World Media Watch for April 8, 2002

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.

http://www.buzzflash.com/mediawatch

1//The Guardian, UK--COMMENT: WITH A FRIEND LIKE THIS... (. The greatest worry a friend of America should have is how its insistence that it can leave no part of the world alone has created anti-Americanism not only in Muslim countries but in regions such as Latin America where bin Laden's theology means nothing. If you dream that everyone might be your enemy, one day they may become just that.)

2//Pakistan News Service, Pakistan--RUSSIA CLAIMS U.S.TROOPS SUFFERED CASUALTIES (...the US army suffered heavy losses in Afghanistan during its offensive against Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters in Shahi-Kot valley on Thursday night, a media report said.)

3//Indiainfo.com, India--PAK MEDIA SLAMS MUSHARRAF'S REFERENDUM MOVE (Asking for reversal of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's decision to hold a referendum to get himself elected to a five-year term, the country's media on April 7 criticised it as clear violation of the Constitution and joined political and religious groups in condemning the move.)

4//ExpressIndia.com, India--4,000 MILITANTS READY TO CROSS OVER TO J-K (Terming the change in Pakistan as "cosmetic," he said foreign militants operating in the valley have been told that whatever action Pakistan government has taken against their leaders was "temporary.")

5//Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippines--ANALYSIS: CONSOLIDATION MAIN FACTOR IN SENIOR MILITARY PROMOTIONS (The remarks have revived rumors of military unrest over promotions on the senior generals' level. It includes coup conspiracies, which are a symptom of the pernicious infection of military interventionism in politics that has been running in the veins of the military since its mutiny that sparked the popular uprising that overthrew the Marcos dictatorship in February 1986.)

6//Sydney Morning Herald, Australia--QUEEN CLEARS WAY FOR ROYAL REFORMS (Daughters of the monarch would gain equal rights to succession and the 300-year-old ban on Catholics sitting on the throne would end under historic reforms to British royalty backed by the Queen.)

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1//The Guardian Sunday April 7, 2002
http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,680100,00.html

Without prejudice
WITH A FRIEND LIKE THIS...

America divides to control. It's a policy that could make even Bush's best friend Blair an antagonist

Nick Cohen
The Observer/Comment

I don't need to be the seventh son of a seventh son to foresee that Tony Blair won't get Bush alone in his ranch today and ask the President to tell him, statesmano a statesmano, why America intervenes in the Middle East. The question is superfluous because the answer is too obvious to waste breath on. America sustains fundamentalist monarchs because it wants their oil. American policy is neo-colonialism to the left-wingers, and what any great power must do to protect an essential resource to conservative realists.

Support for Israel, which has no oil and is the enemy of oil producing Arabs, confuses this simple reasoning. But it can be explained away as an aberration created by the enormous influence of the Jewish lobby in Washington. The big picture stays unclouded. Why is America attacked? Why will it march Britain into a needless war with Iraq? It's the oil, stupid. Anyone with half a brain knows that.

As so often with realpolitik, the knowing arguments of Left and Right have no basis in real politics. America gets most of its oil from the Americas - Canada, Mexico, Venezuela and the USA itself. Only a quarter comes from the Persian Gulf. If it found supplies elsewhere - in Russia, for example - or contained its profligate burning of energy, the US would have little need to worry about the Middle East. It won't pull out because Washington wants to 'discourage' the 'advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership', while maintaining a military dominance capable of 'deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role'.

The quotes don't come from a babbling conspiracy theorist but from the Pentagon's Defense Planning Guidance, which set out American strategy after the collapse of the Soviet Union. A draft was leaked to the New York Times in 1992. Pentagon bureaucrats were appalled because, in their marvellous jargon, it hadn't been 'scrubbed'. What they mean was candid language for private consumption hadn't been swabbed away and replaced with a coating of euphemisms, carefully constituted to avoid any phrase which might stick in the reader's mind. The leak explained the thinking of a part of the Washington establishment with brutal clarity. If America didn't 'stabilise' - to use a verb which seems particularly inapt at the moment - the Middle East, Europe, Japan and China, which have a far greater dependence on Gulf oil, would move in and protect their interests. Although their interventions wouldn't necessarily bother America, in the long term they would grow into powers which would challenge its authority.

(SNIP)

...What we resent is the deplorable, but democratic, success of junk culture and junk food, and of a political system which seems to be run by corrupt imbeciles.

But the deployment of 'anti-Americanism' as an insult which brands anyone who opposes Bush and his British sidekick as racist doesn't work. The same logic which Defense Planning Guidance uses to imagine a world where America can be the only grown-up also allows double standards which have destroyed the moral authority America held after 11 September. How can America (and Britain) declare war against Iraq for possessing weapons of mass destruction when the US won't accept any controls on its nuclear, chemical or biological weapons? How can the US call Saddam Hussein a war criminal, when it won't accept the jurisdiction of an international criminal court?

The tensions America's anarchic unilateralism creates are at their greatest among the world's élite. European leaders have few problems with globalisation, but can't stomach Bush unilaterally imposing steel tariffs which make a nonsense of the very 'free' market America and Europe instruct the Third World to embrace. They have all but begged America to be allowed a junior role in the 'war' against terrorism. Their rejection puts them, somewhat to everyone's surprise, temporarily on the same side as the mass of the world's poor. The greatest worry a friend of America should have is how its insistence that it can leave no part of the world alone has created anti-Americanism not only in Muslim countries but in regions such as Latin America where bin Laden's theology means nothing. If you dream that everyone might be your enemy, one day they may become just that.

2//Pakistan News Service Updated on 2002-04-07 12:28:04
http://www.paknews.com/flash.php?id=1&date1=2002-04-07

(Note: The story quoted could not be found in the English section of Strana.Ru. India Abroad (IANS) is a print publication based in New York and other U.S. cities whose content is not available on the internet.)

RUSSIA CLAIMS U.S.TROOPS SUFFERED CASUALTIES

MOSCOW, April 07 (PNS): According to the claims of Russian news agency IANS, the US army suffered heavy losses in Afghanistan during its offensive against Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters in Shahi-Kot valley on Thursday night, a media report said. "Nearly 100 US Special Forces personnel were killed and about 200 injured and four Apache helicopter gunships were destroyed in the offensive at Paktia province in eastern Afghanistan," Russian online newspaper Strana.Ru reported quoting well-informed sources in the Kremlin, the seat of the Russian government here, reports Indian Abroad News Service (IANS).

US forces along with Afghan troops launched the offensive after coming under massive missile attack by Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters Wednesday, the paper said. During an operation in Shahi-Kot valley two weeks ago, US troops had combed nearly 50 caves but did not find any Taliban or Al-Qaeda fighters except bundles of Islamic literature, maps and operation plans.

Local commander Zalaludin Hakkani is leading the Taliban and Al-Qaeda resistance with the help of a large number of Chechen and Arab fighters, the paper said.

(SNIP)

Hakkani, who became famous for starting the resistance movement against Soviet troops in the early 1980s, is believed to have wide support among the local people, particularly the Pushtuns, the paper said. Well-acquainted with the geography of the region and a master of the guerrilla warfare, Hakkani is likely to turn out a formidable adversary to the US forces for a long time, according to Afghan experts here.

3//Indiainfo.com Sunday, April 7 2002 14:25 Hrs (IST)
http://news.indiainfo.com/2002/04/07/07pakmedia.html

PAK MEDIA SLAMS MUSHARRAF'S REFERENDUM MOVE
PTI

Islamabad: Asking for reversal of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's decision to hold a referendum to get himself elected to a five-year term, the country's media on April 7 criticised it as clear violation of the Constitution and joined political and religious groups in condemning the move.

The decision may have an extreme adverse impact on the country's Federal polity, leading English daily 'Dawn' said.

The Constitution specified that President must be elected by an electoral college consisting of the members of the Federal Parliament and the four provincial Assemblies.

(SNIP)

Coming down heavily against the referendum, another daily 'The Nation' said that Musharraf has opted to go for referendum against the advise of the mainstream political parties and sections of the press.

"We oppose the quasi Presidential system that emerges from the description the President gave of his intentions," it said and asked him to reverse his decision.

The opposition from the mainstream political parties makes it imperative for Musharraf to depend on official machinery to bus the voters to polling booths. This means that either the turn-out will be low or the official machinery will be used to mobilise voters and take them to the polling stations, the 'Dawn' added.

4//ExpressIndia.com Monday, April 08, 2002
http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=9017

4,000 MILITANTS READY TO CROSS OVER TO J-K
Press Trust of India

Srinagar, April 6: About 4,000 militants in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) are waiting for the snow to melt on the mountain passes along the Line of Control (LoC) to cross over to Kashmir for stepping up violence during the coming Assembly elections, a senior police official said on Saturday.

Conservative estimates put the number of militants awaiting to grab the first opportunity to infiltrate into Kashmir between 3,000 to 4,000, inspector general of police, Kashmir, K Rajendra, told reporters in Srinagar.

Extremists are after soft targets, killing political workers, especially of ruling National Conference, to create fear among the people so as to keep them away from the electoral process, he said.

(SNIP)

Terming the change in Pakistan as "cosmetic", he said foreign militants operating in the valley have been told that whatever action Pakistan government has taken against their leaders was "temporary".

5//Philippine Daily Inquirer Posted: 0:32 AM (Manila Time) | Apr. 08, 2002
http://www.inq7.net/nat/2002/apr/08/nat_4-1.htm

ANALYSIS: CONSOLIDATION MAIN FACTOR IN SENIOR MILITARY PROMOTIONS
By Amando Doronila
Inquirer News Service

Unrest rumors

The retirement of Lt. Gen. Jaime de los Santos as Army commander on April 2 and the impending retirement of Gen. Diomedio Villanueva as Armed Forces chief of staff on May 20 have fueled rumors of military unrest over succession to the top military command.

The speculation stems from the perception that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is considering the appointment of Lt. Gen. Roy Cimatu, current head of the strategic Southern Command, as the next chief of staff. If Cimatu (Philippine Military Academy Class 1970), who is due to retire on July 4, will be chosen, this will require an extension of his tour of duty for three more years, going beyond the end of Ms Macapagal's transitional presidency in 2004.

This perception of Cimatu's extension is the basis of a warning by General De los Santos upon his retirement that "it will not be a popular decision."

"It will create disenchantment. There will be low morale," he said.

The remarks have revived rumors of military unrest over promotions on the senior generals' level. It includes coup conspiracies, which are a symptom of the pernicious infection of military interventionism in politics that has been running in the veins of the military since its mutiny that sparked the popular uprising that overthrew the Marcos dictatorship in February 1986.

Generals Villanueva and De Los Santos were promoted by the President in a reshuffle following the appointment as defense secretary of Gen. Angelo Reyes, the Armed Forces chief of staff who withdrew military support from the Estrada administration on Jan. 19, 2001.

These appointments were a function of Ms Macapagal's consolidation of support in the Armed Forces against the backdrop of plots to destabilize her government, including the May 1, 2001, urban poor's rebellion which was incited by deposed President Joseph Estrada and his political allies.

The appointment of the next chief of staff is a continuation of the process of consolidation and alliance building. It will be determined by the consideration of which senior general in the line of succession would best ensure regime stability and loyalty.

(MORE)

6//Sydney Morning Herald Monday April 8, 2002
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/08/1017206296127.html

QUEEN CLEARS WAY FOR ROYAL REFORMS
By Peter Fray

Daughters of the monarch would gain equal rights to succession and the 300-year-old ban on Catholics sitting on the throne would end under historic reforms to British royalty backed by the Queen.

With the death of the Queen Mother, the Queen has reportedly approved gradual but far-reaching changes, which would also include increasing Prince Charles's workload, with the aim of promoting him as king-in-waiting, allowing greater public access to royal residences, and encouraging family members to give more interviews for posterity.

The winds of change are already blowing, with Princess Anne last week breaking with tradition and marching with male members of the royal family behind her grandmother's coffin.

As well, Buckingham Palace has confirmed that Prince Charles's partner, Camilla Parker Bowles, has been invited to the Queen Mother's funeral service, a move seen as further evidence that the Queen is moving to accept her son's partner.

(MORE)

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© 2002, Gloria R. Lalumia
insight@zianet.com

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