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United States Cuts Off Contact with Iran-Report
Reuters
Sunday
25 May 2003.
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EL FIN DE LUCIO GUTIERREZ Por: Heinz Dieterich (REBELION) (Fecha publicación:24/05/2003) |
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Life expectancy has fallen to 33 years in Zambia, making it the lowest in the world.
According to new government figures the average life expectancy fell from 44 to 33 years of age between 1990 and 2000, in a dramatic collapse brought about by rampant poverty and the spread of AIDS.
The average income in Zambia is $380 a year, a 60 percent fall from its 1975 level. This means that the vast majority of Zambians are unable to afford anti-retroviral drugs, hospital treatment, or even an adequate diet.
In 1991 69.7 percent of the population was officially classified as living in poverty. That figure rose to 73.2 percent by 1998.
The Zambian Central Statistical Office does not report an up-to-date figure for poverty. But unemployment has risen sharply, especially in the copper belt and the capital Lusaka. Unemployment has risen from 14 percent to 30 percent in Lusaka, while in the copper belt it has risen from 17 to 25 percent. The current poverty figures must therefore be far higher than those recorded five years ago.
So drastic is the deterioration in economic and social conditions in Zambia that, contrary to all international trends, the rate of urbanisation has declined. The flow of migration has reversed, with unemployed workers returning to the countryside in an attempt to scratch a living on the land.
The fertility rate has also fallen. On average Zambian women are bearing one less child than was the case ten years ago. A fall in fertility is often associated with growing prosperity and improved economic opportunities for women. In Zambia, however, it is the result of the higher rate of HIV/AIDS among women than men. According to Human Rights Watch, girls and young women are five times more likely to be HIV positive than boys and young men, due to sexual abuse by older men.
On average one in five Zambians is HIV positive, but the rate is higher in urban areas. According to Zambian treasury data AIDS is killing 200 people a day. As a result half a million children are already orphaned and the figure is expected to rise to one million by 2010. Half of all Zambian children under 15 have lost one parent. Three quarters of families are caring for at least one orphan.
President Levy Mwanawasa’s response to this human disaster has been to deny that the epidemic has reached such proportions. On a recent visit to India, where he was looking for investment, he told the Times of India that the infection rate was only 15 percent and would soon be down to 2 percent.
The pro-government Zambian press is also downplaying the epidemic and claiming that there are viable alternatives to anti-retroviral drugs. The Times of Zambia is boosting what are euphemistically called “affordable treatment options.” These include eating a balanced diet, avoiding illness and having access to clean water.
On an income of barely a dollar a day, even such minimal treatment is beyond reach. Anti-retroviral drugs have cut the death rate from AIDS in the West and could be used to do the same in Africa, but countries like Zambia are too poor to buy them.
Rather than helping countries like Zambia get access to vital medicines, the international financial institutions and Western governments have caused the African economies to collapse. The result has rightly been called genocide by virus.
Zambia should be one of the richest countries in Africa, with its massive copper and cobalt deposits. But this mineral wealth has been of no benefit to the people of Zambia, because these resources have been developed purely for the profit of the major corporations and banks.
The whole economy has been based entirely on the export of copper. Even after independence in 1963, Zambia remained subordinated to the same economic imperatives that had shaped its existence as a colony of Britain.
With the collapse of copper prices Zambia was forced into the hands of the IMF and World Bank, which today virtually run the economy. In 1999, then President Chiluba privatised the copper mines under an IMF programme. The result was mass unemployment. Striking miners and railway workers were brutally suppressed by military police and soldiers.
Zambia was declared to be a candidate for debt relief under the IMF/World Bank Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) scheme in December 2000. A recent report by Jubilee Research, an NGO campaigning for debt relief, has analysed the effects of this programme on Zambia. It estimates that even with HIPC status Zambia will still have to pay nearly $1.2 billion over the period 2002 to 2009—$150 million each year in debt repayments.
All the assumptions on which Zambia’s repayments are being worked out are overoptimistic, according to the report. The IMF and World Bank assume a growth rate of 4.9 percent between 2000 and 2009 and an increase in government revenue from $554 million to $1,164 million between 1999 and 2010. They suggest that Zambia’s exports will rise from $841.7 million to $2,348 million over the same period.
A World Bank delegation is currently visiting Zambia to determine whether this impoverished country should be awarded HIPC status. The price demanded seems to be that Zambia should press ahead with further privatisations. After the copper mines the choice target is ZESCO, Zambia’s power utility.
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As the International AIDS conference in Barcelona got under way on July 7, UNAIDS released figures showing the epidemic has still not reached its peak. Although three million people died last year of AIDS, Dr Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS told the conference that the epidemic was still only in its early stages.
At the present rate of increase, it is estimated that by 2010 there will be 45 million new HIV infections globally.
Over the next two decades it is estimated that 55 million people will die in Africa as a result of AIDS. Decades of development have been wiped out by the spread of the disease. Life expectancy has fallen to what it was 30 years ago in large parts of southern Africa.
In Botswana 38.5 percent of pregnant women were found to be HIV positive in 1997. By 2000 this had risen to 44.9 percent. Among pregnant women in urban areas, the figure is even higher. More than half of pregnant women in their mid to late twenties test positive in Botswana.
Cameroon and Nigeria, where the disease has been relatively uncommon, have begun to see an increase. In Cameroon the prevalence rate amongst young women 15 to 19 was 11.5 percent and amongst 20-24 year olds was 12.2 percent. It is feared that this is the beginning of a steep rise in cases.
The AIDs epidemic is worsening internationally. India and China have low HIV rates at the moment. In China an estimated 6.6 million people are HIV positive and four million in India. But among drug users and sex workers it is much more common. The African experience shows that the disease spreads from these high risk groups to the rest of the population.
In the Russian Federation cases have doubled every year since 1998. In the central Asian countries of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan the disease is spreading rapidly. Ukraine has the highest incidence, with one percent of the population affected.
The social upheaval following the collapse of the Soviet Union has played a significant role in the spread of the disease. “Several factors are creating a fertile setting for the epidemic” the report says. “Mass unemployment and economic insecurity beset much of the region... Belarus, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, the republic of Moldova, Romania, the Russian Federation and Ukraine all experienced setbacks in the human development index over the past two decades.”
Experts had anticipated that, more than 20 years after it began, the spread of the disease would have begun to slow by now. This is the pattern that all previous pandemics have followed. Even the Black Death, which killed an estimated quarter of the population of Europe during the Middle Ages, eventually ran its course. But with more than one third of the population infected with the HIV virus in some African countries, the latest figures show that the AIDS epidemic has not reached such a peak and is continuing its deadly course.
The question that must be answered is—how is this possible at the beginning of the 21st century? Medieval Europe faced the Black Death ignorant of what caused the disease, how it was spread, how it might be prevented and lacking even the most basic knowledge of medicine or public health. By contrast, we face the AIDS epidemic with a vast and sophisticated knowledge of medicine and centuries of experience in implementing public health measures. We know what causes the disease, how its spread can be prevented and, although we have not yet a cure, we have drug treatments that can extend the life of its victims and prevent its transmission to new born infants.
Yet despite this favourable situation, AIDS is already threatening to claim the lives of a greater proportion of the population of Africa than the Black Death did in Europe. What is more it threatens to engulf Asia, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, where the infection rate is rising rapidly.
What is happening can only be described as a major crime against humanity, and one that receives only minimal media attention. The chilling new figures received a few minutes coverage on the day’s news before being pushed aside and ignored, leaving the audience with the impression that they were witnessing some sort of natural disaster unfolding. Everything is being done to dull the conscious understanding of the mass of the population, who would be horrified if they knew what was happening.
The truth is that the AIDS pandemic is a man-made disaster. Although they have the means to avert it, Western governments and transnational companies are standing by and letting it happen.
Of the 28.5 million HIV positive people in Africa, only 30,000 are receiving the anti-retroviral drugs that have checked the death rate in the advanced countries. That is one tenth of one per cent of sufferers. Only 25,000 people died as a result of AIDS in the developed world last year because of the use of anti-retroviral drugs.
As Morten Rostrup, president of Medicin sans Frontières international council, pointed out at the Barcelona conference, “If I, as a doctor, ignore a patient in desperate need of medical care, I am committing medical malpractice and can be charged with a crime... Today and everyday more than 8,000 people with AIDS will die. Yet the international community refuses to mount and fund an adequate global response—we are faced with nothing less than a crime against humanity.”
He reminded the conference that the United Nations had established a $10 billion Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis last year, but that so far only eight percent of this money has been forthcoming.
A spokesman from Act-Up Paris pointed out, “In the last two years, nothing has changed in terms of the resources given to the fight against AIDS... The rich countries ... don’t commit remotely the amount of resources that they can and must commit.” He said the European Union should be paying in $4 billion to the fund, but had only contributed $200 million.
A representative of the European Commission attempted to justify the EU’s record, “The Commission is responsible for a program of 800 million euros a year as a response against AIDS. You may say it’s a lot or not enough—probably it’s not enough—but I think it represents an important effort when you compare with what others are doing.”
He clearly had in mind the record of the United States. President Bush has pledged a mere $200 million to the Global Fund.
The chronic shortage of funds has led to a false dichotomy being made between treatment and prevention. Prevention, it is argued, is a more effective use of the little money that is available.
David Evans, an MSF doctor in Mozambique, pointed out the double standard involved in this evaluation. “When public health experts from the US and Europe tell us that we should exclusively focus on prevention because it is more cost-effective, we have to ask them to consider: if this epidemic was ravaging your community, would you recommend exclusively focusing on prevention and letting the already infected die?”
It costs an estimated $34,000 a year to keep an AIDS sufferer alive and $14,000 to keep an HIV positive person in good health. Most of this cost is made up of drug therapy and goes directly into the pockets of the giant pharmaceutical companies.
There is a horrible calculation involved here. Many Africans live on less than a dollar a day. In capitalist terms, it is simply uneconomic to treat them.
The drug companies are maintaining their monopoly over the supply of anti-retroviral drugs at the expense of the lives of millions of HIV positive people in poor countries. They put their profits before the welfare of a whole continent.
In this they have the backing of the Western governments, who have used the World Trade Organisation to prevent poor countries manufacturing and trading in cheaper generic versions of anti-AIDS medicines.
Andrew Natsios, head of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has attempted to deflect criticism from the drug companies. He has argued that it would be pointless to make drugs available, because poor countries do not have the know how to use them.
MSF has shown that this is not the case. It recently conducted a number of pilot projects, in which low-cost anti-retroviral drugs were provided to 1,000 AIDS sufferers in Asia, Latin America and Africa.
The patients were able to follow the treatment conscientiously once it was explained to them. Fred Minandi, a farmer from Malawi who is taking part in the trial, came to the conference as a living proof of its effectiveness.
The dichotomy between treatment and prevention is doubly false because there is not sufficient money available to finance an adequate prevention programme either.
The Global HIV Prevention Working Group suggests that spending on prevention needs to be increased to $4.8 billion. This is probably a conservative estimate, but is four times what is currently being spent.
Some AIDS professionals appear to have written off the present generation of Africans as a lost cause. They seem to think that the only option is to attempt to halt the spread of the disease to the younger generation and beyond Africa.
“We failed to act decisively in the early stages of the epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa, and now we are paying the price,” David Serwadda of Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda said. “But we still have an opportunity to save the next generation in Africa from AIDS, and to prevent runaway epidemics in India, Russia, and China.”
Speakers at the conference repeatedly referred to the “behavioural factors” which make it difficult to implement preventive programmes in Africa.
They particularly pointed to the subordinate position of women in Africa as one of the main factors hindering effective prevention.
In Zimbabwe schoolgirls have been known to sell their bodies to pay their school fees. Throughout Africa young women are forced into early marriage to older men. The belief that having sex with a virgin will cure AIDS is said to be common.
But such backward attitudes and oppressive social customs are the result of an ignorance born of centuries of oppression and degradation.
Among those who are oppressed, it is always the weakest that suffer most. To make this an excuse for the explosive spread of AIDS is to blame the victims for their own suffering.
In so far as blame can be apportioned in Africa, it must be laid at the door of the African governments such as Thabo Mbeki and the ANC that have ignored or denied the problem, and of the churches that have campaigned against the use of condoms. The South African Catholic Bishops Conference recently denounced condoms as evil and called on their followers to combat AIDS by abstaining from sex.
The South African government had to be taken to court in order to make it provide drug treatment for HIV positive women that would prevent them passing the virus on to their children.
Writing off the present generation of Africans amounts to genocide. It is a short sighted and entirely unrealistic perspective that cannot possibly halt the spread of AIDS and will leave Africa devastated.
Those infected with HIV are young people in the prime of their lives. Countries have a lost a whole swathe of their economically active adult population, while their deaths leave a generation of orphaned children. AIDS has already produced 11 million orphans in Africa.
If the population of Africa can be condemned to such a fate, it is unlikely that the inhabitants of any other continent would be looked on any more favourably. There has been no transformation in the attitude of political leaders and businessmen in the West that would suggest that a prevention programme would be any more successfully applied in India, China or Russia than it has been in Africa.
The problem is not a lack of resources, but a lack of the political will to put the resources that exist to work. The lives of millions of people worldwide are regarded as expendable because they are not viewed as essential to the profitability of big business.
In the long run this a suicidal perspective. AIDS cannot be contained in the impoverished countries, where it is currently having its biggest impact. There is a high degree of complacency in the West because prevention programmes seem to have confined the disease to the so-called high-risk groups. In the face of the explosive increase in the disease now being seen worldwide, this can only be a temporary phenomenon.
The destruction of health care provision and the public health measures in the industrialised countries can only help the spread of the disease among the most disadvantaged sections of the population.
It is an indictment of the capitalist system that AIDS should have spread in the way that it has, at a time when society’s technological capacity has never been greater. Millions in Africa and increasing numbers on other continents are being sacrificed in the interests of the profits of the transnational companies that control medical technology.
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US President George W. Bush announced $15 billion to fight HIV and AIDS in his State of the Union address on January 28. The proposed funds are to be spent in the African countries of Botswana, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. Also included are the two Caribbean countries Guyana and Haiti.
Two thirds of the sum is new money, with the remainder being drawn from existing proposals. However, the move is far less generous than it first appears and has a definite and sinister ulterior motive.
In a deliberate snub, the United Nations Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria will only receive $1 billion of the proposed aid over the next five years. The initial installment of $200 million will be given for the financial year 2004, which starts in October. This is less than this year’s pledge to the Global Fund of $380 million.
As a result, the Global Fund is in danger of going broke. Top fund official Anil Soni said; “We have a problem. We need to get new dollars in, so we can continue to fund programmes.” Approximately $6.3 billion is needed over the next two years to continue funding proposals. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has stated the world would need to spend between $7 billion and $10 billion a year to effectively treat HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases in underdeveloped countries.
Although it does not intend to finance the Global Fund, the Bush administration is determined to keep control of it. Tommy G. Thompson, the head of the US Health and Human Services Department, is the Fund’s chairman.
Rather than contribute to the Global Fund, Bush intends to allocate the new aid unilaterally through US government agencies, such as USAID and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
USAID is the major government body for distributing aid. Its role is to foster the strategic and economic interests of the US government. In the year 2004 around a quarter of its $8 billion budget will go to Israel, Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan. The CDC is the government body associated with public health controls but has connections, via its Chemical and Biological warfare role, with the National Security apparatus.
Prior to his announcement the Boston based Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) sent a letter to Bush signed by over a 100 leading health professionals, including Nobel prize winners, involved in the care and treatment of HIV patients. They urged Bush to respond to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and called on the US government to support the Global Fund and to provide debt relief for poor countries.
Following Bush’s speech PHR Director, Holly Burkhalter, said; “The funding of the new plan under the President’s budget would come too slowly. He has allocated only $2 billion in fiscal year 2004, still well short of the $3.5 billion that Physicians for Human Rights is calling for on an annual basis. The money for his plan should be front-loaded to pay for the most expensive initial investment: building health infrastructure. With infrastructure in place, the treatment costs will go down.”
They condemned the fact that “the vast bulk of the new money will be for US government programs.” They were particularly concerned at the creation of a new, high-level Special Coordinator for International HIV/AIDS Assistance at the State Department. They pointed out that neither the Department of Health and Human Services, which houses the CDC and the National Institute of Health, nor USAID has any experience in this area. USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios opposes treatment of AIDS with anti-retrovirals in poor countries.
The US based Global AIDS Alliance criticized the slow timetable of the funding which they considered, “inappropriate from a public health standpoint, because the epidemic is expanding exponentially now and there is extensive under funding of currently available programmes that are ready for scale-up.”
They also criticized the failure to provide funding to some of the countries most heavily affected by HIV/AIDS such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mali. They pointed out the obscenity of African countries having to pay debts to the west during the HIV pandemic. “In 2001, African governments paid $14.6 billion in debt servicing to the IMF, the World Bank and wealthy nation creditors. This extraction of local resources directly undermines all efforts to combat AIDS,” their statement read.
The American based AIDS and human rights group Health GAP (Global Access Project) criticized Bush’s attack on the UN Global Fund and went on, “USAID and CDC do not have the capacity nor the desire to implement the programmes called for by the president.”
Health GAP state bluntly that, “The funding levels are fraudulent. By accumulating numbers over arbitrary lengths of time and back loading until the distant future, the Administration makes a little look like a lot.”
Bush clearly intends to use the issue of AIDS funding to impose US policies, granting aid to those who toe the line and denying it to those regimes who fall short of the mark or find themselves out of favor.
He was originally going to announce the funding on his African trip at the beginning of this year and has had a team working on the plan for several months. Those involved are a strange group to be concerned in health matters. They include Dr Anthony Fauci a leading expert on bio-terrorism and vaccine research who talks to Bush on a regular basis, Joshua Bolton, head of national security and international affairs at the Office of Management and Budget, and Robin Cleveland, deputy national security adviser.
The choice of personnel is in line with two reports published last year, which discussed the HIV/AIDS pandemic as a security threat to the USA. The National Intelligence Council (NIC) which answers directly to Central Intelligence director, George Tenet, published one report, The Next Wave of HIV/AIDS. The other was produced by the Washington based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Entitled The Destabilizing Impact of HIV/AIDS, the report’s preamble explains that it was produced to “highlight for military and security policy leaders the security challenges posed by rapidly spreading HIV/Aids and to propose concrete measures to strengthen the US response to these emerging challenges.”
Bush’s announcement is in line with this assessment. It demonstrates his administration’s determination to treat the HIV/AIDS epidemic as a matter of security not a health question or a humanitarian issue. The money will be used as an instrument of foreign policy to reward or punish underdeveloped countries and to tighten US control over them.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/feb2003/aids-f18.shtml
United
States Cuts Off Contact with Iran-Report
Reuters
Sunday 25 May 2003
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
- The Bush administration has cut off contact with Iran, and Pentagon officials
are pushing for action they believe could destabilize the government of
the Islamic republic, The Washington Post reported in its Sunday edition.
The move follows intelligence reports suggesting al Qaeda operatives in
Iran played a role in the May 12 suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia, according
to the newspaper.
Citing administration officials, the newspaper said the White House "appears ready to embrace an aggressive policy of trying to destabilize the Iranian government."
Officials will meet Tuesday at the White House to discuss the Iran strategy, with Pentagon officials pressing for action that could lead to the toppling of the government through a popular uprising, the Post said.
A White House spokeswoman declined comment on Saturday.
The United States severed ties with Iran following the 1979 Islamic revolution. Last year, President Bush branded Iran as part of an "axis of evil" that was trying to develop banned nuclear weapons. The United States also has accused Iran of harboring members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, which Washington blames for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
But since the U.S. campaign to topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, Iranian and U.S. officials have met from time to time to discuss a variety of issues.
After this month's suicide bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the Bush administration canceled the next planned meeting, according to the Post.
The newspaper said "very troubling intercepts" before and after the Saudi Arabia bombing played a major role in the administration's new stance toward Iran. The intelligence suggested al Qaeda operatives in Iran were involved in the planning of the bombings, which killed 34 people, the Post reported.
On Thursday, the official IRNA news agency of Iran said U.S. allegation that the Islamic nation harbored al Qaeda members were based on faulty intelligence, but officials vowed to arrest any militants who might have slipped into the country.
On Saturday, Iran's top diplomat told the London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat that Iran sees no need to immediately revive a dialogue with the United States following talks on who should govern postwar Iraq.
"This dialogue has stopped now and we see no reason to revive it for the time being," Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told Al-Hayat.
"We entered into an honest dialogue with the Americans to create a government in Iraq that has popular support, but they kept on changing their minds and also changing their representatives in Iraq," he said without giving additional details.
The United States is trying to set up an interim Iraqi administration after U.S.-led forces invaded the country two months ago and ousted President Saddam Hussein.
U.S.
Eyes Pressing Uprising In Iran -
Officials Cite Al Qaeda Links, Nuclear Program
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post
Sunday 25 May 2003
The Bush administration, alarmed by intelligence suggesting that al Qaeda operatives in Iran had a role in the May 12 suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia, has suspended once-promising contacts with Iran and appears ready to embrace an aggressive policy of trying to destabilize the Iranian government, administration officials said.
Senior Bush administration officials will meet Tuesday at the White House to discuss the evolving strategy toward the Islamic republic, with Pentagon officials pressing hard for public and private actions that they believe could lead to the toppling of the government through a popular uprising, officials said.
The State Department, which had encouraged some form of engagement with the Iranians, appears inclined to accept such a policy, especially if Iran does not take any visible steps to deal with the suspected al Qaeda operatives before Tuesday, officials said. But State Department officials are concerned that the level of popular discontent there is much lower than Pentagon officials believe, leading to the possibility that U.S. efforts could ultimately discredit reformers in Iran.
In any case, the Saudi Arabia bombings have ended the tentative signs of engagement between Iran and the United States that had emerged during the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq.
U.S. and Iranian officials had met periodically to discuss issues of mutual concern, including search-and-rescue missions and the tracking down of al Qaeda operatives. But, after the suicide bombings at three residential compounds in Riyadh, the Bush administration canceled the next planned meeting.
"We're headed down the same path of the last 20 years," one State Department official said. "An inflexible, unimaginative policy of just say no."
U.S. officials have also been deeply concerned about Iran's nuclear weapons program, which has the support of both elected reformers and conservative clerics. The Bush administration has pressed the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, to issue a critical report next month on Iran's nuclear activities. Officials have sought to convince Russia and China -- two major suppliers of Iran's nuclear power program -- that Iran is determined to possess nuclear weapons, a campaign that one U.S. official said is winning support.
But a major factor in the new stance toward Iran consists of what have been called "very troubling intercepts" before and after the Riyadh attacks, which killed 34 people, including nine suicide bombers. The intercepts suggested that al Qaeda operatives in Iran were involved in the planning of the bombings.
Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld accused Iran of harboring al Qaeda members. "There's no question but that there have been and are today senior al Qaeda leaders in Iran, and they are busy," Rumsfeld said. Iranian officials, however, have vehemently denied that they have granted al Qaeda leaders safe haven in the country.
Until the Saudi bombings, some officials said, Iran had been relatively cooperative on al Qaeda. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Iran has turned over al Qaeda officials to Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. In talks, U.S. officials had repeatedly warned Iranian officials that if any al Qaeda operatives in Iran are implicated in attacks against Americans, it would have serious consequences for relations between the two countries.
Those talks, however, were held with representatives of Iran's foreign ministry. Other parts of the Iranian government are controlled not by elected reformers, but by conservative mullahs.
A senior administration official who is skeptical of the Pentagon's arguments said most of the al Qaeda members -- fewer than a dozen -- appear to be located in an isolated area of northeastern Iran, near the border with Afghanistan. He described the area as a drug-smuggling terrorist haven that is tolerated by key members of the Revolutionary Guards in part because they skim money off some of the activities there. It is not clear how much control the central Iranian government has over this area, he said.
"I don't think the elected government knows much about it," he said. "Why should you punish the rest of Iran," he asked, just because the government cannot act in this area?
Flynt Leverett, who recently left the White House to join the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy, said the administration may be taking a gamble. "It is imprudent to assume that the Islamic Republic will collapse like a house of cards in a time frame that is going to be meaningful to us," he said. "What it means is we will end up with an Iran that has nuclear weapons and no dialogue with the United States with regard to our terrorist concerns."
Ever since President Bush labeled Iran last year as part of an "axis of evil" -- along with North Korea and Iraq -- the administration has struggled to define its policy toward the Islamic republic, which terminated relations with the United States after Iran's 1979 revolution. The administration never formally adopted a policy of "regime change," but it also never seriously tried to establish a dialogue.
In July, Bush signaled a harder line when he issued a strongly worded presidential statement in which he praised large pro-democracy street demonstrations in Iran. Administration officials said at the time that they had abandoned any hope of working with President Mohammad Khatami and his reformist allies in the Iranian government, and would turn their attention toward democracy supporters among the Iranian people.
But the prospect of war with Iraq reopened some discreet contacts, which took place under U.N. supervision in Europe. The contacts encouraged some in the State Department to believe that there was an opening for greater cooperation.
In an interview in February with the Los Angeles Times, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage drew a distinction between the confrontational approach the administration had taken with Iraq and North Korea and the approach it had adopted with Iran. "The axis of evil was a valid comment, [but] I would note there's one dramatic difference between Iran and the other two axes of evil, and that would be its democracy. [And] you approach a democracy differently," Armitage said.
At one of the meetings, in early January, the United States signaled that it would target the Iraq-based camps of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK), or People's Mujaheddin, a major group opposing the Iranian government.
The MEK soon became caught up in the policy struggle between the State Department and the Pentagon.
After the camps were bombed, the U.S. military arranged a cease-fire with the group, infuriating the Iranians. Some Pentagon officials, impressed by the military discipline and equipment of the thousands of MEK troops, began to envision them as a potential military force for use against Tehran, much like the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.
But the MEK is also listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department. Under pressure from State, the White House earlier this month ordered the Pentagon to disarm the MEK troops -- a decision that was secretly conveyed by U.S. officials to Iranian representatives at a meeting in Geneva on May 3.
http://truthout.org/docs_03/052603A.shtml|
EL FIN
DE LUCIO GUTIERREZ Por: Heinz Dieterich (REBELION) (Fecha publicación:24/05/2003) |
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Mientras el coronel Lucio Gutiérrez,
Presidente del Ecuador, disfrutaba con sus homólogos del Grupo de Río
su estancia en la capital del viejo imperio incaico, Cuzco, su base de gobernabilidad
se estaba erosionando. 'Lucio Gutiérrez esta fuera de la jugada',
comentaba un alto oficial de las Fuerzas Armadas, ante la percepción
generalizada en el país de que el Coronel tiene sus días contados
en el poder. Antes de su salida, en una probable premonición de la tormenta que se avecina, el Presidente reunió a seiscientos oficiales y tropas en Quito, para explicar su política o, más bien, los bandazos y fracasos de sus cuatro meses en el gobierno, es decir: las crecientes protestas callejeras de movimientos sociales, como los maestros y los empleados de la salud; con los productores de bananos; con sectores del Movimiento Indígena; por la fracasada y absurda iniciativa de querer mediar en el conflicto colombiano; la servil carta de intención firmada con el Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI) y por su apoyo a la creciente intervención militar estadounidense en Ecuador, a través de la base de Manta y una posible, futura base, en las Islas Galápagos. El ambiente de la reunión fue sumamente frío y Gutiérrez no logró superar el distanciamiento. La Operación Recambio, de hecho, no es nueva. Desde la misma campaña electoral estaba claro que Lucio Gutiérrez iba a ser el Caballo de Troya de Washington y de la oligarquía ecuatoriana. Cuando visitó el Departamento de Estado en la capital estadounidense, encontró una enorme receptividad entre la burocracia imperial que había entendido muy bien las flaquezas del Coronel y la posibilidad de aprovechar su coyuntura en dos sentidos. De hecho, los burócratas mostraron más confianza en su prospecto presidencial que los círculos financieros de Nueva York que sospechaban de sus discursos inflamatorios de izquierda de la campaña electoral. Pronto, ambas fracciones de la elite estadounidense se unirían, para llevarlo al poder. La coyuntura que presentaba el Coronel para Washington y el partido oligárquico del Ecuador, el Partido Social Cristiano (PSC), encabezado por el viejo y sangriento cacique León Febres Cordero, era doble: consistía en la posibilidad de desgastar a dos de las principales columnas de resistencia a la política neoliberal: el movimiento indígena y los militares patrióticos del Ejercito Ecuatoriano. Si se lograra dividir al movimiento indígena entre su brazo político, el partido Pachakutic, y su componente social, la Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE), por una parte; entre los indígenas de la Amazonía, de la Costa y de la Sierra, por otra, y entre los movimientos indígenas católicos y protestantes, la destrucción del movimiento indígena estaba al alcance de la oligarquía. El medio utilizado seria la cooptación mediante puesto lucrativos. El desgaste de los militares patrióticos a través de un gobierno ineficiente, nepotista y corrupto, de Lucio Gutiérrez, abriría, a su vez, las puertas a la neutralización de la corriente democrática nacionalista en las Fuerzas Armadas y la posibilidad de involucrarlas activamente en la guerra contra las guerrillas colombianas, dentro del Plan Colombia. El avance hacia ambos objetivos es considerable. Para mayo y junio de este año, las bases indígenas han convocado a congresos nacionales que pueden determinar el retiro de sus ministros, la ruptura con el gobierno de Gutiérrez e, inclusive, un levantamiento indígena para alcanzar un viraje en la política neoliberal del Coronel. En cuanto a los militares, Gutiérrez se ha rodeado de militares ineficaces y corruptos que no sólo encuentran el rechazo de los mandos medios, sino también, de amplios sectores del generalato. Entre todos, rechazan el servilismo del Coronel ante los designios guerreristas del presidente colombiano Alvaro Uribe y de Washington, de servir como carne de cañón en la guerra de Colombia. Esos oficiales le han hecho saber a Gutiérrez en términos inconfundibles, antes de su salida a Cuzco, que se retracte de su posición sobre el Plan Colombia, o que se vaya. Gutiérrez se retractó. La operación de recambio de Gutiérrez esta planeada como una operación quirúrgica a nivel político: un recambio institucional, sin mucha violencia. Su remoción se operaria por 'incapacidad' mediante su destitución por el Congreso, encabezado por Febres Cordero. Constitucionalmente asumiría el poder el vicepresidente Alfredo Palacios, que esta cercano al bloque más compacto y poderoso de la política ecuatoriana, el Partido Social Cristiano (PSC). Palacio fue Ministro de Salud del presidente Sixto Durán Ballen, a su vez, del ámbito de la oligarquía empresarial del PSC. El nuevo vicepresidente seria elegido desde las filas del Congreso y probablemente sería la Diputada Ximena Bórquez, la ex-esposa del Coronel. Ambos fundarían su partido o movimiento propio, el 'Partido Blanco', pero, de hecho, serían testaferros del PSC, bajo la férrea tutela del cacique Febres Cordero. Las conversaciones entre los diversos sectores descontentos con Gutiérrez se encuentran en una fase avanzada. Se realizan, entre otros lugares, en Quito, Guayaquil y Salinas, y en la medida en que la propia torpeza de Gutiérrez aumenta su aislamiento de los movimientos sociales, de las bases indígenas y de las Fuerzas Armadas, se acerca el momento de su sustitución. A última hora, Gutiérrez se ha dado cuenta que la pinza se está cerrando, pero no quiso cancelar su viaje al Grupo de Río. Su popularidad ha caído en picada, de un 60 por ciento al 28 por ciento, y es posible que caiga dentro de tres a seis semanas, según la coyuntura que escoja su verdugo Febres Cordero. Los votos necesarios para destituir a Gutiérrez están al alcance de los arquitectos del cambio. Entre los partidos PRIAN, del magnate Alvaro Noboa; la Izquierda Democrática (ID) de Rodrigo Borja y el PSC de Febres Cordero, se acercan a las dos terceras partes del Congreso que tienen que votar por la remoción de Gutiérrez: de hecho, solo les faltan seis votos. Esos votos pueden obtenerse del partido PRE de Abdalá Bucarám, refugiado en Panamá, quien ha calificado a Gutiérrez como 'perro faldero de la oligarquía' y traidor a las esperanzas del pueblo. De hecho, la imagen de 'traidor' es quizás la mas dañina que tiene el Coronel entre las Fuerzas Armadas, las clases medias y los sectores políticos. Esa imagen esta bien ganada por las claudicaciones que ha mostrado a lo largo de su carrera política. El primer levantamiento indígena-popular-militar del ano 2000, estaba programado para el lunes 15 de enero, precedido por una proclama televisiva de los mandos medios el domingo 14. El capitán Cesar Díaz iba a leer esta proclama de desconocimiento al gobierno neoliberal de Yamil Mahuad. El sábado 13 de enero, en una reunión en la casa de Gilmar Gutiérrez, hermano del Presidente y actual diputado nacional, Lucio Gutiérrez desconoció el levantamiento, argumentando que la parte indígena no había creado las condiciones necesarias para la insurrección, dejando la responsabilidad de los acontecimientos en el capitán Díaz, quien decidió seguir con el plan. Sin embargo, en la noche del 20 de enero, Cesar Díaz cometió el error de comunicarle a Gutiérrez, que al día siguiente, los mandos medios se unirían al movimiento insurreccional popular y que le daba 'otra oportunidad' al coronel a participar. De este contexto nació la participación de Lucio Gutiérrez en el 21 de enero. Fracasada la consolidación del exitoso copamiento del Congreso ----a raíz de lo que el entonces Jefe de Operaciones del Ejército, el Coronel Jorge Brito, llamó en la televisión ecuatoriana 'una traición del Coronel Lucio Gutiérrez' en contubernio con los generales Sandoval y Mendoza--- los movimientos sociales y militares patrióticos planearon un nuevo levantamiento contra el gobierno de Gustavo Noboa, quien seguía la política neoliberal de Yamil Mahuad. La fecha acordada fue el Primero de Mayo del 2000. Los 130 mil manifestantes del Primero de Mayo, reunidos en el centro de Quito, iban a tomar el Palacio de gobierno de Carondelet, mientras que unidades militares del Fuerte Atahualpa asegurarían el control de ese cuartel y conseguirían la adhesión de las demás unidades militares del país. Gutiérrez, en la cárcel, pero con contacto hacia el exterior por teléfonos celulares, fue el elemento que debía comunicar al Fuerte Atahualpa el inicio de la operación militar. Cuando una pareja, que era el enlace con los movimientos sociales, logró entrar en la cárcel para informarle a Gutiérrez que todo estaba preparado y que diera la orden para iniciar la operación, el coronel 'perdió' oportunamente la comunicación y el nuevo levantamiento se frustró. La información aquí revelada por primera vez nunca se ha hecho accesible al pueblo ecuatoriano, haciéndole creer que Lucio Gutiérrez fue el gran héroe del levantamiento indígena- popular-militar del 21 de enero y que iba a ser un presidente patriótico y popular para el país. Todos aquellos lideres que sabían quien era y, pese a saberlo, hicieron alianza electoral con él, cargan con una enorme responsabilidad histórica, por ese silencio cómplice de la mentira. Hoy se presenta la oportunidad histórica para estos líderes de reivindicarse ante el país y el pueblo ecuatoriano. El escenario del cambio por un golpe 'constitucional' de los socialcristianos puede complicarse y volverse violento. A la oligarquía de la costa le interesa la privatización del petróleo y de la electricidad y Lucio Gutiérrez podría tratar de salvar su malograda Presidencia ofreciéndole a la oligarquía ambos botines, a cambio de su permanencia en el poder. Tal operación, que sería una nueva traición a la gente que creyó en el, llevaría inmediatamente al enfrentamiento callejero con los movimientos sociales e indígenas, que podría ser aprovechado por el régimen para llevar a cabo una sangrienta represión. La promoción de los oficiales mas reaccionarios de la policía en todo el país; el nombramiento de un general torturador y asesino como Comandante de la Policía Nacional, el General Vaca, por Lucio Gutiérrez; las amenazas de muerte a militares patrióticos como el Coronel Jorge Brito o luchadores por los derechos humanos, como Alexis Ponce, desde la Inteligencia Militar, disfrazada de escuadrón de la muerte llamado 'Legión Blanca'; la modernización de la Inteligencia Militar, ubicada en el Instituto de Geografía Militar (IGM), con la ayuda de la Central de Inteligencia (CIA) estadounidense; los atentados con bombas de la Inteligencia Militar en Guayaquil y Quito, todos esos indicadores apuntan hacia una posible salida represiva a la operación de sustitución de Gutiérrez. Ante tal panorama es necesario formar un amplio bloque democrático nacional en el país, que impida el éxito de la nueva conspiración de la oligarquía. Este bloque democrático necesita una identidad propia que lo distinga de la podrida política nacional, en cuyos liderazgos impera el más descarado clientelismo y una ausencia total de la ética y de los principios. Esa identidad propia sólo puede nacer de una propuesta nacional-regional de desarrollismo democrático, es decir, la integración inmediata del Ecuador en el Bloque Regional de Poder (BRP) del Mercosur, y la renegociación de la deuda externa, fuga de capitales, etc., con los centros de poder mundial en Europa y Estados Unidos. Sólo un programa de esta naturaleza puede romper el ciclo de triunfo callejero y derrota superestructural de los movimientos sociales. Queda poco tiempo para construir esa alternativa para el Ecuador. |
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http://www.aporrea.net/dameletra.php?docid=3261 redaccion@argenpress.info |
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El
populismo, una ideología latinoamericana
ARGENTINA NO ES LA EXCEPCION Por:
Emilio J. Corbière / Infoargenpres/Revista Koeyu Latinoamericano
Publicado el Lunes, 26/05/03 10:28am |
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Declaraciones
descaradas y cínicas de la Oposición
Por:
Carmen García
Publicado el Domingo, 25/05/03 10:42pm |
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Vuelven
los sicarios de la Policia Metropolitana
Por:
Jorge Moscosso
Publicado el Domingo, 25/05/03 10:40pm |
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No esperan nada para volver a sus andanzas delictivas los de la PM. Otra vez actuaron como sicarios del Alcalde Mayor. El 24 de mayo de 2003 nuevamente hieren a dos ciudadanos, en las cercanías de Catia, donde se encontraba la supuesta “Toma del Oeste” de Caracas, como si fuera una Película del Oeste Americano. Todo parece haber sido planificado, ya que en toda Marcha, Concentración, Manifestación o Acto de la Oposición siempre hay muertos o heridos y se culpa al Gobierno, pero como todo en este Mundo “NO HAY CRIMEN PERFECTO”, siempre les sale mal, la verdad sale a flote, como las muertes de los soldados y la joven de Altamira.
No hacen mas que llorarles al Tribunal Supremo de Justicia, por parte de su jefe mayor (Alcalde Mayor Peña), para que le devuelvan sus “ARMAS”, para salir a las calles de Caracas a cometer sus fechorías, como la de dispararles a mansalva a la ciudadanía Venezolana y más aun cuando exista algún acto publico de la CD (descoordinadora antidemocrática), ya que estos actos se encuentran en sus planes sicóticos, para después con los cuatro jinetes del Apocalipsis (venevisión, radio caracas televisión, globovisión y televen) continuar mintiéndoles al mundo entero, sobre la verdad de lo que ocurre en Venezuela.
¿Hasta cuando los Ciudadanos Venezolanos estaremos permitiendo estos atropellos, asesinatos? Ya es hora de recordarles a estos Magistrados del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia que aquí en Venezuela existe una CONSTITUCIÓN BOLIVARIANA, por la cual nos debemos regir y acatar por igualdad. Estos sicarios de la PM les exigen a ustedes para que les devuelvan sus armas para así poder acecinar o herir a los ciudadanos. Nosotros como ciudadanos venezolanos le exigimos que sea eliminado este cuerpo de “SICARIOS” y se cree de inmediato el Cuerpo de Policía Nacional como esta establecido en Nuestra Constitución Bolivariana de Venezuela, para que de esta manera se pueda crear una verdadera Policía y así pueda cumplir con su función principal que es el de Resguardo del Orden Público y no de acabar a mansalva al PUEBLO.
También desde la oposición, están exigiendo el desarme de la ciudadanía que está con el Proceso Revolucionario Bolivariano. Se olvidan de los de la oposición, de los “hijitos de papi y mami”, de los Pérez Recao, de los adecos que sacan pistolas en las marchas, del grupo pro-oligárquico Bandera Roja, contra ésos hay evidencia contundente.
¿Hasta cuando ésta oposición armada seguirá siendo grupo de choque y guardaespaldas para la Clase Rica, que ha DESANGRADO A NUESTRA PATRIA durante todos estos años de “OLIGARCRACIA”?
Jorge Moscosso.
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Mi
posición ante los hechos de Catia.
Por:
Pablo Colmenares/RB
Publicado el Domingo, 25/05/03 05:23pm |
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