World Media Watch for May 3, 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.

* * *

1//Asia Times Online,Thailand--ARABS REACH FOR ECONOMIC WEAPON (For the Arabs, the economic pressure they can bring is about their only remaining weapon in the absence of military clout to force concessions from Israel.)

2//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--US PUTS JAPAN IN A SPOT OVER IRAQ (The US is indeed running out of allies supporting an attack on Iraq and asking Japan to be part of the shrinking anti-coalition comes at a time when even America's closest and loyal military ally, Britain, is having second thoughts about US plans to put an end to Saddam Hussein's regime by force.)

3//Russian Observer.com Online Magazine, Russia--IRAQ ON THE EVE OF WAR (With Washington stepping up its pressure on Russia to persuade it to agree to tougher UN sanctions against Iraq, the Kremlin's undivided support for Iraq might distance it from the West, which would conflict with the Putin administration's foreign policy. On the other hand, should Moscow approve U.S. military action in Iraq, this would be another sign of the fact that Russia is losing its positions in the international arena. Both options are equally bad as far as Moscow is concerned.)

4//Pravda, Russia--FORMER SOVIET REPUBLICS TO BE USED IN OFFENSIVE AGAINST IRAQ (However, many people in Georgia suppose that US soldiers may stay even for a longer period. There is a suggestion that they will protect the oil pipeline that is to connect the Caspian fields with the Turkish port of Ceyhan. Construction of the pipeline that is to be laid on Georgia's territory, will cost several billions of dollars. Other sources suppose, Washington plans to found a standing military base in the Southern Caucasus close to Iraq and Iran.)

5//The Independent, UK--BACKBENCHERS PUSH FOR COMPULSORY VOTING (Amid signs that only about one in four people bothered to vote in yesterday's local authority elections in England, 55 Labour MPs have pledged to support a Bill that would make people liable to fines if they refused to vote in future general elections.)

6//The Guardian, UK--WHAT THE FRENCH PAPERS SAY (July also stresses that yesterday's demonstrations were a way for the French left to mobilise itself after the disastrous débâcle it suffered. "Defeated in the polling booths, [the left] comes back with a vengeance in the only arena it has left, the street.")

************************

1//Asia Times Online May 3, 2002
http://www.atimes.com/front/DD03Aa01.html

ARABS REACH FOR ECONOMIC WEAPON
By George Baghdadi
(Inter Press Service)

DAMASCUS - Nineteen Arab countries have agreed unanimously to reactivate an economic blockade of Israel, which was first agreed upon in 1951, but has remained largely ineffective. It has also slackened particularly since the launch of the Middle East peace process in the early 1990s.

The Arab nations decided at a three-day meeting in Damascus last week to revive the boycott as a peaceful weapon to help secure Palestinian rights. The meeting was organized by the central office for the Boycott of Israel, set up in Damascus 50 years ago by the Arab League with the aim of isolating Israel economically.

Representatives of Syria, Iraq, the Sudan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Algeria, Tunisia, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Libya, Somalia, Comoros, Morocco, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and Djibouti attended the meeting.

(SNIP)

The boycott is planned at three levels. Primary boycott requires member states of the Arab League to refrain from doing business with Israel. That will not apply to Egypt and Jordan, who have peace treaties with Israel. At the secondary level it prohibits trade with companies that have a branch, agency, factory or plant in Israel. Finally, the so-called tertiary boycott is against firms and countries that do business with Israel indirectly, or have some Israeli links.

The Damascus office is believed to have blacklisted more than 10,000 such companies. The list is updated periodically. The Damascus office says that several US, Asian and European companies are on the list. But no names have been released.

For the Arabs, the economic pressure they can bring is about their only remaining weapon in the absence of military clout to force concessions from Israel. "The participants expressed their conviction that economic boycott of Israel and expanding [the boycott's] geographical boundaries ... constitutes a peaceful, active, legal and noble tool for deterring [Israeli] aggression and bolstering world peace and security," Ahmed Khazaa, commissioner general of the boycott office, said after the meeting.

Syrian delegate Mohammed Ajami said that "officials also agreed on working to expand the boycott to encourage Islamic and European countries sympathetic to the Palestinian cause to adopt similar measures". Syria has been the chief advocate of the renewed boycott, with the backing of Iraq and Libya.

The boycott could cost Israel around US$3 billion a year in lost earnings, the Damascus office says. It claims that Israel has lost $48 billion due to the boycott over the past 50 years. Israeli economists assessed in 1991 that Israel had lost $400 million.

(MORE)

2//Asia Times Online May 3, 2002
http://www.atimes.com/japan-econ/DD03Dh02.html
(This analysis is a follow up to a report in the May 1 World Media Watch)

US PUTS JAPAN IN A SPOT OVER IRAQ
By Axel Berkofsky

Just when Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was getting ready to celebrate his first year in office, United States government officials were asking Japan to be ready for the worst-case scenario.

At a Japan-US working-level meeting on foreign and defense affairs at the end of April, US government representatives informally requested Japan to be ready to dispatch troops and the state-of-the-art Aegis destroyers to the Persian Gulf in the event of a US attack on Iraq.

"Politically and legally difficult" was the immediate answer from Japanese officials, expressing somehow less enthusiasm about Japan's support for US military operations than Koizumi, who promised nothing less than "unconditional support" for the US fight against global terrorism when visited by US President George W Bush earlier in February.

Asking for support to get rid of Saddam Hussein is an unpleasant reminder for Japan that the US is serious about militarily engaging its junior alliance partner into the fight against international terrorism, although Japanese policy makers seemingly do not really see reason to worry just yet. "We are not taking Washington's requests terribly seriously because the US side did not push very hard," the prime minister's security policy advisors commented after the US-Japan meeting, indicating that Japanese policy makers prefer to stay in the usual wait-and-see-mode and in sticking to their strategy of last-minute decisions.

(SNIP)

The Japanese government, for its part, however, is unlikely to make any decision before the usual US pressure sets in and is yet less impatient to see its troops sailing towards the Persian Gulf. For now it takes care to stick to the official line that dispatching ships and troops towards Iraq under the Japanese anti-terrorism law implemented last October is only possible if the al-Qaeda terrorist network is the target of an attack.

There is, however, little doubt that the Pentagon and US intelligence will have any difficulty linking the Iraqi regime to global terrorism and Osama bin Laden's network of terror, giving Japan a helping hand to speed up its decision-making process if necessary; the Asahi Shimbun, on the other hand, is urging its government to clarify its own stance on the country's position on the war against terrorism instead of repeating US rhetoric in parrot-style. "Japan must set limits for simply falling into line behind US policy. Koizumi continues to be a disappointment with his rhetoric of unconditional support of America," the paper recently wrote, wondering why Japan does not voice any opposition against attacking Iraq when everybody else does.

The US is indeed running out of allies supporting an attack on Iraq and asking Japan to be part of the shrinking anti-coalition comes at a time when even America's closest and loyal military ally, Britain, is having second thoughts about US plans to put an end to Saddam Hussein's regime by force.

The timing to request Japan's support, however, seemed somehow favorable since Japan's ruling coalition, led by the premier's Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP) very recently submitted a package of three national emergency laws to the Diet enabling Japan's armed forces to defend Japanese security at home and abroad. The national security bills are likely to pass the Diet at the end of its current session on June 19 and Japan commentators are suspecting that the US might indeed have "seized the opportunity" in trying to make sure that America would be the first "beneficiary" of Japan's upgraded military profile.

(SNIP)

With the public relations disaster and unpleasant memories of American Japan-bashing for failing to send troops to liberate Kuwait from Saddam during the Gulf War a decade ago in mind, Japan's policy makers might be less willing to turn down the US request to sail to the Persian Gulf this time. "Japan is intensely worried about a repeat of the Persian Gulf and Korean peninsula crises of 1991 and 1994, which easily could have turned into crises for the US-security relationship if the United States had taken significant losses. At the same time, policy makers wish to avoid alarming the Japanese public and are probably hoping, in their heart of hearts, that this crisis would just go away," says Thomas U Berger, professor of International Relations at Boston University.

Given the Bush administration's determination to replace the Iraqi regime by force sooner rather than later, this, however, looks more like a case of wishful thinking, and while refueling American and British warships on "floating gas stations" far away from combat zones is acceptable to the Japanese public, sailing to the Persian Gulf and into the range of possible enemy fire is likely to cause strong public disapproval. With or without the public blessing and worries about dispatching troops without a clear-cut legal basis, the Japanese government is already more prepared to dispatch ships and troops to the Persian Gulf when requested in a straight line from Washington than it is yet willing to admit, suspects Berger. "Sending Japanese forces to the Gulf in a support role is a very real possibility this time around, representing another important step in moving away from Japan's postwar, anti-military ideals, especially if Aegis destroyers were sent," he points out, indicating that Japanese participation in a Persian Gulf war scenario could give Koizumi a chance to live up to his high-sounding rhetoric of being "always by America's side".

(MORE)

3//Russian Observer.com Online Magazine Issued on 27.04 MST
http://www.russianobserver.com/stories/02/04/27/1051/15291.html

IRAQ ON THE EVE OF WAR

With Washington stepping up its pressure on Russia to persuade it to agree to tougher UN sanctions against Iraq, the Kremlin's undivided support for Iraq might distance it from the West, which would conflict with the Putin administration's foreign policy. On the other hand, should Moscow approve U.S. military action in Iraq, this would be another sign of the fact that Russia is losing its positions in the international arena. Both options are equally bad as far as Moscow is concerned.

The prospect of a united front by Islamic states against the United States and its allies looks fairly unreal even despite the fact that quite a few Arab countries disapprove of U.S. intrigues over Iraq. Even the most vociferous European critics of U.S. policy in the Middle and Near East will not go beyond censuring Washington and then only in mild terms.

Meanwhile, the U.S. administration appears to have overcome differences on how it should deal with Iraq and come to the conclusion that military action is the only option open to it. Washington is pondering several scenarios that could remove Saddam Hussein from power. It is likely to confront him with what will amount to an ultimatum that the Iraqi leader will be unable to accept, and that fact will be used as an excuse for attack.

(SNIP)

There has also been a furry of U.S. diplomatic activity with the aim of forming a coalition against Iraq, with financial assistance to Middle East countries playing a significant role in this effort. The United States earmarked close to $74 billion for military programs for those countries in 1999-2000 alone.

Many NATO countries do not want to be immediately involved in U.S. military action in Iraq because they believe targeting that country would represent another attempt to topple Saddam Hussein rather than an anti-terrorist campaign. Even Turkey, one of the U.S. most loyal ally in the Middle East, has said U.S. military action in Iraq might destabilize the situation in the region and spur Kurdish separatist movements in Turkey as well as Iraq, which would cause an upheaval in Turkey itself. The White House responded by making it clear Turkey's "pro-Iraqi stand" would undermine Turkey's military cooperation with Israel, which has made good progress exclusively due to the United States.

Nevertheless, the Pentagon is reported to have begun preparations for a military campaign against Iraq. For a start, aircraft will bomb nearly all military installations. U.S. military activity has been reported at American air bases in Kuwait. Tens of high-ranking military chiefs arrived in Kuwait in December last year.

Iraqi leaders are doing what they can to prepare the country for a possible attack. Baghdad has assigned top officials to particular areas in the north, west and south, with Saddam Hussein being responsible for the country's central part and its capital. The officials are empowered to use military force at their own discretion if the ruling regime comes under threat. Efforts are being made to disguise military installations and make the country's military potential more impressive than it really is. For example, old aircraft incapable of combat missions are being deployed on airfields. Baghdad is quite likely to use poison gases if the United States launches a ground operation.

Iraqi businessmen in foreign countries and Iraqi embassies have been instructed to recruit specialists who could go to Iraq to help Iraq's military-industrial complex maintain, repair and manufacture weapons and military hardware. The recruitment effort is most prominent in CIS countries, notably in Ukraine and Belarus.

4//Pravda 2002-05-02
http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/05/02/28165.html

FORMER SOVIET REPUBLICS TO BE USED IN OFFENSIVE AGAINST IRAQ
Dmitry Chirkin
Translated by Maria Gousseva

A meeting of Russian and American presidents is to take place very soon, that is why the USA hurries up to strengthen military presence on the post-Soviet territory (Central Asia and the Caucasus region). Military training in the network of the US program for military aid to Georgia is to start in Georgia at the end of May and to last for 70 days, official spokesman for the group of US instructors Colonel Scott Tine said at the press-conference in Tbilisi.

(SNIP)

The American authorities report, the commandos will stay in Georgia for about six months. However, many people in Georgia suppose that US soldiers may stay even for a longer period. There is a suggestion that they will protect the oil pipeline that is to connect the Caspian fields with the Turkish port of Ceyhan. Construction of the pipeline that is to be laid on Georgia's territory, will cost several billions of dollars. Other sources suppose, Washington plans to found a standing military base in the Southern Caucasus close to Iraq and Iran.

The USA also pays enough attention to Central Asia. General Paul Mikolashek, commander of the US land forces is to arrive in Tashkent in the second half of the day on Thursday. A short visit provides for his meeting with Uzbekistan Defense Minister Kadyr Gulyamov and visit to the US Embassy in Uzbekistan. General Mikolashek will spend less than a day in Uzbekistan and will leave for Kuwait Friday early.

Washington's activity in the region is not connected with the events in Afghanistan, although it is officially stated that inspection of the US bases in former Soviet republics is held within the network of the US-British operation for Al-Qaeda and Taliban liquidation.

But the situation is much more complicated than it may seem at the first sight. The USA needs military bases in Central Asia and in the Caucasus for a short-term period, as a subsidiary base for an offensive against Iraq. As for a long-term objective, the USA plans to use the bases as a political, economic and probably military pressure on the Central Asiatic countries with a view to get control over oil and gas that are abundant in these regions. The Izvestia newspaper informs, it became evident after Saudi Prince Abdullah's recent visit to the USA. According to some sources, the Iraq problem was not directly discussed at the meeting, but the Prince declared, his country was against US intervention in Iraq, and Saudi territories would not be provided for landing and refueling of US planes. Moreover, Saudi Arabia will prohibit to use its airspace.

(MORE)

5//The Independent 03 May 2002
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=291384

BACKBENCHERS PUSH FOR COMPULSORY VOTING
By Andrew Grice, Political Editor

The Labour Party is to consider bringing in compulsory voting to try to halt the worrying drop in turn-out in recent elections.

Amid signs that only about one in four people bothered to vote in yesterday's local authority elections in England, 55 Labour MPs have pledged to support a Bill that would make people liable to fines if they refused to vote in future general elections.

Although an Australian-style compulsory voting system would be highly controversial, support for the move in Labour's ranks has grown after the turn-out at last year's general election dropped to 59 per cent, the lowest since 1918. A Compulsory Voting Bill will be published next week by Gareth Thomas, MP for Harrow West. It has little chance of securing enough parliamentary time in the current session, but supporters hope that it will encourage debate on the issue.

(MORE)

6//The Guardian Thursday May 2, 2002
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,708868,00.html

Press review
WHAT THE FRENCH PAPERS SAY

Gwladys Fouché looks at how the French press have reacted to the anti-National Front demonstrations that took place during yesterday's May Day marches in France

"A salutary wake-up call", "the nation hasn't disappeared", "an incredible May Day": the French papers welcomed with relief the impressive turnout to the anti-National Front demonstrations taking place across France yesterday afternoon.

More than one million people marched against the far right party and its leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who scored 16.86% of votes in the first round of the presidential election nearly two weeks ago.

"The people don't lie. And yesterday the people in the streets were primarily against Jean-Marie Le Pen," says Yves Thréard in the rightwing newspaper Le Figaro, while Jean-Marie Colombani in the centre-left Le Monde writes, "France took to the streets in a massive way. She reassured herself by watching the mobilisation of its young people."

Serge July, in the left-leaning daily Libération, enthuses: "In Paris, it was a human wave ... that crashed on the east of the capital, to say no to the far right, bearing flags of all colours, bearing above all the national flag. A true national wake-up call."

July also stresses that yesterday's demonstrations were a way for the French left to mobilise itself after the disastrous débâcle it suffered. "Defeated in the polling booths, [the left] comes back with a vengeance in the only arena it has left, the street."

However, French commentators are at pains to stress that however impressive the number of people who said "non" to Le Pen yesterday, what truly matters is whether they are going to vote for French president Jacques Chirac on Sunday.

"Yesterday the people said no once. They now have to say it again at the polling booth. It's the only act that counts," advises Le Figaro. "Vote Chirac," urges Le Monde.

(MORE)

* * *

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

More Stuff at: http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical

* * *