Just Foreign Policy News
April 12, 2011
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I) Actions and Featured Articles
*Action: Urge Congress to Block Escalation of the Libya War
Despite President Obama’s promise not to put U.S. ground troops in Libya, General Ham, the former U.S. commander of the military mission, said last week that U.S. ground troops in Libya are a possibility. Rep. Conyers has proposed an amendment prohibit U.S. ground forces from being introduced into Libya. Urge your Representative to support this prohibition.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/nogroundtroops
Can Jeff Sachs Get Us Out of Afghanistan?
Economist Jeffrey Sachs, slamming the White House’s proposals for cutting domestic spending, calls for the US to get out of Afghanistan.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/can-jeff-sachs-get-us-out_b_847995.html
Congressional Progressive Caucus: The People’s Budget
Ends the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=70§iontree=5,70
AngryArabiya on hunger strike for release of her father
In a letter to President Obama, Bahraini human rights blogger Zainab Alkhawaja announces a hunger strike for the release of her family.
http://angryarabiya.blogspot.com/2011/04/letter-to-president-obama.html
She was on Democracy Now this morning:
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/4/12/i_am_willing_to_give_my
Rethink Afghanistan: War Tax Calculator
How much are you paying for the war?
http://rethinkafghanistan.com/iou
Yifat Susskind: Don’t Let NATO Chill the Arab Spring
MADRE opposes NATO’s military intervention.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/12-2
"Friends of the White Intifada" on Facebook
Are you on Facebook? Are you following nonviolent resistance against the Israeli occupation? Use this page to share information with others.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Friends-of-the-White-Intifada-no-violence/199836420048690
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II) Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Obama hoped that a quick application of air power would enable rebels to oust Qaddafi, writes David Sanger in the New York Times. Now the question in Washington has boiled down to: can Obama live with a stalemate? The administration is clearly gambling on "catching a break," Sanger writes – perhaps an army uprising, the gradual starvation of a regime addicted to cash, maybe a stray bullet or lucky missile strike.
2) Pakistan has demanded the US steeply reduce the number of CIA operatives and Special Operations forces working in Pakistan, and halt CIA drone strikes in northwest Pakistan, the New York Times reports. The demands appeared severe enough to badly hamper US efforts to combat militants, the Times says.
3) Two U.S. servicemen were killed in a US drone airstrike in Afghanistan last week, NBC reports. Marines under fire were watching streaming video of the battlefield being fed to them by an armed Predator overhead. They saw a number of "hot spots," or infrared images, moving in their direction. Apparently believing that those "hot spots" were the enemy, they called in a Hellfire missile strike from the Predator. [If the U.S. can’t be confident of not killing its own soldiers with drone strikes, it surely can’t be confident of not killing civilians with them – JFP.]
4) A UN diplomat charged with investigating claims of torture said he is "deeply disappointed and frustrated" that U.S. defense officials have refused his request for an unmonitored visit with Bradley Manning, the Washington Post reports. Juan Mendez, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture, noted that at least 18 countries have allowed him unmonitored interviews in detention centers. To do his job, he said, he needs to be able to speak to Manning without witnesses, including guards patrolling nearby. Otherwise, he said, "I cannot be sure Manning is being absolutely candid and honest with me if he knows that he’s being monitored."
Bahrain
5) Doctors and nurses in Bahrain say they are being subjected to a terror campaign by the government, the New York Times reports. At least a dozen doctors and nurses have been arrested and held prisoner during the last month, and more paramedics and ambulance drivers are missing. Ambulances have been blocked from aiding wounded patients, according to health care workers and human rights advocates. "You have an assault on the health care system and the people who practice in it," said Dan Williams, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch.
Israel/Palestine
6) The Palestinian threat to seek recognition of statehood from the UN General Assembly has the Israeli government in a state of panic, writes MJ Rosenberg on the Huffington Post. AIPAC is already working on Congressional letters calling on Obama to stop the declaration and, no doubt, an overwhelming majority of the House and Senate will sign on. But the good news is that the US cannot use its veto to prevent Palestinian recognition by the UN: it is the General Assembly that confers statehood and not the Security Council.
Libya
7) Libyan rebel leaders rejected an African peace plan, insisting they would not make a deal unless leader Gaddafi agreed to leave office immediately, the Washington Post reports. The rejection came less than 24 hours after South African President Jacob Zuma, who led an African Union delegation to Libya, said Gaddafi had accepted the "road map" to peace. The plan called for an immediate cease-fire, safe passage for humanitarian aid, the protection of foreign nationals and the start of discussions about reform between the government and the opposition.
The Obama administration echoed the rebels’ insistence on Gaddafi’s departure as a precondition for any political settlement. "It’s a non-negotiable demand," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.
8) President Obama and other NATO leaders may find that sanctions do not bring Gaddafi to his knees as quickly as they would hope, if at all, the Washington Post reports. The panic that gripped the Libyan economy at the height of the crisis has substantially abated, and the government has implemented a series of measures to cope with the sanctions and the loss of hundreds of thousands of foreign workers. The economic situation appears more chaotic in the rebel-held east, with the collapse of much of the public sector and the shuttering of oil production.
Mexico
9) Former Mexican President Vicente Fox said "nobody is going to be able to stop drug trafficking" from Mexico to the US, New America Media reports. He insisted that the only way to solve the problem would be for Mexico to legalize the consumption of drugs, while the US government must cut off the flow of guns to Mexico, crack down on money laundering, and reduce drug use at home. Fox pointed to Portugal as a country that following legalization, reduced both violence and consumption.
Colombia/Venezuela
10) Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos told Spanish television Tuesday he is confident FARC encampments in Venezuela have been dismantled, according to Colombia Reports. Since Santos came to power, there has been a significant thawing in relations between the two countries. President Chavez has so far complied with everything he said he would, Santos said.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Possible Libya Stalemate Puts Stress On U.S. Policy
David E. Sanger, New York Times, April 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/world/africa/12assess.html
Washington – Three weeks ago, President Obama ordered American troops into the first "humanitarian war" on his watch, vowing to stop the forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi from massacring their own people. Mr. Obama’s hope was that a quick application of power from the air would tip the balance, and the Libyan rebels would do the rest.
Now with the Qaddafi forces weathering episodic attacks, and sometimes even gaining, the question in Washington has boiled down to this: Can Mr. Obama live with a stalemate?
Asked on Monday whether the United States could accept a cease-fire proposed by the African Union that would effectively leave Colonel Qaddafi in control of part of the country, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton hedged. First, she said, the Libyan government would have to allow food, water and electricity into cities it has cut off and allow in humanitarian assistance. Then, she added, "These terms are nonnegotiable."
But she immediately reiterated that ultimately nothing could be resolved without "the departure of Qaddafi from power, and from Libya." The statement seemed to underscore the limbo the administration finds itself in, with the rebels unable to achieve regime change on their own, and Washington and its NATO allies hesitant to leap deeper into a civil war.
Mr. Obama’s decision to join the military intervention in Libya may well be judged a failure if the initial result is a muddle or a partition of the country, an outcome that his own secretary of defense, Robert M. Gates, declared less than a month ago would be a "a real formula for insecurity." If the country’s civil war drags on, Mr. Obama will almost certainly have to answer a rising chorus of critics that he entered the battle too late, began to exit too early, and overestimated a very inexperienced, disorganized rebel movement.
[…] In interviews, senior administration officials urge patience. The first NATO strikes, they note, were only 23 days ago. Colonel Qaddafi, they say, has been badly wounded by the rebellion and is still reeling from the defection of a few key allies and the loss of billions in revenue that he used buy loyalty. Tommy Vietor, the spokesman for the National Security Council, argues that the key to ultimate success is "continued messaging to Qaddafi’s inner circle that the writing is on the wall."
But, Mr. Vietor added: "Unilateral, open-ended military action to pursue regime change isn’t good strategy, and wouldn’t advance American credibility anywhere. Stopping a massacre, building an international coalition, and tightening the squeeze on Qaddafi as a part of an international coalition is in our interest, and that’s what we’re going to do."
Over time, that strategy might yet work. But clearly the administration is gambling on catching a break – perhaps an army uprising, the gradual starvation of a regime addicted to cash, maybe a stray bullet or lucky missile strike that ends a dictator’s 40-year rule.
But as Mr. Obama frequently noted when he was in the Senate criticizing the American approach to Iraq and Afghanistan, hope is not a strategy.
[…] But while it may want Qaddafi out, the White House insists that the military action in Libya is intended solely to protect civilians, noting that the United Nations did not authorize anyone to overthrow Qaddafi. And that leaves Mr. Obama with a vexing choice, between living with a civil war that may drag on for weeks, months or years, at a gradually rising human cost, and becoming more deeply involved, either directly or through NATO, in a third war in a Muslim nation.
"We’re not in a good place," an Obama adviser acknowledged last week, on a day when rebel forces seemed particularly hapless and disorganized.
2) Pakistan Tells US It Must Sharply Cut CIA Activities
Jane Perlez and Ismail Khan, New York Times, April 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/world/asia/12pakistan.html
Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan has demanded that the United States steeply reduce the number of Central Intelligence Agency operatives and Special Operations forces working in Pakistan, and that it halt C.I.A. drone strikes aimed at militants in northwest Pakistan. The request was a sign of the near collapse of cooperation between the two testy allies.
Pakistani and American officials said in interviews that the demand that the United States scale back its presence was the immediate fallout from the arrest in Pakistan of Raymond A. Davis, a C.I.A. security officer who killed two men in January during what he said was an attempt to rob him.
In all, about 335 American personnel – C.I.A. officers and contractors and Special Operations forces – were being asked to leave the country, said a Pakistani official closely involved in the decision.
It was not clear how many C.I.A. personnel that would leave behind; the total number in Pakistan has not been disclosed. But the cuts demanded by the Pakistanis amounted to 25 to 40 percent of United States Special Operations forces in the country, the officials said. The number also included the removal of all the American contractors used by the C.I.A. in Pakistan.
The demands appeared severe enough to badly hamper American efforts – either through drone strikes or Pakistani military training – to combat militants who use Pakistan as a base to fight American forces in Afghanistan and plot terrorist attacks abroad.
The reductions were personally demanded by the chief of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, said Pakistani and American officials, who requested anonymity while discussing the delicate issue.
[…] General Kayani has also told the Obama administration that its expanded drone campaign has gotten out of control, a Pakistani official said. Given the reluctance or inability of the Pakistani military to root out Qaeda and Taliban militants from the tribal areas, American officials have turned more and more to drone strikes, drastically increasing the number of attacks last year.
The drone campaign, which is immensely unpopular among the Pakistani public, had become the sole preserve of the United States, the Pakistani official said, since the Americans were no longer sharing intelligence on how they were choosing targets. The Americans have also extended the strikes to new parts of the tribal region, like the Khyber area near the city of Peshawar.
"Kayani would like the drones stopped," said another Pakistani official who met with the military chief recently. "He believes they are used too frequently as a weapon of choice, rather than as a strategic weapon." Short of that, General Kayani was demanding that the campaign return to its original, more limited, scope and remain focused narrowly on North Waziristan, the prime militant stronghold.
A drone attack last month, one day after Mr. Davis was released, hit Taliban fighters in North Waziristan, but also killed tribal leaders allied with the Pakistani military, infuriating General Kayani, who issued an unusually strong statement of condemnation afterward.
American officials defended the drone attack, saying it had achieved its goal of killing militants. But there have been no drone attacks since then.
[…]
3) U.S. Servicemen Killed by Drone Strike in Afghanistan
Pair died in missile airstrike in an apparent case of mistaken identity
Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News, 4/11/2011 2:04:23 PM ET
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42537620/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/
Washington- A U.S. Marine reservist and a Navy corpsman were killed in a drone airstrike in Afghanistan last week in an apparent case of friendly fire, U.S. military officials tell NBC News.
Marine Staff Sgt. Jeremy Smith and Navy Corpsman Benjamin Rast were reportedly killed Wednesday by a Hellfire missile fired from a U. S. Air Force Predator in what appears to be a case of mistaken identity, NBC reported. Smith and Rast were part of a Marine unit moving in to reinforce fellow Marines under heavy fire from enemy forces outside Sangin in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan.
The Marines under fire were watching streaming video of the battlefield being fed to them by an armed Predator overhead. They saw a number of "hot spots," or infrared images, moving in their direction. Apparently believing that those "hot spots" were the enemy, they called in a Hellfire missile strike from the Predator.
[…] 4) U.N. diplomat is denied private meeting with WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning
Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post, Monday, April 11, 7:25 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/un-diplomat-is-denied-unmonitored-meeting-with-wikileaks-suspect/2011/04/11/AFgfAzLD_story.html
A United Nations diplomat charged with investigating claims of torture said Monday that he is "deeply disappointed and frustrated" that U.S. defense officials have refused his request for an unmonitored visit with Pfc. Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence analyst accused of passing classified material to WikiLeaks.
Juan E. Mendez, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture, said his request for a private interview with Manning was denied by the Defense Department on Friday. Instead, he has been told that any visit must be supervised.
Mendez has been seeking to determine whether Manning’s confinement at a military brig at Quantico amounts to torture, following complaints about his treatment and an incident in which the private was forced to strip in his cell at night and sleep without clothing.
"My request . . . is not onerous: for my part, a monitored conversation would not comply with the practices that my mandate applies in every country and detention center visited," Mendez said in a statement Monday, noting that at least 18 countries have allowed unmonitored interviews.
[…] In an interview, Mendez said that "at first glance," Manning’s case seems to be "of interest to my mandate," which is to investigate cases of cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment and report them to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
To do his job, he said, he needs to be able to speak to Manning without witnesses, including guards patrolling nearby. Otherwise, he said, "I cannot be sure Manning is being absolutely candid and honest with me if he knows that he’s being monitored."
He said he is willing to see Manning nonetheless, if Manning wishes to see him.
The Defense Department has also denied requests for unmonitored visits with Manning by a representative of Amnesty International and by Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio), according to the soldier’s attorney.
Bahrain
5) Hospital Is Drawn Into Bahrain Strife
Clifford Krauss, New York Times, April 12, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/world/middleeast/13bahrain.html
Manama, Bahrain – A handful of soldiers, their faces covered by black masks to hide their identities, guard the front gate of Salmaniya Medical Complex. Inside, clinics are virtually empty of patients, many of whom, doctors say, have been hauled away for detention after participating in protests.
Doctors and nurses have been arrested, too, and the police trail ambulance drivers, health care workers said.
To the government, Salmaniya, Bahrain’s largest public hospital, and local clinics are nests of radical Shiite conspirators trying to destabilize the country. But to many doctors at Salmaniya, the hospital has been converted into an apparatus of state terrorism, and sick people have nowhere to go for care.
The scene at Salmaniya is a grim sign that health care has been drawn into Bahrain’s civil conflict, which burst into violence last month when the army and security forces cleared not only Pearl Square but also the grounds of the medical complex, which had become a hub for opposition activities.
At least a dozen doctors and nurses have been arrested and held prisoner during the last month, and more paramedics and ambulance drivers are missing. Ambulances have been blocked from aiding wounded patients, according to health care workers and human rights advocates.
Meanwhile, the security forces, manning roadblocks around the country, inspect drivers and their passengers for birdshot wounds – the most common injury to demonstrators confronted by security forces – and those with the telltale black bruises are seized and detained.
"You have an assault on the health care system and the people who practice in it," said Dan Williams, a senior researcher for the New York-based group Human Rights Watch, who is now investigating in Bahrain. "Hospitals are supposed to be used for health care and not as arbitrary detention centers."
Bahraini doctors and international human rights workers say the purpose of the crackdown appears to be to instill terror in doctors, so they will not care for wounded demonstrators, and fear in dissidents, who might think twice about confronting the police if they know that being injured might mark them for arrest.
[…] Most doctors in Bahrain are Shiite, as is a majority of the population, in a country that is ruled by a Sunni monarchy that now governs with the support of more than 1,000 Saudi Arabian troops. The opposition is predominately, though not entirely, Shiite.
The crackdown is centered at Salmaniya, the country’s main referral hospital, ambulance depot, center for emergency care and blood bank. But doctors at neighborhood clinics say patients are afraid to go to them as well, and they do not have enough blood, antibiotics and emergency equipment to care for patients who would otherwise go to Salmaniya for care.
The problems at Salmaniya began two months ago when demonstrators began using the parking lot in front of the emergency ward to protest, and some doctors joined in the protests while they were supposedly on duty.
When the security forces cleared Pearl Square on March 16, they also blockaded Salmaniya. According to one doctor who was in the hospital, the entire staff was terrified as it watched a nurse dragged away and beaten by five officers after she apparently tried to escape. She said the police hauled away a paramedic and his driver, who are still missing.
The next day, she said, the security forces went to the second floor, handcuffed about 10 patients wounded from the demonstrations, and took them to the sixth floor for questioning under torture. Others were taken upstairs later, doctors said.
In interviews that were given on condition their names not be published, four doctors and nurses and several family members of arrested health care workers said the medical community has been terrorized.
As they tell it, a pattern has emerged in which health workers are called to the Salmaniya administration offices, and then taken to a criminal investigation center. The arrested doctors and nurses are allowed to make brief calls home to say they are fine. Family members then come to bring them clothes, but rarely if ever see them.
Many of the health care workers arrested were involved in protests, but others apparently were not. One physician, Nahad al-Shirawi, was apparently arrested after she appeared in a published photograph weeping in the hospital over a victim who died in a protest broken up by the security forces.
Yasser Ali Abdulla, a paramedic, and Mohsen Ashour, his driver, were dispatched on March 15 to the village of Sitra to care for wounded demonstrators who were attacked by police. They never came home.
Mr. Abdulla’s father spotted their ambulance several days later parked in a local police station parking lot. Though the father was not allowed to see his son, Mr. Abdulla was allowed later that day to call his wife for a few seconds to tell her he was alive, according to a family member who spoke on condition she not be identified by name or exact relationship.
He called a week later, but has not been heard from since. "They say his crime was he stole the ambulance, but he was on duty and in uniform," the relative said.
Richard Sollom, deputy director of Physicians for Human Rights, said the security forces have gone so far as to steal medical records such as X-rays of people injured in demonstrations, apparently to hide human rights violations.
"They are quite sophisticated," said Mr. Sollom, who just completed a fact-finding trip here. "Doctors are the one group of people who have evidence."
A few days ago, three doctors at Salmaniya were slapped and taunted by security guards in the middle of the night simply because they did not have a picture of the prime minister hanging on the wall of their dormitory room.
"We were standing and shaking and we didn’t know where this would end," recalled one of the doctors, who spoke on condition he not be identified for fear that he would be arrested. "Going to work every day is a calculated risk of being beaten, harassed or even taken away."
Israel/Palestine
6) Poll Shows U.S. Public Evenly Divided on Unilateral Palestinian State
MJ Rosenberg, Huffington Post, 04/12/11 01:41 PM ET
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mj-rosenberg/poll-shows-us-public-even_b_848101.html
It becomes more clear every day that Binyamin Netanyahu’s government is terrified by the prospect that the Palestinians are planning to unilaterally declare a state later this year. In fact, it is safe to say that no other proposed Palestinian action has ever shaken up any Israeli government the way that the idea of a unilateral declaration has.
According to Haaretz, Prime Minister Netanyahu is so frightened at the prospect of a Palestinian declaration that he is considering withdrawing Israel forces (not settlers, of course) from the West Bank as an inducement to prevent the Palestinians from acting.
Netanyahu is weighing a withdrawal of Israel Defense Forces troops from the West Bank and a series of other measures to block the "diplomatic tsunami" that may follow international recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders at the United Nations General Assembly in September. Netanyahu’s fear is well-placed.
Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit describes what would follow a unilateral Palestinian declaration: "At that moment, every Israeli apartment in Jerusalem’s French Hill neighborhood will become illegal. Every military base in the West Bank will be contravening the sovereignty of an independent UN member state. The Palestinians will not be obligated to accept demilitarization and peace and to recognize the occupation."
That is true. But it is also true that an internationally recognized Palestinian state, with a flag flying at the United Nations, would level the playing field for negotiations.
Ever since Israeli-Palestinian negotiations began in 1993, they have been fundamentally unbalanced. On one side is the most powerful military power in the Middle East, backed to the hilt by the United States. On the other is a stateless people who control no territory, have no military, and are barely surviving economically.
That would change once a Palestinian state is declared. Of course, that new state would be weak and vulnerable, but it will have international law on its side, just as Israel does within the pre-’67 borders. Diplomatically, the two sides would finally be equal; negotiations between the two sides will be government-to-government, not between a powerful state and a supplicant.
Negotiations would have to take place simply because a Palestinian declaration does not, in and of itself, resolve such issues as mutual security, refugees, Jerusalem, and the rest. It simply ensures that such negotiations will, at long last, be serious.
[…] In fact, it is beginning to appear that preventing a unilateral declaration is Israel’s primary diplomatic goal, one that informs all its policies relating to Palestinians. (Palestinians, for their part, understand that the very fact that the prospect of a declaration makes Israel so nervous indicates that it is precisely the right strategy to achieve a state and peace with Israel.)
Of course, the Obama administration is likely to do everything it can to thwart the Palestinians’ plans. AIPAC is already working on Congressional letters calling on Obama to stop the declaration and, no doubt, an overwhelming majority of the House and Senate will sign on. (The 2012 election is looming and candidates and incumbents are highly focused on fundraising).
The good news is that the United States cannot use its veto to prevent Palestinian recognition by the United Nations. For Palestine, as for Israel in 1947, it is the General Assembly that confers statehood and not the Security Council. The administration would have to use the other tools in its kit to thwart the declaration; it has no veto.
On the other hand, maybe, just maybe, the administration will recognize that a unilateral declaration of statehood could be the one device that would achieve its oft-stated goal in the Middle East: "two states, Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side in peace and security."
The American people seem to be getting it. According to a poll released Monday by the right-wing Israel Project, only 51% of Americans oppose a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence. 54% favor a Palestinian state achieved through negotiations.
For those familiar with polling on matters relating to Israelis and Palestinians, the results are startling. The percentage of support for the Israeli position is usually in the high 70s, while support for the Palestinians is in the teens. Suddenly there is a major shift, and this in a poll sponsored by an organization that clearly did not want to see findings like these.
Perhaps the Obama administration will come around too.
The United States should support the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state, followed by serious negotiations. The alternative has been tried over and over again and it always fails. Why not try something that may actually achieve peace and security for two peoples who, like everyone else, are entitled to it? It is time for President Obama to deliver on the promise he made in Cairo to use his authority not to defend the deadly status quo but to end it.
Libya
7) Libyan Rebels Reject African Plan, Say Gaddafi Must Go Immediately
Leila Fadel, Washington Post, Monday, April 11, 2:05 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/gaddafi-accepts-road-map-for-peace-proposed-by-african-leaders/2011/04/10/AFbrtuJD_story.html
Benghazi, Libya – An African proposal to end Libya’s more than month-old conflict unraveled Monday in the opposition’s de facto capital, where rebel leaders insisted that they would not make a deal unless leader Moammar Gaddafi agreed to leave office immediately.
The rejection came less than 24 hours after South African President Jacob Zuma, who led an African Union delegation to Libya, said Gaddafi had accepted the "road map" to peace. The plan called for an immediate cease-fire, safe passage for humanitarian aid, the protection of foreign nationals and the start of discussions about reform between the government and the opposition.
"The African Union initiative does not include the departure of Gaddafi and his sons from the Libyan political scene," opposition leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil told reporters after meetings in Benghazi between the A.U. delegation and rebel leaders. "Any future proposal that does not include this, we cannot accept," he said.
The Obama administration echoed the rebels’ insistence on Gaddafi’s departure as a precondition for any political settlement. "It’s a non-negotiable demand," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters at a Monday news briefing. "We believe he needs to depart power."
[…]
8) Gaddafi Rides Out Sanctions As The Rebel Economy Wilts
Simon Denyer, Washington Post, Monday, April 11, 7:01 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/gaddafi-hunkers-down-under-sanctions-rebel-economy-struggles/2011/04/11/AFC7IsMD_story.html
Tripoli, Libya – Forced on the defensive on the battlefield, Libya’s rebels are also struggling in the economic war of attrition with Moammar Gaddafi, despite the backing of the West.
Global efforts to isolate Gaddafi and cut off his economic lifeline have put significant pressure on his government. But President Obama and other NATO leaders may find that sanctions do not bring Gaddafi to his knees as quickly as they would hope, if at all.
The panic that gripped the Libyan economy at the height of the crisis has substantially abated, and the government has implemented a series of measures to cope with the sanctions and the loss of hundreds of thousands of foreign workers.
The economic situation appears more chaotic in the rebel-held east, with the collapse of much of the public sector and the shuttering of oil production.
"In the long run, sanctions will be quite devastating," said Mustafa Fetouri, MBA program director at the Academy of Graduate Studies in Tripoli. "But we have had this situation before, and we have the experience to deal with it."
[…] In Tripoli, fuel is being rationed to a tank a week, while cash withdrawals from banks have been capped at the equivalent of $400 a month. Interest rates will be doubled this week to attract money, much of which is traditionally kept at home, back into the banking system.
The government has increased public-sector salaries by 50 percent to encourage Libyans back to work to fill the gaps left by the exodus of a substantial proportion of the workforce.
That exodus left fuel pumps unmanned and bakeries, normally run by Egyptians, shuttered. But Libyans are gradually stepping in. The huge lines of a week ago at gas stations have all but disappeared, and bread shortages have eased after young women were enlisted to help. On the black market, the Libyan dinar shot up to 3 against the dollar, from 1.3 before the crisis, before pulling back to less than 2.
Hospitals are functioning, but many factories and shops remain closed, construction work has stalled, and imported foods are beginning to disappear from the shelves. The price of cooking oil has risen more than fourfold, as has the cost of a packet of spaghetti.
But Libya has more than a decade of experience living with, and subverting, sanctions. And the harder they bite ordinary people, the easier it will be for Gaddafi to blame the West, as he is doing with some success, Fetouri said.
In the east, the fighting and the temporary partition of the country have all but destroyed the economy. Most of the country’s oil comes from the east, but Gaddafi’s forces have worked hard to disrupt production, which has halted. Rebels shipped out a tanker of crude last week, with Qatar acting as middleman, but just two tankers worth of oil remain in stock.
The vast majority of Libyans in the east work in the public sector and were paid out of Tripoli before the fighting began. Rebels have managed to keep salaries coming, but money is running out. Electricity is cut off for two hours a day, and unless oil production resumes, the diesel needed to power the generators will run out within two to three months, officials say.
Across the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, city engineers, doctors, lawyers and businessmen sit at home and wait for the violence to end. Lines for bread and gas are lengthening.
[…]
Mexico
9) Ex-President Fox Calls on Mexico to Legalize Drugs
José Luis Sierra, New America Media, Apr 07, 2011
http://newamericamedia.org/2011/04/ex-president-fox-calls-on-mexico-to-legalize-drugs.php
San Diego, Calif. – Former Mexican President Vicente Fox said Wednesday that "nobody is going to be able to stop drug trafficking" from Mexico to the United States. He insisted that the only way to solve the problem would be for his country to legalize the consumption of drugs, while the US government must cut off the flow of guns to Mexico, crack down on money laundering, and reduce drug use at home.
During a 40-minute keynote address at the joint convention of the Interamerican Press Society and the American Society of News Editors (ASNE), taking place in San Diego this week, Fox also urged the governments of both countries to renew talks aimed at reaching an agreement on immigration and said that criss-crossing the US-Mexican border with fences will not stop the flow of undocumented immigrants or benefit the economies of either country.
[…] Walking a fine line between being diplomatic and speaking bluntly, Fox reiterated past comments about the need to legalize drugs as the only way to erode the multibillion-dollar drug market that has contributed to drug violence and the deaths of nearly 40,000 people in Mexico over the past four years.
While insisting that he was not criticizing current President Felipe Calderon’s tactics, Fox also called on his successor’s government to end the Mexican army’s role in the drug wars and return soldiers to their garrisons. He said the best way to improve public safety is creating a more professional and better-trained police force.
"The army is not prepared to act as police, neither is it trained to deal with issues of human rights," Fox said, alluding to a report released last week by the Mexican Human Rights Commission. The report revealed that during the four years since Calderon ordered the military to patrol the streets of the most violent cities, such as Juarez and Reynosa, complaints of human rights violations have skyrocketed.
"We can’t fight violence with violence," Fox said, citing numerous studies, as well as the precedents of other Latin countries, in support of some sort of legalization.
"Look at Portugal. That country not only legalized the use of marijuana but all illegal drugs, and not only managed to reduce violence but also consumption by as much as 25 percent," he said. Fox also cited the surge in violence during the U.S. Prohibition of the 1930s, which subsided after alcohol consumption was legalized again.
[…] But the former Mexican president cautioned that legalization alone would not end the violence and that current and future governments must work hard to improve the economic conditions of the Mexican people, provide better opportunities for jobs and education, and push for major reforms to the justice system. "We have to create the conditions so the young people in Mexico don’t feel tempted to work for the drug cartels for $1,000 a month because there are no more options," Fox said.
Colombia/Venezuela
10) There are no more FARC camps in Venezuela: Santos
Edward Fox, Colombia Reports, Tuesday, 12 APRIL 2011 06:31
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/15529-there-are-no-more-farc-camps-in-venezuela-santos.html
President Juan Manuel Santos told Spanish television Tuesday he is confident that FARC encampments in Venezuela have been dismantled.
"We are satisfied that the camps that we had previously located are no longer there," the head of state said, adding that Venezuela had provided Colombia with details on Monday of two FARC guerrillas accused of killing two Colombian marines who had escaped across the border. This move, Santos stated, was an "unprecedented" gesture in relations between the neighboring countries, Terra reports.
Venezuela has been the focus of accusations in recent years for harboring the terrorist organization within its border, culminating in the filing of a complaint before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) by former President Alvaro Uribe last August.
Since Santos came to power however, there has been a significant thawing in relations between the two countries, something the Colombian president praised his Venezuelan counterpart for on Tuesday.
Santos said, "We are advancing each time on the different fronts [security, economy] we agreed upon eight months ago," adding that Hugo Chavez has so far complied with everything he said he would and that he, Santos, acknowledges that.
In the same interview, Santos reiterated that peaceful dialogue between his government and the FARC is very much an option. He warned however that it will be "very difficult" to achieve if the group does not renounce its terrorist activities, according to a release from the presidential website.
[…]
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