June 9, 2004

World Media Watch

by Gloria R. Lalumia

BUZZFLASH NOTE: WMW provides BuzzFlash readers foreign views and perspectives that are not usually available from the media here in the U.S. The presentation of these articles from these international publications is not an endorsement of their viewpoints.

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WORLD MEDIA WATCH FOR JUNE 9, 2004

1//The Independent, UK--BLAIR PLANS SHOW OF STRENGTH TO SQUASH LEADERSHIP RUMOURS (Tony Blair will seek to shore up his position as Prime Minister after Thursday's local and European elections by implementing a fightback plan in which he will outline new policies on health, education, crime and transport...Downing Street has abandoned the idea of trying to "move on" from Iraq, recognising that it cannot possibly control events on the ground. It is braced for further setbacks as al-Qa'ida tries to disrupt the path to Iraqi elections due early next year but hopes that British politics will be dominated by domestic issues.)

2//The Jordan Times, Jordan--GOV'T DENIES SENDING ENVOY TO MEET CHALABI (The government on Tuesday denied claims by an aide to Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi that it had sent an envoy to Baghdad to discuss Chalabi's 1992 embezzlement conviction in Jordan. "No envoy from Jordan has gone to Baghdad to meet Chalabi," Minister of State and Government Spokeswoman Asma Khader told AFP. "Nothing can be discussed outside Jordanian law," she said, adding that the conviction by a Jordanian court against Chalabi for fraud and embezzling millions of dollars still stands. An aide to the former Iraqi Governing Council member, who has fallen out of favour with Washington, told reporters in Baghdad earlier Tuesday that Chalabi had refused to discuss his case with a Jordanian envoy. "Somebody presenting himself as an envoy of the highest judicial authority tried two or three times to meet Ahmad Chalabi in Baghdad to try to reach a compromise to close the case, but Chalabi refused to meet him," Mithal Al Alloussi said.)

3//Inter Press Service News Agency, Italy--LIBERATED KURDS FIND LITTLE FREEDOM (It is hard to find people here willing to talk openly against either of the ruling Kurdish parties. While nowhere near as oppressive as Saddam's regime, the U.S.-backed Kurdish leaders of Northern Iraq have virtually banned dissent. The area even has its own secret police, the Asayeech, to keep people in line. Kurds outside Iraq are often critical of this, but most of them see the current leadership by the two armed factions as a temporary step on the road to ultimate separation from Iraq.)

4//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--NORTHERN IRAQ - CALM LIKE A BOMB (The United States has let loose a Kurdish "monster", not only on Iraq itself, but also on the region at large, a "monster" which cannot easily be put back into the box. If a diplomatic solution cannot be crafted that satisfies all of Iraq's three factions, and it is doubtful that one can, then a great deal of military muscle will be needed in the entire region to keep the disenfranchised Kurds "in check". And that muscle will have to come increasingly into play in northern Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia and Azerbaijan. In the end, the handover of sovereignty on June 30 may not change anything, except that it may well accelerate Iraq's descent into sectarian violence, with Turkey and Syria cooperating militarily to secure their interests in northern Iraq by taking control of that region, and the southern regions of Iraq moving significantly closer into cooperation with Iran, with the US military caught in the middle.)

5//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia--THAILAND TELLS US: KEEP YOUR SOLDIERS (Thailand has joined Malaysia and Indonesia in rejecting an expanded United States military role in fighting terrorism in South-East Asia... He also backed claims by Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister, Najib Razak, that the regional terrorist threat was being exaggerated, and discounted the likelihood of another serious attack. "That's a US notion, but I don't see any conditions leading to that kind of incident," said Mr Chavalit, who is a former defence minister and army commander. His comments followed remarks at the weekend by the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who said he hoped US forces would soon be hunting terrorists in South-East Asia.)

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1//The Independent, UK 09 June 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=529606

BLAIR PLANS SHOW OF STRENGTH TO SQUASH LEADERSHIP RUMOURS
By Andrew Grice and Colin Brown

Tony Blair will seek to shore up his position as Prime Minister after Thursday's local and European elections by implementing a fightback plan in which he will outline new policies on health, education, crime and transport.

Mr Blair has decided to address Labour MPs at their weekly meeting next Monday in an attempt to win an informal vote of confidence from them and squash any new outbreak of speculation that he might stand down before the next general election. Although Labour is expected to suffer a backlash over the Iraq war on Thursday, Mr Blair's aides are confident he will survive the inevitable criticism from inside his party that would follow.

John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, was originally due to speak at Monday's meeting but Mr Blair will now issue a "business as usual" message by updating his MPs on the Government's "forward plans". These include five-year programmes for the Home Office and the departments of Education, Health and Transport which will form key planks in the Labour manifesto for the general election expected next May.

Mr Blair, who is determined not to "hide away" after poor results on Thursday, is due to hold his monthly press conference next Tuesday. Next week is bound to be dominated by Europe because a crucial EU summit takes place in Brussels on 17-18 June to agree the proposed new EU constitution.

In the following week, the Prime Minister will try to switch the political spotlight away from Europe and Iraq by trailing some of the ideas in the five-year plans and making a major speech on public services.

Downing Street has abandoned the idea of trying to "move on" from Iraq, recognising that it cannot possibly control events on the ground. It is braced for further setbacks as al-Qa'ida tries to disrupt the path to Iraqi elections due early next year but hopes that British politics will be dominated by domestic issues.

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2//The Jordan Times, Jordan Wednesday, June 9, 2004
http://www.jordantimes.com/wed/homenews/homenews7.htm

GOV'T DENIES SENDING ENVOY TO MEET CHALABI

AMMAN (AFP) - The government on Tuesday denied claims by an aide to Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi that it had sent an envoy to Baghdad to discuss Chalabi's 1992 embezzlement conviction in Jordan.

"No envoy from Jordan has gone to Baghdad to meet Chalabi," Minister of State and Government Spokeswoman Asma Khader told AFP.

"Nothing can be discussed outside Jordanian law," she said, adding that the conviction by a Jordanian court against Chalabi for fraud and embezzling millions of dollars still stands.

An aide to the former Iraqi Governing Council member, who has fallen out of favour with Washington, told reporters in Baghdad earlier Tuesday that Chalabi had refused to discuss his case with a Jordanian envoy.

"Somebody presenting himself as an envoy of the highest judicial authority tried two or three times to meet Ahmad Chalabi in Baghdad to try to reach a compromise to close the case, but Chalabi refused to meet him," Mithal Al Alloussi said.

In 1992, a Jordanian court sentenced Chalabi to 22 years in prison for fraud and embezzling $288 million from Petra Bank, which he founded and ran until its collapse in 1989, and moving the funds into Swiss accounts.

(SNIP)

Chalabi has long defended his innocence and accused former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, of using his influence in Jordan and good relations with former King Hussein, to trump up the charges.

"Chalabi believes this money was spirited away by a band of thieves and it should be returned to the victims, himself included," said Alloussi, without naming the accused.

Chalabi, a former Pentagon ally and a Shiite member of Iraq's disbanded Governing Council, has been accused of informing Iran that the United States had broken its intelligence code.

3//Inter Press Service News Agency, Italy June 4, 2004
http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=24035

LIBERATED KURDS FIND LITTLE FREEDOM
Aaron Glantz

Kurdish areas in Northern Iraq have been 'free' for some time, but there is little freedom in the media or on the streets.

ARBIL, Iraq, Jun 4 (IPS) - Fruit and vegetable vendors push their carts around a street market in Arbil, the seat of governance of Iraqi Kurdistan. The city is very different from Baghdad. Kurdish is spoken here, and written large on shop windows. Also, there is no visible American troop presence.

The streets are patrolled not by American soldiers in tanks and humvees, but by kalashnikov-carrying Peshmerga guerrillas on foot patrol.

Since the creation of the Kurdish autonomous area in 1991, Kurds have been doing everything they can to create their own society. But that does not mean they get their news in Kurdish.

(SNIP)

Kurdish broadcasters have been unable to build a network of reporters to compete with al-Arabia and al-Jazeera. That is partly because Kurds do not have as much money as their counterparts in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates where the satellite news channels are based.

But it is also because Kurdish broadcasters have a different goal. The nightly news on Kurdistan Television is essentially a summary of Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader Masoud Barzani's day.

"Mr. Masoud Barzani has so many activities and he visits so many places and we have to broadcast it," KTV station manager Shiwan Amurr Yusuf says.

"This channel is related to the Kurdistan Democratic Party so although we have freedom to do what we want, we also have to bring the viewer all the breaking news about this party," he adds.

Masoud Barzani's KDP effectively serves as the government of half of Northern Iraq. The other half of Iraqi Kurdistan is controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which owns and controls the only other Kurdish television station in the area, KurdSat.

PUK members say the party has good reason to control the news broadcast on KurdSat. Hakim Umar from the PUK's foreign office says the media is a major tool for propaganda in keeping Iraq from splitting apart.

"If you let the people talk themselves, they will ask for independence from Iraq," he says. "But the media that has been talking to them for many years helps them come back to federalism because federalism is the best way for us. That's the meaning of Kurdish media. We got a message for our people that it is the right thing to live in Iraq with federalism."

It is hard to find people here willing to talk openly against either of the ruling Kurdish parties. While nowhere near as oppressive as Saddam's regime, the U.S.-backed Kurdish leaders of Northern Iraq have virtually banned dissent.

The area even has its own secret police, the Asayeech, to keep people in line. Kurds outside Iraq are often critical of this, but most of them see the current leadership by the two armed factions as a temporary step on the road to ultimate separation from Iraq.

(MORE)

4//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong June 9, 2004
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FF09Ak03.html

Speaking Freely:
NORTHERN IRAQ - CALM LIKE A BOMB

By W Joseph Stroupe
W Joseph Stroupe is editor-in-chief of GeoStrategyMap.com, an online geopolitical magazine specializing in strategic analysis and forecasting.

(SNIP)

Fearful of the influence of Shi'ite religious fundamentalism as the transition to sovereignty progressed, the administration of President George W Bush evidently saw the Kurds as an entity it could use to keep such Shi'ite influence in check, to limit its power in any new Iraqi regime, so as to prevent the formation of an Iranian-style theocracy in Iraq. However, as matters are turning out, the most powerful positions being filled in the interim government are occupied by mostly secular Sunnis and Shi'ites.

So, the United States now has little use for the Kurds, who see clearly that once again they are being abandoned by the US. All the parties see the Kurds, therefore, as possible spoilers of the solution currently being put together under UN auspices. Hence, little sympathy exists for them. Realizing this fact, the Kurds are already resorting to threats and violence in an effort to get a satisfactory hearing. By its short-sighted, ad hoc approach to Iraq's complicated situation, first using the Kurds and then casting them aside, the United States may have sealed both its own and Iraq's fate.

There appears little hope that the Kurdish demands can be sufficiently taken into consideration without at the same time losing the already cautious and tentative support of the Sunnis and Shi'ites. And there also appears little hope that the Kurds will suddenly satisfy themselves with what the other two factions are comfortable in giving them. Hence, whether the Kurds might temporarily tone down their demands for the time being, or whether they more likely will ratchet up their demands as the UN negotiations proceed and the June 30 date nears, one thing that appears certain is that they will hold a major key to how events proceed in Iraq.

The United States has let loose a Kurdish "monster", not only on Iraq itself, but also on the region at large, a "monster" which cannot easily be put back into the box. If a diplomatic solution cannot be crafted that satisfies all of Iraq's three factions, and it is doubtful that one can, then a great deal of military muscle will be needed in the entire region to keep the disenfranchised Kurds "in check". And that muscle will have to come increasingly into play in northern Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

In the end, the handover of sovereignty on June 30 may not change anything, except that it may well accelerate Iraq's descent into sectarian violence, with Turkey and Syria cooperating militarily to secure their interests in northern Iraq by taking control of that region, and the southern regions of Iraq moving significantly closer into cooperation with Iran, with the US military caught in the middle. The relative calmness of northern Iraq is very likely to be much like the calmness of a large bomb - its calmness very deceptively masks the huge explosion which is likely imminent.

5//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia June 9, 2004
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/08/1086460298345.html?from=storylhs

THAILAND TELLS US: KEEP YOUR SOLDIERS
By Mark Baker, Herald Correspondent in Singapore

Thailand has joined Malaysia and Indonesia in rejecting an expanded United States military role in fighting terrorism in South-East Asia.

The Thai Deputy Prime Minister, Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, has ruled out intervention by US forces to fight a growing Muslim insurgency in southern Thailand, in which more than 200 people have died this year.

"There is no reason for the US to deploy troops. It's usual for the US to comment on such things, but we can manage the situation," Mr Chavalit told journalists in Bangkok.

He also backed claims by Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister, Najib Razak, that the regional terrorist threat was being exaggerated, and discounted the likelihood of another serious attack. "That's a US notion, but I don't see any conditions leading to that kind of incident," said Mr Chavalit, who is a former defence minister and army commander.

His comments followed remarks at the weekend by the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who said he hoped US forces would soon be hunting terrorists in South-East Asia. "We simply cannot wait for another attack and expect to defend against it. We have to go out and find those terrorist networks and the people financing them and countries providing a safe haven for them," he said.

Malaysia and Indonesia are opposing reported US plans to deploy forces to counter possible terrorist attacks against international shipping in the Straits of Malacca.

The US commander in the Pacific, Admiral Thomas Fargo, who reportedly told a congressional hearing in Washington recently that he wanted to use marines aboard fast patrol boats to beef up security in the straits, is to visit Kuala Lumpur this month for talks with Malaysian security officials.

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