Just Foreign Policy News
November 5, 2010
Did Voters Give Republicans a Mandate for More War?
Senator John McCain is apparently trying to claim that the election is a mandate to postpone the withdrawal of U.S. from Afghanistan. Fortunately, this claim is a proposition that can be tested. We examine the evidence, and find it wanting.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/did-voters-give-republica_b_779661.html
WBAI Wake-Up Call: What do US election results mean for US policy in Latin America?
WBAI talks with Ecuador’s Ambassador to the UN, Laura Carlsen of CIP, and Just Foreign Policy.
http://archive.wbai.org/files/mp3/101105_070001wuc.MP3
Sarah Lazare: AWOL Soldier Refusing Deployment Because of Severe PTSD
Jeff Hanks, an active duty US Army infantryman who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan, refused to redeploy to Afghanistan, saying he is in no state to deploy and needs treatment. Hanks has since been diagnosed by two civilian psychiatric professionals as having severe PTSD. "If you have trouble controlling your anger at home, what are you going to do when you are in a situation holding a loaded weapon?" He plans to turn himself in on Veterans Day.
http://www.truth-out.org/awol-soldier-refusing-deployment-because-severe-ptsd64831
The Best Government Money Can Buy
A recent film by Francis Megahy sounds the alarm about corporate control of Washington through the current system of campaign finance and lobbying by the suppliers of campaign finance, as well as the bind that reform of the system ultimately has to be enacted by incumbents that have been produced by the current system, and the need for outside agitation.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/bestgovernment
South of the Border on DVD
Oliver Stone’s documentary South of the Border was released on DVD last week. Why did the center-left cruise to victory in Brazil? You can get the DVD here.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/southoftheborder
Help Support Our Work
Your donation helps us educate Americans and create opportunities to advocate for a just foreign policy.
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) US military commanders have sought to press India to formally disavow a military doctrine they contend is fueling tensions between India and Pakistan and hindering the US war effort in Afghanistan, the New York Times reports. But as President Obama heads to India, administration officials said they did not expect him to broach the subject of the doctrine, known as Cold Start. India denies the existence of Cold Start, a plan to deploy new ground forces that could strike inside Pakistan quickly in the event of a conflict. Gen. Petraeus is among those who have warned internally about the dangers of Cold Start; He is joined in these fears by Adm. Mullen and special envoy Holbrooke. Pakistani officials have repeatedly stressed to the US that worries about Cold Start are at the root of their refusal to redeploy forces away from the border with India so that they can fight Islamic militants in the frontier region near Afghanistan. But other Administration officials "don’t care about Afghanistan," one Administration official said.
2) The UN Human Development Report says life expectancy has fallen in several African countries due to war and AIDS, the New York Times reports. The US, which once dominated the top of the UN’s development indexes, has been shifting downward. Some of that slide is linked to the introduction of new measurements – this year’s report included a ranking for gender equality, in which the US ranked 37th. It does poorly in relation to its income peers in terms of the number of women in Congress, as well as on maternal health.
3) The US submitted Friday at the UN to unprecedented public scrutiny of its human rights record, the Washington Post reports. Critics denounced US detention policies and the embargo on Cuba, called for the release of five Cuban intelligence officials held by U.S. authorities on espionage charges, and demanded the prosecution of Luis Posada Carriles, the alleged mastermind of the 1976 terrorist bombing of a Cuban airliner. Many countries urged the US to suspend the death penalty.
4) The Justice Department is proposing to overturn 30 years of legal precedent by sharply limiting patents on genes, NPR reports, in a surprise blow to the biotech industry.
5) The UN Human Development Report warned that continued failure to tackle climate change was putting at risk decades of progress in improving the lives of the world’s poorest people, the Guardian reports. The UN said that on one estimate, the adverse effects of climate change on grain yields would push prices up, more than doubling the price of wheat. In a worst case scenario, the report added, by 2050 per capita consumption of cereals would fall by a fifth, leaving 25 million additional children malnourished
Israel/Palestine
6) Prince Turki al-Faisal, a leading member of the Saudi royal family who may succeed his brother as foreign minister, says Saudi Arabia will refuse to "directly or indirectly engage Israel" until it leaves all land captured during the 1967 war, the Washington Post reports. Turki also warned against a return of the "neoconservative philosophy" into US politics. He said that under the policies of President Obama, many Americans may have believed "that the neocon movement has died, the victim of its own failed, delusional ambitions." But, he said, "this recent election will give more fodder for these warmongers to pursue their favorite exercise, war-making." Turki singled out for criticism recent calls in the US for insisting that there is a "military option" for confronting Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
7) A planned high-speed train between Tel Aviv Jerusalem has been diverted to pass through the West Bank, AP reports. Critics say that violates international law because the construction has seized occupied Palestinian land and won’t serve Palestinians. Palestinian spokesman Ghassan Khatib called on foreign companies to withdraw from the project. Companies from Italy and Russia, the latter state-owned, are helping build the line. Any project that deepens Israel’s hold over West Bank lands would appear to run counter to long-held positions of the EU and Russia, AP notes.
Colombia
8) Colombia’s former President Uribe was subpoenaed to testify in a civil case against Alabama coal giant Drummond over the company’s alleged ties to paramilitary death squads, notes Colombia Reports. A group of 500 Colombian victims of the paramilitary violence demand compensation from Drummond and claim Uribe "has direct knowledge of a number of key cases, including until what point the armed forces supported the paramilitary protection of mining properties of Drummond," said Terry Collingsworth, attorney of victims of the paramilitary organization AUC. An anti-Uribe activist at the Georgetown University threw the subpoena at the feet of Colombia’s former president, who is a guest lecturer at Georgetown. According to activist Charity Ryerson, "the former president was notified when the document touched his body." If Uribe ignores the subpoena he risks a jail sentence for contempt of court, she added. According to Collingsworth, Uribe is expected to testify in Washington on November 22.
Peru
9) A U.S. appeals court has given the green light to the extradition to Peru of retired Peruvian army officer Telmo Hurtado, who fled to Miami in 2002 to escape trial for the Aug. 14, 1985 massacre of 69 people in the southern Andean village of Accomarca, Inter Press Service reports. Karim Ninaquispe, the lawyer representing relatives of the Accomarca victims, said the last step is for Secretary of State Clinton to sign the extradition order.
Argentina
10) Argentina’s Economy Minister praised the Obama Administration for stating that Argentina was free to use its Central Bank reserves to service public debt, rejecting a legal claim by US vulture funds to block the move, the Buenos Aires Herald reports.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Obama Is Not Likely to Push India Hard on Pakistan
Lydia Polgreen and Mark Landler, New York Times, November 5, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/06/world/asia/06india.html
New Delhi – Senior American military commanders have sought to press India to formally disavow an obscure military doctrine that they contend is fueling tensions between India and Pakistan and hindering the American war effort in Afghanistan.
But as President Obama heads to India on Friday for a closely watched three-day visit, administration officials said they did not expect him to broach the subject of the doctrine, known informally as Cold Start. At the most, these officials predicted, Mr. Obama will quietly encourage India’s leaders to do what they can to cool tensions between these nuclear-armed neighbors.
That would be a victory for India, which denies the very existence of Cold Start, a plan to deploy new ground forces that could strike inside Pakistan quickly in the event of a conflict. India has argued strenuously that the United States, if it wants a wide-ranging partnership of leading democracies, has to stop viewing it through the lens of Pakistan and the war in Afghanistan.
It is also a victory for those in the administration who agree that the United States and India should focus on broader concerns, including commercial ties, military sales, climate change and regional security. However vital the Afghan war effort, officials said, it has lost out in the internal debate to priorities like American jobs and the rising role of China.
"There are people in the administration who want us to engage India positively," said an administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. "They don’t care about Afghanistan. Then there are people, like Petraeus, who have wars to fight."
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Afghanistan, is among those who have warned internally about the dangers of Cold Start, according to American and Indian officials. He is joined in these fears by Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The doctrine calls for India to create fast-moving battle groups that could deliver a contained but sharp retaliatory ground strike inside Pakistan within three days of suffering a terrorist attack by militants based in Pakistan, yet not do enough damage to set off a nuclear confrontation.
Pakistani officials have repeatedly stressed to the United States that worries about Cold Start are at the root of their refusal to redeploy forces away from the border with India so that they can fight Islamic militants in the frontier region near Afghanistan. That point was made most recently during a visit to Washington late last month by Pakistan’s army chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani..
The administration raised the issue of Cold Start last November when the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, visited Washington, Indian and American officials said. Indian officials told the United States that the doctrine was not a government or military policy, and that India had no plans to attack Pakistan. Therefore, they added, it should have no place on Mr. Obama’s agenda in India.
[…] For all the talk of shared interests, India still lies at the nexus of America’s greatest foreign policy crisis. Its archrival, Pakistan, is a crucial but deeply troubled American ally in the war in Afghanistan. The United States has struggled to find a way to mediate between them.
Some administration officials have argued that addressing Cold Start, developed in the aftermath of a failed attempt to mobilize troops in response to an attack on the Indian Parliament by Pakistani militants, could help break the logjam that has impeded talks between the countries.
India, however, has mostly declined to discuss the topic. "We don’t know what Cold Start is," said India’s defense secretary, Pradeep Kumar, in an interview on Thursday. "Our prime minister has said that Pakistan has nothing to fear. Pakistan can move its troops from the eastern border. India has no expansionist designs."
[…] For now, there are no signs that Cold Start is more than a theory, and analysts say there is no significant shift of new troops or equipment to the border.
But American military officials and diplomats worry that even the existence of the strategy in any form could encourage Pakistan to make rapid improvements in its nuclear arsenal.
When Pakistani military officials are asked to justify the huge investment in upgrading that arsenal, some respond that because Pakistan has no conventional means to deter Cold Start, nuclear weapons are its only option.
[…]
2) Human Development Report Shows Great Gains, and Some Slides
Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times, November 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/world/05nations.html
United Nations – The world has made significant progress in income, education and health over the past 40 years, but the gains have been uneven and in some places war and the ravages of AIDS shortened life spans, according to a United Nations report on Thursday.
Over all, average life expectancy around the globe jumped to 70 years in 2010, up from 59 in 1970. School enrollment through high school reached 70 percent of eligible pupils, up from 55 percent, and average per capita income doubled to more than $10,000 in the 135 countries for which numbers were available. The statistics cover about 92 percent of the world’s population.
While the broad measures advanced globally, life expectancy declined in nine countries and improved by varying degrees in others. Arab states measured an 18-year jump in life span, according to the report, while the average for people in sub-Saharan Africa increased by 8 years.
[…] Even within countries, the progress was sometimes asymmetrical. China jumped way up the income scale, registering a 2,000 percent increase in daily wages, but did not improve markedly in education or health, the authors said. On the other hand, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria managed to do both, broadening access to health and education, and improving average income, though disparities remained.
In certain African nations – the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Swaziland – life expectancy decreased because of the AIDS epidemic or war, the report found.
But in some parts of the former Soviet Union where life spans shortened, specifically Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, the reasons were harder to gauge. The report noted that alcohol consumption combined with the stress of changing to a market economy was the likely cause.
The countries improving most since 1970 are Oman, China, Nepal, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Laos, Tunisia, South Korea, Algeria and Morocco.
[…] The United States, which once dominated the top of all the indexes, has gradually been shifting downward. Some of that slide is linked to the introduction of new measurements – this year’s report included a ranking for gender equality, for example, in which the United States ranked 37th. It does poorly in relation to its income peers in terms of the number of women in Congress, as well as on maternal health.
[…]
3) U.S. subjects its human rights record to review by U.N. council
Colum Lynch, Washington Post, Friday, November 5, 2010; 3:25 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/05/AR2010110505096.html
United Nations – The United States submitted Friday at the United Nations to unprecedented public scrutiny of its human rights record, drawing censure from friends and rivals for its policies on detention and the death penalty, but also praise from allies for its candor and willingness to accept constructive criticism.
A delegation of top officials, led by Assistant Secretary of State Esther Brimmer, gave diplomats at the U.N. Human Rights Council a detailed account of U.S. human rights shortcomings and the Obama administration’s efforts to redress them. It marked the first time the United States has subjected its rights record to examination before the Geneva-based council, as part of a procedure that requires all states to allow their counterparts to grade their conduct.
Several delegations camped out overnight to be first in line to criticize Washington, with the initial few speakers including Cuba, Iran and Venezuela.
The administration has engaged in an intensive effort, including holding town hall meetings with Muslims, Native Americans, African Americans and other minority groups, to assess the extent of domestic rights violations. In August, it gave the U.N. rights council a 22-page report documenting U.S. abuses, including practices by federal and local police and corrections and immigration officials, and defending President Obama’s counter-terrorism policies. Friday’s meeting provided the first opportunity for states to comment on the report.
[…] Republican administrations have previously subjected their policies on immigration, detention treatment and other rights issues to scrutiny by the United Nations and other international bodies. But the George W. Bush administration had refused to join the Human Rights Council, saying membership would lend legitimacy to a body that included many governments with appalling rights records. Obama reversed course, arguing that it would be better to improve the body from within than lecturing from the outside.
[…] The United States’ most vociferous critics – Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea and Venezuela – opened the session with a string of highly critical accounts of U.S. policies, denouncing detention policies from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo Bay and characterizing the embargo on Cuba as an act of genocide. Cuba and Nicaragua also called for the release of five Cuban intelligence officials held by U.S. authorities on espionage charges and for the prosecution of Luis Posada Carriles, the alleged mastermind of the 1976 terrorist bombing of a Cuban airliner.
"The United States of America, since its very origin, has used force indiscriminately as the central pillar of its policy of conquest and expansionism, causing death and destruction," said Nicaragua’s envoy, Carlos Robelo Raffone. "We would like to forget the past . . . but unfortunately, the United States of America, which pretends to be the guardian of human rights in the world, questioning other countries, has been and continues to be the one which most systematically violates human rights."
The tone struck by succeeding speakers was more restrained. But even Washington’s closest friends found fault with some of its policies. Many urged the United States to suspend the death penalty, with the ultimate goal of abolishing the practice, and to ratify international treaties aimed at protecting the rights of women and children.
China and Russia, two major powers with poor rights records but important relations with the United States, acknowledged U.S. advances in human rights, citing efforts to expand health care. But China, which has brutally repressed its own ethnic minorities, criticized U.S. law enforcement officials for using "excessive force against racial minorities."
Germany’s envoy scolded some of America’s most strident critics. "We have noted with interest that some of states which are on the first places of today’s speakers list had spared no effort to be the first to speak on the U.S.," said Germany’s delegate. Konrad Scharinger. "We would hope that those states will show the same level of commitment when it comes to improving their human rights record at home."
4) Feds Surprise Biotech Industry With Gene Patent Rule
Richard Harris, NPR, November 4, 2010
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131046392
The Justice Department is proposing to overturn 30 years of legal precedent by sharply limiting patents on genes. The government surprised just about everyone who follows this issue when it suggested this change of policy in a court filing last week.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office says that for the time being, it’s not changing its rules, but the government’s brief has thrown open an old debate about where to draw the line in patenting parts of nature.
The debate bubbled up again last spring, over the issue of patents on genes related to breast cancer. Myriad Genetics, a private health care company, has patented two genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, which are the targets of a widely used test for breast and ovarian cancer.
But a judge in Manhattan sided with plaintiffs who said genes like this shouldn’t be patentable in the first place.
The company appealed. And Myriad general counsel Richard Marsh says they asked the Justice Department to weigh in, figuring the government would defend its long-held position. The government weighed in, but largely against Myriad. "In that regard, yes it was surprising to see that there’s been this switch in thinking by the current administration," Marsh says.
[…]
5) UN report warns of threat to human progress from climate change
Human development report says inaction on climate change puts at risk decades of progress on education and health
Larry Elliott and Mark Tran, Guardian, Thursday 4 November 2010 14.02 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2010/nov/04/united-nations-human-development-report
The United Nations warned today that a continued failure to tackle climate change was putting at risk decades of progress in improving the lives of the world’s poorest people.
In its annual flagship report on the state of the world, the UN said unsustainable patterns of consumption and production posed the biggest challenge to the anti-poverty drive. "For human development to become truly sustainable, the close link between economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions needs to be severed," the UN said in its annual human development report (HDR).
[…] [Jeni Klugman, director of the Human Development Report office] pointed to positive developments in countries such as Nepal, where infant mortality has come down from shockingly high levels, and Ethiopia where access to schooling has shot up. Other African countries that have seen significant improvements in the Human Development Index included Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Rwanda and Uganda.
But Klugman warned of the dangers posed by climate change. "There are risks and threats. Climate change is the big one and it could derail progress. That’s why the 2011 report will look at the issue of sustainability."
The UN said that on one estimate, the adverse effects of climate change on grain yields would push prices up, more than doubling the price of wheat. In a worst case scenario, the report added, by 2050 per capita consumption of cereals would fall by a fifth, leaving 25 million additional children malnourished, with South Asia the worst affected.
"Climate change may be the single factor that makes the future very different, impeding the continuing progress in human development that history would lead us to expect. While international agreements have been difficult to achieve and policy responses have been generally slow, the broad consensus is clear: climate change is happening, and it can derail human development.
[…] Championing the role of governments in human development, the report said that markets were generally "very bad at ensuring the provision of public goods, such as security, stability, health and education.
"For example, firms that produce cheap labour-intensive goods or that exploit natural resources may not want a more educated workforce and may care little about their workers’ health if there is an abundant pool of labour. Without complementary societal and state action, markets can be weak on environmental sustainability, creating the conditions for environmental degradation, even for such disasters as mud flows in Java and oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico."
Israel/Palestine
6) Saudi prince rules out engagement with Israel until Arab land is returned
Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, Thursday, November 4, 2010; 6:52 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/04/AR2010110406800.html
Saudi Arabia will refuse to "directly or indirectly engage Israel" until it leaves all land captured during the 1967 Six-Day War, a leading member of the Saudi royal family said Thursday, dashing any hopes the Obama administration might have had for rapprochement before a final peace deal.
"For us to take any steps toward any form of normalization with the Israeli state before these Arab lands have been returned to their rightful legitimate owners would undermine international law and turn a blind eye to immorality," Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former Saudi ambassador to the United States, said in a speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Turki, though out of government, is considered a candidate to succeed his ailing brother, Saud al-Faisal, as foreign minister.
In his speech, which came as the Obama administration is trying to breathe new life into stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Turki emphasized that since 2002 Saudi Arabia has led an Arab effort to recognize Israel if it reaches agreements on the return of the territories, including East Jerusalem, and arrives at a "just settlement" of claims by Palestinian refugees.
In an unusual detour into U.S. politics, Turki also warned against a return of the "neoconservative philosophy." He said that under the policies of President Obama, many Americans may have believed "that the neocon movement has died, the victim of its own failed, delusional ambitions." But, he said, "this recent election will give more fodder for these warmongers to pursue their favorite exercise, war-making."
As an example of what he labeled neoconservative thinking, Turki dissected in detail a recent article on foreignpolicy.com by Robert Satloff, the executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Satloff warned Obama about actions that he thought might be counterproductive to reaching a peace deal, including failing to make clear that a military option remains on the table in confronting Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Satloff’s advice "threatens to start a new conflict as a pretext for ending another," Turki said.
[…]
7) Israeli High Speed Train To Run Through West Bank
Karin Laub, Associated Press, Friday, November 5, 2010; 1:53 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/05/AR2010110504290.html
Beit Iksa, West Bank – A high-speed train between two major cities seems like a must for a developed nation. But Israel’s long-awaited, $2 billion Tel Aviv-Jerusalem railway is turning into a potential political nightmare after planners moved parts of the route into the West Bank.
The route dips twice into the war-won territory, at one point as a short cut and at another to appease Israelis who objected to tracks in their backyard.
Critics say that violates international law because the construction has seized occupied Palestinian land and won’t serve West Bankers.
The Palestinian self-rule government will "resort to all legal and possible diplomatic methods to try to end this violation of Palestinian rights," spokesman Ghassan Khatib said. He called on foreign companies to withdraw from the project.
Companies from Italy and Russia, the latter state-owned, are helping build the line, and a subsidiary of Germany’s state railway provided a technical opinion for one segment, albeit inside Israel, according to Israel Railways.
Any project that deepens Israel’s hold over West Bank lands would appear to run counter to long-held positions of the European Union and Russia, both members of the Quartet of Mideast mediators. The Palestinians want to establish a state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in 1967, and the United States is trying to get the two sides into negotiations for a peace deal creating a state.
Israeli government officials say they have taken steps to ensure that the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem line would one day benefit Palestinians. Transport Ministry spokesman Avner Ovadiah said planning has begun on an extension that would connect Gaza with the city of Ramallah, the West Bank’s center of commerce and government. The West Bank and Gaza lie on opposite sides of Israel, and most of that line would run through Israeli territory.
But researcher Dalit Baum said that idea is "a cynical ploy that is only suggested in order to justify this train route as legal." Baum wrote a report on the project published this week by an Israeli watchdog group, the Coalition of Women for Peace.
Most of the 6-kilometer (3.75 mile) stretch of the railway inside the West Bank runs through tunnels.
However, Israel is taking Palestinian lands, some of them privately owned, for tunnel portals and access roads, Baum said. Most of the land belongs to the Palestinian villages of Beit Iksa and neighboring Beit Surik, whose residents have already been cut off from some of their lands by the construction of Israel’s West Bank separation barrier.
The train line will run on the "Israeli" side of the barrier, which Israel portrays as a shield against militants, but which others see as an attempt to draw borders unilaterally.
Omar Hamdan, the Beit Iksa mayor, said the villagers only found out about the plans to lay the tracks through their lands last year when they were alerted by Israeli peace activists. By then, it was too late to object, he said.
Israel’s Civil Administration, a branch of the Israeli military responsible for planning permits in the West Bank, said while the West Bank segments for the rail line have been approved in principle, land expropriation orders for Beit Iksa have not yet been issued. Officials said villagers would still have a chance to object once that happens. Local officials estimated at least dozens of acres of Palestinian land would be affected.
Work has already started in the West Bank in parts near Beit Surik and Beit Iksa. The first stretch of the 34-mile (56-kilometer) rail line has been completed, starting at Ben Gurion Airport and running inside Israel.
Planning for the high-speed line began in the mid-1990s, but was repeatedly delayed by objections from environmental groups and local residents.
Originally, the train line was to run within Israeli territory on the edge of Mevasseret Zion, a town just west of Jerusalem and abutting the West Bank. But after residents objected, the line was moved 300 meters (yards) to the north, into the West Bank, cutting into the two Palestinian villages.
"The Israeli planners decided to move the route into the military occupation’s jurisdiction to avoid having to negotiate a compromise with Israeli citizens," Baum wrote in her report.
A second segment was planned from the start to take a short cut through a West Bank enclave that juts into Israel near the Latrun area.
[…] Russia’s government-owned Moscow Metrostroy construction company and the private Italian firm Pizzarotti are involved in building the line, along with Israeli firms. The Russia firm is working on one of the West Bank stretches, said Yaron Ravid, a deputy to the director general of Israel Railways. Pizzarotti is building a segment inside Israel, he said, but an access road to the work site goes through the West Bank.
[…]
Colombia
8) Uribe ordered to testify in Drummond case
Adriaan Alsema, Colombia Reports, Thursday, 04 November 2010 09:25
http://www.colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/12739-uribe-subpoenaed-testify-drummond-case.html
Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe on Wednesday was subpoenaed to testify in a civil case against Alabama coal giant Drummond over the company’s alleged ties to paramilitary death squads.
A group of 500 Colombian victims of the paramilitary violence demand compensation from Drummond and claim Uribe "has direct knowledge of a number of key cases, including until what point the armed forces supported the paramilitary protection of mining properties of Drummond," Terry Collingsworth, the attorney of victims of the paramilitary organization AUC, told radio station La FM.
The former president "knows the levels of cooperation between the armed forces and the AUC, specifically in regions like Cesar where Drummond was active," the lawyer added.
An anti-Uribe activist at the Washington D.C. Georgetown University threw the subpoena at the feet of Colombia’s former president, who is a guest lecturer at the Ivy League university. According to activist Charity Ryerson, "the former president was [officially] notified when the document touched his body."
If Uribe ignores the subpoena he risks a jail sentence for contempt of court, the activist added.
According to Collingsworth, Uribe is expected to testify in Washington on November 22.
Peru
9) US Court OKs Extradition of ‘Butcher of the Andes’.
Ángel Páez, Inter Press Service, Nov 3
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53454
Lima – A U.S. appeals court has given the green light to the extradition to Peru of retired Peruvian army officer Telmo Hurtado, who fled to Miami in 2002 to escape trial for the Aug. 14, 1985 massacre of 69 people in the southern Andean village of Accomarca.
Hurtado had filed a habeas corpus petition to avoid extradition, alleging that he has already been tried in Peru for the crimes charged, and that his life would be in danger if he were sent there because he participated in the counterinsurgency war against the left-wing guerrillas and would face reprisals.
When his first habeas corpus application was denied, Hurtado appealed the decision. But his appeal has now been rejected by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction in the southeastern state of Florida where he is living.
A three-judge panel handed down the verdict Oct. 27, a copy of which was seen by IPS Tuesday. The court ruled that Peru’s request for the arrest and extradition of Hurtado is valid under the extradition treaty between Peru and the United States, signed Jul. 25, 2001.
Confirmation of Hurtado’s extradition came just a few days before the start of a trial in Peru, this Thursday, of 29 former members of the armed forces for one of the worst massacres perpetrated in the 1980-2000 counterinsurgency war against the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas.
Hurtado was arrested in Miami in April 2007 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents for lying on his visa application, claiming that he had no criminal record.
His luck ran out in March 2008, when a federal judge in Miami ordered him to pay 37 million dollars in reparations to two survivors of the attack on Accomarca, and recommended his extradition to face criminal charges in Lima.
"I want to look him in the eye and hear him tell the whole truth," Emiliano Quispe, head of the Association of Relatives of the Victims of Political Violence in Accomarca, told IPS.
"He says murdering those people was his own initiative," said Quispe, whose mother María Baldeón and 30 of his other relatives died at the hands of the military patrol unit commanded by Hurtado. "That’s a lie. Nobody did anything off their own bat in those days. Everyone was acting under orders from above. Hurtado is protecting his superior officers. "At last, the time has come for justice. I am grateful to the U.S. court for sending Telmo Hurtado back so that he can be punished as he deserves," Quispe said.
Karim Ninaquispe, the lawyer representing relatives of the Accomarca victims, said the last step is for U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to sign the extradition order. "As I understand it, no further appeals are possible, and Hurtado should be surrendered immediately to the Peruvian authorities to face trial," she said.
[…] "The verdict is important, because one of the few reasons the court might have had for blocking Hurtado’s extradition was if it believed he really could be in danger in Peru, but it did not take this view," Jo-Marie Burt, a political science professor at George Mason University who has researched trials for crimes against humanity in Peru, told IPS.
"Now Hurtado has 30 days to file an appeal, but my sources say he probably will not do so. After this period, the Department of Justice will apply for a certificate of extradition from Secretary of State Clinton. If she signs it, Hurtado can then be put on a plane to Lima straight away to stand trial," Burt said.
[…]
Argentina
10) Boudou okays US gov’t decision to consider embargo ‘inadmissable’
Opinion stated through Amicus Curiae brief
Buenos Aires Herald, Thursday, November 04, 2010
http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/View/50210
Economy Minister Amado Boudou spoke about the decision made by the United States government to pronounce the embargo over US 105 million dollars from the Argentine Central Bank "inadmissable," calling it a "very important step."
The embargo had been presented by a group of vulture funds after President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s administration decided to service public debt with Central Bank reserves, which led to the resignation of former Central Bank chief Martín Redrado, asked to leave his post after strongly showing his discontent towards setting the proposal in motion.
The Appeals Court asked the US government to express its opinion on the matter involving private Banks and the Argentine Central Bank.
On October 3, the US government said that it would formulate an opinion and the Appeals Court gave it one more month to do so. Thus, President Barack Obama’s administation presented an Amicus Curiae brief stating that, in line with that country’s legislation, the embargo was inadmissable and that Argentina was free to access and use its reserves.
Judge Thomas Griesa had asked to embargo the funds early in April. Those funds belonged to an account that had been frozen since 2006. Griesa went as far as to criticize the use of Central Bank reserves for debt payment and said that "the petitions for the embargo" and other "restrictions are being complied with."
Boudou said that "a very important step has been taken, we were right to use reserves to pay off private shareholders."
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Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
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