933
and lasted 12 years. The Archbishop of Munich, Cardinal Friedrich Wetter,
said "human dignity had been trampled underfoot" there. Deep emotions During the
ceremony he said that it was not enough to remember but urged people to also take
active part in society to prevent such things from ever happening again. The
camp, which opened two months after Adolf Hitler came to power in January 1933,
served as a prototype for other labour camps. "This ceremony inevitably stirs
up deep emotions in the former prisoners," General Andre Delpech, a French survivor
said. A day after the camp was liberated, on 30 April 1945, Hitler committed suicide
in his bunker in Berlin. The day chosen to mark the events has sparked controversy
among a German Jewish group as it falls on the same day as Passover. During the
Jewish holiday, the faithful are not allowed to leave their home towns meaning
that many could not attend the ceremony.
BBC
2 May 2005 'Hitler's nurse' breaks silence Erna Flegel said Hitler became
paranoid in his final days A survivor of Adolf Hitler's wartime bunker in Berlin
has been tracked down, a German newspaper claims. The Berliner Zeitung relates
93-year-old Erna Flegel's account of the last days of World War II, under the
headline "I was Hitler's nurse". Mrs Flegel said she stayed in the bunker
after Hitler killed himself and was there when Soviet troops arrived. She said
Hitler was so paranoid that he even suspected spies had filled his cyanide capsule
with false poison. From January 1943 until the end of the war, Mrs Flegel's
job was to give medical treatment to Hitler and his inner circle, she told the
paper. She was interviewed by US secret service agents in 1945, but otherwise
has kept silent about her experiences for the past 60 years, the Berliner
Zeitung says. Now, however, she said she had decided to speak out, telling the
paper: "I don't want to take my secret with me to the grave." 'Merciless' mother
Mrs Flegel's story does not challenge what is already known, but does add new
details. She said of Hitler: "By the end, he didn't trust anyone any more - not
even the cyanide capsule he swallowed." She also recalled trying to save the
lives of the six children of Josef Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda chief, but said
his wife Magda, who poisoned them, was "merciless". Mrs Flegel said that after
Hitler's suicide, Goebbels took over as leader, but no-one paid any attention
to him. "His last subordinates shot themselves in succession," she said. "And
those who didn't shoot themselves tried to flee." She said she remained, however.
"I had to look after the wounded." In the newspaper interview, Mrs Flegel described
the atmosphere in the bunker as the noise of approaching Soviet forces grew. "You
could feel that the Third Reich was coming to an end," she said. "The radios stopped
working and it was impossible to get information." Mrs Flegel added that when
the Soviet troops arrived, they were well-behaved and advised her to lock her
door. She said she stayed for several days, and was one of the last people to
leave the bunker.
NYT 8 May 2005
Germans Still Finding New Moral Burdens of War By RICHARD BERNSTEIN ULM,
Germany, May 4 - This attractive town on the Danube River is endowed with dozens
of memorials dedicated to those who suffered in the two world wars, with one memorial
in particular, a group of seven inscribed slabs surmounting a knoll in the main
cemetery, serving officially as Ulm's all-inclusive and all-encompassing memorial
to the victims of Nazism. But there is a local controversy about these memorials,
and it reflects a larger fact of German life. Even now, on the eve of the
60th anniversary of the end of World War II, this country still has not settled
exactly on how to remember the victims, or on whose suffering and losses are entitled
to be commemorated. A small group of young people here has been getting attention
in the local newspapers as it argued, in pamphlets and at public meetings that
the array of Ulm memorials fails to honor one category: those who deserted the
German Army, many of whom were executed during the war. "It's completely obvious
that World War II was a horrific crime," said one of the young people, Johanna
Nimrich, 18. "It's impossible to understand why people who participated in the
war are honored, but those who resisted participation are not." Ms. Nimrich
and the five other young people, who organized around opposition to the American
invasion of Iraq, want to honor the deserters, who, in their view and in the view
that prevails in Germany, were acting morally in response to a war defined by
its immorality. Their demand, that a large work by the artist Hannah Stütz-Mentzel
honoring the deserters be displayed permanently in some public place, is certainly
a local issue, given only modest coverage by Germany's national press. But other
thoughts and arguments have emerged in recent years as well, including an insistence
by historians and others that Germany be allowed to mourn its own suffering in
the war, not least the suffering caused by the Allied bombings. Meanwhile,
also making themselves heard are members of the millions of ethnic German families
who were deported from Eastern European countries like Poland and Czechoslovakia
after the war, and who want public recognition of what they lost. "The trauma
is too familiar, the moral burden weighed and accepted," Jürgen Leinemann, an
essayist for the magazine Der Spiegel, wrote recently. "Now attentions are turning
to Germany's own sufferings." Germany has had a long evolution in grappling with
the war. In the early years, an embarrassed and ashamed wartime generation
dealt with Nazism and the Nazi persecutions very delicately, if at all. "Even
the scholarly scrutiny of the genocide of the Jewish people," Mr. Leinemann wrote,
"was tentative and uncertain during those first three decades." But in the 1960's
and 1970's, powerfully influenced by the war crimes trials of those years, the
generation born during the war began to question its parents' complicity in the
crimes of the Nazis. At the same time, figures like the novelists Günter Grass
and Christa Wolf and student movement leaders like Joschka Fischer, now foreign
minister, demanded a full and frank accounting of Germany's crimes, especially
the persecution of the Jews. And by now, it is fair to say, there is very
little official denial or even avoidance of the full horror of the Nazi crimes,
which are fully taught in German schools and chronicled by hundreds of museums
and exhibits throughout this country. Tellingly in this sense, Germany's end-of-war
commemoration is Sunday, but what is perhaps the biggest related national event
will take place Tuesday when the immense Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
will be officially opened in Berlin. It mainly consists of 2,711 dark gray concrete
steles erected in a cemeterylike field in the heart of reunified Berlin, little
more than a stone's throw from the Brandenburg Gate. The memorial's size and
central location are widely seen here as testimony to the centrality and uniqueness
of the Holocaust among the many crimes of the Nazis, as well as to the willingness
of Germany to accept responsibility, both moral and material, for the Nazis' crimes.
Also tellingly, in the wake of the decision to build the Holocaust memorial,
several groups, including gays and Gypsies, or Roma, who were also persecuted
by the Nazis, have demanded memorials of their own, as have members of families
deported from the East. In this sense, the only thing that is different about
Ulm, a town of more than 100,000 people on the banks of the Danube in southern
Germany, is that it seems to be the only place to have given rise to a demand
that a movement to honor the deserters from the Wehrmacht become part of the public
commemoration. The roots of the Ulm initiative date back 18 years, when a
group of people opposed to the draft in Germany commissioned Ms. Stütz-Mentzel,
a local artist, to create a work dedicated to the deserters. Ms. Stütz-Mentzel
produced a large metal sculpture that showed a series of slabs, from quite small
to quite large, in which the smallest slab initiates a domino effect, causing
the larger slabs to lean over. "The idea is that even the smallest level soldiers
can influence higher ones," she said recently, in her studio. In 1989, Ms.
Stütz-Mentzel and her allies placed the sculpture in a public place on the outskirts
of Ulm where some deserters are believed to have been executed. But the city authorities
ordered her to remove it. As a consequence, for the past 16 years, Ms. Stütz-Mentzel's
work has been stored in the small back garden of a local English teacher, Hildegard
Henseler, where, from time to time, people stop by to see it. Then, a few months
ago, the small group of high school students in Ulm heard about Ms. Stütz-Mentzel's
semi-discarded sculpture. The City Council has rejected the students' demands
that the work be given a public home. The students and their supporters suspect
that is because desertion is still too delicate a subject, especially in a city
like Ulm, home to a large German Army base. But Ulm's mayor, Ivo Gönner, a 52-year-old
Social Democrat, denies that that is the case. "The deserters are included already
in the general monument as victims of the Nazi regime," Mr. Gönner said in an
interview in his office. "It's not so much a matter of deserters, as it is a matter
of principle, not to have more memorials." Others, including the students who
have reignited the debate in Ulm about Ms. Stütz-Mentzel's sculpture, disagree.
"The deserter did not fit, how shall I say it, into our unprocessed history,"
Manfred Messerschmidt, a professor of military history at Ulm University, said.
According to Dr. Messerschmidt, about 22,000 German soldiers were executed for
desertion during the war. Among the deserters who survived was Joseph Ratzinger,
a young soldier who left in the final weeks of the war and more than half a century
later became Pope Benedict XVI. "The deserter, who is a sort of potential
conscience, does not fit in here, and that is disturbing," Dr. Messerschmidt said.
"That is why one doesn't deal with this. That's why no memorials are wanted."
NYT
11 May 2005 Holocaust Memorial Opens in Berlin By RICHARD BERNSTEIN BERLIN,
May 10 - Germany's much debated and long-awaited Holocaust memorial was officially
opened Tuesday here in the very city where the genocide against the Jews was conceived,
planned and administered. "Today we are opening a memorial that commemorates
the worst, the most atrocious of the crimes committed by Nazi Germany, the attempt
to destroy a whole people," said Wolfgang Thierse, president of the German Parliament,
which authorized the construction of the memorial six years ago. The inauguration
ceremony, attended by all the senior members of Germany's government, including
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, took place in a large white tent set up on the edge
of the memorial field itself, only yards from the place where Hitler's underground
bunker was. The ceremony, which lasted two and a half hours, consisted of
speeches, a short film and a medley of Yiddish and Hebrew songs, apparently intended
to remind Berliners of the people and the rich Jewish-German culture that were
destroyed. "The horror touches the limit of our comprehension," Mr. Thierse
said. "This memorial acts on the limits of our comprehension." It will serve,
he continued, "as a place of memory" for future generations, helping them "to
face up to the incomprehensible facts." The Memorial to the Murdered Jews
of Europe, as it is officially called, was designed by the New York architect
Peter Eisenman. It consists mainly of 2,711 gray concrete slabs of varying heights
arranged in a tight, waving grid that extends over more than five acres in central
Berlin, only a couple of hundred yards from the Brandenburg Gate. The debates
over whether to have such a memorial and what form it should take extend back
17 years, when a small group of private German citizens, led by a television journalist,
Lea Rosh, and a historian, Eberhard Jäckel, neither of whom is Jewish, first began
pressing for Germany to honor the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.
Among the rejected proposals was one to inscribe the names of all six million
of the victims on an immense tilted concrete surface. Another was to create a
Holocaust museum. Other ideas involved a memorial not only to the Jews but to
all the victims of Nazism. The decision in the end to build a field of steles
dedicated to the memory of the Jewish victims alone, accompanied by an underground
information center, has not been accepted by everybody, including members of Germany's
small Jewish community. Reflecting the continuing disagreements, Paul Spiegel,
the president of the Central Council of the Jews in Germany and a speaker at the
opening ceremony on Tuesday, expressed what he called "reservations" about the
memorial, saying that it was "an incomplete statement." Specifically, Mr. Spiegel
said, by not including non-Jewish victims, the memorial suggests that there was
a "hierarchy of suffering," when, he said, "pain and mourning are great in
all afflicted families." In addition, Mr. Spiegel criticized the memorial for
providing no information on the Nazi perpetrators themselves and therefore blunting
the visitors' "confrontation with the crime." But in a partial response to Mr.
Spiegel, Mr. Eisenman, who followed him to the podium, said, "It is clear that
we won't have solved all the problems - architecture is not a panacea for evil
- nor will we have satisfied all those present today, but this cannot have
been our intention." By far the most touching moment of the inaugural statement
was a quiet speech by Sabina van der Linden, who came with her husband, children
and grandchildren from Australia to represent the victims, or, as she put it,
to be "the voice of the lucky few, the voice of the survivors." "Try to imagine
me not as the elderly woman before you, but as an 11-year-old girl from a small
town in Poland," she said. "As an 11-year-old child, I witnessed unbelievable
cruelty." Ms. van der Linden described how she and her mother tried to hide when
the Nazis began to select Jews for deportation, but they were found and separated
and her mother was taken away, never to be seen again. She lost her father
and her brother as well, she said. The medley of Hebrew and Yiddish songs that
followed the speeches was sung by Joseph Malovany, cantor of the Fifth Avenue
Synagogue in New York, accompanied by the choir of the White Stork Synagogue in
Wroclaw, Poland, and by the Lower Silesian German-Polish Philharmonic Youth Orchestra.
Italy
AP
3 May 2005 Italian Court Upholds Bombing Acquittals ROME -- Italy's
highest criminal court on Tuesday upheld the acquittals of three people accused
in a 1969 Milan bank bombing that ushered in a period of violence in Italy. The
Court of Cassation rejected a request to reopen the so-called "Piazza Fontana"
trial and ordered the victims' relatives to pay court expenses, putting an
end to a case that has fascinated Italians for 36 years. Judge Francesco Morelli
read the verdict aloud in the court's second penal section. The bombing blew apart
a bank, leaving 17 dead and dozens more injured. It triggered a period of violence
between extremist right-wing and left-wing groups that stretched into the 1970s
and 1980s. The defendants, Delfo Zorzi, Carlo Maria Maggi and Giancarlo Rognoni,
former members of the neo-Fascist group Ordine Nuovo, were originally convicted,
but the conviction was overturned last year by a Milan court. The request
to reopen the trial yet again was made by the Milan prosecutor and victims' relatives.
State Prosecutor Enrico Delehaye recommended upholding the court decision to acquit,
arguing that there was nothing illogical in the court's reasoning. "The relatives
are nauseous and I, too, am tired," Federico Sinicato, an attorney representing
the families, was quoted as saying by the ANSA news agency. "It's another piece
of history that's covered by mystery." Zorzi was accused of having made the bomb,
while Maggi and Rognoni were accused of planning and coordinating the attack.
Maggi said Tuesday he planned to celebrate the verdict. "Notwithstanding the infamous
accusations that followed me for years, I have always had my patience, which I'll
drink to tonight," ANSA quoted Maggi as saying. Since 1979, Zorzi has lived in
Japan, where he married a Japanese woman and gained citizenship. Japan consistently
refused to extradite him.
