Saturday, December 15, 2007

Helen Garner's The First Stone

Author Helen Garner has applied for the police summary in a Geelong case involving a prosecution witness in the trial of triple murderer Robert Farquharson. Garner told the Magistrate she hoped to write a book on the Farquharson case. The book will be the latest in a string of acclaimed non-fiction books about aspects of Australian culture especially involving sex and the legal system.

By far the most famous of Garner’s non-fiction output was her controversial 1995 book, The First Stone. Taking its title from the Gospel of John 8:7, this was an intensely personal account of a sexual harassment scandal at Melbourne University's prestigious Ormond College in 1992. The case was brought by two female students against a college master, who Garner called Colin Shepherd (in real life Alan Gregory). The students claimed Shepherd had made sexual advances in during a party at the college. After a much publicised court case and appeal, the charges against Shepherd were dismissed. However anonymous leaflets spread around the university insinuating he was capable of further crimes. In the end, Shepherd lost his job as Master of Ormond College.

Garner was fascinated by the facts of the case and wanted to learn more. Garner thought of herself as a feminist but she said “it shocked me now…I felt so much sympathy for the man in the case and so little for the women”. She harkened to her own experience when in 1972 she was sacked from her teaching job for discussing sexual matters with her students. Garner said she was less interested in the guilt or innocence of Shepherd than in the reasons why the women went to the police. She wondered why instead the women didn’t fight back with their own weapons of “youth and quick wits”.

Garner interviewed Shepherd at length and attempted to track down the two female students to get their side of the story. She met the director of the University’s counselling service, a lady known only as Janet F. (none of the parties to the case are identified by name except for Shepherd). Janet met all the players in the case and was impressed by the integrity of the two students. But her report on the case for the university was criticised by the students’ supporters as being too sympathetic to the master. According to Janet, the young women who teach in universities are angry at the notion that someone would “invade” another person sexually. It was a matter of exerting power. And they see sexual harassment as a crime, it was important to punish the perpetrators.

Garner met Shepherd shortly after he lost his job. Prior to working at Melbourne University, he worked at the less conservative Monash. Shepherd said he brought Monash attitudes to the Ormond College job and ‘addressed feminist concerns’ by appointing several females in key positions and instituted an equal opportunity policy. Shepherd believed there was a conspiracy against him and that when he lost the initial case, some of the girls’ supporters at the college held a party to celebrate. Shepherd admitted he had been drinking at the party and danced with the two women. But there was no sexual contact. He blamed the subsequent media attention for destroying his career.

Much of the rest of The First Stone (pdf) documents Garner’s failed attempt to contact the complainants. One of the teachers she met said she was disappointed by the “position” Garner was taking. A “cordon sanitaire” had descended between Garner and the women. Garner became frustrated by what she called those “who expected automatic allegiance from women to a cause they were not prepared even to argue”. Another emissary, known only as Fiona P, said she tried to keep the matter out of the courts but failed because the college structure was “basically males”.

Another of the women’s supporters blamed the lack of clarity in the court result for the problem. She said there were people on both sides “with barrows to push”. The women’s officer of the Student Union said the structures protected Shepherd and the college. She said the procedures gave the complainants an apology and a cessation of the behaviour. But she said the system lacked “retribution”. One graduate told Garner that sexual harassment was “always going to happen” but it has to become “more acceptable for women to get angry” about it. What women needed, she said, was some protection against being made to feel uncomfortable.

Garner believed the university feminists had conflated the matter from harassment to violence. They were trying to make a very broad range of male behaviour into a criminal matter. She worried about the impact on such activities as flirting and said that feminism was “meant to free us, not take the joy out of everything. At the end of her book, Garner lamented that if only the women had “developed a bold verbal style to match their sense of dress” then none of the consequences would have happened. In her view they were afraid of life.

Critics called the book an ‘attack on feminism.’ Garner was widely vilified and her description of one form of modern feminism as “priggish, disingenuous, unforgiving” did not win her many friends. According to Green Left Weekly, the book is “is much less about a sexual harassment case than it is an argument against feminism. It caricatures feminism and then shoots it down in flames. Garner has sought retribution on the wrong subject.” The writer has a point. But she forgets that Garner has legitimised the grievances of women but sets them in the context of what Daphne Patai calls “the unpredictability of Eros”. The book remains an honest, personal and useful examination of the complexity of the relationship between sex and power.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Waterboarding: torture on trial

CIA Director Michael Hayden has admitted his agency’s failures in destroying videotapes showing the use of the waterboarding torture technique. His admission comes after a US government official said the tapes were destroyed in November 2005 on the orders of the head of the CIA's National Clandestine Service. The tapes showed several prisoners including Guantanamo detainee Abu Zubaydah being restrained while water was poured over their mouths and noses to produce the sensation of drowning. Critics say that by destroying the tapes, the CIA was attempting to head off its own embarrassing version of the Abu Ghraib scandal.

Waterboarding is a torture technique beloved of information seekers for over 500 years. It involves strapping down prisoners feet up, covering their mouths with plastic or cloth and pouring water over theirs face. Victims quickly begin to inhale water, causing the psychological sensation of "slow-motion drowning". Its attraction is that although it causes great physical and mental suffering, it leaves no marks on the body. The CIA says its interrogation techniques are in accordance with legal guidance from the Justice Department. They also point to a presidential finding in 2002 legalising the technique.

The history of waterboarding dates back at least to the 16th Italian Inquisition and perhaps even earlier. It was known as "water torture," the "water cure" or tormenta de toca (mouth torment) because a thin piece of cloth was placed over the victim's mouth. But under the influence of the 17th century Enlightenment, the practice was banned as “morally repugnant”. In 1901, the US military sentenced an Army major to 10 years of hard labour for waterboarding a Filipino rebel. In 1968 a soldier was punished after the Washington Post published a photo of him waterboarding a North Vietnamese prisoner.

Despite these punishments, waterboarding has undergone a 20th century revival. It has been used by a succession of Japanese, French, British, Cambodian and Latin American security forces. It got renewed impetus in the US after the CIA cited it as the technique that made 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheik Mohammed talk though there was a proviso that "not all of it [was] reliable”. According to one former CIA agent, waterboarding works. John Kiriakou, a leader of the team that captured Abu Zubaydah, said the technique forced Zubaydah to talk in less than a minute.

Conservative commentators such as Greg Gutfeld of Fox News says that the technique’s success in getting Zubaydah to name his accomplices shows that the ends justify the means. Gutfeld admits it is torture but says that “a little simulated drowning” is an acceptable preventative measure. “This new info prevented dozens of attacks,” he said yesterday. “But if we had listened to the Streisands and Afflecks of the world and banned waterboarding, then how many lives might have been lost?” The nub of Gutfield’s argument is that waterboarding is morally justified because the loss of benefit to the individual tortured is less than the loss of benefit to those who might die if torture is not applied.

But Catherine McDonald from Monash University’s philosophy department says all pro-torture arguments are logically flawed and morally implausible. Apart from the possible problem of torturing the innocent, McDonald disputes the evidence that torture is an effective means of gaining information. Its use also undermines civilian support for military activities and can galvanise an otherwise demoralised opposition. She believes that the concept of ‘justifiable torture’ is merely a rationalisation for the current US administration’s political position.

Torture is an international crime. The international Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment has been ratified by 130 countries including the US and Australia. It forbids nations from deliberately inflicting ‘severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental…for such purposes as obtaining...information or a confession. The Judge Advocates General (JAGs) of the US Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines agreed in August 2006 that waterboarding violates US law and the law of war. Several JAGs specifically stated that use of this technique would violate the US anti-torture statute, making it a felony offence.

Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote: “torture is senseless violence. Its purpose is not only the extortion of confessions and betrayals; the victim must disgrace himself, by his screams and his submissions, like a human animal”. Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, has no doubt that waterboarding is torture and also says he knows why the CIA destroyed the evidence. "It really shows a mind-set and pattern of lawlessness,” he said. ”Not only to engage in illegal behaviour like torture, but to then destroy the evidence and attempt to cover it up.”

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Aurukun: the shame and the breast-beating

The carefully weighted decision of a Cairns judge not to impose custodial sentences on nine men found guilty of rape of a ten-year old girl has caused a predictable political firestorm. State Premier Anna Bligh said she was appalled at the sentence and has stood down the crown prosecutor in the case. Meanwhile federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said she was “sickened” by the lack of a jail sentence. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd also joined the chorus of disapproval saying he was “disgusted and appalled”.

Cairns District Court judge Sarah Bradley did not record convictions against six teenage attackers and gave three others aged 17, 18 and 26 suspended sentences over the rape of a 10-year-old girl in Aurukun in 2005. Bradley said the sentences were appropriate and were in line with what was requested by the prosecution. The Queensland government is appealing the sentences and has ordered a review of around 75 sexual assault cases in Cape York over the past two years.

Although Queensland state officials said they were not aware of the case until it was reported in the media on Monday, Anna Bligh has admitted her government’s child safety officers have failed in their duty of care. The child was gang-raped at the age of seven and was later put into foster care with a non-Indigenous family in Cairns. However child safety officers returned her to Aurukun, where she was raped again three years later. Bligh says the officers made the wrong decision in removing the child from foster care. The girl contracted a sexually transmitted disease from the latest assault.

The case has heightened calls for the NT intervention to be brought into Queensland. But the inevitable result will be an increase in the prison population of Aboriginals. Aboriginal people now make up almost 90 per cent of the Territory's prison population. In 2005 the national rate of imprisonment of Indigenous people was 12 times higher (1,561 per 100,000) than the rate for non-Indigenous persons (129 per 100,000). Queensland has already the second highest number of incarcerated Aboriginals.

The crown prosecutor would have been aware of this when he decided against seeking jail time for the nine offenders in Aurukun. He described the crime as "childish experimentation" and consensual "in a general sense" though not “in a legal sense”. The publicly released court transcripts showed that prosecutor Steve Carter described the incident as "consensual sex". He said the girl had pre-arranged the sex with the nine males and they had not forced themselves on her or threatened her. He asked for custodial sentences not to be given. "My submission in relation to this particular offence is the same that I make in relation to children of that age ... they're very naughty for doing what they're doing,” he said. “But it's really - in this case, it was a form of childish experimentation, rather than one child being prevailed upon by another”. This is not an uncommon experience in Aurukun.

Aurukun is about 100km south of Weipa on the Cape York Peninsula and looks out west on the Gulf of Carpentaria. Aurukun is the centre of the Wik native title claim and is the home to a population of about 1,200 mostly Indigenous people. The Aurukun Shire Council has applied mainstream town planning principles to create rows and columns of residential block houses. But Aurukun people have made their own use of space. Individuals generally occupy houses according to family networks (sometimes more than 20 people in each house) and regional cultural affiliations such that inland groups occupy housing towards the eastern end of town. However, most Aurukun people are dissatisfied with these housing arrangements.

Aurukun was the scene of several riots this year. In January this year,a riot broke out which involved a quarter of the population. The riot began after a local man was arrested by police. Another 31 people were arrested after a squabble between two clans in September. In this riot, 200 people pelted houses and cars with projectiles, including spears, and lit fires.

But people have lived peaceably here for thousands of years. The locals fiercely guarded their bit of tropical paradise and armed warriors turned away Dutch sailors in the 17th century. Nearby Cape Keerweer takes its name from the Dutch word “to turn back”. The first mission was founded in Aurukun in 1904. It was managed under the provision of the Queensland Aborigines Act by the Presbyterian Church. Aborigines were forced to move into the mission settlement. In 1978 the community fought the Bjelke-Petersen Queensland government plan to abolish the reserves and take control of the land. All the adults in Aurukun signed a petition they sent to Governor-General protesting the decision: “We know this place is our land. Our great, great grandfathers lived here in this land for a long time. It is our mother. It brings us food and everything. The world is good. We want to live in a useful way. Why do you not want to give us back our tribal land?”

Today Aurukun is chronically under-resourced in the most basic infrastructure and services. As well as chronic overcrowding in housing, facilities are old and decrepit, food is expensive and low quality, jobs are few, skills are rare, drug and substance abuse is common and there are no doctors or dentists. It is doubtful today’s elders would agree with the 1978 petition that “the world is good”. Bligh, Macklin, and especially Kevin Rudd should remember this before they rush in to condemn lenient sentencing.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Kosovo strikes out towards independence

The stakes are rising in Kosovo. Yesterday ethnic Albanians rallied in their thousands in the streets of the capital Pristina in support of an independent Kosovo. Thousands of students marched from the city’s University to Kosovo's parliament demanding an immediate declaration of independence. They carried American and Albanian flags, as well as posters bearing slogans such as "No more delays” and "Independence is the only option". They were buoyed by the spokesman for Kosovo's negotiating team with Serbia, who said yesterday the breakaway province’s future would be decided in the first quarter of 2008.

Kosovar Spokesman Skender Hyseni said independence was "not an issue of if but when”. His statement came a few days after the negotiators of the UN appointed three-party "troika" (US, EU and Russia) admitted defeat in getting Serbia and Kosovo to agree on a way forward after four months of talks. Hyseni said his government will press now ahead with independence plans. "Kosovo will look at its own agenda,” he said “Kosovo is only going to follow its own roadmap."

However Serbia is now threatening to go to the International Court of Justice to prevent Kosovo from being recognised as a state. Boris Tadic, Serbia's president, told state television Serbia would ask the UN Security Council to seek an International Court of Justice opinion on the "legality or illegality" of Kosovo's possible independence. Serbia had indicated that it would use any means necessary, except force, to prevent Kosovo's secession.

Serbia’s position is strongly supported by long-term ally Russia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that countries planning to recognise the independence of Kosovo should "think very carefully about the consequences". He said those countries would be violating international law. "This will cause a chain reaction in the Balkans and other areas of the world,” he said. “Those making such plans must think very carefully about the consequences."

Kosovo descended into an ethnic cleansing war in the late 1990s. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was established in 1996 and began sporadic attacks on Serb authorities. In retaliation Serbian forces killed 11,000 Albanians between 1997 and 1999. Another 1,500 mostly Serb civilians were killed in the NATO high-altitude bombing of Serb military forces that followed. Serbian forces withdrew in June 1999 allowing the Security Council to adopt Resolution 1244 for a UN takeover of the province.

As a result of Resolution 1244, Kosovo has been governed by the United Nations Interim Administration Mission (UNMIK) since 1999. UNMIK’s job is to administer the region and promote the establishment of the authority of the Kosovar people. There are four pillars of UNMIK leadership. Pillars I (police and justice) and II (civil administration) are run directly by the UN. Pillar III (democratisation and institution building) is run by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and Pillar IV (reconstruction and economic development) is run by the EU. UNMIK’s rule is supported by 16,000 NATO peacekeepers.

Kosovo has a population of 1.8 million, 90 per cent of whom are Albanian Muslims. While all local political parties support an independent Kosovo, the parliamentary elections in Kosovo last month saw an important shifting of the ground. Hashim Thaci‘s Democratic Party (PDK) defeated the ruling Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) which had a policy of passive resistance to Serb rule. Kosovo's new prime minister-designate is now anxious to take the initiative. The 39 year old former KLA guerrilla resistance leader said yesterday independence from Serbia is “just weeks" away. He knows he has the backing of the West and has ruled out a division of Kosovo along ethnic lines. “The internal problems of Serbia cannot depend on the political process of Kosovo," he said. “Kosovo has its own way, and we would like to have a democratic country too."

Monday, December 10, 2007

Historic EU-Africa summit ends in Lisbon

The two day summit in Lisbon between EU and African leaders has ended in dispute over trade and human rights issues despite the two sides signing a “declaration” promoting free trade and democracy. Over 70 European and African heads of state gathered for the first inter-continental conference in seven years and produced an ambitious action plan covering issues as diverse as immigration and climate change.

The summit had the ambitious goal (pdf) of promoting a common agenda on political and economic issues, common positions on international conflict and promoting better representation of African interests in international institutions. The conference identified eight partnership opportunities in peace and security, governance, trade, developmental goals, energy, climate change, migration and science. But it was trade which proved to be the biggest hurdle.

The nub of the trade problem is the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) proposed to replace existing agreements due to expire at the end of the year. Anti-poverty groups have criticised EPAs for failing to provide protection for Africa's poor farmers and its fragile industry. ACP countries are unlikely to gain better access to the European market but will see their local industries put under severe strain by competition from cheap and subsidised European imports. The European Commission's own impact assessment notes that, ‘EPAs could lead to the collapse of the manufacturing sector in West Africa’. The EU threatened to withdraw African tariff-free access to European markets under rules laid down by the World Trade Organization if they didn’t agree to the EPAs. Nonetheless President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal was emphatic. “We are not talking any more about EPAs, we've rejected them,” he said.

A total of six EPAs were being negotiated, on a regional basis, with groups of countries in West Africa, Central Africa, Eastern and Southern Africa, the Southern African Development Community, the Caribbean and the Pacific. As well as tariff issues, Africa is not happy with the EU's insistence on tying aid and investment to improvements in democracy and human rights. Africa's negotiating position has been strengthened by its growing relations with China and the loans they offer on a ‘no conditions’ basis.

The EU remains Africa's largest commercial partner, with trade total more than $315 billion in 2006. But EU officials and businessmen fear growing Chinese investment in Africa. Beijing held a summit for 45 African leaders last year to celebrate a tenfold increase in China’s trade with Africa. While China has massively increased its investments in Africa, it conveniently does not comment on issues such as democracy and human rights. As the Times states: “[China does] not threaten to arrest their ministers and haul them before the International Criminal Court for war crimes. They do not hector Mugabe or demand that [Sudan's president] Bashir accept UN troops. They just want to buy oil.”

The main focus for Human rights issues in the EU Summit centred around the appearance of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe. British PM Gordon Brown had stayed away from the conference in protest at Mugabe’s presence. After being criticised by German chancellor Angela Merkel who was backed up by the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden, Mugabe denounced European critics of his government as being ill-informed stooges of Britain, the former colonial power in Zimbabwe. Mugabe retains the support of his fellow African leaders. In a closed session, he called his European critics "Gordon's gang of four” but otherwise kept a low profile at the conference refusing to speak to the media.

Away from human rights, there was progress on climate change, which is among the most serious threats to African stability in the next few years. The threat takes the form of floods and droughts and their effects on food security and water management. One ambitious project discussed at the summit involved establishing a "green wall" around the Sahara desert to push back desertification. That would take the form of large dams, water collection areas and tree-planting.

Immigration is another highly contentious area with the EU committed to the “blue card” plan aimed at attracting highly skilled workers to replace its own rapidly ageing work force. However that is unlikely to resolve the biggest issue between the EU and Africa: the wave of illegal immigration. Spanish PM Jose Luiz Zapatero said Europe and Africa had to work together to boost education, employment and infrastructure in Africa to stop the flow of illegal immigrants. Spain is the worst affected country with 31,000 arriving across the straits each year. Zapatero said the problem “produces citizens that are vulnerable to human trafficking, abuse and without any rights in the countries of destination." Libyan president Gaddafy said this was a problem of Europe’s making. "Either you give us back our resources or you invite us in your countries,” he said.

The conference also re-iterated the Cotonou Agreement with sub-Saharan Africa, despite the EU desire to replace it with the EPAs,. Signed in Cotonou, Benin in 2000, the agreement outlined five pillars in the fight against global poverty: an enhanced political dimension, increased participation, a more strategic approach to cooperation focusing on poverty reduction, new economic and trade partnerships and improved financial cooperation.

Despite the many disagreements, hosts Portugal was upbeat about the impact of the summit. The event was the top priority of Portugal’s six-month presidency of the EU, and they spent €10m staging the two-day event. José Sócrates, the Portuguese prime minister said optimistically the conference would help dispel colonial guilt and resentment, and would lay the foundation for a new relationship between the EU and Africa. Although Portugal’s colonial record in Mozambique and Angola was appalling, the Portuguese Prime Minister was keen to stress his country’s long-standing involvement in African affairs. “It was from Lisbon that Europe first came to know Africa,” said Sócrates. “Now in the same city the two continents are renewing their relationship.”

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Natasha Stott Despoja flies from Democrats ashes

At just 38 years of age, Natasha Stott Despoja has retired from politics. She did not contest her South Australian Senate seat in the election and her twelve year term in parliament expires on 30 June 2008. When she leaves, so will all the last four remaining Democrat Senators. The party has been annihilated barely 30 years after it was founded. The fact remains that the Democrats have not won a seat since Stott Despoja won four, including her own, as leader in 2001.

Stott Despoja made her decision to resign in 2006 so she could spend more time with her then 21 month old son. She said it was a matter of “personal choice values”. But she also said the system was not perfect. She said women work and have families all the time. “We've still got issues like parental leave, child care being accessible and affordable, flexibility of work hours, the opportunity to return to work part-time,” she said. “All of these issues should be forefront on the top of the agenda."

But Stott Despoja will no longer be in parliament to push this agenda. This will be a disappointment for the supporters of the woman who was once more popular than either the Prime Minister or the Opposition Leader. At 26, she was the youngest woman ever in parliament, at 28 she was deputy leader and then at 31 she was the youngest ever party leader in Australia. But although she won the Democrats their last ever seats in the 2001 election, she was ousted less than a year later by a power struggle within the party. She took maternity leave in 2004 and while her profile dipped, the fortunes of her party nosedived.

The story of Stott Despoja’s brief and traumatic leadership of the Democrats is told in a fascinating insider’s profile in “The Natasha Factor: Politics, Media and Betrayal” by Alison Rogers. Rogers was Stott Despoja’s chief media adviser during the leadership and was therefore very close to the centre of the action. In 1998 Rogers was an ABC Radio presenter in Adelaide when she met Natasha. They liked each and Natasha offered her a job. It wasn’t until two years later when Rogers, bored with the ABC, decided to take her up on the offer.

Stott Despoja was then deputy leader and had been re-nominated as the party’s lead candidate in the election that was due the following year. Despite Stott Despoja’s magnetism and popularity this was not straightforward due to major divisions within the party. In 1998, leader Meg Lees had stunned the party when she went back on an election promise and negotiated with PM John Howard to pass a GST bill through parliament. Stott Despoja led the branch of the party opposed to Lees’ action.

The party mood was gloomy ahead of the 2001 election. This was the first vote since the GST split. A WA election in February saw the last two Democrats lose their seats in that state’s Upper House. The clamour to replace the low profile Lees with the more gifted communicator Stott Despoja was growing. While Natasha wanted to wait until after the election, she was worried there may not be a party to lead after the election. After a gruelling six week campaign (the entire two thousand strong Democrat party takes part in the vote), Stott Despoja won a resounding victory in every state and territory. Lees’ supporter Aden Ridgeway was elected her deputy.

Stott Despoja had always been a media dream. Young, attractive and full of ready quotes, she was hot public property from the moment she set foot in Canberra and the leadership increased the tempo further. Now there was conflict afoot as media were keen to explore the party divisions while Stott Despoja wanted to move onto the next phase. Laurie Oakes of Channel Nine immediately went on the attack in his first interview with her as leader asking “how does it feel to have blood on your hands?”

Meanwhile the women’s magazines were desperate to get up close and personal with the Democrat’s young leader. She agreed to talk to Australian Women’s Weekly because they said they would ask policy questions. However the price of giving her views on the GST, same-sex parenting and euthanasia, were questions such as who she thought was the sexiest man alive and what was her favourite flower. The magazine also breached an off-the-record component of the interview set-up with Alison Rogers herself featuring in the profile. Elsewhere in the media, the buzz words were Natasha’s “first test” as leader, whether it was the budget, the Victorian by-election, or the federal election that followed.

In mid 2001, the Democrats were polling a healthy 8 to 9 percent reflecting public acceptance of the new leader. Then came Tampa. Along with Labor, Stott Despoja bravely opposed Howard’s emergency legislation despite huge public support for action against the boatpeople. The mood of fear in the electorate intensified after 9/11. The personal element for Natasha was strong. Andrew Knox, a close personal friend, died in the twin towers. With the effect of Tampa dragging on, Labor backflipped on the legislation, leaving the Democrats isolated in opposition. John Howard called the election in October, with Australian troops on the ground in Afghanistan.

Democrat polling showed that Natasha was the party’s best weapon for success. So they ran a presidential style campaign with Natasha featuring prominently on all ads and literature. The government ran strongly on asylum seekers leaving the Democrats with a difficult task to retain their five seats in the election. The media was tough on Stott Despoja and she blundered on Afghanistan’s maternity leave scheme giving the impression the Taliban’s regime treated women better than Australia. A former mentor and senator, John Coulter resigned from the party one week out from the election saying it had not done enough to purge pro-GST elements.

In the election itself, the Howard Government was re-elected in a landslide win. In the Senate, the Democrats vote dropped since 1998 but they held on to four of their five seats, losing only NSW. In an otherwise boring election, the media painted it as a defeat for the Democrats at the hands of the Greens. Though it was highly unlikely, they would have done any better, the Lees faction began an open rebellion against Stott Despoja. Deputy Ridgeway was reported as being “unhappy” with the presidential style of the election. In her personal life, she split with long-time boyfriend Hugh Rimington of Channel Nine and began seeing lobbyist Ian Smith.

The results were no better for the Democrats in her home state election in February 2002. They took 7.3 per cent of the South Australian vote, a huge swing against them since their record 16 percent of the previous election. Commentators were quick to pin the blame on the leader who was away in New York for much of the election. Afterwards the only coverage the Democrats could get was about the party split. Meg Lees was making antagonistic statements and casting doubts on Stott Despoja’s ability as leader. The pair differed over the impending privatisation of Telstra. The personal bitterness between the pair grew as the year progressed.

The party room was split down the middle. Lees had the support of Ridgeway, Lyn Allison and Andrew Murray. Stott Despoja relied on the council of Andrew Bartlett, Brian Grieg and John Cherry. When Andrew Murray did an interview that clearly showed his sympathies for Lees, Bartlett retaliated by calling Murray “politically inept or deliberately treacherous”. After a long stand-off in which Murray refused to back down and threatened to stand as an independent, he was accepted back into the party without the apology Stott Despoja needed. Her authority was fatally compromised.

Matters worsened when Meg Lees resigned from the Democrats but refused to resign her seat. Lees blamed an intolerant party machine for her departure. An independent Lees was exactly the lifeline PM Howard needed to get his Telstra sale through the Senate. Stott Despoja was grilled by the media and blamed for the Democrat troubles. Andrew Murray continued to snipe at her leadership. Though accepted back into the party, he had given no ground. Without her approval, the party put out a ten-point plan that reduced her power and gave in to Murray’s demands. The plan was approved 4-3. Natasha had lost the balance of power.

Stott Despoja resigned on 21 August saying “it is hard to define your role as leader of a political party without the full support of the party room”. The party had no real plan other than to remove her. None of her opponents would volunteer for the top job. The battle to be her successor was fought by two of her supporters and Andrew Bartlett won it from Brian Grieg. But Bartlett did not have Stott Despoja’s charisma and he lost three seats in 2004. Lynn Allison has now lost the remaining four in 2007. No-one has effectively replaced Natasha Stott Despoja. As Rogers prophetically said in the end of her book in 2004: “the damage that the infighting, public displays of disunity and bickering has caused to the Democrats is yet to be counted.”

Saturday, December 08, 2007

CIA's destroyed tapes renews talks of 9/11 conspiracy theories

US Congress has called for an investigation into the CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes claiming there may be an illegal cover-up. The call follows an admission by the agency’s Director-General Michael Hayden that in 2005 the CIA destroyed two videotapes of interrogations of al-Qaeda prisoners. Hayden said the tapes were destroyed to protect the identities of the CIA interrogators. But his admission has raised questions about trust and what other evidence the CIA has destroyed.

Because the tapes featured 9/11 suspect Abu Zubaydah, these latest revelations are a boon to those who believe in the 9/11 conspiracy theory. Writing in Time magazine ex-CIA operative Robert Baer says that although he didn’t believe the World Trade Center was brought down by explosives, or that a rocket struck the Pentagon, he says he has “felt the pull of the conspiracy theorists”. But he dismisses the idea as something the CIA were capable of doing. “I spent a career in the CIA trying to orchestrate plots, wasn't all that good at it, and certainly couldn't carry off 9/11,” he said. “Nor could the real pros I had the pleasure to work with.”

Veteran Canadian political activist and journalist Barrie Zwicker is less certain that Baer knows the truth about 9/11. In 2002, he was one of the first mainstream journalists to question the official word on what happened that day. In 2006 he published the book “Towers of Deception: The Media Cover-up of 9/11” which forensically examines much of the evidence and finds the official record wanting. His book provides 26 exhibits (conveniently labelled A to Z) which he claims provides proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” that 9/11 was an inside job. Zwicker calls this a “false flag” operation and in the book he describes many examples of similar operations from history.

The subtitle of Zwicker’s book alludes to the heart of what he sees as the problem: a media cover-up. Zwicker says that the world’s media and their wealthy owners have colluded to prevent discussion of alternative scenarios of what might have happened on 11 September 2001. He claims the three biggest secrets about 9/11 are a) the size of the constituency of non-believers in the official story b) the body of evidence that disputes the official record and c) the fact that the media have steered clear of this evidence, although it is readily available. Zwicker castigates the politically motivated 9/11 Commission report which found that 19 Arabs, funded by Bin Laden and others, organised and planned the operation catching the entire US intelligence, military, political and diplomatic establishment off guard.

Exhibit A in Zwicker’s repudiation is the collapse of the third building, WTC7, at 5:20pm on 9/11. The 9/11 commission report does not describe how the building collapsed but the official story is that the building was struck by debris falling from the collapsing twin towers and then fires made it unstable. Firefighters evacuated the building after they heard creaking sounds. The building collapsed a couple of hours later. The official cause was “loss of structural integrity likely as a result of weakening caused by fires”. Zwicker disputes this. He says the building was the home to CIA and Secret Service offices and the collapse had all the hallmarks of a controlled demolition.

Zwicker’s next five most important pieces of evidence all relate to North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD). He says NORAD did not follow standard operating procedures (SOP) that day. SOP states that in the event of a major problem such as a hijacking, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) contacts NORAD who can scramble fighters to the scene ‘within a matter of minutes’. The 9/11 report says NORAD had just nine minutes notice for the New York attacks and none at all for the others. Zwicker says this is contradicted by evidence from the FAA’s Laura Brown.

Once scrambled by NORAD, the F-15s from Otis air base did not know where to go and were ordered out into the Atlantic in a holding pattern awaiting further instructions. Meanwhile Andrews Air Force Base less than 20km from Washington was unable to protect the capital. The commission claimed Andrews had no fighters on alert but Zwicker cites Aviation Week which said three F-16s were nearby on a training mission. Zwicker also says NORAD has had plans for precisely just such an emergency since the Soviet threat of 1961. Scrambling fighter aircraft had been a routine occurrence for years before 9/11.

Zwicker quotes Michael Ruppert who said in 2004 that the “mysterious and inexplicable failure” of US’s air defences is the “most glaring and gaping hole” in the official story. Barely mentioned in the official testimony is the fact that the US was conducting major war games on the day of the attacks. These included Northern Vigilance, Vigilant Guardian, Vigilant Warrior and Tripod II. These games included scenarios of hijacked airplanes in the area where all four attacks actually occurred. The flood of “noise” from these games caused what Ruppert called a “paralysis of fighter response”.

The next five pieces of Zwicker’s evidence (H through L) relate to the Twin Towers. He says the WTC collapse revealed many features of controlled demolitions (including oral testimony from firefighters), and the Twin Towers were designed to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707. He also cited evidence from similar out-of-control highrise fires in Los Angeles and Philadelphia that showed steel-framed towers don’t collapse because of them. Finally, Zwicker says the steel from the WTC was removed from the scene before it could be examined which was a federal offence.

Exhibit M looked at President Bush’s immediate response. Zwicker says that Bush’s decision to stay in the Florida classroom for eight minutes after being told of the second attack was inconsistent with official protocol. Zwicker asks why didn’t the Secret Service remove him? His answer is that their behaviour suggested they knew what was going to happen and they did not fear for his life.

The next two points cover the Pentagon. The 9/11 Commission claims Pentagon officials did not know about the hijacking of Flight 77 which it says struck the building at 9.38am local time. Again Laura Brown disputes this saying the FAA shared details of all hijacked flights to NORAD. Zwicker also disputes what hit the building saying alleged pilot Hani Hanjour was too incompetent to fly a Cessna let alone a jetliner. He also claims the hole was not big enough to cover the wings and the videotape evidence shows no airplane.

Exhibits P and Q related to Flight 93 which crashed in Pennsylvania after a passenger revolt. Zwicker claims the flight was shot down and parts of the airplane were found scattered over a wide radius. He also disputes the use of cell phones aboard the plane. He claims that cell phones don’t work above 2,500 m and the countryside of rural Pennsylvania has no service anyway. He says the cell phone stories were a “real-time channel for lies necessary to the official story’s ‘Script’”. Presumably Zwicker did not interview relatives of the dead to corroborate this claim.

The next three pieces of evidence relate to the 9/11 Commission itself. President Bush waited 441 days before reluctantly establishing a commission to investigate 9/11 and then starved it of funds (the commission had a $14m budget compared to the $40m available to investigate Clinton’s sex scandals). He tried to put Henry Kissinger in as chair and when that failed he appointed Philip Zelikow as executive director. Zelikow was a member of George Bush Snr’s administration. Their eventually report was “571 page lie” according to David Ray Griffin, who says he has found at least 100 inaccuracies in the report.

Exhibits U through W examined the role of the CIA and FBI. The CIA has long been the training ground for terrorists around the world. According to Michael Springmann, the US consulate in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia was run by the intelligence services. They are also linked to the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency who apparently wired $100,000 to 9/11 leader Mohamed Atta shortly before the attacks. The FBI also provided protection to suspected terrorists and agent Sibel Edmonds who was gagged by Attorney-General John Ashcroft after she queried issues ignored by the 9/11 Commssion.

Exhibit X was the apparent unusual behaviour of Wall St traders in the days before 9/11. The two airlines impacted had “put” options 90 percent greater than normal in the week before. Exhibit Y documented the close connections between Osama Bin Laden and the CIA and the final one, Exhibit Z looked at how the Bush neo-con Project for a New American Century (PNAC) called for a “New Pearl Harbor” as a catastrophic event that would allow the US to play a more dominant role in securing oil in the Gulf.

Zwicker says the original Pearl Harbor was one of many examples of a ‘false flag’ operation. He says that President Roosevelt had advance warning of the attack but deliberately stood by in order to bring the US into the war. Zwicker quotes other examples from history including the Guy Fawkes gunpowder plot which ended the influence of Catholicism in England, Hitler’s Reichstag fire in 1933, the Tonkin Incident which escalated the Vietnam war in 1964 and the Kuwaiti incubator baby deception in 1990 which swung US support around to an invasion of Iraq.

Many of Zwicker’s arguments are demolished in an article in Popular Mechanics which provides valid reasons to support the official cause of the WTC7 collapse, as well as the Pentagon attack and other kinks in the evidence. Nonetheless Zwicker’s book is a useful attack both on the politicised nature of the 9/11 Commission (and its refusal to pin blame on internal incompetence and political interference) and the refusal of the mainstream media to even countenance an argument of the conspiracies on their merits. Zwicker also rightly counsels people to question what they see and read in the media.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

War escalates in Chad

Chad’s army has launched a major offensive against two of the rebel groups massed in the east of the country close to the border with Darfur. For the last two days government troops have attacked fighters of the Rally of Forces for Change (RFC), a fact confirmed by an RFC spokesman. The fighting comes barely a week after government forces fought several major battles with the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD) that left hundreds dead.

The RFC said its positions had been bombed by Chadian helicopters on Saturday. That same day Chadian Foreign Minister Ahmat Allami said RFC rebel forces had clashed with government forces around Kalait, about 200km north of regional capital Abeche. Meanwhile 100km east of Abeche at Abougouleigne, military sources said battles between the government and the UFDD left "several hundred (rebels) dead, several injured and several prisoners of war" in military custody.

Hostilities have broken out after the collapse of a Libyan brokered ceasefire in October between Chad and four rebel groups (including the RFC and the UFDD). N'Djamena blames Sudan for backing the UFDD. The conflict is intertwined with the one in Darfur. Chad's president is from the same ethnic group as some of Darfuri rebels who oppose Sudan’s Arab-dominated government, and each country accuses the other of supporting rebel groups on their soil. London based African analyst Rolake Akinola said the peace deal was not well respected and was very complex to begin with. "Commitment from both groups and both sides has been very shaky," he said. "On the one hand, the rebels have accused N'Djamena and the government of failing to attend Sudan for peace talks. The government itself is not entirely sure how it is going to accommodate the various ethno-regional interests into one political dispensation.

The fighting could push back the deployment of a planned European force to the region until January. On 1 December the UFDD declared war against the French and other foreign military forces involved in the EU mission. They released a statement saying it "considers itself to be in a state of war against the French army or against any other foreign forces on national territory". France already has troops in the country and the UFDD said French warplanes had overflown rebel positions. “Providing diplomatic, strategic and logistical support to the tyrant Idriss Deby (Chad’s president) is an act of hostility and will be treated as such," the UFDD said.

French President Sarkozy said the declaration of war would have no effect on the planned EU mission to Chad. France will make up half of the 3,500 force, with Ireland, Austria, Netherlands, Poland and Sweden also contributing. The operation will go ahead," said Sarkozy. "If we decided to send a European force to one side of the border and a mixed force on the other side it is because there are problems, conflicts, difficulties.”

There is no doubt this is a complex war. Initially a fight between nomadic Arab tribes and settled African farmers, the conflicts in Chad and Darfur have grown increasingly complicated as rebel groups splintered and formed new alliances. Anarchic bandits have taken advantage of the lawlessness to attack civilians, and local politicians do what they do everywhere and used ethnic rivalries to fan the violence. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees an estimated 180,000 Chadians have been internally displaced by the wars which erupted in 2005 and again in 2006 and 2007.

The proposed EU force is widely recognised as strengthening Chadian President Deby's regime. Idriss Deby has been in power since 1990 when he seized power from former dictator Hissène Habré. Before being overthrown in Habré unleashed his troops on a killing spree in the capital N’Djamena. Thousands died. Habré drained the treasury of millions, fled the country and left much of the capital in ruins. Deby was treated as the country’s liberator. But many observers believe he has now stayed in power for too long. He won his third election victory in 2006. Outsiders declared the election fair but opposition parties boycotted the ballot denouncing the process as a sham.

While Deby's shenanigans in Chad were neglected for many years, that has all changed with a new and thriving export market in oil. It was discovered in the Doba Basin in the south of the country in 1974 and established in commercial quantities in 1996. A consortium of Shell, Exxon-Mobil and Elf relied on a 1070km oil pipeline between Doba and Cameroon’s coast to be financed by a $3.6 billion loan from the World Bank. The project was delayed by fights between the multinationals and local environment groups who accused the World Bank of ‘corporate welfare’. The project was delayed by Shell and Elf pulling out and the difficulties of laying the pipe through heavily populated areas in Cameroon.

When the project was finally completed in 2003, Chad began exporting oil on a significant basis. But Chad’s government reneged on the World Bank conditions that profits would go to poverty alleviation programs and gave itself more discretion to spend the oil revenue as it pleased. At least $30 million was diverted to President Deby’s military programs. In response the World Bank froze large sums of development aid and suspended its loan programme to Chad over the government's breech of the agreement.

The problem as Asuman Bisiika reports is one common to many African countries: where there are no strong national institutions, it is very difficult to stop a small group of political elite from "eating" public funds under their trust. Deby has shown he has a big appetite. The question is who is prepared to clean up after him.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Penny Wong: the climate of political change

Just two days after Australia ratified the Kyoto Protocol, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has requested her new department calculate the effect of Labor’s environmental policies. Senator Wong made the request as projections show that Australia will not meet its 2012 target and will exceed greenhouse emissions by 1 per cent. Wong said the new government needed to see what affect their policies will have on Australia's emissions, “in particular our renewable energy target of 20 per cent by 2020”.

Handling this gap between Australia’s commitments and the reality will be the first major challenge of one of Labor’s younger leaders. Described by the Sydney Morning Herald as one of the “rising stars” of Australian politics, Penny Wong turned 39 last month and her newly minted portfolio is likely to be the benchmark test for the incoming administration. Australia’s first Asian-born cabinet minister is leading the Rudd Government team at the Bali negotiations and has been given a tough brief by the Prime Minister to help bridge the gap between the positions of the developed and developing world on future emissions controls.

The nature of the assignment is a sign of Rudd’s confidence in his young new minister. Penelope Ying-Yen Wong was born in 1968 in Kota Kinabalu, the capital of the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo. Her father is Francis Wong Yit Shing, a Chinese architect. Her mother is from Adelaide and her Australian heritage dates back to 1836. Wong’s parents met when he came to Australia as a Colombo Plan student. The couple then moved back to Sabah. Penny was just eight years old when her parents separated. She moved with her mother and brother to Australia and the family settled in the Adelaide Hills.

Penny Wong was a gifted student at Adelaide’s Coromandel Valley Primary and won a scholarship to Scotch College. Wong went on to the University of Adelaide where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts Degree and a Law Degree (Hons). While still a student, she began working for the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union and she stayed on with the union after graduating. Wong then moved to NSW where she was employed as a ministerial advisor to the Carr government, concentrating on forest policy. She later returned to Adelaide to practise law.

In her student days in the 1980s, Wong demonstrated against the Hawke Labor government’s plan to introduce HECS fees for university students. She began to realise she would be better off working within the system to effect the change she wanted to see. She became a member of the Labor party and joined EMILY’s List Australia, the network formed to increase the number of women Labor parliamentarians in favour of childcare, equal pay, and pro choice agendas.

Penny Wong is one of only two openly gay people in Australia’s parliament, along with Green’s leader Bob Brown. Wong has properly refused to publicly comment on her sexuality but she did provide a written statement to the gay community newspaper Sydney Star Observer where she wrote:
“It seems that public figures are becoming more prepared to be open about their sexuality. This demonstrates an increased confidence in the community that people can be openly lesbian or gay and still be successful in their chosen field – a credit to years of advocacy by very brave people. That advocacy has enabled many lesbian and gay public figures to focus on their chosen fields, rather than automatically becoming spokespeople on sexuality issues. I believe this reflects maturity, diversity and strength among the lesbian and gay community”.


Penny Wong moved her chosen field from the law to politics and she was elected as a senator for South Australia in the 2001 election. In her maiden speech to parliament Wong spoke about her Chinese roots. Her paternal grandmother Lai Fung Shim (whom she referred to as “Poh Poh” in her native language) was a Chinese woman of the “Hakka” or guest people. Most of the family died during the Japanese occupation of Malaysia and Wong’s grandmother brought up the family alone. Wong described her as barely literate, humble and compassionate, but the strongest person she has ever known.

Lai Fung Shim survived the ravages of the Japanese in the Sandakan on the island of Borneo. Now the second largest city in Sabah, during the war Sandakan was notorious as the site of a Japanese airfield built by the slave labour of POWs and civilians and the starting point of an infamous death march of two thousand Australian and British prisoners. Conditions for the locals was equally awful, but Poh Poh survived with what Wong called "an indomitable spirit".

Penny Wong has clearly inherited the strength and toughness of her grandmother and she was appointed to the shadow ministry after just three years in parliament. She gained a reputation as a tough questioner on Senate estimates committees, and raised high profile issues against the Government, including the use of the Prime Minister’s residence Kirribilli House for a Liberal function.

Wong’s qualities were noted when she was appointed to the role of Labor campaign spokesperson for the 2007 election. The party’s subsequent stunning election victory was due in no small measure to a smooth ‘on message’ execution of their campaign. At a national press club speech yesterday, campaign manager and ALP national secretary Tim Gartrell praised Senator Wong’s contribution saying “she took on some of the toughest guys on the other side and came out on top.”

Penny Wong has now been rewarded with the new and influential ministry of Climate Change and Water (pushing out Peter Garrett – ironically one of the few Labor failures of the otherwise flawless campaign). In this newly minted portfolio, Wong will be responsible for negotiating the international agreement on emissions reductions after 2012 when the Kyoto Protocol expires. She is also responsible for implementing a domestic emissions trading regime and harmonising the farrago of state-based energy targets into a national program. Wong will relish the challenge of government. "The problem of being in Opposition,” she said, “is that the things you really want to achieve, you haven't achieved."

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Climate change and the age of water wars

The UN has identified 92 countries as being in severe danger of global warming related acute water shortages that could eventually lead to resource-based conflict. Mainly in Asia, Africa and South America, these countries are home to two thirds of the world’s population and among the world’s poorest. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon told the first Asia-Pacific Water Summit in Japan yesterday that the planet faced a water crisis that could be very bad news for Asia due to massive population growth, rising water consumption, pollution and poor water management. Ban said the consequences would be grave. “Throughout the world, water resources continue to be spoiled, wasted and degraded,” he said. “Water scarcity threatens economic and social gains and is a potent fuel for wars and conflict.”

Ban was speaking to the results of a study by London based NGO International Alert. Their report showed that 46 nations and 2.7 billion people are now at high risk of being overwhelmed by armed conflict and war because of water shortages due to climate change. A further 56 countries face political destabilisation, affecting another 1.2 billion. The report entitled “A Climate of Conflict” (pdf) highlights four key elements of risk: political instability, economic weakness, food insecurity and large-scale migration. Climate change will have a direct affect on fresh water supply. It identified several water issues arising from these risks including falling water levels in the Ganges basin, longer droughts on the margins of Africa’s Sahel, glacial melting in the Andes and the Himalayas and rising sea levels.

The worst threats affect those countries least equipped to deal with the crisis. Most lack the resources and stability to deal with global warming. International Alert’s secretary-general, Dan Smith, said the Netherlands will be affected by rising sea levels, but will avoid war and strife because it has the resources and political structure to act effectively. “But other countries that suffer loss of land and water and be buffeted by increasingly fierce storms will have no effective government to ensure corrective measures are taken,” he said. “People will form defensive groups and battles will break out.”

The UN has declared 2008 to be the International Year of Sanitation. It states that over 40 per cent of the global population, some 2.6 billion, have no access to latrines or basic sanitation facilities. As a result millions suffer from a wide range of preventable illnesses, such as diarrhoea, which claim thousands of lives each day. Young children are worst impacted. The UN Millennium task force on Water and Sanitation believes the problem can be solved for just $10 billion annually (about 1 percent of the world’s military spending).

The task force’s 2005 report on water and sanitation (pdf) sought to answer two questions: what is involved in a global expansion of water supply and sanitation in a sustainable manner and how can water use be optimised to meet the challenge. They found that in order to achieve their water and sanitation targets by 2015, the world’s richer countries needed to increase donor aid, the middle ranking countries needed to re-allocate aid to those most deserving, create support for ownership of water supply and sanitation among the poorest, focus on community mobilisation in the areas most at need and most importantly more planning and investment in water resources management and infrastructure.

Asia’s burgeoning but disparate population presents one of the greatest challenges. In the next two decades Asia's urban population will swell by 60 percent and a large proportion of this growth will take place in cities of half a million or less. It will be more difficult to manage water resources prudently in these smaller cities because they do not have the technology, financing, expertise and political support of Asia's mega cities. The Manila-based Asian Development Bank’s study of water resources calls it a strange anomaly. “These smaller centres are receiving conspicuously less attention from national and international policy makers," it said. “Unless the present policy and focus change radically, these centres are likely to be major water and waste-water `black holes' of the future.”

Africa is the other major problem area. Potential 'water wars' are likely in areas where rivers and lakes are shared by more than one country such as the Nile, Niger, Volta and Zambezi basins. The Cuito and Okavango rivers between Angola, Botswana and Namibia’s Caprivi Strip have also suffered due to large scale agriculture, urbanisation and the effects of the Angolan civil war. Tensions also erupted between Egypt and Ethiopia when the latter country considered the construction of dams on the White Nile. Lester Brown, head of environmental research institute Worldwatch, sees the problem starkly. “There is already little water left when the Nile reaches the sea,” he says. “Water scarcity is now the single biggest threat to global food security.”

Monday, December 03, 2007

World Aids Day

The plague known as Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is caused by Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). According to WHO and UNAID sources, by 2010 it is estimated that deaths from HIV/AIDS will rival that of the bubonic plague which killed 93 million during the mediaeval and enlightenment periods. Health activists worldwide hope that Saturday’s observance of World AIDS Day will heighten awareness and focus efforts to combat the pandemic. Experts warned against complacency in fighting the disease and called on governments worldwide to address a multi-billion dollar funding gap.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon launched the 20th World AIDS Day at a midnight ceremony at St Bartholomew's Church in New York. The UN estimates that there is an $8 billion shortfall in AIDS funding worldwide. The G8’s plan to provide universal access to Anti Retroviral Drugs (ARVs) requires an additional $27 billion on top of the $15 billion already pledged. Ban called for leadership among all governments in fully understanding the epidemic, “so that resources go where they are most needed,” he said. "And I call for leadership at all levels to scale up towards universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010."

The highlight of Saturday’s events was a concert at Johannesburg’s Ellis Park organised by Nelson Mandela. 50,000 people watched local and international acts including Peter Gabriel and Annie Lennox. South Africa is one of the worst affected countries with 5.5 million of its 48 million population infected by HIV. The 89 year old Mandela told the crowd that the rate of infection is four times the rate of treatment. "Here in South Africa we are making every effort to reach into communities because we believe the answer is in our hands,” he said. “But what really matters are small acts of kindness ... such as protecting yourself.”

China also took the day seriously. The UN has warned that up to 50 million Chinese are at risk of contracting AIDS. President Hu Jintao appeared on the front page of major state-controlled newspapers shaking the hand of a female HIV carrier. He was inspecting HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment facilities in Beijing and enquiring how policy is being administered. Hu said AIDS prevention is an issue that affects the future of the country. “This is still a challenging task for China,” he said. “It needs effort from every member of society.”

But Africa remains the continent worst affected by AIDS. While the total number of those infected by the virus has decreased from 40 million in the late 1990s to 33 million today, two-thirds of these live in Africa. The World Health Organisation (WHO) had said that the number of people in Africa receiving antiretroviral (AVR) drugs has increased by 54 per cent from 2005 to 2006. WHO’s research also shows that the increased focus on prevention programmes adapted to reach those most at risk of infection is paying dividends. This means promoting increased use of condoms, delay of sexual activity, and fewer sexual partners.

Within Africa it is the south that suffers the most. The group of countries from Namibia to Mozambique has a HIV infection rate of 15 per cent for those in the 15 to 49 age group making it the hardest hit region in the world. The task of preventing AIDS is undermined by social and cultural practices, particularly traditional attitudes to male-relations and sexuality. Denial, lingering supernatural beliefs and fear of stigma also compounded the problem. South African president Thabo Mbeki disputed the link between AIDS and HIV until 2006. Only in the last 12 months have South African government reversed its denialist policies on AIDS promising increased availability of drugs and supporting groups battling the disease.

Botswana, with a third of its population infected, realised the scale of the issue in 2001 when President Festus Mogae called the epidemic “a crisis of the first proportion. In 2002 Botswana began a large-scale program of education and free treatment. By 2005 half the people in immediate need were receiving treatment. Dr Howard Moffat of Princess Marina Hospital in the capital Gaborone is now treating thousands of patients daily. "Botswana has shown what can be done," Moffat said. "But it will need help for a considerable time to come."

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Mohandas Gandhi: a life of the Mahatma

London’s Mayor Ken Livingstone has paid tribute last week to Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi on his six-day trip to India. In a silent ceremony, Livingstone tossed flowers onto an eternal flame at the Rajghat memorial in the capital New Delhi. Rajghat marks the spot where Gandhi was cremated. Livingstone, who is a long-term admirer of India and the Matahma, wants to put up a statue of Gandhi in London. Livingstone says the statue would be a huge tourist attraction and boost Britain's links with India.

Ken Livingstone is not alone in lionising the achievements of Gandhi, the Father of India. Called the “Mahatma” (Great Soul) by Bengali Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore, he was one of the most renowned, controversial and influential world leaders of the 20th century. In his early years he devoted two decades to achieving civil rights for Indians in South Africa, before going on to his life’s major work, the leadership of the movement to end British colonial rule in India. Throughout his life, he promoted non-violent means of resistance to achieve social and political aims and his life ended tragically at the hands of a gunman who thought Gandhi was being too friendly to Muslims.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 in the western coastal town of Porbandar. He was the youngest of four children in a family from the Vaisya (merchant) caste. His father Karamchand was a civil servant who rose to become prime minister of the tiny princedom of Rajkot. But this role was a front for the real rulers, the British Raj. Young Mohandas was closer to his mother Putlibai, whom he admired for her deep religious faith. She taught her son that actions meant far more than their professed beliefs.

School life was difficult for young Mohandas. The family spoke Gujarati, one of the country’s many languages. But the British-run school taught lessons in English and he had to learn the basics of the language before he could learn anything else. He was not a noted scholar and attended Rajkot secondary school without any notable scholastic achievements. In accordance with local tradition, Gandhi was obliged to get married early. Aged 13, he was wed to Kasturbai who was just 10. The very young couple lived at his parent’s house.

In 1888 the couple’s first son, Harilal, was born. That same year Gandhi decided to move to England where he would seek a law degree. Despite opposition from friends and family, he left his wife and son behind and moved to London. He enrolled at the Inner Temple law school. After initially struggling to make the cultural adaptation, he found friends in the local vegetarian community and was exposed to British intellectual thinking. Some of his new English friends introduced him to sacred Indian texts such as the Bhagavad Gita. This was a life changing experience for Gandhi and he was inspired by the saga’s hero Arjuna who vows not to physically fight against his enemies.

In 1891 Gandhi gained his law degree and returned to India. There he found his beloved mother had died. Gandhi struggled to re-adjust to Indian life. His friends were still unhappy with his decision to go to England and his knowledge of English law was little use to him in India and he couldn’t get a job. He left his wife and son behind once more and moved to Bombay to study Indian law. Gandhi’s financial difficulties were compounded by the reckless gambling of his elder brother and his pleading to colonial official Charles Ollivant only make an implacable enemy of him.

With little prospect of success in India, Gandhi accepted a job offer from Muslim Indian businessmen to work as a lawyer in the British colony of Natal. Once again he said goodbye to his wife and now two sons (Manilal was born in 1893), and set sail for South Africa. He settled in Durban where he learned the hard way about South Africa’s harsh racial laws. He was sitting in a first-class rail compartment when railway officials told him he had to move to the car restricted for third-class passengers. Gandhi protested he had a first-class ticket but was thrown off the train by a policeman.

Gandhi moved to Pretoria where he began to be troubled by the mistreatment of Indians. He addressed a meeting of leading Indians where he began “I want to present you with the facts of your condition. His lifelong career as social reformer had begun. He quickly earned a reputation as a fair-minded attorney, mediator and reform leader. He formed the Natal Indian Congress (NIC) which welcomed Indians of all creeds as members. In three years he turned the NIC into an influential political force that was feared by the whites. While away in India in 1896 to visit his family, Gandhi’s message was distorted by his opponents who saw him as a militant about to recruit an army to overthrow British rule.

When he returned, this time with his family, there were calls to hang the “troublemaker”. The furore died down and Gandhi made a brief peace with the British, supporting their cause in the Boer War. He established the Indian Ambulance Corps in 1899 whose thousand members proved heroic under fire. Gandhi was awarded the War Medal. He went back to India for another year to be secretary for the new Indian National Congress (INC) dedicated to the fight against British rule. But the NIC back in Natal asked him to return as the goodwill between British and Indians had dissipated after the end of the war.

Gandhi continued to practice law and ran a newspaper called “Indian Opinion”. He dedicated the paper to fighting the new Asiatic Registration Law (the Black Act) passed by Transvaal in 1907 which required all Indians to be fingerprinted. Gandhi proposed that Indians refuse to obey the law. Disliking the term ‘passive resistance’ Gandhi turned to the philosophies of Thoreau and coined the term ‘satyagraha’ to describe his actions. The word means ‘the force of truth and love’ in Hindi. The authorities weren’t amused and arrested Gandhi and his followers, several times over. Transvaal’s leader General Jan Smuts promised to repeal the law but reneged and used brutal methods to stamp down the rebellion. In 1914, with world opinion turning against the British, the Black Act was finally repealed. His work done, Gandhi returned to India for good.

His twenty years in South Africa had made Gandhi a national hero back home. He spent a year travelling the country to get the measure of his homeland. He adopted the simple dress of the peasant to express his growing belief India should not become completely westernised. For the next 16 years his home would be a simple ashram in Ahmadabad, near the Arabian Sea. When World War I ended, Gandhi began his serious push for home rule in India. In a booklet called Hind Swaraj (Indian Home Rule) Gandhi wrote “if we act justly, India will be free sooner”.

But post-war imperial Britain was in no mood to compromise with the natives. In 1919 parliament passed the Rowlatt Act which gave colonial authorities emergency powers to deal with “revolutionary” activities. Gandhi organised a general strike in protest. In the city of Amritsar, the military commander Dyer ordered his troops to open fire without warning on a protest of 20,000 unarmed Indians. In ten minutes 379 Indians were dead and 1,137 were wounded.

Amritsar was a turning point in Anglo-Indian relations. The population united behind the resurgent INC. Gandhi called for a boycott of all English products and began his trademark use of a spinning wheel. He was pointing out how the old Indian industry of homespun cloth had been wiped out by English raw materials. Britain responded by jailing 30,000 protesters. In 1922 Gandhi himself was arrested and found guilty of sedition. He was sentenced to six years. Authorities released him after two years, fearing his martyrdom when he became ill with appendicitis.

Gandhi became a formal leader of the INC and protests grew through the 1920s. Several millions took his “independence pledge” which was a vow to carry out the instructions of the INC. Gandhi next took on the British salt laws which made it a crime for Indians to make their own salt. In 1930, accompanied by 78 followers he began the 320km walk to the coast at Dandi to collect salt. Along the way, the marchers’ numbers increased and were several thousand strong when they arrived at the salt marshes. As Gandhi picked up grains of salt he said “Watch, I am giving a signal to the nation”.

Back in Britain the tide was slowly turning against the imperialists. There were some standouts left like Churchill who called Gandhi’s methods “nauseating and humiliating” and a new viceroy Lord Willingdon used emergency powers to punish the INC. He declared it illegal and arrested its leaders including Gandhi. They then used traditional imperial methods of ‘divide and conquer’ setting up separate political parties for the Muslims and also the untouchables. Gandhi was incensed and went on hunger strike in prison. The Hindu castes negotiated with the untouchables to stave off the crisis but the Muslims continued to go their own way.

Once out of prison, the increasingly frail Gandhi “retired” and handed over leadership of the INC to the patrician Jawaharlal Nehru. World War II put independence hopes on hold although the INC called a “Quit India” campaign to keep the pressure up. Gandhi was jailed once more and released as independence negotiations entered their final stages. Muslim leader Mohammed Ali Jinnah insisted six Indian provinces become the separate state of Pakistan. The newly elected Labour government found the differences between Hindus and Muslims too great to compromise. They directed Nehru to accommodate a variety of views in his government. Jinnah refused to recognise the government. The country descended into a religious bloodbath.

Gandhi was deeply saddened by the violence. He toured the ravaged country. His presence brought some semblance of calm but the reality was that both sides were shaping up for civil war. In 1947 Britain announced it was quitting India regardless of the outcome. The last viceroy Lord Mountbatten brokered a deal between the INC and Jinnah to partition the country over Gandhi’s protests. Celebrations over independence were drowned out by inter-religious violence. Gandhi continued to tour the country in the cause of unification. On 30 January 1948, the 78 year old leader was in New Delhi on his nightly public walk. A young man pushed through the crowd and shot him three times in the abdomen. Gandhi gasped “oh God, oh God”, sank to the ground and died.

His assassin Nathuram Godse was a member of a radical Hindu group who did not want any peace with Muslims. In their eyes, Gandhi's non-violent campaign was a major obstacle to a re-unified India under Hindu control. But his death almost had the opposite effect. There was a temporary peace as Indians of all religions mourned his death. A million people attended his funeral procession. He attracted tributes from around the globe including Einstein, the Dalai Lama, Truman, George VI, and Chiang Kai-shek.

Gandhi’s legacy was immense. Though Pakistan did go its own way, his leadership was instrumental in undermining India’s deeply embedded caste system. India has a maturing democracy due in no small part to Gandhi’s record. Across the world Gandhi’s became the template for peaceful resistance. He inspired such movements as the Prague Spring and he was a major role model for Martin Luther King. In 1988 Billy Wiseman, president of Queens College in North Carolina, praised both Gandhi and King: “like reformers everywhere, these men were scorned for their beliefs…in the end they were destroyed by the passions they unleashed. But their efforts will not be in vain. The world as a whole will one day come around to their thinking”.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

UN Court reduces sentence of Rwanda genocide hate radio chiefs

On the day a Rwandan census announced that 937,000 people died in the 1994 genocide, three of the media bosses instrumental in urging on the massacre have been given small reductions in their jails sentences. In the Tanzanian city of Arusha, the UN Appeals Court for Rwanda has dismissed the charge of conspiracy to commit genocide of two executives of radio Radio Television Libres des Milles Collines (RTLM) and the chief editor of Kangura newspaper. Two of the men have had their life sentences reduced. Ferdinand Nahimana, RTLM’s founder, will now serve 30 years and Hassan Ngeze, Kangura’s editor, will serve 35. RTLM’s director Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza will now serve 32 years instead of 35.

Despite the reductions, the harshness of the sentences reflects the powerful role of the media in communicating the instructions and the enthusiasm for mass murder in Rwanda. Kangura means “wake it up” in the Kinyarwandan language. The newspaper called on citizens (extremist Hutus) to exterminate the "cockroach ethnic Tutsis" and published the "Hutu 10 Commandments" telling people to kill. In the days before the start of the killing the editor Hassan Ngeze wrote: "Let whatever is smouldering erupt.”

Hassan had inside knowledge things were about to erupt. He was a member of the akazu (“the little house”). The akazu was the entourage of the family of long-standing President Juvenal Habyarimana, and his wife Agathe. But the little house turned on the Habyarimanas after the president agreed to sign a peace deal in 1994 with the Tutsi rebels. They ordered his troops to shoot down the president’s plane over the capital on his return from peace talks in Tanzania. There were no survivors (the Burundian president was also aboard and was collaterally assassinated). Immediately, akazu member Colonel Théoneste Bagasora installed a new Hutu Power government. They conveniently blamed the Tutsi rebels for Habyarimana’s death and within 24 hours the genocide had started.

RTLM was the voice of that genocide. It was a creation of Hutu hardliners and began broadcasting in 1993. It had an ominous message: “Tutsi are nomads and invaders who came to Rwanda in search of pasture.” It was the first of the media to announce the President’s death. RTLM would become the primary medium of conducting the genocide that followed. It was quickly to blame Tutsis for Habyarimana’s death. For the next three months it incited and cajoled Hutus to seek revenge and “exterminate the Tutsi cockroaches”. RTLM also broadcast the names and addresses of the country’s Tutsi minority and the Hutus that sympathised with them.

In all of this was the hand of the new government. Authorities knew they could reach a larger audience by radio than by public meetings and urged the people to listen to the radio so that they would know what was expected of them. RTLM was the most popular station in the country with its lively music and informal and spontaneous style. It was a mouthpiece for Hutu Power propaganda. It told the people what was happening in the street and castigated those who were “not doing their duty” and taking part in the massacre. RTLM's chilling message was: “there is no place for moderates”.

By the end of June 1994, a period of just three months, there were very few Tutsis left, moderates or otherwise. The genocide was brutal and efficient. To help with the killing, the army trained up large proportions of the civilian population into a militia called the “Interahamwe.” Only a very small proportion of this makeshift army had guns, most made do with machetes and knives. Together they went on a rampage, indiscriminately killing Tutsis as well as Hutu intellectuals, doctors, nurses and other professionals.

But like the Nazi obsession of exterminating the Jewish population, the Rwandan government was undone by its bloody fixation for killing Tutsis. The rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) took advantage of the chaos to seize control of the country and end the genocide. The Interahamwe, and with them the RTLM and Kangura bosses, fled across the border to President Mbuto’s camps in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo). There they continued to hassle and raid Rwanda for several years until the RPF supported Laurent Kabila to overthrow their patron Mbuto. They destroyed the power of the militia but the action brought in nine countries and set in motion eight years of war that devastates Congo to this day.