|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 16th, 2008 WIP on our website means WORK (WRITING) IN PROGRESS - or simply unfinished article. When finished the WIP will be taken off but the article will stay in place without the UPDATED designation. Nevertheless, theses introductory lines will remain as a reminder that the article had a long birth. *** The meeting, August 15, 2008 was chaired by the Ambassador For Palau. Present were also the Ambassadors from Nauru and from Fiji. Many other Missions were represented - some of these missions have representatives on the working committee. Involved are also some of the active NGOs. At present the sponsors of a resolution to be brought before the UN General Assembly are 11 from among the 14 Pacific Small Island Developing States - Fiji, Marshall Islands, The Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu; the Maldives and Seychelles from non-Pacific SIDS; Canada, the Philippines from among larger States. But these 15 States will pick up many more co-sponsors. Mentioned were Turkey, the EU, Austria and Iceland that have expressed their eagerness to join. There is no opposition we were told - but only some hesitation because it is seen as a new approach to the problem of the humanitarian impact of climate change that goes on already - this while in major UN institutions the debate has not led yet to action. The inhabitants of the small islands of the Pacific are the first to lose their habitat - and what we see is the eradication of UN Member States by this predictable catastrophe. On our website we announced this encounter between the proponents of the resolution and the NGOs: Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 15th, 2008
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)We also pointed out the topically relevant event at the Lincoln Center’s “Mostly Mozart Festival” when Lemi Ponifasio’s REQUIEM had its two evenings before a New York audience.The history of this special effort by the Pacific SIDS started on February 15, 2008, in a speech by Ambassador Stuart Beck of Palau, before the UN General Assembly:http://www.palauun.org/news_archive.cfm?news_id=189 NEW YORK, NY, www.islandsfirst.org February 15, 2008 — Addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations at the High Level Debate on Climate Change, H.E. Stuart Beck, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Palau, citing the “life or death” nature of sea-level rise for the world’s island nations, urged the Security Council to utilize its powers under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to address this threat to member states by imposing mandatory greenhouse gas emission standards on all member states, and utilizing the power to sanction, if necessary, to encourage compliance with such standards. He said:
The full text of Ambassador Beck’s remarks at the UN Climate Change debate is as follows: “Mr. President, esteemed colleagues, friends: The waters continue to rise in Palau, and everywhere else. Salinization of fresh water and formerly productive lands continues apace. The reefs, the foundation of our food chain, experience periodic bleaching and death. Throughout the Pacific, sea level rise has not only generated plans for the relocation of populations, but such relocations are actually in progress. Though this litany of disasters has become well known in these halls, no action with remedial consequences has been taken. Larger countries can build dikes, and move to higher ground. This is not feasible for the small island states who must simply stand by and watch their cultures vanish. Is the United Nations simply powerless to act in the face of this threat to the very existence of many of its member states? We suggest that it is not. Last April, under the Presidency of the United Kingdom, the Security Council took up the issue of climate change. At that time, while there were some expressions of discomfort with the venue of the debate, a discomfort which we decidedly did not share, there was general agreement with the notion expressed by the President of the Security Council, UK Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett that climate change is a threat to “our collective security in a fragile and increasingly interdependent world”. Islands are not the only countries whose existence is threatened. Ambassador Kaire Mbuende of Namibia characterized climate change as a “ a matter of life or death” for his country, observing that “ the developing countries in particular, have been subjected to what could be described as low-intensity biological or chemical warfare. Greenhouse gases are slowly destroying plants, animals and human beings.” Speaking on behalf of the Pacific Island Forum at last years Security Council debate Ambassador Robert Aisi, of Papua New Guinea observed that climate change is no less a threat to small island states than the dangers of guns and bombs to larger countries. Pacific Island countries are likely to face massive dislocations of people, similar to flows sparked by conflict, and such circumstances will generate as much resentment, hatred and alienation as any refugee crisis. Ambassador Aisi observed then, and we reiterate now, that it is the Security Council which is charged with protecting human rights and the integrity and security of States. The Security Council is empowered to make decisions on behalf of all States to take action on threats to international peace and security. While we applaud the efforts of the President of the General Assembly and the Secretary General to shine a light on this awful problem, we take this opportunity to respectfully call upon the Security Council to react to the threat which we describe. Would any nation facing an invading army not do the same? Under Article 39 of the Charter, the Security Council “shall determine the existence of any threat to peace…and shall make recommendations…to maintain or restore international peace or security”. We call upon the Security Council to do this in the context of climate change. Under Articles 40 and 41 of the Charter, it is the obligation of the Security Council to “prevent an aggravation of the situation” and to devise appropriate measures to be carried out by all States to do this. While we Small Island states do not have all the answers, we are not unmindful of the scientific certainty that excessive greenhouse gas emissions by states are the cause of this threat to international security and the existence of our countries. We therefore suggest that the Security Council should consider the imposition of mandatory emission caps on all states and use its power to sanction in order to encourage compliance. We further propose that under Article 11 of the Charter, the General Assembly is empowered to call to the attention of the Security Council “situations which are likely to endanger international peace and security” and, at the appropriate time, we will call upon this body to do so. In the event that the General Assembly chooses not to avail itself of this right, then we will call upon the countries whose very existence is threatened to utilize Article 34 of the Charter, which empowers each Member State to bring to the attention of the Security Council any issue which “might lead to international friction”. Our Charter provides a way forward. Our Security Council has the wisdom and the tools to address this situation. And while we debate, the waters are rising. Thank you.” Permalink | ### |
Printer Friendly
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 30th, 2008
Permalink | ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on May 13th, 2008 China, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Libya … seem to have money to burn - will they burn us? The question is about the buying up of agricultural land outside their countries. Is the intent just to create new food production sites to feed their own citizens, or is this also an effort to corner commodities? At this week’s session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, China distributed an April 2008 “Review of Sustainable Development in China (2008): Agriculture, Rural Development, Land, Drought, and Desertification.” prepared by The Office of the Leading Group for Promoting the Sustainable Development Strategy, P. R. China. The report speaks frankly about “Obstacles and Challenges” but presents a program for the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and the Eleventh Five -Year Plan for Development of National and Rural Economy - “the objectives set up for building a new socialist countryside.” (Chapter 4, page 25, of the report) The report is a statement of past success, and of great plans for further increase in efficiency while reducing the number of farmers and the rural percentages in the total population. This is the story of industrialization and of modernization in the agriculture sector of the economy - historically the high majority sector in China. We know that China is an agricultural success story as they turned away from a history of hunger. I had no intention to get anywhere deeper into the subject. But, surprise, even though we knew that China is doing well in its exports and has a $1.3 trillion reserve, having created in the process also a new, sizable, middle class that will aim at an increase of the standard of living and demand a better array of foods including much more meat, we were yet not prepared for the Friday, May 9, 2008 article of the Financial Times that brought before our eyes the actual figures: “FOOD SHORTAGES - NEW EATING HABITS FORCE REVOLUTION ON CHINA’S FARMS.” “With 21% of the world’s population, 9% of its arable land and below average and poorly distributed water resources, China is already unable to supply enough homegrown animal feed” - says the article. www.ft.com Further - “Although analysts disagree on the timing of china’s emergence as an importer of all grains, a few doubt that Beijing will be forced to modify its longstanding policy of self-sufficiency in basic foodstuffs to meet demand.” But, the pressure for animal feed that is already felt now, nd the expectation of future shortages, send already now China to look for off-shore arable land. Also from the Friday issue of the Financial Times, this from Jamil Anderlini, from Beijing, and Javier Blas from London: “Beijing looks at foreign fields in pushto guarantee food supplies - China Losing its ability to be self-sufficient.” The reporters learned that a proposal drafted by the agriculture ministry would make supporting offshore land acquisition by domestic agricultural companies government policy. These acquisitions will be made by state-owned banks, manufacturers and oil companies. Some rather small projects have already been established in Africa. It is easy to foresee how Chinese farms will evolve in various places - mainly in Africa, and Chinese farmers will be toiling on these farms. There is nothing alarming here, but it is hard to see how this will not project a return to colonialism - this time seated in China government owned enterprises - something like the old Dutch and English Trading companies? When I say it is not alarming, I mean that the intent will be to lift the produce for consumption at home and not as part of an international trade. if the locals will have any luck, they may actually be pushed to copy the Chinese production technologies and develop their own agriculture in parallel. What is more worrisome, is a different paragraph in that article: “The move comes as oil rich, food poor countries in the Middle East and North Africa explore similar options. Libya is talking with Ukraine about growing wheat while Saudi Arabia has said it would invest in projects abroad TO ENSURE FOOD SECURITY AND CONTROL COMMODITY PRICES.” Now that is something hair-rising. What we are now foreseeing is how the specialists in cartel building who have cornered the petroleum market, will now extend their reach into the food market. When the banana exporters tried this years ago - they were laughed off - but when the rise of food demand by China and India creates shrinking worldwide supplies, games by the money rich oil producers to start cornering food staples like corn, soy, wheat, rice or sugar, could indeed cause havoc. Today, Monday May 12, 2008, The Financial Times writes under World News / Food: “UAE INVESTORS BUY PAKISTAN FARMLAND.” The story from Dubai (Simeon Kerr) and Lahore (Farhan Bokhari) is about the Dubai based Abraaj Capital, one of the middle East’s largest private equity companies quietly buying farmland in Pakistan as part of plans by the UAE to increase food security and dampen inflation. Further, the government of Abu Dhabi was talking to the Islamabad officials. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are also looking at Pakistan. Abraaj already owns 800,000 acres of farm land in Pakistan and the Emirates Investment Group, and the Abu Dhabi Group are not far behind. Some in Pakistan start thinking that this might lead to increase in food prices in Pakistan. This while prices of food have already caused riots in Pakistan because of a 20% increase in March. Besides Pakistan, a State in trouble these days, other Islamic States in trouble - Sudan and Somalia, are also offering lands for sale. Will all of this lead to what some dreamers (Jordan’s Agriculture minister) think will be sort of an Islamic/Arab self-help organization - or just another plain cartel? That is something to look after. Further, also today, May 12, 2008, at the CSD at the UN, there was the SIDs Day. At one of the panels there was talk about the impact of the increase of the price of food commodities that is harming the Small Islands States. There was some talk about the global effects of the biofuel’s production using agricultural commodities. I felt compelled to bring up the Financial Times on-going articles in order to explain that the issue is much more complex and that it has to do rather with the fact that countries with excess money are causing this with their acquisition of land helping drive up the price of the commodity because of the creation of expectation of price increases. Also, the increase in price should be viewed as an opportunity because it will eventually bring more products to market. Permalink | ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 14th, 2008 From: Allister.Slingenberg at ecorys.com The SADC Region: Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe. Producers, traders and investors will get many networking and commercial opportunities during the AGRO-INDUSTRY 2008 Sector Partnership Meeting taking place from 6th to 8th May 2008 in Dar-Es-Salaam, whose aim is to encourage international financial, technical and commercial partnerships between investors or trading partners and promoters of projects within the SADC Region. This is also an opportunity for potential investors in climate change projects to generate carbon credits with new partners focussing on biomass-based energy generation and other renewable energies. The Forum’s focus will be the B2B matchmaking process allowing individual negotiations between project promoters in the SADC region and interested investors or trading partners. Furthermore, the companies from the South or the North attending the event in Dar-Es-Salaam will be introduced to institutions specialising in financial and partnership development such as the EIB (the European Investment Bank), the CDE (the Centre for the Development of Enterprise) or Government Agencies from the SADC Region (Ministries, etc…). Besides B2B meetings, plenary sessions on the opening day and thematic round-table discussions will provide participants with relevant information on each targeted sector of the various SADC countries, highlighting business and investment opportunities and allowing to discuss trade issues and business environment. Everything will be done to facilitate as many fruitful one-to-one business meetings as possible and allow participants to draw the most from genuine and carefully selected trade opportunities in 14 SADC countries within a short period of time and the least organisational and administrative burden. Against a conference fee of 650 € to be paid through the website booking system when registering, participants will have access to very attractive travel/accommodation packages from different airlines to the venue being at the White Sands Hotel, a high standing sea-front hotel located 25 kms from Dar-Es-Salaam. Meals and coffee-breaks will be offered throughout the 3-days Forum. Simultaneous translation into French, English and Portuguese will be available during the plenary sessions; interpreters will also be at your disposal during the B2B meetings when necessary. Finally, post-event programmes will be proposed to the Zanzibar Island and/or the National Parks (Lake Manyara, Serengeti, Ngorongoro). Please let us know of your interest as soon as possible. You can directly use the website online registration system at the following address: agnes.janszen at agro-ind2008.com or by phone: +31.10.53416786 Thank you Tel: +31 10 453 8829 PO Box 4175 Permalink | ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 9th, 2008 GENERAL ASSEMBLY AGREED TO HOLD TOP-LEVEL MEETING ON AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT IN SEPTEMBER. The General Assembly today agreed to convene a high-level meeting this September, on the eve of its annual general debate, on how to better meet the development needs of Africa, which is struggling to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the target date of 2015. In a resolution adopted without a vote, Assembly members agreed both to hold the meeting on 22 September and that it should result in a formal political declaration on the issue.
* * * COMMUNITIES NEED MORE SOPHISTICATED METEOROLOGICAL SERVICES, SAYS WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION (WMO). Governments, businesses and the general public need more sophisticated information from their national weather services if they are to prepare adequately against natural disasters and better adapt to the threats posed by climate change, the head of the United Nations meteorological agency says. Michel Jarraud, the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), told a workshop yesterday in Cape Verde that there is “a vital need to better understand the linkage between environmental protection and sustainable development.” “There are also raised expectations and demands for newer and more sophisticated types of services by most sectors of the economy, all of which are highly relevant to your respective societies,” he said. The workshop, help on Sal Island on Cape Verde, runs until Friday and is aimed at helping Portuguese-speaking countries develop greater partnerships between government and civil society on environmental and climate issues. Permalink | ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on December 29th, 2007 Benazir Bhutto (Bibi) - Self Appointed Martyr - Does She Bring Change To A South Asia That Was Carved By The British? Obviously We Do Not Know, But Analyzing Three Days Worth Of Publicity We Dare To Put Forward The Big Elephant Theorem. “Bibi” said about her return to Pakistan - “I did not chose this life - it chose me.” The Big elephant is the Indian Subcontinent. See - we do not start by writing about Pakistan, not even about present day India - but by what, in geography books is called the Indian Subcontinent which is the triangular shaped chunk of land-mass that is cut of from the rest of Asia by the Himalaya chain of mountains. Today, in this land mass, going from west to east, we find five to eight UN member States. These are the obvious five - Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh. In addition the islands of Sri Lanka and The Maldives are part of this geography. Further, my 1981 Hammond atlas has pages for “Indian Subcontinent and Afghanistan” this because it includes with this region - Afghanistan which borders right to the west of the “Subcontinent” - thus leaving the region outright bordering with Iran, Russia, China and Burma (now Myanmar), formidable neighbors which are clearly outside this subcontinent. When one looks carefully at that map, one sees that Baluchistan became Pakistan, but was actually made up of Baluchistan proper, Sind, Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province. It had 7 major languages and 5 major religions. India had 31 Internal Divisions, 16 major languages and 8 major religions. Bangladesh was made up only of one unit, had only two major languages, Bengali and English, and only three main religions - Islam, Hinduism and Christianity - nevertheless, as having been incorporated with Baluchistan into the original Pakistan, it also inherited problems that came from its creation. Obviously, at creation, because all areas had people of all religions - a total of 25 million people became refugees - half of them Muslim and half of them Hindi. The refugees were not accepted easily by their brethren and the major parts of the Subcomtinent remained hurting for generations to come.The other Independent States of the Subcontinent are much smaller, but as we shall see have had their own problems galore. Taking all of the above into account - and without trying to offend anyone - I will continue from now to use for sakes of generalization and brevity the term INDIA for the Subcontinent as a whole. INDIA was not a total model of peace, but it was a rather peaceful region with the diffeent peoples coexisting and intermingled. I mentioned the above in order to say that the Indian Subcontinent, or INDIA, with many more people then Europe, was as complex, if not more then Europe - and here - to this immense world march in the British and somehow manage to take it over by using the old Roman technique of DIVIDE AND RULE. the Dutch and the Portuguese came before the British, but were in owe and tried just to trade. All right, to the purist, they also established fix trading posts, but realized that the morsel is too big and complicated for them to swallow. To get a taste of the feeling of a European coming to India I will quote from today’s (December 30, 2007) New York Times travel section: “I go to India by myself most years because I love the country. I like the history and the culture. From the photograph that goes with the NYT article you get an idea of what an extraordinary structure this is ( he talks about the 13th century, black granite, Sun Temple at Konarak, The Eastern State of Orissa, India, not far from the Bangladesh border) with big wheels representing the chariot of the sun god, Surya. What’s really fascinating about India - and you really get this when you’re by yourself - is noticing the small things. The detail in India is extraordinary, in the way people dress, the way people store their things and mend things, and the paradoxes: nothing is quite as it seems. So, intellectually, mentally, it’s this constantly fascinating display of languages and architecture and objects and craft. It’s all around you. Your senses are constantly bombarded with little details, which is fantastic.” I know what he is talking about because I was there. I was many times to India, three times to Pakistan, once in Nepal and once in Bhutan. Further, I cooperated with Pona Wignaraja, the Sri Lankan who was the 2nd Secretary-General of the Rome, Italy, based Society for International Development and we organized with UNEP’s Dr. Noel Brown, and with Indian Dr. Rashmi Mayur, NGO leader from Bombay (now Mumbai), the meetings on Biomass and Outer Space at the First UN Conference on Outer Space that was held in Vienna, Austria, sometime around 1981, and learned what a Sri Lankan can do when looking at the world. Those years I also went to Pakistan with Turkish-American Professor Nejat Veziroglu, on behalf of a University of Miami mission backed by the US National Science Foundation, in order to help open a Solar Energy National Institute for Pakistan in Sind. We met many people involved in the Pakistan Energy leadership - the main officials were all called Khan - and we met also in Islamabad the top Khan who became later famous for his trading in nuclear technology and products. I was involved later, twice, with presenting to Pakistan the concept of Energy Cane - that is the sugar cane that has been allowed to go to the natural state when it produces more biomass (the size of the stalk and the quantity of fermentable sugars, rather then crystallizable sugars that are the interest of the sugar industry). The Energy Cane is thus better if you really want energy products. To Bhutan I went to find out some more- and learn about- the concept of Gross National Happiness that originated with its leaders. INDIA is thus even today a great source of original economic and philosophical innovation - this if not interfered with by politics based on domination by religious specificity - or sometimes perhaps simply corruption - economically based. Plain cultural tourism I experienced in the four INDIA States mentioned - Nepal, Bhutan, India, Pakistan. I saw in Kerala State of India people peacefully practicing Aramaic Christianity as old as Christianity itself, I visited the remaining memberships of three different Jewish groups of India - the Cochin Jews that were running the spice trade from time immemorial, the Black Jews of Bnei Israel near Mumbai, The Baghdadi Jews in Mumbai and New Delhi - some of whom are now British Lords and the heads of Banking in Hong Kong and Shanghai. I visited with various Hindu Sects, with Mahatma Gandhi’s Foundation, with the Krishna movement, with the Zoroastrians in Mumbai, with the Madame Blavatsky Peace loving movement - their world headquarter of the Theosophic Society is in Madras (now Chennay)… too many different groups and ideas to do justice in one paragraph - beyond trying to say that INDIA is not the ideal place for British colonization, or for US economic up-hand-manship capitalistic involvement. This last remark brings us back to the results of World War II, which we described previously on www.SustainabiliTank.info, when in 1945, on the same trip abroad, at meetings at Yalta and then on the Suez, the world was carved out between Stalin and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, without the bravado of France present, and with the out-of-realism at the time Churchill’s agreement, East Europe went to the Soviets, and South-of-Siberia-Asia went to the US economic and political interests - allowing for the start of a COLD WAR. That cold war pushed also to the borders of INDIA into Afghanistan, and got halted at a line that was to include India and Pakistan that were carved out from the INDIA of yore. Pakistan was an artificial creation with five regions of INDIA carved out for Muslims so local Muslims, and outside Muslims, could be given some satisfactions from the long British DIVIDE AND RULE policies. It was a clear disaster, and out of East Pakistan Bangladesh was spun off quite soon, with India and the West-Pakistan state at each other’s throat in Kashmir and Jamu. This confrontation, with the Cold War breathing hot - led to two nuclear technology States in-the-know - India and Pakistan. While India slowly tried to take over the economic, cultural and political mantle of the fallen INDIA, Pakistan tried to take over the mantle of an extremist Islamic world. Like the Catholics in the world that sometimes want to out-Catholize the Pope of the Vatican, there came about Pakistanis that wanted to out-Muslim the Saudis in the name of the US side in the Cold War with the Soviets in Afghanistan. So, the US and Saudi Arabia managed to build up the Islamic “Gholem” in the mountains of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, but unlike the Gholem of Prague Jewish legend, there is no Rabbi Leev that has now the magic formula to undo the Islamic Gholem. This is now the downfall of Pakistan and Afghanistan and may lead again to disasters that can hit the world at large. Now, with this introduction, let us take a look at what we can learn from the available press that hit me these last three days - and here comes handy our ELEPHANT THEOREM. INDIA is the Elephant. It could have developed into a lovely cooperative animal that could have been an economy larger then Europe, as free as the United States ideal in the US Constitution. All the many ingredients of the cultures, religions, economies, political structures, that were at least a millennium old, and in some cases two and three millennia old, could have fit into a jig-puzzle like the EU is trying to do now - this if the British had not played one group against another in order to make the life of the British intruders easier. Now, we have a different Elephant situation - that known to all as the description by blind people of an elephant animal - each description being rather accurate of a detail of that elephant. That is what we found in a collection of about twenty different reactions to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, known to her friends as Bibi, the two times Prime Minister of Pakistan and the leading candidate to take over Pakistan’s reins for a third time - President or Prime Minister. ————————-
Assassination Rocks Pakistan The first news of Thursday, December 27, 2007 from Rawalpindi and Islamabad, Pakistan: - An attack on a political rally killed the Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto near the capital, Islamabad, Thursday. Witnesses said Ms. Bhutto was fired upon at close range before the blast, and an official from her party said Ms. Bhutto was further injured by the explosion, which was apparently caused by a suicide attacker. “At 6:16 p.m. she expired,” said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Ms. Bhutto’s party who was at Rawalpindi General Hospital where she was taken after the attack, according to The Associated Press. Hundreds of supporters had gathered at the political rally, which was being held at Liaqut Bagh, a park that is a common venue for political rallies and speeches, in Rawalpindi, the garrison city adjacent to the capital. Amid the confusion after the explosion, the site was littered with pools of blood. Shoes and caps of party workers were lying on the asphalt, and shards of glass were strewn about the ground. Pakistani television cameras captured images of ambulances pushing through crowds of dazed and injured people at the scene of the assassination. CNN reported that witnesses at the scene described the assassin as opening fire on Ms. Bhutto and her entourage, hitting her at least once in the neck and once in the chest, before blowing himself up. Farah Ispahani, a party official from Ms. Bhutto’s party, said: “It is too soon to confirm the number of dead from the party’s side. Private television channels are reporting twenty dead.” Television channels were also quoting police sources as saying that at least 14 people were dead. Then, the Pakistani official announcement said there were no bullets found in her body, these were pieces of shrapnel from the bomb detonated by the suicide bomber. ————————- Friday December 28, 2007, McClatchy Newspapers wrote, from information from their correspondent in Pakistan Saeed Shah - “Pakistan Government Skips Autopsy, Shifts Story on How Bhutto Died.” Larkana, Pakistan - Violence and recriminations grew Friday over the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, as Pakistan’s government changed its account of how she died while her supporters charged that the government withheld personal protection she’d requested. As deadly protests continued to rage on Pakistan’s streets, the country’s Interior Ministry said that Bhutto - buried Friday without an autopsy - had died after she was thrown against the lever of her car’s sunroof, fracturing her skull. …. “We have intelligence intercepts indicating that al Qaida leader Baitullah Mehsud is behind her assassination,” Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said. Mehsud, who’s based in the lawless Waziristan region on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, has been behind a series of suicide attacks in the region, according to U.S. officials. Pakistani authorities released a transcript of what they said was a conversation in which Mehsud exults after being told by an unidentified religious cleric that Bhutto is dead. “It was a spectacular job. They were very brave boys who killed her,” Mehsud said, according to the transcript.” Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, Mahmud Ali Durrani, said in a television interview Thursday that the security accorded Bhutto was “almost the same” as President Pervez Musharraf’s. “She was given not exactly what maybe she asked for, but for Pakistan’s environment, she was given the best protection possible,” Durrani said on PBS’s “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.” ———————- Washington lawyer Mark A. Siegel, Bhutto’s U.S. spokesman, released an e-mail that he said Bhutto had written Oct. 26, 2007, eight days after the earlier attempt on her life, complaining that Musharraf had denied her needed security measures. We saw him on CNN, and unless he is a trained theater or TV actor - this man and the material in his hand are completely true www.SustainabiliTank.com comment). He knew her for 25 years, was a close friend and he has co-written a book with Benazir Bhutto that will come out in January. What he is saying is that Bhutto did not get the protection she was asking for. Further, we saw on CNN how the Pakistani Ambassador, in answer to Mark Siegel, addressed the claim that she was not given adequate protection to a former Prime-Minister - that Bhutto was not a security person - just a lay person - she did not know what was good for her protection - it was the Pakistani security personnel that knew what was good for Bhutto’s protection. “I have been made to feel insecure by his minions,” reads the e-mail, which Siegel sent to CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer for release in event of her death. That e-mail was with Blitzer already before the assassination. “There is no way what is happening in terms of stopping me from taking private cars or using tinted windows or giving jammers or four police mobiles to cover all sides could happen without him” she wrote. The “jammers” appear to refer to devices that can interfere with the detonation of bombs, which - like the body armor - wouldn’t have saved Bhutto’s life Thursday. The “four police mobiles” refers to a screen of vehicles to the left, right, back and front of her own. —————— But others said that Bhutto, who loved political rallies, at times seemed heedless of her own security, or fatalistic. “In her enthusiasm, she got carried away, and exposed herself in ways” she shouldn’t have, said former State Department official Marvin Weinbaum of the Washington-based Middle East Institute. In Pakistan, the shifting government explanations and Bhutto’s burial without autopsy aroused suspicion. Some say that her husband did not allow an autopsy - this clearly has to be veryfied with him! Babar Awan, a senior official of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, said of the sunroof theory: “That is a false claim.” He said he’d seen her body after the attack and there were at least two bullet marks, one in the neck and one on the top of the head: “It was a targeted, planned killing. The firing was from more than one side.” Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister, Mohammadmian Soomro, told the Cabinet that Bhutto’s husband had insisted on no autopsy. But according to a leading lawyer, Athar Minallah, an autopsy is mandatory anyway under Pakistan’s criminal law in a case of this nature. “It is absurd, because without autopsy it is not possible to investigate. Is the state not interested in reaching the perpetrators of this heinous crime or there was a cover-up?” Minallah said. The scene of the attack also was watered down with a high-pressure hose within an hour, washing away evidence. —————- The attack came just hours after four supporters of former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif died when members of another political party opened fire on them at a rally near the Islamabad airport Thursday, Pakistan police said. Several other members of Sharif’s party were wounded, police said. Nawaz Sharif himself was at the side of Bhutto’s remaining family and on TV, as shown on CNN, said now that her loss is like a losss of a sister - clearly good politics for the moment. Benazir Bhutto, who led Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and was the first female prime minister of any Islamic nation, was participating in the parliamentary election set for January 8, 2008, hoping for a third term. A terror attack targeting her motorcade in Karachi when she returned from exile to Pakistan killed 136 people on the day she returned to Pakistan on October 19, 2007, after eight years of self-imposed exile. CNN’s Mohsin Naqvi, who was at the scene of both bombings, said Thursday’s blast was not as powerful as that October attack. Thursday’s attacks come less than two weeks after Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf lifted an emergency declaration he said was necessary to secure his country from terrorists. Will he now claim that this forced ending of the emergency rules was the reson that led to the assassination? Two weeks after the October assassination attempt, Bhutto wrote a commentary for CNN.com in which she questioned why Pakistan investigators refused international offers of help in finding the attackers. “The sham investigation of the October 19, 2007 massacre and the attempt by the ruling party to politically capitalize on this catastrophe are discomforting, but do not suggest any direct involvement by General Pervez Musharraf,” Bhutto wrote. Just think of the possibility that she wanted to believe that the US had an arrangement with Musharraf for an eventual “Co-habitation” agreement after the elextions - with Musharraf as President and her as prime-Minister. Perhaps she really wanted to believe that. Ms. Bhutto saw herself as the inheritor of her father’s mantle, the Democratically elected leader who was executed by General Zia who took over from him by force of the military. Benazir often spoke of how he encouraged her to study the lives of legendary female leaders ranging from Indira Gandhi to Joan of Arc. Following the idea of big ambition, Ms. Bhutto called herself chairperson for life of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, a seemingly odd title in an organization based on democratic ideals and one she has acknowledged quarreling over with her mother, Nusrat Bhutto, in the early 1990s. Saturday night at a diplomatic reception, Ms. Bhutto showed how she could aggrandize. Three million people came out to greet her in Karachi on her return last month, she said, calling it Pakistan’s “most historic” rally. In fact, crowd estimates were closer to 200,000, many of them provincial party members who had received small amounts of money to make the trip. Such flourishes led questioning in Pakistan about the strength of her democratic ideals in practice, and a certain distrust, particularly amid signs of back-room deal-making with General Musharraf, the military ruler she opposed. “She believes she is the chosen one, that she is the daughter of Bhutto and everything else is secondary,” said Feisal Naqvi, a corporate lawyer in Lahore who knew Ms. Bhutto. When Ms. Bhutto was re-elected to a second term as Prime Minister, her style of government combined both the traditional and the modern, said Zafar Rathore, a senior civil servant at the time. But her view of the role of government differed little from the classic notion in Pakistan that the state was the preserve of the ruler who dished out favors to constituents and colleagues, he recalled. As secretary of interior, responsible for the Pakistani police force, Mr. Rathore, who is now retired, said he tried to get an appointment with Ms. Bhutto to explain the need for accountability in the force. He was always rebuffed, he said. Finally, when he was seated next to her in a small meeting, he said to her, “I’ve been waiting to see you,” he recounted. “Instantaneously, she said: ‘I am very busy, what do you want. I’ll order it right now.’ “ She could not understand that a civil servant might want to talk about policies, he said. Instead, he said, “she understood that when all civil servants have access to the sovereign, they want to ask for something.” But until her death, Ms. Bhutto ruled the party with an iron hand, jealously guarding her position, even while leading the party in absentia for nearly a decade. Members of her party saluted her return to Pakistan, saying she was the best choice against General Musharraf. Chief among her attributes, they said, was sheer determination. ———————— The Japan Times Editorial of Sunday, December 30, 2007 puts it right as it is: Assassination of Benazir Bhutto Ms. Bhutto became the first female prime minister in the Muslim world in 1988 and again took power in 1993. She came back to Pakistan in October after 8 1/2 years of self-imposed exile to lead Pakistan’s secular forces. She was the country’s most pro-Western political figure, and a foe of Islamic extremist forces. The United States, which treats Pakistan as a frontline state in its fight against terrorism, apparently hoped for a power-sharing arrangement between Mr. Musharraf and Ms. Bhutto as a means of maintaining stability in the country. With Ms. Bhutto’s death, the U.S. will be forced to rethink its approach. Meanwhile, her death will serve as a boon to extremist forces, including Taliban and al-Qaida forces in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. The situation could lead to more attacks on Afghanistan by Taliban forces. The assassination of Ms. Bhutto has strengthened the impression that Mr. Musharraf lacks the capability to ensure security in his country and to prevent the destabilization of the first nuclear-armed Muslim country. The worst scenario would be Islam extremists getting hold of nuclear weapons. Supporters of Ms. Bhutto accuse Mr. Musharraf of having failed to provide sufficient security for her. Mr. Nawaz Sharif, another two-time former prime minister and main opposition leader, announced that his party will boycott the Jan. 8 general elections. Even if Mr. Musharraf wins, his legitimacy will be weakened and protests against him are likely to grow fiercer. Mr. Musharraf faces his biggest crisis. STATEMENT BY INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP (MaximsNews Network)
Brussels, 27 December 2007: The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi on 27 December 2007 is a serious blow to the re-emergence of democracy in Pakistan and the country’s return to stability. The leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party and former prime minister died alongside her colleagues and supporters campaigning in elections. The international community must now come together to push f |
