Just Foreign Policy News
November 29, 2010
Wikileaks Honduras: State Dept. Busted on Support of Coup
According to a leaked cable, by July 24, 2009, the U.S. government was totally clear about the basic facts of what took place in Honduras on June 28, 2009. But a month after the cable was sent, the State Department was publicly pretending that the facts were murky and needed further study. Why did the State Department drag its feet, pretending that facts which it knew to be clear-cut were murky? Why didn’t the State Department speak publicly after July 24 with the same moral clarity as the July 24 cable from the Embassy in Honduras? Had it done so, history might have been different.
Why this matters now: because major US media refuse to report evidence of US "involvement" in coups in Venezuela, Haiti, and Honduras, or acknowledge that it exists, and that’s why we’re trying to help as many Americans as possible see the Oliver Stone documentary, "South of the Border."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/wikileaks-honduras-state_b_789282.html
*Action: Host a "South of the Border" Screening Party
The Haitian elections yesterday – which, the Washington Post reports, have been denounced as fraudulent by most of the major candidates – took place in an environment established by the 2004 coup backed by the United States. But in US media, the 2004 coup – and the US role in it – don’t exist.
Help educate your community about what the U.S. has been doing in Latin America. On December 10 – Human Rights Day – host a house party to watch Oliver Stone’s documentary "South of the Border," and tune in to a live webcast with Just Foreign Policy President Mark Weisbrot, who co-wrote the script.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/southofobama
*Action: Out of Afghanistan Call-In Days: Tuesday Nov 30 & Wednesday Dec 1
Call your member of Congress: Congressional Switchboard: 202-224-3121
Ask your member of Congress to do the following:
1) Join the Out of Afghanistan Caucus and
2) Co-sponsor HR 6045, Barbara Lee’s bill limiting the use of government funds to the " safe and orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan" of all military personnel and Defense Department contractors.
Leo Gerard – Corporate rewards: Controlling U.S. trade policy
It’s not just Americans who oppose the South Korea trade deal, notes Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, writing in The Hill. In the week leading up to the G-20 meetings in Seoul, trade unionists, farmers, peasants and students filled the streets in marches and candle light vigils to express outrage with the proposed agreement, including its provisions giving U.S. corporations the right to challenge South Korean laws in private tribunals. In October, 35 South Korean lawmakers joined 20 U.S. Representatives in writing President Obama and Korean President Lee Myunk-bak to protest the proposal.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-a-budget/130507-corporate-rewards-controlling-us-trade-policy-
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Negotiations with the Taliban could bring peace to Afghanistan before 2014, argues Ahmed Rashid in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times. Rashid interviewed four former senior Taliban officials known to retain in touch with Taliban leaders, who have served as go-betweens in the past. The four all said that serious talks are possible, but only if Taliban leaders are able to operate politically in a neutral venue – not Pakistan, where they are subject to manipulation by Pakistani intelligence. The four former Taliban leaders called for the release of Taliban prisoners in U.S. custody at Bagram and Guantanamo. They also called for removing Taliban leaders from the UN blacklist. President Karzai said he had been trying to persuade President Obama to move beyond merely supporting Afghan government talks with the Taliban and getting the US involved directly. That, he said, is what the Taliban has told him it wants. Karzai says he wants NATO night raids and the targeting of Taliban leaders stopped immediately.
2) Thousands of Haitians protested Sunday evening against what they believed was widespread fraud in the day’s presidential race, the Miami Herald reports. All of the major candidates signed a statement calling for the election to be voided except Celéstin, the president’s chosen successor.
3) The length of the U.S. military’s campaign in Afghanistan has now matched that of the Soviet Union, the Los Angeles Times reports. The Soviet withdrawal is a favorite public relations theme of the Taliban movement, the LAT notes. "This was their graveyard," said a Taliban spokesman. "As it will be for the Americans."
4) More than 100,000 people braved freezing temperatures to protest in Dublin against the IMF/EU four-year austerity plan, the Guardian reports. "I’m here because I’m angry that the EU are telling us to cut euros off the minimum wage and boss Irish workers around while the people that caused this crisis get off scot-free," said a 77 year old protestor.
Israel/Palestine
5) Writing in the Washington Post, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer slammed the Obama Administration for rewarding the Israeli government for its recalcitrance on the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Previously, U.S. opposition to settlements resulted in penalties, not rewards, Kurtzer wrote.
Afghanistan
6) A man dressed in an Afghan Border Police uniform killed 6 U.S. soldiers, McClatchy reports. U.S. officials said it wasn’t yet clear whether the assailant was a border police officer or merely dressed in the unit’s uniform.
Iraq
7) Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saturday an agreement requiring U.S. troops to leave by the end of 2011 will stand because Iraqi forces are capable of taking care of the country’s security, AP reports.
Iran
8) An Iranian nuclear physicist was killed in an apparent terrorist attack in Tehran, the Los Angeles Times reports. Iranian authorities quickly blamed Israel and the West.
Egypt
9) Muslim Brotherhood leaders said government security forces and election officials kept their delegates from entering dozens of polling stations and prevented many of their supporters from casting ballots in Egypt’s parliamentary election, the Washington Post reports. The government’s crackdown on the opposition has led Egyptians who favor a more open political system to criticize the Obama administration for what they call its lackluster commitment to expanding democratic freedom in the Middle East. Egypt is among the top recipients of U.S. aid, having received $1.55 billion this year. "It’s a situation in which the ruling party has a relatively free hand to manipulate the results," said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch, who was monitoring the situation outside polling stations Sunday. "The government’s objective seems to be to make voting simultaneously dangerous and futile to discourage everyone other than those mobilized by the ruling party from going to the polls."
Honduras
10) Honduran armed forces begin a military campaign Saturday in the Bajo Aguan rural area to expel farmers from their lands, Inside Costa Rica reports. The World Rainforest Movement joined the denunciation by the regional office of the International Union of Food Workers of the assassination of Honduran farmers, ICR says. The WRM demanded the end of the killings of farmers and that the murderers be punished.
Ecuador/Colombia
11) Presidents Santos of Colombia and Correa of Ecuador announced the reestablishing of full diplomatic relations between their countries that were broken off in March 2008, EFE reports.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Talks are the only route in Afghanistan
A military victory against the Taliban is elusive; a better, lasting peace requires talks and some sort of power-sharing arrangement.
Ahmed Rashid, Los Angeles Times, November 27, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rashid-taliban-talks-20101127,0,5608513.story
At last week’s summit in Lisbon, at which NATO agreed to hand over security to Afghan forces by 2014, there was an elephant in the room that no one mentioned: talks with the Taliban. NATO leaders spoke about ending the war, but nobody offered a suggestion of how that would happen. One way would be through defeat of the Taliban. But another possibility is through negotiations with the Taliban, which could bring peace even before the 2014 deadline.
At this point, the issue is something of a sticking point between Afghanistan and the United States. President Hamid Karzai is adamant that only talks with the Taliban can end the war. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, is highly skeptical and says the Taliban must first be thoroughly subdued militarily.
I recently traveled to Afghanistan, where I met with Karzai, Petraeus and four former Taliban leaders now living in Kabul. It was clear that the various parties all view the situation through different prisms, but there were also some causes for optimism.
In separate interviews, the four former Taliban leaders all voiced a similar message: Serious talks are possible, but only if Taliban leaders are able to operate from a neutral venue. They see Afghanistan as being under U.S. occupation, and Pakistan’s intelligence agency, they say, tries to manipulate the Taliban there. They believe the group needs to operate from a more neutral country, and they raised several options, including a Persian Gulf state such as Qatar or Sharjah, part of the United Arab Emirates, or countries such as Turkey, Germany or Japan.
The four men I spoke with are all former senior Taliban officials who occupied high office in the late 1990s, when the group ruled Afghanistan. They did not want to be identified for security reasons. Some had been captured and held for several years by U.S. forces before being freed, and they all now live quietly in Kabul under heavy government guard. It is well known, however, that they remain in touch with the clandestine Taliban leadership, and the Kabul regime has used them as go-betweens in the past.
Since 2008, the interested parties have been discussing (in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere) the possibility of talks. But they have not moved forward into serious negotiations. Publicly, Taliban leaders based in Pakistan still mostly deny that talks have taken place and insist that the U.S. will be defeated in Afghanistan.
But the four former Taliban leaders in Kabul acknowledged that conversations have occurred and offered similar suggestions for moving them forward. They called for the release of Taliban prisoners in U.S. custody at the military detention centers at Bagram airfield near Kabul and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They also called for removing the names of Taliban leaders from a list maintained by the United Nations.
Those on the list – created by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1267 in 1999 – are subject to a travel ban and to having their assets seized. The list currently has 433 suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban names on it, after 45 people were recently removed at the request of the Afghan government in a sign of good faith toward the Taliban.
In an interview at the presidential palace, Karzai told me that he too would like to see talks move forward. He said he had been trying to persuade President Obama to move beyond merely supporting Afghan government talks with the Taliban and getting the United States involved directly. That, he said, is what the Taliban has told him it wants.
Petraeus told me he believes that the Taliban will negotiate in good faith only when it has been weakened through military action. He said the movement also must publicly disassociate itself from Al Qaeda. In the meantime, he said, the relentless U.S. surge should continue to pound the Taliban. The strategy, he said, has depleted Taliban leadership in the south and east of the country. Petraeus said that in a three-month period ending in mid-November, NATO and U.S. forces killed or captured 368 Taliban mid-level leaders and killed 968 foot soldiers.
But aspects of the troop buildup have put the U.S. at odds with Karzai, who told me he wants night raids and the targeting of Taliban leaders stopped immediately.
NATO’s hopes of withdrawing most of its forces by 2014 – expressed clearly at the summit last week – depends on the still-uncertain capability of the Afghan army and police to take over by then. Though improving somewhat, the Afghan army and police forces are plagued with high rates of desertion, illiteracy and drug use. This year the United States will spend $12 billion on training and equipping the Afghan army and police force.
Many Americans are skeptical about why the Taliban would want to talk now rather than simply wait until NATO’s planned withdrawal by 2014 and try to seize power then. But the leaders I spoke with said that although the Taliban has had some successes and still has a large pool of potential recruits, it is exhausted by the war, having taken heavy casualties, and would like to see peace.
There have been strong hints that the Taliban is ready to forsake jihadist groups, including Al Qaeda, that want to use Afghan soil for nefarious ends, something the U.S. is likely to require as a precondition of talks.
The most sensible among the Taliban recognize that they were unable to run the country in the 1990s and that they would face a similar problem today. Better than trying to grab power now and being isolated by the international community and denied money and aid, they would support a power-sharing agreement with Karzai.
Such a deal could be reached at an international conference like the one in Bonn in 2001 that bought Karzai to power but excluded the Taliban. The former Taliban leaders said they would have no objections to international mediators participating in such talks.
Of course, talks between the two sides would have to be preceded by confidence-building measures to increase trust and help bring the Taliban leaders in from the cold. These overtures would then be followed by negotiations about the shape and form of the next government.
[…]
2) Haiti’s elections met with protests, accusations of fraud
Jacqueline Charles and Trenton Daniel, Miami Herald, Sun, Nov. 28, 2010
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/28/1947781/protests-accusations.html
Port-au-Prince – Election day protests swept Haiti on Sunday evening, when thousands of people took to the streets to rally against what they believed was widespread fraud in the day’s presidential race, including pre-stuffed ballots and thousands missing from voter rolls.
Voting bureaus were trashed and set on fire, international elections monitors withdrew in the middle of the voting, and some precincts closed due to sporadic violence.
The nation appeared headed to political crisis late Sunday as supporters of opposition candidates Michel Martelly, Charles Henri Baker and Mirlande Manigat poured into the streets in major cities throughout the country, asking for the presidential and legislative elections to be voided.
They weren’t the only ones: A dozen of the 19 presidential candidates vying for Haiti’s top post urged for "peaceful protests" against "massive fraud" in the country’s presidential and legislative races. "The election is ruined. It needs to be canceled," said former prime minister and presidential candidate Jacques-Edouard Alexis. "Our history has always shown that it’s the people who give the power."
The Provisional Electoral Council said only 3.56 percent or 56 of the 1,500 voting centers had problems and that the results would, for now, be recognized.
In Grande Riviere du Nord, a town near Cap Haitien, hundreds marched singing "Down with Préval. Arrest Préval. Down with Gaillot," referring to Haitian President René Préval and elections chief Dorsinvil Gaillot.
[…] Even Celéstin, the president’s hand-picked heir apparent, experienced first-hand the disorganized voting. When a poll worker at the Petionville high school voting station looked up Célestin’s photo on the voter list to verify his identity, it didn’t match. The road-building chief had to vote by provisional ballot.
He was the only one of the major candidates who did not sign a statement calling for the election to be voided.
[…]
3) U.S. now in Afghanistan as long as Soviets were
The last Red Army troops left in 1989, driven out after nine years and 50 days by U.S.-backed fighters known as mujahedin. Despite contrasts, the U.S. and Soviet wars have common narrative elements.
Laura King and Sergei L. Loiko, Los Angeles Times, November 27, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghanistan-russia-20101127,0,6158149.story
Kabul/Moscow – As wartime days go, Friday was a fairly quiet one in Afghanistan. Helicopters skittered across the sky; convoys rumbled along desert roads; soldiers in mountain outposts scanned the jagged peaks around them.
But one thing set the day apart: With its passing, the length of the U.S. military’s campaign in Afghanistan matched that of the Soviet Union’s long and demoralizing sojourn in the nation.
The last Red Army troops left Feb. 15, 1989, driven out after nine years and 50 days by the U.S.-backed Afghan fighters known as mujahedin, or holy warriors. Ragtag yet ferocious, they were so spectrally elusive that the Soviet forces called them dukhi, or ghosts. A fitting term, perhaps, for a country that has been called "the graveyard of empires."
[…] Despite the contrasts, the two wars have vivid narrative elements in common: An invading force finds that its vast military superiority is no guarantee of victory against a guerrilla insurgency; resentment against foreigners sometimes boils over; the terrain is timelessly formidable; local ways can seem impenetrably mysterious.
The Soviet withdrawal is a favorite public relations theme of the Taliban movement, which itself was toppled by the U.S.-led invasion in a matter of weeks, only to regroup and reinvigorate itself in recent years. "This was their graveyard," said Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the group. "As it will be for the Americans."
[…]
4) Ireland bailout protest draws 100,000 to Dublin streets
Henry McDonald and Andrew Clark, Guardian, Saturday 27 November 2010 20.07 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/nov/27/ireland-bailout-dublin-protest
Dublin – One of the largest demonstrations in the Irish Republic’s history brought more than 100,000 people on to Dublin’s streets in protest over the international bailout and four years of austerity ahead.
As European officials thrashed out the finer details of an €85bn rescue package, huge crowds braved freezing temperatures to demonstrate against the cuts, aimed at driving down Ireland’s colossal national debt.
[…] Among those on the main march there was deep anger that most of the €80bn-plus from the EU and IMF will be used to shore up Ireland’s ailing banks.
Mick Wallace, who has had to lay off 100 of his workers due to the crash in the construction industry, said it was time the Irish became more militant: "We are far too quiet. We should be more like the French and get on to the streets more often. Because our politicians go over to Europe and tell the EU that our people do not demonstrate, they don’t take to the streets. It’s time we changed that and openly opposed what is going on."
Jimmy Purdy, 77, was at the demonstration outside Dublin’s General Post Office – the scene of the 1916 Easter Rising. "I have lived through three recessions and I think this could be the worst one yet," he said. "I’m here because I’m angry that the EU are telling us to cut euros off the minimum wage and boss Irish workers around while the people that caused this crisis get off scot-free."
[…]
Israel/Palestine
5) With settlement deal, U.S. will be rewarding Israel’s bad behavior
Daniel Kurtzer, Washington Post, Sunday, November 21, 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/19/AR2010111903000.html
[Kurtzer was U.S. ambassador to Israel and Egypt.]
It was only a little over a year and a half ago that the Obama administration demanded a freeze on Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, including even the "natural growth" of existing settlements. At the time, the administration called settlement activity "illegitimate" and appeared ready to go to the mat with Israel to show just how strongly the United States believed that settlements impede peace.
But now, the administration says it is prepared to pay off Israel to freeze only some of its settlement activity, and only temporarily. For the first time in memory, the United States is poised to reward Israel for its bad behavior.
Here’s the offer that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is reported to have put on the table recently: The United States will provide a package of advanced weaponry and military assistance to Israel totaling several billion dollars, all in return for an Israeli commitment to freeze settlement construction for just three months, excluding construction in Jerusalem. During this period, the United States hopes Israel and the Palestinian Authority will negotiate an agreement on the final borders of a future Palestinian state. The Israeli cabinet is weighing the offer, having demanded a letter from Washington confirming the terms.
This is a very bad idea. And while Washington will almost certainly come to regret bribing Israel, Israel may regret receiving such a bribe even more.
Previously, U.S. opposition to settlements resulted in penalties, not rewards, for continued construction. Washington deducted from its loan guarantees to Israel an amount equivalent, dollar for dollar, to the money that Israel spent in the occupied territories. While it’s true that the United States has turned a blind eye to indirect U.S. subsidies for Israeli activities in the territories – such as tax deductions for American organizations that fund settlements – the deal now being offered to Israel is of a totally different magnitude. If it goes forward, it will be the first direct benefit that the United States has provided Israel for settlement activities that we have opposed for more than 40 years.
[…]
Afghanistan
6) Afghan in border police uniform kills 6 U.S. soldiers
Warren P. Strobel and Hashim Shukoor, McClatchy Newspapers, Mon, Nov. 29, 2010
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/29/104421/six-nato-soldiers-killed-by-man.html
Kabul – A man dressed in an Afghan Border Police uniform turned his weapon on American troops in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, killing six soldiers before being killed in a gun battle, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said.
The incident appears to be one of the worst in a string of attacks in which members of Afghan security forces have turned against the international troops with whom they’re supposed to be partnered.
All six service members killed were Americans, Pentagon spokesman Marine Col. David Lapan confirmed Monday afternoon. He wouldn’t name those killed or the unit, pending notification of next of kin.
The incident took place in Nangarhar province, in the remote district of Pachir Agam, Afghan and U.S. officials said. The district, which borders Pakistan, is home to the Tora Bora mountains, where al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden made a last stand against invading U.S.-led forces in late 2001 before escaping to Pakistan.
U.S.-led troops have been attempting to train Afghan’s border police to better control the border, which insurgents and smugglers cross easily.
The killings appear to call into further question the reliability of Afghan forces, which President Barack Obama is counting on to handle security when U.S. combat troops withdraw at the end of 2014.
U.S. officials said it wasn’t yet clear whether the assailant was a border police officer or merely dressed in the unit’s uniform.
[…]
Iraq
7) Iraqi PM: No need for US troops to stay post-2011
Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Associated Press, Sat Nov 27, 10:00 am ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101127/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq
Baghdad – Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saturday that an agreement requiring U.S. troops to leave by the end of 2011 will stand because Iraqi forces are capable of taking care of the country’s security.
The comments are his first on the subject since being tasked with forming a new government after nearly nine months of political deadlock, and some of his strongest to date on what is expected to be a key issue facing the next government.
"The security agreement with what it included of dates and commitments will remain valid, and I do not feel the need for the presence of any other international forces to help Iraqis control the security situation," al-Maliki told reporters during his first news conference since getting the formal request on Thursday to form the new government.
[…]
Iran
8) Nuclear scientist killed in bomb attack in Tehran
Three others are injured, two of them in a second, similar attack. The slaying is the second this year in which an Iranian physicist linked to a project known as SESAME has been killed in a bombing.
Borzou Daragahi and Ramin Mostaghim, Los Angeles Times, November 30, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-scientists-20101130,0,2228375.story
Beirut/Tehran – For the second time in less than a year, an Iranian physicist connected to an international project that includes Israel and the Islamic Republic as member states died in a bomb blast in Tehran, adding to the mystery of what appear to be attacks against Iran’s nuclear brain trust.
Majid Shahriari, a nuclear scientist at the capital’s prestigious Shahid Beheshti University, died in the Monday morning attack, which injured his wife and driver, Iranian authorities told local news outlets. Another Shahid Beheshti nuclear scientist, Fereydoun Abbasi, and his wife were injured in a separate attack about the same time.
No one claimed responsibility and no arrests had been made, Iranian officials said. But authorities quickly blamed Israel and the West.
"Undoubtedly, the Western governments and the Zionist regime were involved," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told reporters. "I hope the country’s security officials will find out about them and introduce them to people."
A powerful and still mysterious Jan. 12 explosion killed Iranian physicist Massoud Ali Mohammadi near his home. Both Mohammadi and Shahriari were delegates to Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East, or SESAME, a United Nations-backed particle physics project based in Jordan that is one of the few projects in which Iran and Israel officially cooperate.
One administrator at SESAME said the two men’s connection to the organization could be coincidental. "The work of SESAME is open to everybody and has nothing to do with nuclear technology," Yasser Khalil, the official, said in a phone interview.
Mohammadi’s slaying led to speculation that Iran’s international adversaries were targeting scientists as a way of slowing its nuclear research program. But others said he might have been killed for supporting the political movement opposed to Ahmadinejad.
[…]
Egypt
9) Egypt picks parliament amid allegations of fraud
Ernesto Londono, Washington Post, Sunday, November 28, 2010; 5:18 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/28/AR2010112801784.html
Cairo – Members of Egypt’s largest political opposition party braced for a bruising defeat in parliamentary elections held Sunday amid reports that proxies of the ruling party committed widespread fraud and prevented election monitors working for rival candidates from monitoring the polls.
Muslim Brotherhood leaders said government security forces and election officials kept their delegates from entering dozens of polling stations and prevented many of their supporters from casting ballots.
"The government has used all the means to prevent people from going to polling stations," Muslim Brotherhood campaign coordinator Mohammed Mursi said Sunday night as the polls were closing. "It seems the regime does not want to have real opposition in parliament."
The contest for the lower house of parliament’s 508 seats is widely seen as a precursor for next year’s presidential election, which could mark the first transition of power here in more than three decades.
[…] The crackdown on the opposition has led Egyptians who favor a more open political system to criticize the Obama administration for what they call its lackluster commitment to expanding democratic freedom in the Middle East. Egypt is among the top recipients of U.S. aid, having received $1.55 billion this year.
In the weeks leading up to the election, Egyptian security forces detained hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters and disqualified many of its candidates, an apparent effort to curb its political clout before a transition that could be destabilizing.
Muslim Brotherhood candidates won 88 seats in the 2005 parliamentary election, its strongest showing in history. The party is nominally outlawed in Egypt, but it fields candidates as independents.
Because many of the secular opposition parties boycotted the vote, the ruling National Democratic Party is widely expected to secure near absolute control of parliament.
Opposition politicians and human rights activists said they recorded dozens of cases of ballot stuffing, vote buying and voter intimidation. Outside several key polling stations, bands of men in civilian clothes beat back voters and supporters of opposition candidates, in some instances working in coordination with police forces, human rights activists and witnesses said.
"It’s a situation in which the ruling party has a relatively free hand to manipulate the results," said Tom Malinowski, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch, who was among the group’s representatives monitoring the situation outside polling stations Sunday. "The government’s objective seems to be to make voting simultaneously dangerous and futile to discourage everyone other than those mobilized by the ruling party from going to the polls."
In Alexandria, Egypt’s second-largest city and a Brotherhood stronghold, opposition candidates described overt violations. "The ballot boxes arrived full," Brotherhood candidate Sobhy Saleh said in an interview Sunday morning. "The will of the people is being stolen." Sunday night, an aide said Saleh had been wounded in clashes and was recovering at a hospital.
At the polling station at the Hoda Shaarawy School in Cairo’s upscale Dokki neighborhood, women dressed in headscarves banged on the green gate, pleading to be allowed to cast votes. Election officials held them at bay for most of the day, and only opened the doors to allow in voters bused in by NDP activists.
"If they had simply told us there would be no election, we would have accepted that," said Fatima Khadri, 31, one of the Brotherhood observers who said she was not allowed to monitor the vote. "Why make us go through this trouble."
[…]
Honduras
10) Honduran Military Forces to Expel Farmers
Inside Costa Rica, November 28, 2010
http://www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2010/november/28/centralamerica10112803.htm
Tegucigalpa – Honduran armed forces begin a military campaign Saturday in the Bajo Aguan rural area to expel farmers from their lands, with the pretext of stopping alleged armed groups. Deputy Security Minister Armando Calidonio made the announcement Friday in San Pedro Sula, and as a pretext for the operations he showed some photos of armed minors.
The El Aguan Farmers Movement (MCA) and the National People’s Resistance Front (FNRP) have denied the existence of such groups and the occurrence of armed clashes. There have been murders, massacres, but farmers have been the only victims, the FNRP denounced on its website.
The military actions will continue in the area, and any person carrying a gun will be detained, Calidonio warned. The actions are part of the second phase of a plan that includes the eviction of farms in dispute, said Rene Maradiaga Panchame, the second director of the National Police.
The World Rainforest Movement (WRM) yesterday joined the denunciation by the regional office of the International Union of Food Workers of the assassination of Honduran farmers. The WRM asked all the mass media in Honduras and the rest of Latin America to publish the regional office’s denunciation, in which it demands the end of the killings of farmers and that the murderers be punished.
Ecuador/Colombia
11) Ecuador, Colombia Reestablish Diplomatic Ties.
EFE. November 26, 2010
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=379837&CategoryId=14089
Georgetown – Presidents Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia and Rafael Correa of Ecuador announced here Friday the reestablishing of full diplomatic relations between their two countries that were broken off in March 2008. "We have taken the decision to fully reestablish diplomatic relations between Ecuador and Colombia, and to that end we will name ambassadors who will be posted, with all certainty, before Christmas," Santos said in a joint statement with Correa.
The two leaders talked to reporters after taking part in the summit of the 12-member Union of South American Nations, or Unasur. In that meeting they decided to renew the diplomatic ties that Ecuador broke off in March 2008 after Colombia bombed a camp of the FARC guerrilla group on Ecuadorian territory.
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