Just Foreign Policy News
May 2, 2011
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I) Actions and Featured Articles
*Action: Send a Letter to the Editor on Afghan withdrawal and drawdown
Senator Boxer has introduced a bill requiring the President to establish a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan – a timetable with an end date. A real deadline for US withdrawal would facilitate meaningful peace talks. More visible Senate criticism of the endless war can move the White House to a substantial drawdown of U.S. troops this summer. Send a letter to your local newspaper – we’ve provided "talking points."
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/s186/lte
The War Is Over. Start Packing!
No doubt there will be a window of relief now, in which many will be willing to give the U.S. the benefit of some doubt about its future plans. But if the war continues as it has, public opinion will soon ask, "We got our man. Why are we still there?"
http://www.truthout.org/war-over-start-packing/1304352151
Amanda Terkel: Mission Accomplished: Is It Finally Time To Leave Afghanistan?
Amanda Terkel rounds up responses from those questioning the logic of remaining in Afghanistan following bin Laden’s death.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/bin-laden-reactions_n_856320.html
Kim Jensen: The case against the Colombian free trade pact
Jensen reports on a human rights delegation to Colombia sponsored by Witness for Peace.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-colombia-free-trade-20110502,0,4407069.story
Gary Johnson: I Would Get Out of Afghanistan Tomorrow
In an interview with Robert Naiman, former New Mexico governor and GOP presidential candidate Gary Johnson advocates military withdrawal from Afghanistan within months; supports Boxer bill requiring a real timetable for military withdrawal; advocates 43% cut in the military budget; advocates ending US military involvement in Libya; questions why we have a U.S. military base in Okinawa that people there don’t want; supports legalization of marijuana and says legalization would end 75% of the border violence in Mexico, saving thousands of lives.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/gary-johnson-i-would-get-_b_855500.html
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II) Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) The death of bin Laden is reinforcing calls for a quicker pullout of US troops from Afghanistan and strengthening pressure to end the war by finding a political settlement with the Taliban insurgency, the Wall Street Journal reports. In his first reaction Monday, Afghan President Karzai said bin Laden’s killing near the Pakistani capital vindicated the Afghan government’s growing opposition to U.S.-led combat operations in the Afghan countryside. Virtually all the coalition combat operations in Afghanistan these days are conducted against the homegrown insurgency, not al Qaeda’s foreign fighters, the Journal notes.
Some Afghan politicians say they can’t wait for the U.S. forces to leave now that bin Laden, who triggered the U.S. invasion, is finally dead. "The Americans have reached their goal of arresting or killing Osama, and now Americans have no reason to stay in Afghanistan," said Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai, who served as prime minister in the mujahedeen government that fell when the Taliban seized Kabul in 1996.
2) Rep. Barney Frank says the killing of bin Laden, "absolutely" bolsters the case for beginning a significant withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, Think Progress reports. The bin Laden killing also argues for "reducing our expenditures where we defend our legitimate interests," Frank said.
Last night on CNN, firefighter and 9/11 first responder Kenny Specht said, "I mean, we’re in a quagmire, for lack of a better term, in Afghanistan. I hope to God that tonight is one large step to maybe wrapping up operations in Afghanistan."
http://husseini.posterous.com/last-night-firefighter-and-9-11-first-respond
3) Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin said he believes President Obama is inclined toward a "robust reduction" in U.S. troops in Afghanistan this summer, Reuters reports. "I believe it was going to be robust in any event," Levin said. But Levin also believed this robustness would be "reinforced by events" — meaning the killing of bin Laden.
4) NATO officials and Western leaders defended the increasingly aggressive airstrikes in Libya Sunday after the Libyan government said one barrage had killed four members of Qaddafi’s family, raising criticism that the attacks exceeded the Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force, the New York Times reports. Airstrikes on Saturday night killed a son and three grandchildren of Qaddafi, according to the government. Russia said the NATO attack aroused "serious doubts about coalition members’ statement that the strikes in Libya do not have the goal of physically annihilating Mr. Qaddafi and members of his family."
Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the strikes on the command posts are "clearly" beyond the mandate of the Security Council resolution.
5) Israel said it was delaying the transfer of almost $90 million in tax revenue owed to the Palestinian Authority in a move against the emerging reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, the New York Times reports. Palestinian officials denounced Israel for attacking the unity deal before it had been signed and before its details were known.
"These Israeli measures will not deter us from every possible effort to expedite the completion of the file of ending the division and restoring national unity, regardless of such actions, steps or threats," Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Authority prime minister, said Sunday. Fayyad said Palestinian leaders were in contact with international forces and bodies to try to prevent the Israeli delay in the tax transfers.
Bahrain
6) The AFL-CIO is urging Washington to suspend a trade pact with Bahrain in response to Bahrain’s crackdown that includes purging union leaders accused of supporting pro-reform protests, AP reports. The petition by the AFL-CIO seeks to push the US to make one of its first tangible censures against Bahrain for sweeping attempts to crush an uprising by its Shiite majority demanding greater freedoms. Jeff Vogt, deputy director of the AFL-CIO’s international department, said it’s the first effort by the AFL-CIO to halt a trade deal because of political repression.
Yemen
7) An agreement to end Yemen’s political crisis appeared to be crumbling Sunday, the New York Times reports. There is widespread concern that groups on all sides of the conflict are arming themselves for violence in the event that the talks collapse completely, the Times says. "I think all sides are now at their highest military alert," said a political analyst in Sana. "If this doesn’t work, all hell will break loose very quickly."
Afghanistan
8) President Karzai said the discovery that the world’s most wanted man was holed up in a garrison town in Pakistan proved that the west’s entire military strategy is misconceived, the Guardian reports.
Some experts said the killing of Bin Laden could improve the chances of peace. Michael Semple, a former EU diplomat who was expelled from Afghanistan in 2007 for talking to the Taliban, said the death of Bin Laden "removes any illusions that al-Qaida was a force to reckon with in Afghanistan". "This gives America an ideal opportunity to play its needed role in responsibly winding down the conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan," said Semple.
Syria
9) A Syrian opposition group called on the military to lead a transition to democracy, one of the first attempts by protesters to bridge the widening gap between backers of the regime and those demanding its end, the Wall Street Journal reports. Vast parts of Syrian society, including the urban middle and upper class of Sunni Muslims -the country’s majority sect – and the substantial Christian population still support Assad, as do his security forces, the Journal says. The two biggest cities, the capital Damascus and Aleppo, have remained largely free of unrest.
Colombia
10) Colombia experienced a 35% increase in the number of child workers between 2007 and 2009, according to an NGO report based on government statistics, says Colombia Reports. "In a country with a growing economy and an unemployment rate that remains around 12%, you have to ask why children are increasingly being exposed to work," an NGO leader said.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Bin Laden’s Death Brings Calls for Afghan Pullout
Yaroslav Trofimov, Habib Khan Totakhil and Julian E. Barnes
Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2011, 7:48 P.M. ET
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704569404576298672827592448.html
The death of Osama bin Laden is reinforcing calls for a quicker pullout of American troops from Afghanistan and strengthening pressure to end America’s longest war by finding a political settlement with the resilient Taliban insurgency.
In his first reaction on Monday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai exhorted the Taliban to open peace negotiations and said that Mr. bin Laden’s killing near the Pakistani capital Islamabad vindicated the Afghan government’s growing opposition to U.S.-led combat operations in the Afghan countryside.
"Once again I call on NATO to say that the war on terror is not in Afghanistan. Osama was not in Afghanistan: they found him in Pakistan," Mr. Karzai said. "The war on terror is not in Afghan villages, the war on terror is not in the houses of innocent Afghans, the war on terror is not in the bombardment and killing of Afghan children and women, but in the safe havens of terrorism outside Afghanistan."
[…] There are now some 150,000 North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops in Afghanistan, two-thirds of them American, the highest level since the war started. President Barack Obama, who ordered last year’s surge of 30,000 additional U.S. forces, has set them the goal of "disrupting, dismantling, and defeating al Qaeda and its extremist allies" in Afghanistan.
Yet, virtually all the coalition combat operations in Afghanistan these days are conducted against the homegrown insurgency, not al Qaeda’s foreign fighters. Coalition officials estimate that only about 100 or so al Qaeda militants operate in Afghanistan, mostly in the remote mountainous areas along the northeastern frontier with Pakistan.
While the U.S. has already said it will start pulling out its forces this July, as part of a transition plan that calls for most NATO combat troops to leave the country by the end of 2014, Mr. Obama and the coalition’s commanders have not yet specified the speed and extent of this pullout. Bin Laden’s killing, to many, bolsters the case for a more rapid withdrawal.
[…] Frustration with the U.S. military presence, and with the civilian casualties caused by American troops, runs deep in Afghanistan. Aiming to shore up his popularity, Mr. Karzai frequently issues blistering criticism of American troops’ behavior and lashes out at Western interference in his country’s affairs. Some Afghan politicians say they can’t wait for the U.S. forces to leave now that Mr. bin Laden, who triggered the U.S. invasion, is finally dead. "The Americans have reached their goal of arresting or killing Osama, and now Americans have no reason to stay in Afghanistan," said Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai, who served as prime minister in the mujahedeen government that fell when the Taliban seized Kabul in 1996.
[…] The removal of Mr. bin Laden could make negotiations with the Taliban, something that Mr. Karzai and some European allies have been pursuing for years, more palatable to the U.S., which has only recently embraced the idea, some Western diplomats say. Mr. Bin Laden’s death "will be a substantial boost to embrace reconciliation efforts throughout the region," said Vygaudas Usackas, the European Union’s special representative for Afghanistan.
[…]
2) Rep. Barney Frank: Bin Laden Killing ‘Strengthens The Case’ For Withdrawal From Afghanistan
Faiz Shakir, Think Progress, May 2, 2011, 12:47 pm
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/02/barney-frank-withdrawal/
In an interview with ThinkProgress today, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) told us that the well-executed killing of the world’s most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden, "absolutely" bolsters the case for beginning a significant withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
Explaining his decision to vote for the Afghanistan war in 2001, Frank said, "We went there to get Osama bin Laden. And we have now gotten Osama bin Laden. … So yes, I think this does strengthen the case [for withdrawal]."
Frank was appearing at the Center for American Progress Action Fund to discuss the need for sensible defense-spending reductions. The bin Laden killing also argues for "reducing our expenditures where we defend our legitimate interests," he told us. Frank continued:
"Look, part of the argument against this reduction is that it was reputational, for staying in Afghanistan. ‘We can’t look like America was driven out.’ ‘We can’t go away with our tail between our legs.’ All of those metaphors. Well, we just killed Osama bin Laden, and I think that takes a lot of the pressure away – a lot of the punch away from the argument that ‘oh, it will look like we walked away.’"
[…] UPDATE Last night on CNN, firefight and 9/11 first responder Kenny Specht said, "I mean, we’re in a quagmire, for lack of a better term, in Afghanistan. I hope to God that tonight is one large step to maybe wrapping up operations in Afghanistan."
[http://husseini.posterous.com/last-night-firefighter-and-9-11-first-respond]
3) Lawmaker expects robust cut in U.S. Afghan troops
Reuters, Mon May 2, 2011 2:59pm EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-binladen-afghanistan-levin-idUSTRE7416E820110502
Washington – U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said he believes President Barack Obama is inclined toward a "robust reduction" in U.S. troops in Afghanistan this summer.
"I believe it was going to be robust in any event," Levin told reporters in a conference call, speaking of Obama’s plans to start a drawdown this July of some of the roughly 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
But Levin also believed this robustness would be "reinforced by events" — meaning the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by U.S. forces in Pakistan.
4) Allies Defending Actions in Libya After Airstrike
Kareem Fahim and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, May 1, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/africa/02libya.html
Benghazi, Libya – NATO officials and Western leaders defended the increasingly aggressive airstrikes in Libya on Sunday after the Libyan government said one barrage had killed four members of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s family, raising criticism that the attacks exceeded the Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force.
The airstrikes on Saturday night killed a son and three grandchildren of Colonel Qaddafi, according to the government, which accused the NATO coalition powers of "a direct operation to assassinate the leader of this country" in violation of international law. Qaddafi supporters in Tripoli burned or vandalized the closed American, British and Italian embassies and ransacked United Nations buildings, forcing the evacuation of the 12 remaining international staff members. And Colonel Qaddafi’s military showed no sign of restraint after the airstrikes, shelling rebel positions in the besieged port city of Misurata and elsewhere.
Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council, said the NATO attack aroused "serious doubts about coalition members’ statement that the strikes in Libya do not have the goal of physically annihilating Mr. Qaddafi and members of his family."
[…] NATO officials say that the intense bombing in Tripoli is designed to batter Col. Qaddafi’s military apparatus. Such a strategy is freighted with risk for the already fragile coalition. In Libya, the officials argue, the boundary between legitimate military targets and residential compounds is often blurry.
Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, said that the strikes on the command posts are "clearly" beyond the mandate of the Security Council resolution, but he called the new attacks a strategy to "terminate the campaign" as quickly as possible.
[…] Still, the international condemnation of Saturday’s strike could create fissures in NATO and cause some officials to rethink the allies’ strategy. And it could create a backlash among Libyans who have been willing to put aside misgivings about the foreign military intervention because it was intended to prevent Colonel Qaddafi’s loyalists from killing civilians.
Both Republicans and Democrats in Washington also raised concerns that the NATO campaign could bring unwanted consequences.
"The narrative we want to come out of this is that the Libyan people overthrew a dictator, not that we came in and toppled a despot," said Stephen J. Hadley, a former national security adviser to President George W. Bush. "And that’s the problem with going after command and control if it results in the death of Qaddafi, because what we really want him to do is for him to leave or to die at a Libyan hand, not an American hand," said Mr. Hadley, speaking on CNN’s "State of the Union."
Jane Harman, the former California congresswoman and member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on the same program that the campaign in Libya could become "a new recruiting tool for bad guys."
[…]
5) Israel Holds Palestinian Funds as Deal Nears
Isabel Kershner, New York Times, May 1, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/middleeast/02israel.html
Jerusalem – Israel said Sunday that it was delaying the transfer of almost $90 million in tax revenue owed to the Palestinian Authority in a move against the emerging reconciliation between Fatah, the party that dominates the authority, and its Islamic rival, Hamas.
The move came as both sides appealed to international powers to back their positions on the unity deal expected to be signed in Cairo this week, intended to end a four-year schism between the West Bank government led by Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah chief, and officials in Gaza, the Palestinian coastal enclave controlled by Hamas.
The finance minister of Israel, Yuval Steinitz, suspended all money transfers and instructed his staff to postpone meetings with Palestinian Authority officials, his office said Sunday, until there were guarantees that none of the money would end up in Hamas coffers.
[…] Israel collects the equivalent of more than $1 billion annually in customs and other taxes on behalf of the Palestinian Authority and transfers the revenue to the Palestinian side under terms that were part of the Oslo accords. The tax transfers, which make up a significant portion of the authority budget, have been suspended for lengthy periods in the past.
Palestinian officials denounced Israel for attacking the unity deal before it had been signed and before its details were known.
"These Israeli measures will not deter us from every possible effort to expedite the completion of the file of ending the division and restoring national unity, regardless of such actions, steps or threats," Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Authority prime minister, said Sunday.
Mr. Fayyad told the official Palestinian news agency Wafa that Palestinian leaders were in contact with international forces and bodies to try to prevent the Israeli delay in the tax transfers.
Israeli leaders were also focusing their efforts on persuading the world powers to shun any Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas. Although the Palestinians say they intend to set up an interim unity government made up of independent technocrats, Israeli officials have said they would not accept that distinction, and that it is the politicians who set the government policy who count.
[…]
Bahrain
6) US union group seeks to halt trade pact with Bahrain over kingdom’s crackdown
Associated Press, Monday, May 2, 5:46 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-union-group-seeks-to-halt-trade-pact-with-bahrain-over-kingdoms-crackdown/2011/05/02/AF1v32WF_story.html
Dubai, United Arab Emirates – A powerful U.S.-based labor organization is urging Washington to suspend a free trade pact with Bahrain in response to the Gulf nation’s crackdown that includes purging union leaders accused of supporting pro-reform protests, a union leader said Monday.
The petition by the AFL-CIO seeks to push the United States to make one of its first tangible censures against key ally Bahrain – home of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet – for sweeping attempts to crush an uprising by its Shiite majority demanding greater freedoms.
Washington has urged Bahrain’s Sunni monarchy to seek dialogue with protesters and publicly condemned violence and mass arrests, which include journalists, activists and trade union leaders. But U.S. officials have stopped short of taking more direct action against Bahrain’s rulers.
Suspending the free trade pact – which waives tariffs on industrial and consumer products – would send a strong message to Bahrain’s leaders that "their actions are moving in a very dire direction," said Jeff Vogt, deputy director of the AFL-CIO’s international department.
The five-year-old trade accord with Bahrain is small in economic terms: Bahrain is a midlevel export market for U.S. goods and two-way trade is less than $1.5 billion a year – a fraction of other Gulf neighbors such as Saudi Arabia. But it carries symbolic importance to Bahrain, which has just modest oil and gas reserves.
The pact is just one of 17 such bilateral trade agreements with Washington, which also includes Israel, Jordan and Oman in the Middle East.
Vogt said it’s the first effort by the AFL-CIO to halt a free trade deal because of political pressures. "Bahrain’s actions have gone so far beyond the pale," he said. "We shouldn’t be in this agreement."
U.S. trade officials have up to six months to respond to the appeal, filed late last week in Washington, Vogt said. But the AFL-CIO seeks fast-track review because of the "severity" of the crackdown and Bahrain’s role as a leader in labor rights in the Gulf, where many nations outlaw unions or worker groups, he added.
The petition claims that leaders of the General Federation of Bahraini Trade Unions, the umbrella labor group on the island kingdom, have faced detention or dismissals. It said the heads of other worker groups, including teachers and nurses, have faced similar pressures. "If the Bahraini (labor) federation is crushed, it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the Gulf," Vogt said.
More than 30 people have died since the protests began in February by Bahrain’s Shiites, who represent 70 percent of the population but are excluded from top political and security posts. Last week, four anti-government protesters were convicted of killing two policemen during the uprising and sentenced to death by a military court.
Yemen
7) Deal To End Yemen Crisis Is Faltering As Talks Bog
Robert F. Worth, New York Times, May 1, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/middleeast/02yemen.html
Washington – An agreement to end Yemen’s political crisis appeared to be crumbling Sunday, as talks bogged down yet again between the country’s mutually suspicious political factions and a signing ceremony for the deal was postponed indefinitely.
The agreement, reached last week with the help of Persian Gulf nations, would require President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down after almost 33 years in power, in exchange for immunity from prosecution for himself and his family. Mr. Saleh would be the third Arab leader to be forced from power in the wave of popular uprisings sweeping the Arab world.
But many in Yemen’s political opposition fear that Mr. Saleh – a political survivor with a taste for brinkmanship – is deliberately stalling for time in an effort to outmaneuver his political rivals.
Last week’s agreement came amid intense pressure from Saudi Arabia and the United States, which are concerned about a rise in jihadist violence after more than two months of street protests and government paralysis in Yemen. Seven Yemeni soldiers were killed on Sunday by gunmen, Yemeni officials said, in the latest of a series of attacks believed to have been carried out by the local affiliate of Al Qaeda.
The agreement was to have been signed on Sunday or Monday in Riyadh, the Saudi capital. But Yemen’s political opposition balked after Mr. Saleh made it clear that he would sign not as president, but in his separate capacity as leader of the governing party. There are also concerns about how various details of the agreement would be carried out – symptoms, some say, of a total lack of trust between the two sides.
There is widespread concern that groups on all sides of the conflict are arming themselves for violence in the event that the talks collapse completely. A number of Mr. Saleh’s former allies have defected to the opposition since the protests began, including the country’s most powerful military leader, Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsin al-Ahmar. General Ahmar’s troops have at times appeared to be on the brink of open clashes with forces loyal to Mr. Saleh.
"I think all sides are now at their highest military alert," said Abdul Ghani al-Eryani, a political analyst in Sana, the capital. "If this doesn’t work, all hell will break loose very quickly."
[…]
Afghanistan
8) Osama bin Laden dead: US strategy misconceived, says Hamid Karzai
Discovery of world’s most wanted man in Pakistan safe haven shows west’s entire military strategy is wrong, claims Afghan president
Jon Boone, Guardian, Monday 2 May 2011 08.45 BST http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/02/osama-bin-laden-afghanistan-fears
Kabul – Hamid Karzai’s reaction to the news of Osama bin Laden’s violent death in Pakistan could be best summed up as ‘I told you so.’
Speaking in front of a packed hall in his palace in Kabul, the Afghan president said the discovery that the world’s most wanted man was holed up in a garrison town in Pakistan proved that the west’s entire military strategy is misconceived.
"Year after year, day after day, we have said the fighting against terrorism is not in the villages of Afghanistan, not among the poor people of Afghanistan," he said. "The fight against terrorism is in safe havens. It proves that Afghanistan was right."
In recent months Karzai has become increasingly strident in his criticism of the US-led coalition, saying it has focused on counter-insurgency operations in the Pashtun south of the country rather than the Taliban safe havens over the border.
[…] Despite recent reports that al-Qaida has tried to re-establish a foothold in Afghanistan, particularly in mountainous areas of the north-east where US troops have pulled back, analysts have long declared that the group is largely irrelevant to the fighting in Afghanistan.
But other experts said that far from being a setback, the killing of Bin Laden could improve the chances of peace. Michael Semple, a former EU diplomat who was expelled from the country in 2007 for talking to the Taliban, said the death of Bin Laden "removes any illusions that al-Qaida was a force to reckon with in Afghanistan".
"This gives America an ideal opportunity to play its needed role in responsibly winding down the conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan," said Semple, who works as an academic at Harvard.
He added that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the US military outfit that runs "kill and capture" operations against insurgents, needed to take a back seat after a huge intensification of its efforts in the last year. He said: "This of course will require diplomacy rather than just counter-terror. JSOC has played its role, now it’s time for state".
[…]
Syria
9) Syrians Propose Army-Led Transition
Activists Reach Out to Regime Members As 50 Protesters Die in Crackdown
Nour Malas and Bill Spindle, Wall Street Journal, April 30, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703655404576292561356869574.html
Beirut – Syrian protesters took to the streets around the country despite a crackdown that killed 50 more people Friday, as an opposition group called on the military to lead a transition to democracy, one of the first attempts by protesters to bridge the widening gap between backers of the regime and those demanding its end.
Meanwhile, the U.S. announced sanctions against senior government officials, including members of the family of President Bashar al-Assad, because of the violent crackdown, which human-rights groups say has killed up to 500 people since the unrest began in mid-March.
But Mr. Assad has ignored appeals from the international community to abandon violence and quickly introduce meaningful reforms. Those efforts, in which most countries, including the U.S., have abstained from calling for Mr. Assad to leave office, have sought to overcome divisions between protesters and the large population who continue to support his rule.
Vast parts of Syrian society, including the urban middle and upper class of Sunni Muslims- the country’s majority sect-and the substantial Christian population still support Mr. Assad, as do his security forces.
That bodes poorly for protesters, in contrast to the recent uprisings in countries such as Egypt, where the middle class, and ultimately the military, supported the transitions from an entrenched regime.
On Friday, a group of Syrian activists called on the army to follow in the footsteps of the Egyptian military and lead a transition to a democratically elected government.
The initiative represented the most unified front yet by the loosely organized movement since protests began against an entrenched regime that has ruled for four decades.
The initiative was coordinated by three opposition figures abroad, who said it has been signed by 150 politicians and activists inside Syria.
"The best option is for the leadership of the regime to lead a transition to democracy that would safeguard the nation from falling into a period of violence, chaos and civil war," the opposition group said in a statement.
Members of Syria’s main opposition movements are based abroad in Europe, Turkey and Lebanon. Syria’s better-known opposition figures, including members of the exiled Muslim Brotherhood, haven’t signed on to the initiative, and activists say there are several such plans in draft form. In addition, it may prove difficult to garner support from activists who have seen brutal force. That suggests the opposition group may be banking on a rift in the military.
The proposal singled out Defense Minister Ali Habib, a member of the ruling Alawite minority like Mr. Assad, and army Chief of Staff Gen. Dawud Rajha, as credible regime figures to lead a transition process. Neither official responded publicly to the proposal.
"We’re giving the president a test today and tomorrow, to demonstrate whether he is in control and he has still authority over the people around him," said Ausama Mounajed, a spokesman for the initiative, who has lived in the U.K. since 2004. Two other coordinators, Radwan Ziadeh and Najib Ghadbian, are based in the U.S. Mr. Mounajed said the opposition movement chose Mr. Habib for his credentials as a professional army man, and as a message to Syria’s Alawite community.
Between the 45-year-old Mr. Assad and his father, Hafez, the Assad family has ruled Syria since 1970. Their Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, rules over a Sunni majority.
"They’ve chosen an Alawite figure and suggested that he could lead this, which could possibly create a fracture within the regime," said Riad Kahwaji, founder and head of the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis. "You are making the Alawites take a long look at whether it’s worth it to keep the Assads any longer in power."
The prolonged confrontation has polarized the country. Many Syrians are sticking with the regime-especially the substantial population of Christians and other minorities, and the urban middle and upper classes of Sunni Muslims with a large stake in the system the Assad family has built.
Their support is quiet, even reluctant, and often stems from fear that chaos and sectarian conflict could result if the regime lost control. But their support has been critical to the regime’s response to the crisis.
The two biggest cities, the capital Damascus and Aleppo, have remained largely free of unrest-allowing the military to concentrate on crushing areas where protests have broken out.
[…]
Colombia
10) Child labor in Colombia rises by 35%.
Tom Heyden, Colombia Reports, Monday, 02 May 2011 06:38
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/15967-child-labor-in-colombia-rises-by-35.html
Colombia experienced a sharp rise in the volume of child workers between 2007 and 2009, with a growth of around 35%, according to a report by the non-profit communications agency PANDI.
The report cites figures issued by DANE, the national statistics agency, indicating that in 2009 Colombia had at least 1,050,147 children in employment, compared to some 787,000 in 2007.
To this figure is also added the nearly 800,000 children, especially girls, who have to work more than 15 hours a week on household chores, contributing to an overal total of 1,849,987 minors.
The PANDI report noted the apparent discrepancy in a country where the 4.3% rise in domestic GDP has been heralded with pride alongside a simultaneously burgeoning underage workforce, questioning the usefulness of such economic growth in the eradication of poverty.
Camilo Dominguez, the program manager of the social action group Fundacion Telefonica, said that "in a country with a growing economy and an unemployment rate that remains around 12%, you have to ask why children are increasingly being exposed to work."
"Approximately one in 10 children work in Colombia. That amounts to twice the population of Manizales [in the department of Caldas]…It must be a priority in this country to restore the rights of these children immediately and mobilize ourselves to discourage our society from allowing them to continue working," he continued.
Colombia’s rural areas constitute the highest proportion of the child workers, as well as the most significant increase, with 37.3% of the child workforce associated with some form of agricultural work. Nevertheless, even a relatively low percentage of the 0.5% who work in mines still signifies that over 5,000 children risk their lives daily to work in those conditions.
The current law permits children to work up to 14 hours per week, although in the case of child workers this regulation is often flouted. Some 58% of child laborers work more than the allocated daily maximum for adult workers, while 11% work more than 48 hours a week.
[…]
–
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