Just Foreign Policy News
October 30, 2009
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Senator Levin – chair of Senate Armed Services – says sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan could backfire, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Levin suggested expansion of the U.S. combat presence would aid Taliban efforts to portray the U.S. as a foreign occupier.
2) The idea of talking to the Taliban – a strategy advocated by Afghan officials – has drawn increasing support as the Western death toll mounts, the Wall Street Journal reports. Obama administration officials openly ponder an outreach to the leadership of Islamist militants, something that has been long advocated by European allies, the Journal says. Last year, Saudi King Abdullah tried to open a negotiating channel by convening informal talks in Mecca attended by former Taliban regime officials and Islamic scholars indirectly linked with the insurgency. The Mecca encounters led to more indirect contacts with the main Taliban leadership, the so-called Quetta Shura, headed by Mullah Omar. These discussions explored, as a first step, the possibility of the Taliban stopping attacks on road crews and schools in exchange for a halt of house raids and the release of Taliban commanders held by foreign forces. "We had a road map for peace," says Arsalan Rahmani, a former deputy minister in the Taliban government who is now a lawmaker in Kabul. But in the spring, as President Obama announced his intention to send tens of thousands of new troops to Afghanistan, the Taliban abandoned these tentative contacts, Rahmani and other participants say.
3) The de facto government in Honduras agreed to a deal, pending legislative approval, that would allow President Zelaya to return to office, the New York Times reports. If Congress agrees, the presidential election set for Nov. 29 would be recognized by both sides. The accord came after a team of senior US diplomats flew to Honduras Wednesday to press for an agreement. [Sources close to the Honduran government – the real Honduran government – tell JFP they think that Congressional approval is likely – JFP.]
4) Thousands of Nicaraguans pelted the US Embassy in Managua with rocks and homemade explosives on Thursday, demanding that the ambassador be expelled for criticizing a ruling that allows President Ortega to seek re-election, AFP reports. Ortega’s administration issued a statement calling the comments by the ambassador, Robert Callahan, an "inadmissible" interference in Nicaragua’s internal affairs, but stopped short of asking for the ambassador’s removal. Callahan had called improper the Oct. 19 ruling by the Supreme Court, which deemed "unenforceable" a constitutional amendment banning a president from seeking re-election to a second consecutive term in office. "Get out! Get out!" thousands of demonstrators shouted on Thursday outside the US diplomatic mission. The leader of the National Workers’ Front told news media the protesters were demanding that Callahan "be declared persona non grata," and "that the blond Yankee be thrown out of here."
5) The UN mission in Kabul halted operations while it reviewed security after an assault on a UN guest house, the New York Times reports. The assault unnerved many international organizations, underscoring the vulnerability of their workers. " Any group that is well organized and determined can do it," said the director of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief. "We are not secure like a military camp or an embassy. It’s easy. They crossed a line." Attacks on aid groups, he said, are "higher now than in the last six years." Officials of the UN mission have tried to impress on Afghans that the mission does not favor any side in conflict with insurgents and is unlike the foreign military forces here, pointing to their investigations of civilian casualties and other human rights abuses that have angered the Afghan population.
6) Relatives of French soldiers killed in in Afghanistan are to file a criminal lawsuit alleging that officers placed their troops’ lives at risk through a series of blunders, the Times of London reports. 64 per cent of French voters believe that France should withdraw from Nato’s Afghanistan force. Sarkozy has ruled out withdrawal, but insisted that France would "not send a single more soldier." The leader of the opposition French Socialist Party has called on France to "get out of the quagmire."
Iran
7) Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu cautiously endorsed on Friday US-backed efforts to limit Iran’s nuclear program through shipments abroad of its enriched uranium, the New York Times reports. Earlier comments by Israeli defense officials and analysts had raised questions about the plan, saying it was vital to stop all uranium enrichment on Iranian soil.
Afghanistan
8) Rejecting advice from U.N. officials, Afghanistan’s election commission announced it would open more than 6,300 polling centers for the upcoming runoff vote, far more than international experts here say can be adequately protected and monitored, the Washington Post reports.
Ecuador
9) An American whose secret recordings have placed him at the center of a $27 billion lawsuit against Chevron in Ecuador is a convicted drug trafficker, the New York Times reports. The lawsuit pits Ecuadorean peasants against Chevron over oil pollution in the Amazon. The company appeared to gain in August when it revealed video recordings that suggested a bribery scheme involving Ecuadorean officials. But the company was put on the defensive after lawyers for the peasants revealed that one of two men who made the tapes was a convicted felon. Wayne Hansen, the American who helped make the recordings, was convicted of conspiring to traffic 275,000 pounds of marijuana from Colombia to the US. He also was sued successfully by a woman who accused him of unleashing his two pit bulls to attack her and her dog.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Senator Urges Against U.S. Troop Expansion
Drew Joseph, San Francisco Chronicle, Friday, October 30, 2009
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/30/MNVU1ACK6B.DTL
Washington – As President Obama considers whether to deploy more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Thursday that such a buildup could backfire and end up helping the Taliban cause.
"Expansion of our combat presence could feed a Taliban propaganda machine that seeks to portray the forces arrayed against them not as a home-grown domestic effort to prevent the return of a detested extremist regime, which is what it is, but as the effort of a foreign occupier," Sen. Carl Levin said at a conference.
Levin, D-Mich., also urged bolstering Afghan forces with better training and resources. A larger Afghan force would lead to more popular support among the local population, he said. "Placing the Afghans in the lead is sound counter-insurgency strategy because it places the security of the Afghan people in the hands of those they trust the most," Levin said.
[…]
2) Support Grows For Pursuit Of Peace Deals With The Taliban
Yaroslav Trofimov, Wall Street Journal, October 30, 2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125686434305817635.html
Kabul – The idea of talking to the Taliban – a strategy advocated by Afghan officials – has become increasingly seductive as the Western death toll in the conflict mounts.
Obama administration officials openly ponder an outreach to the leadership of Islamist militants, something that has been long advocated by European allies. Gen. Stanley McChrystal has already told the U.S.-led forces under his command here that "reintegrating" lower-level Taliban gunmen into Afghan society is as desirable as killing or capturing them.
In his assessment of the Afghan war, Gen. McChrystal explained that conflicts of this kind typically end with a reconciliation with elements of the insurgency – and, in Afghanistan, may involve "high-level political settlements."
Afghan officials share this view. "Everyone has come to the conclusion that fighting is not a solution to the Afghan problem," says Sayed Sharif, director of the government’s Commission for Peace and Reconciliation. "More combat brings nothing but destruction. History teaches us that the only solution is a negotiated one."
[…] "If they think they’re winning the war, why settle for a compromise? Why accept half a loaf if you can have a full bakery?" says Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board. "In the absence of a change in the security trajectory, it’s hard to imagine any deal [with the Taliban] that would be anything other than a codification of our defeat," he says.
[…] Last year, Saudi King Abdullah tried to open a negotiating channel by convening informal talks in Mecca that were attended by former Taliban regime officials now living in Kabul and Islamic scholars indirectly linked with the insurgency.
"Bringing peace is difficult and complicated, but not impossible," says one of the participants, Mullah Abdul Wakil Muttawakil, who served as foreign minister in Afghanistan’s Taliban government until it was dislodged in 2001. But, he asserts, President Hamid Karzai’s administration and the foreign forces want "surrender, not peace and reconciliation" with the insurgents.
The Mecca encounters led to more indirect contacts with the main Taliban leadership, the so-called Quetta Shura, headed by Mullah Omar.
These discussions – conducted without the involvement of the U.S. – explored, as the first step, the possibility of the Taliban stopping attacks on road crews and schools in exchange for a halt of house raids and the release of Taliban commanders held by foreign forces. "We had a road map for peace," says Arsalan Rahmani, a former deputy minister in the Taliban government who is now a lawmaker in Kabul.
But in the spring, as President Barack Obama announced his intention to send tens of thousands of new troops to Afghanistan, the Taliban abandoned these tentative contacts, Rahmani and other participants say.
[…]
3) Deal Reached in Honduras to Restore Ousted President
Elisabeth Malkin, New York Times, October 31, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/world/americas/31honduras.html
Mexico City – A lingering political crisis in Honduras seemed to be nearing an end on Friday after the de facto government agreed to a deal, pending legislative approval, that would allow Manuel Zelaya, the deposed president, to return to office.
The government of Roberto Micheletti, which had refused to let Zelaya return, signed an agreement with Zelaya’s negotiators late Thursday that would pave the way for the Honduran Congress to restore the ousted president and allow him to serve out the remaining three months of his term. If Congress agrees, control of the army would shift to the electoral court, and the presidential election set for Nov. 29 would be recognized by both sides. Neither Zelaya nor Micheletti will be candidates.
On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the deal "an historic agreement."
"I cannot think of another example of a country in Latin America that, having suffered a rupture of its democratic and constitutional order, overcame such a crisis through negotiation and dialogue," Clinton said in Islamabad, where she has been meeting with Pakistani officials.
The accord came after a team of senior American diplomats flew to the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, from Washington on Wednesday to press for an agreement. On Thursday, the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, Thomas A. Shannon Jr., warned that time was running out for an agreement.
Micheletti’s government had argued that the Nov. 29 election would put an end to the crisis. But the United States, the Organization of American States and the United Nations suggested they would not recognize the results of the elections without a pre-existing agreement on Zelaya’s status. "We were very clearly on the side of the restoration of the constitutional order, and that includes the elections," Clinton said in Islamabad.
According to Micheletti, the accord reached late Thursday would establish a unity government and a verification commission to ensure that its conditions are carried out. It would also create a truth commission to investigate the events of the past few months.
The agreement also reportedly asks the international community to recognize the results of the elections and to lift any sanctions that were imposed after the coup. The suspension of international aid has stalled badly needed projects in one of the region’s poorest countries.
Negotiators for both men were expected to meet Friday to work out final details. It was not clear what would happen if the Honduran Congress rejected the deal.
[…]
4) Nicaraguans Protest Remarks by U.S. Envoy
Agence France-Presse, October 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/world/americas/30WebNicaragua.html
Managua, Nicaragua – Thousands of Nicaraguans pelted the United States Embassy here with rocks and homemade explosives on Thursday, demanding that the ambassador be expelled for criticizing a ruling that allows President Daniel Ortega to seek re-election.
Ortega’s administration issued a statement calling the comments by the ambassador, Robert J. Callahan, an "inadmissible" interference in Nicaragua’s internal affairs, but he stopped short of asking for the ambassador’s removal.
Callahan had commented on the Oct. 19 ruling by the Supreme Court, which deemed "unenforceable" a constitutional amendment banning a president from seeking re-election to a second consecutive term in office.
The court, whose 16 members are all supporters of Ortega, ruled that he did not have to call a referendum to allow him to run for re-election in 2011. The United States called the court’s decision one more of Nicaragua’s "questionable and irregular governmental actions."
Callahan raised more resentment here when he told a group of businessmen on Wednesday that the court had acted improperly, with unusual speed, in secret, with judges "from just one political movement, and with no public discussion.
"Get out! Get out!" thousands of demonstrators shouted on Thursday outside the United States diplomatic mission. According to witnesses, some protesters used handmade mortar launchers to fire explosives at the 62-acre embassy complex, which opened two years ago.
Despite efforts by the riot police to disperse the protesters with tear gas, many were able to smash lights and security cameras and mar the building with scratches and "Yankees go home" graffiti.
The leader of the National Workers’ Front, Gustavo Porras, a friend of Ortega, told the Nicaraguan news media that the protesters were demanding that Callahan "be declared persona non grata," and "that the blond Yankee be thrown out of here."
[…]
5) U.N. Reviews Security After Deadly Kabul Assault
Alissa J. Rubin and Carlotta Gall, New York Times, October 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/world/asia/30afghan.html
Kabul, Afghanistan – Most United Nations workers here were confined to their living quarters on Thursday in the aftermath of a deadly assault on a United Nations guesthouse, and some were moved to more secure housing as foreigners working in Kabul reassessed their security.
[…] The assault unnerved many international organizations working here, underscoring the vulnerability of their workers. "Before yesterday, the risk was there, but it was a virtual risk," said Laurent Saillard, the director of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, which represents nonprofit aid organizations here.
"Now, it’s become a reality. Any group that is well organized and determined can do it," Saillard said. "We are not secure like a military camp or an embassy. It’s easy. They crossed a line."
Attacks on international aid workers are not new, but Saillard said he believed that this was the first time a compound had been attacked in this way. Attacks on aid groups, he said, are "higher now than in the last six years."
The mayhem on Wednesday brought to 23 the number of aid workers killed here this year. The vast majority of attacks are on Afghan nonprofit groups, not international organizations or international workers, Saillard said.
The United Nations mission here halted operations while it reviewed security. United Nations flights between Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan were suspended until at least Saturday.
[…] In its work here, officials of the United Nations mission have made a point of emphasizing the organization’s impartiality. As a result, they found Wednesday’s attack particularly shocking. They have tried to impress on Afghans that the mission does not favor any side in conflict with insurgents and is unlike the foreign military forces here. They have pointed to their investigations of civilian casualties and other human rights abuses that have angered the Afghan population, and have tried to improve government services.
Although the United Nations is not immune from the violence here – three of its foreign election workers were kidnapped in 2004 – its workers have gone largely untouched. In the last two years it has expanded the number of its provincial offices, a reflection of good relations with the general population and the reputation for impartiality.
[…]
6) Afghan Lawsuit Adds Pressure For Sarkozy To Agree Troop Withdrawal
Adam Sage, Times of London, October 30, 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6896248.ece
Paris – Relatives of French soldiers killed in an ambush by insurgents in Afghanistan are to file a criminal lawsuit alleging that officers placed their troops’ lives at risk through a series of blunders.
The lawsuit is likely to add to President Sarkozy’s difficulties as he seeks to defend the French military presence in Afghanistan in the face of increasing public scepticism.
Mr Sarkozy has worked hard to improve relations with Nato, whose military arm France boycotted for several decades. But with 36 French soldiers killed in the conflict since 2001, 64 per cent of French voters believe that France should withdraw from Nato’s Afghanistan force. The percentage in favour has fallen by nine points in a year, the survey found.
In an interview this month, Mr Sarkozy ruled out withdrawal, saying that Pakistan – "a nuclear power" – could fall into Taleban hands "if we leave".
But he insisted that France, which has 3,700 soldiers involved in the conflict and 3,000 in Afghanistan, would "not send a single more soldier". His refusal was a blow for the Obama Administration, which has been pressing European states to send more troops.
[…] Martine Aubry, the leader of the opposition French Socialist Party, has called on France to "get out of the quagmire", although the Left is split over the issue of complete withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Iran
7) Israel Backs Nuclear Deal With Iran
Ethan Bronner, New York Times, October 31, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/world/middleeast/31mideast.html
Jerusalem – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cautiously endorsed on Friday American-backed efforts to limit Iran’s nuclear program through shipments abroad of its enriched uranium. He made his remarks as an intensive Middle East diplomatic effort got under way, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton due here on Saturday.
George J. Mitchell, the Obama administration’s envoy to the region, met with Netanyahu here on Friday and will join Clinton in Abu Dhabi to meet with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, on Saturday before both return to Jerusalem.
Netanyahu used the occasion of the Mitchell meeting to state for the first time Israel’s acceptance of the proposal for Iran. He said, "I think that the proposal that the president made in Geneva to have Iran withdraw its enriched uranium, or a good portion of it, outside Iran is a positive first step in that direction, and I support and appreciate the president’s ongoing effort to unite the international community to address the challenge of Iran’s attempts to become a nuclear military power."
Iran appears not to have accepted the suggestion by the United Nations nuclear watchdog that it ship three-quarters of its current known stockpile of low-enriched uranium to Russia to be processed and returned for use in a reactor that produces medical isotopes. But negotiations on the proposal were still underway.
Earlier comments by Israeli defense officials and analysts raised questions about the plan, saying it was vital to stop all uranium enrichment on Iranian soil.
[…]
Afghanistan
8) Afghan Panel Overrides Warnings
Officials to open more polling stations than experts think is safe
Pamela Constable, Washington Post, Friday, October 30, 2009 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/29/AR2009102902468.html
Kabul – Rejecting advice from U.N. officials, Afghanistan’s election commission announced Thursday that it would open more than 6,300 polling centers for the upcoming runoff vote, far more than international experts here say can be adequately protected and monitored.
The announcement surprised U.N. officials, who had recommended that only about 5,800 voting centers be opened because of the danger of insurgent attacks in some areas, the likelihood of fraud in others and the short time available to prepare and staff the Nov. 7 presidential election.
Officials with Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission told reporters they were confident that Afghan security forces could protect the larger number of centers, but they did not say how they would be able to staff all of them and still fulfill their pledge to get rid of hundreds of polling officials accused of fraud in the original Aug. 20 election.
[…] The upbeat assessment by the election panel echoed reassuring comments Wednesday by a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, who said more than 300,000 security personnel would be deployed to ensure voter safety on election day.
U.N. sources, however, suggested that the commissioners might be adding stations to maximize votes for Karzai, who appointed them. This dispute threatens to revive the tensions that erupted in September between the Afghan election panel and a U.N.-appointed commission that oversaw the investigation into fraud in the first round of balloting.
[…] Concerns about preparing and securing the election have intensified this week because of fresh Taliban efforts to sabotage the poll. Early Wednesday, a heavily armed Taliban suicide squad invaded a U.N. guesthouse in Kabul, killing five international staffers and three Afghans before the attackers were killed by Afghan security forces.
The apparent target of the attack was a group of U.N. election workers who were staying in the house, and Taliban officials warned that they would carry out further attacks to disrupt the poll. U.N. officials have insisted that their election preparations will continue along with their other programs here.
Nevertheless, with the runoff only nine days away, most foreign U.N. staffers have been confined to their lodgings, costing them valuable time. Officials said that restriction will remain in effect for several days. Moreover, about 20 election workers who survived the attack, including some who were injured, are being flown out of the country Friday.
"Our election support operations are still going on, but for all the U.N. agencies here, it is definitely not business as usual," said Dan McNorton, a spokesman for the U.N. mission.
Ecuador
9) Revelation Undermines Chevron Case in Ecuador
Clifford Krauss, New York Times, October 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/world/americas/30ecuador.html
Houston – An American whose secret recordings have placed him at the center of a $27 billion lawsuit against Chevron in Ecuador is a convicted drug trafficker, records show, throwing another complication into a case already tainted by accusations of bribery and espionage.
The lawsuit pits Ecuadorean peasants against Chevron over oil pollution in the Amazon and has been a major headache for the company for nearly a decade, producing a saga that underscores many of the hazards and ethical challenges of oil companies working in the developing world.
The company appeared to gain the upper hand in August when it revealed video recordings – captured on watches and pens implanted with bugging devices – that suggested a bribery scheme involving Ecuadorean officials, and possibly even the judge hearing the case.
But the company was put on the defensive again on Thursday, after lawyers for the peasants revealed that one of two men who made the tapes was a convicted felon. Court and other records provided by the plaintiffs show that Wayne Hansen, the American who helped make the recordings, was convicted of conspiring to traffic 275,000 pounds of marijuana from Colombia to the United States in 1986. He also was sued successfully in 2005 by a woman who accused him of unleashing his two pit bulls to attack her and her dog.
The disclosure adds more questions about what motivated Hansen and an Ecuadorean partner to record meetings for Chevron’s use, which the company has characterized as an act of whistle-blowing by men offended by unethical behavior and evidence that the handling of the case had been flawed.
"It’s another blockbuster development in a case that never runs short of them," said Ralph G. Steinhardt, a professor at George Washington University Law School. "It doesn’t necessarily mean there was no bribery plan, but anything that undermines the credibility of the witness undermines the case of the party that would call that witness."
[…]
–
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
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