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Nuclear dangers

Monday, November 7, 2005

A Sense Of Foreboding: German Reactions to Ahmadinejad
BY Matthias Küntzel

Persistent prejudice and racism

The Wall Street Journal        

October 28, 2005
   

The Booksellers of Tehran
By MATTHIAS KUNTZEL
October 28, 2005

Every book fair exhibits bestsellers. But anti-Semitic bestsellers? And
in Germany, of all places?

Last week at the Frankfurt Book Fair, I happened to find myself in the
International Publishers section and was simply astonished. At the stand
of the Iranian publishers, in plain view, was the text that influenced
Hitler's Holocaust fantasies like no other: "The Protocols of the
Learned Elders of Zion," published in English by the Islamic Propagation
Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The first page of the
tract makes clear that Israel is the target of this new edition. It
shows a snake made of triangles, enclosing an area labeled "Greater
Israel" that includes large areas of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan,
Iraq, parts of Turkey and northern Saudi Arabia. Each triangle,
according to the annotation, symbolizes the "Freemason's Eye,"
supposedly a "symbol of Jewry."

A few steps farther on, the second most important classic of modern
anti-Semitism was on display: Henry Ford's "The International Jew," in a
200-page abbreviated version, published by the Iranian "Department of
Translation and Publication, Islamic Culture and Relations
Organization." It was interesting to read the numerous footnotes that
the Iranian publisher had added. For example, Salman Rushdie's "Satanic
Verses" is presented as the latest example of the viciousness of Jewish
slanders.

A third anti-Semitic screed caught my attention for its gaudy cover: A
red Star of David over a gray skull and a yellow map of the world. Its
title was "Tale of the 'Chosen People' and the Legend of 'Historical
Right,'" written by Mohammad Taqi Taqipour. In his foreword, the author
is certain of another "final solution": Given the "global Islamic
movement," Israel will soon be destroyed.

The distribution of such texts is prohibited in Germany. The failure of
those responsible for the Frankfurt Book Fair is doubly serious because
only last year the exhibition made headlines for presenting anti-Semitic
texts. Then as now, the fair's directors informed the prosecutor's
office only after visitors complained. Perhaps the director of the fair,
Jürgen Boos, will be more careful next time. But does more careful
supervision address the real problem?

At the heart of the real problem is an Iranian policy that could hardly
be more authentically represented than through the "Protocols." "We
present this book," reads the Iranian foreword, "to expose the real
visage of this satanic enemy," to "burn and wholly destroy...this
deadly, cancerous tumor." In Iran this pamphlet provides legitimacy to
the longed-for destruction of Israel. Iranian state TV instills a
delusional hatred of Jews into millions of viewers with anti-Semitic
movie series. And it's not just all talk. Billions are spent to advance
nuclear programs and the Shahab 3 missile, which could deliver a nuclear
payload to Israel. In the meantime, the secret services escalate the
terror against Israel by supporting Hamas and Hezbollah.

Of course, you wouldn't hear a word about this at the Book Fair.
Instead, Germany and Iran continue what is so erroneously called a
"critical dialogue." They sit together and chat politely about Islam and
culture, even as the Germans are well aware that the people they are
talking so nicely with want to destroy Israel. It is an essential
characteristic of this "critical dialogue" that no one talks precisely
about this.

No wonder, then, that German exports to Iran rose in 2004 by a record
33%; no wonder then that both countries are so interested in presenting
a positive image of Iran. In Frankurt, there was supposed to be no sign
-- really none -- of the hate propaganda that the regime exports around
the world. It could have worked beautifully had an Iranian publisher not
packed a few too many books onto the shelves, and had I not made it
public. It was pure chance that the attempted deception failed this
time.

The most shocking part is not that something was found on the shelves in
Frankfurt that shouldn't have been there. What is shocking is that just
as Hitler's utopia of "German peace" was conditioned on the
extermination of the Jews, today the mullahs' idea of "Islamic peace" is
conditioned on the elimination of Israel. Just on Wednesday, Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking at a Tehran conference called
"The World without Zionism," said Israel should be "wiped off the map."

So the real scandal is the fact that Germany -- instead of leading the
fight against anti-Semitism, which should be its historical duty! -- is
promoting and supporting the mullah's camouflage -- politically and
culturally.

It is not enough to remove compromising materials from the Iranian
shelves; that only perfects the disguise. A different conclusion seems
necessary to me: I mean the exclusion of "official" Iran from the fair
as long as its policies are oriented around the "Protocols." Instead,
the Persian section of the Frankfurt Book Fair should become a safe
forum for exile Iranians. As long as literature is bound by an ethos of
truth, is there any other way?

Mr. Küntzel is a political scientist in Hamburg and author of "Djihad
und Judenhass" (Jihad and Jew-hatred), published in 2002 by Ça Ira
Publishers. Belinda Cooper translated this article from the German.
      URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113046423225782130.html

Ugly Images of Asian Rivals Become Best Sellers in Japan

Premodern massacres

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD (NYT) 863 words
Published: November 17, 2005

Archaeologists and forensic experts in Guatemala have made a grisly discovery among the ruins of an ancient Maya city, Cancuén.

In explorations during the summer, they found as many as 50 skeletons in a sacred pool and other places, victims of murder and dismemberment in a war that destroyed the city and, it seems, served as a beginning of the collapse of the classic period of the Maya civilization. The precipitous decline of the Maya is one of the enduring mysteries of American archaeology.

As the scale of the massacre became apparent, the archaeologists called on Guatemalan forensic investigators for their experience with mass burials of modern war. The team, established in 1996 to excavate the mass graves from Guatemala's civil war, has also analyzed sites in Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda.

Arthur A. Demarest, an archaeologist at Vanderbilt University who directed the excavations, described the discovery yesterday in an announcement by the National Geographic Society and in an interview by telephone from Guatemala City.

''This is probably the most important thing I've ever discovered,'' said Dr. Demarest, who has explored Maya ruins since the 1980's.

In a gruesome departure from what had been normal Maya warfare, he said, the conquerors -- not yet identified -- did not spare the city to rule it as a vassal state.

Around A.D. 800, they methodically destroyed the palace and monuments and rounded up the king and queen of Cancuén and members of the court, men, women and children. They killed them en masse, mostly by lance thrusts and ax blows to the neck or head. Most of their mutilated bodies were dumped into the palace pool or buried in shallow graves.

''After this tragic and violent event, unlike any yet discovered at a classic Maya site,'' Dr. Demarest said, ''the city of Cancuén was completely abandoned, as were many other cities downstream'' on the Pasión River.

The river was a major trade route through the jungle and the source of Cancuén's wealth in the eighth century. Within 10 years of Cancuén's fall, the other river cities were abandoned, with the exception of Seibal. The displacement of people, Dr. Demarest said, had repercussions throughout the Maya lands, eventually contributing to the end of the classic period, which extended from 300 to about 900.

David A. Freidel, a specialist in Maya archaeology at Southern Methodist University who was not involved in the research, agreed that the extermination of a vanquished royal family and nobility was a sharp departure in Maya warfare in the classic period. A defeated ruler might be executed, he added, but not the entire palace court.

''This is the kind of extreme violence that is characteristic of Maya civilization in the collapse period,'' Dr. Freidel said.

The initial discovery of the jumble of thousands of bones was made by two Guatemalan archaeologists, Sylvia Alvarado of the University of San Carlos and Tomás Barrientos, co-director of the Cancuén project, who is also affiliated with Vanderbilt.

A special grant from the National Geographic Society has enabled the project to continue the forensic studies. The research will include DNA tests of the remains to determine if, as the archaeologists suspect, most of the victims were members of the extended royal family.

The investigators have concluded that the bones uncovered so far in the mud at the pool belonged to at least 31 individuals. The king and queen were found in shallow graves 80 yards away. More than a dozen other skeletons, some also dismembered, were dug up north of the palace.

The spring-fed pool, lined with masonry and covering 90 square yards, was part of a network of channels in the sprawling palace complex. They were presumably sacred bodies of circulating water.

By murdering the elite and placing their broken bodies in the ceremonial waters, Dr. Demarest speculated, the conquerors were ''killing the city ritually.''

Another peculiarity, he noted, was the respect the victors seemed to have shown for their victims. They took the trouble to bury them with their finest robes and adornments, an abundance of jades, necklaces of jaguar fangs and rare shells.

The king, Kan Maax, was buried in full regalia and a necklace bearing his name and title. He was the son of Cancuén's greatest ruler, Taj Chan Ahk, who had died in 795.

''What we have here is a shift in studies of the Maya collapse,'' Dr. Demarest said. ''Broad theories are being replaced by specifics turned up by archaeology.''
 

The Legacy of Nuremberg

ZDF German Television film (in German)

On Bosnia and Iraq

On Bosnia and Kosovo

On Soviet Gulags

VORKUTA, Russia This broken-down Arctic coal town does not offer much when it is comes to economic prospects. The mayor works with what he has.

"My dream is to build a gulag," the mayor, Igor Shpektor, declared the other day in an outburst that stung like the bitter chill of late May in a place whose history is inseparable from the Soviet Union's notorious system of penal labor.

He meant a gulag for tourists. "Extreme tourism," he explained.

Then he spun an improbable vision of hard times and hard bunks, where tourists could eat turnip gruel and sleep in wooden barracks in a faux camp surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers, patrolled by soldiers and dogs.

"Americans can stay here," he went on. "We will give them a chance to escape. The guards will shoot them" - with paint balls, naturally, not bullets.

Whether Shpektor's idea is madness or an act of civic desperation is hard to say, but reaction to the idea, which he first floated in 2003 during a town meeting that included survivors of Vorkuta's camps, has been mixed.

"I think it is sacrilege," said Tatyana Andreyeva, a teacher who conducts expeditions for schoolchildren to the ever-disappearing remains of Vorkuta's camps.

"It is worse than sacrilege," said Yevgeniya Khaidorova, co-director of the local branch of Memorial, the human rights organization that has done more than any other to chronicle the horrors of the gulag.

Shpektor, though, is not easily daunted. He is blunt and brusque, governing this city with an authoritarian fist and a mercurial temper. He publicly excoriated aides at a parade honoring children and border guards and furiously berated a group of foreign visitors for arriving late for a meeting with him.

A dictatorial will might have been enough for Stalin to build the gulag - the vast networks of camps that swallowed millions during the Great Terror of the 1930s and afterward, often for little more than offending the man in charge - but Shpektor faces hurdles Stalin could never have imagined.

"We need investment," he said, articulating what could prove to be the project's biggest hurdle.

The most significant foreign investment in Vorkuta since the collapse of the Soviet Union, after all, has been a program by the World Bank to relocate people out of here, encouraging them to abandon the Far North for better prospects elsewhere.

Vorkuta, a city built by gulag labor in the tundra about 1,900 kilometers, or 1,200 miles, northeast of Moscow and 160 kilometers above the Arctic Circle, is slowly dying, and those who remain in many cases cannot afford to leave.

A Soviet-era sign that remains atop a central building exhorts people to mine more coal, the resource that first attracted the gulag's architects in the 1930s and resulted in forced labor by two million prisoners before the camps shut down in the 1950s.

The mines, however, are closing.

There were once 13, arrayed in settlements around Vorkuta like the hours of a crazy clock. Only six still operate. The other settlements have been abandoned to the Arctic elements, their services cut and their buildings intentionally gutted or leveled, lest the truly desperate try to reoccupy them. In 1990, just before the Soviet implosion, 217,000 people lived here; today there are about 130,000.

Shpektor's plans remain vague, but he cited one of the abandoned settlements as a prime spot for his gulag. It is called Uzhny - which means, simply, Southern - and was one of 132 camps that existed in and around Vorkuta at the gulag's peak.

It stands on a bend of the Vorkuta River, abutted by a looming escarpment and marred by both the detritus of the old Soviet economics and the new Russian economics. A recreational park still operates nearby. Or did - a recent flood swept away most of the park's facilities.

Shpektor said he had blueprints for his gulag camp, but neither he nor his aides produced them.

The idea generally, he explained, was to recreate the sensation of Arctic imprisonment.

"It should look like the Stalin camps," he said, "so that people today can understand what those prisoners went through."

He brushed aside questions of whether the idea would offend.

"People should see what should not be repeated again," he said.

Plus, once here, visitors might use the camp as a base for trekking, hunting or fishing in the tundra around Vorkuta. There is precedent of a sort. Outside of Perm, a city in the Urals, a group has preserved the remains of Perm-36, the only camp of the gulag system that remains more or less intact.

A few years ago they began to offer a handful of rooms for rent, but mostly for scholars and mostly to raise money for preserving the site as a reminder of a past not often discussed in Russia today.

Andreyeva, the teacher, welcomed any effort to recognize the Vorkuta's grim history, but she accused the mayor of hypocrisy, saying that almost nothing, officially, had been done to preserve the remnants of the camps that were here.

She would like to see a museum built. So far the only acknowledged memorial to the gulag's victims in Vorkuta is a weed-choked graveyard, near the abandoned settlement called Industrial, where 53 prisoners were shot and buried after an uprising in 1953.

A theme camp is different, though. "It is like restoring Buchenwald," Andreyeva said.

The gulag is not Shpektor's first outlandish proposal. In 2001, he created a stir with a proposal to open Russia's first legal brothel.

Political opposition to prostitution and a failure to attract investors doomed the idea. He also dreams of using a nearby military airfield, built for the Soviet Union's space program, as a layover for trans-Arctic passenger flights.

That idea, too, has so far failed to attract investors.

With the mines privately owned and managed, and not sustained by the state, the need to diversify Vorkuta's economy is indisputable.

Vorkuta will not survive otherwise, Shpektor said.

"Capitalism in its worst form," he said, "has come to this place."

On Saddam Hussein's trial

See the following items on Turkish politics and the Armenian genocide:

Wall Street Journal, Page One; October 27, 200

Turk-Armenian Fight Over WWI History Goes to a U.S. Court

Massachusetts Law Sparks A Free-Speech Debate About Teaching 'Genocide'

By KARA SCANNELL

Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

October 27, 2005; Page A1

Nearly a century ago, perhaps a million or more Christian Armenians were slaughtered by Muslim Turks. It ranks among history's major instances of genocide.

 Or is "genocide" the wrong word?

 For generations, Turks and Armenians have argued the point. Armenians say it was genocide, pure and simple. Some Turks respond that the deaths were a tragic byproduct of World War I and that both Turks and Armenians died.

 Now, a Turkish group wants to settle the issue, American-style: in court.

 Yesterday in U.S. District Court in Boston, two public high-school teachers, one student and the Assembly of Turkish American Associations filed suit challenging a Massachusetts statute that uses the word "genocide" to describe the Armenian deaths. The law sets guidelines for teaching about human rights in the state. The lawsuit argues that the state violates the plaintiffs' free-speech rights by excluding from the curriculum a view of events more favorable to the Turks.

 In 1915, during World War I, the Ottoman Empire under the Young Turk government sided with Germany against the Allies. Countless Armenians were killed or forced off their land. Many starved to death in the desert.

GENOCIDE

 Armenian groups say it was a concerted effort to force Christians out of the predominantly Muslim empire. Turkish groups say that the Armenians were collaborating with the Allies.

 The legal spat in Massachusetts has its roots in a Thanksgiving dinner when two state politicians who are brothers of Irish descent decided that students in the state should learn more about human-rights violations. Their particular interest was the Irish potato famine in the mid-1800s, which killed hundreds of thousands of people. Many Irish people blame British policies for the famine.

 Because the brothers, Steve and Warren Tolman, grew up in Watertown, Mass. -- home to one of the largest Armenian populations in the U.S. -- they had heard horror stories from Armenian families for years. They sought to include the killings in the bill.

 "It was under the guise of 'Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it,' " says Steve Tolman, who is now a state senator. The statute, passed in 1998, says the Massachusetts Department of Education should develop guidelines for a curriculum that discusses slavery, the Irish famine, fascism in Italy, the Holocaust and other human-rights violations. The list includes a specific reference to "the Armenian genocide."

 When the education department started writing the guidelines, early versions provided teachers with the contact information for organizations sympathetic to the Turkish view. But after protests from Armenian groups those references were stripped out.

 The resulting guidelines represent a free-speech violation, the lawsuit contends. "Shutting one side off from the discussion and taking a place away at the table is unconstitutional," says Harvey Silverglate, a First Amendment lawyer who is advising the Turkish Associations.

FURTHER READING

 The Numbers Guy:1 Read more about the controversy surrounding the number of Armenians killed in Turkey.

 The debate has nagged at Turkey over the years as it seeks to join the European Union. Several EU countries have pressured Turkey to acknowledge the killings as genocide. Turkey's official position is that, while the deaths were horrific, they weren't genocide. Although a 1986 report adopted by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights labeled the killings genocide, the U.N. hasn't taken an official position on the dispute.

 A U.N. convention officially defines genocide as acts "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." Webster's New World Dictionary, Fourth College Edition, defines it as "the systematic killing of, or a program of action intended to destroy, a whole national or ethnic group."

 The U.S. government, which considers Turkey an important ally, doesn't call the Armenian deaths genocide. In April, on the 90th anniversary of the killings, President Bush called them a "terrible event" and a "human tragedy."

 The Massachusetts case isn't the first time the issue has ended up in a U.S. court. This month, French insurer AXA agreed to pay $17 million, without admitting wrongdoing, to settle claims brought by descendants of Armenians killed in 1915. The descendants said a company later bought by AXA failed to pay off life-insurance policies to heirs of Armenian victims. Mark Geragos, the celebrity lawyer who defended Scott Peterson this year in his well-publicized murder trial, represented the policyholders. Mr. Geragos, who is of Armenian descent, called the settlement an important step toward "our ultimate goal, which is for Turkey and the U.S. to officially acknowledge the genocide." AXA says it doesn't take a position on the issue.

 At one point the Massachusetts guidelines included a list of four resources from the Turkish side, including the Embassy of Turkey in the U.S. This came at the urging of the Turkish American Cultural Society of New England. Its president, Erkut Gomulu, wrote to the education department in 1999: "There is no academic consensus that there was in fact a deliberate plan of genocide against the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire."

 Then four regional Armenian National Committees of Massachusetts sent a joint letter to the governor and issued a press release demanding the removal of "racist sources" from the guide, referring to them as "genocide denial." The final guidelines include references only to four Armenian groups. Negotiations with Turkish groups broke down this year and the groups decided to sue, says Mr. Silverglate.

 David Driscoll, the Massachusetts commissioner of education, says his hands are tied because of the statute's specific reference to "Armenian genocide." "If the legislation said the world is flat and we had to implement it, we'd have to do it," he says. However, teachers may approach the subject any way they want, according to Mr. Driscoll.

 James Peyser, chairman of the state Board of Education, who is named in the suit, says he's willing to consider other "academically sound" materials about the events but "I don't think we're in a position to simply cite a Web site that says it didn't occur."

 Mr. Silverglate, the lawyer, argues that since the Turkish groups' materials were at one point included in the teachers' guide, it's censorship to later remove them. He's basing that on a 1982 Supreme Court decision that says once a book is admitted into a library on academic grounds, it can't be removed for improper reasons. To do so violates the First Amendment of the Constitution, the court said.

 "The whole point is that it is an issue for a free marketplace of ideas to resolve," says Mr. Silverglate.

 Dikran Kaligian, chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America's Eastern Region, says "presenting alternate viewpoints is fine if they have some kind of legitimate basis to them." He says Turkish groups wanted to include "Web sites that are mouthing the official Turkish position" and not academic, peer-reviewed resources.

 Write to Kara Scannell at kara.scannell@wsj.com2

Seminar on 1915 Massacre of Armenians to Go Ahead

BBC News: Armenian Forum Ban Splits Turks

The following items concern the on-going genocide in Darfur:

 

WHY TIME IS RUNNING OUT IN DARFUR.

Now or Never
by Eric Reeves
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 11.28.05

hat will happen after humanitarian organizations leave Darfur? The question grows more relevant daily. For much of 2004, humanitarian groups ramped up their operations in Darfur. These efforts temporarily blocked the genocidal aims of the Sudanese government from coming to full fruition. Throughout 2003 and 2004, government-backed militias terrorized Darfur's African tribal populations, evicting them from their villages and cutting them off from their livelihoods. Many ended up in refugee camps, where only the efforts of humanitarian groups have allowed them to stay alive. Sudan's leaders would like nothing more than to see these groups leave the country, so that disease and malnutrition can finish the work the militias started three years ago.

They may soon get their wish. There is considerable evidence that many humanitarian organizations are on the brink of withdrawing from Darfur--or at least suspending operations. An upsurge in violence against humanitarian workers has pushed many groups to the very limit of tolerable risk. The consequences of such a withdrawal will be stark: hundreds of thousands dead. As a result, the reality facing America and its allies is simple: If we really believe that something should be done to save Darfur, then we have to do it now. Soon, it will be too late to do anything at all.

 

ow likely is humanitarian evacuation? For one thing, withdrawals have already begun in West Darfur. Kofi Annan reports that the United Nations withdrew "non-essential" staff from the region in October and that some international humanitarian organizations did so as well. Aid workers have told me of subsequent quiet withdrawals from West Darfur and elsewhere. Sometimes these evacuations are also noted publicly, as in a recent Darfur report by Refugees International:

 

According to the U.S. Agency for International Development, due to rising insecurity ... on September 25, 2005 three NGOs evacuated their staff from Shangil Tobayi, North Darfur, reportedly leaving the town without an international humanitarian presence. A week earlier Refugees International (RI) had witnessed the site director for one of the NGOs sending three of her staff home to Europe.

 

Eighty-one NGOs and thirteen U.N. agencies currently operate in Darfur, according to the latest U.N. data. These groups have evacuation plans defined by varying contingencies and thresholds for implementation. A year ago, for example, Save the Children UK withdrew its non-Sudanese staff and suspended all operations in Darfur following the deaths of several workers in two different incidents (one was a land-mine detonation). But no matter what the threshold for evacuation, the precipitating scenarios are daily becoming more likely.

Attacks on humanitarian workers and their convoys have been most frequent in West Darfur, and this is the region Annan explicitly invoked when he warned the U.N. Security Council in his November report on Darfur that "the looming threat of complete lawlessness and anarchy draws nearer." All roads leading out of the regional capital Geneina are off-limits to U.N. humanitarian personnel. Independent aid organizations use these roads only occasionally and on a highly selective basis. Humanitarian groups simply cannot be expected to operate in such an environment, even as their skills and oversight are critical for the work of saving civilian lives.

Meanwhile the Janjaweed have been appearing in ever more brazen and threatening fashion inside Geneina itself. Fighting has been reported within the city, as well as between Arab militia groups immediately northeast of town. Geneina airport, the only significant airport in West Darfur, is being actively used by helicopter gunships of the Khartoum government, evidently in support of its escalating military offensive against insurgents in the Jebel Moun area to the northeast.

More ominously, sources on the ground report that the Geneina airport has been surrounded by dug-in mortars and artillery. Geneina is only about 10 miles from the Chad-Darfur border; and as tensions between Chad and Sudan escalate, there is speculation that in the event of a significant military confrontation, the Sudanese government will either seize the airport or destroy it by shelling to prevent its seizure by Chad's army. Either way, this would leave humanitarian groups without a means of getting out. Facing the possibility that they will soon be stranded, it's no surprise that humanitarian organizations are considering a preemptive departure.

Across Darfur, humanitarian access is more restricted than it has been since April 2004, well before aid groups ramped up their operations following the July 2004 U.N. agreements with Khartoum. There are simply more and more places humanitarian workers can't go, forcing many residents either to flee toward already overcrowded camps or go without aid. The African Union force in Darfur, which has no mandate to protect civilians or humanitarian workers, can neither secure humanitarian corridors nor provide adequate military escorts to humanitarian convoys. The growing number of attacks on aid workers, even those of the International Committee of the Red Cross, reflect the understandable belief by all combatants that the international community does not care enough about its humanitarian operations to protect them appropriately.

On top of this, relief efforts in Darfur are beginning to suffer from donor fatigue, providing those who wish to exit a ready excuse for withdrawing international staff and operations. According to Reuters, "donors are becoming more reluctant to pay for a never-ending emergency and are starting to reduce aid[.] ... Narinder Sharma, a U.N. official in Darfur, said aid agencies were already phasing out their activities and any decrease in funding would spell disaster for millions of people."

 

he evacuation of humanitarian workers essentially means the withdrawal of international staff; very few of the Sudanese nationals who make up approximately 90 percent of the more than 12,000 aid workers in Darfur would be withdrawn. But many of the Sudanese left behind would be intensely, and rightly, fearful for their physical security: The Khartoum government has made no secret of its contempt for international aid efforts, and reprisals against the Sudanese humanitarian workers who have assisted in these efforts would probably be brutal. As a result, they are likely to stop working in the event that their organizations withdraw; and humanitarian operations would almost certainly come to a standstill.

Even if Sudanese nationals were able to courageously continue some operations, health care in Darfur would be crippled. Medical supplies could no longer get through to clinics, and treatment of complicated medical conditions and injuries would cease. (The doctors capable of performing such procedures are virtually all foreigners.) In the crowded camps, maintenance of latrines, which are quite alien to most Darfuris, would end, as would other aggressive steps that have been taken to avert outbreaks of cholera and dysentery; we would almost certainly see outbreaks of these destructive diseases sooner rather than later. Other diseases, such as malaria and measles, that humanitarian groups have managed to keep under control in the camps would similarly go undetected and untreated. In a short time disease would become a devastating source of human destruction.

Further, many of the pumps that supply water to dense concentrations of displaced people, in areas that do not have sufficient water for a fraction of these populations, depend upon diesel-powered engines. If humanitarian workers withdraw, it is unlikely that fuel would reach the pumps to keep water flowing. One humanitarian group reports that it recently came within two days of running out of fuel at one large camp; and this is with highly resourceful international workers and communications abilities still in place. Water is critical to life in this extremely hot and arid region (it is currently the dry season). Thousands of people would quickly perish for lack of water in the event of evacuation, and those who drink untreated surface water near the camps would be exposed to a fearsome range of diseases. Those leaving the camps in search of water--or food, or medical assistance--would become vulnerable to the relentlessly marauding Janjaweed.

The first to die will be malnourished children under five years of age, especially those who presently require the assistance of specialized feeding centers. But these casualties will only be harbingers of greater death, both in the overcrowded camps, which are again swelling because of new violence, and throughout the vulnerable rural areas where people are increasingly unable to feed themselves. The United Nations currently estimates that there are almost 3.5 million conflict-affected civilians in Darfur, nearly all of them in need of food assistance. And while the United Nation's World Food Program has performed impressively, moving 57,000 metric tons of food into the area in October, this food simply cannot be delivered to areas that humanitarian workers cannot reach. Indeed, if humanitarian operations disintegrate, it is difficult to see how food will be delivered at all.

 

wo months ago Jan Egeland, head of U.N. humanitarian operations, warned that if insecurity "continues to escalate, if it continues to be so dangerous on humanitarian work, we may not be able to sustain our operation[.] ... It could all end tomorrow--it's as serious as that." A year ago, when there were a million fewer conflict-affected people in Darfur, Egeland warned that in the event of humanitarian evacuation as many as 100,000 could die every month. Privately there was much scorn for this estimate. But as humanitarian withdrawal begins in Darfur, with surging violence that might at any moment spur full-scale evacuation, there can be no scorn for Egeland's estimate now. Hundreds of thousands of people are already beyond humanitarian relief, and the population is weakened by almost three years of intense conflict. The number without assistance may climb to over a million by year's end.

As humanitarian evacuation becomes more likely, the day draws near when the West will have to make its final decision on Darfur. African Union forces have failed to secure the region; and without security, there can be no humanitarian relief. Either America and its western allies put troops on the ground in Darfur soon, or the time to act will have passed. Perhaps 400,000 people have died in Darfur already, but after humanitarian workers leave, those numbers will swell quickly and considerably. After all, while humanitarian workers have an evacuation option, Darfur's residents do not.

Eric Reeves is a professor of English Language and Literature at Smith College and has written extensively on Sudan.
 

Kristof on Darfur

March 2, 2005

OP-ED COLUMNIST

The American Witness

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

American soldiers are trained to shoot at the enemy. They're prepared to be shot at. But what young men like Brian Steidle are not equipped for is witnessing a genocide but being unable to protect the civilians pleading for help.

If President Bush wants to figure out whether the U.S. should stand more firmly against the genocide in Darfur, I suggest that he invite Mr. Steidle to the White House to give a briefing. Mr. Steidle, a 28-year-old former Marine captain, was one of just three American military advisers for the African Union monitoring team in Darfur - and he is bursting with frustration.

"Every single day you go out to see another burned village, and more dead bodies," he said. "And the children - you see 6-month-old babies that have been shot, and 3-year-old kids with their faces smashed in with rifle butts. And you just have to stand there and write your reports."

While journalists and aid workers are sharply limited in their movements in Darfur, Mr. Steidle and the monitors traveled around by truck and helicopter to investigate massacres by the Sudanese government and the janjaweed militia it sponsors. They have sometimes been shot at, and once his group was held hostage, but they have persisted and become witnesses to systematic crimes against humanity.

So is it really genocide?

"I have no doubt about that," Mr. Steidle said. "It's a systematic cleansing of peoples by the Arab chiefs there. And when you talk to them, that's what they tell you. They're very blunt about it. One day we met a janjaweed leader and he said, 'Unless you get back four camels that were stolen in 2003, then we're going to go to these four villages and burn the villages, rape the women, kill everyone.' And they did."

The African Union doesn't have the troops, firepower or mandate to actually stop the slaughter, just to monitor it. Mr. Steidle said his single most frustrating moment came in December when the Sudanese government and the janjaweed attacked the village of Labado, which had 25,000 inhabitants. Mr. Steidle and his unit flew to the area in helicopters, but a Sudanese general refused to let them enter the village - and also refused to stop the attack.

"It was extremely frustrating - seeing the village burn, hearing gunshots, not being able to do anything," Mr. Steidle said. "The entire village is now gone. It's a big black spot on the earth."

When Sudan's government is preparing to send bombers or helicopter gunships to attack an African village, it shuts down the cellphone system so no one can send out warnings. Thus the international monitors know when a massacre is about to unfold. But there's usually nothing they can do.

The West, led by the Bush administration, is providing food and medical care that is keeping hundreds of thousands of people alive. But we're managing the genocide, not halting it.

"The world is failing Darfur," said Jan Egeland, the U.N. under secretary general for humanitarian affairs. "We're only playing the humanitarian card, and we're just witnessing the massacres."

President Bush is pushing for sanctions, but European countries like France are disgracefully cool to the idea - and China is downright hostile, playing the same supportive role for the Darfur genocide that it did for the Khmer Rouge genocide.

Mr. Steidle has just quit his job with the African Union, but he plans to continue working in Darfur to do his part to stand up to the killers. Most of us don't have to go to that extreme of risking our lives in Darfur - we just need to get off the fence and push our government off, too.

At one level, I blame President Bush - and, even more, the leaders of European, Arab and African nations - for their passivity. But if our leaders are acquiescing in genocide, that's because we citizens are passive, too. If American voters cared about Darfur's genocide as much as about, say, the Michael Jackson trial, then our political system would respond. One useful step would be the passage of the Darfur Accountability Act, to be introduced today by Senators Jon Corzine and Sam Brownback. The legislation calls for such desperately needed actions as expanding the African Union force and establishing a military no-fly zone to stop Sudan from bombing civilians.

As Martin Luther King Jr. put it: "Man's inhumanity to man is not only perpetrated by the vitriolic actions of those who are bad. It is also perpetrated by the vitiating inaction of those who are good."

Darfur

"Letting Sudan Get Away with Murder," by Ben Kiernan, YaleGlobal Online, February 4, 2005:
Kiernan on Darfur

BBC Program on Darfur

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/4007029.stm

More Than Words for Darfur
By Richard O'Brien
Washington Post

Both President Bush and Sen. John Kerry spoke during the first debate about doing something to help Sudan's Darfur region. The candidates as well as the secretary of state and Congress have called the situation in Darfur "genocide." And the United Nations and relief agencies are seeing a catastrophic famine unfolding. Yet the massive aid necessary to help the Sudanese people is neither on the ground nor en route. Thousands may perish needlessly when we are in a position to help save them.

The African Union is ready (with 3,500 troops), just as it was in Rwanda in 1994, but it needs logistical help from the West. The last time the international community fumbled the ball on such a scale with regard to genocide, 800,000 Rwandans perished. The main problem with the international community's response in 1994 was that the U.N. Security Council obfuscated on using the term "genocide" and then delayed in giving logistical support to the African Union to mount an intervention.

Since then, many key players have indicated deep moral regret and have committed themselves to making sure it doesn't happen again. Seemingly, the lessons learned from the inaction on Rwanda were not learned in vain. In the past decade there have been many examples of quick, decisive national and international reaction to halt acts of genocide and their aftermath throughout the world. It is simply no longer an option to drag our feet on Darfur, given the progress that has been made in our capacity to respond to such atrocities. Indeed, the international community has successfully responded to threats and acts of genocide in recent years:

The induced famine of Nuba, Sudan, in 2001 was arrested by a massive inflow of U.S. aid. The human rights violations in southern Sudan against the Nuer and the Dinka were halted by way of pressure from the international community, nongovernmental organizations and the United Nations through a peace treaty.

In Sulawesi, Indonesia, massacres ended when the Indonesian government
deployed 4,000 troops to the area and arrested the militia's leader.
Massacres and unrest in Gujarat, India, were handled by the government in what should be a case study in conflict prevention; the government employed 10,000 Sikh police officers to keep the peace between Hindus and Muslims.

Burundi was set to explode during the summer of 2003 because of a dangerous transfer of power, but once enough attention was focused on it, the transfer went relatively smoothly. Even in the remote provinces of Ituri and South Kivu in Congo, the rapid deployment of European Union troops and neighboring government compliance led to a cooling of tensions. The French, yes, the French, led the way and put thousands of troops on the ground in 30 days to halt the massacres.

So the lesson after Rwanda is that with moral conviction and decisive action, genocide and resulting humanitarian disaster can be stopped in their tracks. And yet the situation in Darfur continues. The massacres have ebbed, but the humanitarian catastrophe is likely to cost hundreds of thousands of lives because the unthinkable is happening: The world community, with the United States at the helm, seems to have forgotten how to react.

America, defender against communism, fascism and terrorism and the creative beacon of freedom and human rights, has called what is happening in Darfur genocide -- but it has failed to stop it. The United States is uniquely positioned to provide the armored personnel carriers and equipment to enable those African Union troops to get into Darfur to stop the killing and famine. Not finding the will to act is genocidal indifference.

With the sense of urgency befitting a great nation that acts to eradicate genocide, we should ensure that the planes are in the air, that the red tape is cut and that U.S. aid becomes a fact, not a political platitude.

Calling it genocide is half the answer. The United States must now move with the moral imperative to end the genocide in Darfur. Whether it is through Secretary of State Colin Powell or someone else in the administration, the United States needs to step up and get the aid into
Darfur. It is unconscionable for a great nation such as ours to do anything less.

The writer is former director of the Center for the Prevention of Genocide.
 

US 'hyping' Darfur genocide fears
Peter Beaumont
Sunday October 03 2004
The Observer

American warnings that Darfur is heading for an apocalyptic humanitarian catastrophe have been widely exaggerated by administration officials, it is alleged by international aid workers in Sudan. Washington's desire for a regime change in Khartoum has biased their reports, it is claimed.

The government's aid agency, USAID, says that between 350,000 and a million people could die in Darfur by the end of the year. Other officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, have accused the Sudanese government of presiding over a 'genocide' that could rival those in Bosnia and Rwanda.

But the account has been comprehensively challenged by eyewitness reports from aid workers and by a new food survey of the region. The nutritional survey of Sudan's Darfur region, by the UN World Food Programme, says that although there are still high levels of malnutrition among under-fives in some areas, the crisis is being brought under control.

'It's not disastrous,' said one of those involved in the WFP survey, 'although it certainly was a disaster earlier this year, and if humanitarian assistance declines, this will have very serious negative consequences.'

The UN report appears to confirm food surveys conducted by other agencies in Darfur which also stand in stark contrast to the dire US descriptions of the food crisis.

The most dramatic came from Andrew Natsios, head of USAID, who told UN officials: 'We estimate right now, if we get relief in we'll lose a third of a million people and, if we don't, the death rates could be dramatically higher, approaching a million people.'

A month later, a second senior official, Roger Winter, USAID's assistant administrator, briefed foreign journalists in Washington that an estimated 30,000 people had been killed during the on-going crisis in Darfur, with another 50,000 deaths from malnutrition and disease, largely among the huge populations fleeing the violence. He described the emergency as 'humanitarian disaster of the first magnitude'.

By 9 September Powell was in front of the Congressional Foreign Relations Committee accusing Sudan of 'genocide', a charge rejected by officials of both the European and African Unions and also privately by British officials.

'I've been to a number of camps during my time here,' said one aid worker, 'and if you want to find death, you have to go looking for it. It's easy to find very sick and under-nourished children at the therapeutic feeding centres, but that's the same wherever you go in Africa.'

Another aid worker told The Observer : 'It suited various governments to talk it all up, but they don't seem to have thought about the consequences. I have no idea what Colin Powell's game is, but to call it genocide and then effectively say, "Oh, shucks, but we are not going to do anything about that genocide" undermines the very word "genocide".'

While none of the aid workers and officials interviewed by The Observer denied there was a crisis in Darfur - or that killings, rape and a large-scale displacement of population had taken place - many were puzzled that it had become the focus of such hyperbolic warnings when there were crises of similar magnitude in both northern Uganda and eastern Congo.

Concern about USAID's role as an honest broker in Darfur have been mounting for months, with diplomats as well as aid workers puzzled over its pronouncements and one European diplomat accusing it of 'plucking figures from the air'.

Under the Bush administration, the work of USAID has become increasingly politicised. But over Sudan, in particular, two of its most senior officials have long held strong personal views. Both Natsios, a former vice-president of the Christian charity World Vision, and Winter have long been hostile to the Sudanese government.

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited

"It's Not Enough To Call It Genocide," by Samantha Powers

Time Magazine, October 4, 2004

Le Soudan déchiré par les guerres civiles
Désolation au Darfour
Le Monde Diplomatique, May 2004

La région du Darfour, au nord-ouest du Soudan, est ravagée, depuis février 2003, par un conflit économico-politique qui a provoqué la mort de plusieurs milliers de personnes et un exode massif de réfugiés au Tchad. Cette catastrophe humanitaire, à propos de laquelle les Nations unies évoquent un « nettoyage ethnique », est souvent éclipsée par les fragiles pourparlers de paix entre le nord arabo-musulman et le sud chrétien et animiste, qui s’affrontent depuis 1983 sur fond de manne pétrolière. Au Darfour, où l’ONU a enfin pu envoyer une mission d’enquête le 22 avril 2004, les combats meurtriers rappellent que la paix au Soudan n’est pas seulement une question nord-sud mais une équation nationale.

La guerre qui ensanglante les trois Etats du Darfour, à l’ouest du Soudan, depuis février 2003, a provoqué l’une des plus graves catastrophes humanitaires de ce début de siècle : 110 000 réfugiés au Tchad, 700 000 déplacés à l’intérieur du pays, plus de 10 000 morts (1). Les témoins relatent tous les mêmes scènes de désolation et de pillage : attaques à l’aube, villages brûlés, routes coupées, troupeaux volés, districts interdits aux organisations humanitaires et aux étrangers. En quelques mois, les conflits tribaux qui rythment l’actualité du Darfour depuis vingt ans se sont transformés en une guerre civile meurtrière.

Le Darfour tire son nom de l’ethnie Four, peuple de paysans noirs qui habite le massif montagneux du djebel Marra, au centre du pays. Ce groupe dominait un royaume longtemps indépendant, incorporé au Soudan en 1916. La province est divisée en trois Etats – Darfour Nord, Sud et Ouest (2). La moitié nord est saharienne, parcourue par des nomades chameliers. Au centre et au sud, en dehors des zones de montagnes mieux arrosées, tribus pastorales et populations paysannes voisinent avec des heurts réguliers, particulièrement lorsque les pluies se font rares. Le Darfour compte de nombreuses tribus. Toutes sont musulmanes, mais l’arabe n’est la langue maternelle que d’une minorité. Les tribus « arabes », ou du moins appelées telles par leurs adversaires, sont généralement nomades, chamelières au nord, vachères au sud. Les tribus « africaines » sont parfois pastorales mais plus souvent paysannes. A Khartoum cependant, tous sont souvent considérés avec le même mépris.

La chronique du Darfour est celle de conflits entre éleveurs, à la recherche d’eau et de pâturages, et paysans protégeant leurs champs et leurs maigres biens. Dans ce pays chiche en ressources, totalement dénué d’équipements et laissé à l’abandon, l’explosion démographique (la province compte 6 millions d’habitants, deux fois plus qu’il y a vingt ans) a rendu plus violente la compétition pour l’eau et l’espace. La régulation traditionnelle des conflits, fondée sur le respect par les nomades d’itinéraires et de périodes précises de transhumance, a commencé à s’effondrer avec la grande sécheresse et la famine du milieu des années 1980. Depuis, le Darfour est en crise. Malgré la présence de responsables politiques originaires de la région dans les allées du pouvoir à Khartoum, la situation s’y détériore année après année.

Une guerre meurtrière avait opposé, en 1985-1988, les Fours aux tribus arabes lancées à l’assaut de leurs villages, sur fond d’allées et venues entre le Tchad et le Darfour, d’interventions de la Légion islamique libyenne et de jeux de pouvoir du parti Oumma de M. Sadeq El Mahdi. Elle avait pu sembler un moment de paroxysme, lié à la période de sécheresse. Avec le recul, elle apparaît comme une prémisse. Les Arabes rezeigats du Sud y avaient obtenu confirmation d’un « dar » (pays) à eux dans la région d’Ed Duein, mais l’impression de trêve, plutôt que de paix, prévalait lors de la « conférence de paix » en novembre 1989.

L’instauration d’un régime militaro-islamiste au Soudan, en 1989, ne régla pas le problème de l’insécurité. Au contraire, la bienveillance plus marquée des autorités envers les « tribus arabes » encouragea les plus belliqueuses d’entre elles. Plusieurs des leurs figuraient parmi les dignitaires du nouveau régime. Il y eut tout au long des années 1990 plusieurs guerres locales, le plus souvent ignorées à l’étranger : en 1990, entre Fours en faveur de l’Armée populaire de libération du Soudan (APLS) du colonel John Garang et l’armée soutenue par les « Arabes » benis halbas (3). En 1996, dans le sud, entre Rezeigats et Zaghawas. En 1997-1999, dans l’Ouest, entre paysans masalits et arabes um julluls. Le plus souvent, l’initiative des hostilités revient aux tribus « arabes ». Pour désigner leurs milices se répand alors un vocable terrifiant, Janjawid, mot composé qui signifie approximativement « les cavaliers du diable, armés de kalachnikovs ». Car si, autrefois, on chargeait avec des lances et des épées, on attaque, depuis les années 1980, avec des fusils d’assaut.

Depuis 2001, les incidents impunis (attaques de villages, razzias et vols de troupeaux) se sont multipliés, notamment entre Nyala et El Geneina, éprouvant particulièrement les communautés masalits et fours. Le caractère systématique et massif des assauts convainquit les victimes qu’une tentative coordonnée de « nettoyage ethnique » était à l’œuvre. Dans le Darfour du Nord plusieurs incidents graves réanimaient, au même moment, la tension entre Zaghawas et Arabes ereghats ou rezeigats.

Le 25 février 2003, un Front de libération du Darfour (FLD), présidé par l’avocat Abdel Wahid Mohamed Nur, déclenche l’insurrection dans le djebel Marra. La rébellion unit cette fois la quasi-totalité des tribus « africaines » du Darfour. Fondé un peu plus d’un an auparavant, le FLD s’appuie sur les milices d’autodéfense villageoises fours. Pour signifier son élargissement aux autres tribus africaines, notamment aux Masalits, aux Zaghawas et aux Bertis, il prend, en mars 2003, l’appellation d’Armée de libération du Soudan (ALS).

L’affaire a été bien préparée. L’ALS lance à l’assaut des postes de police et des garnisons de l’armée des raids de Toyota équipées de mitrailleurs Dushka, garnies de combattants munis de lance-roquettes RPG, de mortiers et de kalachnikovs. Les chefs utilisent des téléphones satellites. Les rebelles s’emparent de localités comme Golo, au djebel Marra, où ils établissent leur quartier général, ou Tinè, à la frontière tchadienne, siège du principal sultanat zaghawa. Leur chef militaire est un homme d’expérience : en 1990, Abdallah Abakkar était l’un des commandants du raid triomphal qui, parti du Darfour, avait installé M. Idriss Deby au pouvoir à N’Djamena. Au printemps 2003, les forces gouvernementales subissent revers sur revers. L’armée fait face avec d’autant plus de mal que ses effectifs sont concentrés au sud du Soudan (4) et qu’elle enregistre un nombre significatif de désertions de soldats originaires du Darfour.

A Khartoum, le président Omar El Bechir réagit en militaire, transfère des unités du sud du Soudan et cherche à verrouiller les frontières avec les pays voisins, le Tchad et la Libye. Le colonel Mouammar Khadafi accepte d’arrêter le trafic des camions entre la Libye et le Darfour, et le président tchadien Idriss Deby coopère avec l’armée soudanaise dans la zone frontière. Mais les armes sont abondantes, les frontières du désert incontrôlables. Le 25 avril 2003, l’ALS réussit un audacieux coup de main en pénétrant dans El Fasher, la capitale du Darfour Nord ; elle prend le contrôle de l’aéroport et s’empare du général d’aviation Ibrahim Bushra (5)

A Khartoum, l’humiliation est à son comble. Le président limoge les gouverneurs du Darfour et fait arrêter de nombreux intellectuels et notables soupçonnés de sympathie pour la rébellion, à Nyala et El Fasher. Un comité de crise est constitué dont la principale décision va se révéler lourde de conséquences. Le général Osman Mohamed Kibir, nouveau gouverneur du Darfour Nord, enrôle officiellement les milices arabes, les arme et leur donne carte blanche. Les insurgés continuent à marquer des points, mais leurs villages sont désormais également attaqués.

A la fin de l’été, le président Bechir prend secrètement langue avec l’ALS, par l’intermédiaire du président tchadien. Ce dernier, d’origine zaghawa, connaît bien les rebelles et redoute que la crise n’altère son alliance avec le président Bechir. L’entremise réussit et un cessez-le-feu est conclu le 3 septembre à Abéché (Tchad). Il sera sans lendemain. Pour Khartoum, il s’agissait surtout de profiter des divergences politiques apparues au sein de la rébellion.

Un second groupe, le Mouvement pour la justice et l’égalité (MJE), multiplie en effet les actions au Darfour Nord. Présidé par le docteur Khalil Ibrahim, 44 ans, le MJE est à base zaghawa. Ancien membre du parti islamiste du docteur Hassan Al Tourabi (6), M. Ibrahim est de la famille du sultan de Tinè et a rompu avec le régime en 1999. En 2000, son groupe avait publié anonymement un Livre noir à succès, dénonçant la main mise sur l’Etat et la politique soudanaise de trois grandes tribus du nord du Soudan, Cheiquir, Djaalin et Danagla. Le MJE n’éprouve pour autant guère de sympathies pour la cause du sud du Soudan et se veut l’avocat d’un vaste Soudan central négligé, allant de la mer Rouge au Darfour.

Accusé par les autorités d’être un faux nez du docteur Tourabi (qui nie à moitié), le MJE ne fut pas invité à Abéché. Malgré le cessez-le-feu, la guerre se poursuivit donc, et ce d’autant plus que les Janjawids, écartés eux aussi de l’accord, poursuivaient leurs razzias, notamment dans la région de Zalingei, attaques de plus en plus souvent coordonnées avec l’aviation gouvernementale.

A l’expiration du cessez-le-feu, le 16 décembre 2003, la guerre reprit dans l’ensemble de la province. Ayant eu le temps de renforcer son armée, le gouvernement de Khartoum passa à l’offensive, avec de notables succès. Le chef militaire de l’ALS, M. Abdallah Abakkar, fut tué et l’armée reconquit les centres du pays zaghawa, Kulbus et Tinè, provoquant l’exode au Tchad de plusieurs dizaines de milliers de femmes et d’enfants. Même succès plus au sud, en pays masalit, et jusque dans les lointaines collines sahariennes habitées par les Meidobs. En revanche, les tentatives de l’armée d’investir le djebel Marra tournèrent court.

Proclamant sa « victoire complète », le président Omar El Bechir annonça le 9 février la « fin des opérations militaires ». Il n’en était rien. L’armée avait rétabli son contrôle sur les agglomérations, mais les combats continuaient. Les massacres de civils aussi. Ainsi, par exemple, le 27 février, dans la région de Tawila (Darfour Nord) ou, le 7 mars, dans celle de Wadi Salih (Darfour Ouest), où les Janjawids exécutèrent de sang-froid plus d’une centaine d’adultes. Les Nations unies ont également repéré au moins quatre camps de concentration de femmes et d’enfants où les conditions de vie sont effroyables. L’ALS, avec son nouveau chef militaire, M. Jibril Abelkarim Bahri, reste cependant puissante, malgré ses divisions internes : elle compterait plus de 10 000 combattants organisés.

L’espoir de parvenir à la paix dans l’interminable guerre du sud du Soudan limite les initiatives internationales au Darfour. Au Kenya, le gouvernement négocie avec l’APLS. La lenteur des discussions, engagées en octobre 2002 sous une forte pression de la diplomatie américaine, inquiète cependant (7). Le colonel Garang et le président Bechir peuvent-ils, à eux seuls, décider pour tout le Soudan ? L’insurrection du Darfour rappelle que non.

Conscient de la difficulté, M. John Garang se montre prudent. Tout en préservant les négociations en cours à Naivasha, au Kenya, il a protesté contre les ravages de l’armée et des Janjawids au Darfour et a apporté une aide militaire discrète à l’ALS. Il n’avait pu, ces derniers mois, éviter une crise de l’Alliance nationale démocratique, regroupement des opposants au régime, dont le pacte fondateur (droit à l’autodétermination pour le Sud en échange du soutien du Sud aux revendications démocratiques au Nord) s’était trouvé sérieusement écorné par le « cavalier seul » des négociations de Naivasha. Mais, le 13 février 2004, malgré les réticences de son président, M. Osman El Mirghani, le conseil de l’AND acceptait l’adhésion de l’ALS, donnant à la rébellion de l’Ouest la légitimité d’une cause nationale.

La seule offre politique du président soudanais aux insurgés darfouriens (une conférence de paix à Khartoum dirigée par un comité choisi par lui) s’apparentait, jusque-là, à une demande de reddition pure et simple. En mars 2004, à la veille du dixième anniversaire du génocide rwandais, les agences des Nations unies se résolurent à dénoncer ouvertement le « nettoyage ethnique » en cours au Darfour tandis que le secrétaire général Kofi Annan évoquait une intervention armée internationale.

Le président Bechir accepta, sous cette pression, de conclure, le 8 avril 2004, en présence d’observateurs internationaux, un nouveau cessez-le-feu de 45 jours, incluant cette fois le MJE. Mais, en l’absence d’un véritable accord politique entre la rébellion et le gouvernement et d’un désarmement effectif des milices arabes, ce troisième cessez-le-feu en six mois risque bien de n’être qu’un numéro de plus dans une longue série de faux-semblants.

Jean-Louis Peninou

On the Holocaust:

Treasures Emerge From Field of the Dead at Maidanek

On Holocaust denial:

Internet Week - Updated Thursday, September 30, 2004, 3:41 PM EDT
Newest MyDoom Aims Attack At Holocaust History Site

A new version of the MyDoom worm uses subject headings that deny the Holocaust ever happened and launches a denial-of-service (DoS) attack against a Web site that dedicates pages examining the motives of deniers such as British writer David Irving.

Dubbed MyDoom.ac by Symantec, the variant is a standard MyDoom copy-cat. It arrives as an e-mail message with an attached file which when opened, propagates by hijacking addresses from the compromised PC. It can also spread via file-sharing software such as Kazaa, Morpheus, eDonkey, and Limewire.

MyDoom.ac can be spotted by its subject headings, all of which reference the Holocaust or Holocaust deniers. Among the headings are ones such as "The holocaust is a lie" and "Holohoax information."

Machines infected with the worm will run DoS attacks against the Holocaust History Project Web site, which includes documents and photographs refuting deniers' theories.

As of mid-day Thursday, the Web site was online.

On Muslim extremist terrorism:

New York Times - September 9, 2004

By JOHN KIFNER

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Sept. 8 - The brutal school siege in Russia, with hundreds of children dead and wounded, has touched off an unusual round of self-criticism and introspection in the Muslim and Arab world.

"It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims," Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, the general manager of the widely watched satellite television station Al Arabiya said in one of the most striking of these commentaries.

Writing in the pan-Arab newspaper Al Sharq al Awsat, Mr. Rashed said it was "shameful and degrading" that not only were the Beslan hijackers Muslims, but so were the killers of Nepalese workers in Iraq; the attackers of residential towers in Riyadh and Khobar, Saudi Arabia; the women believed to have blown up two Russian airplanes last week; and Osama bin Laden himself.

"The majority of those who manned the suicide bombings against buses, vehicles, schools, houses and buildings, all over the world, were Muslim," he wrote. "What a pathetic record. What an abominable 'achievement.' Does this tell us anything about ourselves, our societies and our culture?"

Mr. Rashed, like several other commentators, singled out Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a senior Egyptian cleric living in Qatar who broadcasts an influential program on Al Jazeera television and who has issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, calling for the killing of American and foreign "occupiers" in Iraq, military and civilian.

"Let us contemplate the incident of this religious sheik allowing, nay even calling for, the murder of civilians," he wrote. "How can we believe him when he tells us that Islam is the religion of mercy and peace while he is turning it into a religion of blood and slaughter?"

Mr. Rashed recalled that in the past, leftists and nationalists in the Arab world were considered a "menace" for their adoption of violence, and the mosque was a haven of "peace and reconciliation" by contrast.

"Then came the neo-Muslims," he said. "An innocent and benevolent religion, whose verses prohibit the felling of trees in the absence of urgent necessity, that calls murder the most heinous of crimes, that says explicitly that if you kill one person you have killed humanity as a whole, has been turned into a global message of hate and a universal war cry."

A columnist for the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Siyassa, Faisal al-Qina'I, also took aim at Sheik Qaradawi. "It is saddening," he wrote, "to read and hear from those who are supposed to be Muslim clerics, like Yusuf al-Qaradawi and others of his kind, that instead of defending true Islam, they encourage these cruel actions and permit decapitation, hostage taking and murder."

In Jordan, a group of Muslim religious figures, meeting with the religious affairs minister, Ahmed Heleil, issued a statement on Wednesday saying the seizing of the school and subsequent massacre "was dedicated to distorting the pure image of Islam.''

"This terrorist act contradicts the principles of our true Muslim religion and its noble values," the statement said.

Writing in the Jordanian daily Ad Dustour, columnist Bater Wardam noted the propensity in the Arab world to "place responsibility for the crimes of Arabic and Muslim terrorist organizations on the Mossad, the Zionists and the American intelligence, but we all know that this is not the case.''

"They came from our midst," he wrote of those who had kidnapped and killed civilians in Iraq, blown up commuter trains in Spain, turned airliners into bombs and shot the children in Ossetia.

"They are Arabs and Muslims who pray, fast, grow beards, demand the wearing of veils and call for the defense of Islamic causes,'' he said. "Therefore we must all raise our voices, disown them and oppose all these crimes."

In Beirut, Rami G. Khouri editor of the Daily Star, wrote that while most Arabs "identified strongly and willingly" with armed Palestinian or Lebanese guerrillas fighting Israeli occupation, "all of us today are dehumanized and brutalized by the images of Arabs kidnapping and beheading foreign hostages."

Calling for a global strategy to reduce terror, he traced what he called "this ugly trek" in the Arab world to "the home-grown sense of indignity, humiliation, denial and degradation that has increasingly plagued many of our young men and women."

A Palestinian columnist, Hassan al-Batal, wrote in the official Palestinian Authority newspaper Al Ayyam that the "day of horror in the school" should be designated an international day for the condemnation of terrorism. "There are no mitigating circumstances for the inhuman horror and the height of barbarism," he said of the school attack.

In Egypt, the semi-official newspaper Al Ahram called the events "an ugly crime against humanity."

In Saudi Arabia, newspapers tightly controlled by the government - which finds itself under attack from Islamic fundamentalists - were even more scathing.

Under the headline "Butchers in the Name of Allah," a columnist in the government daily Okaz, Khaled Hamed al-Suleiman, wrote that "the propagandists of jihad succeeded in the span of a few years in distorting the image of Islam.''

"They turned today's Islam into something having to do with decapitations, the slashing of throats, abducting innocent civilians and exploding people,'' he said. "They have fixed the image of Muslims in the eyes of the world as barbarians and savages who are not good for anything except slaughtering people."

"The time has come for Muslims to be the first to come out against those interested in abducting Islam in the same way they abducted innocent children,'' he added. "This is the true jihad these days, and this is our obligation, as believing Muslims, toward our monotheistic religion."

Correction: Sept. 11, 2004, Saturday

Where is the Muslim outrage?

By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist  |  September 9, 2004

THEY ARE still burying the victims of the latest atrocity committed, some believe, in the name of Islam -- the slaughter of hundreds of children, teachers, and parents in an elementary school in Beslan, Russia. And from Muslims the world over, as usual, has come mostly silence.

There have been no public demonstrations by Muslims anxious to make it clear how outraged they are that anyone could commit such unspeakable deeds for their version of Islam. There has been no anguished outcry by Islam's leading imams and sheiks. Prominent Muslim organizations in the West have not called press conferences to express their disgust. Once again the world has witnessed a savage episode of Islamist terror, and once again it strains to hear a convincing rejection of the terrorists from those who should care most about Islam's reputation.

That is not to say there has been no criticism at all. Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia telephoned Russian President Vladimir Putin to assure him that "this terrorist act . . . goes against religious teachings and violates human and moral values." Syria's official news agency decried the massacre as "a terrorist, cowardly action." Sheik Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi of Al-Azhar University in Cairo lambasted the murderers for "taking Islam as cover" and said that "those who carry out the kidnappings are criminals, not Muslims."

But these are boilerplate denunciations, practically meaningless -- particularly when they come from sources that sustain Islamist fanaticism (Saudi Arabia), shelter and support terrorists (Syria), or defend suicide bombers as praiseworthy "martyrs" (Tantawi). They condemn no terrorists or terror organizations by name. They offer no help in destroying the infrastructure that recruits, funds, and trains them. And they contain no hint that the global scourge of Islamofascist jihad is a cancer eating away at the Muslim world.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which issues dozens of press releases every month, had nothing to say about the bloodbath in Russia until I requested a comment. The statement CAIR then issued doesn't even acknowledge that the killers were Muslim:

"No words can describe the horror and grief generated by the deaths of so many innocent people at the hands of those who dishonor the cause they espouse. We offer sincere condolences to the families of the victims and call for a swift resolution to the conflict in that troubled region." At least CAIR went through the motions of condemning the butchery. Other voices preached a different message altogether.

Ali Abdullah, an Islamic scholar in Bahrain, announced that the bloodshed in Beslan "is the work of the Israelis who want to tarnish the image of Muslims." In London, Islamist cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed told the Daily Telegraph: "If an Iraqi Muslim carried out an attack like that in Britain, it would be justified because Britain has carried out acts of terrorism in Iraq."

Fortunately, a few Muslim commentators have denounced the evil being done in the name of Islam, and have done so courageously and unambiguously. (The Middle East Media Research Institute has compiled their reactions at www.memri.org.) One in particular stands out: an extraordinary column in the pan-Arabic daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat by Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, the manager of the Al-Arabiya news channel.

"It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists," he begins, "but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.

"The hostage-takers of the children in Beslan were Muslims. The hostage-takers and murderers of the Nepalese chefs and workers in Iraq were also Muslims. . . . The majority of those who manned the suicide bombings against buses, vehicles, schools, houses, and buildings all over the world were Muslim. . . . Does all this tell us anything about ourselves, our societies, and our culture?. . .

"We cannot tolerate in our midst those who abduct journalists, murder civilians, explode buses; we cannot accept them as related to us. . . . They are the people who have smeared Islam and stained its image. We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive monopoly implemented by Muslim men and women." When it is no longer astonishing to encounter such sentiments in the Muslim world, we will know that the corner has been turned in the war against Islamist terror. Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com. 

State of the art
Art Spiegelman’s September 11, Marjane Satrapi’s Iran, and Joe Sacco’s Sarajevo
BY JON GARELICK

In the Shadow of No Towers
By Art Spiegelman. Pantheon, 38 pages, $19.95.
Persepolis 2
By Marjane Satrapi. Pantheon, 192 pages. $17.95.
The Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo
By Joe Sacco. Drawn and Quarterly, 112 pages, $24.95.
 

When Art Spiegelman published Maus in 1986, he set a new standard for how far comic books could go. In this "graphic novel," he wrote about the Holocaust, telling the story of his father’s experience at Auschwitz. His formal inventiveness (turning the Jews into mice, the Nazis into cats) and his ear for Jewish-American dialogue allowed him to engage a subject seemingly unapproachable, and it won him a Pulitzer Prize. Now, after years spent creating mostly cover illustrations for the New Yorker, he’s returned to the comic-book form ("comix," as he likes to say) to tackle another horror: the attack on the World Trade Center.

The scale and approach of In the Shadow of No Towers (Pantheon, to be published September 7) are altogether different from those of Maus. Spiegelman witnessed the World Trade Center disaster firsthand, unlike the Holocaust. He and his family live in SoHo, not far from Ground Zero, and a recurring story line of In the Shadow of No Towers regards Spiegelman’s attempts with his wife, Françoise Mouly, to get their teenaged daughter, Nadja, out of a nearby school. We never see them complete the task. Instead, time stops, as Spiegelman returns again and again to the moment of the north tower’s collapse, and his fear, rage, and anxiety come pouring out on the page.

Maus, published in black-and-white, laid out on six-by-nine-inch pages, proceeds as an orderly, sequential narrative — novelistic. In the Shadow of No Towers goes back to the era before the comic book, to the comics’ birth in publications like Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal. These were not the episodic four- or five-panel "strips" of the later dailies, but full-page broadsheet illustrations, often collagelike. Spiegelman — who says in his introduction these old comics were the only art form in which he could find solace in the days after September 11 — returns to this form. In the Shadow of No Towers measures 10-by-14 1/2 inches, but each page is designed to be read folded out, so a full "page" is actually 14 1/2- by-20. The collage-style design of each page includes multiple, nonsequential "strips" as well as single-panel illustrations. You can start anywhere on a page, and read its content in any order.

There are 10 of these "episodes," but there’s much more. Spiegelman’s inspiration comes from the comforting "unpretentious ephemera" of those old broadsheets. But, he also points out, "comics pages are architectural structures — the narrative rows of panels are like stories of a building...." Early-comics genius Winsor McCay, he says, "drew monumental structures designed to last." In the Shadow of No Towers is published on glossy stock pressed onto thick cardboard pages. Its cover is a gloss-and-matte-finish version of Spiegelman’s black-on-black image for the post–September 11 New Yorker. Aside from the McCay-like designs, this is, as the old North Point Press used to tout in its use of acid-free paper, a "permanent book."

Spiegelman’s introductory essay can stand on its own as a personal reflection on September 11. And after his first-person graphic episodes, an essay on the history of the newspaper-comic supplement introduces some of the sources of his inspiration: McCay’s Nemo in Slumberland; Richard Outcault’s Hogan’s Alley, which introduced the Yellow Kid; Rudolph Dirks’s Katzenjammer Kids; and George Herriman’s Krazy Kat. Several of these, too, are reproduced full-size.

That should give you an idea of the scale of In the Shadow of No Towers. Into it, Spiegelman has put everything he knows about American comics and American history. Passed out at his drawing table, wearing a Maus mask, he has nightmares of Osama and George W. standing on either side of him, his desktop populated with the characters of cartoon history — the life of his subconscious. The Katzenjammer Kids show up wearing burning twin-tower hats. Cartoon tropes about the sky falling and waiting for that second shoe to drop recur in page after page. The narrative voice shifts from first person to third and back again.

The twin towers themselves, of course, are the dominant motif. There are towerlike parallel stacked panels, and the recurring image of "the looming north tower’s glowing bones just before it vaporized." In one paranoid fantasy ("I insist the sky is falling; they roll their eyes and tell me it’s only my Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder"), the comic frame actually turns sideways, its edge becoming one of the towers. And then there is the smoke — the toxic cloud of dust covering lower Manhattan conflating with the smoke of the Holocaust ovens in Maus and the smoke from Spiegelman’s endless chain of cigarettes.

Paying tribute to his early-comics heroes, Spiegelman epitomizes the same subversive streak that brought the Yellow Kid to life more than 100 years ago. But in his satiric comedy ("Gotten Himmel!" cries a mama Katzenjammer fleeing the collapsing towers) he also establishes himself as a link in Jewish-American comedy from Lenny Bruce and Philip Roth to Jon Stewart. He has given unity of design and purpose to free-floating anxiety and rage. Scale and monumentality are brought together with that sense of life as transient, perilous, fragile, a world in which his Holocaust-survivor parents "taught me to always keep my bags packed."

There is crucial variation in the black-on-black cover design of In the Shadow of No Towers — a four-color horizontal rectangle against those black vertical forms, filled with falling cartoon characters against a tiny cityscape. Yes, they suggest those falling victims of 9/11, but they’re also a window of light in the abyss.

In Spiegelman’s footsteps: Satrapi and Sacco
Although she hadn’t met Art Spiegelman at the time, Marjane Satrapi recalls that Maus was an important inspiration in telling her story of growing up in revolutionary Iran in comic-book form. An artist and illustrator, Satrapi wrote children’s stories before she created her acclaimed memoir, Persepolis (2003). "Maus was the first comic that I read that was not a comedy and was not a superhero story," she said recently, over the phone from Paris.

Encouraged by studio-mates in Paris to set her own story to pictures and words, Satrapi dove into the form. Originally released in two volumes, it became an immediate hit in France, was translated into a dozen languages and was picked up by Pantheon/Random House in the States.

Whereas the first Persepolis deals with war and revolution, Persepolis 2 opens with Satrapi as an adolescent in Vienna, where her liberal-minded middle-class parents have sent her to school. Persepolis 2 is, in its own way, as moving as its war-torn companion volume (in which close relatives and friends are imprisoned and executed by the Iranian government or killed by Iraqi bombs). Like its predecessor, Persepolis 2 takes the particulars of the exiled young Marji and her depression ("I was nothing. I was a Westerner in Iran, an Iranian in the West. I had no identity") and puts them into the framework of typical adolescent and young-adult anxieties. It also takes us through Marji’s return to Tehran, an early marriage and divorce, and her final exile.

As in Spiegelman’s work, the comic-book form serves Satrapi’s subject matter. Her simple, woodcut-style forms have a childlike simplicity that’s belied by a taste for stylized design (comparisons have been made to Matisse) and Satrapi’s grounding in the history of Persian art. Where Spiegelman employs parody and satire, Satrapi scores with understatement: the subtext of loneliness and loss underlies the whole book and gives extra power to that final separation at the end.

Satrapi is still in touch with her parents, who visit her in Paris and talk with her regularly on the phone, but she knows she can’t go back under the current regime. "Today in my country you have journalists who are in jail for saying the same things I’m talking about," she says. "I don’t have any reason to think that my life will be safer than theirs."

Joe Sacco, meanwhile, can be seen as one of the most literal of the current crop of comic-book artists. After early work writing autobiographical and fantasy pieces, he returned to his college training as a journalist. Drawing on travels to Palestinian refugee camps and Bosnia, he has given an Orwellian journalistic dimension to the comic-book form.

Palestine (Fantagraphics, 1995) was striking for its behind-the-scenes depiction of life in the Gaza Strip, in which an anonymous group was individuated in Sacco’s interview material and in the meticulous rendering of faces. His Safe Area Gorazde (Fantagraphics, 2000) was equally compelling in depicting the miseries of the war in eastern Bosnia.

Sacco’s The Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo, brought out in late 2003, has just entered its second printing. Unlike his previous books, it focuses entirely on a single individual, Neven, a "fixer" who negotiates day-to-day connections for foreign journalists but who has a somewhat nebulous past as a paramilitary. With a Muslim mother and a Serb father, Neven says, "I decided to stake my cards with Bosnia. I don’t know why."

Sacco implicates himself in Neven’s moral equivocations — he sees himself as the journalist-exploiter, drawn to disaster. "Put yourself in Neven’s shoes," he repeats while relating one shady dealing or another. And, "Put yourself in my shoes."

Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde were marked by their panoramic sweep. The Fixer is more claustrophobic, and the story of Neven is, perhaps intentionally, not the whole story. But Sacco’s drawing and sequencing of panels — the heart of comic-book art — are breathtaking. Turning the page from a tight "one-shot" of Sacco standing amid rubble to a two-page epic spread of blasted cityscape, you know you’re in the hands of a master.
 

Marjane Satrapi will discuss Persepolis 2 in a Center for New Words event in the third-floor conference center at Simmons College, 300 the Fenway, on September 9 at 7 p.m.; call (617) 876-5310. She will be at Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street in Coolidge Corner, on September 10 at 7 p.m.; call (617) 566-6660. Art Spiegelman discusses In the Shadow of No Towers in a Harvard Book Store reading on September 20 at the Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street in Harvard Square, at 6:30 p.m. Call (617) 661-1515.

On Africa and western involvement:

Simon Mann jailed for seven years
Staff and agencies
Friday September 10 2004 - The Guardian

A court in Zimbabwe today sentenced British mercenary Simon Mann to seven years in prison for attempting to buy arms to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea.

The court also handed down 16-month sentences to the two pilots of a plane that landed in Zimbabwe in March carrying dozens of suspected mercenaries. The 65 men who were on the plane were convicted of immigration offences and given 12-month sentences.

Mann, a former SAS officer and co-founder of security group Executive Outcomes, admitted trying to buy assault rifles, grenades, anti-tank rocket launchers and other weapons from Zimbabwe Defence Industries. He and the 65 mercenaries were arrested at Harare international airport on March 7 as they awaited delivery of the weapons.

Prosecutors said the arms were destined for Equatorial Guinea where Mann, 51, and his co-accused intended to take part in a coup to overthrow the president, Teodoro Obiang. At a court hearing last month Mann was acquitted of an additional charge of taking possession of the weapons.

Mann claimed the weapons were destined to protect a mining operation in war-torn eastern Congo.

"I am devastated. I can't believe it. They have already done six months and with this sentence it is now 18 months," Marge Pain, whose husband was a passenger on the plane, told the Reuters news agency. Relatives of the men broke down and wept as the ruling was handed down.

One of Mann's former associates at Executive Outcomes, Nick du Toit, is currently on trial for his life in Equatorial Guinea for his part in the alleged plot. Sir Mark Thatcher, son of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, has been charged in South Africa with helping to fund the plot via a payment to a third party. He has been subpoenaed to answer questions on September 22. Sir Mark denies any involvement or knowledge of the coup.

A total of 88 people are in custody in South Africa, Equatorial Guinea and Zimbabwe in connection with the plot.

Equatorial Guinea wants to question a number of other Britons over allegations they financed the coup plot in Africa's third-largest oil producing nation. The Guardian today reported that a so-called "wonga list" of alleged millionaire backers of the aborted coup is said to have been handed over to South African police by two of Mann's former colleagues.

According to the list, seen by the Guardian, Mann paid $500,000 (£281,000) towards the coup. Ely Calil, a London-based Lebanese oil millionaire, is alleged to have raised another $750,000. Mr Calil's lawyer has denied that his client had any knowledge of the plot.

Thatcher and a very African coup
Mercenaries' dreams of riches fell apart at Harare airport. Then links to British Establishment figures emerged
Jamie Wilson, David Pallister and Paul Lashmar
Thursday August 26 2004 - The Guardian

Languishing in solitary confinement in Zimbabwe's maximum security Chikurubi prison in March, Simon Mann was getting desperate. The Old Etonian and former SAS officer had been arrested at Harare airport two weeks earlier along with a plane load of mercenaries after landing to pick up a consignment of AK-47 rifles, mortar bombs and 75,000 rounds of ammunition.

The men on board the Boeing 727-100 had allegedly been on their way to mount a coup in Equatorial Guinea, a small, malarial country in west Africa ruled by a tyrant but newly and filthily rich in offshore oil.

Instead of a coup amid untold riches, Mann found himself staring down the barrel of a long prison sentence - or even execution if an extradition request from Equatorial Guinea was successful. So he penned a letter on scraps of paper to his wife and lawyers, demanding that they get people on the outside to exert both their money and influence to get him released.

But by writing the letter - a copy of which has been seen by the Guardian - he linked what had at first seemed to be little more than a doomed Boy's Own adventure in a forgotten corner of west Africa to a coterie of rightwing businessmen with links to the highest echelons of the British establishment.

Scrawled over two plain pages and a scrap of magazine, Mann's letter referred to a contact called "Scratcher" - Mann's nickname for Sir Mark Thatcher, son of the former Tory prime minister and perennially controversial businessman.

When the note was intercepted by the South African intelligence services on its way out of the prison, a train of events was set in motion that led yesterday to the raid on Sir Mark's Cape Town home.

"Our situation is not good and it is very URGENT," Mann wrote. "They [the lawyers] get no reply from Smelly and Scratcher [who] asked them to ring back after the Grand Prix race was over! This is not going well."

But Mann then went on to suggest that Scratcher's involvement amounted to more than using his contacts to lobby for their release.

"It may be that getting us out comes down to a large splodge of wonga! Of course investors did not think this would happen. Did I?" he wrote. "Do they think they can be part of something like this with only upside potential - no hardship or risk of this going wrong. Anyone and everyone in this is in it - good times or bad. Now its bad times and everyone has to F-ing well pull their full weight."

He left what would appear to be the most incriminating detail to last: "Anyway [another contact] was expecting project funds inwards to Logo [Mann's firm] from Scratcher (200) ... If there is not enough, then present investors must come up with more."

While the letter certainly suggests Mann was expecting Sir Mark to make a $200,000 (£111,000) investment, he does not specify whether it was for the coup.

The letter also refers to David Hart, the former Old Etonian millionaire adviser to Lady Thatcher during the miners' strike. "We need heavy influence of the sort that ... Smelly, Scratcher ... David Hart and it needs to be used heavily and now," Mann wrote.

Even the disgraced Tory peer, Lord Archer, has been dragged into the controversy after $134,000 (£74,000) was deposited into Mann's bank account in the name of JH Archer four days before the coup attempt. Lord Archer categorically denied any involvement in the coup.

Ever since the coup plot was alleged at Harare airport on March 7, there have been murmurings about Sir Mark's involvement. He and Mann were close friends who regularly had dinner together, and both owned substantial properties in Constantia, the secluded suburb of Cape Town popular with rich expat Britons.

Mann is a complex character, part buccaneering thrill seeker, part businessman, who left the SAS to make a living fighting wars in Africa. It is easy to see how Sir Mark - whose demeanour would suggest he would like to be viewed as something of an adventurer himself - might be attracted to the former SAS officer.

"Nobody is denying they are close friends - and they have been friends for a long time," Sir Tim Bell, Lady Thatcher's former PR adviser and now informally advising her son, said yesterday. "I have not spoken to him at all at any point since this started about six months ago. He has studiously avoided discussing the issue."

Greg Wales, another man with alleged links to the coup plot and a long-standing friend and former business partner of Mann's, told the Guardian yesterday: "Simon and Mark did a number of business deals together - in mining, and aircraft and fuel brokerage. The police would have found a lot of stuff on these matters."  

But it remains unclear what - if any - evidence the South Africans have to tie Sir Mark directly to the coup, beyond Mann's letter. There have been rumours that he may have made an investment in Mann's Logo Ltd company through a South African company called Triple A Aviation, which in January signed a contract with Mann's Logo company to provide aircraft and aviation services.

According to his lawyer yesterday, Sir Mark was arrested on suspicion of providing financing for a helicopter linked to the coup plot.

Banking records show the company, which trades as Air Ambulance Africa from the town of Bethlehem in the Free State, paid $100,000 (£55,000) into Logo's account on March 2, less than a week before the coup attempt was launched. The head of Air Ambulance, Crause Steyl, did not return calls yesterday. His brother Niel, a former pilot for the infamous South African mercenary outfit Executive Outcomes in the 1990s in which Mann was also involved, was the pilot of the ill-fated Boeing that landed at Harare.

According to well-placed South African sources, Triple A provided a twin-engined King Air turboprop which flew the exiled Equatorian Guinea opposition leader, Severo Moto, from Spain to Bamako in Mali on the eve of the alleged coup attempt, in preparation for his triumphant return to power.

Friends of Sir Mark in South Africa, however, claim that he had entered into a completely separate contract with Triple A to provide an air ambulance helicopter for work in Equatorial Guinea. "I don't think he knew what he was getting into," one told the Guardian.

The genesis of the alleged coup plot, according to Mann's own witness statement, began in January 2003 when he was introduced to Eli Calil, a Chelsea-based businessman, in London - a friend and financier of Mr Moto, leader of the Party for Progress of Equatorial Guinea and president of the Guinean government in exile in Madrid.

Mr Calil has denied any knowledge or involvement in the coup and his lawyers have suggested that the written and verbal confessions of Mann and his alleged co-conspirator South African arms dealer Nick du Toit, currently in trial in Malabo, were extracted through torture.

But Mann wrote in his signed statement after his arrest. "Ely Calil asked me if I would like to meet Severo Moto... I met Severo Moto in Madrid. He is clearly a good and honest man. He had studied for the priesthood ... At this stage they asked me if I could help escort Severo Moto home at a given moment while simultaneously there would an uprising of both military and civilians against Obiang ... I agreed to try and help the cause."

Preparations for the coup - money, men, logistics and a suitable plane - were soon set in motion by Mann through two companies based in Guernsey, Logo Ltd and Systems Design Limited. Mann himself sold some of his shares and put in $400,000 to cover the cost of a specially converted Boeing 727 which was bought a week before the coup attempt from a firm in Kansas. Guardian inquiries have established that the aircraft had been converted for US military use so that it could take off and land on shorter runways. It also had a pressurised cargo hold which could be accessed during flight.

The final stages were completed in February. Using his military and arms dealing contacts, Mr du Toit helped to recruit the mercenaries - apartheid-era soldiers in South Africa - and to introduce Mann to the head of the Zimbabwean Defence Industry in Harare for the weapons.

The broad plan, according to Mr du Toit's account, was for the plane to pick up the 64 mercenaries at Wonderboom airport near Pretoria and then fly on to Pietersburg international airport to clear customs for Harare. In Harare the plane would refuel and pick up the arms - 150 hand grenades, 80 60mm mortar bombs, 100 RPG-7 anti-tank projectiles with 10 launchers, 20 light machine guns, 61 AK-47 assault rifles and 75,000 rounds of ammunition.

From there the plane should have flown straight to Malabo and landed at 2.30am on Monday March 8, with Mann in Harare keeping in touch with Mr du Toit in Malabo on his satellite phone. Once the mercenaries had landed one team was designated to secure the airport. The rest were to be driven into town with guides and vehicles provided by Mr du Toit.

While separate teams set up road blocks to prevent the military leaving their bases and moving into town, another group would capture minister Antonio Javier - Mr du Toit's business partner - who would guide them to the sleeping president. The president and brother Armagol would then be taken to the airport and, "if not killed in this operation", would be flown to Spain.

Meanwhile Mr Moto would have landed at Malabo airport, 30 minutes after the mercenaries. He would "call some supporters he claimed to have within the military and ask them to take control of the security situation". By sunrise the people of Equatorial Guinea would hear on the radio and see on television their new leader.

But the plot, if that is what it was, could not have gone more spectacularly wrong - reinforcing rumours of an intended coup circulating in special forces circles in Pretoria and even openly discussed at an academic meeting about oil, with US and Foreign Office officials present, in London.
 

On the Genocide in Rwanda:

Former Rwandan mayor dodges genocide conviction

Bisengimana was accused of killing refugees hiding in church

ARUSHA, Tanzania (AP) -- A former Rwandan mayor accused of participating in the killing of several thousand people seeking refuge in a church pleaded guilty Thursday to charges of murder and extermination.

The victims were just a fraction of the 500,000 Rwandans, mostly Tutsis, killed during the 1994 genocide exacted by the country's Hutu ethnic majority.

Paul Bisengimana changed his previous plea of not guilty after striking a deal with prosecutors under which they dropped 10 other charges. Those charges included genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct incitement to commit genocide, crimes against humanity -- including murder, rape, torture and other inhumane acts -- and violations of the Geneva Convention.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda charged the former mayor of Gikoro with organizing and participating in the killing of several thousand people who sought refuge in a church in his town near the Rwandan capital of Kigali.

Bisengimana was a member of the extremist government from Rwanda's Hutu ethnic majority that orchestrated the slaughter of a half million people.

He was alleged to have told a young Hutu seeking permission to rape Tutsi women not to keep them as wives but to rape them and then kill them.

He also was alleged to have urged the extremist Interahamwe militiamen conducting the slaughter to loot and burn property belonging to the Tutsis they killed.

Bisengimana was arrested in Mali in 2001 and transferred to Tanzania for trial in 2002.

The U.N. tribunal is trying the alleged masterminds of the 100-day genocide. Nineteen others have been convicted, and trials for two dozen more are under way.

A Belgian Catholic priest detained in Rwanda accused of genocide crimes in 1994 is to be transferred home for trial, Rwanda's High Court has said.

Father Guy Theunis, who was arrested two months ago, denies the charges.

The priest is accused of reproducing articles from a Hutu magazine encouraging the killing of Tutsis.

He became the first foreigner to go before a village "gacaca" court, which referred him to face charges in a conventional court.

Mounties Charge Rwandan with Genocide, October 19, 2005

Samantha Power Testimony

On April 22, 2004 Samantha Power and
others addressed the subcommittee on the anniversary of the Rwandan
genocide. Below is the link to the video if you are interested.
http://wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/afhear108.htm#Hearings/Meetings%20of%20108th%20Congress
 

The following items concern the Cambodian Genocide:

October 5, 2004
Skepticism Accompanies Tribunal Vote
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:41 a.m. ET

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) -- Chem Mey has been waiting a quarter century for Khmer Rouge leaders to be brought to trial.

``I cannot yet put my heart to believe it will happen,'' he said a day after Cambodia ratified an agreement with the United Nations to create such a tribunal.

Now 72, Chem Mey is one of only 14 people known to have survived the Khmer Rouge torture center Tuol Sleng, where his fingers were broken, his toenails ripped out and he was subjected to electric shocks.

Up to 16,000 men, women and children suffered similar atrocities at Tuol Sleng before they were executed.

They were a fraction of the estimated 1.7 million people who died from starvation, overwork, diseases and execution when the radical communist Khmer Rouge held sway from 1975-79.

The victims included Chem Mey's wife and youngest son, who were shot by Khmer Rouge soldiers just days after the regime was toppled by an invading Vietnamese army.

None of the regime's top leaders has been brought to justice. The movement's chief, Pol Pot, died in 1998. Several of his top lieutenants, aging and infirm, still live freely in Cambodia.

Ta Mok, the group's former army chief, and Kaing Khek Iev, chief interrogator at Tuol Sleng, are the only two senior Khmer Rouge figures detained awaiting trial.

Cambodian political leaders hailed Monday's passage of the long-delayed agreement, which calls for a tribunal consisting of teams of Cambodian and foreign prosecutors and judges, with Cambodians in the majority. Decisions will require a majority vote, plus one.

But some observers remained skeptical.

``We cannot be a hundred percent optimistic yet that the process will be as well-implemented as planned,'' said Thun Saray, director of the Cambodian human rights group Adhoc. ``I'm afraid there can be more blockage.''

Among the concerns, he said, are perceptions the government lacks commitment, the unresolved issue of a budget for the tribunal and flaws in its procedures. Others believe that Cambodia's judicial system is too unsophisticated for such a complex proceeding.

It took five years of complex negotiations between the government and the United Nations to draw up the pact, and another year for it to be ratified, largely because the country had no functioning legislature for 11 months following inconclusive elections in July 2003.

It has been suggested the delays were deliberate to help Khmer Rouge leaders escape prosecution, because they are past, present or potential political allies of Prime Minister Hun Sen, who exercises virtually unchallenged control over the country's administration.

``Will Hun Sen allow the court to indict based on evidence or only the people he is willing to prosecute?'' asked Brad Adams, Asia division's executive director of the Human Rights Watch based in New York.

``It remains to be seen if genuine trials will take place and if Cambodians will believe they are serious,'' he said.

Cambodia scholar Steve Heder of London's School of Oriental and African Studies said the ratification is only ``the first step in what's still going to be a long and fraught and flawed process.''

The tribunal law says judges in the trials ``must be independent in carrying out their duties and must not take or seek any orders from any governments or sources.''

But Heder said that fairness is in question ``because there are no viable guarantees against government interference.''

There is also the question of how many people to put on trial. Human rights experts have suggested about a dozen initial candidates for prosecution. However, the government will probably restrict the number to just a few top Khmer Rouge, Heder said.

Despite what he sees as flaws, Heder said the tribunal ``is something which is necessary and certainly better than nothing, because otherwise all the men and women who were responsible for Khmer Rouge crimes will either go unpunished or remain in untried detention.''

``That outcome would be totally unacceptable,'' he said.

October 5, 2004

Khmer Rouge Tribunal Amendments Approved

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 9:09 a.m. ET

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) -- Cambodian lawmakers on Tuesday approved legal amendments to enable an internationally assisted tribunal to try surviving Khmer Rouge leaders for atrocities during their 1970s rule, a day after they endorsed a U.N.-backed plan to create the judicial panel.

A total of 96 out of 98 lawmakers voted for the changes, which include exempting the proposed two-tier tribunal from Cambodia's three-tiered court system -- consististing of lower, appeals and supreme courts -- as a way of cutting costs and bureaucracy.

The measures also would specify that the government ``cannot request amnesty or pardon for any individuals'' who can be investigated or prosecuted for Khmer Rouge crimes, according to a draft of the amendments.

The tribunal would have the authority to retroactively decide on the ``scope'' of pardons granted before the tribunal law was adopted, it said, in an apparent reference to the pardon of Ieng Sary, the former Khmer Rouge foreign minister.

Ieng Sary was pardoned by King Norodom Sihanouk -- upon request by Hun Sen and Prince Norodom Ranariddh when they were co-prime ministers -- for leading a mass defection of the Khmer Rouge troops to the government in 1996.

This week's ratification of an agreement with the United Nations on the Khmer Rouge tribunal ended seven years of negotiations and delays, clearing a major hurdle toward bringing to justice members of the regime blamed for the deaths of nearly 2 million people.

The 107 lawmakers present in the National Assembly on Monday voted unanimously to ratify the pact.

Independent human rights experts suggest about a dozen major leaders are likely to be indicted by the tribunal but no official decisions have been made yet. It was not immediately clear when proceedings would start. Questions also remain about how the tribunal will be funded.

``We have realized today what we have been waiting for a long time already,'' Prime Minister Hun Sen told reporters after the vote. ``This is a very big outcome the Cambodian people and international community have been waiting for.''

The pact still needs the expected approval of Cambodia's Senate and head of state.

The news caused no stir in the capital. Many Cambodians are too young to remember the horror of the Khmer Rouge years, and most people must concentrate on earning a living from the few opportunities available in this poverty-stricken nation.

The Khmer Rouge, who ruled the country from 1975-79, are believed responsible for the deaths of at least 1.7 million of their countrymen from starvation, disease, overwork and execution.

None of the regime's top leaders has been brought to justice. The movement's chief, Pol Pot, died in 1998. Several of his top lieutenants, aging and infirm, still live freely in Cambodia.

Ta Mok, the group's former army chief, and Kaing Khek Iev, chief interrogator at Tuol Sleng, are the only two senior Khmer Rouge figures detained awaiting trial.

It took five years of tough negotiations to reach agreement with the United Nations in June last year. Then ratification was delayed, largely because the country had no functioning legislature during an 11-month political crisis that followed inconclusive elections in 2003.

The tribunal will consist of teams of Cambodian and foreign prosecutors and judges, with Cambodians in the majority. Decisions will require a majority vote, plus one

BBC - Monday, October 4, 2004
Khmer Rouge tribunal approved
Cambodia's parliament has ratified legislation to set up a UN-backed tribunal to put leaders of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime on trial.

The tribunal, which has been delayed by political infighting within Cambodia, will be the first chance for the regime's leaders to face justice. It will include Cambodians and foreigners, but still needs funding.

More than 1m Cambodians died from starvation, disease or execution under the Khmer Rouge's 1975-79 rule.

Cambodia's National Assembly voted by 107-0 to ratify the tribunal, which has been under discussion for more than five years.

"What we have been waiting for so long has happened today," Prime Minister Hun Sen said after the vote.


KHMER ROUGE TRIBUNAL
Will try cases of genocide and crimes against humanity
Five judges (three Cambodian) sit in trial court
Cases decided by majority
Maximum penalty is life imprisonment

The delays, and a 11-month political stalemate in Cambodia, had raised fears that none of the Khmer Rouge's ageing leaders would face justice.

Its main architect, Pol Pot, died in 1998.

Former army chief, Ta Mok, and chief interrogator Kaing Khek Iev, are the only two senior figures currently in detention awaiting trial.

Other leaders, including head of state Khieu Samphan, foreign minister Iang Sary, and Nuon Chea, known as "Brother Number Two", are still free.

The UN-backed tribunal will be made up of Cambodian and foreign legal experts, with Cambodians in the majority.

Cambodian and foreign analysts have welcomed the tribunal's establishment.

But there are worries that it will not be free of interference from the Cambodian government, some of whose members fought for the Khmer Rouge.

There has also been criticism that, by focussing on a few high-profile leaders, the tribunal, will allow lower-ranking Khmer Rouge leaders who were also involved in serious crimes to escape justice.

Funding for the tribunal has yet to be agreed. Cambodia's Foreign Minister, Hor Namhong, last week urged the UN to help find funds for half of the $50m tribunal.

So far, only Australia has pledged to donate more than $2m.

It was not clear how quickly the tribunal would be able to begin work.

It still needs to be approved by the Senate and King Norodom Sihanouk, although these are expected to be formalities.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3712482.stm

Published: 2004/10/04 06:47:52 GMT

© BBC MMIV
 

BBC - Monday, October 4, 2004

Key figures in the Khmer Rouge
After nearly six years of negotiations and delay, Cambodia's National Assembly has finally approved legislation to set up a genocide court to try former members of the Khmer Rouge.

The agreement brings the surviving leaders of the brutal Maoist regime - many of whom are still living freely - a step closer to trial.

The man most wanted for crimes against humanity in Cambodia will never be brought to justice.

Pol Pot, the founder and unchallenged leader of the Khmer Rouge, died in a camp along the border with Thailand in 1998.

But he left behind him several other senior figures who have been implicated in the genocide that took place during the Khmer Rouge's four-year regime.

Two of these men are already in custody.

Ta Mok, nicknamed "The Butcher", was the commander of the south-western region of Cambodia during the time of the Khmer Rouge.

In 1997 he ousted Pol Pot and became the group's leader.

Two years later he was captured next to the Thai border and charged with genocide. Now aged 78, he is jail in Phnom Penh.

Kang Kek Ieu, more commonly known as Duch, is also in prison.

Duch was the boss of Phnom Penh's notorious Tuol Sleng prison, where thousands of people were killed during the Khmer Rouge regime.

Now aged 62, he is the youngest surviving member of the movement's leadership.

Duch, who has since become a born-again Christian, is said to be eager for his chance to go to trial to tell his version of events.

Escaping justice

Other senior Khmer Rouge leaders are still at liberty.

Two of the top names, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, live in Pailin, once the movement's jungle headquarters.

Both men deny being involved in the atrocities that went on during the Khmer Rouge regime, but critics suggest that at the very least they were fully informed of what was happening.

Nuon Chea was Pol Pot's second in command, and often referred to as "brother number two".

He defected from the Khmer Rouge in 1998 and was granted a pardon by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.

In December 2002 he was called to testify on behalf of the former Khmer Rouge general Sam Bith, who was sentenced to life in prison for ordering the kidnap and murder of three Western backpackers in 1994.

Khieu Samphan, as the official head of state, was the public face of the Khmer Rouge.

After defecting at the same time as Nuon Chea, the 73-year-old is now said to spend most of his time reading, listening to music or gardening in his Pailin home.

Another former leader, Ieng Sary, may yet escape trial.

Known as "Brother Number Three", Ieng Sary is Pol Pot's brother-in-law and served as minister of foreign affairs during the Khmer Rouge regime.

He became the first senior leader to defect in 1996 - and as a result was granted a royal pardon.

The United Nations says such a pardon cannot protect someone from prosecution, but Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has previously warned that going after Ieng Sary could reignite civil unrest in Cambodia.

Ieng Sary now lives in a luxury villa in Phnom Penh, as well as maintaining a home in Pailin.

The 74-year-old is said to be ill with a heart condition, and travels to Bangkok regularly for treatment.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2856771.stm

Published: 2004/10/04 09:58:16 GMT

© BBC MMIV