Quebec firm to build world’s third-largest mosque
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2007/04/04/qc-dessausoprinmosque20070404.html?ref=rss
Quebec firm to build world’s third-largest mosque Last Updated:
Wednesday,
April 4, 2007 | 10:36 AM ET
Quebec engineering firm Dessau-Soprin is reaping benefits from surging
oil
prices and a construction boom in Algeria, where the company has won a
bid
to build one of the world’s largest mosques.
The multimillion-dollar mosque will be built in Algiers as part of a
$9.3 billion complex that will include a hotel, convention centre,
Qur’an
house, three libraries, an amphitheatre, a laboratory and restaurants.
The sprawling mosque will include a 10-storey minaret and will house
120,000
worshippers at capacity, making it the third largest Muslim worship
centre
in the world.
Dessau-Soprin, based in Laval, stands to make $30 million from the
mosque,
which is the latest large-scale project in the North African country,
where
soaring oil prices have fuelled a construction frenzy.
“We were there at the right time,” said Dessau-Soprin CEO Jean-Pierre
Sauriol. “The Algerians, they do very much like working with Canadian
firms,
especially the ones from Quebec, because they speak French, and it’s
much
easier for them to negotiate and discuss projects.”
The mosque contract will create about 100 jobs in Algiers.
Dessau-Soprin
already employs about 150 people at its permanent office in the capital
city.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1812626/posts
Iran’s Air Defense Can Repel U.S. Air Strikes - Russian Brass
RIA Novosti ^ | April 5, 2007
Posted on 04/05/2007 10:57:37 AM PDT by Fennie
MOSCOW - Iran has air defense systems capable of repelling possible United States air strikes, a high-ranking Russian military official said Thursday. “In line with my assessment, Iran’s air defense system is strong enough,” Colonel General Yury Solovyov, commander of the Air Defense Forces Special Command, said. “Currently Iran has our Russian air defense missile systems, which are capable of tackling U.S. combat aircraft. Iran also has French and other countries defense systems...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1812129/posts?page=10#10
News of the emergence of Grand Mujahideen (UBL)
Muslm.net, via Renewal (Algerian forum) ^
Posted on 04/04/2007 4:37:26 PM PDT by harwood
Al-Qaida leaders recently release video containing bin Laden speech to the Islamic nation.
(Excerpt) Read more at 64.233.179.104 ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1812361/posts
Al-Sahab Expected To Release New Bin Ladin Video (Info coming From Central Command)
Central Command ^ | 4/5/07
Posted on 04/05/2007 5:07:14 AM PDT by areafiftyone
Al-Sahab Expected To Release New Bin Ladin Video
Terrorism: Al-Sahab Reportedly To Release New Bin Ladin Video Message
On 4 April, a jihadist website carried the following posting:
“After a long absence by the shaykh of mujahidin, whom we have missed as well as his speeches, some news is being leaked indicating that Shaykh Usama Bin Ladin, God protect and preserve him and make him a thorn in the throat of the enemies, will make an appearance. The news indicates that Al-Sahab Media Establishment, which specializes in publishing Al-Qa’ida leaders’ speeches, has recently finished producing a video featuring Bin Ladin’s speech to the entire Islamic nation. “
Furthermore, the poster of this note maintains that the speech includes several messages to the “mujahidin” in Iraq, the Palestinian People on “ the capitulation choice which HAMAS gave in to,” the Riyadh Arab summit, the “fears” of America and its allies of the establishment of the Islamic Caliphate state in Iraq, and the “good tidings of victory in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
[The station was jammed for 2 hours, nice decoy]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1812659/posts
4,000 flash mob dancers (with iPods) startle commuters at Victoria
This is London ^ | 04/05/2007 | Tim Stewart
Posted on 04/05/2007 11:51:21 AM PDT by Swordmaker
More than 4,000 clubbers danced through the rush hour at Victoria station in Britain’s biggest flash mob stunt.
Revellers responded to e-bulletins urging them to “dance like you’ve never danced before” at 6.53pm.
continued.
Officials: Disappearance of American in Iran routine
POSTED: 2142 GMT (0542 HKT), April 4, 2007
Story Highlights
. Former FBI agent said to be working on film on Iranian isle
. U.S. diplomat says several Americans go missing in Iran each year
. Iran says no reports of anyone missing on island
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/04/04/iran.missing.ap/index.html?eref=edition_us
Turkey entitled to 150 Aegean islets, experts say
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=107485
Turkey entitled to 150 Aegean islets, experts say Two professors are
trying
to prove that Turkey has a historical claim to 150 islets currently
claimed
by Greece.
Within the context of its EU accession bid, Turkey is seeking
resolutions on
the Cyprus issue and Aegean maritime disputes. Diplomatic sources
indicate
the Turkish and Greek sides are involved in intense talks, and two
academics
showed that a decision by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA)
legally
supports Turkey’s position concerning its disputes with Greece in the
Aegean
Sea.
Unlike its previously held position, Greece will be reportedly
reluctant to
resort to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for the settlement
of
long-standing disputes with Turkey as it now contends that the EU could
play
a constructive role between the parties.
That being said, international lawyers Sertaç Hami Baþeren and Ali
Kurumahmut, political science professors at Ankara University, have
recently
published research on the disputed islands in the Aegean Sea.
Baþeren and Kurumahmut proved that the PCA’s reference in its decision
regarding a dispute over the islands, islets and reefs in the Red Sea
to
Article 16 of the Treaty of Lausanne provides a legal advantage for
Turkey.
In their book, based on international conventions and Ottoman archives,
the
two asserted that considering the PCA’s decision in question, Greece
has no
jurisdiction over the 150 islands whose sovereignty still remains
non-transferred. Baþeren and Kurumahmut recall that a consensus between
the
parties is needed to determine the future of those islands.
Once Greece’s lack of jurisdiction is legally grounded, the entire
Aegean
map will require significant alterations, which they illustrated in
their
book. In such a case, Turkey will gain striking leverage in the
long-standing bilateral disputes, including the issue of territorial
waters.
Given Greece’s unilateral action to extend its territorial waters from
six
to 12 miles, the issue of non-transferred islands is an important one.
The book examines the comment outlined in the decision of the PCA that
settled a maritime dispute between Yemen and Eritrea by making a
special
reference to Article 16 of the Treaty of Lausanne. The authors
subsequently
conclude that the said decision treats the disputed islands as
territories
over which no certain jurisdiction was available.
Departing from this conclusion, the authors further assert that
international law clearly states Greece has no jurisdiction over the
Aegean
islands, islets and reefs.
Paragraph 165 of the court’s decision rules that “in 1923 Turkey
renounced
title to those islands over which it had sovereignty until then” on the
condition that the future of the islands in question would be
determined by
the parties. Recalling that this provision does not apply to the Aegean
islands, the authors allege that Greece is unable to claim sovereign
title
over the island territories. In their view, the islands are territories
whose sovereignty was not denounced by the Ottoman Empire and for this
reason they were transferred to Turkey as the heir of the empire.
A partial list of islands over which the authors believe Greece can’t
claim
sovereignty includes Gaidaros, Mandiraki, Farmakonisi, Pserimos,
Adelfia,
Plakhida, Sofrana, Astakidhapula, Kandhelioussa, Levita,
Zenari-Kinaros,
Liadi, Furni and Fimena. Baþeren and Kurumahmut underline that except
for
the islands whose transfer was made in accordance with international or
bilateral treaties, the undesignated ones in the Aegean Sea do not fall
into
any state’s jurisdiction as outlined in the PCA’s Eritrea vs. Yemen
arbitration ruling.
The new argument based on recent scholarly inquiry suggests that
inclination
to resolve the Aegean maritime disputes within the EU context is not
healthy, as the said disputes concern international legal rules and
could be
settled through the rights and obligations under the respective rules
and
provisions of public international law.
Therefore, this approach implies that Turkey should resort to its
entitlements under international law rather than political means to
resolve
the disputes in the Aegean Sea.
Dr. Erdem Denk, also a political science professor at Ankara
University,
said Greece should be convinced that there are disputes other than the
rift
over the continental shelf. Noting that the Aegean disputes could be
resolved through a mutually agreed approach that allows give and take,
Denk
recalls that the settlement of the disputes should start with
determining
naval authority areas, which will depend on to whom the islands, islets
and
reefs belong.
Denk said the dispute is a fairly recent one, adding that only by
determining the legal status of the disputed islets will there be
further
action toward a comprehensive resolution of the rift between Turkey and
Greece. He noted that the parties have been holding secret negotiations
and
meetings to resolve the disputes, drawing attention to the Greek
media’s
coverage on the deadlock in the Aegean maritime disputes.
Following the EU’s Helsinki summit, Greece and the Aegean disputes have
acquired a special place and attention in Turkish foreign policy, which
has
become more focused on fulfilling its long-standing goal of
Westernization.
The EU has for some time served as the indirect mediator and
facilitator in
the disputes between the parties. Even though it seems uncertain what
this
tripartite relationship will bring in the near future, Turkey should be
more
demanding in regards to Greece. Recalling that the Turkish population
in the
Aegean region alone is twice as large as Greece’s population, Professor
Bayram Öztürk underlines that Greeks should understand the Aegean Sea
is not
exclusively a Greek lake.
Although the Aegean Sea has been generous to both Turkey and Greece,
the
latter has acquired extensive benefits from this generosity. Given
Turkey’s
dependence on the Aegean Sea through food security and the fertility of
the
islands’ adjacent waters, it is clear Turkey should pay attention to
the
resolution of the disputed islands and islets issue.
In the region, there are other risks in addition to the jurisdictional
issues. For instance, 100,000 tons of Russian and the Caspian oil is
sent to
world markets through the Marmara and Aegean seas. Any major accident
near
the islets and islands would likely destroy them, resulting in enormous
financial losses associated with tourism, fishing and other activities.
Öztürk said that obtaining 5-6 percent of the Aegean Sea, which
essentially
includes the disputed island territories, would earn Turkey new
economic
resources. Describing Turkey’s foreign policy regarding Greece as
excessively romantic, Öztürk draws attention to Greece’s continuous
expansion since its foundation.
Retired Adm. Çetinkaya Apatay notes that the Eritrea vs. Yemen decision
may
reveal the justification of Turkey’s assertions with regard to the
islands.
He said the legal verdict implies that the parties to the dispute
should get
around the negotiation table for a comprehensive resolution.
Apatay also recalls that in a NATO meeting where an imminent dispute
between
Turkey and Greece was discussed, a young military officer asserted that
Gauda island belonged to Turkey. Apatay believes that a mutually
constructive approach toward the issue rather than resorting to the
binding
rules by the ICJ should be the basis for a viable resolution.
Some believe that the PCA’s Yemen vs. Eritrea ruling will most likely
exacerbate the deadlock in the Aegean Sea. Turkey’s former Ambassador
to
Athens Tuncer Topur said if Turkey claims sovereign right to these
islands,
there will be a strong reaction from Europe. In an effort to make
social
life in the islands more attractive and entertaining, Greece has been
investing heavily in the Aegean islands and islets. Financial
incentives
have been released to promote more inhabitants on these islands.
Despite the
enormous financial expenses involved, the Greek government has spared
no
expense in keeping the islands inhabited.
05.04.2007
FATÝH UÐUR ANKARA
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=107471
Massive weapons caches uncovered
While security force operations against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK) continue, PKK hideouts uncovered during raids are
surprising
officials in terms of how well-stocked with arms and ammunition the
terrorist organization is.
Some of the weapons captured over the last few months include more than
100
kilos of explosive materials, as well as hand grenades and RPG-7 rocket
launchers. Much of the explosive material discovered is thought to have
been
brought over the border from northern Iraq into Turkey by PKK forces.
The latest PKK store was discovered outside the southeastern city of
Þiirt,
in Eruh province. During a routine patrol of the area, 40 kilos of
ammonium
nitrate were found. In Hatay, meanwhile, 1.5 kilos of plastic explosive
material was captured, along with 12 kilos of TNT. In Mardin, 300 grams
of
the explosive A4 and 800 grams of ammonium nitrate were captured. In
Þýrnak,
four kilos of A4 explosive and five mortar rounds were seized.
Materials
necessary for everyday life such as clothing, food and other supplies
were
also discovered. Expert teams are being brought in by the Turkish
military
to defuse the explosives.
Despite a cease-fire declaration by the PKK, landmines planted by the
terror
group continue to take lives. PKK mines have killed 300 children to
date in
addition to hundreds of civilians and members of the security forces.
Children wounded as a result of these mines number 285. Figures also
show
that the total number of people killed by mines between 1999 and 2006
is
988, with 589 of these civilians. The total number of wounded is
estimated
at 3,000.
At the top of the list of areas affected by landmines are Diyarbakýr,
Bingol, Tunceli, Siirt, Þýrnak, and Van. The latest incident occurred
during
a routine search of a plot of land in Dicle by the security forces. The
mine’s explosion killed three security force members and two were
wounded.
The separatist PKK is recognized as a terrorist organization by Turkey,
the
US and the EU.
05.04.2007
Today’s Zaman Ýstanbul
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/state/17031036.htm
Apr. 05, 2007
‘American Taliban’ asks for mercy
Lawyers for Lindh ask Bush to reduce 20-year sentence
SAN FRANCISCO - Lawyers for John Walker Lindh, the Marin County native
who
became known as ‘’The American Taliban’’ when he was seized with Afghan
soldiers after a prison uprising in November 2001, asked President Bush
on
Wednesday to commute or reduce Lindh’s 20-year sentence.
Attorney James Brosnahan, joining Lindh’s parents at a San Francisco
news
conference, cited a nine-month sentence a U.S. military tribunal handed
down
Friday to Australian David Hicks, a confessed al-Qaida trainee
convicted of
supporting terrorism by readying to fight Americans in Afghanistan in
2001.
Lindh, a 26-year-old convert to Islam, has 13 years left on a sentence
he
received in July 2002, when he pleaded guilty in a federal court in
Alexandria, Va., to aiding and carrying weapons for the Taliban in a
deal
with prosecutors, who dropped terror charges.
‘’It’s quite a difference,’’ his mother, Marilyn Walker, said Wednesday
of
the sentences in the two cases. Reading a prepared statement, she said,
‘’John did not go to Afghanistan to fight against America. He never
fought
against America. John has spoken out strongly against terrorism in any
form.’’
A White House spokesman referred calls Wednesday to the U.S. Justice
Department, which in a written statement said only that a previous
request
to commute Lindh’s sentence ‘’remains pending.’’ Brosnahan said he had
twice
made the request but had never received a response.
‘’If Mr. Lindh wishes to provide additional facts and information
pertaining
to his application,’’ the Justice Department statement said, ‘’we are
happy
to take these facts under consideration.’’
continued..........
Pelosi Delivered Wrong Message to Assad, Israel Says
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200704/INT20070405a.html
Pelosi Delivered Wrong Message to Assad, Israel Says
By Julie Stahl
CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief
April 05, 2007
Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered the
wrong message to Syrian President Bashar Assad from Israel, Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert’s office said on Wednesday evening.
Pelosi, who is heading a bi-partisan fact-finding tour of the Middle
East, met with Assad on Wednesday, a move that angered the Bush
administration. Earlier in the week, Pelosi — the most senior U.S. official to
visit Syria in years — visited Israel and met with Olmert.
At a press conference following the meeting between Pelosi and Assad in
Damascus, Pelosi indicated that she had delivered a message that Israel
was ready to engage in peace talks.
“We were very pleased with the reassurances we received from the
president [Assad] that he was ready to resume the peace process. He was ready
to engage in negotiations for peace with Israel,” Pelosi said.
The meeting with Assad “enabled us to communicate a message from Prime
Minister Olmert that Israel was ready to engage in peace talks as
well,” she said.
But the prime minister’s office denied that Olmert had asked her to
communicate such a message in a “clarification” statement issued on
Wednesday evening.
During the meeting between Pelosi and Olmert, the prime minister said
that a number of members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives
had visited Damascus recently and had “received the impression that
despite the declarations of Bashar Assad, there is no change in the
position of his country regarding a possible peace process with Israel.”
Since the end of the summer war between Israel and Hizballah in
Lebanon, Syria has made a number of overtures toward Israel, but Israel has
rejected them, saying that Syria isn’t serious about making peace. The
last official peace talks between the two countries were in early 2000.
Olmert emphasized that although Israel is interested in peace with
Syria, “that country continues to be part of the axis of evil and a force
that encourages terror in the entire Middle East,” the clarification
statement said.
“In order to conduct serious and genuine peace negotiations, Syria must
cease its support of terror, cease its sponsoring of the Hamas and
Islamic Jihad organizations, refrain from providing weapons to Hizballah
and bringing about the destabilizing of Lebanon, cease its support of
terror in Iraq, and relinquish the strategic ties it is building with the
extremist regime in Iran,” it said.
Whether or not Syria implements these measures will determine if Syria
is sincere about making genuine peace with Israel, Olmert said.
The communication with Pelosi did not contain any change in Israeli
policy, the statement said.
The Israeli daily Ha’aretz quoted unnamed sources in the prime
minister’s office as saying that Pelosi had taken “part of the things that were
said in the meeting, and used what suited her.”
Earlier in the week, Olmert’s spokeswoman, Miri Eisen, said by
telephone that Olmert had told Pelosi that he didn’t think Assad deserved all
the attention he was getting.
Nevertheless, when Pelosi offered to deliver a message, according to
Eisen, Olmert said that the message was “don’t prepare for war and
renounce terrorism” and maybe there can be negotiations.
Israeli government minister Ze’ev Boim said he was skeptical about
Syria’s intentions toward peace. Words come cheap, he said in a radio
interview. Syria must back its words up with actions, he added.
Former Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom was quoted by the radio
as saying that he was concerned about the effects of Pelosi’s visit to
Syria. The trip might encourage European states to drop their isolation
of Syria.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem called for dialogue between Syria
and Washington.
Pelosi also drew fire from Washington for saying that the “the road to
Damascus is a road to peace.”
Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the Bush’s national security advisor,
said that that road unfortunately “is lined with the victims of Hamas and
Hizballah, the victims of terrorists who cross from Syria into Iraq.”
Johndroe called the trip “counterproductive.”
President Bush, whose administration is trying to isolate Syria, said
that meeting with Assad delivered “mixed messages” since it is a
terror-sponsoring regime.
‘I was in a Zimbabwe death squad’
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=303901&area=/insight/insight__africa/
‘I was in a Zimbabwe death squad’
John Grobler | Windhoek, Namibia
05 April 2007 07:43
Working closely with the Central Intelligence Organisation’s (CIO)
directorate of counter-intelligence, Zanu-PF has been setting up secret
death squads comprising members of the National Youth Service training
programme.
The squads petrol bomb political opponents’ homes, commit acts of
sabotage and torture opponents to President Robert Mugabe’s regime, a former
member of one such death squad said this week.
John Gweru (22)*, who joined the National Youth Service in late 2005
out of desperation, related graphic and often stomach-turning details of
secret prisons and torture camps, systematic rapes at the Bindura farm
training camp and secret jails across the country.
In a voluntary written statement to the Mail & Guardian running to more
than 50 pages and several hours of videotaped evidence given to human
rights activists, Gweru painted a picture of a regime that has descended
to thuggish depravity in its attempt to hang on to power.
Gweru fled Zimbabwe early this year after he could no longer stomach
“the work” and eventually found his way to Namibia, where he took shelter
with other Zimbabweans in the small coastal town of Lüderitz.
But a week ago, someone, who he later realised was his former handler
at the CIO, began following and photographing him. Gweru realised his
life was at risk when the shack he was living in was broken into and a
satchel containing evidence of the CIO’s spying activities on Western
ambassadors and Zimbabwean ministers was stolen.
Gweru had taken the documents from Lands and Security Minister Didymus
Mutasa’s house because he wanted evidence of the intelligence
organisation’s activity. These included reports on spying activities at the
British Council and the United States embassy in Harare, he said.
He then contacted the M&G to tell his story because, “if I die, I want
people to know why I died”, said the quietly spoken former “green
bomber” — as the National Youth Service volunteers are known.
In the course of several exhaustive interviews, Gweru related how he
and three other individuals, whose identity the M&G knows but cannot
divulge, who were selected for their mental and physical prowess during
initial para-military training, came to be known as the “Charlie four”
unit. There are also other such units, but Charlie four was considered to
be the best, Gweru said.
Charlie four, which reported to senior Zanu-PF and CIO officials in
Harare, eventually took its orders from a man named Joshua Sibanda, who,
Gweru said, appeared to be the head of the CIO’s directorate of
counter-intelligence operations.
Sibanda — who always wore a CIO ID card identifying him as Phillip
Chitiyo — also contacted the M&G as well as human rights workers in
Namibia this week, and offered to “make a deal on that young man”.
In several telephonic conversations, in which Sibanda identified
himself by his real name and made it clear that he had access to Namibian
cellphone records, he threatened that “he [Gweru] will not get away”.
Namibian security officials contacted for comment expressed serious
alarm at Sibanda’s activities and promised to investigate what they termed
“a totally illegal foreign operation”.
Throughout their training, which included political indoctrination,
weapons handling, martial arts and torture techniques, it was always
impressed upon members of the squads that they were to support the
presidential campaign of Emmerson Mnangagwa and not vice-president Joyce Mujuru,
who was considered a political liability by the CIO, Gweru said.
In a period of training over six months — and interspersed with
“technical assignments”, which included guarding and spying on certain
government ministers’ homes in Harare —Gweru said he had been involved in
sabotaging the Harare-Bulawayo railway line, breaking up an MDC rally at
which opposition activist Trudi Stevenson’s arm was broken, and
petrol-bombing certain offices and homes.
Each “assignment” was effectively seen as a test of the group’s loyalty
and reliability, and the assignments became increasingly violent as
time went on.
Namibian human rights activists who heard Gweru’s testimony said the
details he has provided are consistent with reports they have about
torture, violence and the existence of secret prisons in Zimbabwe. Gweru,
who was moved out of Namibia to an unknown European destination by human
rights workers this week, continues to fear for his life, and for the
lives of his remaining relatives in Zimbabwe.
‘Beating where it hurts’
Throughout training it was made clear to the Youth Service members that
the worst possible fate awaited anyone who dared run away. They were
shown several secret jails in which people who had defied the Mugabe
regime were being held, Gweru said.
On their first visit to Zanu-PF headquarters in Harare in the middle of
last year, a certain Tawanda took them down to the B2 section, a former
parking garage underneath the building. There, Tawanda used a remote
control to open a hidden door to a section of prison cells, Gweru said.
Among the prisoners were two white men, one of whom told Gweru that he
had been abducted and accused of being a CIA spy. Tawanda later told the
group that the people were all “political prisoners”.
The same day, they were taken to the Central Intelligence Organisation
(CIO) headquarter’s top floor where they were shown a cell containing
six people in leg chains and manacles and covered in blood. They were
told not to talk to them, Gweru said.
A day later at Bindura farm, their instructors identified only as Muza,
Mazhombwe and Mkarati arrived in two vehicles, one of which was a
prison van with three men dressed in uniforms.
They were told that the men were long-term prisoners “who would not be
missed by anyone” and on whom they were to try their newly acquired
torture techniques: “electronically, randomly and beating where it hurts”.
When the first prisoner was manacled to a special table, they were told
to beat him under the feet. When Gweru’s instructor did not find him
enthusiastic enough for his instructors’ liking, he was “lashed” with a
rubber baton and given gin to drink and marijuana to smoke.
He and his colleagues then proceeded to beat the prisoners’s feet until
they turned black and their victim defecated before passing out. Gweru
wept as he recalled how the second man was tortured with an electronic
device that looked like an “old-fashioned amplifier” until he also
defecated and passed out.
For the third man, Mkarati took out a first-aid box that contained
packaging tape, a hammer, a screw-driver and a pair of pliers, which
Mkarati then used to rip pieces of the victim’s ear off after taping up his
mouth. Mazhombwe then took over and used the pliers to rip out one of
the victim’s testicles.
Months later, the group was driven to a farm in the Goromonzi area,
guarded by the Zimbabwean Defence Force. They were taken to a basement
where there were about 20 people in leg chains, all showing signs of
severe torture.
These people, they were told, were also “political prisoners” who had
attempted to assassinate President Robert Mugabe. Some were as young as
18 to 22 years, Gweru said.
Early on in his training, it was made clear to Gweru that once he were
part of the National Youth Service system, there was no getting out. At
one stage, he and four of his friends were forced to gang-rape a female
Youth Service volunteer as “punishment” for making an illegal phone
call, and he and his friend Gideon decided to run away.
Female volunteers, who numbered between 50 and 60 of the 250 youths at
Bindura Farm, were regularly raped, Gweru said. Some of the male youths
would boast about “fixing” this or that girl, and many sported bite
marks on their shoulders, he said.
At night, he could hear screams coming from the adjacent female dorms,
and their instructors regularly used the women as sex slaves.
No one was allowed to leave — when he and Gideon were caught trying to
escape, they were locked up. The next day they were publicly flogged by
Mazhombwe. Because Mazhombwe liked him, Gweru was not beaten so badly.
Gweru had also told his “instructors” that he just wanted to get out of
the camp for a bit but was going to return before the 5am whistle.
His friend Gideon, however, was defiant: he was fed up with being
“treated like a dog” and insisted that he would leave. Drunk, instructors
beat Gideon so savagely that some of the women who were forced to watch
started crying.
Two days later, when he was released, Gweru found out that Gideon had
died from the beating. The cook who brought him sadza and cold cabbage
told him: “Let that be a lesson to you.”
Assignments
The most testing assignment from Sibanda, Gweru’s Central Intelligence
Organisation (CIO) handler, came in October last year.
Sibanda told Gweru and his three colleagues to deliver a package to
Lake Kariba. Once there, they were to locate a spot close the Zambian
border where they would find a speedboat. Sibanda provided them with cash
and the keys to a silver Honda, which had a large trunk wedged in the
back. Sibanda told them that they would find the instructions on what to
do with the trunk in the back of the car.
On the way to Lake Kariba, they realised that there was someone in the
trunk. Once they had arrived at the lake they found the speedboat with
a bag of cement inside.
They realised they were being watched by someone wearing camouflage.
Inside the trunk was a man whose arms had been sliced and whose
wrist-bones were exposed from being handcuffed. The man spoke with difficulty as
his lacerated tongue bled profusely when he appealed to them: “Please
help me, my sons.”
Knowing that they were being observed, they continued the operation,
taking the boat to a point about 50m into the lake, Gweru said.
At this point they heard a vehicle starting and could see a green Jeep
Cherokee, as used by the Zimbabwean Defence Force speeding off. They
subsequently dumped the trunk into the lake.
A few months later Gweru had had enough. In early January he fled via
Botswana “as far away as I could” before ending up in the remote
southern Namibian coastal town of Lüderitz.
Checking the story
Fully aware of the risk that the Mail & Guardian could be set up, the
paper’s Namibian correspondent, John Grobler, went to unusual lengths to
check the credibility of “John Gweru”.
Gweru phoned Grobler on March 28 from Lüderitz to say he had fled from
Zimbabwe and feared for his life. Insisting a meeting could not wait,
he travelled to Windhoek and met Grobler on March 30.
Grobler then took him through a four-stage verification process,
designed to check his account for inconsistencies and improbabilities,
comprising:
* A two-and-a-half-hour debriefing by Grobler alone on March 30;
* A three-hour debriefing in the presence of the executive director
of Namibia’s National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), Phil ya
Nangoloh;
* A 55-page written statement by Gweru, compiled without
assistance;
* A four-and-a-half-hour videotaped interview at the NSHR’s
Windhoek headquarters on April 2, in the presence of Zimbabwean journalist
Prince Chipanda.
There were no inconsistencies between the accounts, and Grobler, ya
Nangoloh and Chipanda all believe Gweru has told the truth. The M&G would
generally not publish single-source stories, but we believe we have
gone as far as possible to verify Gweru’s account. It concurs with
evidence coming out of Zimbabwe from numerous sources.
Grobler said he had been further convinced by Gweru’s “palpable fear”
at any mention of his handler, Sibanda, and his visible anguish while
recounting his experiences.
The M&G knows Gweru’s real name, and has a copy of his passport.
* Not his real name
U.S.-based journalist charged with sedition in Gambia
http://www.cpj.org/news/2007/africa/gambia04apr07na.html
U.S.-based journalist charged with sedition in Gambia
New York, April 4, 2007—A court in the capital Banjul today handed
down criminal charges to a U.S.-based journalist, detained since last
week by state intelligence agents, and released her on bail in
connection with critical commentary of President Yahya Jammeh, according to
local journalists.
Political commentator Fatou Jaw Manneh of the U.S.-based opposition
news Web site All-Gambian.net was charged with three counts of sedition
under Gambia’s Criminal Code, defense lawyer Lamin Jobateh told CPJ.
Each count carries a prison term of two years, a fine, or both, he said.
She was released on bail of 25,000 dalasis (US$950), but was ordered to
surrender her travel documents, he said. The trial was remanded to
April 11.
The charges were linked to a June 2004 interview given to the
now-defunct private bi-weekly The Independent in which Manneh severely
criticized Jammeh and his government, according to CPJ research. “Jammeh is
tearing our beloved country in shreds...He is a bundle of
terror...Gambians are desperately in need of an alternative to this egoistic frosty
imam...,” she was quoted as saying. The interview was later published
on several Web sites, including All-Gambian.net.
“Fatou Jaw Manneh’s week-long detention without charge violated her
basic due process rights under Gambian laws. Now these charges
criminalize a commentator for expressing her views on issues of public
interest,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. “We call on the authorities
to drop these charges.”
The ruling came two days after a group of local journalists, led by
award-winning President of the Gambia Press Union Madi Ceesay, visited
the offices of Gambia’s National Intelligence Agency (NIA) where Manneh
was being held, according to news reports and local journalists. The
NIA is under direct command of the President.
Manneh was returning to the Gambia to attend the funeral of her
father when she was arrested at the airport, local journalists told CPJ.
I must switch to “all” instead of pings, for posts, so am asking that you check the thread, will in the future ping to only super related posts.
Serbs dig up their dead in Kosovo
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L29715295.htm
FEATURE - Serbs dig up their dead in Kosovo
29 Mar 2007 14:09:55 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Matt Robinson
PEC, Serbia, March 29 (Reuters) - The last time the dead left Kosovo in
any great number it was 1999.
They were ethnic Albanians, hundreds of them, stuffed into freezer
trucks and driven north by Serbian police to be bulldozed into pits or
tipped into the Danube river.
Now, as Kosovo Albanians draw closer to independence from Serbia, Serbs
are taking their own dead, too.
Twelve were exhumed from the City Cemetery in this western Kosovo town
last year and driven across the boundary between the U.N.-run province
and Serbia proper. Three have been moved from the Serbian Orthodox
cemetery in the capital Pristina this year.
Milorad, Milivoje and Savo Besovic are the first from Pec in 2007. It
is a rate not seen since the end of the 1998-99 war and the rapid
departure of thousands of Serb refugees.
Police watched as gravedigger Zoran Radosavljevic, masked and wearing
white overalls, lowered himself into the burial tomb on Thursday morning
and wrenched out the first white bag.
It seemed surprisingly light, and flopped into a coffin balanced on the
fresh mound of earth.
“People want their dead close by,” he said later by phone as he drove
the bodies into Serbia. “Sometimes the graves have been desecrated and
people simply lose all trace.”
Another two exhumations were planned for next week.
Like others in Kosovo, the town of Pec at the foot of the mountainous
Albanian border was emptied of Serbs in 1999, as Belgrade pulled its
forces from the southern Serbian province.
Ten thousand Albanians died and almost one million fled Serbia’s
1998-99 war with separatist guerrillas, a crackdown that drew NATO into its
first “humanitarian” air war to wrest control of the territory from late
strongman Slobodan Milosevic.
WESTERN POLITICS
Around half Kosovo’s prewar Serb population fled a wave of revenge
attacks. Some 100,000 remain, looking to the future with uncertainty as the
Western powers behind the 1999 bombing campaign push to give Kosovo
independence.
The U.N. Security Council is expected to sit next week to begin
debating an independence plan drafted by former Finnish president Martti
Ahtisaari, reportedly on April 3.
Two relatives, Dragica and Dusanka, watched in silence, dressed head to
toe in black. An Albanian gravedigger covered his face and told the
camera to turn away, worried he might be seen digging a Serb grave in an
area known for its hardliners.
Asked why the need to move the dead now, Dusanka replied:
“Because on the third, the Security Council will sit, and the politics
of the West is such that whatever they say, that’s how it will be. They
won’t ask you or me.
Dusanka, 60, left Kosovo 38 years ago, part of a decades-long Serb
exodus from the province that fueled Milosevic’s campaign in the 1990s to
reassert control over land steeped in religious and historical
significance for Serbs.
The United Nations has had little success in encouraging Serbs to
return, despite statistics that suggest security is vastly improved. U.N.
agencies and the 16,500-strong NATO peace force are braced for a fresh
exodus if the U.N. Security Council avoids a Russian veto and votes for
independence by the summer.
“Once we all lived here,” said Dusanka. “Then the first one left, and
the rest followed, like sheep.”
Moroccan Columnist Criticizes Islamists Who Denounce Terrorism Only Against Muslims
Special Dispatch-North African Reformist Thinkers Project
April 6, 2007
No. 1534
Moroccan Columnist Criticizes Islamists Who Denounce Terrorism Against
Muslims
But Not All Terrorist Acts
To view this Special Dispatch in HTML, visit:
http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD153407 .
In an opinion piece in the Moroccan daily Aujourd’hui Le Maroc,
columnist Omar
Dahbi criticizes Islamists who condemn terror attacks against Muslims,
but not
terrorism as such.
The following are excerpts:(1)
Are They Condemning the Act Itself or the Targeting of Muslims?
“...When an Islamist leader or Imam condemn ‘the terrorist act that
targets
the lives of Muslims,’ this poses a real problem. What are they
condemning,
the act itself or the fact that it targeted Muslims? When they invoke
hadiths
that attest to the sanctity of ‘Muslim blood’ in their arguments, does
this
not legitimize, at the same time, the killing of ‘infidels’?
“When one salutes, in certain media venues, the courage and heroism of
Hamas
suicide bombers while accusing those who have chosen the path of peace
and
dialogue of ‘betraying the Ummah and Islam,’ does not one launch a
thinly
disguised appeal to young Moroccans to go down the same path?
“The fact that the suicide bomber at Sidi Moumen, Abdelfettah Raydi,
wandered
the streets of Casablanca for four days strapped with an explosives
belt
looking for a place to blow himself up – does this not say something to
those
who present the suicide bombers of Hamas as heroes?”
“What is the Difference Between Killing Civilians in Casablanca and
[Killing
Civilians] in Tel Aviv?”
“What is the difference between the act of killing civilians in
Casablanca and
[the act of killing civilians] in Tel Aviv? To applaud those who
explode
themselves on a bus in Haifa is a way of legitimizing terrorism.
“To be against terrorism means to denounce any harm to human life as
such, and
to condemn the ambiguity of the discourse of hatred and intolerance.
Glorifying acts of carnage elsewhere and denouncing them in one’s own
home is
an act of hypocrisy that should no longer be tolerated.”
Endnote:
(1) Aujourd’hui Le Maroc (Morocco), March 23, 2007.
*********************
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an independent,
non-profit
organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle East.
Iran to see Iranians held by U.S. in Iraq
http://www.uruknet.info?p=31872
Iran to see Iranians held by U.S. in Iraq
Reuters
TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian representative is to be allowed to meet
five Iranians who have been held in Iraq by U.S. forces since January,
Iran’s official IRNA news agency said on Wednesday.
The United States says the five are linked to Iran’s hardline
Revolutionary Guards and says they were providing support to militants in Iraq.
Tehran denies the charge and says the men are diplomats.
Iraq said it had handed a request for such a meeting to the U.S.
embassy about two weeks ago. The U.S. military said it was checking the
report.
“With the continuous efforts of Iran’s embassy in Iraq, the cooperation
of the Iraqi officials and the help of the U.N. representative, Iran’s
representative is supposed to meet our country’s diplomats,” a
“reliable source” was quoted by IRNA as saying.
Some analysts say the Revolutionary Guards who seized 15 British
sailors and marines on March 23 in the northern Gulf may have been acting
partly to send a message that Iran would not remain idle while its
citizens were detained in Iraq.
Iranian officials dismiss any link between the Britons and the five
Iranians in Iraq. Britain and the United States have said they would not
get involved in negotiations over any swaps.
“I have passed that request (for the Iranians to see the detainees) to
the U.S. embassy around two weeks ago and said that it will be a sign
of good will if it happens,” Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari
said.
IRNA quoted the source as saying the “illegal arrest has political
roots”.
“The American forces’ refusal in the past two months to (allow) the
meeting of Iran’s representative and the Islamic Republic of Iran’s
consulate with the Iranian diplomats is against international treaties,” the
source added.
Lou Fintor, a spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, said he was
unable to make any direct comment on the report but repeated that the
Iraqi government has asked the American military to “expedite our
investigation into the arrests”.
The report by IRNA follows the release on Tuesday of Iranian diplomat,
Jalal Sharafi, who was captured by gunmen in the Iraqi capital in
February. He was held for two months.
Iran blamed the U.S. military for Sharafi’s kidnapping but U.S.
officials denied any involvement. Zebari said he did not know who held
Sharafi.
(Additional reporting by Ross Colvin in Baghdad)
Reuters (IDS)
:: Article nr. 31872 sent on 04-apr-2007 12:45 ECT
Russian expert says Iran can make nuclear weapons
http://www.uruknet.info?p=31870
Russian expert says Iran can make nuclear weapons
Guy Faulconbridge, Reuters
April 3, 2007
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia’s leading nuclear scientist said on Monday
that it was just a question of time before Iran developed a nuclear
weapon and it should be stopped.
The Islamic republic, facing a showdown with the United States over its
nuclear ambitions, clearly has the know-how to make atomic weapons,
said Yevgeny Velikhov, a leading physicist and close associate of Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
“From a scientific point of view of course they could create nuclear
weapons,” Velikhov, president of Russia’s Kurchatov Institute, told
reporters. “When they could do it is a more difficult question.”
“If you remember, U.S. scientists expected the Soviet Union would only
be able to create a nuclear bomb by around 1954 at the earliest,” he
said.
“They were rather surprised when we created one in 1949,” he said with
a chuckle. Velikhov trained under Igor Kurchatov, the leader of the
Soviet atomic bomb project.
The United States and European Union powers suspect Iran wants to build
nuclear arms while Tehran says its nuclear fuel program is meant only
for civilian power generation.
“If they have decided to create nuclear weapons, then they could create
them,” said Velikhov, who was part of Putin’s 2004 re-election campaign
team.
“It is important that Iran does not get nuclear weapons. If Iran gets
nuclear weapons it will be very negative for the security of the whole
world.”
ENRICHING URANIUM
Western powers persuaded the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions
on Iran over its refusal to stop enriching uranium in centrifuge
machines. The program remains at the research stage but Iran aims to ramp it
up to “industrial-scale” enrichment later this year.
Russian officials have said it would take Iran years to assemble
nuclear warheads and that Tehran has a right to develop civilian nuclear
power.
But analysts say Moscow has toughened its policy toward Iran —
including a delay to the Bushehr nuclear power station which Russia is helping
build — over concerns about Tehran’s nuclear program and worries about
a war in the Gulf.
Most diplomats and nuclear experts believe Iran remains a few years
away from bomb capacity as it has yet to overcome technical problems such
as older centrifuges prone to cracking and overheating, and impurities
in uranium feedstock.
They cannot rule out Iran might have made more progress at secret
military facilities, but there is no intelligence pointing to clandestine
activity at this time.
A Vienna-based diplomat familiar with International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) monitoring said Iran had already grasped enrichment technology
so Western powers should focus on trying to limit the program rather
than shut it down.
“In fact, however, they already have enrichment technology. To continue
to insist on zero centrifuges is doomed to failure and bound to drive
Iran to further reduce the IAEA’s access.”
Velikhov, who devoted his life to nuclear technology, said the world’s
nuclear powers should reject nuclear weapons.
“I consider biological, chemical and nuclear arms should be forbidden
and that the holding and development of nuclear weapons should be
considered a crime against humanity.
“I think all states should reject nuclear weapons, including the U.S.
and Russia,” he said.
(Additional reporting by Mark Heinrich in Vienna)
:: Article nr. 31870 sent on 04-apr-2007 12:26 ECT
Germany boosts Kosovo troops amid instability fears
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02234114.htm
Germany boosts Kosovo troops amid instability fears
02 Apr 2007 09:18:18 GMT
Source: Reuters
BERLIN, April 2 (Reuters) - Germany has sent an additional 550 troops
to Kosovo amid fears of an increase in violence as negotiations on the
province’s status reach a critical stage, Defence Minister Franz Josef
Jung told a newspaper.
“We are worried that the situation could become more dangerous during
the talks on Kosovo’s political future,” Jung told the Monday edition of
German daily Die Welt.
“Because of this, we have sent an additional ORF (Operation Reserve
Force) battalion to Kosovo.”
A spokesman for the ministry said the roughly 550-strong deployment
brought Germany’s total contingent in Kosovo to 2,923 troops. He said the
new battalion, which arrived in mid-March, was slated to stay in the
province until the end of April, but could remain longer if the situation
on the ground warranted it.
The southern Serbian province has been run by the United Nations since
1999, when NATO bombs drove out Serb forces accused of atrocities in a
two-year war with ethnic Albanian separatist guerrillas.
The U.N. Security Council will soon begin debating a proposal by former
Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari that would give the territory
independence from Serbia, supervised by the European Union and secured by
NATO.
The United States, the EU and NATO all support the proposal, but Russia
has backed its Balkan ally Serbia in opposing it.
Western powers fear a revolt by the 90-percent ethnic Albanian majority
in Kosovo if the U.N. Security Council fails to endorse the plan.
Rights and wrongs of Asia’s ‘war on terror’
http://atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/ID06Ae01.html
Apr 6, 2007
Rights and wrongs of Asia’s ‘war on terror’
By Michael Vatikiotis
SINGAPORE - If there is one lesson to be learned from the “war against
terror” as it has been waged in Southeast Asia, it is that good
intelligence and careful police work rather than brute military force are the
best counter-terrorism strategy. And some of the best police work has
been conducted in Indonesia, where many so-called terror experts once
believed the government would be least effective in countering the
terrorist threat.
The salutary lesson in all this should have been learned long ago. Back
in the 1950s, when the departing colonial powers faced
growing communist insurgencies, the British government adopted a blend
of military and police action in tackling the Malayan Communist Party,
which were mostly conducted within a legal framework.
In fact, in his memoirs published in 2003, former Malayan Communist
Party leader Chin Peng said that the British strategy of fortifying
villages and enforcing strict curfews effectively cut off food supplies and
mass support from the guerrillas. By contrast, the French and
subsequently the US government saw overwhelming military force as the key to
defeating the communist forces of North Vietnam. The communists were
defeated in Malaya and won in Vietnam.
Even in Iraq, where the US military is struggling to prove that a surge
of extra troops is helping to curb daily death and destruction on the
streets of Baghdad, it has been a small and virtually anonymous British
Army unit known as the Joint Support Group (JSG) that has proved to be
one of the most effective weapons in the fight against terror. Drawing
on lessons learned in Northern Ireland, JSG members have turned
terrorists into coalition spies supplying intelligence that has saved lives.
It is therefore somewhat alarming to see Indonesia’s police-led effort
played down at the expense of an over-hyped US military-backed effort
in the southern Philippines. Indonesia has largely contained Jemaah
Islamiyah (JI) and demonstrably reduced its operational capacity, and yet
the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), despite some recent
successes, have been unable to eliminate the Abu Sayyaf group, which according
to the United States has links to both JI and al-Qaeda.
After more than eight months of fighting involving 10,000 troops backed
by US combat advisers, the Philippine military claims to have killed
just 70 Abu Sayyaf militants and two top leaders out of an estimated
force of 400. Yet in the process, a 10-year-old peace agreement with the
Moro National Liberation Front has come under strain and dozens, if not
hundreds, of civilians have died in the crossfire while thousands have
been displaced.
Careful intelligence
In Indonesia, meanwhile, careful intelligence has helped pinpoint
bomb-making centers in remote corners of Java and uncovered explosives and
equipment that could have been used in terrorist attacks. Many of those
groomed by JI’s alleged al-Qaeda-trained operatives to carry out these
attacks have been flushed out and captured or killed. Importantly,
Indonesia has tried wherever possible to use legal methods of interdiction,
bringing suspects into custody with the intention of putting them on
trial, and using lethal force only if unavoidable.
Given the palpable success of the civilian approach to countering
terror, it is perhaps not surprising that AFP chief General Hermogenes
Esperon has announced a shift in strategy. He told the media early this week
that the army will start using bulldozers and tractors rather than
tanks to help win the support of locals on Jolo Island - stronghold of the
Abu Sayyaf group.
“We’ll be doing fewer combat operations, but we’re not cutting back on
the number of troops because we would need them for engineering,
medical and humanitarian activities,” Esperon said.
The United States, too, appears to have learned some belated lessons in
the southern Philippines, where a century earlier US forces struggled
in the same jungle-covered islands to eradicate stubborn resistance to
US colonial rule. Barred from taking part in combat operations under an
agreement with Manila, Washington has deployed sophisticated
surveillance gear to enhance intelligence-gathering capacity and is spending US$4
million a year on relief and development in the area.
Even with this shift in tactics, residents of Jolo Island, the main
focus of operations against Abu Sayyaf, remain deeply suspicious of the US
presence, which suggests that the best strategy of all would be for
foreign troops to help train local forces in more sophisticated
counterinsurgency operations, and then leave.
This is again where Indonesia has quietly pulled ahead. Close
cooperation with Australian Federal Police and quiet training conducted by US
Special Forces have boosted intelligence-gathering and detective work and
equipped Indonesia with a specialized police paramilitary force known
as Detachment 88, which has scored significant successes in cornering JI
terrorists on the run.
Indonesia’s approach has won plaudits in the region and beyond for
reminding us that the forces of civilian law and order can be effective
weapons against terrorists. The military strategy in the Philippines has
by contrast resulted in civilian casualties and unsettled an area
already prone to insurrection and violence.
In neither country has the terrorist threat been entirely eradicated.
But it would be a mistake for Washington to assume that the publicity it
is now getting for its swashbuckling operations against Abu Sayyaf in
Jolo should pave the way for wider US military operations against terror
groups in the region.
Michael Vatikiotis is the regional representative of the Center for
Humanitarian Dialogue based in Singapore.
Three Yale Students Arrested for Burning American Flag
*Thursday , April 05, 2007*
[image: FC1]
NEW HAVEN, Conn. —
Three *Yale University*
students
were arrested and charged with arson and other offenses after they
allegedly
set fire to an *American flag* javascript:siteSearch(’American
flag’);
hanging from the porch of a New Haven neighborhood home.
The three were arrested early Tuesday after officers on patrol spotted
the
burning flag and tore it from the pole where it was mounted to the
house on
Chapel Street, police said.
Said Hyder Akbar, 23, Nikolaos Angelopoulos, 19, and Farhad Anklesaria,
also
19, were arrested.
Marc Suraci, 37, owner of the two-story house on Chapel Street where
the
flag was burned, said he always puts flags out in front of his rental
properties and said several of his relatives fought in American wars to
defend the constitutional right to burn the flag as a protest.
“It makes me sick to my stomach to think that someone would burn the
American flag,” Suraci, who believes flag burning should be illegal,
told
the New Haven Register
http://www.nhregister.com/
“But it gets to
another
level when it is somebody else’s flag on their own personal property.”
Freshmen Angelopoulos and Anklesaria are both foreign citizens;
Anklesaria
is British and Angelopoulos is Greek. Akbar, a senior, was born in
Pakistan,
according to police, but is a U.S. citizen. Both Anklesaria and
Angelopoulos
had to turn over their passports.
Akbar worked as an informal translator for U.S. forces during the
invasion
of Afghanistan and later published a memoir, “Come Back to
Afghanistan,”
based on his experiences there, the Yale Daily News reported Wednesday.
“He’s an incredibly articulate, mature, sweet, smart guy,” said Gillian
Blake, Akbar’s editor. “It’s an amazing book.”
Akbar — whose father was a spokesman for the Afghan president and
served as
governor — also testified at the trial of *David
Passaro*javascript:siteSearch(’David Passaro’)
a former CIA contractor charged in the death of an Afghan citizen in
U.S.
custody.
Akbar said in 2004 he walked out of the interrogation in disgust after
the
contractor began threatening the prisoner, but that he said he saw no
abuse.
He testified that Passaro was “full of rage” during the interrogation.
Passaro, a former Hartford police officer, was the first American
civilian
charged with mistreating a detainee during the wars prompted by the
Sept. 11
attacks.
He was sentenced in February to nearly 8 1/2 years in prison for
beating a
man in Afghanistan who later died.
At their arraignment in Superior Court a few hours after their arrests
Tuesday, bond was kept at $25,000 for Angelopoulos and Akbar, but was
reduced to $15,000 for Anklesaria.
The students appeared dazed at their arraignment Tuesday morning when
they
entered Superior Court in leg irons and handcuffs, reported The New
Haven
Register. They remained jailed Tuesday night but were later released on
bond.
None have criminal records, Deputy Assistant Public Defender Sanford
Bruce
Wednesday.
“All three of these gentlemen are clearly happy to be in the United
States
and happy to be attending Yale,” Bruce said.
He declined to discuss a possible motive for the alleged incident, but
he
challenged the arson charge.
The three are being charged with two counts of reckless endangerment,
breach
of peace, criminal mischief in the third-degree, arson in the
second-degree,
conspiracy for arson, conspiracy for breach of peace, conspiracy for
mischief and conspiracy for reckless endangerment. They were not
charged
with flag burning.
Some charges were added by Assistant State’s Attorney Karen Roberg
after the
three were arrested and charged by New Haven police. She substituted
the
arson charges for reckless burning.
Police said the students had two encounters with officers.
Officers Stephanija Van Wilgen and Diane Gonzalez were responding to an
unrelated call in New Haven at about 3 a.m. and were flagged down by
the
students, who asked for directions.
A short time later, the two officers returned to Chapel Street to see
if the
students had found their way home and spotted the burning flag.
“There was a glow in front of the house which they identified as a flag
mounted on a pole to the house and it was engulfed in flames,” police
spokeswoman Bonnie Posick said.
Van Wilgen pulled down the burning flag to prevent the fire from
spreading,
and Gonzalez tracked down the young men.
“People could have been hurt,” Posick said, noting the flag was
attached to
the house. “They even admitted it was a stupid thing to do.”
The police report says one of the officers woke up the residents on the
first and second floors of the house to tell them about the incident.
The
people living there are not the homeowners, however, and likely are
renters.
The police report does not indicate whether or not alcohol was involved
in
the incident, but the students were not given sobriety tests.
*The Associated Press contributed to this report.*
The Turkmens exiled from their capital
http://www.uruknet.info?p=31869
The Turkmens exiled from their capital
Today’s Zaman
April 4, 2007
Turkmen businessmen have been the silent victims of the war in northern
Iraq. They have become targets in efforts to intimidate the Turkmen
people, in the hope of driving them out of historically and ethnically
mixed Kirkuk.
Turkmen businessman Halil A.’s son I.smail was abducted by an
unidentified group a year ago. His ransom was set at $100,000 and four brand new
cars. It was paid. Hicran Kadr, who is in the import-export business,
experienced a similar misfortune. The Turkmen businessman’s 3-year-old
son was abducted from in front of their home, to be returned to his
parents for $60,000. Imad Ayd?n’s daughter was abducted from her university
campus and released for $50,000. Ali M. S?dd?k, who operates a chain of
bakeries in Kirkuk, also had to pay $40,000 in ransom money to have his
28-year-old son released.
On average 80 to 100 people lose their lives in Iraq everyday.
Incidents like those listed above are just a few examples of abductions in
Kirkuk, northern Iraq — a region deemed to be “safe.” The Kirkuk region is
in the international spotlight as much as for the rich oil reserves in
the area as it is for a referendum on the city’s status with the
Kurdish regional government, scheduled for the end of 2007. The latter issue
is closely tied to crimes that have forced Turkmens to leave the
region. As many as 60 percent of Turkmen businessmen have fled the country as
a result of bad experiences like the ones mentioned above. Syria,
Jordan and Turkey are the most preferred havens because there is no need for
a visa. Syria and Jordan are a first stop for the Turkmens of Kirkuk
who escape to Beirut and Egypt. Turkey, though, has become the second
home of the Turkmens of Kirkuk.
Honor is more important than assets
One of Kirkuk’s richest families, the “S” family owned a construction
equipment factory as well as a grain and flour factory. The company,
owned by a father and his three sons, has experienced many difficulties in
the past year. First one of the brothers was abducted, followed by a
cousin. The family paid a $50,000 ransom for their son and an $80,000
ransom for the cousin. Fears that their daughter could have been abducted
as well forced the family to settle in Turkey. Some went to Mersin,
some to I.stanbul and yet others to Ankara.
The oldest of the siblings, I..S., is 40 and has been living in Ankara
with his five children for the past five months. The businessman, who
is the proud father of four daughters, explained his decision to
relocate to Turkey saying, “A person’s dignity is more important than their
assets; we came here to protect our honor.”
He says he has not been able to find what he was looking for here. He
could not get a working residency permit from the Ministry of Labor and
Social Security. The ambitious businessman, who is on the executive
board of the Kirkuk Businessmen Association, explains that he has been
living in Turkey with a six-month residency permit, making work difficult.
“Turkey must quickly resolve its residency permit problems,” he says.
Another Turkmen family that has fled the country is the Ensar family,
who came to Ankara 10 days ago. In addition to be being a dentist,
father Ahmet Ensar was a prominent businessman in Kirkuk. He speaks about
the threats he has received over the past year, adding that even his
office was looted. The greatest sorrow, however, occurred when he lost his
older brother in an explosion. After that incident he gathered
everything he had and came to Ankara. He is not sure what he would like to do
at this point. His daughter Esin, who settled in Turkey’s capital four
months before her father did, says she could not leave her home in
Kirkuk for one year for of fears of being abducted.
Others forced to abandon their homeland are former military officers of
Saddam Hussein’s army. The policy for them is somewhat different. Ali
Y., who is 46-years-old, has sought refuge in Turkey and left his wife
and children in the care of his mother-in-law. He is in Ankara now. He
is a graduate of the Tikrit School of Aviation and served his country as
a colonel and a pilot in Saddam’s army for 20 years. He insists he was
“a colonel for his country, not for Saddam.” Following the occupation
his home was frequently raided, followed by never-ending threats. He
barely survived two raids on his home by Kurdish groups. When the threats
became overwhelming, he fled the country across the border to Turkey.
Ali has been staying with the Iraqi Turkmen Association for eight
months. “If I hadn’t come here, they would have killed me.”
According to Ali, in Kirkuk if you are businessperson, wealthy or in
the military, you are an automatic target. You can continue, however, to
live in the city if you can handle the risk of being abducted or
killed. The only way to completely rid yourself of the risk is to leave the
country. “I chose the most difficult path and came to Turkey,” said Ali.
For now, he does not know what he wants to do or where to go from here.
His only desire is for Turkey to truly open its doors and be welcoming.
A military officer during Saddam Hussein’s regime, Raid, also abandoned
his country seven months ago. Kurdish groups threatened him saying,
“Either you cooperate with us or we kill you.” He saw fleeing Kirkuk as
the only solution. His escape was not an easy one. He was abducted,
blindfolded and held hostage by a Kurdish group for two weeks. Somehow he
was able to find his way to Ankara, but his brother who remained in
Kirkuk was shot in the foot after it was discovered that Raid had fled. He
now works as a web-designer for a computer company in Ankara and has
applied to the UN in order to obtain residency in Turkey.
Kemal Beyatl?, the chairman of the Iraqi Turks Culture and Solidarity
Association, asserts that a planned policy is in effect with aims to
change the demographic structure of Kirkuk. While noting that explicit
coercion, which was not present in the past, is being frequently practiced
now, Beyatl? said this recent period targeting Turkmen businessmen is
an extension of this effort to alter the demographics of the city.
Iraqi Turkmen Cooperation and Solidarity Association Ankara branch
Chairman Mahmut Kasapog(lu says businessmen in the region are becoming
poorer while Kurds are becoming wealthier. Kasapog(lu says that the
greatest reason for this is unsupportive Turkish policies, saying: “The Mersin
harbor and the Habur-Silopi crossing point on the Turkey-Iraq border
are practically [northern Iraqi region authority leader] Massoud
Barzani’s property. The main suppliers of many stores are Kurds.” He further
asserts that Turkmen technicians are being threatened and forced to leave
their jobs, and their jobs are then given to Kurds.
Professor Mahir Nakip of Erciyes University, an instructor and chairman
of the Kirkuk Foundation, asserts that attacks directed at businessmen
are efforts to intimidate the populace and abolish the Turkmen capital.
“Turkey raising its voice on the topic of Kirkuk really spurred them
on,” says Nakip, adding that Turkmens have been politically and
financially cornered. However he does not anticipate conflict in Kirkuk. “The
fact that 600,000 Kurds living in the region have access to weapons while
Turkmens don’t have any weapons diminishes the chances of armed
conflict.”
Opening doors to Turkmens
Turkmens who flee Kirkuk and come to this country can only stay in
Turkey for three months on their entry visa. Those who chose to involve
themselves in commerce are more fortunate, this is the only way to acquire
a working residency permit. Unfortunately the permit is not very easy
to obtain and Mahir Nakip believes if this residency permit problem were
resolved, more Turkmens would settle in Turkey.
However Nakip says they still have concerns, bearing in mind that
Turkey has followed different policies at different times regarding Kirkuk
— the inconsistencies in Turkey’s foreign policy worry them. Nakip says
that unless Iraq is stabilized, Turkmens will stay away from the
country. “It appears as though Turkey has opened its doors and is welcoming
Turkmens, however it must raise its voice regarding Kirkuk in 2007.”
Kasapog(lu also says that Turkey’s indecisive policies regarding Kirkuk
are not just issues pertaining to Turkmens in Kirkuk and Mosul, they
also concern Turkey’s southeast. There are currently 5,000 Turkmens
living in Ankara. The only desire of those moving to the Turkish capital is
for Turkey to open its doors to them. However every Turkmen family that
enters Turkey translates into another political and demographic loss in
Kirkuk. Turkmens who have fled their country out of fear are painfully
aware of this: Yet they have no other option.
04.04.2007
NURSEL DI.LEK ANKARA
:: Article nr. 31869 sent on 04-apr-2007 12:13 ECT