By William Fisher
President Bush’s 180-degree turn on direct negotiations with Iran clearly represents a defeat for the super-hawks who have been urging military action – and arguably an act of desperation for an administration that has run out of good options.
But, if Iran should decide to come to the table, the US will find itself negotiating over Iran’s nuclear program at the same time it is stepping up its “soft power” efforts to “democratize” the country through broadcasting, cultural exchanges, and support for dissident political parties, labor unions and human rights organizations.
Such pro-democracy efforts, however, are seen by many experts as nothing more than euphemisms for regime change, and question whether such programs are likely to help or hinder the nuclear negotiations.
But equally important are questions about the content and effectiveness of such programs as well as how committed the Administration is to a pro-democracy agenda.
As to credibility and commitment, the potential of soft-power initiatives must be measured against the backdrop of what many in Iran (and elsewhere) see as the hypocrisies and contradictions of US foreign policy. America’s credibility as the world's champion of human rights has been diminished by such issues as the invasion of Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, renditions, excessive secrecy, and what appears through Middle East eyes to be a U.S. policy blindly tilted in favor of Israel. And, as evidenced by its dealings with countries like Egypt, Libya, and Saudi Arabia, the Bush Administration has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to abandon its democracy agenda in favor of recruiting partners for the "Global War on Terror" and cultivating cozy relationships with energy-rich countries, even if they are ruled by dictators.
As to the effectiveness of the “soft power” initiatives currently being implemented or discussed, the situation is even murkier and more complex.
After the 1978 Islamic Revolution in Iran – the hostage-taking and the end of US-Iran diplomatic relations -- the US effectively ignored that country. Iran did not again become a priority for the US Government until 2003, when some of our officials awakened to the reality that Iran was next door to Iraq, and thus positioned to do good or mischief. It was mooted that there would be discussions between the Iranian Government and US Ambassador to Iraq, but as far as we know, this never happened.
What did happen was that President Bush – at the urging of Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice – decided that using the Europeans as surrogate negotiators simply wasn’t working, and that the US needed to participate in direct negotiations over the nuclear issue.
In the months during which Bush’s major policy change was being battled out within the Administration, the State Department was already tooling up for a renaissance of “public diplomacy” directed toward Iran. This planning started from a baseline of almost zero.
Before the nuclear issue exploded onto the world stage, there was limited support for aid to émigré groups by conservative Republican lawmakers such as Sen. Rick Santorum, and anti-Iran organizations such as the American-Israel Public Affairs Council (AIPAC). Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, a Christian Right ally of the neo-conservatives, introduced the "Iran Democracy Act" that sets as US policy the goal of "an internationally monitored referendum to allow the Iranian people to peacefully change their system of government."
But their efforts only succeeded in extracting a paltry $3 million from Congress, $1 million of which was granted to a single US-based NGO known as the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. Its mission was to document human rights violations committed in Iran since the 1979 revolution.
At the same time, the large Iranian émigré community in Los Angeles continued to press for government support of private US-based broadcasting services and for pro-democracy groups inside Iran. Some in the administration, however, were gun-shy about supporting émigré groups, recalling that that's how we got Mr. Chalabi and his pal, Curveball.
But well before the current nuclear issue became a daily page-one story, a growing sense of urgency about Iran had landed at the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees all US foreign broadcasting efforts. The BBG’s current budget for Persian broadcasting through the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe is approximately $14.7 million.
So, back in 2003, the BBG's controversial Republican chairman, Kenneth Tomlinson, called Washington from a board meeting in Prague to urgently order the Voice of America's main Persian-language television show to go daily from once a week. In the fall of 2004, Tomlinson persuaded then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to push for funding that would allow VOA to boost its Persian-language television programming from just nine original hours per week to 28 per week.
But today, the State Department’s vision for the immediate future is far more ambitious. Dr. Rice has asked Congress for another $75 million to implement an ambitious three-pronged strategy involving:
Expanding independent radio and television, with some $50 million allocated to establishing round-the-clock, Farsi-language television in tandem with current foreign nonstop radio broadcasts;
Funding pro-democracy groups, an initiative that would require lifting the current ban on US financing of Iran-based nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), trade unions, human rights groups, and opposition candidates. Most of the money was to go to organizations based outside of Iran but with direct ties to eligible groups and people inside the country to protect their identity;
Boosting cultural and education fellowships and exchanges to help pay Iranian students and scholars to enroll in US universities. During the 1970s, there were 200,000 Iranian students in the United States, Rice told Congress; today that figure has plummeted to around 2,000.
These funds have been approved by congressional appropriators, but the issue has not come up for a floor vote yet. Meanwhile, the State Department has already begun to implement this more robust Iran strategy. For example, it has created an Iran desk. Last year, only two people in the department worked full time on Iran; now there will be 10. The department is also launching more training in the Farsi language and is planning an Iranian career track, which will be difficult without an embassy in Tehran. And the Office of the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) is seeking proposals for grant applications that support democratic governance and reform in Iran.
But, realistically, there are major components of this Iran strategy that the US Government simply cannot implement.
Current law would have to be changed to allow direct support for labor unions, opposition political parties, and dissident NGOs within Iran. More important, the US Government cannot “empower civil society” – without landing the recipients in jail.
It can work to increase the number of Iranian students enrolled in US colleges and universities – a number that has fallen from 200,000 in the 1970s to 2,000 since the attacks of September 11th 2001. But this will not be easy. US visa restrictions represent one obstacle. Another is the absence of a US Embassy in Tehran, which means prospective students have to travel to locations outside Iran in order to apply for US visas. And while increasing the number of visiting students is a time-tested and successful effort, it is a very long-term proposition.
So, if many of the more ambitious visions of what the State Department can do are off the table, what’s left is broadcasting, which is why two-thirds of the $75 million request will be spent to increase Farsi-language television and radio broadcasting into Iran.
This involves expanding existing Persian-language television and radio programs directly financed by American taxpayers, such as shows produced by the Persian desk of Voice of America in Washington. VOA would share roughly $30 million of the emergency funding with Radio Farda, a joint effort of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America.
Radio Farda produces fresh news and information at least twice an hour, with longer news programming in the morning and the evening. It also broadcasts a combination of popular Persian and Western music, operating 24 hours a day on medium wave digital audio satellite and on the Internet, as well as 21 hours a day on shortwave. It claims to receive 100 emails daily from its Internet service.
VOA also broadcasts daily half-hour satellite TV news programs. Although it is illegal to own a satellite dish in Iran, an estimated 15 million Iranians are believed to have access to satellite TV. But because of the difficulty of surveying the Iranian public, US officials do not know how many actually tune in.
This month, VOA’S popular Persian-language Mizegerdi ba Shoma (Roundtable With You) program will expand to a new daily schedule, broadcasting 60 minutes a day. The radio-TV simulcast has been broadcast weekly for 90 minutes for nearly a decade.
How effective have US-funded broadcasts been in Iran?
The impact has been mixed, experts say. While less than five percent of Iranians who listen to foreign broadcasts tune into VOA, Radio Farda appears to have had more success. The 24-hour news and music station is the third-most important conduit of information in Iran after local television and radio (excluding print media), according to an April-May 2005 survey commissioned by the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors.
Another survey – carried out by telephoning Iranian phone numbers and asking the person on the other end whether he/she listens to Radio Farda -- put the number of adult listeners per week at 13.6 percent of the adult population. But sponsors of the survey acknowledge that it is not clear “how many Iranians will speak honestly with a complete stranger who has telephoned them out of the blue?”
Is the new effort worth $75 million in taxpayer funds?
John Brown, a former Foreign Service Officer and now a professor of public diplomacy at Georgetown University, supports the new public-diplomacy effort but says it may be too little, too late. “We should have started ages ago,” he says. “Now we’re playing catch-up."
Brown adds, “I think that public diplomacy efforts in Iran are bound to fail unless our policies drastically change. After all, Persians weren't exactly ‘born yesterday’ and pop songs or even ‘serious’ discussions about values on the air are not going to change people's mindsets.”
Lionel Beehner of the Council on Foreign Relations also takes a skeptical view of the potential impact of US plans. “I'm generally skeptical of the good soft diplomacy can have in Iran. The surveys I see show that most Iranians, particularly youth, who make up a bulk of the country, are pretty pro-America already (not pro-US foreign policy, however). A growing number have access to satellite TV. This is not Poland circa 1980,” he says.
And William Rugh, former US Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and a specialist in Middle East public diplomacy, says, “The package of new public diplomacy initiatives directed at Iran contains some positive elements and some well meaning but doubtful ones. The positive elements of the new Iran package are those that involve broadcasting, both radio and television. These are the soft power instruments that are highly appropriate in current circumstances with respect to Iran.”
Rugh says, “Other parts of the package are impractical. There is no way we can work with NGOs or dissidents or reformers inside Iran effectively, and working with exiles has limited value. For such programs, we must wait for an improvement in the overall atmosphere,” adding, “We should engage Tehran instead of confronting Tehran.“
Overall, he says, “Public diplomacy is a positive step but it’s very difficult to do without our being there.”
Will Iranians be influenced by US-funded media?
The outcome is unclear, experts say. According to Alvin Snyder, a VOA veteran now associated with the Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California, “The VOA’s Persian-language TV programs must be compelling to successfully compete for viewers in Iran, where a variety of indigenous program fare is readily available, from sports to movies, and from news to family shows and entertainment. The VOA needs to speak out quickly and boldly, to stake out its turf within Iran’s media landscape, to excite viewers and attract immediate attention.”
The CFR’s Beehner says he is “not convinced that most Iranians are diehard pro-nuclear. For most, it's an issue of national pride; it's not about energy, or flouting NPT rules, or striking Israel. They see others with nuclear programs and think, why not us?”
One additional critical issue needs to be factored into this equation: Resistance to US pro-democracy offers from within Iran. Human rights advocate Shirin Ebadi, the first Muslim woman and first Iranian to win the Nobel Peace Prize, expressed this view in a recent PBS Newshour interview.
Asked if the Bush administration’s $75 million program would be “useful to you and your colleagues who are engaged in this fight from the inside?”, Ebadi replied, “No, I don't think that it benefits me or people like me, because whoever speaks about democracy in Iran will be accused of having been paid by the United States.”
Ebadi is not alone. Her views echo those of many other Iranian civil society activists who worry that the proposed US initiative will simply be used by the Islamic Republic as a pretense for intensifying its repressive approach toward civil society organizations.
Lionel Beehner agrees. In funding pro-democracy groups abroad or in Iran, “you endanger those you're trying to help.”
Beyond that, however, the reality of public diplomacy – whether through broadcasting, cultural exchanges, or support for dissident groups – is that it
cannot be turned on and off. It was never intended to be a quick fix. Even in a best-case scenario, it depends on a consistent effort over an extended period.
The US has failed to mount that kind of effort, and that failure does not bode well for the prospect of “winning hearts and minds” in Iran any time soon.
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Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Monday, June 12, 2006
ARAB VOICES
By William Fisher
I recently sat down online with a remarkable young woman, Samar Dahmash-Jarrah, a Kuwait-born Palestinian-American speaker, journalist, and Political Science instructor at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Her book, "Arab Voices Speak to American Hearts," is an attempt to create a bridge of communication between the Arab world and the Western world. It consists of a series of different Arabs answering in their own little chapter/interview, questions posed by Americans that concern religion, politics, society, and common misconceptions. It is a fascinating array of Arabs who range from a business executive in Cairo to a hair stylist in Amman, a student, an engineer, a preacher, professor, and an attorney. While it is a mix of Christians and Muslims answering different questions posed to them, the views are quite different. Most of these differences revolve around Islam and religion in general. Some see it as a social entity, others see it as an individual belief or practice. Some of those interviewed are practicing Muslims, others are not.
After the World Trade Center tragedy of September 11th, 2001, Dahmash-Jarrah was asked by many community organizations, churches, temples, and peace groups to speak about the Arab world. These events and the Iraq War served as the inspiration for her book.
Here's our online conversation.
Q. The activities, problems, challenges, aspirations, etc. of Arab-Americans are rarely reported by the mainstream US press. Is this because of lack of resources, perceived lack of reader/listener/viewer interest, media concentration and bottom-line orientation, uninformed journalists -- or what?
A. It is a combination of all of the above. It also has to do with how Hollywood managed to turn the villain from the Jew to the Native American to the black and for the past 25 years or so to the Arab. I am some one who grew up in Kuwait watching cowboy and Indian movies and mini series. I remember how at the age of nine, my sister and I would have a hamburger (British and was called wimpy) in one hand, ketchup coming out of the sides of our mouths, and the other hand cheering the cowboy to shoot the Indian. All we knew then was that a bunch of bad dark skinned people left India and came to America to kill the white people! With no educational background on the issue, no other TV source of information to explain to us the historical context and the bias of what we used to watch on a weekly basis, made me a biased if not a racist person who harbored negative feelings about red Indians all my adult hood till I came to live in the USA! Same analogy can be used to explain the image of Arabs (and now Muslims) in American media, psychic, movies, and most of all educational system. One could argue that acts of terrorism committed by Arabs is the cause of this image, but when was the last time an Arab gassed a people because they didn’t like their religion? Or when was the last time an Arab used napalms against a whole village? Or when was the last time an Arab dropped an atomic bomb on civilians?
Q. What are the main things the US public is NOT getting from the media about Arabs?
A. I doubt very much that Arabs are getting any type of half decent coverage of them, their culture, customs, history, or faith. Not even Christian Arabs get any coverage as if Christianity emerged some where in the West, in Philadelphia or in Rome. This is a historical crime committed against Christianity. The only time American media covers Bethlehem news is in the context of Palestinian violence
and never in the context of an illegal military occupation. I used to quiz my college students and ask them where Jesus was born. 45 out of 50 students would say that they have no clue one or two would say Rome, and one told me Bethlehem, Pennsylvania! This is why Arab Muslims and Christians in the Arab world were totally shocked and flabbergasted when I told them that one of the questions Americans want to ask you is: have you ever heard of Jesus Christ? Are you kidding me, an Arab would answer me back! No way, this cannot be true, can Americans be this ignorant? I was on a live popular TV show just a few hours before I caught my plane in April to come back to Florida and the announcer almost died from shock when I told him that Americans wanted me to ask that question to Arabs. He told me: this means we need to start from scratch when it comes to informing Americans about Arabs. My Christian friend who was born in Ramallah was asked once by a nurse doing an MRI on her when she saw her big golden cross: when did you convert? When you came to America? What on earth do Americans learn in schools? What do people learn in bible study in the churches? If this is the level of knowledge about Christ and Christianity in a Christian nation, then can you imagine the level of ignorance about Arabs in general and about Islam? Had there been a fair and balanced media in America, I do not think Iraq war could have happened, or Afghanistan or the total disengagement of this administration in the Peace Process.
Q. What can Arab-Americans can do about media attention?
A. Arabs are to blame too and this was my major message to the Arab world during my latest trip to Cairo and Amman. I strongly suggested that Arabs in the Arab world need to create English-speaking media to address the west from their own perspectives. It is interesting to see how people reacted to such a request: America will not let us! This is what most people told me and they gave me
the example of how Al-Jazeera is being targeted by the US government! It was very easy for me to answer them: well, I still watch Al-Jazeera from my couch in Florida! As for American Arabs, they are to blame too because they should have encouraged their young kids to go into the Arts and into media. Most American Arabs and American Muslim want their children to be physicians and study subjects that can get them good jobs. More of our young need to be in the Arts and in media.
I recently sat down online with a remarkable young woman, Samar Dahmash-Jarrah, a Kuwait-born Palestinian-American speaker, journalist, and Political Science instructor at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Her book, "Arab Voices Speak to American Hearts," is an attempt to create a bridge of communication between the Arab world and the Western world. It consists of a series of different Arabs answering in their own little chapter/interview, questions posed by Americans that concern religion, politics, society, and common misconceptions. It is a fascinating array of Arabs who range from a business executive in Cairo to a hair stylist in Amman, a student, an engineer, a preacher, professor, and an attorney. While it is a mix of Christians and Muslims answering different questions posed to them, the views are quite different. Most of these differences revolve around Islam and religion in general. Some see it as a social entity, others see it as an individual belief or practice. Some of those interviewed are practicing Muslims, others are not.
After the World Trade Center tragedy of September 11th, 2001, Dahmash-Jarrah was asked by many community organizations, churches, temples, and peace groups to speak about the Arab world. These events and the Iraq War served as the inspiration for her book.
Here's our online conversation.
Q. The activities, problems, challenges, aspirations, etc. of Arab-Americans are rarely reported by the mainstream US press. Is this because of lack of resources, perceived lack of reader/listener/viewer interest, media concentration and bottom-line orientation, uninformed journalists -- or what?
A. It is a combination of all of the above. It also has to do with how Hollywood managed to turn the villain from the Jew to the Native American to the black and for the past 25 years or so to the Arab. I am some one who grew up in Kuwait watching cowboy and Indian movies and mini series. I remember how at the age of nine, my sister and I would have a hamburger (British and was called wimpy) in one hand, ketchup coming out of the sides of our mouths, and the other hand cheering the cowboy to shoot the Indian. All we knew then was that a bunch of bad dark skinned people left India and came to America to kill the white people! With no educational background on the issue, no other TV source of information to explain to us the historical context and the bias of what we used to watch on a weekly basis, made me a biased if not a racist person who harbored negative feelings about red Indians all my adult hood till I came to live in the USA! Same analogy can be used to explain the image of Arabs (and now Muslims) in American media, psychic, movies, and most of all educational system. One could argue that acts of terrorism committed by Arabs is the cause of this image, but when was the last time an Arab gassed a people because they didn’t like their religion? Or when was the last time an Arab used napalms against a whole village? Or when was the last time an Arab dropped an atomic bomb on civilians?
Q. What are the main things the US public is NOT getting from the media about Arabs?
A. I doubt very much that Arabs are getting any type of half decent coverage of them, their culture, customs, history, or faith. Not even Christian Arabs get any coverage as if Christianity emerged some where in the West, in Philadelphia or in Rome. This is a historical crime committed against Christianity. The only time American media covers Bethlehem news is in the context of Palestinian violence
and never in the context of an illegal military occupation. I used to quiz my college students and ask them where Jesus was born. 45 out of 50 students would say that they have no clue one or two would say Rome, and one told me Bethlehem, Pennsylvania! This is why Arab Muslims and Christians in the Arab world were totally shocked and flabbergasted when I told them that one of the questions Americans want to ask you is: have you ever heard of Jesus Christ? Are you kidding me, an Arab would answer me back! No way, this cannot be true, can Americans be this ignorant? I was on a live popular TV show just a few hours before I caught my plane in April to come back to Florida and the announcer almost died from shock when I told him that Americans wanted me to ask that question to Arabs. He told me: this means we need to start from scratch when it comes to informing Americans about Arabs. My Christian friend who was born in Ramallah was asked once by a nurse doing an MRI on her when she saw her big golden cross: when did you convert? When you came to America? What on earth do Americans learn in schools? What do people learn in bible study in the churches? If this is the level of knowledge about Christ and Christianity in a Christian nation, then can you imagine the level of ignorance about Arabs in general and about Islam? Had there been a fair and balanced media in America, I do not think Iraq war could have happened, or Afghanistan or the total disengagement of this administration in the Peace Process.
Q. What can Arab-Americans can do about media attention?
A. Arabs are to blame too and this was my major message to the Arab world during my latest trip to Cairo and Amman. I strongly suggested that Arabs in the Arab world need to create English-speaking media to address the west from their own perspectives. It is interesting to see how people reacted to such a request: America will not let us! This is what most people told me and they gave me
the example of how Al-Jazeera is being targeted by the US government! It was very easy for me to answer them: well, I still watch Al-Jazeera from my couch in Florida! As for American Arabs, they are to blame too because they should have encouraged their young kids to go into the Arts and into media. Most American Arabs and American Muslim want their children to be physicians and study subjects that can get them good jobs. More of our young need to be in the Arts and in media.
SAUDI ARABIAN COSMETICS?
By William Fisher
As human rights organizations expressed skepticism that detainees recently transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabian custody could receive fair trials and escape torture - and a new study charged that the country's textbooks continue to promote intolerance of other religions - the oil-rich Kingdom put the finishing touches on its new Human Rights Commission.
The new commission - which the government characterizes as an independent rights watchdog -- came into existence last October, but the King has just gotten around to naming its board members so it can begin its work. The body's chairman, Turki Ibn Khaled Al-Sudairi, who previously worked as a state minister and Cabinet member, said there will be no women on the commission's board.
In a related development, Human Rights Watch said that the 15 Saudi detainees transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Saudi custody on May 18 "are unlikely to receive a fair trial and are at risk of torture."
"After being deprived of access to justice for years in U.S. military detention, they may face continued incarceration with no legal process in Saudi Arabia," the organization charged.
The 16 will be jailed upon their return to Saudi Arabia. Some may eventually go on trial if there is evidence against them, or they could be released after a judicial review.
An estimated 100 Saudis are still being held at Guantanamo, some of them for more than four years.
Saudi Arabia recently freed three former Guantanamo Bay detainees after they completed their jail sentences, according to the state news agency, SPA.
The three had been handed over by the US last year. At least five other Guantanamo detainees were freed by Saudi Arabia last year after completing jail sentences.
Meanwhile, the Center for Religious Freedom, part of Freedom House, a nonprofit group in Washington that seeks to encourage democracy, released a new study claiming that intolerance continues to pervade religious education in Saudi public schools.
"It is not hate speech here and there, it is an ideology that runs throughout," according to Nina Shea, the center's director and principal author of the report.
Among examples cited in the study: A first-grade student is taught that "Every religion other than Islam is false"; teachers are instructed to "Give examples of false religions, like Judaism, Christianity, paganism, etc."; fifth graders learn "It is forbidden for a Muslim to be a loyal friend to someone who does not believe in God and his prophet, or someone who fights the religion of Islam."
The study is based on translations of 12 history and religion textbooks obtained from parents of Saudi schoolchildren. The textbooks were used last year in Saudi schools and Saudi-run schools in Washington, London, Paris, and several other cities, the report said.
The results, it concludes, reveal systematic "hatred toward 'unbelievers,' " mainly Christians, Jews, Hindus and atheists, but also Shiites and other Muslims who do not believe in the country's orthodox interpretation of Islam.
Saudi authorities say they have been working on revisions to their textbooks for some years. The country's ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, said in a statement, "There are hundreds of books that are being revised to comply with the new requirements, and the process remains ongoing."
The new Saudi human rights body is one of many similar groups organized by Middle East governments in the past few years. Egypt, Jordan and Morocco are among the countries that operate such groups. In Libya, an 'informal' human rights group has been organized by the son of the country's ruler, Mu'ammar Gadhafi.
The new Saudi commission operates under the supervision of the king, and is mandated to "protect human rights and create awareness about them ... in keeping with the provisions of Islamic law." The commission's board includes at least 18 full-time members and six part-time members. The king names the board members.
The commission's chairman reported that his group has so far received 400 petitions from the public on various alleged rights violations. Like most of its counterparts in the Middle East, the commission serves in an advisory role and cannot initiate independent investigations of abuses on its own.
The most recent Human Rights report on Saudi Arabia from the US State Department found that " The government's human rights record remained poor overall with continuing serious problems, despite some progress."
It reported human rights violations including "no right to change the government, infliction of severe pain by judicially sanctioned corporal punishments, beatings and other abuses, arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detention, denial of fair public trials, exemption from the rule of law for some individuals and lack of judicial independence, political prisoners, infringement of privacy rights, significant restriction of civil liberties -- freedoms of speech and press, assembly, association, and movement, no religious freedom, widespread perception of corruption, lack of government transparency, legal and societal discrimination against women, religious and other minorities, and strict limitations on worker rights. "
In Jordan, according to Amnesty International, "Scores of people were arrested for political reasons, including on suspicion of terrorism. Many were brought to trial before the State Security Court (SSC)... and alleged that they had been tortured to confess."
"There were continuing restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly. Women were still subject to legal and other discrimination and inadequately protected against violence within the family. At least 11 people were sentenced to death and 11 were executed. Bomb attacks, apparently carried out to protest against Jordanian government policy on Iraq, targeted civilians," Amnesty said.
Jordan's government-funded National Centre for Human Rights (NCHR) recently reported it had received 250 reports of torture between June 2003 and December 2004. It also pointed to the difficulties faced by defendants in proving torture allegations. However, in one case, 10 police officers were sentenced to prison terms of up to 30 months after they were convicted of involvement in the death of a prisoner, the NCHR reported.
Egypt's National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR), which is chaired by former United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, has been operating since 2003. It has been widely criticized by Egyptian and international human rights organizations for remaining largely silent in the face of the country's widespread and well documented human rights abuses, including torture and death in detention.
Neil Hicks, Director of International Programs for Human Rights First, told us he is "not surprised" that the NCHR has not been more visible. "They will choose their ground carefully when it comes to confronting the authorities. I am hopeful that when the NCHR reports on the events since the presidential election they will be supportive of the judges, and critical of the government's approach to suppressing protests in Cairo in recent weeks. I also hope they will criticize the renewal of the Emergency Law."
He added that government-sponsored human rights bodies in the Middle East and North Africa "are harmless, and can be beneficial. The Moroccan commission seems to have done some real good. It did very little for years, but eventually had a role in pushing the government towards some important human rights reforms."
The existence of government-sponsored human rights bodies may have helped focus more attention on the subject. But in most countries in the Middle East and North Africa, there appears to be little correlation between the existence of such agencies and the incidence of human rights abuses. The evidence suggests that private non-governmental organizations are largely responsible for human rights abuses being reported and corrected.
.
As human rights organizations expressed skepticism that detainees recently transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabian custody could receive fair trials and escape torture - and a new study charged that the country's textbooks continue to promote intolerance of other religions - the oil-rich Kingdom put the finishing touches on its new Human Rights Commission.
The new commission - which the government characterizes as an independent rights watchdog -- came into existence last October, but the King has just gotten around to naming its board members so it can begin its work. The body's chairman, Turki Ibn Khaled Al-Sudairi, who previously worked as a state minister and Cabinet member, said there will be no women on the commission's board.
In a related development, Human Rights Watch said that the 15 Saudi detainees transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Saudi custody on May 18 "are unlikely to receive a fair trial and are at risk of torture."
"After being deprived of access to justice for years in U.S. military detention, they may face continued incarceration with no legal process in Saudi Arabia," the organization charged.
The 16 will be jailed upon their return to Saudi Arabia. Some may eventually go on trial if there is evidence against them, or they could be released after a judicial review.
An estimated 100 Saudis are still being held at Guantanamo, some of them for more than four years.
Saudi Arabia recently freed three former Guantanamo Bay detainees after they completed their jail sentences, according to the state news agency, SPA.
The three had been handed over by the US last year. At least five other Guantanamo detainees were freed by Saudi Arabia last year after completing jail sentences.
Meanwhile, the Center for Religious Freedom, part of Freedom House, a nonprofit group in Washington that seeks to encourage democracy, released a new study claiming that intolerance continues to pervade religious education in Saudi public schools.
"It is not hate speech here and there, it is an ideology that runs throughout," according to Nina Shea, the center's director and principal author of the report.
Among examples cited in the study: A first-grade student is taught that "Every religion other than Islam is false"; teachers are instructed to "Give examples of false religions, like Judaism, Christianity, paganism, etc."; fifth graders learn "It is forbidden for a Muslim to be a loyal friend to someone who does not believe in God and his prophet, or someone who fights the religion of Islam."
The study is based on translations of 12 history and religion textbooks obtained from parents of Saudi schoolchildren. The textbooks were used last year in Saudi schools and Saudi-run schools in Washington, London, Paris, and several other cities, the report said.
The results, it concludes, reveal systematic "hatred toward 'unbelievers,' " mainly Christians, Jews, Hindus and atheists, but also Shiites and other Muslims who do not believe in the country's orthodox interpretation of Islam.
Saudi authorities say they have been working on revisions to their textbooks for some years. The country's ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, said in a statement, "There are hundreds of books that are being revised to comply with the new requirements, and the process remains ongoing."
The new Saudi human rights body is one of many similar groups organized by Middle East governments in the past few years. Egypt, Jordan and Morocco are among the countries that operate such groups. In Libya, an 'informal' human rights group has been organized by the son of the country's ruler, Mu'ammar Gadhafi.
The new Saudi commission operates under the supervision of the king, and is mandated to "protect human rights and create awareness about them ... in keeping with the provisions of Islamic law." The commission's board includes at least 18 full-time members and six part-time members. The king names the board members.
The commission's chairman reported that his group has so far received 400 petitions from the public on various alleged rights violations. Like most of its counterparts in the Middle East, the commission serves in an advisory role and cannot initiate independent investigations of abuses on its own.
The most recent Human Rights report on Saudi Arabia from the US State Department found that " The government's human rights record remained poor overall with continuing serious problems, despite some progress."
It reported human rights violations including "no right to change the government, infliction of severe pain by judicially sanctioned corporal punishments, beatings and other abuses, arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detention, denial of fair public trials, exemption from the rule of law for some individuals and lack of judicial independence, political prisoners, infringement of privacy rights, significant restriction of civil liberties -- freedoms of speech and press, assembly, association, and movement, no religious freedom, widespread perception of corruption, lack of government transparency, legal and societal discrimination against women, religious and other minorities, and strict limitations on worker rights. "
In Jordan, according to Amnesty International, "Scores of people were arrested for political reasons, including on suspicion of terrorism. Many were brought to trial before the State Security Court (SSC)... and alleged that they had been tortured to confess."
"There were continuing restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly. Women were still subject to legal and other discrimination and inadequately protected against violence within the family. At least 11 people were sentenced to death and 11 were executed. Bomb attacks, apparently carried out to protest against Jordanian government policy on Iraq, targeted civilians," Amnesty said.
Jordan's government-funded National Centre for Human Rights (NCHR) recently reported it had received 250 reports of torture between June 2003 and December 2004. It also pointed to the difficulties faced by defendants in proving torture allegations. However, in one case, 10 police officers were sentenced to prison terms of up to 30 months after they were convicted of involvement in the death of a prisoner, the NCHR reported.
Egypt's National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR), which is chaired by former United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, has been operating since 2003. It has been widely criticized by Egyptian and international human rights organizations for remaining largely silent in the face of the country's widespread and well documented human rights abuses, including torture and death in detention.
Neil Hicks, Director of International Programs for Human Rights First, told us he is "not surprised" that the NCHR has not been more visible. "They will choose their ground carefully when it comes to confronting the authorities. I am hopeful that when the NCHR reports on the events since the presidential election they will be supportive of the judges, and critical of the government's approach to suppressing protests in Cairo in recent weeks. I also hope they will criticize the renewal of the Emergency Law."
He added that government-sponsored human rights bodies in the Middle East and North Africa "are harmless, and can be beneficial. The Moroccan commission seems to have done some real good. It did very little for years, but eventually had a role in pushing the government towards some important human rights reforms."
The existence of government-sponsored human rights bodies may have helped focus more attention on the subject. But in most countries in the Middle East and North Africa, there appears to be little correlation between the existence of such agencies and the incidence of human rights abuses. The evidence suggests that private non-governmental organizations are largely responsible for human rights abuses being reported and corrected.
.
CALLING MR. SMITH
By William Fisher
For those gentle readers who've been frittering their time away worrying about gas prices or Iraq or government snooping or the levees in New Orleans, I have good news: It's OK to stop worrying about these minor issues and focus their attention on the transformational event of our century -- The Federal Marriage Amendment.
A reminder for those who have been preoccupied with trivial issues: The Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) mandates that marriage "shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman."
We're not talking about a plain vanilla amendment to some pork-barrel spending bill. The FMA is an amendment to our Constitution. And it happens to be the first amendment ever that takes a freedom away from us.
So this is no community theater performance or second-tier Summer Stock. This is Broadway!
So there's a big incentive to pay attention to this passion play. Aside from its profound importance to the future of our democracy, the FMA has all the elements of great political theater. So you can take a break from your hand-wringing and have some fun while battling the sinister forces of evil.
For one thing, the main players are directly out of Central Casting.
Center stage you'll find Senator Bill Frist, Dr. Frist to you. He's the Republican leader in the Senate, and you'll remember him as the heart transplant guy who diagnosed Terry Schiavo's neurological symptoms by long-distance and expressed his doubts that she was brain-dead. I should remind you he's running for president in 2008, so really needs the support of all those wonderful religious fundamentalists who brought us the Cirque Schiavo last year.
Then there's the author of the amendment, Senator Wayne Allard, who tries his best to look and sound like that guy you'd like to have a beer with. This stalwart champion of Federalism is worried that our Constitution is being amended to reflect a new definition of marriage - not by democratically elected members of Congress, but by unaccountable and unelected judges. He's concerned that "If we in Congress fail to define marriage, the courts ultimately will not hesitate to define it for us." He'd rather see these kinds of decisions made by each state, where legislatures are far more easily manipulated and where there are elected judges, because if they engage in "judicial activism", the voters in their infinite wisdom (and tons of money from the religious right) can get them un-elected.
Then there's the chorus, led by groups like the Religious Coalition for marriage which believes that "the world's great monotheistic religious traditions" and "impeccable social science research" agree that when marriage is "radically redefined" or is "no longer the boundary of sexual activity," the result is damage to individuals, family life and social justice. Well, it's good to know they're putting impeccable social science research to good use. Research probably done by a Federal grant to Bob Jones University.
The chorus in this extravaganza is really big and well trained to sing in perfect unison. It includes such Athenian democrats as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer, James Dobson, and spear-carriers like the leaders of Reform Judaism, Roman Catholic cardinals, leaders of the National Association of Evangelicals, the Southern Baptist Convention and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations.
This is the same cast that forced the president to throw Harriett Myers overboard after he nominated her as "best qualified" to sit on our Supreme Court. The chorus felt she would somehow morph into some kind of flame-throwing liberal and force us all to marry gays and lesbians.
On Saturday, the FMA gala had a little preview in the President's weekly radio address, where he told us, "Ages of experience have taught us that the commitment of a husband and a wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society. This performance by The Great Sociologist was so totally boffo he got held over for another gig in the White House Rose Garden on Monday.
The FMA will get a vote on the Senate floor sometime this week, and while there are at the moment only 28 senators who support it, Senator Allard says he intends to introduce it every year until he can get the majority he needs to get it passed and send it to the States for ratification. So if you miss this year's performance, you can buy the DVD now or wait until next year.
I suppose there are two ways of looking at this theater of the absurd. One way says Congress is so ineffectual, clueless and wasteful that every minute it spends on trivia is a net gain for the nation.
The other way wonders how, at a time when our country faces so many existential challenges, we could possibly be spending time debating who should marry whom.
Mr. Smith, where the hell are you when we need you?
For those gentle readers who've been frittering their time away worrying about gas prices or Iraq or government snooping or the levees in New Orleans, I have good news: It's OK to stop worrying about these minor issues and focus their attention on the transformational event of our century -- The Federal Marriage Amendment.
A reminder for those who have been preoccupied with trivial issues: The Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) mandates that marriage "shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman."
We're not talking about a plain vanilla amendment to some pork-barrel spending bill. The FMA is an amendment to our Constitution. And it happens to be the first amendment ever that takes a freedom away from us.
So this is no community theater performance or second-tier Summer Stock. This is Broadway!
So there's a big incentive to pay attention to this passion play. Aside from its profound importance to the future of our democracy, the FMA has all the elements of great political theater. So you can take a break from your hand-wringing and have some fun while battling the sinister forces of evil.
For one thing, the main players are directly out of Central Casting.
Center stage you'll find Senator Bill Frist, Dr. Frist to you. He's the Republican leader in the Senate, and you'll remember him as the heart transplant guy who diagnosed Terry Schiavo's neurological symptoms by long-distance and expressed his doubts that she was brain-dead. I should remind you he's running for president in 2008, so really needs the support of all those wonderful religious fundamentalists who brought us the Cirque Schiavo last year.
Then there's the author of the amendment, Senator Wayne Allard, who tries his best to look and sound like that guy you'd like to have a beer with. This stalwart champion of Federalism is worried that our Constitution is being amended to reflect a new definition of marriage - not by democratically elected members of Congress, but by unaccountable and unelected judges. He's concerned that "If we in Congress fail to define marriage, the courts ultimately will not hesitate to define it for us." He'd rather see these kinds of decisions made by each state, where legislatures are far more easily manipulated and where there are elected judges, because if they engage in "judicial activism", the voters in their infinite wisdom (and tons of money from the religious right) can get them un-elected.
Then there's the chorus, led by groups like the Religious Coalition for marriage which believes that "the world's great monotheistic religious traditions" and "impeccable social science research" agree that when marriage is "radically redefined" or is "no longer the boundary of sexual activity," the result is damage to individuals, family life and social justice. Well, it's good to know they're putting impeccable social science research to good use. Research probably done by a Federal grant to Bob Jones University.
The chorus in this extravaganza is really big and well trained to sing in perfect unison. It includes such Athenian democrats as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer, James Dobson, and spear-carriers like the leaders of Reform Judaism, Roman Catholic cardinals, leaders of the National Association of Evangelicals, the Southern Baptist Convention and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations.
This is the same cast that forced the president to throw Harriett Myers overboard after he nominated her as "best qualified" to sit on our Supreme Court. The chorus felt she would somehow morph into some kind of flame-throwing liberal and force us all to marry gays and lesbians.
On Saturday, the FMA gala had a little preview in the President's weekly radio address, where he told us, "Ages of experience have taught us that the commitment of a husband and a wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society. This performance by The Great Sociologist was so totally boffo he got held over for another gig in the White House Rose Garden on Monday.
The FMA will get a vote on the Senate floor sometime this week, and while there are at the moment only 28 senators who support it, Senator Allard says he intends to introduce it every year until he can get the majority he needs to get it passed and send it to the States for ratification. So if you miss this year's performance, you can buy the DVD now or wait until next year.
I suppose there are two ways of looking at this theater of the absurd. One way says Congress is so ineffectual, clueless and wasteful that every minute it spends on trivia is a net gain for the nation.
The other way wonders how, at a time when our country faces so many existential challenges, we could possibly be spending time debating who should marry whom.
Mr. Smith, where the hell are you when we need you?
Monday, May 29, 2006
OIL ON TROUBLED WATERS
By William Fisher
Amid the ever-escalating rhetoric between the United States and Venezuela, the president of the oil-rich Latin American country, Hugo Chavez, has been busily scoring points with low-income American consumers.
Under a program sometimes dubbed petro-diplomacy, Citgo, Venezuela's wholly-owned gas and oil subsidiary, has been providing discounts of up to 60 per cent on heating oil to poor communities in the U.S.
The program is currently operating in Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Most local politicians, desperate for ways to reduce energy costs for their constituents, have welcomed it with open arms.
Citgo says the program has benefited more than 180,000 households - and is now attracting some big-name supporters. In New York, the powerful Harlem Congressman Charles Rangel facilitated expansion of the program into upper Manhattan, and a new permutation has been enthusiastically embraced by former Massachusetts Representative Joe Kennedy.
Typical of the way the program works is the deal Citgo struck with three nonprofit organizations in the Bronx to deliver five million gallons of heating oil at 45 percent below the market price. Citgo says the deal will amount to a savings of $4 million for the 8,000 low-income households slated to benefit from the plan.
Citgo says it initiated the heating oil program late last year in an effort to help low-income families in the U.S. to cope with the cold winter and high oil costs. The Venezuelan government says the program costs Citgo relatively little because the oil is being supplied directly, without middlemen, who usually make substantial profits.
But Venezuela's "oil for the poor" program has not all been smooth sailing. In Chicago last October, Citgo proposed to substitute diesel fuel for home heating oil, which is used only by a small number of Windy City residents. Instead, it offered a 40 percent discount on 7.2 million gallons of diesel to be used for Chicago's public buses. Though the deal could have saved the city approximately $15 million, the offer was rejected by Chicago's transit authority over the objections of other elected officials and labor groups.
Undeterred, Chavez is now proposing a second phase of the program. He told a delegation of beneficiaries of the program that in addition to the 40% discount, only 30% would go towards Citgo's expenses and the remaining 30% would be set aside for a special local development fund, to help unemployed in the communities to set up cooperatives. The products of such cooperatives could then be sold to Venezuela, Chavez suggested. The idea was endorsed by Mr. Kennedy, a member of the U.S. delegation to Caracas and a key figure in facilitating the heating oil program in Boston via his not-for-profit Citizens Energy Corporation.
"This concept allows families to work out of poverty; it helps them by giving them the tools such as money to build a roof over their head, instead of just a one-shot benefit," said Kennedy.
Chavez also announced that the program will be doubled next year from its current level of 40 million gallons. "No one should believe that this is just a momentary interest," Chavez told the group. "Leave at ease and tell your neighbors of the communities you represent that the program will continue; it has just begun," he said.
Chavez insisted that the program was not designed to buy support in the U.S., as many critics claimed, but is rather an example of corporate responsibility because Citgo, which is now making large profits in the U.S., is now giving back to communities in which it does business. "Citgo has done good business in the U.S. We believe companies, along with making a profit need to have social responsibilities for the people they sell to," said Chavez.
Chavez pointed out that in the 20 years Venezuela has owned Citgo, the company never paid dividends to the Venezuelan state. Only in 2004 and 2005 has it begun to repatriate some of its profits to Venezuela, he said.
He also cited the program as "an example of his government's efforts to move towards socialism, in which countries relate to each other on the basis of cooperation, solidarity, and complementarity." Venezuela also provides discounted fuel to other countries in Latin America.
Meanwhile, despite a State Department spokesman's comment that the U.S. has "no objections" to Citgo's offers, the Bush Administration continues to ramp up its war of words - and equipment - on Chavez and his allies, principally Cuba, Bolivia and, more recently, Iran.
The fiery Chavez has provided the administration of President George W. Bush a lot to respond to. He proposed a new free trade pact between Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia. He pledged to help Bolivia's new President, Evo Morales, with $1.5 billion in energy investments. He also made it clear his country would remain a reliable oil-supplier to his role model, Cuban President Fidel Castro.
Bolivia has the second-largest natural gas reserves in South America after Venezuela. Venezuela's state-owned oil company, PDVSA, and Bolivia's state-owned YPFB, are expected to produce natural gas in a joint venture.
Chavez has also widened his estrangement from the Bush Administration by saying he does not believe that Iran 's nuclear program is a front for secret efforts to produce an atomic bomb. "I don't believe that the United States or anyone else has the right ... to prohibit that a country has nuclear energy," Chavez said at a news conference in London. He repeated a warning that any military strike against Iran would send the price of crude oil soaring above US $100 a barrel and trigger an enormous military escalation in the Middle East. He also called President Bush a "terrorist."
The Bush Administration's retaliation has been swift, though of arguable value. The U.S. recently announced it would cease selling American-made military hardware to Venezuela, citing what it claims is a lack of support by Chavez for counter-terrorism efforts, according to a State Department official.
Venezuela lost no time in countering that it would buy from the Russians and sell off its fleet of American-made fighter planes - which are little more than a pile of scrap metal, since the U.S. has been withholding spare parts for the planes for some time.
Unwilling to be left out of what has all the appearances of a genuine "mouse that roared" international incident, Congress has weighed in with calls for an investigation.
Rep. Joe Barton, the powerful Texas Republican who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, announced he would launch an investigation into possible antitrust violations by Citgo. Barton is the recipient of some $2 million in campaign contributions from the U.S. energy industry.
As reported in the New York Daily News, in a letter to the Houston-based Citgo, Barton demanded that company officials produce all records, minutes, logs,
e-mails and even desk calendars related to Citgo's novel program of supplying discounted heating oil to low-income communities in the United States.
"The bellicose Venezuelan decided to meddle in American energy policy, and we think it might prove instructive to know how," Larry Neal, deputy staff director for Barton's committee, told the Daily News.
But Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said he was flabbergasted by Barton's investigation. "The Republicans are on another planet when it comes to energy policy," Markey said.
Instead of doing something about skyrocketing oil prices, Markey said, the Republicans are probing "a charitable donation of heating oil to relieve the suffering of a few thousand American families."
U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman seemed to agree. He told CNN that the U.S. government has no problems with Venezuela's "oil for the poor" offer. "We view it, as corporate philanthropy," he said, prompting some media outlets to comment that Mr. Bodman must have left his Administration talking points in his other suit.
While Mr. Chavez has become the most recent poster child for Latin American populism, the phenomenon has a long history south of the border. Latin American policy experts are encouraging both the Bush Administration and Mr. Chavez to lower the volume of the current over-the-top rhetoric and tit-for-tat diplomacy that they say can only further separate America from its troubled backyard.
Their fear is that the U.S. will succeed in elevating populists to heroes by backing Big Oil and acting as though every rhetorical extravagance by Chavez is another Cuban Missile Crisis - while Latin America's urgent needs go unaddressed.
They worry that the road the U.S. is traveling looks very much like the one that resulted in what it calls America's self-destructive Cuba policy.
Amid the ever-escalating rhetoric between the United States and Venezuela, the president of the oil-rich Latin American country, Hugo Chavez, has been busily scoring points with low-income American consumers.
Under a program sometimes dubbed petro-diplomacy, Citgo, Venezuela's wholly-owned gas and oil subsidiary, has been providing discounts of up to 60 per cent on heating oil to poor communities in the U.S.
The program is currently operating in Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Most local politicians, desperate for ways to reduce energy costs for their constituents, have welcomed it with open arms.
Citgo says the program has benefited more than 180,000 households - and is now attracting some big-name supporters. In New York, the powerful Harlem Congressman Charles Rangel facilitated expansion of the program into upper Manhattan, and a new permutation has been enthusiastically embraced by former Massachusetts Representative Joe Kennedy.
Typical of the way the program works is the deal Citgo struck with three nonprofit organizations in the Bronx to deliver five million gallons of heating oil at 45 percent below the market price. Citgo says the deal will amount to a savings of $4 million for the 8,000 low-income households slated to benefit from the plan.
Citgo says it initiated the heating oil program late last year in an effort to help low-income families in the U.S. to cope with the cold winter and high oil costs. The Venezuelan government says the program costs Citgo relatively little because the oil is being supplied directly, without middlemen, who usually make substantial profits.
But Venezuela's "oil for the poor" program has not all been smooth sailing. In Chicago last October, Citgo proposed to substitute diesel fuel for home heating oil, which is used only by a small number of Windy City residents. Instead, it offered a 40 percent discount on 7.2 million gallons of diesel to be used for Chicago's public buses. Though the deal could have saved the city approximately $15 million, the offer was rejected by Chicago's transit authority over the objections of other elected officials and labor groups.
Undeterred, Chavez is now proposing a second phase of the program. He told a delegation of beneficiaries of the program that in addition to the 40% discount, only 30% would go towards Citgo's expenses and the remaining 30% would be set aside for a special local development fund, to help unemployed in the communities to set up cooperatives. The products of such cooperatives could then be sold to Venezuela, Chavez suggested. The idea was endorsed by Mr. Kennedy, a member of the U.S. delegation to Caracas and a key figure in facilitating the heating oil program in Boston via his not-for-profit Citizens Energy Corporation.
"This concept allows families to work out of poverty; it helps them by giving them the tools such as money to build a roof over their head, instead of just a one-shot benefit," said Kennedy.
Chavez also announced that the program will be doubled next year from its current level of 40 million gallons. "No one should believe that this is just a momentary interest," Chavez told the group. "Leave at ease and tell your neighbors of the communities you represent that the program will continue; it has just begun," he said.
Chavez insisted that the program was not designed to buy support in the U.S., as many critics claimed, but is rather an example of corporate responsibility because Citgo, which is now making large profits in the U.S., is now giving back to communities in which it does business. "Citgo has done good business in the U.S. We believe companies, along with making a profit need to have social responsibilities for the people they sell to," said Chavez.
Chavez pointed out that in the 20 years Venezuela has owned Citgo, the company never paid dividends to the Venezuelan state. Only in 2004 and 2005 has it begun to repatriate some of its profits to Venezuela, he said.
He also cited the program as "an example of his government's efforts to move towards socialism, in which countries relate to each other on the basis of cooperation, solidarity, and complementarity." Venezuela also provides discounted fuel to other countries in Latin America.
Meanwhile, despite a State Department spokesman's comment that the U.S. has "no objections" to Citgo's offers, the Bush Administration continues to ramp up its war of words - and equipment - on Chavez and his allies, principally Cuba, Bolivia and, more recently, Iran.
The fiery Chavez has provided the administration of President George W. Bush a lot to respond to. He proposed a new free trade pact between Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia. He pledged to help Bolivia's new President, Evo Morales, with $1.5 billion in energy investments. He also made it clear his country would remain a reliable oil-supplier to his role model, Cuban President Fidel Castro.
Bolivia has the second-largest natural gas reserves in South America after Venezuela. Venezuela's state-owned oil company, PDVSA, and Bolivia's state-owned YPFB, are expected to produce natural gas in a joint venture.
Chavez has also widened his estrangement from the Bush Administration by saying he does not believe that Iran 's nuclear program is a front for secret efforts to produce an atomic bomb. "I don't believe that the United States or anyone else has the right ... to prohibit that a country has nuclear energy," Chavez said at a news conference in London. He repeated a warning that any military strike against Iran would send the price of crude oil soaring above US $100 a barrel and trigger an enormous military escalation in the Middle East. He also called President Bush a "terrorist."
The Bush Administration's retaliation has been swift, though of arguable value. The U.S. recently announced it would cease selling American-made military hardware to Venezuela, citing what it claims is a lack of support by Chavez for counter-terrorism efforts, according to a State Department official.
Venezuela lost no time in countering that it would buy from the Russians and sell off its fleet of American-made fighter planes - which are little more than a pile of scrap metal, since the U.S. has been withholding spare parts for the planes for some time.
Unwilling to be left out of what has all the appearances of a genuine "mouse that roared" international incident, Congress has weighed in with calls for an investigation.
Rep. Joe Barton, the powerful Texas Republican who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, announced he would launch an investigation into possible antitrust violations by Citgo. Barton is the recipient of some $2 million in campaign contributions from the U.S. energy industry.
As reported in the New York Daily News, in a letter to the Houston-based Citgo, Barton demanded that company officials produce all records, minutes, logs,
e-mails and even desk calendars related to Citgo's novel program of supplying discounted heating oil to low-income communities in the United States.
"The bellicose Venezuelan decided to meddle in American energy policy, and we think it might prove instructive to know how," Larry Neal, deputy staff director for Barton's committee, told the Daily News.
But Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said he was flabbergasted by Barton's investigation. "The Republicans are on another planet when it comes to energy policy," Markey said.
Instead of doing something about skyrocketing oil prices, Markey said, the Republicans are probing "a charitable donation of heating oil to relieve the suffering of a few thousand American families."
U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman seemed to agree. He told CNN that the U.S. government has no problems with Venezuela's "oil for the poor" offer. "We view it, as corporate philanthropy," he said, prompting some media outlets to comment that Mr. Bodman must have left his Administration talking points in his other suit.
While Mr. Chavez has become the most recent poster child for Latin American populism, the phenomenon has a long history south of the border. Latin American policy experts are encouraging both the Bush Administration and Mr. Chavez to lower the volume of the current over-the-top rhetoric and tit-for-tat diplomacy that they say can only further separate America from its troubled backyard.
Their fear is that the U.S. will succeed in elevating populists to heroes by backing Big Oil and acting as though every rhetorical extravagance by Chavez is another Cuban Missile Crisis - while Latin America's urgent needs go unaddressed.
They worry that the road the U.S. is traveling looks very much like the one that resulted in what it calls America's self-destructive Cuba policy.
THE MOUSE ON STEROIDS
By William Fisher
We can’t be blamed if Venezuela’s mini-public diplomacy program reminds us of “The Mouse That Roared” – and you can almost hear the gnashing teeth in the White House SitRoom.
I refer to the program being waged in the U.S. by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez. Under that program, Citgo, Venezuela’s wholly-owned gas and oil subsidiary, provides discounts up to 60 per cent on heating oil to poor communities in the U.S.
The program is currently operating in Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Local politicians, desperate for ways to reduce energy costs for their constituents, have welcomed it with open arms. In New York, Harlem Congressman Charles Rangel announced expansion of the program into upper Manhattan, and Citgo struck a deal with three nonprofit organizations in the Bronx to deliver five million gallons of heating oil at 45 percent below the market price. Citgo says the deal will amount to a savings of $4 million for the 8,000 low-income households slated to benefit from the plan.
Citgo says the program has benefited more than 180,000 households – and is now attracting some big-name supporters (though Condoleeza Rice is not one of them).
Citgo says it initiated the heating oil program late last year in an effort to help low-income families in the U.S. to cope with the cold winter and high oil costs. The Venezuelan government says the program costs Citgo relatively little because the oil is being supplied directly, without middlemen, who usually make substantial profits.
But Venezuela’s “oil for the poor” program has also met with opposition from some local politicians. Last October, Citgo proposed to substitute diesel fuel for home heating oil, which is used only by a small number of Chicagoans. It offered a 40 percent discount on 7.2 million gallons of diesel if it was used for Chicago’s public buses. Though the deal could have saved the city approximately $15 million, the offer was rejected over the objections of other elected officials and labor groups.
Undeterred, Chavez is now proposing a second phase of the program. He told a delegation of beneficiaries of the program that in addition to the 40% discount, only 30% would go towards Citgo’s expenses and the remaining 30% would be set aside for a special local development fund, to help unemployed in the communities to set up cooperatives. The products of such cooperatives could then be sold to Venezuela, Chavez suggested.
The idea was immediately embraced by former Massachusetts Representative Joe Kennedy, a member of the U.S. delegation and a key figure in facilitating the heating oil program in Boston via his Citizens Energy Corporation.
“This concept allows families to work out of poverty; it helps them by giving them the tools such as money to build a roof over their head, instead of just a one-shot benefit,” said Kennedy.
Chavez also announced that the program will be doubled next year from its current level of 40 million gallons. “No one should believe that this is just a momentary interest,” Chavez told the group. “Leave at ease and tell your neighbors of the communities you represent that the program will continue; it has just begun,” he said.
Chavez insisted that the program was not designed to buy support in the U.S., as many critics claimed, but is rather an example of corporate responsibility because Citgo, which is now making large profits in the U.S., is now giving back to communities in which it does business. “Citgo has done good business in the U.S. We believe companies, along with making a profit need to have social responsibilities for the people they sell to,” said Chavez.
Chavez pointed out that in the 20 years Venezuela has owned Citgo, it never paid dividends to the Venezuelan state. Only in 2004 and 2005 has it begun to repatriate some of its profits to Venezuela, he said.
He also cited the program as “an example of his government’s efforts to move towards socialism, in which countries relate to each other on the basis of cooperation, solidarity, and complementarity.” Venezuela also provides discounted fuel to other countries in Latin America.
Meanwhile, despite a State Department spokesman’s comment that the U.S. has “no objections” to Citgo's offers, the Bush Administration continues to ramp up its war of words – and equipment – on Chavez and his buddies, Iran, Cuba and Bolivia.
Chavez has certainly been pushing all the right buttons in the White House and the State Department. He proposed a new free trade pact between Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia, and pledged to help Bolivia’s new President, Evo Morales, with $1.5 billion in energy investments. Bolivia has the second-largest natural gas reserves in South America after Venezuela. Venezuela's state-owned oil company, PDVSA, and Bolivia's state-owned YPFB, are expected to produce natural gas in a joint venture. Chavez has also pledged to be a reliable oil-supplier to his mentor, Fidel Castro.
He recently said he does not believe that Iran 's nuclear program is a front for secret efforts to produce an atomic bomb. "I don't believe that the United States or anyone else has the right ... to prohibit that a country has nuclear energy," Chavez said at a news conference in London. He repeated a warning that any military strike against Iran would send the price of crude oil soaring above US $100 a barrel and trigger an enormous military escalation in the Middle East. He also called Bush a "terrorist."
This kind of rhetoric is unlikely to win Chavez many friends in the U.S. – at least not in the White House or the State Department or the U.S. Congress.
The Bush Administration’s retaliation has bordered on the petty. The U.S. recently announced it would cease to sell American-made military hardware to Venezuela, citing what it claims is a lack of support by Chavez for counter-terrorism efforts, a State Department official said. Venezuela lost no time in countering that it would buy from the Russians and sell off its fleet of American-made fighter planes – which are little more than a pile of scrap metal, since the U.S. has been withholding spare parts for the planes for some time.
And you really can’t have an authentic international incident without someone in Congress calling for an investigation.
Enter Rep. Joe Barton, the powerful Texas Republican who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. This stalwart recipient of some $2 million in campaign contributions from the energy industry announced he would launch an investigation into possible antitrust violations by a major oil company.
No, not ExxonMobil or Chevron, but – wait for it – Citgo.
As reported in the New York Daily News, in a letter to the Houston-based Citgo, Barton demanded that company officials produce all records, minutes, logs,
e-mails and even desk calendars related to Citgo's novel program of supplying discounted heating oil to low-income communities in the United States.
"The bellicose Venezuelan decided to meddle in American energy policy, and we think it might prove instructive to know how," Larry Neal, deputy staff director for Barton's committee, told the Daily News.
According to the newspaper, Barton's letter lists “a bunch of questions” he wants Citgo to answer, including "how and why were the particular beneficiaries of this program selected" and whether the program "runs afoul of any U.S. laws, including but not limited to, antitrust laws."
But Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said he was flabbergasted by Barton's investigation. "The Republicans are on another planet when it comes to energy policy," Markey said.
Instead of doing something about skyrocketing oil prices, Markey said, the Republicans are probing "a charitable donation of heating oil to relieve the suffering of a few thousand American families."
U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman seemed to agree. He told CNN that the U.S. government has no problems with Venezuela's “oil for the poor” offer. "We view it, as corporate philanthropy. We're all for that. Nobody in the Energy Department, or in the government for that matter, is going oppose that. If that's what Mr. Chavez and his colleagues who own CITGO choose to do, I'm certainly not going to criticize," Bodman said.
Sounds like Mr. Bodman left his talking points in his other suit.
Where all this is heading should be well known to U.S. policymakers – we’ve been there before. It’s not like Latin American populism is anything new. And we have all the tools and all the experience – if not the will – to be trying to bring the countries of Latin America together to address real and urgent needs. It’s time for America – and Mr. Chavez – to abandon the current tit-for-tat diplomacy that can only further separate us from our troubled backyard.
Yet we seem to be hell bent on elevating populists to heroes by backing Big Oil and acting as though every rhetorically over-the-top utterance from folks like Chavez is another Cuban Missile Crisis.
It would be instructive if someone in the State Department remembered that the road we’re traveling looks very much like the one that took us to our insane Cuba policy.
We can’t be blamed if Venezuela’s mini-public diplomacy program reminds us of “The Mouse That Roared” – and you can almost hear the gnashing teeth in the White House SitRoom.
I refer to the program being waged in the U.S. by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez. Under that program, Citgo, Venezuela’s wholly-owned gas and oil subsidiary, provides discounts up to 60 per cent on heating oil to poor communities in the U.S.
The program is currently operating in Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Local politicians, desperate for ways to reduce energy costs for their constituents, have welcomed it with open arms. In New York, Harlem Congressman Charles Rangel announced expansion of the program into upper Manhattan, and Citgo struck a deal with three nonprofit organizations in the Bronx to deliver five million gallons of heating oil at 45 percent below the market price. Citgo says the deal will amount to a savings of $4 million for the 8,000 low-income households slated to benefit from the plan.
Citgo says the program has benefited more than 180,000 households – and is now attracting some big-name supporters (though Condoleeza Rice is not one of them).
Citgo says it initiated the heating oil program late last year in an effort to help low-income families in the U.S. to cope with the cold winter and high oil costs. The Venezuelan government says the program costs Citgo relatively little because the oil is being supplied directly, without middlemen, who usually make substantial profits.
But Venezuela’s “oil for the poor” program has also met with opposition from some local politicians. Last October, Citgo proposed to substitute diesel fuel for home heating oil, which is used only by a small number of Chicagoans. It offered a 40 percent discount on 7.2 million gallons of diesel if it was used for Chicago’s public buses. Though the deal could have saved the city approximately $15 million, the offer was rejected over the objections of other elected officials and labor groups.
Undeterred, Chavez is now proposing a second phase of the program. He told a delegation of beneficiaries of the program that in addition to the 40% discount, only 30% would go towards Citgo’s expenses and the remaining 30% would be set aside for a special local development fund, to help unemployed in the communities to set up cooperatives. The products of such cooperatives could then be sold to Venezuela, Chavez suggested.
The idea was immediately embraced by former Massachusetts Representative Joe Kennedy, a member of the U.S. delegation and a key figure in facilitating the heating oil program in Boston via his Citizens Energy Corporation.
“This concept allows families to work out of poverty; it helps them by giving them the tools such as money to build a roof over their head, instead of just a one-shot benefit,” said Kennedy.
Chavez also announced that the program will be doubled next year from its current level of 40 million gallons. “No one should believe that this is just a momentary interest,” Chavez told the group. “Leave at ease and tell your neighbors of the communities you represent that the program will continue; it has just begun,” he said.
Chavez insisted that the program was not designed to buy support in the U.S., as many critics claimed, but is rather an example of corporate responsibility because Citgo, which is now making large profits in the U.S., is now giving back to communities in which it does business. “Citgo has done good business in the U.S. We believe companies, along with making a profit need to have social responsibilities for the people they sell to,” said Chavez.
Chavez pointed out that in the 20 years Venezuela has owned Citgo, it never paid dividends to the Venezuelan state. Only in 2004 and 2005 has it begun to repatriate some of its profits to Venezuela, he said.
He also cited the program as “an example of his government’s efforts to move towards socialism, in which countries relate to each other on the basis of cooperation, solidarity, and complementarity.” Venezuela also provides discounted fuel to other countries in Latin America.
Meanwhile, despite a State Department spokesman’s comment that the U.S. has “no objections” to Citgo's offers, the Bush Administration continues to ramp up its war of words – and equipment – on Chavez and his buddies, Iran, Cuba and Bolivia.
Chavez has certainly been pushing all the right buttons in the White House and the State Department. He proposed a new free trade pact between Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia, and pledged to help Bolivia’s new President, Evo Morales, with $1.5 billion in energy investments. Bolivia has the second-largest natural gas reserves in South America after Venezuela. Venezuela's state-owned oil company, PDVSA, and Bolivia's state-owned YPFB, are expected to produce natural gas in a joint venture. Chavez has also pledged to be a reliable oil-supplier to his mentor, Fidel Castro.
He recently said he does not believe that Iran 's nuclear program is a front for secret efforts to produce an atomic bomb. "I don't believe that the United States or anyone else has the right ... to prohibit that a country has nuclear energy," Chavez said at a news conference in London. He repeated a warning that any military strike against Iran would send the price of crude oil soaring above US $100 a barrel and trigger an enormous military escalation in the Middle East. He also called Bush a "terrorist."
This kind of rhetoric is unlikely to win Chavez many friends in the U.S. – at least not in the White House or the State Department or the U.S. Congress.
The Bush Administration’s retaliation has bordered on the petty. The U.S. recently announced it would cease to sell American-made military hardware to Venezuela, citing what it claims is a lack of support by Chavez for counter-terrorism efforts, a State Department official said. Venezuela lost no time in countering that it would buy from the Russians and sell off its fleet of American-made fighter planes – which are little more than a pile of scrap metal, since the U.S. has been withholding spare parts for the planes for some time.
And you really can’t have an authentic international incident without someone in Congress calling for an investigation.
Enter Rep. Joe Barton, the powerful Texas Republican who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. This stalwart recipient of some $2 million in campaign contributions from the energy industry announced he would launch an investigation into possible antitrust violations by a major oil company.
No, not ExxonMobil or Chevron, but – wait for it – Citgo.
As reported in the New York Daily News, in a letter to the Houston-based Citgo, Barton demanded that company officials produce all records, minutes, logs,
e-mails and even desk calendars related to Citgo's novel program of supplying discounted heating oil to low-income communities in the United States.
"The bellicose Venezuelan decided to meddle in American energy policy, and we think it might prove instructive to know how," Larry Neal, deputy staff director for Barton's committee, told the Daily News.
According to the newspaper, Barton's letter lists “a bunch of questions” he wants Citgo to answer, including "how and why were the particular beneficiaries of this program selected" and whether the program "runs afoul of any U.S. laws, including but not limited to, antitrust laws."
But Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said he was flabbergasted by Barton's investigation. "The Republicans are on another planet when it comes to energy policy," Markey said.
Instead of doing something about skyrocketing oil prices, Markey said, the Republicans are probing "a charitable donation of heating oil to relieve the suffering of a few thousand American families."
U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman seemed to agree. He told CNN that the U.S. government has no problems with Venezuela's “oil for the poor” offer. "We view it, as corporate philanthropy. We're all for that. Nobody in the Energy Department, or in the government for that matter, is going oppose that. If that's what Mr. Chavez and his colleagues who own CITGO choose to do, I'm certainly not going to criticize," Bodman said.
Sounds like Mr. Bodman left his talking points in his other suit.
Where all this is heading should be well known to U.S. policymakers – we’ve been there before. It’s not like Latin American populism is anything new. And we have all the tools and all the experience – if not the will – to be trying to bring the countries of Latin America together to address real and urgent needs. It’s time for America – and Mr. Chavez – to abandon the current tit-for-tat diplomacy that can only further separate us from our troubled backyard.
Yet we seem to be hell bent on elevating populists to heroes by backing Big Oil and acting as though every rhetorically over-the-top utterance from folks like Chavez is another Cuban Missile Crisis.
It would be instructive if someone in the State Department remembered that the road we’re traveling looks very much like the one that took us to our insane Cuba policy.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
ANOTHER LIPSTICKED PIG?
By William Fisher
Libya's "rehabilitation" as a country that has renounced WMD and state-sponsored terrorism - for which it will soon be rewarded with a real live American ambassador -provides an exquisite illustration of how the Bush Administration is replacing its "spreading freedom" mantra with support for the "Global War on Terrorism."
And Libya's role as an energy source has made the administration's job much easier to sell. Its removal it from the list of state sponsors of terror follows the return to Libyan oilfields of the Oasis Group of U.S. companies, according to a top Libyan oil official.
He said he was "positive and confident" the former pariah state would be wiped from the list, with the expected backing of the Oasis Group, comprising ConocoPhillips, Marathon and Amerada Hess.
"I would expect logically they will be willing to put the right message across to the U.S. government to do something about it quickly," Tarek Hassan-Beck of Libya's National Oil Company told Reuters in a telephone interview.
But the fact is that, despite a few largely symbolic adjustments, Libya remains one of the Middle East's most egregious violators of human rights.
Libyan strongman Muammar el-Qaddafi abolished the country's notorious People's Courts -- which dispatched perceived political opponents to prison or death without due process - but huge problems have yet to be addressed.
There is no independent press or civil society, and all political groups must be officially approved. Libyans are not allowed to criticize the government, its political system, or its leader. Torture in detention remains a serious problem, and the Libyan security apparatus is pervasive. Past cases of forced disappearance and deaths in detention remain unaddressed and unresolved.
The jailing of political opponents also continues, despite the Libyan government's denial. Colonel al-Qadhafi said not long ago, "They [Western countries] are accusing us of having political prisoners; and I am sure this is an unjust accusation. I think that those who are in prisons have used religion, they are heretics. These are people who instead of fasting, praying and preaching good are turning religion into violence, coups d'etats, underground activities."
Arguably, the most high-profile political prisoner is Fathi al-Jahmi, 64, a former provincial governor who in 2002 decided to test Libya's "new commitment to reform." He called for free elections, a free press and the release of political prisoners. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
But al-Jahmi's case only became high profile because of an international outcry and the widely publicized intervention of U.S. Senator Joseph Biden. The Delaware Democrat met with al-Qadhafi and called for al-Jahmi's release. Nine days later, an appeals court gave al-Jahmi a suspended sentence of one year and ordered his release.
President George W. Bush welcomed al-Jahmi's release, saying, "It's an encouraging step toward reform in Libya."
That same day, March 12, 2005, al-Jahmi gave an interview to the U.S.-funded al-Hurra Television, in which he repeated his call for Libya's democratization. He gave another interview to the station on March 16, in which he called al-Qadhafi a dictator.
The next day, security agents entered al-Jahmi's Tripoli house and arrested him, his wife, Fawzia, and their eldest son, Mohamed. The Internal Security Agency detained them in an undisclosed location for six months, without access to relatives or lawyers.
The authorities then released al-Jahmi's son and, later, his wife.
According to the head of Libya's Internal Security Agency, Col. Tohamy Khaled, the agency was holding al-Jahmi in a special facility for his own safety and because he is "mentally deranged."
The Libyan government has repeatedly assured Human Rights Watch that al-Jahmi receives appropriate medical care and regular family visits. According to al-Jahmi's family, however, the government forbade relatives to visit between June 2005 and April 2006. His son finally got to see him for 15 minutes on April 5, in the presence of state security. Al-Jahmi has requested an international lawyer because, he says, no Libyan lawyer would dare to defend him. NO such lawyer has been appointed.
Meanwhile, al-Jahmi remains in detention.
So do six health professionals arrested in 1999 - five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor - sentenced to death by firing squad for deliberately infecting 426 children with the HIV virus while working in al-Fateh Children's Hospital in Benghazi. A sixth Bulgarian defendant was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. Nine Libyan defendants were acquitted.
The defendants had told Amnesty International that their confessions, which they later retracted, had been extracted under torture, which included electric shocks, beatings, and suspension by the arms.
On the basis of their allegations of torture, Libya's Supreme Court overturned the convictions and ordered a retrial. Eight members of the security forces and a doctor and a translator employed by them were also charged.
The retrial of the Bulgarian nurses has been adjourned "for procedural reasons" until June 13. The presiding judge ruled they should be detained until the trial resumes.
Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed the Libyan government to release the captive nurses, saying, "This is a humanitarian case and it is time for them to come home."
Another sign of Libya's "commitment to reform" is its arbitrary and indefinite detention of women and girls in "social rehabilitation" facilities. In a recent report, Human Rights Watch said, "Officially portrayed as protective homes for women and girls "vulnerable to engaging in moral misconduct, these facilities are de facto prisons...far more punitive than protective. How can they be called shelters when most of the women and girls we interviewed told us they would escape if they could?"
Said Human Rights Watch: "Those being held include many women and girls in these facilities who have committed no crime, or who have completed a sentence. Some are there for no reason other than that they were raped, and are now ostracized for staining their families' 'honor'. Officials transferred the majority of these women and girls to these facilities against their will, while those who came voluntarily did so because no genuine shelters for victims of violence exist in Libya."
Throughout the Middle East and North Africa, it has become fashionable in the past few years for authoritarian governments to organize their own human rights commissions. Most of these are caricatures of toothless tigers, cosmetic bodies set up to keep the pro-democracy Americans at bay.
Whether the body set up by Colonel Qaddafi's son, Seif al-Islam, will prove to be any different remains to be seen. Thus far, it has recommended the release of 131 political prisoners who, it says, pose no threat to the government. It also played a role in granting new trials to 86 accused members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
But exactly what did the U.S. actually get - aside from access to oil - from this devil's bargain? It seems to me that the Philadelphia Inquirer had it just about right when it editorialized, "Libya had no biological weapons, apart from some World War I-era mustard gas. The truth is, Qadhafi gave up nothing of value ... Has Libya embraced democracy? Not according to human rights groups, which say that Gadhafi remains a brutal and unstable dictator. So much for President Bush's doctrine of spreading democracy. The message here is that the United States doesn't really mind doing business with tyrants. Has Libya helped the United States in its fight against terrorism? Yes, the Qadhafi government has ratted out some of its former associates. But the Islamists have been trying to kill Qadhafi for years. We are helping him get rid of his own enemies."
It may seem like an eon ago, but in 2004, at his second inauguration, President Bush declared: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."
But that was then and now is now. Now it seems that the idealism of "spreading freedom" has been replaced by the realpolitik of oil and anti-terrorism.
Libya's "rehabilitation" as a country that has renounced WMD and state-sponsored terrorism - for which it will soon be rewarded with a real live American ambassador -provides an exquisite illustration of how the Bush Administration is replacing its "spreading freedom" mantra with support for the "Global War on Terrorism."
And Libya's role as an energy source has made the administration's job much easier to sell. Its removal it from the list of state sponsors of terror follows the return to Libyan oilfields of the Oasis Group of U.S. companies, according to a top Libyan oil official.
He said he was "positive and confident" the former pariah state would be wiped from the list, with the expected backing of the Oasis Group, comprising ConocoPhillips, Marathon and Amerada Hess.
"I would expect logically they will be willing to put the right message across to the U.S. government to do something about it quickly," Tarek Hassan-Beck of Libya's National Oil Company told Reuters in a telephone interview.
But the fact is that, despite a few largely symbolic adjustments, Libya remains one of the Middle East's most egregious violators of human rights.
Libyan strongman Muammar el-Qaddafi abolished the country's notorious People's Courts -- which dispatched perceived political opponents to prison or death without due process - but huge problems have yet to be addressed.
There is no independent press or civil society, and all political groups must be officially approved. Libyans are not allowed to criticize the government, its political system, or its leader. Torture in detention remains a serious problem, and the Libyan security apparatus is pervasive. Past cases of forced disappearance and deaths in detention remain unaddressed and unresolved.
The jailing of political opponents also continues, despite the Libyan government's denial. Colonel al-Qadhafi said not long ago, "They [Western countries] are accusing us of having political prisoners; and I am sure this is an unjust accusation. I think that those who are in prisons have used religion, they are heretics. These are people who instead of fasting, praying and preaching good are turning religion into violence, coups d'etats, underground activities."
Arguably, the most high-profile political prisoner is Fathi al-Jahmi, 64, a former provincial governor who in 2002 decided to test Libya's "new commitment to reform." He called for free elections, a free press and the release of political prisoners. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
But al-Jahmi's case only became high profile because of an international outcry and the widely publicized intervention of U.S. Senator Joseph Biden. The Delaware Democrat met with al-Qadhafi and called for al-Jahmi's release. Nine days later, an appeals court gave al-Jahmi a suspended sentence of one year and ordered his release.
President George W. Bush welcomed al-Jahmi's release, saying, "It's an encouraging step toward reform in Libya."
That same day, March 12, 2005, al-Jahmi gave an interview to the U.S.-funded al-Hurra Television, in which he repeated his call for Libya's democratization. He gave another interview to the station on March 16, in which he called al-Qadhafi a dictator.
The next day, security agents entered al-Jahmi's Tripoli house and arrested him, his wife, Fawzia, and their eldest son, Mohamed. The Internal Security Agency detained them in an undisclosed location for six months, without access to relatives or lawyers.
The authorities then released al-Jahmi's son and, later, his wife.
According to the head of Libya's Internal Security Agency, Col. Tohamy Khaled, the agency was holding al-Jahmi in a special facility for his own safety and because he is "mentally deranged."
The Libyan government has repeatedly assured Human Rights Watch that al-Jahmi receives appropriate medical care and regular family visits. According to al-Jahmi's family, however, the government forbade relatives to visit between June 2005 and April 2006. His son finally got to see him for 15 minutes on April 5, in the presence of state security. Al-Jahmi has requested an international lawyer because, he says, no Libyan lawyer would dare to defend him. NO such lawyer has been appointed.
Meanwhile, al-Jahmi remains in detention.
So do six health professionals arrested in 1999 - five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor - sentenced to death by firing squad for deliberately infecting 426 children with the HIV virus while working in al-Fateh Children's Hospital in Benghazi. A sixth Bulgarian defendant was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. Nine Libyan defendants were acquitted.
The defendants had told Amnesty International that their confessions, which they later retracted, had been extracted under torture, which included electric shocks, beatings, and suspension by the arms.
On the basis of their allegations of torture, Libya's Supreme Court overturned the convictions and ordered a retrial. Eight members of the security forces and a doctor and a translator employed by them were also charged.
The retrial of the Bulgarian nurses has been adjourned "for procedural reasons" until June 13. The presiding judge ruled they should be detained until the trial resumes.
Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed the Libyan government to release the captive nurses, saying, "This is a humanitarian case and it is time for them to come home."
Another sign of Libya's "commitment to reform" is its arbitrary and indefinite detention of women and girls in "social rehabilitation" facilities. In a recent report, Human Rights Watch said, "Officially portrayed as protective homes for women and girls "vulnerable to engaging in moral misconduct, these facilities are de facto prisons...far more punitive than protective. How can they be called shelters when most of the women and girls we interviewed told us they would escape if they could?"
Said Human Rights Watch: "Those being held include many women and girls in these facilities who have committed no crime, or who have completed a sentence. Some are there for no reason other than that they were raped, and are now ostracized for staining their families' 'honor'. Officials transferred the majority of these women and girls to these facilities against their will, while those who came voluntarily did so because no genuine shelters for victims of violence exist in Libya."
Throughout the Middle East and North Africa, it has become fashionable in the past few years for authoritarian governments to organize their own human rights commissions. Most of these are caricatures of toothless tigers, cosmetic bodies set up to keep the pro-democracy Americans at bay.
Whether the body set up by Colonel Qaddafi's son, Seif al-Islam, will prove to be any different remains to be seen. Thus far, it has recommended the release of 131 political prisoners who, it says, pose no threat to the government. It also played a role in granting new trials to 86 accused members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
But exactly what did the U.S. actually get - aside from access to oil - from this devil's bargain? It seems to me that the Philadelphia Inquirer had it just about right when it editorialized, "Libya had no biological weapons, apart from some World War I-era mustard gas. The truth is, Qadhafi gave up nothing of value ... Has Libya embraced democracy? Not according to human rights groups, which say that Gadhafi remains a brutal and unstable dictator. So much for President Bush's doctrine of spreading democracy. The message here is that the United States doesn't really mind doing business with tyrants. Has Libya helped the United States in its fight against terrorism? Yes, the Qadhafi government has ratted out some of its former associates. But the Islamists have been trying to kill Qadhafi for years. We are helping him get rid of his own enemies."
It may seem like an eon ago, but in 2004, at his second inauguration, President Bush declared: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."
But that was then and now is now. Now it seems that the idealism of "spreading freedom" has been replaced by the realpolitik of oil and anti-terrorism.
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