Just Foreign Policy News
October 20, 2010
CISPES: U.S. Prevents Anti-Mining Activist from testifying before Inter-American Human Rights Commission
On October 18, the US Consulate in El Salvador refused to allow Hector Berríos to travel to Washington D.C. and appear before the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IAHRC) to give testimony on mining-related violence in El Salvador. He is the fourth anti-mining activist to be denied a travel visa to the United States this month. Requested action at link.
http://www.cispes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=771&Itemid=1
30 Reps Urge Suspension of US Aid to Honduras
30 Members of Congress have written to Secretary of State Clinton, urging that US assistance to Honduras, particularly military and police aid, be suspended until the Lobo government adequately addresses human rights violations.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/734
Video: Mark Weisbrot Debates the IMF
As part of the IMF/WB Fall meetings, Just Foreign Policy President Mark Weisbrot debated Petya Koeva Brooks, chief of the World Economic Studies Division at the IMF: are IMF policies appropriate for the current global economic recovery? http://www.cepr.net/index.php/events/events/macroeconomic-policy-what-are-the-global-trends
A Robin Hood Tax to Pay for the Wars?
Instead of just saying that the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans should be allowed to expire, let’s say that they should be allowed to expire and that the money saved shall be earmarked for the veterans’ trust fund. That will give the super-rich a powerful incentive to push back against the permanent war.
http://www.truth-out.org/a-robin-hood-tax-pay-wars64349
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Talks to end the war in Afghanistan involve discussions with Taliban commanders from the highest levels of the group’s leadership, who are leaving their sanctuaries in Pakistan with the help of NATO troops, the New York Times reports. Talks include leaders from the Haqqani network, which General Petraeus unsuccessfully asked the Obama Administration to declare a terrorist organization. The Afghan government seems to be trying to seek a reconciliation agreement that does not directly involve Pakistan, the Times says. Mullah Muhammad Omar, the overall leader of the Taliban, is explicitly being cut out of the negotiations. Critics questioned whether leaders high enough to achieve a meaningful deal were being included.
2) The Palestinian leadership is increasingly focusing on how to get international bodies and courts to declare a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, the New York Times reports. The idea is to appeal to the UN, the International Court of Justice and signatories of the Geneva Conventions for opposition to Israeli settlements and occupation and a global assertion of Palestinian statehood that will tie Israel’s hands. The approach has taken on more weight as the stall in US-brokered peace talks lengthens over the issue of continued settlement building. Israel and some US groups, including the ADL, are pressing the Obama Administration to block the Palestinian move, but so far the US has made no move to do so.
3) Britain announced plans to cut its military personnel by 10 percent, scrap 40 percent of the army’s artillery and tanks, and withdraw all of its troops from Germany within 10 years, the New York Times reports. The plan will involve a cut of about 8 percent in real terms in Britain’s annual defense budget. That was significantly less than the 10 to 20 percent cuts that were under discussion. The reduced cuts in military spending are expected to lead to increased cuts in domestic spending. The Times attributes the reduced military cuts, in part, to US pressure.
4) There is now a kind of consensus that capital controls have helped emerging markets weather the financial crisis, a consensus that includes the IMF, notes Kevin Gallagher in the Financial Times. A key obstacle to their use is US trade agreements, Gallagher writes. Since 2003, US trade and investment treaties have outlawed capital controls by developing-country trading partners by mandating the free flow of capital to and from a country, regardless of its level of development – for instance, in trade deals with Chile, Peru, and Singapore. Pending deals with Colombia and South Korea would also ban capital controls. The trade treaties of other higher-income countries – such as Canada, Japan, and the European Union – grant countries the right to use capital controls, or at least grant exemptions during times of crises.
5) A report by the Open Society Foundations says the US has been spending at least six times more on military aid for the mostly authoritarian states of Central Asia than on efforts to promote political liberalisation and human rights as part of its efforts to secure bases and supply lines for the war in Afghanistan, Inter Press Service reports. "Nobody really knows how much military aid the U.S. government is giving the Central Asian states," said Lora Lumpe, author of the report, ‘U.S. Military Aid to Central Asia 1999-2009: Security Priorities Trump Human Rights and Diplomacy’. Six months ago, Washington groups focused on human rights and Latin America policy found that nearly half of all U.S. aid to the region was being channeled through the Pentagon and that SOUTHCOM had largely displaced the State Department as the de facto "lead actor and voice" for U.S. policy there. Since 9/11, the Pentagon has increasingly developed a parallel system of "security cooperation" programs to provide assistance that would not be subject to Congressionally imposed human rights conditions.
Afghanistan
6) Afghanistan’s election commission threw out 1.3 million votes from last month’s parliamentary elections, about a quarter of all ballots cast, roughly the same amount as invalidated in last year’s presidential election, the Washington Post reports. Some parliamentary candidates criticized the process of invalidating votes, saying they believed the discarded ballot boxes took votes away from more than just the candidates who perpetrated fraud.
Iraq
7) A senior political source in Prime Minister Maliki’s coalition said the premier was offering Arab nations investment deals in exchange for their efforts to nudge Iraqiya towards compromise on a new government, Reuters reports. Other sources described the same approach but said the government has not spoken openly about seeking business deals. Maliki’s efforts to get regional powers involved offers an ironic twist in his posture after frequent calls from him for neighbors to stay out of Iraq’s domestic affairs, Reuters says.
Israel/Palestine
8) A report from the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din says Jewish settlers who vandalize Palestinian trees are not being brought to justice, AFP reports. Israel’s failure to prosecute the vandals encourages those behind the attacks to continue, Yesh Din says. This year’s harvest has already seen more vandalism against trees than in the past few years, Haaretz reported, citing an internal document from the defense ministry. Oxfam says 45 percent of farmland in the West Bank and Gaza is given over to olive production.
9) Former President Carter called for Israel to lift completely its blockade on Gaza, DPA reports. "The blockade is one of the most serious human rights violations on Earth and it must be lifted fully," Carter said. Visiting Gaza, an Elders delegation including former Irish president Mary Robinson and former UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi described Israel’s blockade as "illegal collective punishment."
Mexico
10) Some human rights groups called changes to military justice proposed by the Mexican government too modest to make a difference, the New York Times reports. The office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Mexico said the plan fell short by limiting the categories of crime that could be sent to civilian courts. A researcher with Human Rights Watch said the plan did not fully comply with the Inter-American Court, which said "military jurisdiction cannot operate in any circumstances" where civilian human rights have been violated.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Taliban Elite, Aided by NATO, Join Talks for Afghan Peace
Dexter Filkins, New York Times, October 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/world/asia/20afghan.html
Kabul – Talks to end the war in Afghanistan involve extensive, face-to-face discussions with Taliban commanders from the highest levels of the group’s leadership, who are secretly leaving their sanctuaries in Pakistan with the help of NATO troops, officials here say.
The discussions, some of which have taken place in Kabul, are unfolding between the inner circle of President Hamid Karzai and members of the Quetta shura, the leadership group that oversees the Taliban war effort inside Afghanistan. Afghan leaders have also held discussions with leaders of the Haqqani network, considered to be one of the most hard-line guerrilla factions fighting here; and members of the Peshawar shura, whose fighters are based in eastern Afghanistan.
The Taliban leaders coming into Afghanistan for talks have left their havens in Pakistan on the explicit assurance that they will not be attacked or arrested by NATO forces, Afghans familiar with the talks say. Many top Taliban leaders reside in Pakistan, where they are believed to enjoy at least some official protection.
In at least one case, Taliban leaders crossed the border and boarded a NATO aircraft bound for Kabul, according to an Afghan with knowledge of the talks. In other cases, NATO troops have secured roads to allow Taliban officials to reach Afghan- and NATO-controlled areas so they can take part in discussions. Most of the discussions have taken place outside of Kabul, according to the Afghan official.
American officials said last week that talks between Afghan and Taliban leaders were under way. But the ranks of the insurgents, the fact that they represent multiple factions, and the extent of NATO efforts to provide transportation and security to adversaries they otherwise try to kill or capture have not been previously disclosed.
At least four Taliban leaders, three of them members of the Quetta shura and one of them a member of the Haqqani family, have taken part in discussions, according to the Afghan official and a former diplomat in the region.
The identities of the Taliban leaders are being withheld by The New York Times at the request of the White House and an Afghan who has taken part in the discussions. The Afghan official said that identifying the men could result in their deaths or detention at the hands of rival Taliban commanders or the Pakistani intelligence agents who support them.
The discussions are still described as preliminary, partly because Afghan and American officials are trying to determine how much influence the Taliban leaders who have participated in the talks have within their own organizations.
Even so, the talks have been held on several different occasions and appear to represent the most substantive effort to date to negotiate an end to the nine-year-old war, which began with an American-led campaign to overthrow the Taliban after the 9/11 attacks. "These are face-to-face discussions," said an Afghan with knowledge of the talks. "This is not about making the Americans happy or making Karzai happy. It’s about what is in the best interests of the Afghan people."
"These talks are based on personal relationships," the official said. "When the Taliban see that they can travel in the country without being attacked by the Americans, they see that the government is sovereign, that they can trust us."
The discussions appear to be unfolding without the approval of Pakistan’s leaders, who are believed to exercise a wide degree of control over the Taliban’s leadership. The Afghan government seems to be trying to seek a reconciliation agreement that does not directly involve Pakistan, which Mr. Karzai’s government fears will exercise too much influence over Afghanistan after NATO forces withdraw.
But that strategy could backfire by provoking the Pakistanis, who could undermine any agreement.
Mullah Muhammad Omar, the overall leader of the Taliban, is explicitly being cut out of the negotiations, in part because of his closeness to the Pakistani security services, officials said.
Afghans who have tried to take part in, or even facilitate, past negotiations have been killed by their Taliban comrades, sometimes with the assistance of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI.
[…] The Haqqani group is the namesake of Jalalhuddin Haqqani, a former minister in the Taliban government in the 1990s who presides over a Mafia-like organization based in North Waziristan, in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The Haqqani network has sheltered several members of Al Qaeda and maintains close links to Pakistan’s security services.
The group is believed to be responsible for many suicide attacks inside Kabul that have killed hundreds of civilians. Earlier this year, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of NATO forces here, asked the Obama administration to declare the Haqqani network a terrorist organization. That has not happened.
[…] A Pakistani cleric close to the Quetta shura and the Haqqani leadership said in an interview that he was unaware of any face-to-face discussions with Afghan leaders. But he said the Afghan government had recently sent out feelers to several Taliban commanders, with the proviso that Mullah Omar be left out. "The problem is, they want to exclude Mullah Omar," the cleric said. "If you exclude him, then there cannot be any talks at all."
[…] One Pakistani security official said he was aware of talks involving a member of the Quetta shura. But he said those discussions would likely come to nothing, because the Taliban leader did not any have official endorsement. "He’s useless," the Pakistani security officer said of the Taliban leader. "This guy is not in a position to make a deal."
[…]
2) Palestinians Consider Shift in Strategy on Statehood
Ethan Bronner, New York Times, October 20, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/world/middleeast/21mideast.html
Ramallah, West Bank – The Palestinian leadership, near despair about attaining a negotiated agreement with Israel on a two-state solution, is increasingly focusing on how to get international bodies and courts to declare a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
The idea, being discussed in both formal and informal forums across the West Bank, is to appeal to the United Nations, the International Court of Justice and the signatories of the Geneva Conventions for opposition to Israeli settlements and occupation and ultimately a kind of global assertion of Palestinian statehood that will tie Israel’s hands.
The approach has taken on more weight as the stall in American-brokered peace talks lengthens over the issue of continued settlement building.
"We cannot go on this way," said Hanan Ashrawi, a former peace negotiator who is a part of the inner ruling circle of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which oversees the Palestinian Authority. "The two-state solution is disappearing. If we cannot stop the settlements through the peace process, we have to go to the Security Council, the Human Rights Council and every international legal body.
[…] Israeli officials reject the move as unacceptable and a violation of the 1993 Oslo accords that govern Israeli-Palestinian relations. It would also pre-empt any efforts by Israel to keep some settlements and negotiate modified borders. But the Israelis are worried. No government in the world supports their settlement policy, and they fear that a majority of countries, including some in Europe, would back the Palestinians.
The Israelis say that what is really going on is a Palestinian effort to secure a state without having to make the difficult decisions on the borders and settlements that negotiations would entail. They are pressing the Obama administration to take a firmer public stand against the new approach, but Washington has made no move to do so.
[…] Abraham H. Foxman, the American national director of the Anti-Defamation League, has been in Israel this week talking to its leaders. He said in an interview that all agreed on the importance of a robust American position against the Palestinian effort. "This is part of the delegitimization campaign against Israel," he said. "The Obama administration needs to have the same public moxie on the declaration of a pre-emptive state as it has had on Israeli settlements. All the exit doors have to be closed for the Palestinians so they have no choice but to negotiate."
[…] The Palestinians’ approach is often referred to as a unilateral declaration of statehood. But they declared their state more than 20 years ago and realize that simply restating the declaration will have little effect. Instead, they are pursuing what might better be called a multilateral declaration.
"We don’t have strong cards but we want to convince the world to take a position and gain recognition of a Palestinian state," noted Hanna Amireh, another member of the P.L.O.’s ruling circle, in an interview in his Ramallah office. "We feel we need to go beyond the United States to the world."
[…] The Palestinians want the world to declare their state on the territories that Israel conquered in the 1967 war – the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. Half a million Israelis now live in those areas, and Israel could find itself, in effect, in daily violation of another member state.
[…] If the Palestinians were to go to the United Nations Security Council, they might well face an American veto. Therefore they might start in the General Assembly, where there is no veto and where dozens of countries would be likely to support them. While that would be less binding, it would also provide a kind of symmetry – dark or poetic, depending on one’s perspective – with Israel. It was in the General Assembly in November 1947 that the Zionist movement achieved success through a resolution calling for the division of this land into two states, one Jewish and the other Arab. Israel has long viewed that vote as the source of its international legitimacy.
3) Britain Announces Severe Military Cutbacks
John F. Burns, New York Times, October 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/world/europe/20britain.html
London – In a bid to streamline its armed forces and help reduce its daunting levels of national debt, the British government on Tuesday announced plans to cut its military personnel by 10 percent, scrap 40 percent of the army’s artillery and tanks, withdraw all of its troops from Germany within 10 years, and cut 25,000 civilian jobs in its Defense Ministry.
In unveiling his Strategic Defense and Security Review, the first since the 9/11 attacks, Prime Minister David Cameron said the cuts were part of an effort to reconfigure a military that he called "overstretched, underequipped and ill-prepared" to meet the unconventional warfare challenges of the future. He added that Britain intended to remain a significant military power, with a military budget that would still be the fourth highest in the world, after those of the United States, China and Russia.
[…] Mr. Cameron also announced that the government would delay construction of a new fleet of Trident nuclear missile submarines, which now constitute Britain’s nuclear deterrent, for about five years. The first of a new class of vessels is not expected to go into service until 2028. By putting back the final decision on the new submarines until 2016, Mr. Cameron conveniently averted a clash within his coalition government over whether Britain should retain a nuclear strike force at all.
Over all, the government plan will involve a staged, four-year cut of about 8 percent in real terms in Britain’s annual defense budget of about $59 billion. That was significantly less than the 10 to 20 percent cuts that were under discussion as recently as last month, when the defense minister, Liam Fox, wrote a confidential letter to Mr. Cameron – quickly leaked to Britain’s newspapers – that carried a hint that Mr. Fox might resign if the cuts were not scaled back.
The more modest scale of the military cutbacks placed extra strain on the government’s overall effort to save more than $130 billion through spending cutbacks by 2015, a commitment that will require other government departments to make cutbacks averaging 25 percent.
The details of those cuts – the most severe austerity program adopted by any British government since World War II – will be announced by George Osborne, chancellor of the Exchequer, in a House of Commons statement on Wednesday. They are expected to bring months, and perhaps years, of political controversy and possible labor unrest.
Mr. Fox’s pushback over the defense cuts appeared to have been helped by the concerns voiced, sometimes publicly, by senior Obama administration officials, including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The American officials, together with senior American military commanders, including Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, were worried that the cuts could hamper Britain’s ability to help American forces in conflicts around the globe.
[…]
4) Capital controls are prudent but not easy
Kevin Gallagher, Financial Times, October 20, 2010
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2010/10/20/capitals-controls-are-prudent-but-not-easy/
[Gallagher is associate professor of international relations at Boston University and the author of a UN study on capital controls titled "Policy Space to Prevent and Mitigate Financial Crises."]
Emerging markets have their hands full trying to stem currency appreciation and asset bubbles due to their higher interest rates and formidable economic recoveries relative to the west. The situation will only worsen as world leaders continue to fail to reform global finance and the US moves to another round of quantitative easing. In times like this, capital controls have regained their legitimacy as a tool emerging markets can resort to.
One could make the argument that many emerging markets eventually need to let their currencies appreciate, in real terms. But flows of speculative capital that stop and start suddenly are a destabilising way to that end.
For John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the other architects of the international financial institutions, capital controls were seen as a core component of global financial stability. Indeed, Keynes said the "control of capital movements, both inward and outward, should be a permanent feature of the post-war system."
From the Reagan-Thatcher era to the height of the Washington Consensus, capital controls fell out of favor. The argument was that by lifting capital controls emerging markets would have more access to credit and investment and thus enable stability and growth.
The pendulum has now swung in the other direction. A parade of studies have showed that capital account liberalisation was not associated with growth in emerging markets, and that capital controls have been fairly effective. Countries such as Brazil, Venezuela, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, and now Thailand have deployed some form of capital or currency controls in the wake of the crisis. It is prudent for other emerging markets to follow suit, but with care.
Capital controls range from deterrent measures such as taxes on short-term debt to outright bans on certain kinds of speculative capital. The goal of capital controls – which are often turned on when capital flows overheat then get turned off when stability is restored – is to prevent massive inflows of hot money that can drive the appreciation of local currencies and threaten financial stability.
In a 2006 report by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Carmen Reinhart and Nicholas Magud examine the most rigorous studies on the use of capital controls before the crisis and conclude "capital controls on inflows seem to make monetary policy more independent, alter the composition of capital flows and reduce real exchange rate pressures."
A February 2010 IMF staff position note came to the same conclusions about past studies. In addition, the IMF conducted its own econometric analysis and found that capital controls "were associated with avoiding some of the worst growth outcomes" of the current economic crisis. The IMF concludes that the "use of capital controls – in addition to both prudential and macroeconomic policy – is justified as part of the policy toolkit."
[…] The implementation of effective controls needs to be taken very seriously. Two of the biggest barriers to effective capital controls are investor evasion and US trade agreements.
[…] Since 2003, US trade and investment treaties have outlawed capital controls by developing-country trading partners by mandating the free flow of capital to and from a country, regardless of its level of development – for instance, in trade deals with Chile, Peru, and Singapore. Pending deals with Colombia and South Korea would also ban capital controls.
Interestingly, the trade treaties of other higher-income countries – such as Canada, Japan, and the European Union – grant countries the right to use capital controls, or at least grant exemptions during times of crises.
[…]
5) U.S. Military Aid Far Outpaces Democracy Assistance
Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service, 19 Oct
http://ipsnorthamerica.net/news.php?idnews=3336
Washington – Desperate to secure supply routes to Afghanistan, the United States has been spending at least six times more on military aid for the mostly authoritarian states of Central Asia than on efforts to promote political liberalisation and human rights in the region, according to a new report released here by the Open Society Foundations (OSF).
The 45-page report found that the full extent of military aid controlled by the Pentagon and the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and channelled through a bewildering variety of programmes is uncertain, but that it is at least three times greater than the State Department’s military aid programmes which are subject to human rights and other conditions.
"Nobody really knows how much military aid the U.S. government is giving the Central Asian states," according to Lora Lumpe, the author of the report, ‘U.S. Military Aid to Central Asia 1999-2009: Security Priorities Trump Human Rights and Diplomacy’.
"CENTCOM’S Directorate for Policy and Plans &is likely to have the fullest picture of U.S. military assistance to the region, but those plans are classified," she noted, adding that Congressional efforts to obtain comprehensive and timely reporting on Pentagon spending in the region have been largely unavailing.
[…] The "oversized impact" of the Pentagon – as opposed to the State Department – on U.S. foreign policy has become a major concern of human rights and other critics who claim that Washington’s relations with much of the developing world have become increasingly "militarised" since the end of the Cold War.
Six months ago, for example, three Washington-based groups focused on human rights and Latin America policy published a report that found that nearly half of all U.S. aid was being channelled to the region through the Pentagon and that the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) had largely displaced the State Department as the de facto "lead actor and voice" for U.S. policy there.
[…] In a trend that accelerated sharply after 9/11, the Pentagon developed a parallel system of "security cooperation" programmes to provide various forms of assistance that would not be subject to Congressionally imposed conditions. "In the years following the 9/11 attacks, the DOD [Department of Defense] has sought, and Congress has granted, more than a dozen new legal authorities, increasing the ways that CENTCOM (and the other regional military commands) can spend funds from the Pentagon’s general coffers to provide direct assistance to foreign militaries," according to the report.
As a result, the Pentagon provided at least 103 million dollars in military-related aid to Central Asian countries in 2007 – the last year for which the Pentagon provided relatively comprehensive figures, Lumpe said.
That was nearly three times as much as was provided under the traditional military aid programmes under the State Department’s control. Total U.S. military aid, including the State Department’s programmes, came to nearly half of all assistance provided by Washington to Central Asia in 2007, the report concluded.
[…]
Afghanistan
6) Officials: Nearly 1 in 4 ballots invalid due to fraud
Joshua Partlow, Washington Post, Wednesday, October 20, 2010; 8:06 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/20/AR2010102001393.html
Kabul – Afghanistan’s election commission threw out 1.3 million fraudulent votes from last month’s parliamentary elections, about a quarter of all ballots cast and roughly the same amount as invalidated in last year’s presidential election, election officials said Wednesday.
In announcing the preliminary election results, the chairman of the Independent Election Commission said that 5.6 million votes were cast but only 4.3 million were deemed valid after about a month of investigating the results with audits and recounts. Commission chairman Fazil Ahmad Manawi said 224 parliamentary candidates, as well as an unspecified number of election officials, have been accused of fraud; their cases will be investigated by a separate complaints commission.
[…] Some parliamentary candidates on Wednesday criticized the process of invalidating votes, saying they believed the discarded ballot boxes took votes away from more than just the candidates who perpetrated fraud.
[…]
Iraq
7) Iraq PM takes foreign gamble to win over rivals
Maliki turns to regional powers for mediation
Suadad al-Salhy and Maria Golovnina, Reuters, 19 Oct 2010 16:48:10 GMT
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE69I0I7.htm
Baghdad – Iraq’s prime minister is using a round of shuttle diplomacy this week to gain regional backing for his bid to stay in power by offering business opportunities in Iraq’s war-damaged economy, political sources said.
[…] Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi’ite, has won crucial support from Iran-backed, anti-U.S. Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, but remains at odds with some Shi’ite groups and the secular, Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc that won the most votes.
Maliki was in Iran on Monday after visiting Syria and Jordan and is expected in Egypt and Turkey this week. Arab nations want Iraqiya to be part of the next government but Iraqiya itself has refused to join if Maliki is prime minister.
A senior political source in Maliki’s coalition told Reuters that the premier was offering Arab nations investment deals in exchange for their efforts to nudge Iraqiya towards compromise.
"Maliki has a serious problem called Iraqiya…There is a strong current inside Iraqiya looking to make a deal with Maliki but they fear regional countries," said the source, who is a member of the Shi’ite-led Iraqi National Alliance. "He (Maliki) needs these countries to put pressure on Iraqiya to get its support. In exchange, he is ready to give them oil at preferential prices, give them investments."
Other sources Reuters spoke to this week described the same approach but the government has not spoken openly about seeking business deals. In recent weeks Iraq has agreed to build oil and gas pipelines connecting Syria and Iran.
Maliki’s efforts to get regional powers involved offers an ironic twist in his posture after frequent calls from him for neighbours to stay out of Iraq’s domestic affairs.
Iran appears to have been instrumental in securing Sadr’s support for Maliki, while Turkey and Syria are key mediators representing Sunni interests with influence over Iraqiya. Maliki also needs Iran to put pressure on the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (ISCI), an Iran-friendly Shi’ite bloc that has not backed Maliki’s nomination.
Israel/Palestine
8) Settlers damage Palestinian trees ‘with impunity’: study
AFP, October 19, 2010
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i-4Sp3eEtcWzgff42Usoh2xOy-2w
Jerusalem – Jewish settlers who vandalise Palestinian trees are not being brought to justice, with police inquiries repeatedly failing to lead to prosecutions, a human rights group said on Tuesday. In an examination of around 100 Palestinian complaints of damage to their trees, Yesh Din researchers found that the police investigations did not result in a single indictment, with cases closed on grounds of insufficient evidence or "unknown perpetrator."
Conducted over a five-year period, the study tracked 97 cases where trees were vandalised, most of them olive trees, the group said. "Not a single one of the monitored 97 cases under police investigation has yielded an indictment against those suspected of involvement in vandalising Palestinian-owned trees," said Yesh Din (Volunteers for Human Rights).
This year’s olive harvest began earlier this month, ushering in a season which is often fraught with acts of harassment or violence against Palestinian farmers by Jewish settlers.
Israel’s failure to prosecute the vandals only serves to encourage those behind the attacks to continue, head researcher Lior Yavne said.
[…] This year’s harvest has already seen more vandalism against trees than in the past few years, the Haaretz newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing an internal document from the defence ministry. Over the past two weeks, some 500 Palestinian olive trees and 100 settler-owned trees have been cut down, poisoned with weed killer or set alight, the paper said.
Annual figures compiled by Yesh Din about complaints of settler offences against Palestinians have repeatedly shown that nine out of 10 police investigations fail to lead to a prosecution. About 45 percent of farmland in the West Bank and Gaza is given over to olive production with approximately 10 million trees, said a report released on Friday by aid organisation Oxfam.
9) Carter in Syria: Israel must fully lift Gaza blockade
Former U.S. President meets with Syrian President Assad and Hamas politburo chief Meshal in Damascus
DPA, 17:46 19.10.10
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/carter-in-syria-israel-must-fully-lift-gaza-blockade-1.320044
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, during a visit to Damascus on Tuesday, called for Israel to lift completely its blockade on the Gaza Strip. Carter made the remarks in the forum of a delegation known as The Elders, who met with Syrian President Bashar Assad and Hamas leaders in Syria.
Despite the U.S. and the European Union’s labeling of Hamas as a terrorist organization, The Elders met with exiled Hamas politburo leader Khaled Meshal, as Carter has done during previous regional visits.
Following their talks with Assad and Meshal, The Elders said people in the region have "very low expectations" that the current U.S.-led talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which excluded Hamas, would succeed.
Carter, who has visited the Gaza Strip several times in recent years, did not accompany the rest of the delegation on their trip there Saturday.
Despite his absence from Gaza, Carter renewed calls for Israel to lift its blockade of the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip. Israel imposed the blockade in 2007 after Hamas wrestled control over the territory in a violent coup. "The blockade is one of the most serious human rights violations on Earth and it must be lifted fully," said Carter from Syria.
Besides Carter, the Elders delegation includes former Irish president Mary Robinson and former UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. While in Gaza, the group described Israel’s blockade as an "illegal collective punishment" and "an impediment to peace."
[…]
Mexico
10) A Proposal to Address Rights Abuse in Mexico
Randal C. Archibold, New York Times, October 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/world/americas/20mexico.html
Mexico City – Facing international pressure over abuses by his nation’s military, President Felipe Calderón has put forward a range of proposals to transform military justice here, including civilian trials for soldiers accused of some serious crimes like rape or torture.
The proposals, sent to Mexico’s Congress on Monday night, have the backing of the military, the institution Mr. Calderón has used during the nearly four years of his administration to chase, capture and kill drug traffickers threatening public order in vast stretches of the country.
But some human rights groups called the changes too modest to make a difference, contending that Mr. Calderón’s strong-arm tactics, while popular with a public lacking faith in police agencies, have yielded scores of disappearances, unlawful killings and other abuses at the hands of the military. At least some of those crimes, possibly even murder, would not be handled by civilian courts under the proposal.
The country’s human rights commission has more than 4,000 complaints pending against the military. But they are rarely prosecuted and, when they are, the proceedings are controlled by the military behind closed doors with results seldom made public.
The State Department last month withheld some money intended for Mexico in the drug fight over complaints that Mexico had not gone far enough to investigate abuse and make the military, which has strongly resisted civilian intrusion in its affairs, publicly accountable.
Members of the United States Congress have also questioned whether more aid should be sent to Mexico, given the human rights complaints.
[…] Mr. Calderón cast his plan as a way to comply with a promise to abide by a ruling last year from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which found the military to blame in the disappearance of a human rights advocate, Rosendo Radilla-Pacheco, in 1974.
He also said it meant "the Mexican state will be harmonizing its internal laws with those expected by" international human rights accords. The office of the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights in Mexico, however, said the plan fell short by limiting the categories of crime that could be sent to civilian courts.
That sentiment was echoed by human rights organizations, which noted that accusations of arbitrary killings and beatings that were not considered torture would remain under the jurisdiction of the military authorities. The military would remain the initial investigator of all accusations, raising questions over whether cases would be turned over to civilian prosecutors.
Nik Steinberg, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, said the plan did not fully comply with the Inter-American Court, which said "military jurisdiction cannot operate in any circumstances" where civilian human rights have been violated. "It is a positive to see any cases out of military jurisdiction, but it leaves a huge amount of cases still in military jurisdiction," Mr. Steinberg said.
[…]
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Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
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