World Media Watch for June 17, 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, Hong Kong--KARACHI BLAST PLAYS INTO US HANDS (Friday's blast is expected to have an impact on the tense regional situation, especially in view of the United States' stated desire of becoming more engaged militarily, as they are in Afghanistan, in tracking down terrorists, most notably in Kashmir.)

2//ArabNews, Saudi Arabia-- ABDULLAH TO MEET OIL MAJOR CHIEFS SUNDAY (Prince Abdullah, the regent, will meet the chairmen of ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell to clear the way for three multi-billion-dollar gas projects, a report said yesterday...Meanwhile, a meeting between Saudi negotiators and the chairmen of ExxonMobil and Shell over the gas projects, scheduled for yesterday, has been delayed by a week, a Western oil executive said in Riyadh yesterday. The talks with Lee Raymond and Phil Watts had been set to start yesterday but have now been rescheduled for June 22-23, the executive, who requested he not be named, told AFP without giving reasons for the delay. "The talks have now moved from the technical to the political level because a deal needs a push and guidelines from the top," the executive said.)

3//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia--HUMAN RIGHTS OVERTAKEN BY A BIGGER CONCERN FOR US (If Congress does approve US aid to the Indonesian military - just three years after all contact was banned because of atrocities committed by Indonesian soldiers in East Timor - it will be a dramatic signal of how the war on terrorism has downgraded the importance of human rights in US foreign policy in favour of security issues.)

4//Foreign Policy in Focus, Washington, D.C.--COMMENTARY: SUPPORTING INDONESIA'S MILITARY BAD IDEA SECOND TIME AROUND (But now Bush administration officials argue that the Indonesian army has reformed since the bad old days of two years ago and needs our help in its struggle against terrorism. U.S. intelligence says Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda are active with extremist groups in Java. But if we aren't careful, the U.S. is likely to find itself in the middle of several very nasty civil wars, which have little to do with jihad, but quite a lot to do with very worldly things like gold, copper, and oil.)

5//Scotland on Sunday (The Scotsman), Scotland--TERROR CHECK AT BRITAIN'S NUCLEAR SITES (The government's own director of civil nuclear security has admitted that a recruitment crisis in his office has forced him to cancel full security checks at 22 of the 31 nuclear power stations and waste reprocessing stations it regulates. The admission, which casts doubt on government claims of increased security in the wake of September 11, has shocked experts and MPs.)

6//Arutz-Sheva, Israel--CONSTRUCTION BEGINS ON PARTITION FENCE (Construction work on the partition fence, on which many people are relying to keep terrorists out of pre-1967 Israel, has begun, and the public debate over its value and/or the damage it may cause is getting more vocal. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has called a security cabinet meeting for Wednesday to discuss the various ramifications of the partition.)

* * *

1//Asia Times Online June 15, 2002
http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/DF15Df03.html

KARACHI BLAST PLAYS INTO US HANDS
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - At a time when Pakistani investigators, along with US intelligence agents, are tracking down al-Qaeda suspects in Karachi, a second suicide attack in just over a month in the city left at least eight people dead and dozens injured on Friday after a car exploded outside the US Consulate.

The incident, which follows on a car bomb attack last month in which 11 French nationals and three Pakistanis died, is expected to strengthen the hand of the US in seeking permission to step up its action in the country against al-Qaeda, who US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on a visit to Islamabad this week were known to be operating in the Kashmir Valley.

(SNIP)

"I question what benefit al-Qaeda will secure from his kind of attack. If they are really in Pakistan, this sort of operation will make their work difficult. I see a foreign hand, probably of the Indian RAW [Research and Analysis Wing] to show Pakistan as a destabilized country," said a senior political analyst and editor of the Star newspaper, Kamal Majidullah.

However, a senior police official said on condition of anonymity that the two suicide attacks in Karachi - the first ever in the country - had been executed in a similar manner, and were in turn copies of the August 1998 attack on the US Embassy in Nairobi that left hundreds of people dead. The officer said Karachi police had been tipped off about a week ago, and they were working to track down that lead.

(SNIP)

Friday's blast is expected to have an impact on the tense regional situation, especially in view of the United States' stated desire of becoming more engaged militarily, as they are in Afghanistan, in tracking down terrorists, most notably in Kashmir.

The US already has a limited presence in Waziristan agency in Pakistani tribal belt, aimed at preventing the exodus of al-Qaeda from Afghanistan into Pakistan.

2//ArabNews Sunday, June 16, 2002 / 5 Rabi`ath-Thani 1423
http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=16094

ABDULLAH TO MEET OIL MAJOR CHIEFS SUNDAY
By a staff Writer

CAIRO, 17 June - Prince Abdullah, the regent, will meet the chairmen of ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell to clear the way for three multi-billion-dollar gas projects, a report said yesterday.

The meeting with ExxonMobil's Lee Raymond and Shell's Phil Watts will take place on June 23 in Jeddah, the report quoted London-based International Oil Daily (IOD) as saying.

Prince Abdullah "would like to hear first hand why the negotiations are taking so long to complete... but it is not a make-or-break meeting," said the report, quoting a Saudi source.

Meanwhile, a meeting between Saudi negotiators and the chairmen of ExxonMobil and Shell over the gas projects, scheduled for yesterday, has been delayed by a week, a Western oil executive said in Riyadh yesterday.

The talks with Lee Raymond and Phil Watts had been set to start yesterday but have now been rescheduled for June 22-23, the executive, who requested he not be named, told AFP without giving reasons for the delay. "The talks have now moved from the technical to the political level because a deal needs a push and guidelines from the top," the executive said.

The talks will be followed by a meeting between Raymond and Watts with Prince Abdullah on June 23.

ExxonMobil has the lead in two projects, while Royal Dutch Shell has the lead in the third project, together requiring initial investments to the tune of $25 billion.

(SNIP)

However, after 12 months of negotiations and two missed deadlines - in mid-December and March - talks to finalize the agreements have remained deadlocked over the terms of the investments required from the companies.

3//The Sydney Morning Herald June 17 2002
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/06/16/1023864379063.html

HUMAN RIGHTS OVERTAKEN BY A BIGGER CONCERN FOR US

Security issues may dictate how the United States proceeds with the Indonesian military, writes Herald Correspondent Gay Alcorn in Washington.

The White House is now confident that Congress will approve the resumption of military ties with Indonesia, according to a leading adviser to the Bush Administration.

James Kelly, the most senior United States adviser on South-East Asia, said Indonesia was a crucial player in the US-led war on terrorism because there was a struggle for the "soul of the country" between moderate democrats and extremist Muslims.

If Congress does approve US aid to the Indonesian military - just three years after all contact was banned because of atrocities committed by Indonesian soldiers in East Timor - it will be a dramatic signal of how the war on terrorism has downgraded the importance of human rights in US foreign policy in favour of security issues.

Mr Kelly said he thought that the Administration's lobbying of Congress to lift the ban on military links was "going to bear some fruit". He acknowledged that Jakarta's reform of its military had been inadequate, but said it was good enough to start "modest" military-to-military co-operation.

(SNIP)

But Indonesian rights abuses remain a big concern of leading congressional figures. The White House cannot renew ties without congressional approval.

Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, is sceptical of the Administration's position that renewing ties will help train Indonesian soldiers in the ethics of a modern military. He and others in Congress argue that nothing has been put in place in Indonesia to prevent future abuses.

Critics also argue that Jakarta's efforts to show that its military is now accountable - most notably through the trial of four army officers accused of atrocities in East Timor - is only for show. Mr Kelly agreed that Jakarta "needs to do more in terms of accountability issues" but that the resumption of training was a separate issue. He proposed renewing military ties now "in very small measures", and then increase links if further reform went ahead in Indonesia.

(SNIP)

The US would like to have greater investment in Indonesia's future, but the archipelago - with other South-East Asian countries - is less convinced that the war on terrorism should be its first priority.

Indonesia's Defence Minister, Matori Abdul Djalil, said recently that "combating terrorism constitutes only one priority", given Indonesia's economic problems and its difficult transformation to democracy. Mr Kelly, who was present during the Oval Office meeting between President George Bush and the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, last week, said there was "total candour and openness" between the leaders on about 20 subjects, including the war on terrorism, Iraq and the prospects for a free-trade agreement with Australia.

Although Mr Howard insists Australia's support for the war on terrorism is independent of its push for a free-trade agreement, Mr Kelly said one issue did "feed into" the other in Washington's mind.

(SNIP)

There was strong interest in an agreement with Australia when Congress grants the president the power to negotiate agreements without congressional interference. There would be many applications for trade deals from the Asia-Pacific, he said, "so the cases of allies, of valued old friends, are bound to get better attention".

(MORE).

4//Foreign Policy in Focus June 12, 2002
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0206indonesia.html

COMMENTARY: SUPPORTING INDONESIA'S MILITARY BAD IDEA SECOND TIME AROUND
by Conn Hallinan
(Conn Hallinan is the provost at the University of California at Santa Cruz and a political analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus.)

As part of the war on terrorism, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently called for rebuilding military relations with the Indonesian army. In a joint May 13 press conference with his Indonesian counterpart, Matori Abdul Djalil, Rumsfeld said the Bush administration intended to work with Congress, "to reestablish the kind of military-to-military relations which we believe are appropriate."

This is hardly a new development. Shortly after Sept. 11, the White House, led by Deputy Secretary of State and former ambassador to Indonesia, Paul Wolfowitz, began maneuvering to loosen restrictions on military aid to Jakarta. The latter had been cut off by the Clinton administration during the Indonesian army's 1999 rampage in East Timor, which killed thousands of civilians and destroyed 70% of the tiny country's infrastructure.

But now Bush administration officials argue that the Indonesian army has reformed since the bad old days of two years ago and needs our help in its struggle against terrorism. U.S. intelligence says Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda are active with extremist groups in Java. But if we aren't careful, the U.S. is likely to find itself in the middle of several very nasty civil wars, which have little to do with jihad, but quite a lot to do with very worldly things like gold, copper, and oil.

There is a good reason why the Clinton administration imposed a ban on military aid to Jakarta. The U.S. has supplied Indonesia with over 90% of its military hardware over the past 30 years. Indonesia has repeatedly put those weapons to deadly use. In 1975 it invaded tiny East Timor, a former Portuguese colony on Indonesia's eastern edge, now independent. That invasion, according to declassified documents published by the National Security Archives of George Washington University, had the full blessing of then President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.

According to the United Nations, Indonesia's 24 years of occupation resulted in the deaths of over 200,000 Timorese, or one third the pre-invasion inhabitants. In terms of percentage of the population, not even Pol Pot managed that kill ratio. When East Timor voted for independence in a 1999 UN-sponsored referendum, the Indonesian army and its militia allies systematically destroyed the country, killing at least 2,000 people and forcing 250,000 more into concentration camps in West Timor.

The Indonesian army is currently engaged in suppressing two other independence movements, one in Sumatra's Aceh Province and the other in Irian Jaya on the country's eastern edge. The campaign in Aceh has killed over 6,000 people; 1,500 in the last year alone. In Irian Jaya, which makes up the western side of Papua New Guinea, the Army has been jailing pro-independence supporters and firing on demonstrators. In November, Kopassus, an Indonesian Army unit accused of widespread human rights violations, invited one of Irian Jaya's independence leaders to a dinner. He ended up strangled to death on the side of the road.

From all indications, that violence is likely to escalate. In a December 29, 2001 speech to military cadets, Indonesian President Magawati Sukanoputri told them: "You can do your duty without being worried about human rights," a green light to unleash the full fury of the army's repressive machinery.

While Jakarta says its civil wars are about terrorism, what's really at stake are billions of dollars in raw materials. The seizure of East Timor allowed Indonesia to claim part of the Timor Gap, a channel between Timor and Australia, estimated to contain anywhere from 1 to 6 billion barrels of oil. While the Indonesians have finally left East Timor, they are hanging onto a section of the Gap. In Irian Jaya, recently renamed West Papua, the army is deeply involved in the logging industry, as well as protecting the investments of the U.S.-operated Freeport-McMoran gold and copper mine and the Atlantic Richfield oil company.

(MORE)

5//Scotland on Sunday (The Scotsman) Sun 16 Jun 2002
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=656972002

TERROR CHECK AT BRITAIN'S NUCLEAR SITES
Stephen Fraser

SECURITY inspections of Britain's nuclear facilities to ensure they are safe from terrorist attack have been abandoned because of a chronic staff shortage.

The government's own director of civil nuclear security has admitted that a recruitment crisis in his office has forced him to cancel full security checks at 22 of the 31 nuclear power stations and waste reprocessing stations it regulates.

The admission, which casts doubt on government claims of increased security in the wake of September 11, has shocked experts and MPs.

The revelation comes in the first annual report of the Office of Civil Nuclear Security, the government agency responsible for protecting Britain's civil nuclear sites, including five in Scotland.

The office's director, Michael Buckland-Smith, admits that he has been forced to cancel 'compliance inspections' at 22 facilities after the attack on the Twin Towers.

(SNIP)

Buckland-Smith also said his agency had discovered "deficiencies" in the security arrangements adopted by a number of facilities, though he did not give full details.

He did, however, reveal one incident at an unnamed power station two years ago when a security guard, who was later sacked, had attempted to sneak an unauthorised person into the plant.

(SNIP)

Dr John Large, an independent nuclear safety consultant who advised the Russian Federation on the salvage of the Kursk nuclear submarine, said the failure to carry out compliance inspections meant security at facilities could not be fully tested.

He said: "You cannot test the response of nuclear plants to a terrorist threat by having cosy chats over a coffee with the plant's security people. Dropping compliance inspection is like handing a driving licence to somebody without putting them through a test."

He said compliance inspections involve a group of inspectors running exercises to test the reaction of site staff to different scenarios. The scenarios might involve a simulated attack by terrorists or mock acts of sabotage by insiders.

(SNIP)

Richard Dixon, the head of research for the Friends of the Earth Scotland, said the report was "damning" . "If I were a terrorist, looking at this report and scouting out what is happening with the nuclear industry across the world, I would be heading to Britain because our nuclear facilities look like a soft touch."

British Energy, the private company which operates Torness and Hunterston B power stations, and the state-owned UKAEA, which controls Dounreay, both insisted their security arrangements were extremely tight in the wake of September 11.

6//Arutz-Sheva, IsrealNationalNews.com Monday, June 17, 2002, 7 Tammuz 5762
http://www.IsraelNN.com/news.php3?id=25220

CONSTRUCTION BEGINS ON PARTITION FENCE

Construction work on the partition fence, on which many people are relying to keep terrorists out of pre-1967 Israel, has begun, and the public debate over its value and/or the damage it may cause is getting more vocal. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has called a security cabinet meeting for Wednesday to discuss the various ramifications of the partition.

Culture Minister Matan Vilnai (Labor), a former IDF Deputy Chief of Staff, does not deny that it has significance in terms of a future border with the Palestinians, but says that this will be true only if there is a "partner" on the other side of the negotiating table. Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said again today that the partition is only of a security-oriented nature, and that it has no political ramifications. He called on all those who object to it to stop their protest activities.

MK Yuval Shteinitz (Likud) countered that the fence has no security value and only political significance: "In Lebanon, the terrorists didn't circumvent the fence by shooting katyushas over it? ... The question is not whether how this fence will protect us, but how we will protect the fence. ... It is patently clear that this fence will mark a future border with the PA. This is why I say that if it has to be built, let it be built far away from the Green Line, and let it include the city of Ariel and neighboring communities within the [Israeli] side."

MK Sha'ul Yahalom (National Religious Party) is also against the fence, for diplomatic, defense, and moral reasons. Explaining the last point, he said today, "It simply differentiates between the blood of those Israelis living on one side of the fence and those who are to be on the other side. Jews who live in Yesha are less important to the State of Israel than those who live elsewhere?"

(SNIP)

PA Cabinet member Saeb Erekat said, "Israel's construction of this fence along the Green Line is a violation of all our signed agreements with Israel, including the Oslo Agreement itself." He said that the PA has asked the UN Security Council to hold an urgent session on the matter.

* * *

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

Web Radio for Progressives listings at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical

* * *