Nigerian women seize another Chevron facility

Gharamatu women occupying a Chevron oil flow station in Makarava in the Niger Delta July 21, 2002.
Photo by AFP/Newscom

By Toye Olori

Lagos, Nigeria, July 19 (IPS)— A group of women protesters, who seized another oil facility in Nigeria on Friday, is demanding 500-million-naira (about US $3.5 million) compensation from Chevron for “years of neglect of their communities.”

“If Chevron wants to continue to operate on our land, our demands must be met,” said Josephine Ogoba, leader of the Ijaw Women group in the oil-rich Niger Delta Region. In their 40-point demand, the women, who numbered around 3,000, said the American company should rename Escravos TankFard and Terminal — the largest oil facilities in the area — Abiteye and Otunana Stations to reflect their Ijaw origin.

They also want Chevron to build two modern palaces for their kingdoms: Gharamatu and Eghema. They want Chevron to embark on electrification and housing projects in about nine host communities to improve the environmental and living conditions of the local people.

“Chevron must demonstrate convincing commitment to redress the issue of environmental degradation, underdevelopment, unemployment and marginalization that have plagued the host communities in the last three decades,” said Ogoba.

The other demands include provision for hostels, staff quarters, a library and a science laboratory for schools, and training centers to provide skilled courses for unemployed men and women.

Ogoba said women took over the campaign from men because men had vandalized oil facilities in the past. “Women are level-headed and see no need for destructive actions,” she explained.

Lt-Col. Gar Dogo, the commanding army officer in the area, has ordered his soldiers not to molest the women.

“I personally instructed them (the soldiers) not to harm any of the women, but only to ensure that they [women] do not destroy any property there,” he was quoted as saying by local newspapers on Friday.

The four oil facilities, seized by the Ijaw women, produce about 110 barrels of crude oil per day.

The seizure, on Friday, came just one day after more than 2,000 women, from the Itshekiri communities, ended their stand-off with Chevron following negotiations between the multinational oil company and community leaders.

“We signed an agreement with the protesting women late yesterday (Wednesday) and they left the facilities this morning,” said Sola Omole, the company’s spokesperson.

“We expect that the agreement will help put a permanent end to the frequent seizures of our staff and facilities by restless youths in the region,” he said.

In the late 1990s such seizures had disrupted production to such an extent that it sometimes reduced Nigeria’s daily crude oil output of about two million barrels by up to a third. The government depends on crude exports for more than 90 percent of its export income.

Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL) is the third largest oil company operating in the Niger Delta Region, exporting 450,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The Itshekiri women, who initially numbered about 150 when the strike began on Jul 8, occupied Chevron’s airstrip, docks and stores. With their number gradually rising to over 2,000, they prevented aircraft from landing and boats from docking at the terminal, which is surrounded by swamps, creeks and the Atlantic Ocean.

The women, who were unarmed, had demanded jobs for their sons and investment in the impoverished Ugborodo and Arutan communities, which lie in the shadow of the Chevron Escravos plant. The Ugborodo community has long demanded more access to employment and funding from the oil firm.

On Saturday, July 20, a lightning strike on an oil tank at the Excravos facility caused a fire that protesters there say has polluted the area. The fire at Escravos began as workers were trying to restart normal production at the plant after the occupation.

Chevron had to pump about 80,000 barrels of oil out of the tank that caught on fire after the lightning strike, and oil workers used remote-controlled chemical cannons to contain the blaze, which is now said to be out.

But the protesters said the fire had caused a leak that had contaminated their communities.

“The discovery of oil in our communities has brought misery and sorrow. Our rivers are polluted and fishes dead because of the poisons being spilled into the environment,” said Mary Olaye, one of the protest leaders.

An AFP reporter in the region said he saw large quantities of crude oil drifting in a river flowing away from Escravos and into fishing waters.

The disruption of oil operations is common in the Niger Delta, where impoverished local people accuse oil companies and the Nigerian government of neglecting them despite the huge oil wealth pumped from their land. They also accuse the oil firms of degrading their environments and economic activities, mainly from fish farming and peasant agricultural activities, through oil spillage and pollution.

Seizures of platforms or oil production sites had in the past been undertaken by armed gangs of local youths who often threaten to kill staff or burn down the plant unless their demands were met. This is the first time women have taken over oil plant.

Restive youths in the Niger Delta region, apart from seizing oil facilities, had often embarked on the tapping of siphoning of petroleum products from oil pipelines that transverse the region. The youths are alleged to have blasted some sections of the pipeline or drilled holes into the pipes from where they siphon the product for sale.

Bunkering, which is a common practice, had in 1998 led to the death of more than 1,000 villagers in Jesse, some five kilometers from Warri, Delta State, as they scooped refined petroleum from a burst pipe, which caught fire, leading to a huge explosion that consumed them.

The crisis in the Niger Delta Region heightened in 1995 when the government of the late military ruler, Gen. Sani Abacha, executed renowned environmentalist and author Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight of his kinsmen from the oil-producing Ogoni community, sparking international outcry.

Energy watcher, Sesan Ade, has warned of more unrest in the region.

“Chevron should be ready for more seizures. First, it was the Itshekiris. Now the Ijaw women are making their demands and stopping work on the company’s flow stations. The Urhobos — the third largest ethnic group in the region — will also make their demands. That is how serious it is. Chevron should be ready for a long crisis,” he said.

Additional information from BBC News.

Bush berated for opposition to International Criminal Court

By Jorge Piña

Rome, Italy, July 17 (IPS)— The Italian government, human rights activists and legal experts celebrated Wednesday the fourth anniversary of the signing of the statute creating the International Criminal Court (ICC), amidst criticism of the opposition mounted by the United States.

The statute creating the ICC, which was established July 1 in The Hague, was approved in 1998 in Rome to prosecute those accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Washington fears that it will be used to try US citizens, even though the United States has not ratified the statute, and in May it even decided to withdraw its signature.

The United States signed the statute in December 2000, shortly before Bill Clinton turned over the presidential sash to George W. Bush.

The ICC will be ready to begin operating a year from now, with jurisdiction over citizens from countries that have ratified the statute, and over crimes committed in the territory of those countries, when it deems that national courts cannot, or will not, investigate and prosecute the most serious crimes.

Last Friday, Washington was successful in its bid to get the United Nations Security Council to exempt US peacekeepers from ICC jurisdiction for one year, after it threatened to veto the continuity of UN peacekeeping missions.

The US vetoes would have first affected the UN mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The Security Council decision was criticized in the commemorative ceremonies organized by Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Relations and the Italy-based non-governmental organization No Peace Without Justice.

The ceremonies were held at the headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), where the statute was adopted in 1998.

July 17 has been dubbed the World Day for International Justice, and like every year since 1998, civil society worldwide organized events and activities to mark the special day, which is described as “a tremendous victory for international justice.”

Critics argue that the agreement with Washington undermined ICC authority, and rolled back much of the progress made towards creating an international system of justice.

The statute was approved July 17, 1998 by 120 countries and has been ratified so far by 76, including 34 in Europe -- among them all 15 members of the European Union -- 17 in Africa, 15 in Latin America and the Caribbean, eight in the Asia-Pacific region, one in North America and one in the Middle East.

The position taken by the United States creates enormous problems for the ICC, such as a lack of support from the country that should contribute the greatest share of the financing for the new court, said the chief prosecutor of the UN International War Crime Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, Carla Del Ponte.

But the deal struck in the Security Council at least guarantees the continuity of peacekeeping missions without modifying the ICC statute, said Emma Bonino. Bonino, the head of No Peace Without Justice and the Italian Radical Party, played a key role in the creation of the ICC.

She added that she hoped the agreement would in effect be only temporary.

The president of the International Association of Penal Law, Cherif Bassinouni, another key figure in the creation of the statute, said Washington was opposed to the ICC for ideological reasons, and was using “subterfuges” to block it.

Bush is mistaken in thinking that assuming peacekeeping responsibilities gives him the right to stand above international law, he said, adding that the stance taken by the United States would have “a boomerang effect.”

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, on the other hand, said at the closure of the commemorative ceremonies that it was legitimate to raise doubts regarding the impact of the ICC on the “concept of national sovereignty,” and that the concerns of many countries, particularly the United States, must be respected.

Nevertheless, Berlusconi said he was confident that the performance of the ICC, the authority and political independence of its judges, and its impartiality would give a sense of security to those who have worries or are opposed to the court.

“The more than 10 years of work that have gone into making the ICC a reality look like a long time, especially if I think of the victims of the crimes, but they seem short if I think about the service that has been done to humanity,” said Bonino.

Many have greeted the birth of the ICC as the most important event in the history of international relations since the creation of the United Nations, she said.

Some are opposed to the very idea of permanent international legal institutions, and see the ICC as the forerunner to a kind of evil future “world government,” but the birth of the court shows that such a dark hegemonic aim has never existed, she added.

“We must be capable of winning over those who look askance at the ICC, like the governments of China, the United States, India and Russia,” said Bonino.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the creation of the ICC sent “a clear message by the international community that never again will those who commit crimes against humanity go unpunished.”

The countries that have ratified the statute will meet in September in New York to determine the ICC’s budget and designate its 18 judges and prosecutors.

US role in Lumumba
murder revealed

By Stephen R. Weissman

Washington, DC, July 22— In his latest film, “Minority Report,” director Steven Spielberg portrays a policy of “preemptive action” gone wild in the year 2054. But we don’t have to peer into the future to see what harm faulty intelligence and the loss of our moral compass can do. US policies during the Cold War furnish many tragic examples. One such example was US complicity in the overthrow and murder of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba (pictured left).

Forty-one years ago, Lumumba, the only leader ever democratically elected in Congo, was delivered to his enemies, tortured and summarily executed. Since then, his country has been looted by the US-supported regime of Mobutu Sese Seko and wracked by regional and civil war.

The conventional explanation of Lumumba’s death has been that he was murdered by Congolese rivals after earlier US attempts to kill him, including a plot to inject toxins into his food or toothpaste, failed. In 1975, the US Senate’s “Church Committee” probed CIA assassination plots and concluded there was “no evidence of CIA involvement in bringing about the death of Lumumba.”

Not so. I have obtained classified US government documents, including a chronology of covert actions approved by a National Security Council (NSC) subgroup, that reveal US involvement in — and significant responsibility for — the death of Lumumba, who was mistakenly seen by the Eisenhower administration as an African Fidel Castro. The documents show that the key Congolese leaders who brought about Lumumba’s downfall were players in Project Wizard, a CIA covert action program. Hundreds of thousands of dollars and military equipment were channeled to these officials, who informed their CIA paymasters three days in advance of their plan to send Lumumba into the clutches of his worst enemies. Other new details: The US authorized payments to then-President Joseph Kasavubu four days before he ousted Lumumba, furnished Army strongman Mobutu with money and arms to fight pro-Lumumba forces, helped select and finance an anti-Lumumba government, and barely three weeks after his death authorized new funds for the people who arranged Lumumba’s murder.

Moreover, these documents show that the plans and payments were approved by the highest levels of the Eisenhower administration, either the NSC or its “Special Group,” consisting of the national security adviser, CIA director, undersecretary of state for political affairs, and deputy defense secretary.

These facts are four decades old, but are worth unearthing for two reasons. First, Congo (known for years as Zaire) is still struggling to establish democracy and stability. By facing up to its past role in undermining Congo’s fledgling democracy, the United States might yet contribute to Congo’s future. Second, the US performance in Congo is relevant to the struggle against “terrorism.” It shows what can happen when, in the quest for national security, we abandon the democratic principles and rule of law we are supposedly fighting to defend.

In February, Belgium, the former colonial power in Congo, issued a thousand-page report that acknowledged “an irrefutable portion of responsibility in the events that led to the death of Lumumba.” Unlike Belgium, the United States has admitted no such moral responsibility. Over the years, scholars (including myself) and journalists have written that American policy played a major role in the ouster and assassination of Lumumba. But the full story remained hidden in US documents, which, like those I have examined, are still classified despite the end of the Cold War, the end of the Mobutu regime and Belgium’s confession.

Here’s what they tell us that, until now, we didn’t know, or didn’t know for certain: In August 1960, the CIA established Project Wizard. Congo had been independent only a month, and Lumumba, a passionate nationalist, had become prime minister, with a plurality of seats in the parliament. But US presidential candidate John F. Kennedy was vowing to meet “the communist challenge” and Eisenhower’s NSC was worried that Lumumba would tilt toward the Soviets.

The US documents show that over the next few months, the CIA worked with and made payments to eight top Congolese — including President Kasavubu, Mobutu (then army chief of staff), Foreign Minister Justin Bomboko, top finance aide Albert Ndele, Senate President Joseph Ileo and labor leader Cyrille Adoula — who all played roles in Lumumba’s downfall.

The CIA joined Belgium in a plan, detailed in the Belgian report, for Ileo and Adoula to engineer a no-confidence vote in Lumumba’s government, which would be followed by union-led demonstrations, the resignations of cabinet ministers (organized by Ndele) and Kasavubu’s dismissal of Lumumba.

On Sept. 1, the NSC’s Special Group authorized CIA payments to Kasavubu, the US documents say. On Sept. 5, Kasavubu fired Lumumba in a decree of dubious legality. However, Kasavubu and his new prime minister, Ileo, proved lethargic over the following week as Lumumba rallied supporters. So Mobutu seized power on Sept. 14. He kept Kasavubu as president and established a temporary “College of Commissioners” to replace the disbanded government.

The CIA financed the College and influenced the selection of commissioners. The College was dominated by two Project Wizard participants: Bomboko, its president, and Ndele, its vice-president. Another CIA ally, Lumumba party dissident Victor Nendaka, was appointed chief of the security police.

“On Oct. 27, the NSC Special Group approved $250,000 for the CIA to win parliamentary support for a Mobutu government. However, when legislators balked at approving any prime minister other than Lumumba, the parliament remained closed. The CIA money went to Mobutu personally and the commissioners.

“On Nov. 20, the Special Group authorized the CIA to provide arms, ammunition, sabotage materials and training to Mobutu’s military in the event it had to resist pro-Lumumba forces.

The full extent of what one US document calls the “intimate” relationship between the CIA and Congolese leaders was absent from the Church Committee report. The only covert action (apart from the assassination plots) the committee discussed was the August 1960 effort to promote labor opposition and a no-confidence vote in the Senate.

How did Lumumba die? After being ousted Sept. 5, Lumumba rallied support in parliament and the international community. When Mobutu took over, UN troops protected Lumumba, but soon confined him to his residence. Lumumba escaped on Nov. 27. Days later he was captured by Mobutu’s troops, beaten and arrested.

What happened next is clearer thanks to the Belgian report and the classified US documents. As early as Christmas Eve 1960, College of Commissioners’ president Bomboko offered to hand Lumumba over to two secessionist leaders who had vowed to kill him. One declined and nothing happened until mid-January 1961, when the central government’s political and military position deteriorated and troops guarding Lumumba (then jailed on a military base near the capital) mutinied. CIA and other Western officials feared a Lumumba comeback.

On Jan. 14, the commissioners asked Kasavubu to move Lumumba to a “surer place.” There was “no doubt,” the Belgian inquiry concluded, that Mobutu agreed. Kasavubu told security chief Nendaka to transfer Lumumba to one of the secessionist strongholds. On Jan. 17, Nendaka sent Lumumba to the Katanga region. That night, Lumumba and two colleagues were tortured and executed in the presence of members of the Katangan government. No official announcement was made for four weeks.

What did the US government tell its Congolese clients during the last three days of Lumumba’s life? The Church Committee reported that a Congolese “government leader” advised the CIA’s Congo station chief, Larry Devlin, on Jan. 14 that Lumumba was to be sent to “the home territory” of his “sworn enemy.” Yet, according to the Church Committee and declassified documents, neither the CIA nor the US embassy tried to save the former prime minister.

The CIA may not have exercised robotic control over its covert political action agents, but the failure of Devlin or the US embassy to question the plans for Lumumba could only be seen by the Congolese as consent. After all, secret CIA programs had enabled this group to achieve political power, and the CIA had worked from August through November 1960 to assassinate or abduct Lumumba.

Here, the classified US chronology provides an important postscript. On Feb. 11, 1961, with US reports from Congo strongly indicating Lumumba was dead, the Special Group authorized $500,000 for political action, troop payments and military equipment, largely to the people who had arranged Lumumba’s murder.

Devlin has sought to distance himself from Lumumba’s death. While the CIA was in close contact with the Congolese officials involved, Devlin told the Church Committee that those officials “were not acting under CIA instructions if and when they did this.” In a recent phone conversation with Devlin, I posed the issue of US responsibility for Lumumba’s death. He acknowledged that, “It was important to [these] cooperating leaders what the US government thought.” But he said he did “not recall” receiving advance word of Lumumba’s transfer. Devlin added that even if he had objected, “That would not have stopped them from doing it.”

By evading its share of moral responsibility for Lumumba’s fate, the United States blurs African and American history and sidesteps the need to make reparation for yesterday’s misdeeds through today’s policy. In 1997, after the Mobutu regime fell, the Congolese democratic opposition pleaded in vain for American and international support. Since then, as many as three million lives have been lost as a result of civil and regional war. The United States has not supported a strong UN peacekeeping force or fostered a democratic transition. The collapse in late April 2002 of negotiations between Congolese factions threatens to re-ignite the smoldering conflict or ratify the partition of the country.

Source: allAfrica.com

US working to derail another human rights treaty

By Jim Lobe

July 23— Two months after withdrawing from the United Nations treaty to create a permanent international war crimes court, the administration of United States President George W. Bush is trying to sideline a new treaty to prevent torture, according to several human rights groups.

The draft Optional Protocol to the UN Convention Against Torture is due to be considered for adoption by a key UN committee Wednesday, but Washington has introduced a resolution to create a special working group to discuss it further, according to a draft letter from the US mission at the UN obtained Monday by OneWorld.

Rights groups claim that the resolution is an attempt to prevent the Protocol’s adoption, even though the US would not be bound by its terms if it declined to sign it.

“This fits a pattern we’ve seen for some time under the Bush administration,” said Rory Mungoven, global advocacy director for New York-based Human Rights Watch. “Yet again the Bush administration is on a collision course with its allies over an important new mechanism to protect human rights.”

Among those backing Washington in the effort to derail the treaty are several states on the administration’s terrorism list, including Cuba, Iran, and Libya. China and India, along with the US, also object to the Protocol because they consider it potentially too intrusive.

The draft Optional Protocol, the subject of negotiations by the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva for the past decade, is designed to supplement and strengthen the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the US has already ratified.

Put forward by Costa Rica and backed by the European Union and many Latin American, Caribbean, and African governments, the Protocol would create an international body of experts attached to the UN’s Committee Against Torture that would be mandated to visit detention centers to monitor the treatment of prisoners and ensure that they are not subjected to torture.

As an Optional Protocol, only states which ratified it would be required to permit such visits, so it would not directly affect countries outside its scope.

The draft also provides that visits by the experts would have to be arranged in advance with national or local authorities, and its reports could be made public only with their permission.

A majority of members of the UN Human Rights Commission voted to approve the draft in March, but it must now be approved by the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), which is scheduled to take it up Wednesday. If approved there, it will be referred to the UN General Assembly, the last step before it becomes available for signature.

Despite the safeguards included in the draft, the US, which lost its seat on the UN Human Rights Commission last year, has objected to the draft on the grounds that it is too intrusive, that it may not be suited to a federal system like that of the US, and that it may be too expensive for the UN system to afford.

It has asked ECOSOC members to adopt its own resolution which recommends that the General Assembly “convene an open-ended ... working group ... with the mandate to continue considering the draft optional protocol, taking into account concern expressed about the current text and the process connected with it, and to report to the General Assembly when the working group has completed its further consideration of the draft optional protocol.”

Rights groups argue that the US resolution, if adopted, would be the “kiss of death” for the treaty, even in its present, watered-down form. “By sending this treaty for more negotiations, the United States would be playing into the hands of countries such as Cuba and Iran, which want to block international scrutiny of human rights,” Mungoven said, calling the move “extremely destructive.”

The groups also believe Washington’s reasons for opposing its adoption now are specious, particularly given all of the protections—including allowances for federal systems, and against capricious or politically motivated inspections—contained in the draft text.

“The realization of the Optional Protocol is being jeopardized by a few states...who do not support the text and wish to continue negotiations in order to water down its provisions, thereby destroying its effectiveness as a preventive instrument,” charged the Geneva-based Association for the Prevention of Torture.

Source: OneWorld.net

Arhuaca Indians denounce campaign to force them off land

By Yadira Ferrer

Bogota, Colombia, July 17 (IPS)— Members of the Arhuaca indigenous group in northern Colombia complained this week that the armed groups involved in the country’s civil conflict have been waging a campaign aimed at forcing them off their communally owned land.

The latest incident in the more than 10-year campaign by right-wing paramilitaries and leftist guerrillas to intimidate the Arhuaca Indians was the murder of a young community leader by armed gunmen, after they dragged her off a bus near the northern city of Santa Marta.

María Torres, 24, a prominent young member of the Yerwa reserve in the foothills of Colombia’s Sierra Nevada mountains, near the Caribbean coast, was killed Saturday by a group of armed men as she was riding a bus to take classes in Santa Marta, where she was trying to finish high school.

Armed groups have been murdering Arhuaca community leaders and undermining their culture in an effort to force them off their land, said a source with the Arhuaca community, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is a remote mountainous region rich in biodiversity. The area’s Caribbean coasts are ideal for use by smugglers of drugs, arms and other contraband products.

The Arhuaca indigenous council issued a communiqué Monday asking the armed groups involved in Colombia’s four-decade civil conflict to leave them out of a war in which they have not sought involvement.

“We are not part of this conflict,” stated the local indigenous authorities. “We are in our territory, where we have lived for thousands of years. We have not encouraged the presence of armed groups on our land, and we will never tire of asking to be excluded from the conflict.”

The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, declared a biosphere reserve by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), is an important strategic area in this South American nation of 42 million, and one of the epicenters of a conflict into which the four ethnic groups living there have been drawn against their will.

That territory, which the local indigenous groups consider “the center of the world,” is home to around 32,000 Indians belonging to the Kogui, Arhuaca, Arzara and Kankuama communities, descendants of the Tairona people.

In the 1970s, the Sierra Nevada was an important area for marijuana growing and trafficking. In the 1990s, coca cultivation began to spread, with the arrival of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN), and the paramilitary militias, which are fighting for control over the area.

The denunciation of the murder of the young Arhuaca leader coincided Tuesday with the release of another communiqué issued by indigenous organizations from 10 of Colombia’s departments or states, complaining of attacks by armed groups on the country’s 85 indigenous communities.

The statement protests the murders of members of indigenous groups, and violations of their social, cultural and economic rights, said Jorge Caballero, with the Cauca Regional Indigenous Council.

The declaration states that aerial spraying of illegal crops like coca and opium poppies with the pesticide glyphosate in the regions inhabited by indigenous communities, and the displacement caused by mega-projects and by the armed groups disputing control over the territory, are leaving the communities “without a place to live or to preserve our culture.”

The document was approved at a regional conference held July 6 in the town of Piendamó, in the southern department of Cauca, said Caballero.

According to the Cauca Regional Indigenous Council, the Indigenous Organization of Colombia, and the Indigenous Authorities of Colombia, the Kogui and Arhuaca Indians, and the Paez indigenous community in the south, “have not lived in peace since the armed commandos installed themselves in our territories.”

Other groups, like the U’wa, had to fight to avoid being driven off their land by the oil industry.

In addition, some communities are held captive on their own territory, unable to go to town to buy food due to the paramilitary and guerrilla checkpoints that have been set up, complained the Indigenous Organization of the department of Antioquia.

But an Interior Ministry report states that thanks to a program aimed at providing indigenous communities with protection, the number of murders fell in 2001 with respect to the year before, “when the Administrative Department of Security registered more than 25 homicides.”

According to the Weekly Press Log of the governmental Observatory of the Presidential Human Rights Program, 24 violations of the rights of indigenous people were committed in 2001, including 18 murders, four death threats, one kidnapping and one attempted murder. The Log states that violence against indigenous groups was at its worst in the northwestern departments of Cauca and Córdoba. Four murders, three mass killings, one death threat and one attempted murder were registered in Cauca, as well as three murders, one death threat and one kidnapping in Córdoba.

Authorities blame 57 percent of the murders of members of indigenous groups between January 1999 and June 2001 on “unknown perpetrators” and “common criminals,” 27 percent on the FARC and the ELN, and 17 percent on paramilitary militias.

However, international and local human rights groups hold the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) responsible for the lion’s share of the murders and mass killings of civilians in Colombia.

Bush denies money to UN population fund

By Jim Lobe

Washington, DC, July 22 (IPS)— In another apparent bow to the Christian right, US President George W. Bush has denied $34 million in funding approved by Congress for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) because of its presence in China.

The decision, which had been rumored for several weeks, was announced by the State Department on Monday.

A recent US delegation to China found no evidence that UNFPA has “knowingly supported or participated in” programs of coercive abortions or sterilizations. But because UNFPA worked with Chinese state agencies in some counties where such practices persist, all US funding had to be cut, according to Bush spokesman Richard Boucher.

The decision was based on UNFPA’s support for specific Chinese agencies that oversee coercive programs, he added. “Because money is fungible,” Boucher said, “we won’t be giving our money to a UN program that then gives money to Chinese agencies that then carry out these coercive abortion programs.”

A 1985 law bans US aid money from “any organization or program which, as determined by the President of the United States, supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization in the People’s Republic of China.”

“US funds for family planning and reproductive health will be spent through the United States Agency for International Development programs and not through UNFPA,” said Boucher.

Reaction from women’s and population groups was immediate and harsh, particularly because the State Department delegation’s report, while noting that “coercive elements in law and in practice” exist in some counties where UNFPA is involved, exonerated the agency and called for Congress’ decision to be respected.

“The administration’s own delegation recommends that the US contribution to UNFPA be released,” said Terri Bartlett of Population Action International (PAI), a research and advocacy group here.

“It’s domestic politics that has prevented UNFPA from receiving its $34 million, and it is the world’s women — and their families — who will pay the price.”

UNFPA director Thoraya Obaid was also uncharacteristically direct. “UNFPA has not, does not and will not ever condone or support coercive activities of any kind, anywhere,” she said. “Women and children will die because of this decision.”

She noted that in past years, Washington has simply withheld from its contribution the amount of money the UNFPA spends in China, then provided the balance to the agency for its work in other countries.

“We could have done the same this year, which could have allowed US taxpayer dollars to provide life-saving services in the other 141 countries where we work.”

USAID currently has population-related programs in only 60 countries.

Earlier this month, a British parliamentary delegation, which included an anti-abortion Conservative Party Member of Parliament, released its own report based on an eight-day investigation in China.

It not only found no evidence to substantiate the charges, but also concluded that UNFPA’s work there was playing “an important catalytic role in the reform of reproductive health services in China.”

World activists to issue peace manifesto

By Raúl Pierri

Montevideo, Chile, July 19 (IPS)— Politicians, scientists, artists and civil society leaders from around the world are to gather in Puerto Rico in early August to draw up a declaration of peace principles to be presented later that month in South Africa at the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

The Puerto Rico conference is to produce a document exhorting the 150 national leaders who are slated to attend the Johannesburg summit to halt armed operations during peacetime, such as those carried out by the United States in its “anti-terror campaign” and in its military maneuvers on the Caribbean island of Vieques.

The declaration will also call for a redoubling of efforts to reduce the gap between the industrialized North and the developing South, according to the conference organizers.

The International Conference on Peace and Development, to take place in San Juan on Aug. 12-14, is jointly sponsored by the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress and the Senate of Puerto Rico, a free associate state of the United States.

“The purpose of the meeting is to motivate a global reflection on the issue of peace in order to handle problems like terrorism, environment and social inequalities,” said Antonio Fas Alzamora, president of the Puerto Rican Senate.

It is a preamble, he said, to the drafting of a manifesto that will be presented at the Sustainable Development summit to take place in Johannesburg from Aug. 26-Sept. 4, an event also known as Rio+10, in reference to the 1992 Earth Summit that took place in the Brazilian city.

The Johannesburg summit will be the third of its kind sponsored by the United Nations, after the gatherings in Stockholm (1972) and Rio de Janeiro.

Taking part in the San Juan event will be Oscar Arias, former president of Costa Rica (1986-1990) and Nobel Peace laureate (1987), Colombian television writer Fernando Gaitán, India’s social justice minister Maneka Gandhi, Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón and US Democratic Party activist Jesse Jackson.

Also to participate are Guatemala’s Rigoberta Menchú, Nobel Peace laureate in 1992, Indian scientist Ashok Khosla, the secretary-general of the Society for International Development and IPS founder Roberto Savio, Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin, Pakistani economist Ayesha Siddiqqa-Agha, and Ireland’s Betty Williams, Nobel Peace laureate (1976).

Fas Alzamora said that before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, there was an “apparent peace” that hid numerous conflicts and underlying tensions in various regions of the world.

“Now it is clearly seen that true peace does not exist,” the Senate president stated.

The conference’s base document states that the absence of war is not peace. Wars are the most obvious sources of chaos and destruction, but they are only the symptoms of selfishness and of individual interest, which are now driven by the model of values promoted by world leaders.

Senator Fas Alzamora acknowledged that the Vieques issue will be included in the deliberations and, despite being the matter that “motivated the conference,” will be treated as a side issue.

The US Navy has been using Vieques for military maneuvers for more than 60 years and considers the island, located south of Puerto Rico, ideal for war training due to its topography and because it is far from commercial air routes.

“The Vieques situation is having a dramatic effect on the lives of our Puerto Rican brothers. It is clearly a case of military operations in peacetime that are jeopardizing civilians. However, it is not the only case, but just one of many in which peace is threatened,” Fas Alzamora said. The protests of the island’s residents against the military training intensified after an errant bomb killed a civil guard in 1999.

US President George W. Bush confirmed that he would allow firing practice on Vieques until next year, in spite of the fact that 68 percent of the island’s electorate voted in favor of the removal of the troops in a referendum held in July 2001.

The participants in the San Juan conference are also expected to issue a harsh condemnation of the inequalities and of the “terrorism of indifference” perpetuated by the world powers. “They prefer to invest in weapons above health and social development,” said Fas Alzamora.

“Terrorism is not caused only by a bomb, but also by looking the other way and refusing to see that every day 40,000 children die of hunger or of diseases that could be prevented if resources were appropriately used,” he said. The organizers of the meeting state that the 225 wealthiest people in the world today have a combined income equal to that of the poorest 2.5 billion poor.

Every year, an average of $780 billion is spent on weapons purchases, $400 billion on drugs, $105 billion on alcoholic drinks, $50 billion on tobacco, $17 billion on pet food and $12 billion on perfumes, according to United Nations figures.

Meanwhile, a relatively scant $13 billion annually would be needed to satisfy the minimum health and nutrition needs of the world, $9.0 billion for potable water and $6.0 billion for education.

Fas Alzamora commented that the San Juan meeting will attempt to motivate all countries, but particularly those of Latin America, to “review their investments and to shift their military spending to social problems in order to save humanity.”

West pays warlords to stay in line

By Jason Burke
and Peter Beaumont

July 21— Britain and the United States are secretly distributing huge sums of money to persuade Afghan warlords not to rebel against their country’s new government.

The Observer has learned that “bin bags” full of US dollars have been flown into Afghanistan, sometimes on RAF planes, to be given to key regional power brokers who could cause trouble for Prime Minister Hamid Karzai’s administration.

Gul Agha Sherzai, the governor of the southern province of Kandahar, Hazrat Ali, a commander in the eastern province of Nangahar, and several others have been “bought off” with millions of dollars in deals brokered by US and British intelligence.

Many of the commanders benefiting from the operation have been involved in opium production and drug smuggling on a massive scale, as well as widespread human-rights abuses.

Without the hand-outs, Western intelligence agencies fear Afghanistan could collapse, allowing Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist group and former Taliban elements to regroup.

Foreign Office sources in London confirmed last week they were aware money was being “circulated” to key Afghan warlords to persuade them to support the government.

“It is certainly true that money has been distributed — it is the way things work in this part of the world — but no British money [is being distributed],” the source said.

“In any case, you do not buy warlords in Afghanistan: you ‘rent’ them for a period. The Russians discovered this to their cost. They would buy off a warlord and after a while he would come back and tell them: ‘My men won’t wear this arrangement any more. You will have to give me more money, or we will have to go back to attacking you.’”

However, The Observer has been told by reliable sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan that some UK money is being distributed, although most of it is American.

Relief workers in Afghanistan have criticized the hand-outs because they come when funds for emergency help and reconstruction projects in the war-damaged country are running low. Cash for road-building, irrigation and power projects is unlikely even to reach Afghanistan before 2003, and only £3 billion of the estimated £10 billion needed to rebuild the nation has so far been pledged.

Previous attempts to buy the loyalty of warlords have met mixed results. During the battle of Tora Bora in April, local commanders were paid huge sums to send their own troops into the mountainous cave complexes where bin Laden was thought to be hiding. The warlords involved in this operation, including Hazrat Ali, accuse each other of taking bribes from bin Laden to allow him to escape.

In Paktia province, the Americans paid Pacha Khan Zardran, a local commander who seized control of the eastern city of Khost last November, an estimated $400,000 to train and equip fighters to patrol the border with Pakistan. Since then, however, the government in Kabul has installed its own governor and forced Khan into the mountains, from where his troops have been shelling civilian areas in a bid to destabilize the new regime.

“You are playing with fire and pandering to the worst elements in Afghan culture and society,” said one Pakistan-based Western diplomat. “Afghanistan would be better served by expanding peacekeeping forces or more aid for ordinary people.’”

Many Afghans in Khost blame the rising tension on the US. Paying the warlords for their services has triggered clashes among groups eager to win patronage from the Americans. In some areas commanders have been told they will receive a top-of-the-range $40,000 pick-up truck — a local status symbol — if they can prove they have killed Taliban or al-Qaida elements.

There are believed to be about 300 hardcore al-Qaida fighters still active, almost all in western Pakistan. Bin Laden, whom most Afghan, Pakistani and Western intelligence sources believe is still alive, is thought to be hiding among the Pashtun tribes along the border.

Source: Observer (UK)

WORLD BRIEFS

Ottawa says Bush, US reps
tried to bully G8 host
Canadian officials say George W. Bush’s entourage at last month’s G8 summit in Alberta behaved like bullies as they tried to take control of the agenda set by Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.

Officials said the Americans got into shouting and swearing matches with their Canadian counterparts over everything from photo-ops to the topics to be discussed by the leaders of Canada, the US, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Russia.

One official said he began to take it as a “compliment to be called a ‘fucking Canadian’ by the Americans” after resisting countless US demands, including special access to Kananaskis for the White House press corps.

Although the countries had agreed in advance that African development was to be the centerpiece of the summit, Bush’s advisors tilted the agenda to the President’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan and a US scheme to safeguard Russia’s nuclear weapon stockpiles, officials say. (National Post, Canada)

Proposed bill makes communism
a crime in Slovakia
Nearly thirteen years after the fall of communism in eastern Europe, the Slovak parliament has passed a new bill that makes support for communist ideology a criminal offense. The proposed law is awaiting approval by President Rudolf Schuster. The President has indicated he may not approve the law. But the parliamentary approval has generated a strong dispute that has seen many human rights groups coming down on the side of the communists against legislators.

The Slovak Communist Party says the proposed new law violates human rights. Leaders of the Slovak Communist Party (KSS) say that if the new legislation is approved by the President they will ask for asylum in the US or the European Union (EU).

The Slovak parliament voted an amendment to the country’s penal code on July 10 making the promotion of communist ideology, or the denial, approval or excusing of crimes under the previous communist regime punishable by six months to three years in jail. The proposed law is similar to an existing law that makes support for fascism or fascist ideology a criminal offense.

Two other bills were passed along with the bill on communism. One seeks to ban employees of the former communist secret police, the StB, from working in the current secret service (SIS). The second allows StB archives to be opened to the public, enabling citizens to see whether the StB had files on them. They could also see names of agents who spied on them. (IPS)

Key committee renews US military
aid to Indonesia
In a victory for Pentagon hard-liners, a key Congressional committee has voted to drop conditions on providing US military training to the Indonesian armed forces (TNI).

The Senate appropriations committee went along with the Pentagon’s arguments that the TNI’s cooperation in the global “war on terrorism’’ waged by US President George W. Bush should take precedence over human rights and related considerations.

“We can provide some of the training they need so their people can prevent some of the things that happened to us,’’ said Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens. He, along with Hawaii Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye, led the effort to strip conditions on military training for Indonesia that were included in next year’s foreign aid bill.

Human rights groups said the action was a big mistake. “This is a huge step backward,’’ said Mike Jendrzejczyk, an Indonesia expert at Human Rights Watch (HRW). He said activists hope that at least some of the conditions will be re-attached when the bill reaches the Senate floor or the House of Representatives. (IPS)

US activist deported for
protesting Ecuador pipeline
A United States citizen was deported July 18 from Ecuador after being detained July 16 along with seven Ecuadorans as they engaged in a protest against the construction of an oil pipeline through the country’s Amazon region.

The activist, Julia “Butterfly” Hill, best known for her two-year protest in which she lived in a giant redwood tree in the US state of California, was taken without prior notice from the Provisional Detention Center, where she was held under arrest, to the Quito airport. Two hours later, the remaining detainees were released.

Hill stated that the proceedings were illegal and that the rights of the people arrested had not been respected. But her greatest concern is the violation of “the rights of the communities devastated by oil exploitation,” said Hill.

The oil pipeline targeted by the environmental activists is 540 km long and is to transport petroleum from the Ecuadorian Amazon region to the Pacific coast for refining and export.

The protesters were detained by the police as they staged a demonstration outside the offices of Occidental Petroleum, a member of the Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados (OCP) Limited consortium, which is building the pipeline. (IPS)

Warrants issued in Mexican
airport stand-off
Six arrest warrants have been issued against leftists and anti-globalization activists in Mexico City who aided protesting farmers in a five-day hostage standoff with the government during a dispute over a proposed new airport, a prosecutor said June 22.

The announcement came just two days before the start of talks the federal government had agreed to hold with the farmers, in a bid to reach a compromise over the possible expropriation of farmland to make way for the airport.

Mexico State Attorney General Alfonso Navarrete Prida said the new arrest warrants were not issued against the peasants, eight of whom were released on bail to end the stand-off.

Rather, his office is seeking to arrest leftists and agitators from outside the village who saw the confrontation as an opportunity to build molotov cocktails and “oppose world globalization.”

Citing standard police procedure, he refused to give the names of those cited in the warrants, until they are apprehended.

Also Monday, a Mexico state judge ordered the eight farmers released on bail to stand trial on charges of assault and rioting. All eight will apparently remain free on bail during the trial. (AP)