Author: Londonbear

The World Bank (or specifically the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) and the International Monetary Fund have their origins in the Bretton Woods agreement during WWII. The stated aims are: “The nations should consult and agree on international monetary changes which affect each other. They should outlaw practices which are agreed to be harmful to world prosperity, and they should assist each other to overcome short-term exchange difficulties.”

In practice US dominance of the system means it has been a means of spreading policies of opening up internal markets to foreign (ie US) trade and removing “barriers” to this trade. Countries faced with renegotiating debts would be obliged to follow the latest IMF ideas of how “prosperity” could be increased. Abandoning social policies in favor of selling off national assets became the norm in the Reaganomics/Thatcherite vision.

Particularly in South America, the two became an arm of US foreign policy. Withholding credit could bring down governments. Now all this is being challenged.
The problems for the IMF and World Bank relate to an unexpected consequence of their efforts, the movement of mass manufacturing of low value items from the “North” to the “South” as the poverty wages they promoted led to corporations finding that they could “prosper” by exploiting new sources for goods. In turn, at various times the raw goods those countries traditionally sent for processing fluctuated in price but trended upwards. As these countries became relatively wealthier, their money went into repaying those IMF loans.

While the IMF is a “banker of last resort”, other groupings such as the Inter-American Development Bank stepped in to provide loans with slightly better provisions but still under US control (the IDB has a 30% US shareholding) and with the consequent emphasis on free trade. IMF lending peaked at $81 billion in 2004 to around $11.8 billion today and the largest single borrower, Turkey owes around 75% of that. Lending to Latin America has crashed even faster than that:

IMF lending in the area has fallen to $50 million, or less than 1 percent of its global portfolio, compared with 80 percent in 2005.

So what has happened? In short, Hugo Chavez and oil revenue. He has used this to purchase bonds from other South American countries, thus giving them a cheaper source of loans to improve their own infrastructure and social services. He is also proposing to set up a “Banco del Sud” (not to be confused with the domestic Venezuelan bank of the same name) to challenge the other international lenders currently in the area. This from the Financial Times at the start of March

(W)ith backing from Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, and possibly Nicaragua and Brazil, traditional multilateral lenders are facing up to the possibility of a competitor.

Venezuela and Argentina have long bridled against what they see as US domination of the western hemisphere’s multilateral lending institutions, and want more control over the region’s development.

“The south needs to take care of its own problems,” said one senior Argentine banker.

Officially both its potential rivals, the Inter-American Development Bank – in which the US has a 30 per cent stake – and the smaller Andean Development Corporation, have welcomed the development, arguing that with plenty of money around and many pressing infrastructure and social needs, there would be plenty of business.

But privately there are concerns. One insider at the IDB said the bank could reinforce regional divisions that have arisen as a result of the radicalisation of Venezuela and the growth of an anti-American camp – backed since last year by elections in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua.

He says the Bank of the South, especially if Brazil were to join, would represent the biggest threat to the IDB since Latin America suffered a series of debt defaults in the 1980s. “With the money of Venezuela and political will of Argentina and Brazil, this is a bank that could have lots of money and a different political approach. No one will say this publicly but we don’t like it.”

He fears the Washington-based multilateral could, in a worst-case scenario, be reduced to an institution backed mainly by the US and its closest regional allies, Mexico and Colombia.

Once BdS is formally set up and starting to make loans, possibly as early as next year, there will be two blocks. One loyal to the US institutions and centered on Mexico and Columbia and the other a broadly left-wing group of countries joining together to reject the Monroe Doctrine  and its implied dominance of US policy in the region.

This goes a long way to explain the NeoCons hatred of Chavez. It is not the threat of withholding oil supplies they fear. It is his using the income his country gets from it to free his allies from the dominance of US foreign policy and economic control through IMF and World Bank loans.

Diplomacy is a subtle art. Don’t publicize your behind the scenes efforts and you can get accused of doing nothing but doing the reverse can put those you are trying to help in danger of their liberty or even lives. The CIA know that, which is why the USA has laws about maintaining secrecy about covert agents. It’s not only their lives that are at risk but also those of their contacts.

Now for you and me that would seem to be blindingly obvious. Not for the US State Department though. A report, “Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The US Record 2006” slipped out over the Easter/Passover weekend. While puffing up State’s efforts in Zimbabwe, it gives ammunition, both metaphorical and literal, to Robert Mugabe to attack his opponents.

(While I am focusing on Zimbabwe in this diary, no doubt others may wish to look at the reports on other countries to critique the State Department’s performance. The section on Lebanon for example includes the classic doublespeak “The United States continued to help Lebanon rebuild as a sovereign and independent country…”) 
It has to be acknowledged that the report on Zimbabwe (bottom of page) does provide a good summary of the Human Rights abuses in Zimbabwe, even if in places “pots” and “kettles” spring to mind.

Zimbabwe is constitutionally a republic, but the government, dominated by President Robert Mugabe and his Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) since independence, is now authoritarian. The 2002 presidential election and the 2005 parliamentary elections were neither free nor fair, and the government and its supporters intimidated voters, disqualified opposition candidates, constrained campaign activities of the opposition, and distributed food in a partisan manner. During the year the political opposition and civil society continued to operate in an environment of intimidation, violence, and repression. In December President Mugabe and his loyalists in the ruling party proposed extending his term for two years by deferring presidential elections to 2010, rather than holding them in 2008 as scheduled.

The government systematically violated human rights, and official corruption and impunity were widespread. Security forces selectively harassed, beat, and arbitrarily arrested opposition supporters and critics within human rights organizations, the media, and organized labor. The judiciary was subject to executive influence and intimidation. A government campaign of forced evictions, which left 700,000 people homeless during Operation Restore Order in 2005, continued, albeit on a lesser scale. The government regularly used repressive laws to restrict freedom of assembly, speech, and press. In an attack on the independent media, the government jammed broadcasts of the popular Voice of America Studio 7 program, one of the few sources of uncensored news throughout the country, and seized radios belonging to listening groups in rural areas. The economy continued to decline, with skyrocketing prices, widespread shortages, and rapidly deteriorating social services, primarily due to the government’s command and control economic policies.

For the moment I shall pass over the sheer arrogance of calling a VOA show “one of the few sources of uncensored news throughout the country” while failing to acknowledge the BBC, the South African equivalent and at least one station broadcasting from exile. You may also note the polite “Operation Restore Order” as a translation rather than the more usual “Operation Drive Out the Filth” used by human rights groups, including those in South Africa.

It is in the too detailed listing of the “support” that the US has given where we start to encounter problems. Mugabe uses the language of anti-colonialism to attack his opponents. As a good “Marxist”, he naturally includes the USA in his list of imperialist powers.

The list of US activities in various fields is pretty long but I will pick out this section as an example.

The United States continued to promote rule of law in the country. Although the ruling party maintained its monopoly on the executive branch, other institutions–including Parliament, the judiciary, and local government–were at times able to exercise some independence. The United States encouraged the capacity of these entities to govern and, in some cases, directly supported their efforts. For example, a U.S.-sponsored program to strengthen parliamentary committees resulted in increased debate in Parliament–both from opposition and reform-minded ZANU-PF parliamentarians–and encouraged greater transparency through public hearings on legislation. In an unprecedented development, several bills that contained particularly repressive or ill-defined sections were publicly debated and sent back to committee for redrafting. Support for the portfolio committees also served to provide a greater check on the executive branch, as ministers and other high-ranking officials were held more accountable for their policies through vigorous questioning by committee members. U.S. funding and support enabled local citizen groups and select local authorities to improve transparency, accountability, and municipal service delivery.

Now that seems innocuous enough, promoting an independent judiciary and so on. Indeed the Zim High Court did go against the dictats of ZANU-PF in permitting opposition rallies and ordering lawyers access to arrested MDC leaders only recently.  The trouble is that Mugabe uses these “activist judges” as another example of white imperialism.

To show this we only have to look at a speech reported by Reuters in mid March.

Robert Mugabe accused officials in his own party of joining a Western- backed plot on Friday as the main opposition chief left hospital after treatment for what he said was an orgy of police beatings.

…

Mugabe, 83, warned against any “monkey games” by those he called the stooges of his Western critics, whom he accused of funding Tsvangirai’s MDC to replace him through “violent terrorist acts”.

He said imperialists were taking advantage of the ruling ZANU-PF party succession to re-assert themselves.

“There has been an insidious dimension where ambitious leaders have been cutting deals with the British and Americans,” Mugabe told a meeting of ZANU-PF’s youth league in Harare.

“The whole succession debate has given imperialism hope for re-entry. Since when have the British, the Americans been friends of ZANU-PF? Have we forgotten that imperialism can never mean well for our people?” said Mugabe.

Now the “Hitler of Harare” can call on the State Department’s own report to further demonise and physically attack the opposition parties and purge the High Court of “imperialist traitors” to entrench his grasp on power. Nice one Condi.

In Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, police have moved in with officials from the local council to demolish informal stalls used by small traders. Footage  on Al Jazeera shows one big demolition effort in the market off Cha Cha Cha Road.

I noted the plans to start such a program in a diary in March on Daily Kos.  The initial report on the Al Jazeera web site did not give me much cause for concern:

The government has said it intends to destroy all illegal and unplanned homes and shops, starting in Lusaka where many impoverished informal settlements infringe on roads, railways, power lines and government-owned land.

But it had earlier assured.

Most of the the houses were still under construction and not yet inhabited.

The market stalls shown today were certainly not still under construction. I had browsed round them myself in 2001. They were now on AJ being destroyed with the stock still inside.
A representative from the local council was interviewed explaining that the stallholders had been given notices over the weeks before the demolitions explaining they must leave. Apart from an obvious, though probably unlikely, illiteracy, a combination of optimism, the stalls being their only source of income and the laid back attitude to time prevalent must have given them a certain assurance leading to inertia. They were very mistaken and they were now losing their stock as well as the stall. Some were near to riot and only the presence of police on horseback maintained a degree of order.

While I would be happy if they jailed the corrupt ministers and threw away the keys, this really is too much. In a country where making a living is precarious at best, loosing your livelihood is devastating. I promptly penned the following email to the High Commissioner in London. I urge you to express your concerns to your local Zambian Embassy or High Commission.

To His Excellency, the High Commissioner of Zambia

Dear Sir,

I had the greatest pleasure of visiting your beautiful country in 2001 to observe the total solar eclipse. I still have the commemorative stamps I purchased in the central Post Office in Lusaka and remember shopping nearby. Everywhere in Lusaka and Livingstone, which I took the opportunity of visiting, I was afforded the utmost courtesy and welcome. I was very admiring of the preparations for the elections which were then due and the degree to which the principles of democratic involvement and the criticism of officials had been assimilated into the everyday life of your country. You may recall that at that time the matter of importation of  vehicles for senior Government ministers was active in the newspapers.

When I first read of proposals by your President to demolish certain structures illegally erected because of the possible corruption involved in the ignoring of planning laws, I was pleased to note that these actions were not to go unpunished. You will therefore understand my concern and alarm when I saw on Al Jazeera’s English station this morning the demolition of the small stalls in the market off Cha Cha Cha Road in Lusaka. Surely those were the ones I visited opposite the Post Office. Whilst I understand that the Council had issued notices, the actual demolition, with the stallholders apparently being able to recover their goods, seemed somewhat heavy handed. I would urge your Government to make provision for a properly planned market in your urban renewal so that these entrepreneurs can have somewhere to restart legally. There are very popular open markets, around permanent shops, in central Johannesburg and no doubt you will be familiar with the open and sheltered ones in this country. Far from detracting from tourism which must be a big consideration for you, such small markets are an attraction. Camden Market, Petticoat Lane and Portobello Road in London being but a few examples.

I understand from the report that the next stage is to move on to illegally erected housing. The earlier reports I saw about this assured that these would only consist of unoccupied buildings. As the nights will soon be getting very cold, I hope this is the case. If occupied shacks are to be demolished, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to make sure that those living there are properly housed. I am aware you must feel that the shanties lining the railway line must seem like merely an eyesore but they are all the homes that the people in them have. As a visitor, I would rather see them than a well manicured open space, knowing that people have been displaced.

I am sure you will be well aware that Zimbabwe has had much adverse criticism for the instigation of “Operation Drive out the Filth”. Several organisations in South Africa, notably the churches, have been able to publish case studies of those displaced in that process. The suffering and deaths are resulting from these demolitions are unsupportable and unforgivable. I cannot urge your government enough not to follow this example and make the poorest of the poor homeless.

Yours faithfully

In March 2003 the dictator of Zimbabwe welcomed a comparison of him with Hitler. Ahead of elections he is widely considered to have stolen by intimidation, bribery and violence he had been likened to Hitler by the British press. In the middle of a campaign of brutality and arrests of opposition politicians from the Movement for Democratic Change he said:

“This Hitler has only one objective: justice for his people, sovereignty for his people, recognition of the independence of his people and their rights over their resources.

If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold.”

Today Mugabe is even more like Hitler in his final days. Surrounded by cronies too afraid to let him know the real position and mired in megolomania, he is like Adolf about to descend into his bunker for the last time. Even worse, his country is almost as devastated as Germany in 1945. When his rule ends it will even be as difficult to find enough fuel to burn his political corpse as it was to cremate the Feurer. If he is lucky he will haul his sorry self into exile to enjoy the wealth he has stolen from his country. I do not wish him luck. The evil that men do lives after them. It will take years for Zimbabwe to recover.

On 27 January 1980  Robert Mugabe returned to the then Salisbury from exile   in Mozambique from where he had fought a successful guerilla campaign to bring down the minority white regime headed by Ian Smith. He was greeted as a hero by a crowd estimated at 200,000 in the Zimbabwe ground in the black township of Highfield.

This week Mugabe has been back in Mozambique for a summit of African leaders. I am very much afraid that the memory of his triumph 27 years ago still colors their public statements about him. In what must surely be the greatest self delusion since Bush looked for WMD in Iraq, the southern African leaders have charged South African President Thabo Mbeke with mediating between the parties in Zimbabwe, presumably to ensure a smooth transition after Mugabe is due to leave office next year.

Mbeki could have led a move to oust Mugabe from office as he controls the pursestrings and much of the power going into Zimbabwe. On Friday Mugabe returns to Harare in an attempt to persuade his party to give him another term in office. In that he is likely to be sorely disappointed as even his closest cronies are starting to see the trainwreck that Mugabe has become. While there are reports of behind the scenes pressure for him to step down at the SADC conference, the public shows of support are disgraceful. Mbeki no longer deserves the honor of being referred to as “Nelson Mandela’s successor”. As the second President he and his obnoxious deputy (whose rape trial revealed he believed that showering after sex protects against AIDS) have stained the reputation of the rainbow nation. I am very much afraid his support for the Hitler of Harare will have an effect throughout the southern Africa for decades as the economies slowly recover from the masses fleeing his northern neighbour.  

Mugabe has turned his nation from an exporter of food to one where the latest crop failure means that it will be dependant on food aid for at least the next year. “Operation drive out the filth” drove his political rivals from the cities into the countryside where many perished. Its inflation rate at over 1800% per annum is the highest in the world. Life expectancy is the lowest in the world. Millions have left for exile in South Africa and beyond. The buses travelling into the country are full … of food parcels sent by exiles often working illegally in South Africa but where they can actually find and afford to buy mealie or rice.

Highfield, where Mugabe was greeted so enthusiastically, is now better known for the brutality of his security forces breaking up meetings organized by the opposition. Political rivals attempting to get medical treatment for the injuries they got at the hands of his police have been stopped at the border. Another attempting to leave for a meeting with the EU was  beaten up at the airport The opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai was re-arrested on Wednesday following a raid on the MDC offices – a fitting start for Mbeki’s mission! Mugabe’s own cronies are rallying round to prevent him retaining power and to protect their own ill-gotten gains:

Citing widespread unrest within the Government, International Crisis Group said that the situation in Harare was “reminiscent of the last stage of the last stages of Mobutu’s reign in the Congo”, a reference to the overthrow of the former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who fled his country in 1997 after almost three decades of corrupt and violent rule.

“Economic issues, discontent among underpaid police and troops and the increasing willingness of opposition parties and civil society to protest in the streets, all increase the risk of sudden major violence,” the Brussels-based ICG said.

The think-tank said that the realisation among the top echelon of Zanu (PF), the ruling party, that the economic crisis was destroying their own business interests, is likely to persuade them to combine to block President Mugabe’s attempt to extend his rule by two more years beyond 2008, as a first manoeuvre to shift him out of office. Mr Mugabe, 83, has been in power since independence from Britain in 1980.

Neither am I optimistic that Mugabe’s departure would bring much improvement for he has his own Hitler Youth. Brutal training camps turn out armed members of the ZANU-PF youth wing “Green Bombers”. This was written before the 2005 elections. You can Google more about the training techniques in these camps but they are quite frankly too distressing to repeat.

Until five years ago, youth violence in Zimbabwe had been confined mostly to the electoral season.  After elections, youth ceased their violent ways and dissolved back into mainstream society. Even during elections, youth rarely had access to the kind of conventional weapons that the Green Bombers use today. Nor was their training so militaristic.

Today, the violence of the Green Bombers is always in season. “Traitors” pay dearly.  Traitors are people who want democracy, who demand their rights and freedoms. No one should question the Third Chimurenga, the war of liberation by which the land previously expropriated by white colonialists is being seized. Zimbabweans should be grateful. They owe ZANU PF an eternal debt of gratitude for their liberation. Indeed, the party has not really changed from the guerilla movement it was 25 years ago. It still sounds and acts like an uncompromising, undemocratic guerilla force. In a speech President Mugabe gave on August 11, 2003, during the commemoration of heroes of the liberation struggle, he said: “Those who seek unity must not be our enemies.  No, we say to them they must repent…  They must first be together with us, speak the same language with us, walk alike and dream alike.” And of course, failure to do so may well merit a visit from the Green Bombers.

The creation and arming of the Green Bombers along with the war veterans was a desperate but well-calculated ploy by Mugabe to arrest the current winds of change and sabotage the opposition and any successive government.  This militia for a long time to come will fight to retain ZANU PF in power as a continuing guarantee for immunity from punishment under the law.  The militia acts with absolute impunity.  In an interview with the Solidarity Peace Trust, Zimbabwe and South Africa, in late 2003, a militia member said: “We got a lot of power.  Our source of power is the encouragement we’re getting, particularly from the police and others. It was instilled in us that whenever we go out, we’re free to do whatever we want and nobody was going to question that.”

Recently, a Green Bomber was quoted in the local papers as saying, “We’re ZANU PF’s `B’ team.  The army is the `A’ team, and we do the things government does not want the `A’ team to do.”  

With food shortages and an inevitable power vacuum after Mugabe finally leaves, these militias are likely to go on the rampage. The result will be a true genocide with Mugabe’s favoured Shona fighting the other tribal groups.

Now some may think that my venom directed towards this thug is to much but it is moderate compared to some African commentators. This about “Operation drive out the filth”:

With a diligence akin to that of Hitler’s Germany, where valuable resources were diverted from the war effort–even as the Eastern Front collapsed under the onslaught of the Red Army–in order that the trains could continue to transport their pitiful cargos to the death camps, the Mugabe regime squanders what few assets it is still able to squeeze out of the freefalling Zimbabwean economy, to fuel a policy that aims at the elimination of all potential opposition, an opposition that Augustine Chihuri, the Zimbabwean Police Commissioner, has described as a, “crawling mass of maggots bent on destroying the economy.”

If you have a god, pray for this benighted people forgotten by the North and betrayed by the South. If you have a spare dollar, pound, yen or euro; use it to make sure they do not starve this coming winter season.

Over on Daily Kos there have been a couple of diaries on the disaster at Beit Lahiya in Gaza where at least four people, two toddlers, an elderly person and a teenage girl, were killed by a “tsunami” of sewage. That included one particularly nasty, near racist diary which seemed to rejoice in these deaths because of the inaction of the Palestinian Authority after a 2004 UN report mentioned in the agency reporting of the incident.

Much has been made of the inaction caused by the “security situation” which was taken by those diarists to mean internal violence. In seeking to blame the PA they have taken rather stupidly brought the whole matter to our attention. More in depth research seems to uncover strong evidence that these four were not victims of Palestinian incompetence but a sustained series of actions by the Israeli Defence Forces. Like the on-going injuries from cluster bombs in Lebanon, these deaths result from IDF actions last summer and before.
This is how CBS News describe the proximate cause of the disaster.

Fadel Kawash, head of the Palestinian Water Authority, said that the level of sewage in the cesspool had increased over the past few days, creeping up the earth embankments around the pool until one collapsed, “causing the sewage to pour toward the village.

“Cesspool” is a bit of a misnomer as these are large lagoons clearly visible even on the low resolution images on Google Earth. It is however worthwhile to note that the flood was caused by a collapse of one of the embankments, previous predictions had a flood scenario but caused by an overflow from rising levels. Just such an incident nearly happened last year as reported by the Israeli Human Rights group B’Tselem:

Regarding sewage, one of the major dangers following the stopping of the pumps at the sewage plants, to which low-lying areas are especially susceptible, is that the sewage will back up in the pipes and flood the system. So far, no reports of flooding have been received.

Another, even worse, danger threatens residents of the northern Gaza Strip: rise of the water level at the Beit Lahiya sewage plant and flooding of parts of Beit Lahiya and Umm Nasr, a nearby Beduin village. This scenario, which could develop into an ecological catastrophe, came close to being realized during the three weeks after the Gaza Strip power plant was bombed, when the sewage plant stopped operating while the sewage continued its normal flow.

So we know that in early July 2006, the walls were strong enough to contain a rise in the level of sewage but by March 2007 they were weak enough to collapse. Before then, the area around the sewage works had received sustained attack from the IDF. This report from the Guardian in April 2006  archived by Palestinemonitor gives a somewhat different perspective from that usually presented by the pro-Israeli side.

Palestinian militants have fired about 50 missiles at Israel in the past month without causing serious injury.

Yesterday the residents of Al Nader towers, the highest point in northern Gaza, were nervously watching the one-sided artillery duel. Israeli artillery announced itself with a low thud in the east followed by the overhead whistle of a shell.

People hunched their shoulders for protection but then saw an eruption of dust in the valley half a mile below and to the west, followed by a noise like a thunder clap. The Israelis were targeting a field between Beit Lahiya and the sewage works.

Those watching admired the accuracy of the Israeli gunners as shell after shell landed within metres of the last.

As groups of young men watched the spectacle, women put out washing and trucks arrived to sell cucumbers and tomatoes for 5 shekels (60p) a box. The vegetables are normally sold for export via Israel for 78 shekels (£10), but when the goods terminal is closed they have to be sold at a price that Gazans can afford.

Then a sudden scream emerged from behind the towers and a Palestinian rocket headed towards Israel. Its vapour trail disappeared in seconds and it did not seem to make its destination.

Thus we have the continuing tit for tat but in this case the Israelis got their response in first. As presented, the artillery firing appears routine and the rocket a response to it rather than the reverse as it always presented. Note this was before the main attacks following the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militant groups.

Previous IDF action had involved the area being invaded or occupied. A
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs  report shows that the village involved in the incident, together with the surrounding area were occupied by IDF tanks in October 2004. The damage however goes back further as a report in September 2006 from Oxfam (.pdf) explains:

Since 2000, the Gaza Strip has been in crisis, with frequent Israeli incursions, shelling and air strikes to the Strip. Much of the water and sanitation infrastructure, particularly in the North Goverorate (Beit Hanoun, Jabalia, Beit Lahiya, east of Khan Younis and south-east of Rafah, has been destroyed or damaged.

Even more significant, the cover photograph of the Oxfam report shown the Beit Lehiya sewerage works under attack from IDF artillery in August 2006.   The report explained the then current position regarding repair and improvement works to the plant:

As a temporary solution, CMWU has launched a contract to support the lagoons shoulders, while PWA will launch a contract to connect the infiltration pump station with 16″ pipes that will divert wastewater from the lagoons to north of Um an-Naser.  Work is currently on hold due to ongoing IDF operations, exposing the area around the lagoons to frequent artillery fire

This blog entry  provides evidence that in November 2006 IDF activitiy would have meant that it would be unsafe to try the improvement works:

Barely two hours after entering Gaza on November 18th, I watched an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Apache Helicopter hover eerily above the densely populated Bedouin town of Beit Lahiya in the Northwestern Gaza Strip, population 40,000. Bursts of cannon fire from the helicopter reverberated across the Northern Gaza, rattling the fourth story windows of the Al Awda Hospital in nearby Beit Hanoun as I squinted in the bright sunlight to make out the helicopter

What we appear to have though is strong evidence that the shelling during August 2006 weakened the structure of the earthworks. There are some (unsubstantiated) reports of local people mining the sides of the lagoons to sell the soil to local contractors. While that may be true, it should be seen in the light of the economic circumstances imposed by the Israelis and their blockade. This is exemplified in my third extract above where the farm goods had to be sold locally for less than one fifteenth of the price available by export. Add to that the destruction of the productive land  by shelling and you get to understand some to the desperate times they are in.

My contention therefore is that the IDF has a very substantial, if not the main, responsibility for the deaths this week.

Sunday sees the 200th anniversary of the British law that abolished the slave trade between Africa and the Americas. That only affected the “middle passage” and slavery itself was not to be abolished in the British Empire until 1833. The prohibition on slavery was not to become part of the US Constitution until 1865 but little known is that 90 years before that Lord Dunmore, the British Governor of Virginia, freed slaves who fought for the British in the War of Independence.

The Philipsburg Proclamation of 1779 went even further, freeing any slave owned by the “Patriots” anywhere in the colonies, whether they were willing to serve the British of not. With the defeat of the British, the Treaty of Paris provided that property lost in the war should be returned. The slave owners sent raiders to recapture slaves in the British stronghold in New York.

George Washington demanded the return of all the Americans’ property, including the slaves. The British refused and Black Loyalists went into exile along with the other British loyalists. Many initially went to Canada, Nova Scotia in particular. There their conditions were not much better than when they were slaves and eventually almost 1200 left in 1792 to help found Sierra Leone as a colony for freed slaves in Africa.
Ironically the very year of the Black Loyalists’ exodus to Sierra Leone was the peak of the Atlantic slave trade. (You can read more of their story on the Black Loyalists Heritage Society’s Canadian web site) The great British ports of London, Bristol and Liverpool made their fortunes from the “triangle trade”. Ships left there with finished goods for trading in West Africa for slaves, the slaves were taken to the colonies in the Americas and the sugar, tobacco, rum etc were returned for sale in Britain.

Conditions on those slave ships were horrific. Africans would be chained together with just enough room to lie on their sides. You could pack more in that way than if they laid on their backs. Most captains allowed the goods on deck each day in batches to jump up and down as exercise to maintain their value at market. Many died and the person they were shackled to had to wait to be unchained from their corpse.

Most British were ignorant of these conditions until the Abolitionist movement began to publicise them. Among these were Granville Sharp who along with William Wilberforce founded Sierra Leone. Ex-slaves’ own stories helped to inspire the movement. A book by Olaudah Equiano is considered seminal in bringing the horrors of the trade to the attention of the public. By his account, he was captured in 1756 in Africa and taken to Virginia and then the Caribbean. Some doubts are now cast on this account as there appears to be documentary evidence that he was in fact born in the Americas.

It may seem strange that the first move was to abolish the trans-Atlantic trade rather than the institution itself. This gradualist approach was based in the belief by Wilberforce that by cutting off the supply of new slaves, those already in the colonies would be treated better by their owners. By the turn of the 19th century the worst excesses demanded address and the 1807 act was proposed by the then Prime Minister, William Wyndham Grenville, who was a long standing opponent. His speech at the second reading of the Bill included this passage:

“What right do we derive from any human institution, or any divine ordinance, to tear the natives of Africa, to deprive them by force of the means of labouring for their own advantage, and to compel them to labour for our profit?

Can there be a question that the character of the country ought to be cleared from the stain impressed by the guilt of such a traffic, by the effect of which we keep Africa in a state of barbarity and desolation?”

Sadly the abolition of the slave trade failed to greatly improve the lot of the Caribbean slaves. It would take a revolt by them to eventually bring the institution to an end in the British Empire. While celebrating a notable date in the story of slavery, it should never be forgotten that slavery in different forms still exists. Mauritania was the last country to legally abolish the practice although nobody told the slaves and many still live in their previous condition. Child exploitation and forced sex work are more modern manifestations seen even in the West. Human trafficking and slavery may be illegal but it is not dead:

What types of slavery exist today?

Bonded labour affects millions of people around the world. People become bonded labourers by taking or being tricked into taking a loan for as little as the cost of medicine for a sick child. To repay the debt, many are forced to work long hours, seven days a week, up to 365 days a year. They receive basic food and shelter as ‘payment’ for their work, but may never pay off the loan, which can be passed down for generations.

Early and forced marriage affects women and girls who are married without choice and are forced into lives of servitude often accompanied by physical violence.

Forced labour affects people who are illegally recruited by individuals, governments or political parties and forced to work — usually under threat of violence or other penalties.

Slavery by descent is where people are either born into a slave class or are from a ‘group’ that society views as suited to being used as slave labour.

Trafficking involves the transport and/or trade of people — women, children and men — from one area to another for the purpose of forcing them into slavery conditions.

Worst forms of child labour affects an estimated 126 million children around the world in work that is harmful to their health and welfare.

(Crossposted with additional information from Daily Kos)

It’s often said that history is “written by the victors” but the distance of time can reveal a very different story. Another theme is that history repeats itself and perhaps this should be read as a warning of what would happen if Bush’s “War on Terrorism” was lost.

The Romans kept the Barbarians at bay for as long as they could, but finally they were engulfed and the savage hordes overran the empire, destroying the cultural achievements of centuries. The light of reason and civilisation was almost snuffed out by the Barbarians, who annihilated everything that the Romans had put in place, sacking Rome itself and consigning Europe to the Dark Ages. The Barbarians brought only chaos and ignorance, until the renaissance rekindled the fires of Roman learning and art.

All the more reason your would think to make sure that they are “fought over there”. But dear reader, read on, for as the piece continues.

It is a familiar story, and it’s codswallop.

But there are other lessons from the Roman experience that are based in fact and throw light on the situation in places like Iraq. Now, as they say, for something completely different.
The article I quoted from is based on an interview with Terry Jones. Although best know as a member of the Monty Python team, Jones is a populist historian who has an extensive knowledge of the Middle Ages and earlier. He has made a number of TV series. One investigates ordinary life in his specialist period but this was in connection with his short series for the BBC on Barbarians. In it he showed how much of our current “history” is seen through some very colored Roman filters. It’s looking at how the “official” history is being changed by new research that can throw light on the present day USA.

The unique feature of Rome was not its arts or its science or its philosophical culture, not its attachment to law. The unique feature of Rome was that it had the world’s first professional army. Normal societies consisted of farmers, hunters, craftsmen and traders. When they needed to fight they relied not on training or on standardised weapons, but on psyching themselves up to acts of individual heroism.

Seen through the eyes of people who possessed trained soldiers to fight for them, they (the Barbarians) were easily portrayed as simple savages. But that was far from the truth.

Change “Rome” to “the USA” and “first” to “most costly” and you get very close to what is happening today. The story of Julius Caesar in Gaul is even more eerily reflected in the events of 2003.

Some of you may know of the book that bored generations of schoolboys learning Latin, “Caesar’s Gallic Wars”. This rather excitable commentary gives his version of events as gleaned from his own book.

Caesar’s first battles would be with the Helvetii tribe, who lived in what is now Switzerland; and a Germanic tribe, the Suevi, who had conquered part of Gaul shortly before Caesar assumed the proconsulship. One of his original reasons for pursuing a military campaign in Gaul was the threat of an invasion of territories belonging to other tribes by of the Helvetii and Celtic agitation over the conquering of some of their lands.  In the year 58 BC Caesar conquered the Helvetii as well as the Suevi and their Germanic allied tribes.

Going in to rescue the poor Celts from the threat of invasion, very George H Bush. We now know though that this is all propaganda, just like the fake threats of WMD. The real reason was that the Gauls had minerals that were of some interest to Caesar in his political ambitions. Not the “black gold” of oil but the yellow stuff. Similarly his abortive attempt to invade Britain was more about getting at minerals, the considerable metalworking skills and the agricultural wealth than any ideas of simple expansionism. It’s that defeat that shows us the next lesson.

The Roman army had honed several very sophisticated techniques. In moving into new territory, its engineers very quickly threw up defensive works to protect the forces. Then they used this base to move on to the next position and so on. These same engineers were also used to throw up cordons to lay siege to cities to starve and soften up the inhabitants – a technique that was used to great effect in the Gallic Wars. In open fighting however it relied on the foot soldier. They had developed very complex (and successful) defensive and offensive techniques. The highly disciplined formations were the “shock and awe” of their day. Then they met the Celts and the British.

In Roman eyes the Celts may have lacked battle strategy, but their arms and equipment were in no way inferior to the Roman army’s. In fact the Celts had better helmets and better shields.

When the Romans got to Britain they found another technological advance: chariots. It may seem odd to those of us brought up on Ben Hur that the Romans should have been surprised by chariots on the battlefield, but that was the case.

The Romans had chariots, but the Britons made significant design improvements and, as Julius Caesar noted, had thoroughly mastered the art of using them.

So the Romans underestimated their enemy because of the unfamiliar techniques and their opponents proved able to use more flexible and adaptive tactics to harass them until, in the case of the first attempt to conquer Britain, they were forced to withdraw. Sound familiar? But it was perhaps the Roman self-assurance of the superiority of their forces that was their downfall in this case.

The lack of understanding of the other’s culture and even willful dismissal of it as valid runs through much of Roman writing. The automatic assumption of the superiority of their own values is perhaps the most telling for it still colors our view of pre-Roman life. To take a simple example, the article shows how the assumption that the Romans brought road building is false. Indeed the British were building roads a hundred years before the Romans started the Appian Way.

Jones’s series also helped show how the Romans to some extent suppressed but did not extinguish traditions and concepts that have survived through a series of different manifestations and institutions to today. The Celts had a very sophisticated social structure which placed a duty on the society to look after the elderly, sick and disabled as well as the young. This contrasts with the Romans. Claudius had a club foot and a speech impediment but was still made Caesar. That in a large part because he was treated as un-imperial. He was declared that almost as a joke by revolting soldiers who saw him as an “easy touch”. Despite four hundred years of occupation, that caring tradition continued in Britain. Now it was channeled through church and feudal structures but the idea of social justice informed many of the big events in British history like the Peasants’ Revolt and social conventions like “noblesse oblige”. Today the successor of this Celtic tradition is the social support systems like the National Health Service.

I agree these are all very different institutions but it shows the persistence of the idea that a society should look after its most vulnerable members and one that could not be wiped out by a very different  but alien tradition. Here is the lesson that Gandhi taught in his response to a question “What do you think of Western Civilization”. His answer “I think it would be a good idea” is a reminder of the far longer history of the country he was representing. So let’s finish by drawing the lesson from the closing paragraph of the Sunday Times piece.

Western society’s enthusiasm since the renaissance for all things Roman has persuaded us to see much of the past through Roman eyes, even when contrary evidence stares us in the face. Once we turn the picture upside-down and look at history from a non-Roman point of view, things start to look very, very different.

If perhaps we start to view other cultures as equally valid and the “other ” as a brother, maybe we would remove our Roman blinkers.

The Israeli deputy Prime Minister has given an interview to Al Jazeera in which he gives a narrative about the use of cluster bombs in Lebanon last year.

This rather surprising medium for a response to Monday’s US criticism of their use is down to Perez being on a visit in Doha, capital of Qatar and home base of A-J.

This is what he said, somewhat in passing.

About the cluster bombs, to be short and clear we committed a mistake, regrettably. Apparently it was done without the knowledge even of the chief of staff.

This is rather disingenuous as I explain below the fold.
First a little further information from the subsequent A-J disussion which I have not been able to completely verify from net sources but which can from the Amenesty International member who compiled their report after visiting.

The first is that the failure rate of the bombs dropped on Lebanon was unusually high. Typically around 5-10% of the bomblets fail to go off but Amnesty had found this was around 40% in Lebanon. In some cases. the entire package had failed as this photo from the BBC page linked above shows:

Some of this appears to be down to the Israeli’s use of US cluster bombs in which the bomblets had no “self destruct” mechanism to avoid them becoming landmines. These were not however the ones shipped during the conflict that had caused so much disquiet at the time but in some cases the main cannisters had “use by” dates up to 30 years old. Obviously the age had made these weapons less efficient.

Now to return to Perez’s explanation. It is rather difficult to reconcile the “top brass did not know” excuse with the events at the time and the facts on the ground (or in the trees). Although most of the cluster bombs were dropped in the last three days of the conflict and after the ceasefire had been agreed, Amnesty had warned Israel early on in the war about their use.

Neither does the “rogue elements in the military” idea fit well with the unexploded ordinance found. “cluster bomb” is somewhat of a misnomer as the munitions can be delivered in different ways. Evidence of three types of weapons have been found and the bomblets defused. From the latest Amnesty report I can find

In August and September 2006, Amnesty International researchers found unexploded BLU-63 sub-munitions from CBU-58B cluster bombs in a house in the village of ‘Ainata and in the courtyard of a house in the village of Rashaya al-Foukhar.  CBU-58B cluster bombs are US-made. They each contain 650 BLU-63 bomblets and are air-delivered.

A vast quantity of unexploded BLU-63 sub-munitions were also found near Nabatiyeh, north of the Litani river, where Israel did not give any advance notice to the local population of its intention to launch air or artillery attacks.

Amnesty International researchers also found unexploded M42 and M46 cluster sub-munitions around the village of ‘Aitaroun. Both the M42 and the M46 cluster bombs are US-made and are delivered by artillery cannon.

A third type of US-made unexploded cluster sub-munitions found in south Lebanon is the M77, which is delivered by Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS).  The rest were mainly Israeli-made M85.

You can see that Amnesty found the results of bombs being dropped from aircraft, shells fired from artillery and rocket launced cluster munitions. This points to different units within the Israeli army as well as the airforce all deciding separately and without the knowledge of the High Command to use cluster munitions.  Further, somebody in the Air Force had decided to use them north of the Litani River when the purpose of these is to attack large troop movements and should not be used near civilian areas. Quite frankly it stretches the imagination that the massive cluster bomb attack on southern Lebanon in the closing hours of the war could have been unknown to the top brass.

Perez “plausible deniability” excuse could also be behind their failure to provide the mine clearing teams with maps of their usage. Amnesty is pressuring the Israelis to provide them. The delays are making them even more dangerous.

A UN official told Al Jazeera in Beirut that despite an intensive de-mining effort, only 19,000 cluster bombs have been cleared so far.

The onset of winter in Lebanon and damper conditions have led to the bombs becoming further embedded in the ground, rendering them similar to landmines.

Perez also had some interesting comments that perhaps revealed more about his atitute to democratic expression than he realised:

It is tragic when the streets are running the state. The state has to run the streets.

It is though perhaps his comments on Israeli nuclear weapons that should colour views on the reliability of his excuse about cluster bombs. Most analysists accept that Israeli has nuclear weapons, putting the number of warheads in the low (100-200) hundreds. To have kidnapped Mordechai Vanunu from the streets of Rome, imprisoned him for 18 years, 11 in solitary, and still to deny him freedom of movement for spreading fiction is a little extreme even for the Israelis. Here though is what Perez said about those nukes.

Israel never announced an ambition to produce bombs, Israel said we shall never be the first to introduce a nuclear bomb in the Middle East. Israel does not refer to the nuclear position as such, but as a psychological deterrent. We know that Israel is being suspected of having such an option, and we say suspicion is enough.

If you have suspicion which means you have  a deterrent, and you don’t need more and let me say Ahmadinejad and the Iranians are saying they are not interested in nuclear bombs, they just want to enrich uranium I don’t know exactly what for. But then they are producing missiles of long-range, what for? If they are not going to have bombs what do they need the missiles for. It is like believing in Allah but not believing in Muhammad.
 

The old non-denial denial. But he goes further.

(Q)But there also other people that are concerned by the fact, as you say, that there is a suspicion that Israel does have a nuclear device, is it not time to just own up and say `we do have a bomb’?

(A)Why should we do it? We don’t have an ambition to have a bomb. Look our ambition is to see the Middle East free from wars and free from bombs not the other way round. Till now it has served a purpose, why should we go further than that.

You know Amr Moussa yesterday, the secretary-general of the Arab league, used to be the foreign minister of Egypt – we were rather friendly  and he came over to me in reception and says `We’re such good friends Why won’t you take me to Dimona and show me what you are doing there?’ and I say `Are are you crazy, Dimona I will take you there and you will see that there is nothing there and you will stop being suspicious and stop being worried about war and I will be out of my job. I don’t mind that you are suspicious.’ And that is it we never went further than that, Israel never for example tried a bomb, never tried to test a bomb, the minute we reached the limit, or the purpose of having a deterrent we stopped.

 

John Pilger, respected and experienced British journalist wrote this prescient piece in May 2001.

As George Bush escalates the new cold war begun by his father, the attention of his planners is moving to the Middle East. Stories about the threat of Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” are again appearing in the American press, this time concentrating on Saddam Hussein’s “new nuclear capability”.

These are refuted by the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose inspectors have found no evidence that Iraq, in its devastated state, has a nuclear weapons programme.

The distraction, however, is vital. The only weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East are in Israel, an American protectorate. What is not being reported is that, as Israel’s hawks fail to put down the Palestinian uprising, their leader, Ariel Sharon, may well remove the country’s nuclear arsenal from its nominal strategy of “last resort”.

This prospect is raised in the current Covert Action Quarterly ( org), by John Steinbach, a nuclear specialist whose previous work includes the mapping of deadly radiation hazards in the United States. He quotes Israel’s former president Ezer Weizman: “The nuclear issue is gaining momentum [and the] next war will not be conventional.” From the 1950s, writes Steinbach, “the US was training Israeli nuclear scientists and providing nuclear-related technology, including a small ‘research’ reactor in 1955 under the ‘Atoms for Peace’ program”. It was France that built a uranium reactor and plutonium reprocessing plant in the Negev desert, called Dimona. The Israelis lied that it was “a manganese plant, or a textile factory”. In return for uranium, Israel supplied South Africa with the technology and expertise that allowed the white supremacist regime to build the “apartheid bomb”.

In 1979, when US satellite photographs revealed the atmospheric test of a nuclear bomb in the Indian Ocean off South Africa, Israel’s involvement, writes Steinbach, “was quickly whitewashed by a carefully selected scientific panel, kept in the dark about important details”. Israeli sources have since revealed “there were actually three tests of miniaturised Israeli nuclear artillery shells”.

It seems Perez’s assertion that “Israel never for example tried a bomb, never tried to test a bomb, the minute we reached the limit, or the purpose of having a deterrent we stopped.” can only be truthful if we add “Then we let the Apartheid regime test them for us.”
To be fair then, Perez assertion that the Chief of Staff was not aware of the cluster bomb use could just be true. Perhaps he was too busy fielding criticism of his alleged share dealing on the eve of the war to notice the decision being made by his colleagues.

In todays London based, “Independent on Sunday” Wesley Clark has written a piece slamming the planning of the Iraq war and the idea of the “surge” of maybe 20,000 (30,000 in some reports) US troops in particular.

The opening sums up Clark’s view.

The odds are that President George Bush will announce a “surge” of up to 20,000 additional US troops in Iraq. But why? Will this deliver a “win”? The answers: a combination of misunderstanding and desperation; and, probably not.

Clark goes on to explain why Bush has come up with this big idea after the Democrat win in the mid-terms and apparently rejecting a draw-down as a sign of weakness.

 

From the administration’s perspective, a troop surge of modest size is virtually the only remaining action inside Iraq that will be a visible signal of determination. More economic assistance is likely to be touted, but in the absence of a change in the pattern of violence, infrastructure enhancement simply isn’t practical. And if the President announces new Iraqi political efforts – well, that’s been tried before, and is there any hope that this time will be different?

Clark explains how there have never been enough troops on the ground in Iraq, calling on his experience in Kosovo. The failure to have a sufficiently large invasion force to secure the county way predictable to anybody, even without military experience who read anything about the pre-war numbers by any expert not called Rumsfeld.

As for the US troops, yes, several additional brigades in Baghdad would enable more roadblocks, patrols, neighbourhood clearing operations and overnight presence. But how significant will this be? We’ve never had enough troops in Iraq – in Kosovo, we had 40,000 troops for a population of two million. For Iraq that ratio would call for at least 500,000 troops, so adding 20,000 seems too little, too late, even, for Baghdad

He re-iterates a problem with the training given to US forces that has long been apparent.

Further, in a “clear and hold” strategy, US troops have been shown to lack the language skills, cultural awareness and political legitimacy to ensure that areas can be “held”, or even that they are fully “cleared”.

Clark argues that the only effect of suddenly large number on the Iraqi streets will be a temporary dip in casualties while the insurgents regroup and reorder their tactics followed by an even higher rate of US casualties.

He also explains how the muted threats against Iran and Syrian, rather than cowering them in the belief they would be next, have encouraged them to interfer in Iraq. It seems they have been the ones to take on board Bush’s message of “fighting them over there instead of fighting them over here”.  Clark argues however that now is the time to bring them in to a wider diplomatic effort. He ends with a warning of the results of not following this but trying to “stay the course”

America should take the lead with direct diplomacy to resolve the interrelated problems of Iran’s push for regional hegemony, Lebanon and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Isolating adversaries hasn’t worked. The region must gain a new vision, and that must be led diplomatically by the most powerful force in the region, the United States.

Without such fundamental change in Washington’s approach, there is little hope that the troops surge, Iraqi promises and accompanying rhetoric will amount to anything other than “stay the course more”. That wastes lives and time, perpetuates the appeal of the terrorists, and simply brings us closer to the showdown with Iran. And that will be a tragedy for not just Iraq but our friends in the region as well.

I have been gleaning some of the early platform from John Edwards. What has struck me is how similar these initial policy statements are to the work of the 19th century Conservative Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli and the movement in the UK Conservative Party which was pre-eminent in their governments of the 1950s and early 1960s.
First, it was the “big idea” of his campaign that set me off on this track. Compare and contrast:

Dear Friend,

Our opponents are constantly taking us in the wrong direction, drawing lines that divide our country into two different Americas:

    * One America for those who have everything they need and one for those who struggle just to get by
    * One America for those who do the work and one for those who reap the reward
    * One America for those who pay the taxes and one for those who get the tax breaks

You know how this goes because you hear it every day.

But you and I believe in something different. We believe in One America. Where everyone gets an equal shot, a fair chance, a level playing field.

My family and my faith taught me that we must fight for people who don’t have a voice. Fight for good jobs, fight for seniors, fight for good health care, fight for a better day for all. That’s why Elizabeth and I launched the One America Committee, to bring vital support to Democratic candidates at the grassroots level, candidates who are fighting for One America.

With

Two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets: the rich and the poor.

The second is from Disraeli’s novel “Sybil” which has the alternative title “The Two Nations”. It was the redress of these social inequities that was behind the “One Nation” movement  in the Conservative party that was their philosophy before Thatcher.

The government which had this philosophy at its heart ran for 13 years. It electoral success was to a large extent due to the centerist nature of the ideals of social justice. It did not for example undo the National Health Service which could easily have happened with a more overly programme like Thatcher’s. She famously said “There is no such thing as society”.

This benevolent, if somewhat patrician, set of ideas is being re-examined as the new Conservative leader seeks to make them electorally sucessful.