Just Foreign Policy News
May 3, 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
[Update: Bernie Sanders is now a cosponsor of the Boxer bill.]
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
Katrina vanden Heuvel: With bin Laden Dead, Time to End the ‘War on Terror’
It is time to stop defining the post 9/11 struggle against stateless terrorists a "war." http://www.thenation.com/blog/160310/osama-bin-laden-dead-its-time-end-war-terror
Democracy Now: "A Violation of Norms": U.S. & Allies Kill Gaddafi’s Son and Three Grandchildren in Tripoli Bombing
"How is hitting a residential compound and killing the children of the leader of Libya protecting civilians? It also undermines international norms. You don’t go after the children of leaders and the grandchildren of leaders," says Alan Kuperman, a University of Texas professor and author of The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention. "I think this is a violation of norms and counterproductive for the goal of protecting noncombatants."
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/3/a_violation_of_norms_us_allies
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II) Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) The killings of bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan has put additional pressure on the Obama administration to find a way to reduce U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, writes Walter Pincus in the Washington Post. The time has come for the US to recognize that Afghanistan has never been centrally governed and begin to focus on a sustainable result that requires a political settlement involving all the internal tribes, he writes. That would include a governing role for the conservative Taliban Pashtuns of the south.
2) Administration officials insisted that their commitments to Afghanistan and Pakistan would be undiminished by the death of bin Laden, the New York Times reports. But they said privately that pressure would mount on Obama to withdraw troops more quickly. Pentagon officials said they were preparing for calls for a more rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan.
3) Palestinian reconciliation is a precondition to any peace agreement, writes James Zogby of the Arab American Institute. Palestinians need both reconciliation and peace. Should the US Congress suspend needed aid, it would be important for the Arab states and others to step up and sustain the PA, allowing the reconciliation plan time to work through elections and an expected UN vote in the fall.
4) Making peace with the entire Palestinian people may be more difficult, but will be infinitely more fruitful, writes Uri Avnery of Gush Shalom. Netanyahu wants to prevent Palestinian unity because he does not want peace, since peace would require giving up a Jewish state in all of historical Palestine. But the great mass of the Palestinian people desperately want unity and a joint struggle to end the occupation. Hamas has declared many times it will accept a peace agreement based on the 1967 lines and signed by Abbas if it is ratified by the people in a referendum or a vote in parliament, Avnery notes.
5) Palestinian factions have signed a reconciliation deal that will pave the way for elections within a year, Al Jazeera reports. A formal signing ceremony is scheduled to take place in Cairo on Wednesday.
6) Isn’t it time – with the news that Osama has been tracked down not in Afghanistan but in Pakistan – to bring the troops and the war dollars home, asks John Nichols in The Nation. Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree thinks so. "Early in his term, President Obama committed to two goals: hunt down and capture or kill Osama bin Laden and begin an accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan in July 2011," says Pingree. On Sunday, Pingree notes, "he fulfilled that first commitment." Now, the congresswoman says: "I am asking the President to keep his commitment to an accelerated withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan."
UAE
7) Human rights advocates decried a "crackdown on civil society" in the UAE after authorities replaced the leadership of the country’s teachers association, a well-established group that had called for democratic reforms, with government officials, the Los Angeles Times reports. "This attack on civil society is further proof that those in power in the UAE see anyone calling for reform as fair game," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director of Human Rights Watch. The government took action against the group after it signed an appeal for democracy on April 6. Within two days, UAE officials began detaining pro-democracy activists, according to HRW.
As of Tuesday, at least five prominent activists had been arrested, the group said, including a member of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East advisory committee.
Honduras
8) A Honduran court dropped all remaining corruption charges against former president Manuel Zelaya, clearing the way for his return to the country after a June 2009 coup, AFP reports. The ruling also paved the way for Honduras’ return to the OAS, which had stipulated that Zelaya be first allowed to come back home.
Colombia
9) Colombian academic Miguel Angel Beltrán was imprisoned two years ago for criticizing government policy and highlighting human rights abuses, writes British trade union leader Sally Hunt in a letter to the Guardian. Only now is Beltrán due to stand trial for the offense of "rebellion." Those who value human rights should support calls for Beltrán’s release to help bring attention to what is happening in Colombia, Hunt writes.
Venezuela
10) A "reverse halo effect" prevents development professionals from making evidence-based assessments of development successes and failures in Venezuela or Bolivia because the leaders of these countries have been demonized, writes Jonathan Glennie of the Overseas Development Institute in the Guardian. The first step we need to take when analyzing the achievements and failures of the new left in Latin America is to do our best to be balanced, taking the evidence as we find it, and trying to incorporate new evidence into our analysis, even if it does not fit our assumptions, Glennie writes.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Finding an alternative path for Afghanistan
Walter Pincus, Washington Post, Monday, May , 8:32 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/finding-an-alternative-path-for-afghanistan/2011/04/30/AFgXz9bF_story.html
The killing of Osama bin Laden, combined with success of drone attacks against lower-level al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, have put additional pressure on the Obama administration to find a way to reduce U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.
Early in his administration, the president set as his goal "to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan, and to prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan." It was not, he added, to "rebuild Afghanistan into a Jeffersonian democracy."
The time has come for the United States and its coalition partners to recognize that Afghanistan has never been centrally governed and begin to focus on a sustainable result that requires a political settlement involving all the internal tribes. That would includea governing role for the conservative Taliban Pashtuns of the south.
That view comes from David Miliband, former British foreign minister and a current Labor member of Parliament. He discussed Afghanistan last week at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting and his presentation deserves wider consideration.
Miliband is concerned that in Afghanistan, 2014 is to mark "an end date, but not an end game," though "in the popular imagination we have a date for the end of the war."
Though that is the designated year for all foreign combat troops to be out of Afghanistan, he remarked, "If you read the small print, [it] is not actually the date for all foreign troops to leave. It’s a date for the transition to [Afghan] leadership."
Miliband’s main point is that the needed political settlement is not one that features control from Kabul. He described Afghanistan as "a country of 40,000 villages and valleys," where a political settlement needs to be "internal with all the tribes and regional with the neighbors."
He recognized this would be "an exceedingly complicated process, but until that ‘North Star’ [meaning the political settlement] is established, the military effort, the development effort, the civilian effort, will not be sustainable."
A beginning step would be the appointment of a U.N. mediator or facilitator from the Muslim world. A second step would be for the coalition – and particularly the United States – to set out its outline of a political settlement. Until that happens, he said, "Every other party to the conflict, [meaning various Taliban groups and neighboring countries] is going to be playing all sides against the middle."
Over time, he said he fears the situation could worsen, so it requires a council of regional stability to bring the parties together. "It’s only when they’re staring each other in the face that we’re going to get to serious discussion," he said.
Miliband’s own approach, based on talks with people who have spoken to various branches of the Taliban, is that many of them are stuck in Pakistan at the moment, where it’s "increasingly hot for them there." They want to come home, he said, but they want to talk to the United States and not just to Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Miliband mentioned a November 2010 New America Foundation report that outlines how several Kandahar Taliban leaders in 2002 were willing to accept the Karzai government and stay out of politics but were turned down. They went to Pakistan. "And it’s out of those decisions that the Kandahar Taliban was recreated in 2004, 2005 and in some ways we’ve ended up where we are now," he said.
He mentioned a speech Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave in February that called for reconciliation with the Taliban. She said the Taliban had to break with al-Qaeda, renounce violence, and observe the Afghan constitution.
Asked whether he agreed with the requirement of equality of women, included in the constitution and emphasized by Clinton in her speech, Miliband said he believed equal rights for men and women in Afghanistan was an "aspiration."While it was important "to say that the voice of Afghan women has to be heard," he said, "I would say to you, we’re not going to be able to force those aspirations to be met at the barrel of a gun."
As for Taliban reconciliation, Miliband said, "We have to be absolutely clear, I think, that we do see a place for conservative Pashtun in the political settlement, helping govern the south and east of the country."
Miliband warned that despite current plans to increase the size of the Afghan army and Afghan national police [scheduled to grow to 171,600 and 134,000, respectively, by October this year], no one believes "a centralized Afghan security force is going to have a monopoly of force or a monopoly of power in Afghanistan."
He does believe there is a sense of an Afghan national identity. He recalled attending the funeral in July 2007 of the last Afghan king, Zahir Shah. "No one who attended that funeral could come away without thinking that there is such a thing as an Afghan national identity. Those were proud Afghans from all the tribes who came there. And it was a very moving experience."
But Miliband does not believe that automatically translates into accepting a central government. "Afghanistan is going to be governed by a series of compromises across villages and valleys, formal and informal, state power, non-state power, and that goes with the grain of Afghan society," he said.
He warned that if we continue to define nation-building in Afghanistan as "building a centralized force … we’re never going to come to an end. Afghanistan will never be governed in that way."
2) Killing Adds to Debate About U.S. Strategy and Timetable in Afghanistan
Mark Landler, Thom Shanker and Alissa J. Rubin,
New York Times, May 2, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/03policy.html
Washington – The killing of Osama bin Laden deep in Pakistan is sure to fuel the debate over the Obama administration’s strategy in Afghanistan, where 100,000 troops are still fighting a war to destroy Al Qaeda. And the raid, conducted without the cooperation or even advance knowledge of Pakistan, raised fresh doubts about the lengthy American effort to turn it into a trustworthy partner in the hunt for terrorists.
As President Obama approaches a critical period in deciding how many troops to pull out of Afghanistan – and how fast – the deadly raid on Al Qaeda’s leader called into question many of the administration’s basic assumptions about how to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for Islamic terrorists.
On Monday, administration officials insisted that their commitments to Afghanistan and Pakistan would be undiminished by the death of Bin Laden. But they said privately that the pressure would mount on Mr. Obama to withdraw troops more quickly.
John O. Brennan, Mr. Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, said Pakistan would remain a critical partner in the fight against terrorism, regardless of what he conceded were questions about whether its government provided support to Bin Laden and disagreements about counterterrorism strategy. And he said the large NATO troop presence in Afghanistan was still necessary to prevent that country from again becoming a "launching point" for Al Qaeda.
But officials in the State Department and Pentagon, as well as key lawmakers, said Bin Laden’s death was bound to alter the debate about a costly war soon to enter its second decade. Those questions will be even more pointed, on the eve of an election year and amid growing alarm about the federal budget deficit.
"Every question has to be on the table in terms of where this is going," said Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who will hold hearings on the policy this week. "What this does is initiate a possibility for re-evaluating what kind of transition we need in Afghanistan."
Pentagon officials said they were preparing for calls for a more rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan. Critics of the war are expected to trumpet the death of Bin Laden as such a crippling blow to Al Qaeda that the movement, while remaining dangerous, is no longer an existential threat to the United States. Even before Bin Laden’s death, there was a camp within the administration and the Democratic Party – as well some voices among Republicans – calling for a rapid winding down of American involvement.
Pentagon officials acknowledged that NATO nations, many of whom already are reluctant to remain in Afghanistan, also may argue that Bin Laden’s death allows them to withdraw more rapidly than planned.
[…] The administration, officials said, was already moving away from this counterinsurgency strategy, toward one with more limited objectives for Afghanistan and a goal of political reconciliation with the Taliban, which once offered Al Qaeda sanctuary there. Drone strikes and nighttime raids, of the kind that killed Bin Laden, would figure even more prominently in such a strategy, officials said.
But reconciling with the Taliban will require an active role by Pakistan, which provides a haven for Taliban leaders. The strains between the United States and Pakistan could make that process more difficult.
[…] Mr. Obama has set a deadline of July for beginning a withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. As the White House begins to debate how many troops should leave and how quickly, Pentagon officials and military officers said they expected additional pressure to reassess the strategy and accelerate a withdrawal.
[…]
3) The Palestinian Reconciliation Agreement Should Be Supported
James Zogby, Arab American Institute, Monday, May 2, 2011
http://www.aaiusa.org/dr-zogby/entry/the-palestinian-reconciliation-agreement-should-be-supported/
The Israeli response to news that Palestinian factions had achieved a unity agreement was predictably irritating. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu derided the agreement in stark terms, saying that the Palestinians had a choice of either "Peace with Israel or peace with Hamas". His spokesperson reduced this bumper sticker rejection of Palestinian unity even further to "reconciliation or peace".
What is, of course, galling is the assumption implicit in the Prime Minister’s framing of the matter, namely, that peace with his government is a real possibility that the Palestinians have now rejected. In reality, the Netanyahu government has shown no interest in moving toward peace-unless on terms they dictate and the Palestinians accept.
While feigning disappointment at this Palestinian move, Netanyahu must privately be delighted. The pressure he was feeling to deliver some "concessions" to the Palestinians in his upcoming speech to the US Congress has now been relieved. He can now revert to old form, expressing a vague desire for peace while warning that there is now clear evidence that there is no Palestinian partner with whom he can work.
For his part, Netanyahu will now feel free to accelerate tensions with Gaza, raids in the West Bank, home demolitions in Jerusalem and proceed with settlement construction, as he pleases. His allies in Congress will do the rest. They will denounce Palestinian reconciliation and claim that they have no choice but to take steps to suspend US assistance to the Palestinian Authority.
Nevertheless, what Fateh and Hamas have done in achieving their accord is important and should be supported. But two cautionary notes are in order: 1) They have merely announced an engagement-the wedding is scheduled down the road and the marriage will be fragile and subject to negative interference from obstructionists who will work hard to break it up; 2) the US can be one of these home-wreckers (as we have been in the past) if the Administration puts too much pressure on the Palestinians and/or supports Congress’ efforts to deny them needed aid.
Because Palestine remains a captive nation, it is not the master of its fate. Prime Minister Salam Fayyed has done a brilliant job of reorganizing the PA’s ministries and security forces and putting the Palestinians’ financial house in order. But Gaza remains under a near total blockade; Jerusalem and its environs (once the Palestinian metropol-its religious, cultural, educational, economic and social hub) have been severed from the rest of the West Bank; and the West Bank, itself, has been separated into little cantons with no access or egress to the outside world. As a result no real or sustainable economy can develop, leaving Palestinians dependent on Israel and foreign aid. To punish a captive people by denying them aid would be cruel and most unhelpful.
Given this dire situation, to suggest that the Palestinians must choose reconciliation or peace, when peace has not been, and is not now, an option, is nothing more than a disingenuous and cruel taunt.
What has been so very clear since the elections of 2006 was that the Palestinian polity had been fractured and was in disarray-with everyone behaving badly. The US and Israel did not accept the outcome of the election (that the Bush Administration had pushed for). Israel took repressive measures (at one point holding in detention, without charge, the majority of the newly elected Hamas legislature, making it impossible for that body to function). Aid was cut and the US began to press the losing side, Fateh, to seek a confrontation. Hamas also behaved foolishly. Instead of assuming the role of a responsible government, and ignoring the many provocations against them, they continued their old violent behavior-resorting to terror and picking fights they couldn’t win. The results were disastrous and for three years now the Palestinians were not only weak and occupied, but increasingly divided with two competing "governments" in two captive territories. This situation was both burdensome and unsustainable.
The Palestinians need this unity and, whether they know it or not, the US and the Israelis need the Palestinians to be unified. Palestinian reconciliation is a precondition to any peace agreement and to stability in that region. Hamas (whose past behavior I deplore and whose politics I reject) is a real part of the Palestinian polity. The Bush Administration’s approach of working to deepen the internal Palestinian divide only aggravated the situation, creating more bitterness, and threatening to create a permanent rupture-a situation which would only benefit those who envision a long-term Israeli occupation and domination of a captive Palestinian people.
This effort at reconciliation may now provide Palestinians an opportunity to get their house in order and to move Hamas in a more constructive direction. Those in Israel and in the Congress who are hyperventilating over Hamas’ Charter ought to read LIKUD’s and/or read some of the choice religious pronouncements coming from Shas’ spiritual leader.
What should be of concern is Hamas’ behavior, and this reconciliation agreement may yet prove to be the best way to guarantee that Hamas will act responsibly. If the new government of technocrats is allowed to function and to continue on the path laid out by Fayyed, and if Hamas and Fateh can continue to work out a modus operandi in their respective areas, leading to a new election later this year, Palestinians will have put themselves in an even stronger position to claim statehood.
Bottom line: Palestinians shouldn’t be asked to choose "reconciliation or peace" especially when the party doing the asking is denying them the chance to have both. Palestinians need both reconciliation and peace. They are working on the former. Now is the time for the US and Israel to make a real contribution to advancing the later.
In the short term, should the US Congress suspend needed aid, it would be important for the Arab states and others to step up and sustain the PA, allowing the reconciliation plan time to work through elections and an expected UN vote in the fall. None of this, of course, will, by itself, result in a state. But a democratic and unified Palestinian Authority will make a stronger moral and legal case for recognition than Palestinians can make today living as they do divided and governed by entities of questionable legitimacy. Can this be why Israel is so hostile to the agreement?
4) Hamas and Fatah Reconciliation: Good for Peace
Uri Avnery, Tikkun, April 29, 2011
http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/hamas-fatah-reconciliation-good-for-peace-by-uri-avnery
In one word: Bravo!
The news about the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas is good for peace. If the final difficulties are ironed out and a full agreement is signed by the two leaders, it will be a huge step forward for the Palestinians – and for us.
There is no sense in making peace with half a people. Making peace with the entire Palestinian people may be more difficult, but will be infinitely more fruitful.
Therefore: Bravo!
Binyamin Netanyahu also says Bravo. Since the government of Israel has declared Hamas a terrorist organization with whom there will be no dealings whatsoever, Netanyahu can now put an end to any talk about peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. What, peace with a Palestinian government that includes terrorists? Never! End of discussion.
[…] Netanyahu and his band of peace saboteurs want to prevent Palestinian unity at all costs. They do not want peace, because peace would prevent Israel from achieving the Zionist goals, as they conceive them: a Jewish state in all of historical Palestine, from the sea to the Jordan River (at least). The conflict is going to last for a long, long time to come, and the more divided the enemy, the better.
As a matter of fact, the very emergence of Hamas was influenced by this calculation. The Israeli occupation authorities deliberately encouraged the Islamic movement, which later became Hamas, as a counterweight to the secular nationalist Fatah, which was then conceived as the main enemy.
Later, the Israeli government deliberately fostered the division between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by violating the Oslo agreement and refusing to open the four "safe passages" between the two territories provided for in the agreement. Not one was open for a single day. The geographical separation brought about the political one.
[…] The Palestinian people, with all the odds against them, can hardly afford such a disaster. The split has generated intense mutual hatred between comrades who spent time in Israeli prison together. Hamas accused the Palestinian Authority – with some justification – of cooperating with the Israeli government against them, urging the Israelis and the Egyptians to tighten the brutal blockade against the Gaza Strip, even preventing a deal for the release of the Israeli prisoner-of-war, Gilad Shalit, in order to block the release of Hamas activists and their return to the West Bank. Many Hamas activists suffer in Palestinian prisons, and the lot of Fatah activists in the Gaza Strip is no more joyous.
Yet both Fatah and Hamas are minorities in Palestine. The great mass of the Palestinian people desperately want unity and a joint struggle to end the occupation. If the final reconciliation agreement is signed by Mahmoud Abbas and Khalid Meshaal, Palestinians everywhere will be jubilant.
Bintamin Netanyahu is jubilant already. The ink was not yet dry on the preliminary agreement initialed in Cairo, when Netanyahu made a solemn speech on TV, something like an address to the nation after an historic event.
"You have to choose between us and Hamas," he told the Palestinian Authority. That would not be too difficult – one the one side a brutal occupation regime, on the other Palestinian brothers with a different ideology.
But this stupid threat was not the main point of the statement. What Netanyahu told us was that there would be no dealings with a Palestinian Authority connected in any way with the "terrorist Hamas".
The whole thing is a huge relief for Netanyahu. He has been invited by the new Republican masters to address the US Congress next month and had nothing to say. Nor had he anything to offer the UN, which is about to recognize the State of Palestine this coming September. Now he has: peace is impossible, all Palestinians are terrorists who want to throw us into the sea. Ergo: no peace, no negotiations, no nothing.
If one really wants peace, the message should of course be quite different.
Hamas is a part of Palestinian reality. Sure, it is extremist, but as the British have taught us many times, it is better to make peace with extremists than with moderates. Make peace with the moderates, and you must still deal with the extremists. Make peace with the extremists, and the business is finished.
Actually, Hamas is not quite as extreme as it likes to present itself. It has declared many times that it will accept a peace agreement based on the 1967 lines and signed by Mahmoud Abbas if it is ratified by the people in a referendum or a vote in parliament. Accepting the Palestinian Authority means accepting the Oslo agreement, on which the PA is based – including the mutual recognition of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. In Islam, as in all other religions, God’s word is definitely final, but it can be "interpreted" any way needed. Don’t we Jews know.
What made both sides more flexible? Both have lost their patrons – Fatah its Egyptian protector, Hosny Mubarak, and Hamas its Syrian protector, Bashar al-Assad, who cannot be relied upon anymore. That has brought both sides to face reality: Palestinians stand alone, so they had better unite.
For peace-oriented Israelis, it will be a great relief to deal with a united Palestinian people and with a united Palestinian territory. Israel can do a lot to help this along: open at long last an exterritorial free passage between the West Bank and Gaza, put an end to the stupid and cruel blockade of the Gaza Strip (which has become even more idiotic with the elimination of the Egyptian collaborator), let the Gazans open their port, airport and borders. Israel must accept the fact that religious elements are now a part of the political scene all over the Arab world. They will become institutionalized and, probably, far more "moderate". That is part of the new reality in the Arab world.
The emergence of Palestinian unity should be welcomed by Israel, as well as by the European nations and the United States. They should get ready to recognize the State of Palestine within the 1967 borders. They should encourage the holding of free and democratic Palestinian elections and accept their results, whatever they may be.
The wind of the Arab Spring is blowing in Palestine too. Bravo!
5) Palestinian factions sign reconciliation deal
Representatives of factions including Fatah and its rival Hamas ink deal following talks in Egypt.
Al Jazeera, 03 May 2011 12:13
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/05/201153111651752111.html
Palestinian factions have signed a reconciliation deal that will pave the way for elections within a year.
Representatives of factions including Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party and its rival Hamas inked the deal following talks with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Tuesday.
"We signed the deal despite several reservations. But we insisted on working for the higher national interest," said Walid al-Awad, a politburo member of the leftist Palestine People’s Party.
"We have discussed all the reservations. Everyone has agreed to take these points into consideration," he told Egyptian state television without elaborating.
"Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank will be celebrating this agreement… We must now work to implement what was agreed in the deal."
Al Jazeera’s Nicole Johnston, reporting from Gaza, said 13 Palestinian factions were involved in the signing of the deal, including members of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) – the representative body for the Palestinian people.
A formal signing ceremony is scheduled to take place in Cairo on Wednesday. "In the official ceremony we will really see all the Palestinian factions come together for the first time in four years," our correspondent said.
[…]
6) With Osama Found, a Congresswoman Asks: Where’s the Afghanistan Exit Strategy?
John Nichols, The Nation, May 3, 2011
http://www.thenation.com/blog/160354/osama-found-congresswoman-asks-wheres-afghanistan-exit-strategy
Wasn’t the point of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan to get Osama bin Laden?
And if that was the point then, isn’t it time-with the news that Osama has been tracked down not in Afghanistan but in Pakistan-to bring the troops and the war dollars home?
These are the questions that Congress should be asking this week.
While it is appropriate enough to investigate what the Pakistanis knew and when they knew it-as Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin, D-Michigan, suggests when he says Pakistani intelligence and military officials "have some explaining to do"-most members of Congress are avoiding the fundamental issue that is raised by the killing of bin Laden.
But Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, gets it. "Early in his term, President Obama committed to two goals: hunt down and capture or kill Osama bin Laden and begin an accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan in July 2011," notes the second-term House member. On Sunday, Pingree notes, "he fulfilled that first commitment."
Now, the congresswoman says: "I am asking the President to keep his commitment to an accelerated withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
[…]
UAE
7) UAE: Human rights officials condemn government crackdown
Roula Hajjar, Los Angeles Times, May 3, 2011 | 8:02 am
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2011/05/uae-takeover-of-civil-society-organizations-continue-.html
Beirut – Human rights advocates decried what they called a "crackdown on civil society" in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday after authorities replaced the leadership of the country’s teachers association, a well-established group that had called for democratic reforms, with government officials sympathetic to the administration.
"This attack on civil society is further proof that those in power in the UAE see anyone calling for reform as fair game," Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director of the New York-based nonprofit organization Human Rights Watch, said in a Tuesday statement. "UAE authorities should immediately stop their hostile takeover of civil society and free the peaceful democracy activists."
The teachers group, which was founded in 1980 and had grown to include about 280 members, saw its board dismissed Monday by UAE Social Affairs Minister Mariam Mohammed Khalfan Roumi. Al Roumi alleged the group violated the country’s law on associations, which bars nongovernmental organizations from interfering "in politics or in matters that impair state security and its ruling regime."
It was not clear how long state officials intended to maintain control of the teachers group. Roumi’s office has apparently sent a letter to the group’s former leader, Isa Sari, promising a new board will be elected in six months, according to the National, an Abu Dhabi newspaper.
Roumi had issued a similar order dissolving the board of the country’s legal, or jurists, association April 21.
"We expected this after they dissolved the Jurists Assn.," Ahmad Nuaimi, vice president of the teachers association, told the National. He said the group planned to contact Roumi’s office and file a legal appeal, "because the dissolving of the board has been done illegally and without reason."
The government took action against the two groups after they joined two others in signing a public appeal for increased democracy on April 6. Within two days, UAE officials began detaining pro-democracy activists, according to Human Rights Watch.
As of Tuesday, at least five prominent activists had been arrested, the group said, including Ahmed Mansoor, a member of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East advisory committee; Nasser bin Ghaith, an economics lecturer at the Abu Dhabi branch of the Sorbonne; and online activists Fahad Salim Dalk, Hassan Ali Khamis and Ahmed Abdul Khaleq.
[…]
Honduras
8) Honduran court dismisses charges against Zelaya
AFP, May 2, 2011
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gruezkghfeYASIKwIKXBCDAoEkhw?docId=CNG.592b0a856dd0a4cfb029491efb429491.d1
Tegucigalpa – A Honduran court dropped all remaining corruption charges against former president Manuel Zelaya, clearing the way for his return to the country after a June 2009 coup.
The ruling also paved the way for the Central American country’s return to the Organization of American States, which had stipulated that Zelaya be first allowed to come back home. Honduras was ousted from the regional body after toppling its president.
An appeals court panel dismissed charges of fraud and falsifying documents against Zelaya, a decision OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza said "ends the climate of uncertainty around the legal status of the former head of state."
Federal prosecutors said they were weighing an appeal to the decision. They have 60 days to act.
A judge had previously revoked arrest warrants against Zelaya.
The former leader, who has claimed the charges were politically motivated, has said he will not return to Honduras until he is guaranteed immunity from legal action. He currently lives in exile in the Dominican Republic.
[…]
Colombia
9) May Day call for the release of Dr Beltrán
Sally Hunt, Letter, The Guardian, Monday 2 May 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/02/colombia-unions-human-rights
[Hunt is the General Secretary of the University and College Union, the largest trade union for academics in the UK.]
As we enjoy the extended bank holiday weekend, many of us may not be aware of the significant struggles of working people that led to the May Day bank holiday being labelled as Labour Day or International Workers’ Day, and fewer still will be aware of the plight of an academic who has been locked up without being convicted of any crime in Colombia for the past two years.
Many of the freedoms that we celebrate on May Day are still to be won in Colombia, which remains the most dangerous country in the world to be a trade unionist; over 60% of all trade unionists killed on the planet are killed in Colombia.
Dr Miguel Angel Beltrán was imprisoned two years ago for criticising government policy and highlighting human rights abuses. Only now is he due to stand trial for the Orwellian-sounding offence of "rebellion". His trial will start today.
In the last 20 years almost 3,000 trade unionists have been killed, and at least six have already been murdered since the start of the year. Add to this the estimated 30,000 forcibly disappeared people, the five million internally displaced and the regular assassinations of journalists (seven in 2009 alone), and one begins to understand why the work of those like Dr Beltrán is so important.
Those who value human rights should support our calls for Dr Beltrán’s release to help bring attention to what is happening in Colombia.
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Venezuela
10) Hugo Chávez’s reverse-halo effect
Some leaders can become so demonised that it’s impossible to assess their achievements and failures in a balanced way
Jonathan Glennie, Poverty Matters Blog, Guardian, Tuesday 3 May 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/may/03/hugo-chavez-reverso-halo-effect
It happened again in Madrid a few weeks ago. I was at a meeting of development officials and researchers and Venezuela came up in conversation. Cue mayhem. Is it possible to mention Hugo Chávez without becoming embroiled in name-calling, exaggerations and, not infrequently, brazen lies?
While it is fairly normal that politics can become partisan very quickly (just look at the US at the moment), the point of being a development professional is meant to be that you step outside the partisan for a minute to examine, wait for it, the evidence. I don’t claim that this is easy, because evidence can be skewed by its provider (often, in international development, the government of the country in question). But that is the objective.
So I am constantly surprised how many development professionals find it hard to do this when Venezuela gets mentioned, or Cuba, or Bolivia. It is as if evidence and balanced analysis are appropriate for some governments but not for others.
If you say, "inequality appears to have gone down considerably in Venezuela", you risk being accused of being a Chavista. But if you say, "inequality appears to have gone down in Ethiopia", no one would start accusing you of being a zealous supporter of Meles Zenawi.
The same problem exists on the other side too. When I was in Colombia, some in the human rights community were incapable of saying anything positive about the administration of President Alvaro Uribe, because they accused his government of making shady deals with paramilitaries.
I would call this the "pitchfork effect" (technically known as the "e-halo effect"), whereby a leader can become so demonised in certain countries or populations that it is no longer possible to assess their achievements and failures in a balanced way. The more a leader is demonised, the more his or her supporters will exaggerate how wonderful they are.
[…] There are some leaders who are so vile that applying a balanced assessment to them seems tasteless. The murderous juntas of Argentina and Chile in the 70s and 80s spring to mind. But even Augusto Pinochet, a man who oversaw barbaric murders and torture, appears to be granted by many a balanced assessment of the time he was in power. And that is probably right. It is not condoning his actions to assess how his period in power affected Chile’s economic conditions.
So why not Chávez? One word often used to describe him is "dangerous", and this may be the key to understanding the rage he engenders. It is hard to consider him a military threat, the odd phoney war with neighbouring Colombia notwithstanding. No, it is the danger he poses to normality that people who oppose his policies find so worrying. His rhetorical attack on modern capitalism is so strong, that were he to demonstrate any improvements in Venezuela with his rather vague "21st-century socialism", the conventional wisdom favouring free markets and a limited state would be challenged. It is the same reason that the US is so obsessed with Cuba – the danger to capitalism is allowing another model to succeed.
I am saying all this because the first step we need to take when analysing the achievements and failures of the new left in Latin America is to do our best to be balanced, taking the evidence as we find it, and trying to incorporate new evidence into our analysis, even if it does not fit our assumptions.
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