If inconsistencies are the hallmark of truth—an odd truism suggested by U.S. prosecutor David M. Rody during the recently-concluded trial of Aafia Siddiqui—then there was plenty of “truth” to go around on both sides of the proceeding, which concluded February 3 with guilty verdicts on all seven counts of attempted murder and assault.
At first glance, Siddiqui’s story is a perplexing one, albeit one that shows some familiar patterns, at least on the surface. Siddiqui—a 37-year-old Pakistani woman accused by the United States of associating with al Qaeda—began life with all the trappings of upper-middle class achievement. Born to a well-off family in Karachi, she went on to earn a BA from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from Brandeis University, and eventually married a Pakistani physician, with whom she had three children.
While Siddiqui’s life looked like a relatively conventional narrative of success prior to 9/11, after the World Trade Center attacks, Siddiqui became increasingly concerned about American hostility toward Muslims, a concern that eventually pushed her and her husband to move their young family back to Karachi.
At some point after her post-9/11 return to Pakistan, Siddiqui’s story begins to get murky. FBI officials, having suspected her of working as an al Qaeda operative, placed her on a list of suspected al Qaeda affiliates, which prompted her to disappear into thin air in March 2003. (Within Pakistan, it is commonly believed that she was picked up by the Pakistani intelligence service ISI and later handed over to the CIA. In one of her outbursts throughout the trial, Siddiqui claimed she was kept in a secret prison and that her children were tortured.) Read the rest of this entry »
Last week, the United States welcomed the re-election of Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who won the nationwide presidential election by an 18 percent margin over opposition leader General Sarath Fonseka.
In a statement issued after the final results were announced, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs P. J. Crowley commended the country for “the first nationwide election held in decades.” Despite cautious praise of the electoral process, what remains to be seen in this deeply divided nation is whether the second term policies of this administration will be truly “free and fair.”
Under the rule of President Rajapaksa (and his three brothers), the ruling party has been credited with ending the 30-year civil war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). In the process of this brutal military campaign, it also earned widespread condemnation for its disregard for human rights norms, rampant corruption, and excessive militarization. Unfortunately, it is likely that the Rajapaksa regime will interpret the election results as a renewed mandate to reinforce its policies of the past.
Even more unfortunate, however, is the reality that Sri Lanka’s presidential system (which both candidates claimed they would abolish) provides virtually no checks and balances on the all but unrestricted power of the executive branch. Capitalizing on this power, the president has already declared that he will dissolve Parliament in an effort to secure a ruling coalition to reinforce his decisions.
While Rajapaksa’s leadership will now last for six more years, it is likely that severe internal and external challenges facing the regime will emerge in the very near future. Read the rest of this entry »
The recent ruling by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, striking down a previous agreement that granted immunity from prosecution for corruption to thousands of bureaucrats and politicians, was greeted with cheers by Pakistanis, both in the streets of Karachi and amongst the diaspora in London, but with discomfort in the West.
More astute analysts, however, are concerned that the Supreme Court ruling doesn’t herald a step forward, but rather a descent back into the tussle of recriminations and accusations that have long characterized Pakistani politics. Worse, it threatens to distract national attention from far more pressing problems.
The court struck down the National Reconciliation Order (NRO) that was passed in 2007 under Western-backed President Musharraf and was billed at the time as a step towards restoring Pakistan to multiparty democracy. Although political players of all parties benefited from the deal, observers saw it largely as a compromise aimed at enabling the return to Pakistan of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband, Pakistan’s current president, Asif Ali Zardari.
After Mrs. Bhutto was assassinated in December 2007, a wave of sympathy for her Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) helped Zardari take over de facto leadership of the PPP and the presidency of the country in quick succession. But Zardari hardly enjoyed a honeymoon with voters or, for that matter, even his own party leadership. Lacking what some would term the demagogic charisma of his late wife or father-in-law, Zardari was hardly Obama-esque.
His reputation as Mr. Ten Percent—earned by his penchant for demanding bribes while serving as his wife’s minister for investment and minister for the environment in the mid-1990s—won him many enemies and, along with his appointments of cronies to top government and party posts, grated on members of the PPP itself.
Upon taking office, Zardari’s reluctance to restore the popular and respected ousted Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry—widely seen as a last-ditch attempt to avoid prosecution for corruption—further eroded what little support he did enjoy. Only after mass, nation-wide protests did Zardari eventually relent and agree to the restoration of the chief justice to his office.
The repeal of the NRO, then, comes as a long-awaited victory for many sections of Pakistani society, from secular middle-class civil society activists to mullahs fed up with Zardari’s poor record and aggravated by his repeated evasion of corruption charges.
The concern, however, is that on a deeper level, the hoopla over the NRO shows just how much Pakistan’s political life is stagnating. Read the rest of this entry »
One in three votes cast for Afghanistan’s incumbent President Hamid Karzai in last month’s election was fraudulent, say EU election observers. According to EU Election Monitoring Commission, about 1.1 million votes in favor of Karzai, as well as 300,000 cast for his main rival Abdullah Abdullah, met Afghanistan’s criteria for electoral fraud. The findings were released as official election results now show Karzai winning with 54.6 percent of the vote. But if the suspect ballots to be excluded, Karzai’s share would fall to 47.2 percent–short of the 50 percent needed for a win and triggering a run-off election. Karzai furiously condemned the Commission’s claims as “partial, irresponsible and in contradiction with Afghanistan’s constitution.” Instead of publicizing their findings, Karzai continued, the monitors should be referring them to Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC) and the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC). The EU team accused the IEC, which is chaired by a pro-Karzai appointee, of abetting the fraud, saying that it has ignored its own rules on identifying and eliminating suspect votes. The ECC ordered a recount of about 10 percent of the votes, as well as an audit of election staff.
A long-awaited UN probe found both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes in last year’s Gaza conflict. The four-person investigative team, led by South African war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone, reported that both sides violated international human rights and humanitarian law during the three-week operation in the Gaza Strip last December and January. The report condemned Palestinian militant groups for their repeated mortar attacks targeting Israeli citizens. But the focus was primarily on Israel’s use of “disproportionate force” against densely populated Gaza in Operation Cast Lead. In addition, the report said that Israel’s blockade of Gaza amounted to a collective punishment of civilians, and suggested that Palestinians had been deprive of substinence, employment, and movement–which could constitute a crime against humanity. The group recommended that the Security Council refer the case to the International Criminal Court (ICC) if independent, “good-faith” proceedings do not occur within six months. Israel denounced the report, rejecting it as one-sided and anti-Israeli. President Shimon Peres said that in practice, the report’s findings “[grant] legitimacy to terrorism, premeditated shooting and killing while ignoring the duty and the right of a state to defend itself.”
Somali rebels have called for all Muslims to join the fight against the U.N.-backed government after a U.S. helicopter raid killed one of the region’s most wanted al Qaeda suspects. The raid on Monday was an unusual one for the United States, which had previously targeted militants using long-range missiles rather than helicopter-borne troops. The operation killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who was wanted for a 2002 truck bombing that killed 15 people at an Israeli-owned beach hotel in Mombasa, Kenya and was suspected of trying to shoot down an Israeli airliner the same year. Following the attack, a commander for al Shabab insurgents in Somalia called for Muslims to fight the weak transitional government as well as the African Union, which has troops there. The last American strike in Somalia was in May 2008, when an al-Shabab military leader and at least 10 others were killed. There were also reports quoting witnesses as saying that the troops involved in the Monday operation were wearing uniforms with French insignia, but the French military has strongly denied any involvement.
Yukio Hatoyama, the newly elected Japanese prime minister, took office Wednesday alongside a defense minister who, some reports are suggesting, will pull Japanese troops from the NATO-led military campaign in Afghanistan. An article in the Times of London suggests that the appointment of Toshimi Kitazawa, who is a strong opponent of the country’s military support for the United States, makes it increasingly likely that the Hatoyama-led government will withdraw forces from Afghanistan early next year. Japan’s Maritime Defense Forces only deployed a supply ship and a destroyer to assist in providing fuel and water to American and British naval ships in the Indian Ocean. The minimal Japanese assistance is one of only a handful of overseas military operations where the country has been engaged since World War II, largely due to its pacifist constitution. The new government is taking power after pledging to make domestic demand the engine of growth (rather than exports) and promising to pull Japan from the worst recession since World War II.
Following its submission of a brief proposal on Wednesday, Iran scheduled a meeting with the P5+1 for negotiations October 1. A spokesman to EU policy chief Javier Solana confirms that the P5+1—which includes the U.S., U.K., China, Russia, France, and Germany—requested the meeting, which was then arranged with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili. Iran wants to discuss stabilization efforts in Afghanistan, ways to combat illicit drug trafficking, and “alleviating concerns over the nuclear issue,” said a spokesman for Iran’s ministry of foreign affairs, though it defends its right to maintain a civilian nuclear program. The United States has expressed cautious optimism about the potential of the discussions, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted that talks with Iran must address the nuclear issue “head-on.” Earlier this week, the U.S. distributed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution barring any nation in violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (such as Iran) from enriching uranium for any purpose, either energy or weapons.
The United Arab Emirates is lobbying the U.S. Congress to approve a transfer of nuclear materials to Abu Dhabi. Indeed, an opinion piece in the U.A.E. newspaper Al-Ittihad suggests that a bilateral agreement between the two countries on peaceful nuclear cooperation will be approved. Last week the crown prince, Sheik Mohammaed bin Zayed al-Nayhan visited President Barack Obama to discuss cooperation on energy and security, among other topics. Last year, both countries signed a preliminary agreement paving the way for nuclear exports. The U.A.E. has pledged to maintain transparency in any nuclear program. But there are fears that a nuclear program in the U.A.E., while peaceful, could set in motion proliferation throughout the Middle East. Many states are uneasy over Iran’s continued defiance toward the West regarding its nuclear program. However, the United States, Britain, France and Russia—all nuclear powers—it could win some trade opportunities and big business. France has also been talking with the U.A.E. on a nuclear energy cooperation agreement, and Saudi Arabia has signed a preliminary agreement with the United States on nuclear technology.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is denying reports that he did not want the Lockerbie bomber to die in prison and that he made a deal with the Libyan government for his release. On Tuesday, a junior defense minister was quoted as saying that the British government wasn’t “seeking his death” in British custody. Prime Minister Brown is now being accused of “double-dealing” over the bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, by telling the United States they wanted him to stay in prison while signaling to Libya that they wanted him released. Critics are charging a deal for oil, one of Libya’s largest exports, might have provided motivation for the release. “There was no conspiracy, no cover-up, no double-dealing, no deal on oil, no attempt to influence Scottish ministers, no private assurances by me to Colonel (Muammar) Gaddafi,” said Brown. Al-Megrahi was greeted to a hero’s welcome in Libya on August 20, despite a letter written to the Libyan leader from the prime minster asking for a low-key reception.
A judge in Chile issued arrest warrants Tuesday for 129 former security officials for human rights abuses during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. The soldiers and police officers were agents of National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), Pinochet’s secret police organization during his 1973-90 regime. This group of suspects is the largest so far to face arrest warrants, and many of the accused have never faced charges before. The indictments are related to Operations Condor, Colombo, and Conferencia, DINA’s efforts in the 1970s to purge opponents of General Pinochet during Chile’s so-called “dirty war.” Hundreds of Chilean activists were killed or disappeared during these operations. Judge Victor Montiglio, who issued the warrants, said that “basically we are investigating anyone who was in the barracks, in so far as they participated in, sought to participate in or had knowledge of deprivation of victims’ freedoms. We are much closer to the end.” Pinochet’s regime has been held accountable for many human rights abuses, including an estimated 3,000 deaths or disappearances. Human rights activists laud the latest round of indictments, but prosecutions of the regime long after democracy has been fully established in Chile has been quite controversial. The arrests are expected to begin on Wednesday.
The current instability in Yemen’s northern and southern regions has created a vacuum that has allowed Al Qaeda to organize and threaten not only the Yemeni government but neighboring Saudi Arabia. Yemen has recently intensified its three-week-old offensive against the Shiite rebels, which consist mainly of minority Zaidis, also known as Houthis. (Zaidis are a minority in southern Yemen, which is largely Sunni, but constitue a majority in the north.) The rebels aim to overthrow the government and restore Shiite Islamic rule. The crisis has worsened within the last week, with the United Nations saying that up to 150,000 people may be fleeing the fighting in and around the city of Sa’ada. A UN spokesman said a “humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Sa’ada…the situation is deteriorating by the day.” The fighting has given Al Qaeda an opening to regroup in Yemen, according to analysts. In January, the Saudi and Yemeni branches of Al Qaeda joined together to form “Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.” The presence of the terrorist group in Yemen will allow them to put pressure on the Saudi government, according to Middle East experts.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that “the key and decisive moment” for Middle East peace is here,even as Israeli officials continue to resist calls for a halt to settlement activity in the West Bank. A meeting between Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and U.S. President Barack Obama is schedule to take place on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly later this month. Abbas has said that a settlement freeze in the West Bank is a necessary precondition for talks to resume, but an Israeli minister, Yossi Peled, said there would be no halt. “I heard the prime minister say with my own ears that he has no intention of freezing construction in the settlements or in Jerusalem,” he told the Jerusalem Post. Abbas was also quoted as saying he would press ahead with Palestinian parliamentary and presidential elections in January even without a reconciliation with Hamas, which currently controls the Gaza Strip. Hamas officials have said an election without a “unity accord” would be unacceptable and that Hamas would not allow ballots to be held in Gaza without one.
The European Union will allow more refugees from conflict zones and poor nations to settle in its countries, says European Commission Vice-President Jacques Barrot, who is responsible for freedom, security, and justice. Barrot stated that “today the Commission has taken an important step which demonstrates our concrete solidarity with third countries hosting large numbers of refugees.” EU countries currently resettle about 6.7 percent of the world’s refugees, which according to the Commission “contrasts sharply with the numbers taken in by many other countries in the industrialised world, particularly the U.S., Canada and Australia.” The proposed Joint EU Resettlement Programme would strengthen coordination and cooperation among EU member states and promote broader resettlement of refugees. “The European Commission has a duty to remind member states of their obligations,” Barrot explained. “We will not solve this crisis by reacting in a xenophobic manner.” The initiative aims to decrease the number of illegal immigrants in the region by providing more opportunities for refugees to enter legally. Under the program, EU nations would decide together each year which refugee groups should be given highest priority for resettlement, and a joint fund would support these efforts. Currently ten member states accept refugees annually while others do so on an ad hoc basis.
BANGKOK—In a field cut off from the rest of Thailand by a muddy mountain pass, 1,000 people have been living under thin tarps for the past six weeks, having fled landmines and shelling in their native Myanmar. The tarps and wood platforms do not protect them from monsoon rains or the mosquitoes that spread malaria around their makeshift villages.
Factions of the Karen people have fought for greater autonomy from the country formerly known as Burma for 60 years, but the Karen villagers I spoke with just seem to be caught in the crossfire.
In the last few months, the world has turned its focus to the secretive, military-ruled state.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced concern over Myanmar-North Korea military links at the July Asean Regional Forum. The state show trial of pro-democracy leader Aung Sun Suu Kyi attracted international media coverage, brought UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to Burma and garnered a new release of the U2 song dedicated to the world’s best known prisoner of conscience. In an apparent gesture to this global clamor, the Nobel Prize-winning leader of the Burmese opposition was given what for the junta was a slap on the wrist—another 18 months of detention where she has already spent half of her adult life under house arrest.
If you’d like to know the kind of people who voted for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of Iran, there’s no better example than the villagers—the husband, his sons, and the citizens—of the remote stone-walled hamlet of Kupayeh who populate the vivid, at times horrifying, film called “The Stoning of Soraya M.”
Opening Friday across the United States, its arrival could not come at a more opportune moment, for gathered within this tale are all the characters whose today’s real-life homologues are parading across the world’s television screens (at least those outside Iran, where anything remotely accurate is being purged).
There’s Ayatollah Ali Khameini, masquerading as the venal, crooked mullah of the village, newly released from a felony stretch he was serving in jail after the Shah was overthrown and Islamic justice returned with the arrival of Ayatollah Khomeini. Clearly, he sees the Koran he clutches in his crooked paw as his path to wealth, power, and, whenever he can, illicit sex extorted from any woman who seems sufficiently vulnerable or gullible.
There’s Ahmadinejad, in the form of Kupayeh’s mean-spirited, opportunistic mayor with a vicious streak—frightened of his own shadow and so easily intimidated by the local mullah and a husband who by day serves as a prison guard with all the lethal tools of power at his control and at night pursues the 14-year-old daughter of a death-row inmate.
A global campaign mounted for weeks by diplomats, statesmen, scholars, and scores of her fellow journalists finally paid off early Monday when Roxana Saberi walked out of the doors of Evin Prison in Tehran and, accompanied by her father, headed for the first leg of her journey back to her home in the United States.
I was one of those who pitched in as a member of the Leadership Council of the Committee to Protect Journalists that was seeking her freedom. Indeed, the CPJ pulled out all stops—enlisting an international legal team at the law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton under the direction of James C. Goodale, journalists, and organizations across Europe and the Middle East—in an effort to help the Iranian leadership understand how counter-productive the actions of their legal system would be at a time when the United States is doing its best to open a constructive dialogue with the government in Tehran.
Part of this involved a host of direct and indirect points of contact. For myself, I refused to appear again on Press-TV—the Iranian version of France 24, Voice of America, or other government-owned broadcast outlets—until Roxana was freed and allowed to leave Iran. Clearly stung by this one-man effort, one senior producer for Press TV observed that my boycott would be “counter-productive at this time when the two governments are trying to open a dialogue.” I pointed out that even more counter-productive were the actions against Roxana, a professional journalist thoroughly innocent of the charges brought against her—who, in contravention of every known international juridical standard, was hustled through a judicial proceeding in a single day, sentenced to eight years in prison, and never allowed to examine any of the evidence against her, or allowed to confront any of her accusers.
Indeed, the entire process, cloaked in mystery, was a most unfortunate demonstration of how strained the quality of justice, let alone mercy, remains in many of the darkest corners of the world—especially Iran.
This was not how Muammar Gaddafi wanted to start his tenure as chair of the African Union. The priority of the Libyan leader was to hit the ground running with his dream to create a United States of Africa. Now, the urgency of Gaddafi’s grand ambition must wait as the continent’s leaders struggle to come to terms with last week’s arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir issued by the International Criminal Court.
For decades, Africa has been plagued by notorious leaders. When one of the continent’s most gifted writers, Chinua Achebe, says in his book that the trouble with Nigeria is squarely that of leadership, he is perhaps speaking not only of his nation, but of Africa as a whole. From Mobutu Seseko to Idi Amin and from Sani Abacha to Robert Mugabe, the continent has had to grapple with leaders who would rather destroy their countries than give up political power.
Once in a while, a Julius Nyerere, Joachim Chissano, or Nelson Mandela comes along to renew hope and the promise of a future. But, more often, the continent’s landscape is blighted by tyrants who start off on a promising, even messianic note, and yet end up leaving their countries in the throes of war, disease, and deeper misery than before. That’s the story of al-Bashir, who the continent’s political leaders condoned for six years—because confronting him meant confronting the very demon that haunts many of them.
So, what will the African Union do about al-Bashir’s indictment? It has called for a suspension of the sentence. There are muffled concerns about the safety of the civilian population, especially around the Darfur area, and also the fate of the 7,000-strong AU troops that had only in January received UN reinforcement. In a foretaste of the grimmer days ahead, Khartoum kicked out 10 major humanitarian agencies struggling to provide food and water to about 1.5 million people, prompting suggestions of a possible AU emergency meeting to discuss Sudan.
America’s European partners in its war on terror are not committing on when or whether to take in any detainees from Guantánamo. “There was nobody very hot about this, that’s perfectly true,” said Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg on January 26, after a meeting of the European Union. His nation holds the rotating presidency of the 27 member EU which includes 21 of the 26 members of NATO.
Austria is against taking any released prisoners. The parliament of Finland is split on the issue. Denmark would need to change its asylum laws to accept any detainees. Sweden sees no political or national security benefit in admitting them. Poland has no experience in dealing with this kind of prisoners. Italy and Spain would consider a U.S. request only if endorsed by the EU.
European opposition to this plan is vociferous. “I do not understand why we give the impression that Germany needs to accept prisoners. Guantánamo was established by the U.S. We did not run it. We did not use it,” says Wolfgang Bosbach, deputy leader of the Christian Democrats.
“Don’t forget these inmates are not kittens-it’s a risk for us to bring them into Europe.” says the Dutch Foreign Minister, Maxime Verhagen. London has already made a “significant contribution,” said U.K. Foreign Secretary David Miliband. England has already accepted nine of its citizens and six of its residents formerly imprisoned at Guantánamo.
France has found little support for its plan to lead an EU fact-finding mission to Guantánamo to ascertain the background of the current detainees and assess the security risks in accepting at least 60 persons who, while they face no charges in the United States, are likely to be tortured or persecuted if returned to the countries of their origin. Read the rest of this entry »
The recent ruling by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, striking down a previous agreement that granted immunity from prosecution for corruption to thousands of bureaucrats and politicians, was greeted with cheers by Pakistanis, both in the streets of Karachi and amongst the diaspora in London, but with discomfort in the West.
BANGKOK
