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World Media Watch
by Gloria R. Lalumia
BUZZFLASH NOTE: Once again, these are the views and perspectives of the individual papers, not of BuzzFlash or Gloria. They offer BuzzFlash readers a way of reading what other nations are saying about the crisis, whether we like it or not. We repeat: This is not an endorsement of their viewpoints.
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1//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia--FRESH BANK SCANDALS HIT IRAQ'S LEADER IN WAITING (Fresh information has emerged of banking scandals involving the family of the Pentagon's preferred candidate to shape post-war Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi...The accusations are similar to those levelled by banking investigators following the collapse of Ahmad Chalabi's Petra Bank in Jordan, which was closed down by the Jordanian authorities four months after the same fate befell Mebco in Switzerland.)
2//Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK-- AMERICA'S NEW IRAQI ORDER: PROMISING DEMOCRACY WHILE PROTECTING ABUSERS (Misha'an Juburi declared himself governor of the northern oil city of Mosul on Tuesday with the apparent blessing of the US forces who entered the city last week. Reporters in Mosul said Juburi had been "installed" by the United States, and US troops protected him as he came under attack from angry townspeople after making a speech promising democracy...Iraqi journalist Kamran Karadaghi said Juburi was unable to visit his native village, Shirqat, because of the hatred his own people nurtured toward him. "He is the most corrupt person I have ever known," he said. In Baghdad on Thursday, the US Marine Corps distanced itself from two Iraqis claiming to have been elected by local leaders as mayor of Baghdad and interim governor. Public affairs officer Captain Joe Plenzler said: "The US government has not appointed anyone." There was no corresponding denial from US officials in Mosul.)
3//Islam Online, Qatar--SYRIA WILL NOT ACCEPT INSPECTIONS: FM (After a meeting with Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, Sharaa said "we will not authorize anything illegal ... we respect the U.N. charter and will not abandon our independence or dignity.)
4//The Daily Star, Lebanon--CABINET SHUFFLE FOLLOWS TENSION AT THE TOP (The Cabinet reshuffle has followed a familiar political pattern in Lebanon, with the change coming as a result of tension between top Lebanese leaders reaching an unacceptable level for Damascus... According to government sources, this is exactly the kind of situation that Damascus wants to avoid. The decision to undertake a government change was in no way related to the regional context, neither was it a Syrian wish in the first place. The decision, said the sources, was taken to avoid internal clashes that could have easily erupted given current domestic disputes... Speculation has mounted over the past 24 hours that Syria is trying to establish a government that would best fit the precarious regional situation.)
5//The Moscow Times, Russia--ELECTION COVERAGE: WILL THERE BE ANY? (But since all laws in Russia are enforced selectively, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Mikhail Leontyev's program, "Odnako," will stay on the air, while Viktor Shenderovich's "Besplatny Syr" will get the hook. It should be obvious that the Central Elections Commission will turn a blind eye to slanted coverage of incumbents backed by the "party of power" on state television, and that it will crack down on independent Internet publications for posting "compromising" material "not related to the candidate's professional duties"...The new legislation affords grim prospects for satire, political analysis and independent journalism. The only real hope is that, in line with the old Russian tradition, the severity of the new laws will be mitigated by their non-enforcement.)
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1//The
Sydney Morning Herald April 18 2003
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/17/1050172708630.html
FRESH BANK SCANDALS HIT IRAQ'S LEADER IN WAITING
Fresh information has emerged of banking scandals involving the family of the Pentagon's preferred candidate to shape post-war Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi.
Dr Chalabi's brother, Jawad, confirmed that he and another brother, Hazem, had been convicted by the Swiss authorities of false accounting in connection with the collapse of Socofi, an investment firm in Dr Chalabi's widespread financial empire.
He also confirmed that a Genevan bank linked to Mr Chalabi, Mebco, had its banking licence withdrawn by the Swiss federal banking commission in April 1989, and also collapsed.
Jawad Chalabi was responding to reports in the Swiss press that authorities there had accused Chalabi-linked finance firms of lending millions of pounds to companies controlled by the Chalabi family, including Ahmad Chalabi himself. Firms named included Associated Software, and Middle East and Trading Investment.
(SNIP)
The accusations are similar to those levelled by banking investigators following the collapse of Ahmad Chalabi's Petra Bank in Jordan, which was closed down by the Jordanian authorities four months after the same fate befell Mebco in Switzerland.
Jawad Chalabi also said that Ahmad had been the victim of political intrigue in Jordan, and had not received a fair trial by a military court, which sentenced him to 22 years' jail in his absence for fraud and embezzlement over Petra Bank's collapse.
(MORE)
2//Institute for War and Peace Reporting
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/irq/irq_15_1_eng.txt
Iraq Crisi Report
AMERICA'S NEW IRAQI ORDER: PROMISING DEMOCRACY WHILE PROTECTING ABUSERS
By Julie Flint in Beirut (ICR No. 15, 17-April-03)
Julie Flint is Iraqi Crisis Report Co-ordinating Editor and former
IWPR trustee.
"A free and democratic Iraq will begin today," Jay Garner, the retired American general overseeing the politics of the new Iraq, told opposition and community leaders in the southern town of Nasiriya this week. At the same time, however, at the other end of the country, US troops were protecting a man whom many Iraqis consider one of the worst of the old regime - a Sunni tribal leader who gained a fearsome reputation as a personal bodyguard to Saddam Hussein.
Misha'an Juburi declared himself governor of the northern oil city of Mosul on Tuesday with the apparent blessing of the US forces who entered the city last week. Reporters in Mosul said Juburi had been "installed" by the United States, and US troops protected him as he came under attack from angry townspeople after making a speech promising democracy.
The grab for power by Juburi, a man rejected by many even within his own tribe, caused two days of protests in Mosul that claimed at least 17 lives. Col. Andrew Frick, the most senior US officer in the city, said trouble began after demonstrators opened fire on American soldiers. But a doctor in Mosul hospital quoted wounded civilians as saying Juburi urged US Marines to open fire on a crowd that had attacked and overturned his car. As the situation ran out of control, both sides agree that Marines fired on the protestors and escorted Juburi to safety in city hall.
The emergence of Juburi, who defected from the regime in 1992, has raised serious concerns about the quality of the democracy that may emerge in Iraq under US auspices. He was booed at a meeting of opposition leaders in London last December together with two other high-ranking defectors who are seeking a place in the post-Saddam sun: former military intelligence chief Wafik Samara'i and journalist Sa'ad Bazzaz, a former press advisor to Saddam.
Juburi's closest - virtually his only - friend in the Iraqi opposition is the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Massoud Barzani, whose fighters entered Mosul with the Americans after Saddam's forces withdrew. Some speculate that this support is Barzani's way of making amends for a KDP attack on the Juburi family that killed 15 members of Misha'an's family including his father and several uncles in the mid-'60s.
(SNIP)
Iraqi journalist Kamran Karadaghi said Juburi was unable to visit his native village, Shirqat, because of the hatred his own people nurtured toward him. "He is the most corrupt person I have ever known," he said.
In Baghdad on Thursday, the US Marine Corps distanced itself from two Iraqis claiming to have been elected by local leaders as mayor of Baghdad and interim governor. Public affairs officer Captain Joe Plenzler said: "The US government has not appointed anyone." There was no corresponding denial from US officials in Mosul.
The much-trumpeted opposition meeting in Nasiriya, which was attended by both Garner and White House envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, adjourned for 10 days on its opening day amid many questions about its purpose and place in America's post-war plans for Iraq. A wide range of Shia groups boycotted the meeting and thousands of Shias demonstrated against peacefully against it because of its American sponsorship.
The United States and Britain have already been accused by some Iraqis of manifesting a bias towards Sunnis, the foundation of Saddam's regime, in their earliest dealings in post-Saddam Iraq. Although the Arab world has a Sunni majority - and Sunni regimes allied to the West have expressed concern about any change that weakens the Sunni position in Iraq - the majority of Iraq's population is Shia.
(SNIP)
"Overall the Nasiriya conference was very poorly organised, with a few people from near-leadership ranks and many unknowns," said Ali Allawi, a London-based banker and opposition independent. "The issue is the interconnectedness of such a conference with the interim authority the Americans are planning. If Nasiriya was just one of series of small conferences, OK: they had to do something to create the impression that things are going forward. But if was an influential meeting, then it was not well organised and not well represented."
3//Islam Online April 17, 2003
http://www.IslamOnline.net/English/News/2003-04/17/article11.shtml
SYRIA WILL NOT ACCEPT INSPECTIONS: FM
CAIRO, April 17 (IslamONline.net & News Agencies) - Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Sharaa underlined Thursday, April 17, that his country will not allow inspections of its territory to refute U.S. accusations of possessing chemical weapons.
Emerging from talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, he told reporters that Damascus "will only contribute, with its (Arab) brothers and the countries of the whole world to transforming the Middle East into a region devoid of all weapons of mass destruction, chemical, biological or nuclear."
The Syrian official was responding to questions on whether his country would be ready to accept weapons inspections like Iraq, which were forced to an end days before the unleashing of the U.S.-led war on Iraq on March 20.
After a meeting with Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, Sharaa said "we will not authorize anything illegal ... we respect the U.N. charter and will not abandon our independence or dignity.)
(MORE)
4//The Daily Star Beirut, Thursday April 17, 2003. Updated 08:30
AM +3GMT
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/17_04_03/art1.asp
CABINET SHUFFLE FOLLOWS TENSION AT THE TOP
Damascus finds discord unacceptable
Zeina Abu Rizk
Special to The Daily Star
The Cabinet reshuffle has followed a familiar political pattern in
Lebanon, with the change coming as a result of tension between top
Lebanese leaders reaching an unacceptable level for Damascus.
Intensified contacts to form the new government the last under President Emile Lahoud's presidential term started Saturday among the various poles of power, as well as with Syrian officials.
(SNIP)
Speaker Nabih Berri appears to be the main beneficiary of the reshuffle,
for which he has been fighting for several months. Berri had refused
a partial reshuffling of his ministers alone. His persistence on
a complete change and the pressure and efforts he deployed toward
this end were finally rewarded.
Lately, the speaker did not hide his intentions to hold the outgoing government accountable for what he considers an evident lack of performance, having promised in particular to hold a series of sessions in Parliament to question the government. The speaker's intentions were going to render life difficult for Hariri's Cabinet, which would add to an already tense political atmosphere.
According to government sources, this is exactly the kind of situation that Damascus wants to avoid. The decision to undertake a government change was in no way related to the regional context, neither was it a Syrian wish in the first place. The decision, said the sources, was taken to avoid internal clashes that could have easily erupted given current domestic disputes.
For Damascus, whose main concerns lie in having to deal with intensifying US threats and accusations, the idea was to have senior political players agree on whether to undertake a government change. If such a change were decided, the condition for Syrian support was to have key leaders agree beforehand on the new government's formula, allowing the change to be completed smoothly and rapidly. This may explain the rush by senior leaders to complete the necessary constitutional procedures.
Speculation has mounted over the past 24 hours that Syria is trying to establish a government that would best fit the precarious regional situation. For this purpose, improving Christian representation in particular, appears important as it increases the credibility of local authorities in the eyes of a skeptical West and reinforces Lebanese unity.
But the course of events on Wednesday did not appear to match these assumptions. Until late Wednesday evening, a scenario in which the Qornet Shehwan Gathering of Christian opposition leaders would be represented in the new government was not confirmed, and was even depicted as unlikely by a number of politicians.
(SNIP)
Until Wednesday evening, Hizbullah participation in the new Cabinet remained unlikely. Political players, and behind them Damascus, may have judged the time inappropriate for bringing Hizbullah members into the Cabinet for the first time, taking into account the tense regional situation and the harsh opposition that part of the international community has to the party.
5//The Moscow Times Thursday, Apr. 17, 2003. Page 8
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2003/04/17/006.html
ELECTION COVERAGE: WILL THERE BE ANY?
By Vladimir Pribylovsky
Vladimir Pribylovsky, president of the Panorama think tank, contributed
this comment to The Moscow Times.
(SNIP)
Central Elections Commission chairman Alexander Veshnyakov has emphatically denied that recent legislation governing elections in Russia strikes a blow against the freedom of speech. "It strikes a blow all right," he said, "but against the freedom to lie, against negative campaigning and dirty money."
When journalists and average voters talk about violations of voters' rights, they usually focus on how the ruling elite misuses the power of office (or "administrative resources") to ensure victory for the "party of power" and its candidates. And when members of the elite talk about the shortcomings in the electoral process, they angrily denounce so-called "negative campaigning." By "negative campaigning" the ruling elite always means compromising information about its candidates, whether that information is true or false.
Abuse of the power of office, especially when it involves vote-tampering and removing candidates from the ballot, directly violates voters' rights. Negative campaigning, even in its most egregious forms such as libel, does not. It more likely violates the ruling elite's monopoly on tendentious campaign coverage.
Independent candidates by definition have no access to "administrative resources." When things get nasty they prefer to "go negative" or buy votes. The establishment also buys votes, but it doesn't just hand out cash on street corners. It buys votes indirectly, misusing the power of office, as when the administration of the Krasnodar region allocated 300 million rubles for road repair and construction of a new stadium in Novorossiisk in order to give their man a boost in the mayoral election.
In the Duma's first reading of Putin's proposed amendments, the four factions that enjoy "administrative resources" -- Unity, Fatherland-All Russia, People's Deputy and Russia's Regions -- voted to ban "negative campaigning."
This means that during election campaigns, the mass media could no longer independently remind voters which candidates voted to legalize the importation of nuclear waste, or to evict people from public housing for falling behind on their bills, or to raise phone rates, or against raising the minimum wage. That sort of information could only be printed or aired in campaign ads paid for by the candidates and their parties.
On the other hand, the proposed amendments effectively legalize the abuse of power. Officials who get involved in ballot-stuffing or removing their competitors from the ballot could be fined, it's true. But the fines -- a few thousand rubles -- are merely symbolic. Were a candidate to get up to the same kind of monkey business, he would face a fine and up to four years in prison. The same applies to election commission employees -- the very people who would be called on to do the dirty work for those higher up the political food chain. As Duma Deputy Boris Nadezhdin joked, governors can now pay their fines for abusing the power of their office up front, and then "do whatever they like."
According to the letter of the law, television programs like "Besplatny Syr," "Tushite Svet" and "Odnako," which deal with politics, would have to be pulled off the air for the entire upcoming Duma election campaign, and again for the presidential campaign next spring.
But since all laws in Russia are enforced selectively, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Mikhail Leontyev's program, "Odnako," will stay on the air, while Viktor Shenderovich's "Besplatny Syr" will get the hook. It should be obvious that the Central Elections Commission will turn a blind eye to slanted coverage of incumbents backed by the "party of power" on state television, and that it will crack down on independent Internet publications for posting "compromising" material "not related to the candidate's professional duties."
(SNIP)
The new legislation affords grim prospects for satire, political analysis and independent journalism. The only real hope is that, in line with the old Russian tradition, the severity of the new laws will be mitigated by their non-enforcement.
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© 2003, Gloria R. Lalumia, insight@zianet.com
Radio for the Left at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical/radio.htm
