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The Eurasian Politician - September 2004
Compiled by David Storobin, August 26, 2004
1.
Iran may
have helped September 11 terrorists.
2.
US,
Israel threaten military action against Iran.
3.
Israel
defies World Court and United Nations General Assembly.
4.
Iraq had
uranium and tried to buy more from Niger.
5.
Sudan
militias continue to attack; UN action unlikely.
6.
Sudan
occupies part of Ethiopia.
7.
Rwanda,
Burundi may send troops to DR Congo.
8.
Two
Russian planes crash.
9.
IMF
accepts blame for crippling Argentianian economy.
10.
Mexico
arrests smuggler for bringing Arabs and Iranians into the United States.
The 9-11 Commission in the United States claims that Iran assisted al-Qaida terrorists who participated in the attack. As many as 10 hijackers may have crossed into and out of Iran with the aid of the government of the Islamic Republic. Some or all of the terrorists who crossed into Iran did not have their passports stamped to enable them to enter the United States easier in the future. Iran admitted that terrorists may have "slipped by" but opposes claims that it helped bin Ladin's group. These claims have been rejected by Americans who maintain that Iran offered Osama bin Ladin to cooperate in future anti-West bombings after the USS Cole terrorist attack. Because of anti-Shi'ite bias of the Wahhabi movement, Osama rejected Iran's overtures. Michael O'Hanlon of the Washington-based Brookings Institute stated, "This finding only dramatizes the fact that Iran is by far the number one state sponsor of terror."
In related news, the September 11 Commission in the United States cited 10 opportunities to prevent the terror attacks, but acknowledged that all of them were long-shots.
London Sunday Times is reporting that George Bush, should he be re-elected, is prepared to do much more to effectuate regime change in Iran after the elections beginning with greater aid to the local opposition groups. Acting Director of the CIA John McLaughlin said, "Iran is the place where Hezbollah, an organization that killed more Americans than al-Qaida before 9-11, draws its inspiration and its finances." In the past, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld threatened military action against the Lebanese chapter of the Iran-sponsored Hizballah. Meanwhile, Israel may be preparing a plan to bomb Iranian nuclear reactors after its intelligence service, the Mossad, produced a report claiming that Iran will have nuclear weapons by 2007 and ability to build such weapons without outside help within a year or two. In 1981, Israel destroyed Osirak where Saddam Hussein was building nuclear weapons.
The International Court of Justice issued a non-binding decision condemning the barrier built by Israel to separate itself from the West Bank. The barrier, which consists of walls, fences and trenches, runs mostly along the pre-1967 border, but incorporates large settlement blocs that are suburbs of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The United Nations General Assembly voted to support the court's decision, with over 150 nations condemning Israel, while only the United States, Australia and 3 tiny islands supported the Jewish state. Citing anti-Israel bias, and even insinuating anti-Semitism, as well as the power of the large Islamic bloc at the United Nations, the government of Ariel Sharon decided to continue building the barrier, which is extremely popular in Israel. While the General Assembly has no right to issue binding decisions (only the UN Security Council may make law – General Assembly only makes recommendations), the fact that over 150 nations chose to condemn Israel serves as proof of world's opposition to the barrier.
The only silver-lining for Israel is the support of Australia – prior to the Bali bombings, only the US voted for Israel and anyone who favored the Israeli position simply abstained.
The Sharon government claims that the barrier will not serve as a future border, a claim rejected by most observers. Israel also maintains a right to keep part of the West Bank because the UN Security Council Resolution 242 (October 1967) purposely eliminated the words "all the" from the original draft of the resolution that called on Israel to withdraw from "all the territories." While this claim is supported by the United States, Arab countries argue that the call on Israel to "withdraw from territories" means "all the territories." In 1922, the League of Nations designated all the land west of Jordan to be "Jewish homeland," but Arabs reject the mandate, instead citing the borders that resulted at the end of the 1948 war. The European Union and Russia have not taken a firm stance on the right of Israel to keep parts of West Bank, instead preferring to allow parties to negotiate a settlement "without outside prejudice."
Despite previous claims that Saddam Hussein did not try to buy uranium from Niger, which resulted in embarrassment of the Bush administration, it seems as if President Bush was right when he claimed that Iraq tried to make the purchase. Until recently, the only evidence of Iraq's alleged attempts to buy uranium from Niger had turned out to be a forgery. In October 2002, documents were handed to the US embassy in Rome that appeared to be correspondence between Niger and Iraqi officials. European intelligence officers have now revealed that three years before the fake documents became public, human and electronic intelligence sources from a number of countries picked up repeated discussion of an illicit trade in uranium from Niger. One of the customers discussed by the traders was Iraq.
These intelligence officials now say the forged documents appear to have been part of a scam to fool Westerners, and the actual intelligence showing discussion of uranium supply has been ignored.
In related news, Associated Press reports that the United States recently found and transferred out of Iraq 1.8 tons (over 4,000 pounds) of enriched uranium, another 2 million tons non-enriched uranium and approximately 1,000 highly radioactive items. While the radioactive material was not yet weaponized, it could be used in "dirty bombs." Dirty bombs are not quite nuclear weapons, but are generally classified as Weapons of Mass Destruction. The finding is not considered a weapon of mass destruction because enriched uranium and radioactive material is not considered WMD until the process of weaponization is complete.
Sudan's Arab militias are continuing to kill the country's Black population in the Darfur region. Darfur has been under Sudanese occupation since 1916, prior to which it was a sovereign Islamic sultanate. In 1835, it briefly conquered Wadai (now Chad). From 1883 to 1898, Darfur was part of the Mahdi state. In 1916, the nation's Sultan declared a Jihad against Great Britain (the nation has been Islamic since 1700) and the resultant British expedition against the country resulted in it losing its independence and termination of the sultanate.
At least 30,000 people have been killed in the last 15 months and hundreds of thousands more may be murdered or starved to death. This is not the first time Sudan, a fundamentalist Islamist state, is violating human rights. Slavery was legal in the country until 1988 and is still widespread. According to the US-based African-American lobby NAACP, there are over 300,000 slaves in Sudan today, and hundreds of thousands other Blacks have been killed in the last generation.
Reuters reports that thousands of people in Darfur are in concentration camp-style compounds and 2 million have been left without food or medicine. However, United Nations is unlikely to act. "There have been encouraging steps on the humanitarian front," said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan at a news conference. "But there has been little progress on human rights and I regret to say there are continuing reports of attacks by the Janjaweed militia."
However, Jan Pronk, who organized the Darfur monitoring system, rejected Annan's claim, saying there was "no progress whatsoever as far as the security of the people themselves is concerned."
Kofi Annan said he could not predict when the United Nations will act, but Reuters is reporting that the strong pressure put by the Arab League against anti-Sudan action is preventing the UN from moving forward. The United States, thus, has been unable to push through a resolution banning travel or arms sale to Sudan. Britain and Germany support an arms embargo without a ban on travel to Sudan, while Russia, China and Pakistan, as well as Arab nations, oppose even a ban on weapons sale.
Meanwhile, 150 Rwandan soldiers joined another 150 troops from Nigeria have arrived in Sudan to maintain peace in the Darfur region, where fighting claimed 50,000 lives.
Sudan has also engaged in war against African Christians and animists in the south of the country. Southern Sudan is likely to get independence in the coming years. The government of Sudan promised to hold a referendum on independence in that region.
The Sudanese Nuer tribe occupied two large tracts of land, covering 17 localities in the Akoko Woreda, Metar and Alia Adura districts in southwestern Ethiopia, bordering with Sudan. The Gambela regional government and the Ethiopian federal government are urging "for the last time" that the Sudanese leave their country, reports http://www.allafrica.com . Stay tuned. In this volatile region, anything, including war, can result.
Rwanda and Burundi warned they may send their military into the Democratic Republic of Congo if Congo-based, Burundian Hutu militias do not stop massacring refugees – many of whom are in Burundi, reported Associated Press. Civil War between Hutus and Tutsis resulted in genocide and war in the region over the last dozen years, as well as in the 1970's. In Rwanda, up to 300,000 Hutus were murdered by Tutsis during the 1970's, while up to 700,000 Tutsis were slaughtered by Hutus in 1994. There are ongoing wars between Hutus and Tutsis in DR Congo and Burundi today. The United Nations tried to settle the war between the Burundian government and rebel National Liberation Forces for 11 years, but to no avail.
Rwanda and Burundi invaded DR Congo before, and the last time, 3.5 million people from six died as a result during the war.
Meanwhile, the United Nations is condemning Rwanda for supporting anti-government rebels in Congo that battled not only the Congolese military, but also international peacekeepers – a charge that has been denied by the Rwandan government.
"'Our leadership has nothing to do with these terrorist acts. Our actions are directed solely against the military,' Faruk Tubulat, spokesman for Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov, told Al-Jazeera. And yet, there are many factors indicating that the twin crashes were terrorist acts."
This is how RussiaJournal.com described the suspected attack on the two planes that crashed in Russia.
To be sure, there is indeed evidence that the planes have fallen victim to terrorism. They left the same airport and crashed within 3 minutes. Hijack alarm sounded on one airplane, Tu-134, before it fell. Residents of the Vladimirovka village where the same airplane fell heard a loud explosion and wreckage spread over a large area – a sign of an explosion. Before they left, the two airplanes were in good condition.
However, the assumption that Chechen nationalists are to blame is likely to prove false. Maskhadov's forces have not engaged in terror against innocent civilians, and instead concentrated on guerilla warfare against Russian military. Should this prove to be a terrorist attack, the likely organizers are Chechen Islamists under Shamil Basayev (or rather, his Arab companions), Hizballah and other Iran-backed terrorist organizations, or Arab fundamentalists such as al-Qaida. This may be yet another attack in the wave of mega-terror that began on September 11, 2001, then continued in Bali against Australians and recently against Spain.
International Monetary Fund's internal audit unit found that the organization's handling of Argentinian economy "almost certainly" deepened the country's recession by continuing to allow the Buenos Aires government to borrow despite the already spectacular debt, reports Washington Post. Keynesian policies promulgated by the IMF and the Argentinian government led to a default of $100 billion and 11% decline in the nation's output. "It would have been an ugly crisis anyway, but perhaps not quite as bad if the fund had supported a change in strategy earlier," said Isabelle Mateos y Lago, an economist from the IMF's Independent Evaluation Office, which produced the report.
Some have criticized the IMF for providing government loans to allow the states to pay off private creditors, without demanding that the creditors accept a reduction in claims. Others criticize the IMF not for refusing to demand that credits accept a reduction in claims, but rather for refusing to demand that governments spend less. Indeed, it has been the policy of the IMF to encourage economic growth through debt-financed government spending. For example, a memo by the fund's research department in November 1997 complained that one of the programs for which the Buenos Aires government was asking to borrow money was "not ambitious enough to warrant Fund support," according to the IMF report.
Reuters reports that Mexican police detained Agustin Chan Montoya for smuggling Iranians and Arabs into the United States. Mexican Attorney-General's office reports that Montoya was among the people wanted by the FBI. Security analysts say the U.S.-Mexican border is potentially a weak spot in the U.S. fight against terror, but the Mexican authorities did not say whether any of the illegal immigrants smuggled by Chan Montoya were suspected of terror links. Despite tightened security since September 11, 2001, hundreds of thousands of people illegally entered the United States from Mexico – many of them on multiple occasions.