July 16, 2003

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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 Independent, UK--WORLD LEADERS REJECT BLAIR’S MOVE OVER MILITARY ACTION (Tony Blair was rebuffed yesterday over attempts to give international backing to military action to topple the brutal leaders of failed states like Iraq. A summit of 14 world leaders refused to endorse a joint statement which proposed waiving the legal ban on intervening in foreign states if governments failed to protect their citizens from repression or "state failure"…The leaders, including the South African President, Thabo Mbeki, the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, New Zealand's Prime Minister, Helen Clark, and the Canadian Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien, said that "the global challenges of poverty, protecting the environment and human rights, promoting development and peace and combating terrorism require a step change in the confidence and capacities of our global institutions. These must be based on respect for international law and founded on multilateralism.")

2//Foreign Policy in Focus, USA—COMMENTARY: U.S. PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE DOCTRINE BANE OF NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION WATCHDOGS (U.S. President George W. Bush's new doctrine of preventive war and pre-emptive strikes is turning the UN's nuclear watchdog into a lapdog. After decades of low-profile work to promote cooperation on peaceful use of nuclear energy, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is being forced to mediate between the United States and certain members of what the Bush administration terms the axis of evil--namely Iraq, Iran, and North Korea--, with the unfortunate outcome of a likely increase in nuclear weapons.)

3//The Daily Star, Lebanon--WILL BUSH’S ‘WAR ON TERROR’ BACKFIRE IN AFRICA?(But the Americans are finding, as they have in the Middle East with their conquest of Iraq, that many Africans oppose their intervention because, bolstered by US aid and support, some governments are turning on the Muslim opposition on the pretext of combating terrorism. In doing so, they run the risk of radicalizing their Muslim populations and driving them into the arms of Al-Qaeda.)

4//Xinhua News Agency, China--NEW BATCH OF US SOLDIERS IN SOUTHERN PHILIPPINES FOR TRAINING (The group of less than 100 American soldiers led by US special forces commander identified only as Major Alonzo will take over the training responsibility from a Major Lemire and his men, the ABS-CBN on-line news quoted Major Randy Cephus, US spokesman for the Joint Special Operation Task Force-Philippines, as saying…The Philippine-US war game coded Balikatan 03-1 is slated in the second half of this year to flush out the remnant Abu Sayyaf gunmen hiding in the thick bushes on the southern island of Jolo, a known lair for the group.)

5//The News International, Pakistan--AFGHANISTAN, PAKISTAN, US MEET TO DISCUSS BORDER ROW (Representatives of Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States met here on Tuesday to discuss a border dispute which has damaged relations between Kabul and Islamabad. Alleged intrusions into Afghan territory by Pakistani troops have led to mass demonstrations in Kabul and Kandahar, with a mob storming the Pakistani embassy here last Tuesday and forcing its closure.)

Related Story: PAK-AFGHAN BORDER TENSIONS REMAIN AS CLASHES CONTINUE

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1//The Independent 15 July 2003 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=424505

WORLD LEADERS REJECT BLAIR’S MOVE OVER MILITARY ACTION

By Ben Russell, Political Correspondent

Tony Blair was rebuffed yesterday over attempts to give international backing to military action to topple the brutal leaders of failed states like Iraq.

A summit of 14 world leaders refused to endorse a joint statement which proposed waiving the legal ban on intervening in foreign states if governments failed to protect their citizens from repression or "state failure".

The original draft, revealed by The Independent on Sunday, said: "Where a population is suffering serious harm as a result of internal war, insurgency, repression or state failure, and the state in question is unwilling to halt or avert it, the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect." But the passage was cut from the final communiqué amid fears that it could have provided justification for the war in Iraq and give carte blanche to Western powers to intervene in countries around the world. The final document instead stressed "the crucial importance of international co-operation in responding to humanitarian crises". It said: "We are clear that the UN Security Council remains the sole body to authorise global action in dealing with humanitarian crises of this kind."

(SNIP)

Speaking at the end of a three-day Progressive Governance Summit in Surrey, Mr Blair refused yesterday to link proposals for reforming international law with the war in Iraq, but called for new international "rules" to govern intervention in failing states.

(SNIP)

The argument over how to police the world's most unstable countries will dominate discussions about the future of the United Nations in the wake of the war in Iraq. Foreign Office officials have started work on proposals for reform, due to be launched by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, in the autumn, amid concern in Britain and America that the UN is unwieldy and unsuited to the challenges of the 21st century. Proposals being considered include expanding the permanent membership of the UN Security Council and streamlining the organisation's bureaucracy.

The leaders, including the South African President, Thabo Mbeki, the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, New Zealand's Prime Minister, Helen Clark, and the Canadian Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien, said that "the global challenges of poverty, protecting the environment and human rights, promoting development and peace and combating terrorism require a step change in the confidence and capacities of our global institutions. These must be based on respect for international law and founded on multilateralism."

2//Foreign Policy in Focus July 13, 2003
http://www.fpif.org/outside/commentary/2003/0307iaea.html

Commentary:

U.S. PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE DOCTRINE BANE OF NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION WATCHDOGS

By Martin Schwarz

U.S. President George W. Bush's new doctrine of preventive war and pre-emptive strikes is turning the UN's nuclear watchdog into a lapdog.

After decades of low-profile work to promote cooperation on peaceful use of nuclear energy, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is being forced to mediate between the United States and certain members of what the Bush administration terms the axis of evil--namely Iraq, Iran, and North Korea--, with the unfortunate outcome of a likely increase in nuclear weapons.

Until the crisis over Iraq, the 2,200 employees and diplomats at the IAEA in Vienna led a relatively relaxed life, carrying out their duties to inspect and enforce the UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and encourage disarmament of atomic weapons of mass destruction.

But something changed for them when they didn't find what Bush wanted them to find in their inspections of Iraq: nuclear weapons, or at least a clandestine nuclear program. That seriously damaged relations between Washington and the IAEA. "The U.S. was very angry with the way we presented our findings at the UN Security Council," one IAEA diplomat said. Since then the IAEA has found itself in both the U.S. and world spotlight. Mohamed El-Baradei, director general of the IAEA, has come under "immense pressure from the U.S.," as one diplomat at the UN in Vienna told me.

There has been no time for a diplomatic reconciliation between the U.S. government and the IAEA, as the Bush administration has hastened to frame Iran and North Korea as the new nuclear threats to justify its doctrine.

At the moment, the IAEA is the uneasy mediator between Tehran and Washington: "We have to find a compromise between them," one IAEA diplomat said, after the board of governors of the IAEA decided not to follow the U.S. recommendation to refer the problem with Iran's nuclear program to the Security Council. The Bush administration wanted to see Iran as a defendant at the Security Council. But this idea was rejected by the other board members, who opted to try to convince Tehran to agree to a stricter inspection regime.

Concretely, Washington wanted Iran to sign an additional protocol to the NPT, allegedly to improve IAEA inspectors' effectiveness. But Washington refuses to let IAEA inspectors work in the United States, and its main allies in its war on terrorism haven't signed this protocol, raising doubts about Bush's commitment to non-proliferation.

Bush's use of the specter of nuclear threat to legitimate his intimidation policy can also been seen as just another excuse if reports from occupied post-war Iraq are taken into account. When the reports about massive looting in Iraq's biggest nuclear facility Al-Tuwaitha emerged after the war, the U.S. administration rejected the IAEA's request to send inspectors to that facility for more than a month. El-Baradei didn't even get an answer to his letters to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. Meanwhile, strange things must have happened in Al-Tuwaitha: The IAEA in Vienna received several phone calls from U.S. soldiers based at the facility to secure it, who didn't know what to do with nuclear material they had found.

In North Korea, where good reasons exist to believe nuclear weapons are being developed, the IAEA inspectors were thrown out at the end of last year, prompting agency officials to surmise that their organization is in the middle of a bilateral game between the Asian nation and the United States. Saddled with the duty to resolve the conflict between the two over North Korea's nuclear program, but without the power to do so, the IAEA is facing the best example to date of problems it may face in the future.

(MORE)

3//The Daily Star Beirut, Tuesday July 15, 2003. Updated 09:00 AM +3 GMT
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/15_07_03/art23.asp

WILL BUSH’S ‘WAR ON TERROR’ BACKFIRE IN AFRICA?

Unstable governments offer potential haven for islamic militancy.

Washington is expanding its presence but risks making Dark Continent an even more fertile breeding ground for extremist groups.

Ed Blanche
Special to The Daily Star

BEIRUT: The US military disclosed a couple of weeks ago that “errant bombs” dropped by a B-52 bomber flying high above the former French colony of Djibouti killed a US Marine Corps helicopter pilot, Captain Seth Michaud, 27, when they exploded near US forces training on the Red Sea country’s northern coast. The nine M117 bombs destroyed two Marine helicopters and wounded eight other personnel, who were among 50 Marines taking part in a counter-terrorism exercise with at least one B-52.

Just why the B-52 was engaged in such exercises with the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, established in 2002 to hunt down Al-Qaeda forces in the Red Sea region and down the East African coast as far south as Tanzania, was not explained. But the giant Vietnam-era bombers, probably flying from the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, participated in air strikes on Taleban and Al-Qaeda forces in the Afghanistan campaign in 2001-02 and clearly were preparing for similar operations with the US forces that have been based in Djibouti since December 2002.

US military planners fear that extremist groups flushed out of the Middle East and Asia are looking to Africa, plagued by wars, anarchy, leaky borders and a rapidly growing Muslim population, as an ideal base and recruiting ground. George W. Bush’s recent tour of five African nations ­ including volatile, oil-rich Nigeria with a large and increasingly restive Muslim population ­ was primarily intended to bolster African governments against the penetration of Islamic extremists.

But the Americans are finding, as they have in the Middle East with their conquest of Iraq, that many Africans oppose their intervention because, bolstered by US aid and support, some governments are turning on the Muslim opposition on the pretext of combating terrorism. In doing so, they run the risk of radicalizing their Muslim populations and driving them into the arms of Al-Qaeda.

(MORE)

4//Xinhua News Agency Beijing 2003.7.15 Tues.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2003-07/16/content_975981.htm

NEW BATCH OF US SOLDIERS IN SOUTHERN PHILIPPINES FOR TRAINING
Xinhuanet 2003-07-16 00:11

MANILA, July 15 (Xinhuanet) -- A new batch of the US special forces have arrived in the southern Philippine city of Zamboanga to replace their processors training Filipino troops on anti-terrorism operations, a US officer in the city said on Tuesday.

The group of less than 100 American soldiers led by US special forces commander identified only as Major Alonzo will take over the training responsibility from a Major Lemire and his men, the ABS-CBN on-line news quoted Major Randy Cephus, US spokesman for the Joint Special Operation Task Force-Philippines, as saying.

Cephus explained that due to security concerns, names of these trainers will not be released for media consumption. "That is part of the protection that we are instituting for our forces," Cephus said without elaborating.

These American soldiers are living in a highly secured camp within the headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Philippines' Southern Command in Zamboanga.

(SNIP)

The Philippine-US war game coded Balikatan 03-1 is slated in the second half of this year to flush out the remnant Abu Sayyaf gunmen hiding in the thick bushes on the southern island of Jolo, a known lair for the group.

5//The News International Tuesday July 15, 2003-- Jamaadi-ul-Awwal 14, 1423 A.H. [LINK]

AFGHANISTAN, PAKISTAN, US MEET TO DISCUSS BORDER ROW

(Updated at 2235 PST)

KABUL: Representatives of Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States met here on Tuesday to discuss a border dispute which has damaged relations between Kabul and Islamabad.

Alleged intrusions into Afghan territory by Pakistani troops have led to mass demonstrations in Kabul and Kandahar, with a mob storming the Pakistani embassy here last Tuesday and forcing its closure.

Afghan militias, who have been involved in small arms skirmishes with Pakistani troops, have accused the soldiers of "invading" Afghanistan by up to 40 kilometres (25 miles). "The commission reviewed the recent developments along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and decided to set up a subcommittee consisting of representatives from all three participating countries," a statement from the Afghan foreign ministry said.

(SNIP)

Pakistan deployed regular army troops to the northwestern tribal region of Mohmand last month for the first time in its history to block cross-border infiltration of suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda fugitives. Much of the eastern Afghan-Pakistan border passes through rugged mountain territory and is poorly defined on the ground.

Related Story:

Pakistan News Service Updated on 2003-07-15 10:35:43
http://www.paknews.com/flash.php?id=9&date1=2003-07-15

PAK-AFGHAN BORDER TENSIONS REMAIN AS CLASHES CONTINUE

KABUL, Afghanistan: July 15 (PNS) – Border tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan showed no sign of easing down as troops of the two neighbors continued exchange of fire across the border, a military commander in eastern Afghanistan said.

Abdul Zahir, commander of Afghan border troops in the eastern border province of Nangarhar, said that armed clashes between the two sides lasted for about one hour near a border post in Yegobi district of the province, about 150 kilometers from Kabul.

Clashes across the Afghan-Pakistan border in recent weeks sent bilateral relations to a multi-year low last week when thousands of Afghans took to the street in Kabul, protesting against the alleged border incursions by Pakistan troops.

(MORE)