Archive By Date | Today's Links to Search By
-------- activists
NEW POLL SHOWS MISSILE DEFENCE NOT A VOTING ISSUE AND NOT FAVOURED
CLW PRLS, MAY 4 New Poll Shows Missile Defense not a Voting [Image] Issue and not Favored Council For a Livable World Press Release, May 4, 2000
Contact: John Isaacs - 202.543.4100 x.131 or Luke Warren - 202.546.0795 x.127
Results from a recent poll commissioned by the Council for a Livable World show that national missile defense is an extremely low priority for Americans. Indeed, defense issues in general are not salient. Moreover, a majority of Americans also prefer waiting until testing of a missile defense system is complete before deciding whether to deploy it.
Missile Defense Is A Relatively Low Priority For Most Americans
At a time when missile defense is at the tip of every Republican politician's tongue, it appears that once again, the American public has shown that it does not care. It is clear that defense issues in general, and missile defense in particular, are low priorities for Americans. Improving education (28%), protecting Social Security and Medicare (14%) and improving health care coverage (14%) are all significantly higher priorities than defense-related matters. Even fighting crime/drugs (13%), maintaining economic growth (8%), cracking down on illegal guns (6%), and cutting taxes (6%) rank higher than missile defense and a strong military on the nation's list of priorities.
Only 4% of Americans believe that maintaining a strong military is the nation's top priority, and a mere 1% believe building a national missile defense system to be the most important issue.
A Large Majority Support Postponing Deployment Until Testing Has Been Completed
After arguments both for and against deploying a national missile defense system this year were presented, a majority support waiting until after the 19 tests are completed. 59% (43% strongly) favor waiting until testing is complete while only 20% (16% strongly) favor deciding this year. One-in-five are undecided (21%). Support crosses demographic lines, with large majorities of both men (59%), women (58%), whites (59%), and non-whites (63%) favor completing tests.
Findings at Odds with Political Grandstanding
The polls findings are ironic, given how the Republicans are trying to use the issue to paint the Democrats as soft on defense, and the Democrats are reacting as if the public cares. In fact, one of the main reasons President Clinton may decide in favor of deployment this fall is protect Al Gore from this "soft on defense" attack. Clinton should wake up and smell the coffee; the American public will not abandon the Democratic party because of this issue.
Additionally, not only do Americans not vote on missile defense, but the majority do not actually want it. A new ABC.com poll shows that a narrow majority (53-44%) do not think the U.S. should build a national missile defense. This is further evidence that politicians have little to fear from taking a strong stand against this costly, unworkable, security damaging system.
Complete poll data and analysis will be posted shortly at: www.clw.org/bmd.html
Council for a Livable World Education Fund 110 Maryland Avenue NE #201 Washington, DC 20002 (202) 543-4100
----
Brazilian Protesters Press for Land Reform
Washington Post
Thursday, May 4, 2000; Page A17
By Stephen Buckley Washington Post Foreign Service
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-05/04/185l-050400-idx.html
RIO DE JANEIRO, May 3-Thousands of landless workers have poured into government buildings around Brazil this week to try to persuade federal authorities to speed up the pace of land reform in Latin America's largest and most populous country.
By early this afternoon, throngs of protesters from the Landless Workers Movement continued to crowd into lobbies and gather on the front steps of public buildings in at least a dozen states, singing, chanting slogans and displaying placards reading: "No agrarian reform means no democracy."
These protests by the workers movement, known by its initials in Portuguese as the MST, are part of demonstrations that have spread to at least 20 of Brazil's 26 states and have resulted in dozens of arrests and hundreds of injuries. In the southern state of Parana alone, a confrontation between protesters and security forces led to the death of one landless worker and injured at least another 200 people.
The government, meanwhile, has said it will not negotiate as long as protesters continue to swarm public buildings. But leaders of the movement, one of Latin America's largest and most powerful social organizations, say the demonstrations will continue until the government yields.
"The government will have to negotiate with us before we stop these protests, not the other way around," said Jaime de Amorin, a movement spokesman. "We are tired of the government trying to do agrarian reform through propaganda. The people want to see action."
"We are a country that must address our inequities, and we need social movements, but we also have laws, and the Landless Workers Movement has to respect them," said Raul Jungmann, minister of agrarian development.
The fight over land in Brazil, where 3 percent of its 167 million people owns 66 percent of the arable land, has become one of the country's most divisive issues. Tensions have heightened recently as police have become increasingly aggressive in responding to the movement's occupation of large plots of land by landless workers. Typically, the protesters move onto land whose ownership is in doubt or that the government has deemed unproductive.
The most recent demonstrations began late last month, when tens of thousands of rural landless workers protested alongside indigenous groups, blacks and others in northeastern Brazil during celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the country. But while the other groups ended their demonstrations when the anniversary celebrations closed, the landless workers have stepped up their protests.
National demonstrations are not unusual for the 20-year-old movement, which claims about 5 million followers. What is unusual, according to human rights activists, is the hard line that government officials and security forces have taken in response.
One of the week's most violent confrontations occurred Tuesday afternoon in the town of Parana, just outside the state capital, Curitiba, as hundreds of police blocked about 3,000 protesters from entering the city. During the standoff, police used tear gas, rubber bullets and dogs to disperse the demonstrators, some of whom were armed with sticks.
Police arrested about 30 people, most of whom were released after a few hours. One man died after being shot in the abdomen. Parana police have denied responsibility for the killing, saying their officers used only rubber bullets.
There was no violence in Parana today, but tensions continued to boil. In Rio de Janeiro this afternoon, about 300 boisterous protesters at the government's National Bank of Social Development crowded around the entrance. "We don't do this because we like it," said Marina dos Santos, 26. "We do it because we feel that the government has pressed us to do it."
---
30th anniversary of Kent State shootings
USA Today
05/04/00- Updated 09:43 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/ndsthu03.htm
KENT, Ohio (AP) - Nine people wounded at Kent State University 30 years ago today have gathered to remember the day National Guard troops opened fire on anti-Vietnam War protesters.
It marks the first time that all of the former students have been on campus together since the May 4, 1970, shooting that stunned the nation and galvanized the anti-war movement.
''They're my blood brothers,'' said Alan Canfora, one of the students. ''We all shed the blood here and lived to tell the story.''
The former students also planned to meet with the mothers of three of the four students who were killed that day.
''It'll be very emotional this year, particularly around the mothers,'' said Kent State sociology professor Jerry M. Lewis, who was 20 yards from one of the students killed by gunfire.
To commemorate the anniversary, hundreds of students marched around the campus Wednesday night before gathering at a parking lot for the start of an annual overnight candlelight vigil.
Senior Mary Sima said the vigil was ''a chance to look inside myself and think about peace for everybody.''
At least one shooting survivor, Robby Stamps, said he was unhappy about plans to play a taped speech by Mumia Abu-Jamal during this year's commemoration.
Abu-Jamal is on death row in Pennsylvania for killing a police officer in 1981. Abu-Jamal maintains his innocence, and his supporters say he was targeted for political reasons and framed.
Stamps, who was shot in the lower back, said he is afraid that the 3.50-minute speech will shift the focus of the commemoration away from events at Kent State.
The shootings occurred following days of student protests and the burning of the campus Army ROTC building. The National Guard was sent in to quell the protest.
---
World Scene
Farm occupations will continue
Washington Times
May 4, 2000
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-2000542255.htm
HARARE, Zimbabwe - Occupations of white-owned farms by black squatters won't end until much of the land is available for resettlement, President Robert Mugabe said yesterday in a fiery speech launching his party's election campaign.
Mr. Mugabe, 76, slammed former colonial ruler Britain, told other countries to butt out of Zimbabwe's affairs and warned that the land takeovers that began in February could escalate if there is "resistance."
Mr. Mugabe said 841 farms must be made available for resettlement before the squatters leave any of the seized farms.
-------- alternative energy
Peaceful uses of nuclear energy rapped at UN meet
May 4, 2000
Story by Evelyn Leopold
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=6538&newsdate=04-May-2000
UNITED NATIONS - The key global Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is decades behind the times, ignoring health and environmental hazards in its promotion of nuclear energy, expert pressure groups said on Wednesday.
The organisations were addressing a one-month conference on the 1970 NPT treaty, held every five years, to review compliance and set new goals. Most of the discussion has been on reducing nuclear arms, the main purpose of the treaty ratified by 187 states.
But several nongovernmental groups told official delegates they paid too little attention to provisions in the treaty that promote nuclear power plants and their technology, saying this reflected a 1960s concept and ignored research since then.
Jacqui Katona, an official of the Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation in Australia's northern territory, blasted Australia's uranium mining and its effects on indigenous people, such as the Mirrar. Uranium is a key ingredient in nuclear weapons and power plants.
She proposed the review conference set up formal reporting procedures and investigative committees that would force governments to reveal the nature of uranium mining and toxic waste storage.
"While we believe Australia is complicit in perpetuating the nuclear fuel cycle, we also believe Australia is not unique in this respect," she said. "We believe the NPT process must extend its vision to embrace a vehicle for monitoring the production of uranium for 'peaceful' use."
Alexei Yablokov of the Social Ecological Union of Russia said statistics on radiation-caused illness and protection were inadequate. The International Atomic Energy Agency, a key promoter of nuclear energy which monitors atomic power plants, excluded from its data many side effects, he said.
Yablokov said data had emerged since the treaty was signed from the United States and Russia, showing high incidence of cancer, genetic damage, miscarriage and still births connected to radiation from power plans.
"The IAEA massively underestimates the real cost of nuclear programmes," he said.
Both Yablokov and Alice Slater, a lawyer for U.S. Global Resource Action Centre for the Environment, denounced a 1959 agreement between the IAEA and the World Health Organisation.
Under this pact WHO cannot do research on the dangers of radiation without agreement from the IAEA. WHO also has to submit any findings to the IAEA before publication.
Slater called the treaty a "Faustian bargain" giving countries the right "to poison the earth with so-called peaceful nuclear technology."
For example, she said recent studies in the United States showed that infant mortality rates around five nuclear power reactors declined after the plants closed.
While there may have been some justification for peaceful benefits from the atom 30 years ago, this was no longer the case, Slater said.
"Ending nuclear proliferation and eliminating nuclear weapons, the two major goals of the NPT. requires the end of nuclear energy," she said.
With few new reactors built in the industrial world, rich nations were pushing their status-driven equipment to the developing states. Turkey, with access to gas fields, had considered constructing a reactor in an earthquake zone.
"Turkey - and now Indonesia, with its ample reserves of oil - want nuclear reactors. They want to play in the league with the big boys," Slater said.
-------- australia
Australia probes hazardous leak at uranium mine
AUSTRALIA:
May 4, 2000
Story by James Regan
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=6551
SYDNEY - Australia said on Wednesday it would investigate the leak of contaminated water from a uranium mine near World Heritage-listed parkland, the third environmental incident involving an Australian mining company this year.
No damage had so far been detected from the leak of manganese-contaminated water from the Ranger uranium mine on the fringe of the Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory, local and federal officials said.
They said investigations so far had been restricted to a 25-acre (10-hectare) environmental buffer zone designed to capture any hazardous discharges from the mine.
"While there is no evidence of environmental detriment outside the project area, I am concerned that this has happened and am in the process of seeking a full explanation from the company and the Northern Territory regulatory authorities," Industry and Resources Minister Nick Minchin said.
The mine's owner, Energy Resources of Australia Ltd could not say how long the leak went undetected or how much contaminated water had been leaked.
Greenpeace claims water contaminated with manganese has leaked from the site since the sart of the region's wet season last December and warned that the area also was likely to suffer pollution from a range of contaminants included in the toxic run-off, possibly even uranium.
"How can we believe this industry is safe when we know we cannot trust the companies to be open and accountable?" Greenpeace campaigner Stephen Campbell said.
DELAY IN REPORTING LEAK
ERA advised the government of the leak on April 28 and reported the accident publicly in an announcement to the Australian Stock Exchange on Tuesday night.
ERA spokesman Chris Oldfield said the leak was first discovered and repaired in "late March or early April, but because of continuous wet weather the duration of the leak had not been determined.
Oldfield said the delay in reporting the incident was regrettable, but offered no explanation for the time lapse. Each year, more than 250,000 tourists visit Kakadu, known for its tropical climate and abundant population of crocodiles and other wildlife.
"There has been no downstream impact on Kakadu National Park or World Heritage area," Minchin said in a statement. Results from routine water monitoring in the Magela Creek, which runs downstream from the mine, showed water quality standards had not been affected, he said.
In March, Australia-based gold miner Dome Resources NL accidentally dropped a tonne of cyanide from a helicopter near its Tolukuma lode in Papua New Guinea, prompting officials to warn against drinking from local water supplies.
Australian miner Esmeralda Exploration Ltd went into voluntary administration after cyanide spilled from a tailings dam in January at its Baia Mare gold mine in Romania, causing one of the worst environmental river disasters in Europe.
In the latest incident, water contaminated with manganese leaked from a pipe into a primary containment area. An undetermined amount then seeped into wetland filters, which prevented the tainted water from flowing into the creek, an ERA spokesman said.
Recorded levels of manganese, which is used in the process of extracting uranium from ore, were within environmentally safe limits, the spokesman said.
Northern Territory Resource Development Minister Daryl Manzie has also launched an investigation into the cause of the leak.
ERA is 68.4 percent owned by international resources group North Ltd , which also mines iron ore, zinc, copper and gold.
-------- britain
If you would like to read the UK Parliamentary debate on the NPT from Wednesday 4th May go to:
From: tony@cnduk.org Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 15:11:26 +0100
- www.publications.parliament.uk* - click on House of Commons* - click on What's new* - click on Hansard (House of Commons Debates)* - click on Westminster Hall for Wednesday 3rd May* - scroll to Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference and click to open
It was a fascinating debate and well-worth your time finding it. Rebecca Johnson, Acronym and CND were repeatedly mentioned!
----
UK BNFL says fire out at Trawsfynydd nuclear plant
UK: May 3, 2000
Story by Margaret Orgill
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=6523
LONDON - Britain's state-owned nuclear company BNFL said on Tuesday it had put out a small fire at its Trawsfynydd nuclear power station in Wales, currently being decommissioned, and there was no radiation leak at the site.
"The fire brigade are putting out the fire now. There were no casualties and it did not involve any radioactive material," said a spokesman for the plant's operator BNFL Magnox Generation.
The plant, which closed in 1993, is being decommissioned and the fire was caused by stray sparks from a blow torch used by workmen removing a metal plate in the reactor building, he said.
He said the fire occured in a non-radioactive part of the site, adding all nuclear fuel was removed five years ago. Trawsfynydd, in the Snowdonia National Park in north Wales, is one of three nuclear power stations being taken out of service by BNFL.
---
The UK Government publishes BNFL's reprocessing client list
http://www.pu-investigation.or g/news.html#theuk
BNFL's road to industrial meltdown
Financial Times,
27 April 2000
investigation.org/othersnewsframe/others7.htmlhttp://www.pu-investigation.org/othersnewsframe/others7.html)
US to review BNFL's Hanford contract after price rises
Financial Times,
27 April 2000
By Matthew Jones
http://www.pu-inv estigation.org/othersnewsframe/others6.html
Sellafield workers drop appeals over fake data sackings The Independent [London], 27 April 2000 By Charles Arthur, Technology Editor (http://www.pu-inv estigation.org/othersnewsframe/others5.html)
----
From: Mike Ewall - catalyst@envirolink.org Date: Wed, 03 May 2000 23:56:56 -0400
Health hazard? Power lines may put children at risk
Fresh evidence found of cancer risk near pylons
The Sunday Times
November 28 1999
Jonathan Leake and Chris Dignan
A BRITISH scientist has produced the most powerful evidence yet of a link between cancer and electricity power lines. His study confirms that people living near them are exposed to radiation levels dozens of times greater than the legal limit.
The research, to be released this week, firmly links the power lines with childhood leukaemia and other forms of cancer. The levels recorded in some areas were two times higher than the legal maximum allowed for adult nuclear power workers - the group permitted maximum radiation exposure.
Its most serious implication is that more than 23,000 homes built under or near power lines are unsafe, especially for children. The effect of the fields can extend more than 100 yards either side of the lines.
Professor Denis Henshaw, of Bristol University's human radiation effects group, showed three years ago that there was a theoretical mechanism whereby power lines could increase human uptake of the radioactive gases produced naturally in the soil and also of traffic pollutants. His latest study quantifies this effect in the field and shows that power lines are indeed linked to childhood leukaemia and other cancers. Henshaw took 2,000 field measurements to support his research.
A university insider described the findings as dynamite. "The study has serious implications for the electricity industry, which could face huge compensation claims and pressure to move its pylons."
Children are especially vulnerable to radiation and pollution damage because they have more growing and dividing cells than adults. Such cells are far more prone than adult ones to become cancerous when exposed to hazardous substances.
The research will be published in the International Journal of Radiation Biology. Its editor, Professor Gordon Steel, said it was a comprehensive study of how electric fields of the kind generated by power lines and, to a lesser extent, domestic appliances, could increase the uptake of radioactive gases and pollutants by humans. Details will be revealed at a press conference at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in London on Wednesday.
The study, funded by the Department of Health and the Medical Research Council, is backed by another carried out by Sir Richard Doll, due for publication in The Lancet on Friday. Doll, who discovered the link between tobacco and lung cancer, has collated details of every childhood leukaemia case in the past four years to try to find common causes, including links with electric fields.
Childhood leukaemia has long been seen as a target for such studies since it occurs in clusters, suggesting a common cause that is probably linked to local environmental factors. Clusters associated with power lines have been noted for years but the electricity industry has insisted such associations were too weak to be significant.
Three years ago Henshaw discovered the complex interactions between the alternating electric fields surrounding power lines and the radioactive breakdown products of naturally occurring radon gas. His theory was dismissed by the electricity industry and, more importantly, the government's National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB).
Henshaw is understood to have shown that in some areas children living near power lines could receive doses of 95 millisieverts of radiation a year, compared with the maximum for homes of one millisievert. Nuclear workers are allowed a maximum dose of 50, soon to be reduced to 20.
Henshaw was unwilling to comment on the study before publication but said: "It is clear that if there is radon gas or traffic fumes in the air near pylons, then people living nearby will suffer increased exposure because of the electric field."
The National Grid and electricity distribution companies could find themselves in a difficult position. A spokesman said it was too early to comment.
The findings will be welcomed by victims and their families, some of whom have tried to sue for compensation. Ray and Denise Studholme, of Bolton, launched the first legal case of its kind in Europe in 1994, when they took Norweb, the electricity supplier, to court after their son Simon, 13, died from leukaemia in 1992. They had to drop their action in 1997 after an American study, now criticised as flawed, raised doubts over a link. This weekend Ray, 51, said he would consider restarting legal action in the light of the new evidence.
-------- canada
Axworthy slams missile plan in Swedish newspaper
Ottowa Citizen
05/04/00
Mike Trickey
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/national/000505/4048987.html
Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy praised Russia's recent disarmament steps and urged the United States not to go ahead with a new missile defence system in a letter published yesterday in a Swedish newspaper.
Co-authored with Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh prior to the start of last week's opening of the review of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the letter criticized the U.S. Senate for failing to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, saying that such action only encouraged other nations to develop or enhance their own nuclear capacity.
"Nuclear-weapon states have dramatically increased the fragility of the regime both by recent actions and, in certain critical instances, their inaction. Other states, perceiving weakness, have seized on this frailty and pursued their own nuclear ambitions, putting the regime in even greater jeopardy," the letter said.
The ministers called for a re-dedication of the fundamental principles of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, suggesting a good first step would be immediate START-3 negotiations between the United States and Russia.
"Washington could heighten confidence too by ratifying the 1997 agreements on START-2 as well as the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty," they said.
"The U.S. should go further and refrain from unilateral decisions on a National Missile Defence system that could jeopardize the integrity of the ABM Treaty regime and have an overall negative impact on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation."
In an abrupt reversal of policy last month, Russia ratified the test ban treaty as well as START-2, which calls for each country to reduce its nuclear arsenals from the START-1 limit of 6,500 apiece to a maximum of 3,500 each. Currently, the United States has about 7,400 strategic weapons and 970 non-strategic warheads. Russia has 6,200 strategic weapons and 4,000 non-strategic.
START-3 envisions reducing those arsenals to about 1,500 warheads each and establishing an environment to negotiate the reduction of nuclear warheads possessed by Britain, China and France, the other three officially recognized nuclear-weapon states.
The controversial American proposal for a new missile defence system, which has public foreign support so far only from Britain, is a land-based system designed to provide cover for all parts of the U.S. against a ballistic missile attack from "rogue" states.
Canada and most European states, particularly Russia, say that such a system could violate the terms of the 1972 ABM treaty, which expressly prohibits a national shield. The idea behind the treaty was mutually assured destruction, in which a country launching a first-strike attack would be vulnerable to a deadly counter-attack.
Mr. Axworthy made similar remarks in his address last week to the Non-Proliferation Treaty conference, in which he called on the U.S. and China to join Russia in signing the test ban treaty.
The five official nuclear nations last week pledged to work toward fulfilling all terms of the treaty, including eventual disarmament.
Mr. Axworthy's letter, in the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, called for India, Pakistan and North Korea to also sign the test ban treaty and said North Korea must comply with the non-proliferation treaty if it hoped to join the international community in good standing.
Cuba, India, Israel and Pakistan are the only countries not to have signed the non-proliferation treaty.
He described India and Pakistan's 1998 nuclear tests as deplorable, saying they could result in an arms race that threatens global stability.
"The nuclear threat which seemed to be receding only a few years ago has crept back. Russia's actions have provided the opportunity to reverse the disturbing trend. Now is the time for progress."
---
Canada taking missile-shield role David Pugliese
Ottowa Citizen
05/04/00
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/national/000504/4041926.html
Despite Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy's outspoken concerns about the U.S. plan to build a system to shoot down ballistic missiles, the Canadian Forces are moving ahead to establish a presence in the American military's missile organization.
Documents obtained by the Citizen show that Defence Minister Art Eggleton was briefed several months ago about the Canadian Forces posting senior officers at the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defence Organization in Washington. And on April 19, Canadian and U.S. military officials sat down in private at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado to discuss critical issues affecting the anti-missile system.
"It's been already decided at (the Defence Department) that Canada will take part in missile defence," said military analyst John Clearwater, author of U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Canada. "Axworthy doesn't figure into the process."
Mr. Eggleton and military officials continue to publicly claim the Canadian Forces are doing no work, beyond basic research, on the U.S. missile shield. No decision has been officially made by the Canadian government about whether to sign on to the scheme, but most defence analysts believe Canada has little choice but to do so.
Mr. Eggleton also recently suggested to Mr. Axworthy that any debate on missile defence be kept private within cabinet. Mr. Axworthy has been quite candid in his concerns over the American missile shield, pointing out that it will not protect against cruise missiles or even nuclear weapons smuggled into North America by terrorists.
He has raised concerns that the American scheme will spark a new arms race as Russia and China view the missile shield as a threat.
The American plan is to protect North America from ballistic missiles fired by so-called rogue states such as North Korea or Iran. It would also deal with accidental launches of rockets by Russia. The U.S. system would use rockets to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles.
Mr. Clearwater said a similar process, in which concerns from Foreign Affairs officials were sidelined and the views of the military prevailed, took place during the establishment of Norad. The decisions on that joint American and Canadian defence alliance were dominated by the two respective militaries and then presented as a fait accompli to the governments of the day, he said. Mr. Clearwater's research shows that Canadian foreign affairs officials played a very minor role in the birth of Norad.
"The same thing is happening today with missile defence," said Mr. Clearwater. "DND is just moving ahead with the plan."
But Canadian defence officials have warned about reading too much into recent developments. Defence department spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Denise LaViolette said that the establishment of a liaison office within the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defence Organization is only in the discussion stages. She said under the 1994 Defence White Paper, the Canadian Forces can consult and do research on ballistic missile defence, an area the liaison office falls under.
But according to a recent Canadian Defence Department report, military officials have already decided that a $637-million project to purchase space equipment and sensors will "make an asymmetrical contribution to BMD (Ballistic Missile Defence)."
That Joint Space Project, which has received approval from senior Canadian military leaders, would allow the Americans to free up some of their space resources so they can concentrate on missile defence and show that Canada is taking more of a role in defending North America.
The Joint Space Project will help in defending North America, according to the report obtained by the Citizen, by using sensors to warn about threats coming through space and, in co-operation with the U.S., "provide defensive measures against space-related threats." This move to have the Canadian Forces contribute to the defence of the continent by using space-oriented systems is "expected by (the) U.S. leadership," states the document.
Even the research being allowed for under the White Paper is ultimately designed with the American missile system in mind. According to documents, U.S. and Canadian officials have worked out plans for research and development "ultimately leading to a Canadian asymmetric contribution" to the missile defence shield.
The proposed missile shield has already met with resistance from some American allies. French Defence Minister Alain Richard has said his country doesn't see the need for such a system, adding that the threat of ballistic missile attack "is sometimes hyped or exaggerated."
Last week, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned that growing pressure to deploy missile defences could spark a new arms race.
Defence analysts are divided on whether Canada should participate in the American scheme, which would be capable of defending against between five and 20 incoming warheads.
Mr. Clearwater said the claim from U.S. military leaders that if Canada doesn't take part in the shield, the U.S. might hesitate to shoot down a missile headed towards a Canadian city, is absolutely ludicrous. He said the Americans could never be certain until the final seconds of a missile's flight path that a rocket was headed towards Windsor, for example, instead of Detroit.
Even then, the fallout of nuclear or biological weapons the missile might be carrying would not respect borders. "Frankly, I don't see the Americans taking the chance," said Mr. Clearwater. "They would shoot it down if they could."
---
Officer Misspoke on Canada Defense
Associated Press
May 3, 2000 Filed at 10:21 p.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-US-Canada.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The State Department said Wednesday a senior U.S. military officer misspoke when he said the United States might choose, under certain circumstances, not to shoot down a missile targeted at a Canadian city.
Vice Adm. Herbert Browne, deputy commander of U.S. Space Command, said Tuesday the United States might exercise that option if Canada chooses not to take part in the proposed U.S. missile defense project.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the remarks attributed to Browne do not reflect official policy.
``We've had a close and a long-standing defense relationship with Canada that includes both NORAD and NATO,'' Boucher said.
NORAD is the joint U.S.-Canadian North American air defense command.
President Clinton has not made a decision on missile defenses, and Canada has not commented on a possible U.S. deployment.
In a briefing for reporters on his command's role in national missile defense, Browne said that if U.S. satellites detected a hostile missile headed for Ottawa, ``we would have absolutely no obligation to defend'' the Canadian capital, unless Canada was a participant in the anti-missile system.
Asked later to elaborate, Browne raised the theoretical possibility that an attacker might shoot missiles first at Ottawa and then at Detroit or another U.S. city.
If the United States expended its available missile interceptors protecting Ottawa and was left with none to defend Detroit, the American public would say ``that makes absolutely no sense,'' he said.
Browne said that in many cases, hostile missiles would be engaged over Canadian airspace even if they were aimed at American rather than Canadian targets.
Browne said Canada should not only participate in the anti-missile project but contribute to it as well. He said Canada could contribute by allowing the United States to put a high-powered radar somewhere in eastern Canada to help track incoming missiles.
-------- depleted uranium
Doc discounts claims
Thursday, May 4, 2000
By PAUL COWAN, EDMONTON SUN
http://www.canoe.com/EdmontonNews/es.es-05-04-0034.html
Military medics are bracing for soldiers coming forward to complain about sickness due to exposure to depleted uranium rounds following media stories about their dangers.
But Maj. Tim Cook, the doctor in charge of the Department of National Defence's clinics for personnel who become ill because of service overseas, said the dangers are exaggerated.
The reports were based on a report prepared by the Royal Military College of Canada on the detection of depleted uranium, used in anti-tank weapons, and its possible dangers.
"The report was done by scientists with a background in physics and chemistry who did not have experience in toxicology or working with patients," said Cook. "Many of the points it made were based on experiments carried out on rats in 1974."
Many veterans suffering from illnesses following service in the Gulf believe exposure to depleted uranium may be the cause. Recently some British soldiers who served in Kosovo alongside Canadian peacekeepers, complained the anti-tank rounds made them ill.
Cook said no Canadian veterans had been close enough to sources of depleted uranium in the Gulf to be at risk.
He added he had doubts about tests carried out by a private laboratory in the U.S. which showed high levels of depleted uranium in the bones of a Nova Scotia veteran of the Gulf War who died last year.
"We find whenever there is publicity like this we get people coming forward."
The RMC's findings came as no surprise to Alliance MP Peter Goldring who has been expressing concern about military use of depleted uranium for several years. "This is the smoking gun. There needs to be a lot more investigation into this - especially into what happens when these things hit something and vapourize in aerosol form.
"This stuff is really dangerous if you breathe it in."
-------- environment
New Test May Identify Autism Risk
Updated 9:03 AM ET May 4, 2000
http://news.excite.com/news/ap/000504/09/autism-study
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A new test aimed at helping doctors predict whether newborn children will develop autism or mental retardation confirms that such disorders are present at birth and are not the result of nurturing, researchers said. Autism likely arises from a combination of genetic defects and exposure to toxic chemicals, viruses or other environmental substances, according to the California Birth Defects Monitoring Program, which is run jointly by the state and the March of Dimes.
The crucial period for such factors is the early weeks of pregnancy as the central nervous system forms, the researchers said.
"I don't use the word breakthrough lightly, but that is what this (test) looks like to me," said Dr. John Harris, chief of the program. "This could potentially have a huge impact on society."
The findings, reported Wednesday at a San Diego meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, could lead to better treatment for patients and new ways to prevent the disorders, Harris said.
Experts cautioned that the results have not yet been formally published and reviewed by other scientists.
Some parents believe that autism can be caused by adverse reactions to disease vaccinations because many children develop the first signs of the mental disorder after immunization at 18 months.
A team from the monitoring program examined stored blood samples collected from 249 infants during the 1980s. The researchers found unusually high levels of four proteins associated with brain development in nearly all the samples from children who later were diagnosed with autism or mental retardation.
None of the proteins appeared in infants who developed normally.
"This really is an exciting finding, but it doesn't mean scientists have a specific test for autism, since mentally retarded children had the same elevated protein levels," Dr. David Amaral said.
Amaral is director of the MIND Institute at the University of California, Davis, which provided part of the funding for the study.
For both mental retardation and autism, this is the first time a clear biological marker has been identified at such an early age, said Walter Herlihy, president of Repligen Corp. The company is testing a hormone called secretin as a potential treatment for autism.
"I'm going to go back and incorporate this in our clinical trials to see if the markers are present in older children as well," he said.
To validate its own research, the monitoring program is preparing to study as many as 5,000 autistic children, said Dr. Judith K. Grether, the study's principal researcher.
The findings will be compared to tests of several thousand healthy children serving as a control group, she said. The validation study is expected to take five years to complete.
-------- guatemala
Guatemalans Accuse Top Government Officials of Genocide
Sent: 05/04/2000 12:24 PM
From: NISGUA [nisgua@igc.org]
Guatemala Accompaniment Project F-65, P.O. Box 591828 Miami, FL 33159-1828
This case is incredibly significant because it is the first time that such a large group of Guatemalans are challenging officals of the highest level in Guatemala WITHIN THEIR OWN COURT SYSTEM. This is a incredible challenge to impunity and deserves our utmost attention and support.
President Portillo is coming to Washington, DC this month. At that time it will be terribly important to get local press on this issue, using President Portillo's visit as a hook. We will be sending out a press release and giving tips on how to talk to your editorial boards etc.
Please see information below.
This is an exciting time. We look forward to talking with all of you about this.
Sincerely,
Amy E. Johnson National Organizer
---
Challenging the Silence: Guatemalans Accuse Top Government Officials of Genocide
On May 3, 2000, Guatemalans from around the country brought before the national court system an unprecedented case which challenges the multiple denials and coverups of the government. Their case charges President Fernando Romeo Lucas García and top officials of his 1981-82 regime with genocide and crimes against humanity.
Witnesses from communities who lived through massacres, torture, and displacement have taken on the risk of presenting this case in order to seek justice. The Guatemalan judicial system now has the obligation to investigate the case, which accuses President Lucas García, Military Chief of Staff Benedicto Lucas García, and Minister of Defense Luis René Mendoza Palomo, who held power from October 1981 to March 1982.
Both the official UN-sponsored Historical Clarification Commission and the Catholic Church Recovery of Historical Memory reports detail the human rights violations committed by the Lucas García regime. A recently declassified CIA document implicates Benedicto Lucas in strategizing the scorched earth policy which aimed to destroy civilian populations.
The presentation of this case represents a historic event and courageous act in a country where for decades criticisms of the government, army, or elite have resulted in accusations, death threats, and assassination, such as the killing of Bishop Gerardi in 1998.
Survivors of massacres from eight communities around the country, from the Ixcán (including Santa María Tzejá), Ixil (including CPR-Sierra members), and Rabinal regions, gathered on May 1 to share their stories of pain and horror. While my heart ached, I felt privileged to be there with them. At a forum on May 2 they presented their testimonies in front of an audience of national and international representatives. The day finished with a ceremony, as people lit candles and read the names of the more than 700 massacre victims from their eight communities.
The Guatemalan Center for Human Rights Legal Action ("CALDH") is working with witnesses on this case. Human rights observers, including members of G.A.P., accompanied the May 1-3 events and will maintain a presence in the communities involved.
From a bulletin prepared by CALDH:
"Lucas García's regime is well known for its legacy of thousands of individuals killed not only by arbitrary executions, but also by massacres against the civilian population. The brutal characteristics of these massacres include torture; rape; murder of men, women, children, and the elderly; acts so inhuman that it was as if in the eyes of the State the victims were not human beings.
"Men and women who survived this terror and tried to continue on with their lives have decided to join together with victims from other regions of the country in order to confront impunity and challenge the court system of Guatemala. They want justice. They do not want revenge. They simply want this country to demonstrate that those who are responsible for the inhuman atrocities committed against their loved ones cannot maintain impunity.
"These victims concur that the true responsibility rests in the top level of planners who have always tried to hide behind their armed forces, behind civilians forced to commit crimes, behind the pitting of brother against brother. These witnesses have the courage to face real risks in order to try to end the impunity and restore dignity to the victims."
For more information see CALDH's website at www.quetzalnet.com/caldh
Challenging the Silence: Reclaiming/Proclaiming Forbidden Memories
"Plan for extermination: Raze the grass, tear out the roots of the last living plant, Strew the earth with salt. Afterwards, kill the memory of the grass. In order to colonize consciousness, suppress it; In order to suppress it, empty it of the past. Annihilate all testimony that in that place there was ever something other than silence, prison, and tombs. It is forbidden to remember." - Eduardo Galeano, Days and Nights of Love and War
These courageous witnesses have held onto the forbidden memories; throughout the long years of repression they have remembered what existed before silence, prison, and tombs. They now are calling on the world to recognize and condemn the attempted extermination of Mayan people, Mayan memories, Mayan land and Mayan dreams.
Please hold the people of Guatemala in your hearts as they courageously work for justice in their enchanted and battered land.
Peace, Ali
-------- imf / world bank
Police Pact Suits D.C., Suburbs
IMF, World Bank Protests Spark Cooperative Spirit
Washington Post
Thursday, May 4, 2000; Page J01
By Patricia Davis Washington Post Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-05/04/023l-050400-idx.html
Had protesters tried to block the bridges leading from Virginia into the District during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings three weeks ago, they would have been met by an unusual and formidable force: Arlington police.
Posted at strategic locations on and near the bridges, a virtual army of Arlington police officers was armed with riot gear, trained to respond at a moment's notice.
It was a historic moment.
For the first time ever--long before the protesters showed up--District Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey had invoked a mutual-aid agreement with suburban police. He did it with one simple request: We need your help.
That one gesture, county officials believe, marked an important change in relations between suburban police agencies and the Metropolitan Police Department, and will likely lead to a more cooperative and regional approach to policing.
"The symbolism of the act was twofold," said Arlington Police Chief Edward A. Flynn. "It demonstrated a willingness on the part of MPD to be a real partner to other law-enforcement agencies. And it gives area departments more confidence in the MPD. What I see happening is MPD beginning to be that regional leader that they haven't been."
Arlington County Manager William J. Donahue agreed. "I do have a sense that there is greater cooperation between our law-enforcement agencies," he said.
"There is a much greater willingness to collaborate."
Two months before the IMF and World Bank meetings, D.C. police asked Arlington police to manage the bridges. There were concerns that protesters might disrupt the region's major commuter routes, including the 14th Street, Theodore Roosevelt and Key bridges.
"It is a change," said D.C. Executive Assistant Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer. "I think it's brought about because leaders like Chiefs Flynn and Ramsey recognize that there is real strength in the diversity of our departments. Borders like water or bridges or highways are very artificial when it comes to our mutual problems."
In preparation for the protests, more than 200 Arlington police officers were deputized as U.S. deputy marshals at a special ceremony, Flynn said. Although the mutual-aid agreement would allow county officers to make arrests on D.C. turf, making them federal agents for several days expanded their powers and gave them added protection in case of lawsuits, he said.
Other suburban police departments, including Alexandria's, sent officers to Arlington to help out. And Fairfax police were prepared to activate their Civil Disturbance Unit. The Arlington County Fire Department also assembled a response group and talked to Seattle fire officials about their experiences during World Trade Organization protests there last year.
"One of the lessons learned from Seattle was the care and support of the law enforcement officers--the 'protecting the protector role' type of thing," said Arlington Fire Chief Edward P. Plaugher. "We were in a support role."
To do the job right, county police virtually created a civil disturbance unit. Among other things, they purchased riot helmets and shields, body armor and flexible handcuffs. They also trained extensively and clocked an enormous amount of overtime. And they brought food for officers as they waited over three days for action.
"We were always suited up, moving from spot to spot," said Cpl. Ken Dennis, who helped purchase equipment. "We were ready."
Said Flynn: "We took a risk to spend the money and do it right. We really stretched ourselves to fill this role."
Arlington County Board Chairman Barbara A. Favola (D) said that the county was proud of its role and that the experience was instructional.
"I think it's helpful for communities to understand what the District has to put up with," she said. "It's not like crime stops when this is going on."
Favola said county residents were not neglected during the protests, and that efforts have been made to recoup some expenses. The County Board has written to U.S. Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), asking Congress to reimburse expenses estimated at $125,000 to more than $200,000. "The county's presence on the bridges was of crucial importance in enabling District police to concentrate their forces around the downtown area," the board said in its letter.
A spokesman for Moran said that Arlington and other jurisdictions that incurred expenses would be included in any compensation package for the District.
Flynn said his department's civil disturbance equipment and skills will not get rusty: "There will be other demonstrations."
---
"Down Here There Is No Democracy"
By Hank Hoffman
http://www.westchesterweekly.com/articles/democracy3.html
Having lived in the United States all my 40-plus years, I've never known what it's like to fear a dictatorship. Now I know.
I know because I went down to Washington, D.C., to cover the Mobilization for Global Justice's A16 -- for April 16 -- protests against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, or IMF.
I saw 600 people, in what they believed to be a legal march, trapped without warning by lines of cops in riot gear. Some of those trapped were not even protesters. After being forced to stand in the rain for hours, they were arrested. The charge was "parading without a permit." For this, most of them were held on school buses more than 10 hours with their hands painfully pulled behind their backs in plastic handcuffs. They were given one, maybe two, bathroom breaks. Some of those arrested had to beg or cry to get that.
I heard story after story of conspicuous surveillance, people being stopped on the street and required to produce identification. Just like in tinhorn dictatorships, the police raided the Mobilization's headquarters and closed it down on a flimsy fire code pretext the day before the big demonstrations.
Brian, a 25-year-old who asked that his last name not be used, was one of thousands of people who came to D.C. to exercise their constitutional rights to free speech. He was arrested early Monday morning. Before he was released at 10:30 that night, Brian says, he was beaten, denied food and legal counsel, intimidated and threatened. Other people I have spoken with had similar experiences.
Many thousands, like Brian, came to D.C. to protest because they believe the IMF and World Bank are undemocratic institutions. The U.S. government didn't want to hear it. To try to keep the demonstrators from getting their message out -- to keep them from exercising their democratic rights -- the government unleashed the D.C. Metro Police, the Secret Service, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the U.S. marshals on them.
The mainstream media has made much of the fact that the Washington police -- unlike the Seattle police -- did not engage in wholesale violence against nonviolent demonstrators. But brutality was rampant, if more selective. There are numerous accounts of unnecessary, brutal force against peaceful, if civilly disobedient, people in the streets.
As outrageous, if not more so, was the campaign of intimidation that took place away from the networks' news cameras.
Asked whether the response to A16 was the biggest civil liberties crisis since the Vietnam era, attorney Jim Drew, one of the coordinators of the Mobilization's legal defense team, gives a surprising -- and frightening -- answer.
"At least in Washington demonstrations [during the Vietnam era], the police did what they had to do if things got out of hand at demonstrations, but they didn't have this strategy of holding back or undermining the demonstrations. There wasn't this concerted police against demonstrators or police against the demonstration," Drew argues. "I think this is not only the biggest crisis since. I think it's worse."
After being processed at one location with others who were arrested, Brian was transported to Superior Court at 5th Street and Indiana Avenue NW. A door opened and the bus took them underground into the basement. U.S. marshals boarded the bus.
"The first thing they said was that we have no rights in there. That they were going to ask only one question, whether we were over 18 or not, and they wanted answers to everything they ask and we have no rights so don't even think about asking for them," recalls Brian. "They also said, 'None of your solidarity bullshit in here -- we know how that works.'
"Someone looked at them the wrong way or made eye contact with them so they ran down to the end of the bus and started hitting this guy. They punched him a couple of times," Brian says.
"There were a lot of homophobic and racist comments, saying they'd throw us in jail where we would be the only white boys and a lot of black men would get us." Brian says the marshals were white, "football player guys, big, solid guys."
"They told us we'd be thrown into the D.C. jails if we didn't cooperate and our assholes would be wider than -- and they made kind of a hand signal to show how wide it would be," Brian recalls.
When Brian turned around to look at one marshal who was joking about Brian's predicament, "he immediately yelled at me and told me never to look at him. He grabbed me by the hair and pulled me down and smashed my face into one of the seats," states Brian.
It wasn't until 8 p.m. that they were called into court. That was the first time they saw a lawyer -- a court-appointed lawyer. Although Brian and others asked to speak with representatives of the Midnight Special Law Collective or the National Lawyers Guild who were in the courtroom to provide legal advice for protesters, the judge refused to allow it. Brian ended up "citing out" -- signing a citation, giving his name and paying a fine to be released -- at 10:30 that evening.
Another 155 protesters engaged in hardcore jail solidarity, refusing to cooperate and give their names until everyone would be released. They stayed in jail until a plea bargain was worked out Friday night. After five days in custody, they were released without having to give their names. The charges were reduced to jaywalking, with a $5 fine. The plea bargain retroactively covered everyone previously released on similar charges.
In keeping with their activist, direct-action orientation, supporters of the jailed protesters did not rely solely on legal maneuvers. They notified gay rights groups of the homophobic slurs and women's organizations of alleged sexual harassment. The reports were also widely distributed over the Internet.
A law collective member who gives his name as Chaz claims that pressure for the release of the last 155 detainees was applied by jamming the phone lines of the courts, the U.S. Attorney's office and the office of Mayor Anthony Williams.
I interviewed Brian before the 155 protesters were released. He was participating in a solidarity vigil with about 50 others outside the D.C. jail.
"This whole weekend, the whole reason why we're here and why we're still at the jail -- it's all about solidarity. We're using our power here as a solidarity tactic to say we don't need these policies and the people being forced to take these policies don't need them either so we're going to put ourselves on the line for that."
Angelo Sacerdote of San Francisco was caught in the mass arrest on Saturday afternoon, the day before the major civil disobedience and a legal rally were planned. Sacerdote dropped in on a rally against the privatization of prisons, or prison-industrial complex. When the protesters set off on a march, he went along.
The rally was about to end, he says, when police herded everybody down 20th Street between I and K streets. But the police had blocked off 20th at K Street.
"We looked around and there was no place to go," says Sacerdote. "They wouldn't say what they were doing. They wouldn't answer our questions. They wouldn't let us go." There was no warning.
"Over the course of the next two or three hours, we had to stand there in the rain while they searched us and put us in the buses with plastic handcuffs behind our backs. There was no food. There were two bathroom breaks, which they made a really big deal of, and those were the only opportunities to get water over 14 hours." Sacerdote had his hands behind his back in the plastic cuffs for 10 hours. Others, he says, had it even worse.
Leon Galindo was handcuffed for more than 17 hours and released after 23. A Bolivian citizen who lives in Virginia, Galindo is a short-term consultant to the World Bank on "information infrastructure." In a personal account posted on the http:www.indymedia.org Web site, he writes that he was not protesting, but rather was "standing close to the protesters" because "I wanted to hear in person what they had to say in order to decide for myself whether their arguments were reasonable."
He had been there less than five minutes when police closed off both sides of the street. Galindo writes that he was "repeatedly lied to, and denied an explanation of any kind or access to a telephone or to any means of informing my wife what was happening until 5 a.m. the next day, 12 hours later."
Galindo also charges that when he reminded a U.S. marshal that fundamental rights were being violated, the marshal "violently slammed me into a wall" and "screamed" in his ear: "'Down here there is no democracy. This place is a dictatorship and I am God. If you open your mouth again I will kick your ass till you are sorry.'"
Perhaps the U.S. marshal was right. It seemed like a dictatorship. In a dictatorship, citizens who express dissenting opinions are under constant suspicion. They are shadowed by secret police, photographed, stopped on the street and questioned. Undercover police infiltrate their meetings.
These things happened in D.C. Much of the intimidation before April 15 took the form of a sort of psychological warfare.
As I walked out of the alley leading to the Convergence space on Friday afternoon, April 14, I overheard a young man on a bicycle say he had just flipped the bird to a passing cop car because they were taking pictures. The activist, who gave his name as "Danny the Red" (after one of the organizers of the May 1968 Paris uprising), told me there had been "a constant campaign of harassment."
"They've been driving by all day. I went out to pick up supplies and they tailed me five blocks," Danny the Red said. "They're counting on us not knowing our rights, which this time is not the case. Every one of us has been extensively prepped by our lawyers."
The cop car, with Metropolitan Police tags, parked about 25 feet up the street. A uniformed officer sat in the driver's seat. A plainclothes blond woman in the front passenger seat and another uniformed police officer in the back seat used throwaway cameras to click! click! click! snapshots of people in the sidewalk. There was no illegal activity taking place.
I took out my camera and framed the interior of the police car in my viewfinder. As I prepared to take a picture, the plainclothes woman enunciated my name in a loud voice. I realized I was still wearing a lapel sticker from a teach-in earlier in the afternoon. I also realized that she was attempting to intimidate me, as in we know who you are.
With indignation, I confirmed my name and that I work for this paper. I asked for her name. "Badge number 367," she replied. Leaning closer, I saw that she wore an ATF badge -- federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
"Excuse me, Badge number 367, can you tell me why you're photographing Americans who are lawfully using the sidewalk?" I asked. She didn't answer. The driver did.
"Sir, we can do that. It's like you are all lawfully assembling and marching, we can lawfully take your picture," he said.
"Don't you think that's intimidating, sir?"
"No, sir, I don't."
The police officer in the back seat, scanning the individuals on the sidewalk, replied similarly. And shot another photo.
But the D.C. police were not the only ones involved in retail harassment (as opposed to the wholesale intimidation of mass arrests).
Mike, a 22-year-old Canadian with a baseball cap and a scraggly growth of beard, told me he and five friends were confronted by Secret Service agents on Monday, April 10. About 20 minutes after attending a demonstration against military aid outside the Colombian embassy, they were walking down the street when a car pulled over and several men jumped out.
According to Mike, one agent spoke for the others. "He said, 'If you don't supply us with identification or give us your names,' they would detain us for reason of suspicion. Nothing had been done for them to be suspicious of us."
Midnight Special Law Collective member Chaz also had a run-in with Secret Service agents.
After picking up supplies at an Office Depot a few days before the demonstrations, Chaz saw "two suits down the street" holding a sheaf of papers.
"One of them looked up at me and they started going through them real quick. I kind of figured out what was going on and did an about-face and ran right into two more of them," recalls Chaz. These other two weren't in suits; one wore a windbreaker and the other a leather jacket.
Telling him they were Secret Service but showing no identification, they held onto him and "kept asking what I was doing in the area." One of the men walked over.
"I saw my picture on a sheet of paper. It wasn't like I was one of a group on the sheet of paper. It was a piece of paper with my picture on it and information. And then they started calling me by my name," says Chaz. They asked him why he was there. He didn't reply, he says.
"They told me to put my hands on the wall. They pulled my wallet out and checked my I.D. They took everything out of my wallet and dropped it on the ground in front of me as I was up against the wall," says Chaz. They did the same thing with the contents of his backpack. He heard them say among themselves that "there wasn't anything there that they needed." When one of them said, "Let's go," Chaz prepared to be arrested. Instead, when he turned around, they were walking away.
"They were just trying to intimidate me. I didn't buy into it," says Chaz.
The police raid on the protesters' "Convergence space" and the arrest of 600 people later that same day occurred on Saturday, April 15, the day before civil disobedience and a separate legal rally were planned. But, according to Jim Drew, the Mobilization attorney, the campaign against the demonstrations began well before that weekend.
"There was an orchestrated campaign to paint the demonstration and demonstrators as violent and that they were going to come and tear up D.C.," says Drew.
The police also used the press to ratchet up tension.
"They made a big to-do about inviting the press to training sessions where they had 500 officers marching in uniform with billy clubs," says Drew, "And they announced they were storing up pepper spray, tear gas, rubber bullets, etcetera."
On Wednesday, April 12, the FBI pulled over seven activists, then handed them over to D.C. police. They were arrested, charged with conspiracy to commit a crime and with possessing "implements of crime." What were these implements? According to news reports, they included 256 PVC pipes, 45 smaller pipes, two rolls of chicken wire, 50 rolls of duct tape, gas masks, bolt cutters, heavy chains and other items that conceivably could be used for creating human barricades.
Mobilization organizer Patrick Reinsborough says the statute the activists were arrested under was an outgrowth of the War on Drugs. He terms its use in this instance part of a "very troubling trend."
The law against possessing "paraphernalia with the intent to use in criminal activity was originally intended to criminalize crack pipes," Reinsborough says. "Suddenly we're using it to criminalize the implements of nonviolent protest?"
Drew terms the arrests, the raid on the Convergence space and the mass arrest "pre-emptive strikes against the demonstration." Mobilization activists were not allowed to remove their medical supplies from the Convergence space nor the thousands of pieces of literature they had printed for distribution at the legal rally. The mass arrest removed several hundred activists from the street for Sunday as well as introducing the wild card of possible arrest without warning.
"As a military campaign or strategy, it was probably a good strategy for authorities if demonstrators and the demonstration and the First Amendment were the enemy," says Drew. "And it was. That was their premise."
None of the protesters I spoke with acknowledged being intimidated. For many, it just fortified their commitment and confirmed their belief that the IMF and World Bank are undemocratic institutions that cannot stand public scrutiny. The activists note that when the multilateral lending agents impose belt-tightening austerity on poor nations, repression is often required to quell popular discontent.
"The fundamental point is that we've been a little displaced here, which is a microcosm of what these institutions -- the IMF, the World Bank -- do to large populations on a global scale, working through law enforcement and government as necessary," says Yale student Dan Lang. "The Metro D.C. Police are acting as agents of the World Bank and IMF -- whatever reasons they give for throwing us out of our space."
If protesters were deterred, it was not evident the next day. Gathering in the early morning darkness amid an enormous police presence, they fanned out through a large area of downtown surrounding the World Bank and IMF buildings. Many thousands took over intersections and set up human blockades.
The mainstream media have praised the "restraint" of the D.C. police. It's true that they didn't -- as the Seattle police did -- try to bust every head in sight or fill every set of dissident lungs with tear gas. But throughout the areas where direct action was occurring, police met nonviolence with violence. Baton beatings. Pepper spray. Charging into crowds with motorcycles and other vehicles. Unjust and indiscriminate arrests.
At the legal, permitted rally on the Ellipse on Sunday afternoon, Mobilization organizer Patrick Reinsborough condemned what he calls a "sophisticated strategy of brutality."
"They were very careful about exactly where and when they used brutal tactics," said Reinsborough. "We need to unite our voices and say we cannot tolerate this type of police torture against activists."
Sgt. Joseph Gentile, a spokesman for the D.C. police, says they used physical force "because demonstrators in those particular cases were charging officers, striking officers or pushing barricades into officers." When I asked about reports of unprovoked violence by officers, he replied that "if a protester or a particular person has a particular complaint, they are welcome to come file it with us."
Contrary to every account I heard, Gentile says it his "understanding" that the 600 people arrested on April 15, were given a warning. "When ordered to disperse, they did not," he says.
Asked why they were held for up to 17 hours with their hands cuffed behind their backs and offered little if nothing in the way of food and water, Gentile says, "We processed a large number of people. We provided sustenance even though we were not required to do so.
"We were dealing with people who broke the law. It doesn't make any difference what the reason was for violating the law," argues Gentile. "These are people who are prisoners. We went above and beyond."
Gentile says police photographed dissidents for "internal use, history use, training use." As to whether it was a deliberately intimidating tactic by police, he replies, "People are in a public space. Anyone can take a picture of them, sir. They were taking pictures of us. We didn't complain. We weren't concerned." Gentile says that if anyone has specific allegations of a pattern of disregard for constitutional rights, they should "come forward with those allegations and we will investigate."
He's likely to get his wish.
-------- israel
Israel To Use Laser To Defend Border
Associated Press
May 3, 2000 Filed at 9:46 p.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Israel-Lebanon-Laser.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel will deploy a laser shield developed with U.S. technology to shoot down rockets fired by guerrillas after Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon, the Defense Ministry said Wednesday.
The $250 million defense system will be installed later this year after tests are completed in the United States and Israel, said ministry spokesman Dan Weinreich.
Cleveland-based TRW company, which is building the THEL or Tactical High Energy Laser, called it the world's first laser-based air defense system.
Residents in northern Israel have expressed concern they will be the targets of guerrilla attacks when Israel withdraws from the area it has occupied since 1982 to prevent cross-border attacks. Anti-Israeli militias have frequently used Katyusha rockets to attack Israeli communities.
The announcement came on the same day that Israeli warplanes fired missiles near the home of a guerrilla commander in southern Lebanon, slightly wounding his mother and five other civilians, Lebanese security officials said.
The officials reported that a rocket struck the car of Abbas Hallal, a local commander of the Amal guerrilla group, that was parked next to his house on the outskirts of Habboush village. It was not clear where Hallal was at the time.
Israel's army spokesman's office in Jerusalem said that during an air raid on guerrilla targets, a bomb, not a rocket, accidentally struck the outskirts of the village, wounding a number of civilians.
The army said that it makes every effort to avoid hitting civilians, and that it was investigating Wednesday's incident.
Israel TV said an airman in a fighter plane carrying out a routine airstrike accidentally hit a lever that released a bomb, which exploded in the village.
Amal, a pro-Syrian Shiite Muslim group, and another group, Hezbollah, are waging a campaign to oust Israeli occupation troops from southern Lebanon.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has said he would withdraw troops by July 7.
Syria and Lebanon have said they will not prevent Lebanese guerrillas from attacking Israel after the withdrawal unless it is part of an overall peace agreement.
Chances for security arrangements between the sides have dwindled since peace talks between Israel and Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon, broke off in January.
Weinreich said the THEL system includes radar and a laser system that strikes at Katyusha rockets, tube-launched artillery used against ground targets.
There was no reaction Wednesday night from U.S. officials. A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment and a State Department spokeswoman said she knew nothing about it.
In April 1996, President Clinton pledged to help Israel develop a THEL system to defend its ``northern cities from the threat posed by Katyusha and other short-range rockets,'' according to the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command's Web site.
Israel said the system is expected to be ready for shipment to Israel by October. Several tests must first be performed, including an initial attempt to shoot down a Katyusha rocket over the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico later this month.
The laser shield, composed of powerful laser beams that can pinpoint moving targets, would help Israel defend the border without re-entering Lebanon. Barak has told the army that after the withdrawal, troops must not violate Lebanese sovereignty on land, sea or in the air, military officials said Wednesday.
But Barak has also said Israel would retaliate harshly for any attacks after the pullout.
``The army will stand cocked and ready to inflict a painful blow, if necessary, against anyone who tries to harm us,'' Barak said Wednesday, reiterating that the ``tragedy in Lebanon'' would end in less than two months, when the pullout occurs.
--------
Israeli-American Laser Passes a Missile Defense Test, U.S. Says
New York Times
May 4, 2000
By JAMES GLANZ
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/050400israel-us-arms.html
A powerful laser developed by Israel and the United States to shoot down rockets has passed its first test at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, hitting a stationary target, American military officials said this week.
If it is eventually deployed, the system would apparently be the first antimissile defense of any kind based on lasers. "To my knowledge, no nation has ever deployed an antimissile system based on a laser," said Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, a spokesman for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization at the Pentagon.
Designed and built by a California contractor, TRW, for Israel and the United States Army, the laser and its tracking system were tested last week against stationary targets, said Lt. Gen. John Costello, commander of the United States Army Space and Missile Defense Command.
General Costello said the system, the Tactical High Energy Laser, would probably be tested this month against a moving Katyusha rocket. If that test is successful, he said, the system will be shipped to Israel for further testing and deployment.
"It will be the first engagement of the Katyusha rocket by a tactical high energy laser, something that is militarily useful," the general said.
The Israeli Defense Ministry said it planned to deploy the system along its northern border to shoot down guerrilla rockets after Israel withdraws from Lebanon in the summer. A spokesman for the ministry, Dan Weinreich, said the weapon was in the final stages of testing in the United States and Israel.
A spokesman for the Space and Missile Defense Command, Marco Morales, said the cost to develop the system through the first attempted shoot-down was $190 million.
At a briefing this week in Huntsville, Ala., on missile defense, General Costello said developing the system over five years "could in fact revolutionize warfare" by protecting troops from rockets, mortars and other artillery. But he said using lasers in rain and fog needed special experiments.
The possible deployment of the laser, though its geographic range is modest, represents a striking turnaround for an antimissile technology that was criticized as unworkable in the Strategic Defense Initiative of the 1980's. Since then, most American antimissile systems have turned to "hit-to-kill" technology. That means that a rocket-propelled vehicle maneuvers toward an incoming missile to collide with and, therefore, destroy it.
But the United States military has also continued long-term research and development on laser-based systems.
Those include the Israeli-American program for intercepting short-range missiles, an Air Force program to shoot ballistic missiles like Iraqi Scuds using a laser on a Boeing 747 jumbo jet, and a joint venture by the Air Force and the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization at the Pentagon to develop lasers that could be fired from space to destroy intercontinental ballistic missiles.
All those lasers would derive their energy from powerful chemical reactions and destroy the missiles by heating them to high temperatures. Although the Israeli-American laser, if successful, would intercept rockets in the middle or end of their flights, the others would try to destroy missiles earlier, as their boosters fired.
"The technology has come a long way since the early Star Wars days in terms of developing lasers that could in the future destroy a ballistic missile," Colonel Lehner said.
The laser's exact power, range and repetition rate for firing are classified. But at the briefing in Huntsville, Richard J. Bradshaw Jr., a project manager at the Space and Missile Defense Command, said the laser fired fast enough that it was "capable of engaging multiple targets coming in."
General Costello suggested that the laser would have an initial range of four miles. "Frankly," he added, "we've designed it with the Israelis because of the threat to northern Israel."
At the briefing, Jess Granone, executive director of the Space and Missile Defense technical center, said smaller, lighter lasers for missile defense were also being developed based on solid state components rather than chemicals. "I'm talking about technology you could fit on a Humvee," Mr. Granone said.
-------- italy
15 TV-programs about DU in Iraq
From: "Marco Saba" marcosaba@xoommail.com
Date: Thu, 04 May 2000 01:51:47 -0000
To: du-list@egroups.com http://stop-u238.i.am
Today, Father Benjamin (onorary member of the italian NGO Ethical Environmental Observatory) is in Bagdad were he will stay 15 days with a troupe of the italian TV - Canale 5.
Each day, starting from 6 May, there will be a 5 to 8 minutes program (broadcasted in real time) for a total of 15 evenings, during "Striscia la Notizia", a program with an audience of about 10 million people. In this program, the effects of the UN embargo on Iraqi population are shown, with a special attention on DU. During the same time, we will campaign here in Italy to put an end to the embargo on Iraq.
Marco Saba Osservatorio Etico Ambientale via F.lli Cervi Res. Idra, 20090 Segrate (MI) Tel. 02 21591373 - GSM 0338 5838282
-------- kosovo
BEFORE THE PROSECUTOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR THE FORMER YUGOLASVIA
COMPLAINT CHARGING NATO's political and military leaders and all responsible NATO personnel WITH GRAVE BREACHES OF THE GENEVA CONVENTION OF 1949 and VIOLATIONS OF THE LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF WAR
http://www.nato-warcrimes.gr/html/eng/complaint.html
ATHENS, May 3, 1999
1. BRIEF HISTORY
1.1 The highlands of Kosovo have been the locus of tensions between Albanians and Serbs for centuries and like most of the Balkans, much blood has been shed over this territory. Albanians rely on their so-called ancient heritage to claim first rights to the region, whereas, Serbia focuses on the middle ages when Kosovo was the cradle of the Serb nation and the religious epicenter of the Serb Orthodox faith as evidenced by the approximately one thousand monasteries in the region. The mountains of Kosovo have determinative cultural and historical significance for the Serbs, as they staged the final battleground in 1389 between the Serbs and the Ottoman Turks. After the Serb defeat in Kosovo, the Ottoman continued their successful campaign into central Europe.
1.2 During the Ottoman occupation, the vast majority of Albanians readily converted to Islam and were thus afforded preferential treatment by the Turks. In the almost five centuries of Ottoman occupation of Kosovo, Muslim Albanians were encouraged to immigrate to Kosovo and settle in the area at the expense of the Serb population. The Serbs finally liberated Kosovo from the Ottoman Empire in 1912, and as expected, this liberation was accompanied by reprisals and the expulsion of the Albanian settlers who had been previously patronized by the Ottomans. The First World War presented the Albanians with an opportunity to exact reprisals, which the Serbs returned upon liberation in 1918. During the inter war period, the population in Kosovo was equally balanced between ethnic Albanians and Serbs.
1.3 During World War II, the majority of Kosovo was swallowed by a Greater Albania under Italian tutelage, while the remainder was occupied by Germany and Bulgaria. Over 300,000 Serbs were expelled from Kosovo during the Italian occupation, while Albanian immigration to Kosovo was encouraged by the occupation forces. Following Tito's liberation of Yugoslavia, Kosovo was absorbed into the Republic of Yugoslavia, much to the chagrin of the Albanian community who had hoped for union with Albania. The Tito regime, however, did not favor the Serbs in the area. Tito's communists did not allow the Serbs, expelled during the Italian occupation, to return and claim their property in Kosovo. In 1974, Tito granted Kosovo full autonomy. The period between 1975 and 1981 can be characterized as the "Albanian Spring" in Kosovo. Due to an exploding birthrate amongst the Albanians and Serb emigration, encouraged by the Tito regime, the Albanian population was rapidly becoming a majority in the 1980s. Once the Serbs had emigrated from the area, they were frequently barred from returning by the Communist regime.
1.4 By 1987, Albanians represented a 90% majority in the region. Serb demonstrations against Albanian harassment began to escalate. In response, Milosevic stripped Kosovo of its autonomy in 1989. These chain of events resulted in strikes and violent clashes between the Serb Police Force and Albanian demonstrators. Milosevic sent the military into Kosovo to reestablish control. In 1991, Albanian separatist, prompted by neighboring Albania, declared Kosovo an independent nation, fueling tension further. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was forged in 1996, out of various armed, terrorist, Albanian groups and a wide-spread campaign of terror commenced against the Serb police forces and civilians.
1.5 In the fighting that ensued between Serb forces and the KLA, an increasing number of Albanians abandoned the non-violent policies of their elected leader Ibrahim Rugova and began to join the terrorist KLA. By 1998 the KLA is said to have assumed control of 40% of Kosovo and a full scale guerrilla war was in progress. The KLA was financed and accoutered by outside sources with over 30,000 automatic rifles, antitank and other weaponry and sheltered by the indigenous Albanian community. The Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) ordered an offensive against the KLA in May of 1998. By August 1998, the FRY army had reestablished control over Kosovo and the KLA had retreated. The Yugoslav Government took measures against the Albanian civilians who had previously sheltered the KLA aimed to eradicate support for the terrorist organization. It must be noted that none of the parties involved in this Kosovo crisis demonstrated much regard for international humanitarian law. Civil rights and humanitarian concerns are usually the first casualties of a civil war, and Kosovo was no exception.
1.6 The international community became concerned with the escalating violence in the area. The Security Council enacted Resolution 1160/98, condemning the excessive use of force by Serbian Police forces against civilians in Kosovo, as well as acts of terrorism by the Kosovo Liberation Army. Exercising its Chapter VII powers, the Security Council called upon the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to withdraw its special police forces from Kosovo and enter into a constructive dialogue with the indigenous Albanian community to advance a greater degree of autonomy and self-determination for the Kosvar Albanians within the framework of the Yugoslav state The Kosovo Albanian leadership was concurrently urged to condemn all terrorist activities and pursue their goals through peaceful means.
1.7 With Security Council Resolution 1199/98, the Security Council affirmed that the deterioration of the situation in Kosovo represented "a threat to peace and security in the region." Once again exercising its Chapter VII powers, the Security Council demanded a cease fire to enhance the prospect of constructive dialogue between the Kosovo Albanian leadership and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and avert a potential risk of humanitarian catastrophe. The resolution also contained a caveat that in the event that the parties failed to implement the measures demanded in Resolution 1160, further measures would be taken to maintain or restore peace and stability in the region.
1.8 Under the unlawful threat of NATO air strikes, Milosevic was persuaded by US envoy, Richard Holbrooke, to execute two agreements in October 1998. The October 16, 1998 agreement provided for the stationing of an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) civilian mission in Kosovo to verify Serb compliance with the above UN Resolutions, while the October 15, 1998 agreement stipulated that NATO would establish an air surveillance campaign over Kosovo to complement the OSCE verification mission.
1.9 With Resolution 1203/98, the Security Council endorsed and demanded the implementation of the verification missions provided by the October 1998 agreements as well as the measures called for by the previous resolutions. It also reaffirmed that the deterioration of the situation in Kosovo represented "a threat to peace and security in the region."
1.10 In February, Ministers of the Contact Group met in Rambouillet with representatives of the Kosovo Albanians and the Government of the FRY to negotiate a political solution to the Kosovo crisis. The Contact Group presented the Kosovo Albanians and the Government of the FRY with a previously prepared draft agreement demanding a continued cease fire between the KLA and Serb forces, withdrawal of Serb forces and the grant of extensive autonomy for Kosovo within the framework of the Serbian state under a three year transitional period, with its future after that undetermined. The Contact Group proposed that this autonomy be monitored and secured through the stationing of a NATO "peace force." This "peace" agreement was served on Milosovic as an ultimatum which he was asked to either accept or face the prospect of NATO air strikes. There were no negotiations involved, nor an actual peace proposed. Yugoslavia had made it patently clear from the outset that it could not accept such an infringement on its sovereignty and thus from their inception, the Rambouillet "accord" was doomed to failure.
1.11 Although Milosevic was willing to agree to autonomy for Kosovo subject to a few amendments, he refused to sanction the stationing of NATO troops to monitor the agreement. The stationing of NATO's troops in Kosovo represented an impermissible infringement of Yugoslav sovereignty. Following the March 15 continuation of the Rambouillet talks in Paris, it became apparent that the parties had reached a stalemate and that no agreement would be reached.
1.12 On March 23, 1999, NATO Secretary General Javier Solana, upon instruction from the political leadership of NATO member nations, ordered air strikes against Yugoslavia, under the direction of Commander General Wesley Clark and other senior military NATO personnel. The justification offered for these air strikes was that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had failed to meet the international community demands, being the acceptance of the interim political settlement "negotiated" in Rambouillet, full observance of limits on the Serb army and special police force agreed on October 25th, and "an end to the excessive and disproportionate use of force in Kosovo." Solana further stated that this military action was intended to "support the political aims of the international community", "by weakening the ability of the Serb forces" "to cause further humanitarian catastrophes."
1.13 Thus started a NATO sponsored humanitarian catastrophe, aimed to prevent "further humanitarian catastrophe." To "end the excessive and disproportionate use of force in Kosovo", Secretary General Javier Solana unleashed the far superior, collective, military might of NATO and ordered an excessive and disproportionate use of force against Yugoslavia intended to destroy the vastly inferior Serb military force as well as the civilian infrastructure and environment for generations to come. To end this local, internal humanitarian crisis and preserve "international peace and security", NATO undermined the most fundamental tenets of international law founded on the cornerstones of non-intervention and sovereignty, as well as the prohibition against the unauthorized threat or use of force -- principles which have served the international community well for the last fifty odd years, to preserve international peace and security and prevent global wars. The lessons drawn by the Kosovo crisis, is that secessionist groups all over the world may rattle their terrorist saber in one hand and wave the humanitarian banner in the other, to attack the sovereignty of nations. The abuse of these principles of international law threaten us all, for inherent is the threat of a redefinition of borders, which, more frequently than not, is accompanied by the outbreak of war.
2. JURISDICTION OF THE COURT
2.1 By virtue of Article 1 of its Statue, the ICT has the power to prosecute persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991. The Prosecutor of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has advised the Contract Group that the situation in Kosovo represents an armed conflict within the mandate of the Tribunal and prompted by Security Council resolutions, the Prosecutor has commenced gathering evidence of such crimes. The crimes committed by NATO's political and military leadership and responsible NATO personnel, constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law and war crimes that fall within the ambit of the ICT's area of competence.
3. ILLEGALITY OF THE NATO AIR STRIKES
3.1 The NATO Air Strikes are unlawful because they were not authorized by the Security Council of the UN.
3.1.1 Article 2 paragraph 4 of the UN Charter requires its members to "refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state." This prohibition is jus cogens. It is binding on states both individually and as members of international organizations like NATO. Armed force against other nations is permissible under the UN Charter only where such force is required for the self defense of a nation or its allies (Article 51), or when military action is authorized by the Security Council (Chapter VII). The UN Security Council has primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security and, absent self-defense, only the Security Council may sanction the use of force against a nation.
3.1.2 NATO's spokespeople claim that the bombing is justified under Security Council resolutions 1160/98, 1199/98 and 1203/98. In particular, the US, through its spokesman, PJ Crowley, contends that such authority is inherent in resolutions 1199 and 1203 because they "affirm that the deterioration of the situation in Kosovo constitutes a threat to peace and security in the region." This argument is untenable. The aforementioned Security Council Resolutions do not authorize the use of force implicitly or explicitly. When the Security Council intends to sanction the use of force, it has always done so in its resolutions, in a clear and unequivocal fashion. The Security Council had no intention to authorize the use of force, since it was clear that such a resolution would raise vetoes from China and Russia who have been vocal in their opposition to the exercise of force against Yugoslavia. It is for this very reason, that the use of force was not resolved by the Security Council, and instead NATO's political and military leadership, unilaterally and unlawfully, decided to circumvent the UN and take matters into its own hands. NATO's actions undermine the authority and the credibility of the Security Council and constitute a flagrant violation of the UN Charter.
3.1.3 Let it also be noted that both the Milosevic-Holbrook October 1998 agreements and the Rambouillet accord were brokered under the unlawful, illegal threat of the use of force. Basic contract law universally hold that agreements executed under duress are null and void. There can be no constructive dialogue under the threat of violence.
3.2 The NATO air strikes are unlawful because they may not be justified as an action taken in self-defense.
3.2.1 Self defense and anticipatory self defense are principles provided for by the UN Charter. The precondition for self-defense, however, is that an armed attack must have already occurred. The FRY is a sovereign nation. It did not engage in an armed attack against another sovereign state and it is therefore clearly entitled to the protections provided in Article 2.4 of the UN Charter. The situation in Kosovo can not be interpreted to threaten the territorial integrity of any NATO member, by any stretch of the imagination. President Clinton's absurd argument that the conflict in Kosovo could potentially spill over to a war between NATO members, Greece and Turkey, so as to lay the foundation for an "anticipatory self-defense" is untenable. Tensions between Greece and Turkey have absolutely nothing to do with the repression or ethnic cleansing of the Kosovo Albanians, but conversely such tensions are more likely to escalate if their is a re-definition of territorial boundaries in the Balkans. A hostile, re-definition of Balkan borders is more likely to ensue as a result of the NATO bombings than the "continued" repression and "ethnic cleansing" of the Kosovo Albanians.
3.3 The NATO air strikes are unlawful because they are in violation of NATO's own Charter.
3.3.1 The NATO Charter is a self-defense charter authorizing the use of force in mutual self-defense when one of its member states is attacked. NATO may resort to force either in self defense of a member state, or of a non-member state, so long as the government of that state requests NATO assistance. As provided by Article 2 in conjunction with Article 52 of the UN Charter, NATO cannot use force against another UN member state without its government's consent, if the action is not itself in defense of another UN member state, unless the action is specifically authorized by the UN Security Council.
3.3.2 No NATO member nation is directly or indirectly threatened by the situation in Kosovo. Yugoslavia not only did not request the assistance of NATO, but quite explicitly rejected the stationing of NATO troops on its soil. There is nothing in the NATO treaty that authorizes NATO to initiate a war against a sovereign nation.
3.3.3 NATO's new mission statements and desire to broaden its objectives as international military enforcers independent of the U.N. can not and do not legitimize the Kosovo action. NATO is free to re-define or re-draft its Charter or objectives upon the mutual consent of its member states, however it may only permissibly do so within the context of preemptory international law, which places limitations on all states, including NATO member states. The UN Charter, including the prohibitions on the threat or use of force inherent in the Charter, constitutes preemptory international law -jus cogens- which NATO, like its member states, must respect. Article 103 of the UN Charter provides that in the event of a conflict between the obligations of a member state under the Charter and any other international agreement, obligations under the Charter prevail. Therefore, irrespective of any new orientation or definition of NATO's mission and strategy, the use or threat of force may only be employed in self defense or in those cases mandated by the Security Council.
3.4 International Law does not provide for a humanitarian intervention exception for the use or threat of force
3.4.1 As it is stated above, international law clearly precludes the threat or use of force against a sovereign nation except in the case of self-defense or where authorized by the Security Council. The UN Charter and modern international law, confirmed by the practice of nations for over two centuries, does not include an separate right for humanitarian intervention that would justify the threat or use of force. The soundness of this principle can not be disputed. The most persuasive argument to justify the preclusion of such a right, is the temptation to abuse it to bypass the cornerstone principles of non intervention and sovereignty. Carving out a humanitarian intervention exception to circumvent the well-founded principles of international law, undermines the already fragile credibility of international law which is aimed to preserve peace and stability within the framework of the status quo.
3.4.2 Uncomfortable parallels may readily be drawn between the rhetoric justifying NATO's air strikes on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and that of Japan's invasion of Manchuria, Mussolini's attack on Ethiopia, Hitler's 1938 "crusade" into Czechoslovakia, or Turkey's invasion of Cyprus. The latter attacks were all predicated on the lofty principals of humanitarian intervention, and all have been subsequently condemned by the international community and judged by history to have been blatant violations of international law. The same is applicable for NATO's air strikes on the FRY.
3.4.3 UN high ranking officials as well as legal scholars have all questioned the prudence of allowing a state or group of states to unilaterally judge their own right, or duty, to intervene in another's internal conflict. The creation of such a right begs the question of who should be entitled to decide when such humanitarian interventions are justifiable in good faith, and when they are not, or the question of why such a right should be selectively applied in accordance to the interests of the intervening parties. There can be no humanitarian intervention exception. Humanitarian intervention involving the threat or use of force and implemented without Security Council authorization, remains, as a matter of law, a breach of international law that threatens peace and order.
4. CHARGES
4.1 From the inception of the NATO air strikes on March 24th, 1999 until May 1st, 1999, NATO has conducted over 10,000 bombing raids on the sovereign nation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In this period, NATO has launched over 2,500 cruise missiles and dropped more than 7,000 tons of explosives. In particular, all types of F-16, F-15, Mirage 2000, B-52, B-2A, F-117A, Harriers and Tornado bombers have been put on loan to NATO from the U.S.A, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Turkey to perform the air strikes on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Missile attacks have also been launched from a number of ships and submarines stationed in the Adriatic, including the USS Norfolk, USS Miami, USS Philippines, USS Gonzalez, USS Nicholson, HMS Splendid, USS Thorn, etc. The damages inflicted by the NATO bombing raids, and sustained by the civilian population of the FRY, are extensive and are not justified by military necessity.
4.1.1 As predicated above, these air strikes are by definition unlawful, as they have been performed in flagrant violation of international law. NATO's unlawful conduct is willful and wanton, as the raids have been knowingly ordered by NATO's political and military leaders, and performed by responsible NATO personnel, with a reckless disregard for the rights and safety of the Yugoslav people. The brutality inflicted on the Yugoslav civilian population by NATO forces rises to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity actionable under the Statute of the International Tribunal.
4.2 NATO's POLITICAL AND MILITARY LEADERS AND RESPONSIBLE NATO PERSONNEL HAVE ENGAGED IN THE WILLFUL KILLING OF CIVILIANS AND HAVE WILLFULLY INFLICTED GREAT SUFERING AND SERIOUS INJURY TO BODY AND HEALTH OF CIVILANS. These actions comprise grave breaches of the Geneva Convention of 1949 recognized by Article 2 (a) and (c) of the ICTY Statute.
4.2.1 By and through the air strikes, NATO's political and military leadership and personnel have engaged in the willful killing of civilians and the willful infliction of suffering and serious injury to the health and bodies of civilians in violation of Article 2(a) and (c) of the ICT Statute. A willful act may be defined as one done knowingly without justifiable excuse or with indifference to the natural consequences. When NATO's political and military leaders initiated this aggression, and NATO's personnel implemented it, they knew that the unlawful conduct ordered and performed would, with practical certainty, result in civilian death, injury and suffering.
4.2.2 Since cruise missiles opened the campaign, NATO officials have acknowledged that civilian casualties have become more, rather than less likely. NATO's political and military leaders have the luxury of choosing from a wide and varied arsenal. NATO's leadership may elect what weapons it will use in the exercise of force, how discriminating these weapons will be, and what targets will be selected. Despite the rhetoric that purportedly stringent precautions have been taken to avoid civilian casualties, NATO's political and military leadership and its responsible personnel have demonstrated a marked disregard for civilians casualties, both with respect to the selection and bombing of targets, and with respect to the weaponry chosen to strike these targets. NATO's political and military leadership has shown no reluctance to use weaponry and select targets that enhances the likelihood of civilian casualties and NATO's personnel has not hesitated to hit those target with a complete disregard for the lives and safety of civilians.
4.2.3 From March 24th, 1999 until May 1st, 1999, NATO's political and military leadership and its personnel have willfully killed and injured the following civilians:
In the village of Doganovici, near Urosevac, 5 killed (Edon Kodza, Fisnik Kodza, Osman Kodza, Burim Kodza and Vajdet Kodza), and 6 children were wounded
In Kursumilja: 13 dead (among them Veroljub Stevanovic) and 25 wounded. (including Dobrivoje Grcic, Milan Jankovic and Milovan Ognjenovic)
In Pancevo: 2 dead (Dusan Bogosavljev and Mirko Dmitrovic) and 4 wounded
In Cacak: 1 dead (Milan Kuveljic) and 7 wounded
In Kragujevac: over 120 wounded during the attack on the Zastava plant
In Vranje: 2 dead (Goran Eminovic and Milica Grujic) and 23 wounded.
In Aleksinac : 12 dead (including Jovan Radojicic, Sofija Radojicic, Vojislav Jovanovic, Dragomir Miladinovic, Snezana Miladinovic and Velimir Stankovic) and over 40 wounded (including Ljubica Miladinovic, Slobodan Mladenovic, Bogomir Arsic, Gvozden Milivojevic, Dragoljub Todorovic, Branislava Stevanovic, Veroljub Milutinovic, Vukica Miladinovic, Marko Miladinovic, Dijana Miladinovic, Dragica Milivojevic, Branko Stevanovic, Verica Miletic, Slavimir Miletic, Dusan Miletic, Stefan Miletic, Ruica Sljivic, Zagorka Marinkovic, Srbislav Stefanovic, Natasa Stefanovic, Vesna Stefanovic, Radmila Projovic, Ljiljana Milutinovic, Nadezda Zivainovic, Dragoljub Milosevic, Desanka Rakocevic, Slavoljub Rakocevic, Bratislav Zivadinovic, Zagorka Todorovic, Vukasin Djokic, Vladimir Jankovic, Jorgovan Bankovic, Goran Stojkovic and Todor Petric.
In the village of Nagavac, Orahovac: 11 dead (among them Cazim Krasnici, Mahmut Krsnici, Hisen Zunici and Hisni Eljsani) and 5 wounded (Zade Eljsani, Valentina Krasnici, Siresa Rasnici, Ridvan Berisa and Edonis Gasi)
In Pristina: 10 dead (including Adem Berisa, Radovan Aleksic, Dejan Vitkovic, Mesud, Dijana, Dea, Rea and Denis Gash) and 8 wounded
In the Gredelicka gorge: 55 dead (among them Zoran Jovanovic, Petar Mladenovic, Verka Mladenovic and Jasmina Veljkovic) and 16 wounded
On the Djakovica-Prizren road: 75 dead (including Martin Hasanaj, Lek Hasanaj, Salji Djokaj, Skeni Djokaj, Razija Pajaziti, Vjolca Pajaziti, Vileta Pajaziti, Nevrija Pajaziti, Hastar Pajaziti, Fljora Pajaziti, Ram Maljoku, Arton Maljoku, Fikrija Sulja, Imer Celja, Ferat Bajrami, Nerdjivane Zajciri and Bersad Smailji) and 100 wounded (including Dzafer Mazreku, Sokolj Bajrami, Sahe Smailji, Zoja Cuni, Semsije Smajli, Skumbin Sulja, Teuta Sulja, Isljan Cuni, Ljabinot Sulja, Ardijan Sulja, Zoje Tahiraj)
In the village of Srbica: 10 killed, seven of which were children
In Batajnica: 1 killed (three year old Milica Rakic), 5 wounded
In Nis: 1 killed, 11 wounded
In Grmija, Pristina 1 civilian killed (six year old Arta Lugic), 3 wounded (Egzon and Nero Lugic both eight years old and Arijeta Lugic seven years old)
In Djakovica: 10 killed, 16 wounded
In Belgrade: 15 killed (amongst them Milovan Jankovic, Jelica Muntilak, Dragan Tasic, Dejan Mrkovic, Milan Joksimovic, Slobodan Jontic) and 17 wounded.
In Surdulica: 50 dead 11 wounded
In Luzane - 40 dead
In Murino - 5 dead 8 injured
The listing is far from comprehensive. Serb officials estimate that the NATO air strikes have killed a total of 1000 civilians, including over twenty children, where as approximately 4,500 have sustained serious injuries.
4.2.4 Despite NATO's rhetoric, there can be no doubt that these killings and injuries were perpetrated willfully. These civilian attacks were either ordered intentionally by NATO's political and military leadership and termed "legitimate military targets" or subsequently rationalized as unintended missile/bomb misses and dismissed as "collateral damage". There can be no question, however, that the attacks were willful as they were performed knowingly, with a reckless disregard for civilian safety, that rises to the mens rea level of willful action.
4.2.4.1 The April 6th, 1999 RAF Harriers cluster bomb attack on the city of Aleksinac marked a severe disregard for civilian safety. An expected and accepted outcome of bombing a residential area of a city with indiscriminate cluster bombs, is civilian casualties. This raid obliterated a block of civilian flats, killed 12 and wounded over 40 civilians. The same applies for the April 7th, 1999, NATO air raid one of the oldest neighborhoods of Pristina killing eleven. The NATO raid reduced a number of homes to rubble including the home of Mesut Gash on Zanatska Street, killing Gash, his wife and three children. Shrapnel from this bombing landed as much as two blocks away from the intended targets which were of questionable military significance. The thirteen dead and twenty five seriously injured during the April 8th, 1999 NATO strike in Kursumilja, could not have come as an unexpected surprise to NATO's political and military leadership, nor its personnel, since the air strikes were ordered on targets in the residential center of the town. The raids destroyed an entire residential block and left 400,000 people homeless. This was the inevitable, obvious criminal outcome. The same applies for the Easter morning, NATO leveling of the village of Kosanik in Merdare on April 11, 1999 which destroyed twenty homes and killed five civilians, including an eleven month old little girl, Bojana Tosovic, her father, Bujin Tosovic, Srdjan Cvetkovic, Goran Djukic and Dragan Bubalo. Eight civilians including Zoran Maksic, Veljko Jovanovic, Nenad Vukovic were also seriously injured in this attack
4.2.4.2 The April 12th NATO bombing of the Belgrade-Skopje-Salonika passenger train was deliberate and resulted in the murder and injury of a number of civilians. At first, NATO's command avoided claiming responsibility for the hit. It later stated that the bridge the train was passing over, was the intended target, and although regrettable, the civilian casualties, were "unavoidable". The train's schedule, however, was a matter of common knowledge, and its path, had no doubt been recorded by NATO reconnaissance and satellites. Even if we are to assume that the bridge was, indeed, a vital military target, could it not have been bombed a minute earlier, or a minute later so as to avoid civilian casualties? Is this an example of the "deliberate efforts" promised by President Clinton "to minimize harm to innocent people?
4.2.4.3 The April 14th NATO massacre of 75 Kosovo Albanian civilians and injury of 100 more on convoys traveling on the Prizren to Djakovica road in Kosovo was also willful. The bombing was deliberate and was not the result of one errant missile as NATO spokespeople would have us believe. Survivors speak of jets dive bombing, circling and then re-bombing the convoys. Shrapnel and crater patterns left behind, support refugee accounts that they were hit several times by the same NATO planes. Yugoslav television aired the conversation between the pilot of one of the F-16 that bombed one of the conveys, and the AWAC pilot guiding the strike plane. From the conversation, it is clear that the bombing of civilians was deliberate. The F-16 pilot clearly and repeatedly advised that he saw no military vehicles and that the convey was comprised solely of tractors and civilians. Despite the pilot's requests for clarification, the AWACS pilot instructed the F-16 to fire on the tractors and civilians stating that the convoy was a "legitimate military target". There is evidence to suggest that the F-16 pilot had already been advised by a UK Harrier pilot that the convoy was comprised of civilians. Is this what NATO terms taking "every precaution to avoid civilian casualties?" NATO has refused to come clean on this incident. It's shameful cover up was exposed by the Yugoslav press and is documented in the world media. It requires no further elucidation. To facilitate future cover-ups, NATO bombed Yugoslav television and radio stations and transmitters throughout the country.
4.2.4.4 The April 23rd, 1999 bombing of the Serb radio and television headquarters in Belgrade is perhaps the most obvious example of willful killing and injury of civilians perpetrated by NATO forces. This massacre has been condemned by the Vienna based international journalist organization and the world wide media community. NATO has acknowledged that the radio and television headquarter was its intended target. The pretext for bombing the station was that it was spreading anti-NATO "propaganda" and must thus be considered a legitimate military target. By selecting this target, NATO's political and military leaders acted with reckless disregard for the safety of the over one hundred people in the building. NATO leaders knew that the facility was in use and occupied by civilians at the time of the bombing, since the station was broadcasting at the time it was hit. These casualties were not soldiers but innocent civilians - journalists, technicians, television crews, etc. The mechanic Milovan Jankovic (1940), the make-up artist Jelica Muntilak (1971), the technician Dragan Tasic (1968), the security guards Dejan Mrkovic (1959) and Milan Joksimovic (1952), and the set decorator Slobodan Jontic (1945) were amongst those killed. This particular raid made it clear that NATO's political and military leaders, and NATO personnel performing the strike, consider any innocent Yugoslav civilian a "legitimate" target, and that the term "legitimate military target" can be stretched and distorted to include just about anyone and anything physically present in the FRY.
4.2.4.4.1 UK Premier Tony Blair has been quoted as saying "I wouldn't believe or take at face value anything the Serb authorities say" with respect to Yugoslav official releases on the NATO bombing of the refugee convoys. By bombing the Serb national television and radio headquarters, as well as the TV RTS studio in Pristina and radio/television transmitters in Jastrebac (Prokuplje), Gucevo (Loznica), Cot (Fruska Gora), Grmija (Pristina), Bogotovac (Pristina), Mt. Goles (Pristina), Mokra Gora (Pristina), Kutlovac (Stari Trg), Cigota (Uzice), Tornik (Uzice), Crni Vrh (Jagodina), Yugoslavia satellite station (Prlike), Novi Sad, Mt. Ovcara (Cacak), Kijevo (Belgrade), Mt. Cer, Mt. Jagodnji (Krupanj), "Iriski Venac" (Fruska Gora), Mt. Bukulja, Gazimestan (Pristina), Krnjaca, Mt. Kopaonik (Belgrade), Mt. Gobelj (Mt. Kopaonik), Vrsac and Usce, NATO's goal is to cut off both the Yugoslav people and the international community from access to any reports and information other than that NATO cares to provide. Over 25 broadcasting facilities have been heavily damaged or destroyed by NATO forces. This strategy is intended to allow NATO's cover-ups to go unchallenged in the future, as by destroying the Serb broadcasting system, NATO will monopolize the supply of information.
4.2.4.5 NATO's bombing of the small village of Surdelica near the Bulgarian border, deserves separate mention. Not one or two, but sixteen NATO missiles were launched against the small village, destroying three hundred homes and turning fifty civilians, including ten children, literally, into minced meat. There was no military presence in the village, only village families, huddled together in the basements of their homes, seeking refuge from NATO's bombs. The nearest military site to Surdelica is an abandoned base around 3 kilometers away which had been evacuated as of March 15. The slaughter of these innocents by NATO's political and military leaders and responsible NATO personnel, was devoid of any possible military significance and constitutes willful murder.
4.2.4.6 The May 1st, 1999 NATO bombing of a civilian bus performing its regular passenger service, claimed the life of forty people, mostly elderly and children. A second NATO bomb hit an ambulance on route to assist the injured bus passengers, wounding one physician. Once again NATO spokespeople apologized for the civilian casualties, claiming the road bridge the bus was crossing was a "legitimate," secondary, military target and that the bus was inadvertently hit. General Naufmann, Chairman of NATO's military committee, in his subsequent press statement stated, "We regret every loss of life, but this happens in military operations and so far we...(have done) a good job in avoiding civilian casualties." The death toll recorded above documents the falsehood of this statement. If this air raid was intended to avoid civilian casualties, why did NATO's command ignore publicized, bus schedules and routes and order the bombing of the bridge at the precise time that a civilian passenger bus was scheduled to perform its route over the bridge? Why did NATO's pilots not take the necessary precautions to ensure that the bridge was unoccupied at the time of the strike? If the Luzane road bridge was such a vital military target to justify its destruction regardless of the civilian cost, why was the bridge a secondary target?
4.3 NATO's POLITICAL AND MILITARY LEADERS AND RESPONSIBLE PERSONNEL HAVE UNLAWFULLY AND WANTONLY ENGAGED IN THE EXTENSIVE DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY NOT JUSTIFED BY MILITARY NECESSITY - A grave breach of the Geneva Convention of 1949 recognized by Article 2(d) of the ICT Statute - AND THE WANTON DESTRUCTION OF CITIES TOWNS OR VILLAGES AND DEVASTATION NOT JUSTIFIED BY MILITARY NECESSITY - Violation of the law and customs or War recognized by Article 3(b) of the ICT statute.
4.3.1 The NATO air raids have obliterated a vast number of civilian dwelling particularly in Pristina, Novi Sad, Aleksinac, Djakovica, Prokuplje, Gracanica, Cuprilja, Cacak, Surdelica as well as the suburbs of Belgrade. Tens of thousands of Yugoslavs have been left homeless as a result of these attacks. The level of destruction sustained by these towns and cities is not justified by military necessity. In addition to the countless civilian dwelling destroyed, a number of public building that serviced civilians, including the post offices in Nis and Pristina, refugee centers in Pristina, Djakovica and Paracin, the local government building in Novi Sad, federal buildings in Belgrade, meteorological stations in Bukulja and Mt. Kopaonik, and a business center in Usce have all been knocked out without legitimate justification. The power supply transmitters in Batajnica, Bogutovac, Resnik and Zemun, the power plants in Krusevac, Pristina and Belgrade on May 1st, 1999, the water supply system in Zemun, the Bistrica hydroelectric power plant in Polinje and telephone lines in Bogutovac have all been damaged as a result of the NATO raids causing needless damage to the civilian infrastructure and great suffering to the civilian population. The bombing is intended to exact as much damage as possible to the civilian populace and in doing so incite the Yugoslav people against Milosevic, "punish" the Yugoslav leader, and force a surrender.
4.3.2 The NATO air strikes have targeted a number of factories and industrial facilities that cater to the basic needs of the civilian population. Over 3,500 large, medium and small industrial facilities have been destroyed or damaged, leaving 500,000 civilians without jobs, and some two million people without the means to ensure their basic sustenance. Most of the facilities targeted have absolutely no legitimate military significance. A small minority of these plants and industry may have had negligible military significance, however this significance, did and does not justify the complete destruction, devastation, and civilian suffering that was exacted by the NATO attacks.
4.3.3 Amongst other, from March 24th, 1999 until May 1, 1999, NATO's political and military leadership and personnel have willfully and wantonly destroyed the following commercial and industrial facilities that cater to civilian needs:
The Galenika pharmaceutical plant in Belgrade
The Dvadeset Prvi Maj industrial complex in Rakovica
The Machine building plant Industrija Motora Rakovica in Racovica
The Jugstroj factory in Rakovica
The Frigostroj factory in Rakovica
The Lola Utva agricultural aircraft factory in Pancevo
The Zdravlje pharmaceutical plant in Leskovac
The Sloboda white goods factory in Cacak
The Din tobacco plant in Nis
The Electronska industrija factory in Nis
The Jastrebac machine industry in Nis
The Beograd rail company facilities in Nis.
The Construction material depot Ogrev Invest in Nis
The production line of the Nis tobacco factory in Nis
The Elekrtrotehna warehouse in Nis
The Fidelinka food storage facility in Nis
The company So Produckt's office buildings in Nis.
The Velafarm pharmaceutical facilities in Nis
The Kopaonik general merchandise depot in Nis
The Zastave car factory in Kragujevac
The 14 Oktobar machine factory in Krusevac
The Metalac metal factory production line in Kursumilja
The Krusik holding corporation in Valjevo
Cikonizacija in Novi Sad
Technogas in Novi Sad
Novograp in Novi Sad
Gumins in Novi Sad
Albus in Novi Sad
Petar Drapsin in Novi Sad
Motins in Novi Sad
Izolacija in Novi Sad
Novokabel in Novi Sad
Istra fittings facotry in Kula
The port of Bogojevo
The Div cigarette factory in Vranje
The Nova Jugoslavija printers in Vranje
The Simpo Furniture factory in Vranje
The Jumko textile industry in Vranje
The 27.November wood processing complex in Raska
The Pipe factory in Urosevac
The Milan Blagojevic chemical plant in Lucani
The Plastics factory in Pristina
The Cotton yarn factory in Pristina
The Shock absorber factory in Pristina
The Surface coal mine in Belacevac
The Binacka Morava hydro construction company in Gnjilane
The Cigarette manufacturing facility in Gnjilane
The Battery factory in Gnjilane
The Dijana shoe factory in Sremska Mitrovica
over 250 commercial and craft shops in Djakovica
Most of these facilities have been bombed and re-bombed again and again to ensure absolute devastation. By example, the Milan Blagojevic chemical plant in Lucani has been hit on four separate occasion with a number of missiles each time.
4.3.4 In addition to the above, the Baciste hotel and Hotel Putnik on Mt. Kopaonik were damaged by NATO raids on April 12, 1999 for no military reason, while the Divcibare mountain resort was hit on April 11, 1999 and the Tornik ski resort of Mt. Zlatibor was knocked out on April 8, 1999. The Mineral Hotel in Bogutovacka Banja was seriously damaged during the April 19, 1999 NATO strikes. It is obvious that these hotels and resorts have no legitimate military significance and their destruction amounts to little more than vandalism. The devastation of all of the above enterprises is by definition wanton, given the inherent illegality of the NATO air strikes and the reckless disregard for the rights and property of the Yugoslav state and populace. The devastation of these enterprises were not justified by military necessity, since these targets had no military significance. The purpose of this devastation is to impose suffering on civilians for years to come
4.3.5 From March 24th, 1999 until May 1, 1999, NATO's political and military leaders and responsible NATO personnel have willfully and wantonly destroyed the following eighteen refineries and warehouses of raw material and chemicals with catastrophic consequence to the environment not only of Yugoslavia but the Balkan region as a whole. They include:
Fuel Storage Tanks in Lipovica whose explosion resulted in the burning of the Lipovica forest (March 26, 1999)
Beopetrol storage in Belgrade (April 4, 1999)
Beopetrol storage in Bogutovac (April 4 and 24 1999)
Fuel storage of the Boiler Plant in Novi Beograd (April 4, 1999)
Prvra Iskra chemical plant in Baric (April 16, 1999)
Oil Refinery in Pancevo (April 4, 16, 1999)
DP HIP Petrohemija Petrochemical industry in Pancevo (April 14-15, 1999)
Jugopetrol installations in Smederevo (April 4 and 13,1999)
Thermo electrical power station/boiler plant in Novi Sad (April 5, 1999)
Oil Refinery in Novi Sad (April 5 and 6, 1999)
Jugopetrol storage in Sombor (April 7, 1999)
Naftagas promet fuel storage near Sombor (April 5, 1999)
Naftagas warehouse between Conoplje and Kljaicevo
Beopetrol fuel storage in Pristina (April 7, 1999)
Jugopetrol warehouse in Pristina (April 12, 1999)
Jugopetrol petrol station in Pristina (April 13, 1999)
Fuel depot in Gruua, near Kragujevac
Even if, by some stretch of the imagination, some of these targets can be termed "legitimate" military targets due to the purported military potential of some of their facilities, NATO forces, more often than not, did not chose to "strategically" eliminate those questionable facilities, but opted instead to completely level the entire operation. The Novi Sad refinery, for example, has been targeted again and again, and hit by over thirty missiles, since the NATO aggression commenced. The Jugopetrol warehouse in Zdravcici has been hit on three separate occasions. It had already been leveled by the two earlier attacks. A third attack served no purpose. NATO's strategy is not aimed at impairing these structures to preclude their potential utility, but rather to completely and unjustifiably obliterate them.
4.3.6 From March 24th, 1999 until May 1, 1999, NATO's political and military leadership and its responsible personnel have willfully and wantonly devastated agricultural facilities not justified by military necessity. The following are included amongst the agricultural facilities destroyed:
PIK Kopaonik in Kursumlija
PIK Mladost in Gnijlane
Malizgan agricultural complex in Dolac
Djuro Stugar agricultural complex in Kula
Agricultural, food processing and cow-breeding farm in Pester, Sjenica
By what stretch of the imagination can 220 milk cows and hectares of crop be deemed "legitimate military targets?"
4.3.7 NATO's missiles have also visited vast destruction on the nation's hospitals and health care institutions. From March 24th, 1999 until May 1, 1999, NATO's political and military leadership and its responsible personnel have willfully and wantonly damaged the following health facilities, vital for the civilian population, especially at a time of war:
the Dr. Lazar Lazarevic Neuropsychiatric Hospital and Central Pharmacy of the Emergency Center in Belgrade
the Sveti Sava hospital in Belgrade
Army Medical Academy in Belgrade
Gynecological Hospital and Maternity Ward at the Belgrade Clinical Centre
Health Care Center in Rakovica
Hospital and Medical Center in Leskovac
Geriatric Center in Leskovac
Hospital and Poly-clinic in Nis
General Hospital in Djakovica
City Hospital in Novi Sad
Medical Center and Ambulance Center in Aleksinac
Medical Center in Kraljevo
Dispensary on Mt. Zlatibor
City Hospital in Valjevo
Krusik dispensary in Valjevo
Hospital for treatment of Dystrophia in Novi Pazar
Health Care Center in Kursumilja.
the Dragisa Misovic Clinical Hospital Center in Belgrade (April 27th)
In addition to the above, the facilities used by the Red Cross and other international humanitarian and health organizations in Novi Pazar were damaged by NATO attacks.
4.3.8 NATO's air strikes have almost totally devastated the nation's bridges. From March 24th, 1999 until May 1, 1999, NATO's political and military leadership and personnel have willfully and wantonly entirely demolished the following bridges:
Varadin Bridge
Sloboda Bridge
Zezelj Bridge
The bridge over the river Ibar in Bijlanovac
the bridge over the river Vrbacka near Jezgrovice
the Lozno railway bridge near Usce
the roadway bridge leading to Brvenik near Usce
the Zubin Potok bridge on the Kosovska Mitrovica Ribarice road
the old bridge over the Rasina river near Krusevac
the new bridge over the Rasina river near Krusevac
the Krusevac-Pojate bridge over the Zapadna Morava river in Jasika
the railway bridge over the Lim river near the Bistrica hydroelectric power station
the bridge over the Ibar river in Brvenik
the bridge between Smederevo and Kovin
the railway bridge over the Kostainica river near Kursumlija
The bridge on the Kursumlija-Prokuplje road
The bridge over the Vrapcevska Reka river near Ribarice village
the bridge over the railway line on the regional road Biljanovac - Mt. Kopaonik
the railway bridge near Rudnica village, Raska
the bridge over the Danube on the Beograd-Novi Sad road near Beska
the road bridge on the Prsitina-Podujevo road, near Luzani
During the same time, NATO air strikes damaged the following bridges:
The Mladost Bridge
The new railway/road bridge connecting Bogojevo and Erdut
The road bridge along Magura Belaevac road near Pristina
The road bridge on the Nis-Pristina road near Kursumlija
the Grdelica gorge railway bridge over the Juzna Morava river
the Grdelica gorge road bridge over the Juzna Morava river
the road bridge over the Kosanic river near Kursumlija
the road bridge over the Toplica river on the Nis-Pristina roadway near Kursumlija
the bridge over the Kosanica river at Selo Visoko village.
the Raskrsnica bridge near Donja Bistrica on the Priboj-Prijepolje-Nova Varos roadway
the railway bridge over the Sava river near Ostruznica
the railway bridge on the Kraljevo-Raska railway line near Kraljevo.
The destruction of many of these bridges has fully obstructed river traffic and the river transport of goods, since the debris from the bridges have blocked passage. It has also left hundreds of thousands of civilians without water since may water supply systems passed through these bridges. In particular, over one million Yugoslavs have been left without water.
4.3.9 From March 24th, 1999 until May 1, 1999, NATO's political and military leadership and personnel have willfully and wantonly knocked out the following railways:
the Kraljevo-Kosovo Polje rail near Ibarska Slatina
the Belgrade-Bar line due to track damages near Strpce village and the Lim bridge
the Kursumlija-Pokuplje line near Pepeljevac village
the Kraljevo-Kosovo Polje line, near Ibarska Slatina
the Nis-Pristina line near Kursumlija
the Sarpelj tunnel near Jerinje village
the Kraljevo railway station in Bogutovac
the Kosvo Polje railway station
the Belgrade-Salonika line due to the destruction of the Grdelica gorge bridge
the railway station in Biljanovac
the railway track and overpass near Biljanovac
the Kursumlija-Podujevo line due to the destruction of the Kursumlija railway bridge
the Kraljevo-Kragujevac line due to damage of the track near Vitanovac
the Uzice-Priboj line
the Bogojevo-Vukovar line
the Leskovac-Predejane line.
4.10 From March 24th, 1999 until May 1, 1999, NATO's political and military leadership and personnel have willfully and wantonly damaged the following roads and bus stations:
Ibarska primary road
Belgrade Zagreb highway
Kosovska Mitrovica-Ribarici section of the Adriatic highway
Jedinstvo bus station in Vranje
The Kosmet Pevoz hangar full of new buses in Gnjilane
the Kraljevo-Raska primary road
the Pristina bus station
the Krusevac-Pojate road due to destruction of the bridge in Jasika
the Nis-Pristina roadway due to destruction of the bridge in Kursumlija
the Priboj -Prijepolje -Nova Varos regional road due to the damage sustained by the Raskrsnica bidge
the Magistrala road maintenance company in Pristina
the Nis central bus station
the Pristina bus station
4.11 From March 24th, 1999 until May 1st, 1999, NATO's political and military leadership and responsible personnel have willfully and wantonly devastated the civilian airports of "Slatina" in Pristina, "Batajnica" and "Surcin" in Belgrade, the Nis airport, the "Ponikve" airport in Uzice, the "Golubovci" air port in Podgorica, the "Ladjevci" airport near Kraljevo and the agricultural and sport air field in Sombor.
4.12 The country's road and railway networks, bridges and airports have almost all been knocked out purportedly to cut Yugoslav military supply lines. Nonetheless, General Clark admitted at his April 28th briefing, that despite NATO's furious bombing, Milosevic continues to reinforce his forces in Kosovo and has actually strengthened his military presence in the area. Thus the NATO bombing of the Yugoslav transport system network has not obstructed military supply lines, but only imposed needless suffering on the civilian community and trapped 820,000 ethnic Albanians, as General Wesley Clark contends, into the killing fields of Kosovo. The damages inflicted by NATO forces on the Yugoslav civilian infrastructure are in excess of ten billion dollars. This devastation was unlawful, wanton, intentional and unjustifiable and as such comprises a war crime within the meaning of Article 2(d) and 3(b) of the ICT Statute.
4.4 NATO's POLITICAL AND MILITARY LEADERS AND RESPONSIBLE NATO PERSONNEL HAVE EMPLOYED POISONOUS WEAPONS AND WEAPONS CALCULATED TO CAUSE UNNECESSARY SUFFERING - A violation of the law and customs of War recognized by Article 3(a) of the ICT Statute.
4.4.1 USE OF PROHIBITED CLUSTER BOMBS
The use of cluster bombs has been prohibited by International Conventions due the particularly destructive effect these bombs have on civilian populations. A cluster bomb is a bomb container that opens in mid-air and releases smaller bomblets. These smaller bomblets, usually the size of baseballs, are designed to explode on impact, slightly prior or following impact. The metal shards emitted from these explosions typically saturate an area of up to 100 acres. Cluster bombs are indiscriminate. The mid-air discharge of numerous bomblets over a large area, precludes precision targeting for each individual bomblet. Cluster bombs are also deemed indiscriminate weapons that are likely to cause civilian injury, due to the inherent danger of failed bomblets or duds, that do not explode as designed. These duds serve as land mines.
4.4.1.2 Due to the inherent dud-rate factor, areas that have been bombed with cluster bombs are frequently transformed into unregulated minefields which present an ongoing risk to civilians long after hostilities have ceased. Following bombing raids, these unexploded, failed bomblets are left in plain view or concealed in foliage. Subsequently when touched, the bomblet explodes like a landmine. The failure rate for cluster bomblets range between 5% to 30%. It should be noted that the dud rate estimate for cluster munitions dropped in the Gulf War was found to range between 10-20%, and Iraqi sources have reported that as of August 1991, 400 injuries and 168 civilian deaths have been caused by the duds left behind after the Gulf War. It would be safe to assume that the dud rate of the cluster bombs used in the Kosovo crisis corresponds to that evidenced in the Gulf War. By electing to use cluster bombs from amongst its broad arsenal, NATO's political and military leaders have deliberately and intentionally elected to use weaponry that knowingly will lead to indiscriminate deaths and unnecessary suffering to the civilians of Yugoslavia for generation to come.
4.4.2.2 NATO pilots have dropped cluster bombs throughout the territory of Serbia. At the village of Gracanica alone, 3,500 cluster bombs were discharged from 14 containers dropped by NATO planes near the Gracanica monastery. On April 6, 1999, RAF Harriers, armed with cluster bombs, attacked Aleksinac, hitting a block of flats, killing 12 civilians and injuring 28. The use of cluster bombs for raids on a residential area is clearly criminal. Moreover, there is strong evidence to suggest that cluster bombs were used against the Albanian refugee convoys on April 14, 1999. This evidence stems from the bomb remnants and craters left at the site. The April 24th deaths of five boys, Edon (3 years old), Fisnik (9 years old), Osman (13 years old), Burim (14 years old), and Vajdet Kodza (15 years old) and shrapnel injury to six more children was the result of cluster duds near the village of Doganovic. It is believed that the boys, who were in the fields tending cattle, were killed and injured by duds left behind after the cluster bombing of the area.
4.4.2.3 Cluster bombs are weapons calculated to cause unnecessary suffering on the civilian population. NATO's political and military leaders' decision to use cluster bombs in the Kosovo crisis, and implementation of this decision by NATO's personnel, constitute war crimes within the ICT's jurisdiction. 4.4.3 USE OF DEPLETED URANIUM AMMUNITION
4.4.3.1 NATO's political and military leaders and responsible NATO personnel have violated the laws and customs of war by the employment of depleted uranium ammunition. This ammunition is poisonous and is intended to cause unnecessary suffering. The use of depleted uranium ammunition presents both a chemical toxicity and radiation risk to the people and environment of the entire Balkan region. Experts have already reported enhanced radiation levels in the atmosphere and on the ground in Kosovo. Depleted uranium is found in the 30-millimetre ammunition fired by the GAU-8A guns mounted of the U.S. A-10 "Warhog" aircraft as well as the Tomahawk cruise missiles. Depleted uranium increases the penetrating power of ammunition. The explosion of depleted uranium ammunition creates an airborne radioactive dust of uranium oxide which can be carried several kilometers away from the site by the wind. This dust is poisonous if inhaled or ingested. Inhaled insoluble oxide poses a great risk of cancer due to radiation. Ingested depleted uranium dust poses both a radioactive and a toxicity risk.
4.4.3.2 The international community has called for a ban of this material which is believed to be responsible for Gulf War Syndrome plaguing over 100,000 veterans from the Gulf War and whose symptoms are analogous to radiation poisoning, characterized by chronic fatigue, weight loss and severe abnormalities in subsequently born children. The use of depleted uranium ammunition has been documented to have cause alarming increases in birth defects, stillbirths, childhood leukemia and other cancers to individuals exposed to depleted uranium treated ammunition during the Gulf War. Exposure to this radioactive material is fatal and has long-lasting effects on the environment. The soil and ground water of areas bombed with depleted uranium ammunition remains radioactive, rendering the water undrinkable and the land uncultivable. The half life of depleted uranium is 4.5 billion years. By employing depleted uranium ammunition, NATO political and military leaders and its personnel are not only putting the Yugoslav populace at risk of potentially inhaling or ingesting the toxic and radioactive uranium oxide released from this ammunition, but they are also actively contaminating Yugoslavia's aquifers and crop producing lands. Groundwater is estimated to supply 90% of Serbia's domestic and industrial needs. By deliberately electing to employ this weaponry, NATO's leadership is poisoning the land, aquifers and population of Yugoslavia.
4.4.3.4 The noxious effects of depleted uranium are well-known to the US and NATO, despite their constant efforts to downplay the evidence and discourage comprehensive studies. The UN Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities urged Nations to "curb the production and spread of weapons of mass destruction or with indiscriminate effect, in particular nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, fuel-sir bomb, napalm, cluster bombs, biological weaponry and weaponry containing depleted uranium" and has repeatedly warned the world of the environmental dangers provoked by the use of depleted uranium ammunition. NATO's political and military leadership's deliberate and intentional decision to forgo the choice of more conventional weaponry, and instead employ depleted uranium ammunition, when it is fully cognizant of the indiscriminate, long-lasting noxious effects that this ammunition will have on civilians for years to come, falls squarely within the ambit of the offense provided by article 3(a) of the ICT Statute.
4.4.4 BOMBING OF THE PANCEVO PLANT
4.4.4.1 The Pancevo complex is a combined fertilizer factory and oil refinery located on the banks of the Danube. It was deliberately and systematically bombed on April 18th, 1999 by NATO forces, creating a huge toxic, carcinogenic cloud of gas phosgene, chlorine and hydrochloric acid over Belgrade, with a toxicity level 7,200 - 10,000 times the permissible level, as well as 15-20 kilometer long slicks in the Danube. To make this ecological catastrophe worse, workers at the Pancevo plant released highly carcinogenic, ether dichloride, stored at the Pancevo complex, into the Danube to avert a possible NATO bombardment of these tanks that would have surely poisoned the residents of Belgrade and its surrounding suburbs. Over 50 residents of Pancevo were reported to be suffering from nerve gas poisoning as a result of the toxic fall out from the explosion. This fall out, as well as the ether dichloride released into the river, is expected to flow downstream with catastrophic ecological consequences to Romania, Bulgaria, and the Black Sea.
4.4.4.2 NATO's political and military leadership and its personnel have intentionally unleashed this environmental catastrophe, by and through their bombing of the Pancevo complex. In doing so, they have discharged a poisonous weapon calculated to cause unnecessary suffering on civilians for centuries to come. There is no evidence to suggest that this complex was being used for military purposes. On the contrary, its obliteration will deprive Yugoslavia of much needed fertilizer for agricultural needs, thus further hampering civilian life. NATO forces were cognizant that the bombing of the Pancevo complex would result in the emission of toxic, poisonous fumes and contaminants that would endanger the health of civilians in the densely populated capital and its surrounding suburbs, and that it would place the ecosystem of the entire Balkan region at risk. NATO's political and military leaders and responsible personnel have violated the laws and customs of war by bombing the complex, as by doing so, they have unleashed a poisonous weapon calculated to cause indiscriminate and unnecessary suffering on civilians, an offense prohibited by Article 3(a) of the ICT Statute.
4.4.5 SYSTEMATIC DESTRUCTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT
4.4.5.1 The air strikes ordered by NATO's political and military leaders and performed by NATO personnel, are aimed at provoking an environmental disaster which threatens to poison the populace of the entire region. NATO's bombing raids have resulted in the systematic destruction of Yugoslavia's environment, not only through the pollution of its rivers and ground water, but the systematic poisoning of its atmosphere. This destruction is by definition, indiscriminate, and the toxic fall out must be considered a poisonous weapon or a weapon calculated to cause long-lasting unnecessary suffering to civilians prohibited by the Laws and Customs of War as recognized by Article 3(a) of the ICT Statute. This action also comprises devastation not justified by military necessity in violation of Articles 2(d) and 3(b) of the ICT Statute.
4.4.5.2 Amongst others, the NATO bombing of the Prva Iskra chemical plant in Baritz, a non-military target producing detergents, resulted in the emission of large clouds of toxic gases. The bombing of the oil refinery in Novi Sad gave way to unchecked fires, extensive air pollution and the discharge of toxic material into the Danube. The obliteration of the ZAZTAVA plant in Kragujevac by repeated bombings, resulting in the discharge of poisonous piralena liquid into the Lepenitsa river. In Lucani, the repeated targeting of the Milan Blagojevic plastic manufacturing plant resulted in petrochemical explosions and the emission of a carcinogenic cloud over the region. In Belgrade, Bogutovac, Novi Beograd, Gruua, Pristina, Pancevo, Lipovic, refineries and fuel depots have been bombed, resulting in uncontrollable fires and substantial air pollution. In Nis, the bombing of a tobacco plant resulted in the explosion of chemical additives and the discharge of cadmium.
4.4.5.3 The ecological catastrophe caused by these bombings knows no boundaries. It poses a great toxic risk, which is likely to cause suffering to not only the Yugoslav people, but the population of the greater Balkan region. Already there are reports from Northern Greece of alarming toxicity levels in the atmosphere attributed to the bombing raids. NATO's political and military leaders and responsible NATO personnel have violated the laws and customs of war by bombing these plants, warehouses, refineries and industrial complexes, since by destroying these facilities, they have unleashed an arsenal of toxic pollutants that are by definition, indiscriminate, and will, in all certainty, visit unnecessary suffering on the Balkan population for years to come in violation of Article 3(a) of the ICT Statute.
4.5 NATO's POLITICAL AND MILITARY LEADERS AND RESPONSIBLE PERSONNEL HAVE ENGAGED IN THE DESTRUCTION AND WILLFUL DAMAGE OF INSTITUTIONS DEDICATED TO RELIGION, CHARITY, EDUCATION, THE ARTS AND SCIENCES, HISTORICAL MONUMENTS AND WORKS OF ART AND SCIENCE - Violation of the laws and customs of war as recognized by Article 3(d) of the ICT Statute
4.5.1 NATO's political and military leadership and its responsible personnel have demonstrated a marked disregard for Serbia's historical and religious heritage by targeting and destroying religious and historic landmarks that serve as an integral part of Serb national and religious heritage and history. UNESCO's ICOMOS has identified 12 historical monuments in Kosovo, central Serbia and Vojvodina that have been totally destroyed by the NATO air raids and 39 which have sustained substantial damages, many of which are listed on UNESCO World Heritage list. From March 24th, 1999 to May 1st, 1999, the following medieval monasteries and religious shrines, amongst others, have sustained serious damages as a result of the NATO air raids:
The Gracanica Monastery (14th century) (bombed on March 24th and April 6, 1999).
The Rakovica Monastery (17th century) (bombed on March 29, 1999)
The Church in Jelasnica near Surdulica
The 13th century Pec Patriarchate (bombed on April 1, 1999).
The Monastery of the Church of St. George in Petrovardin built in 1714
The Monastery of the Holy Mother (12th century) in Kosanica, Kursumlija
The Monastery of St. Nicholas (12th centruy) in Kursumlija
The Monastery of St. Archangel Gabriel in Zemun
The Roman Catholic Church St. Antonio in Djakovica
The Orthodox Cemetery in Gnjilane
The monuments in Bogutovac
The Kadinjaca memorial complex
The Vojlovica monasater near Pancevo
The iconostasis of the Hopovo monastery
The Orthodox cemetery in Pristina
The St. Archangel Michael Monastery in Rakovica
The St. Marko Orthodox Church in Belgrade
The Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church in Belgrade
4.5.2 In addition to the structural damages sustained by these buildings, the priceless, century old frescos in many of these historical churches and monasteries, are being seriously threatened by the tremors and blasts of NATO explosions.
4.5.3 From March 24th, 1999 to May 1st, 1999, NATO's political and military leaders and responsible personnel have inflicted serious damages on the following historical and cultural monuments, buildings, artifacts and museums:
Substantial roof damage to the Fortress of Petrovaradin
The Tabacki bridge in Djakovica (17th century) (hit on April 5, 1999)
The Stara Carsija building in Djakovica
Historical archives stored in a Belgrade Government Building have been destroyed
The Memorial complex in Gucevo Loznica
The "Sumarice" memorial complex in Kragujevac
The Vojvodina Museum in Novi Sad
The old military barracks in Kragujevac under state protection
The Crveni Krst memorial complex in Nis
4.5.4 NATO air raids have also intentionally leveled and damaged modern architectural landmarks. The Ministry of Interior and The Ministry of Justice buildings in the heart of Belgrade were intentionally targeted and destroyed by NATO bombs. These buildings were significant architectural achievements of the latter 20th century designed by the architect Irvin Adidts. NATO claims that these sites were military targets and their destruction justified by military necessity. This argument is unsustainable. It was well known that these buildings, like most of the federal buildings, had been totally evacuated by the Serb authorities upon the onset of the air raids and therefore their destruction involved no military advantage. Destruction of these facilities were acts of vandalism aimed at humiliating and punishing the Serb people. In addition to the above, NATO forces have destroyed the 195m TV tower on Mt. Avala, designed by the renowned Yugolsav architects Uglijesa Bogunovic and Slobodan Janic and engineer Milan Krstic. The Mt. Avala tower was considered a cultural landmark of Belgrade, not unlike the Eiffel tower in Paris, and it was featured on Belgrade postcards and tourist souvenirs.
4.5.5 NATO air strikes have claimed over 2000 schools, faculties and facilities for children and students. In particular more than 25 faculties, 10 colleges, 45 secondary schools, 90 elementary schools, 8 student dormitories and numerous preschool facilities have been hit. NATO missiles destroyed the village schools of Bogutova, Raska, Lacevci, Tavnik and Lozno during the April 10th raid alone. The school in Bogutovac was hit with no less than six missiles, making claims that the destruction was unintentional hard to believe! The 16.oktobar and Vladimir Rolovic elementary schools have sustained substantial damages in Belgrade, as has the day care in Petlovo Brdo district of the capital. The Youth and children center and Dusko Radovic youth theatre in Belgrade were also hit on April 23, 1999. The elementary school and engineering high school, as well as four libraries in Rakovica have all been victimized by NATO missiles. Two secondary schools, the respective faculties for civil engineering and architecture, mechanical engineering and electrical engineering studies were hit in Nis. The Faculties of Law and Economics and the Radoje Domanovic elementary school in Nis were also knocked out by NATO missiles. The Toza Markovic, Djorde Natsoevic, Veljko Vlahovic, Sangaj and Djuro Danicic elementary schools were are all attacked in the Novi Sad region, as was the Duga day care center and kid creches on Visarionova Street of the City. The Traffic School Center and Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad have also sustained substantial damages. Elementary schools in Lucane and Kraljevo, Cvetka, Aketa and Ladjevci have all sustained substantial damages, as have three Sombor elementary schools. NATO raids have also partially destroyed a school center in Kula and an agricultural school in Valjevo. More documentary information with respect to the devastation of educational institutions will be submitted in the weeks that follow.
4.5.6 The destruction of all of the above facilities by NATO's political and military leaders and its responsible personnel, constitutes destruction and willful damage to institutions dedicated to religion, charity and education, the arts and sciences, historic monuments, etc. within the meaning of Article 3(d) of the Statute of the ICT. This destruction is a war crime that must not go unpunished.
5. RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PROSECUTOR
5.1 Article 16 of the ICT Statute provides that the Prosecutor of the ICT is responsible for the investigation and prosecution of persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia since January 1, 1991. By the Prosecutor's own admission, this territory includes Kosovo. The Statute further provides that the Prosecutor acts independently and shall not seek or receive instructions from any Government or from any other source. Under Article 18 of the Statute, the Prosecutor is obliged to initiate investigation ex-officio on the basis of information obtained from any source and shall assess the information received to decide whether there is sufficient basis to proceed.
5.2 The facts alleged in this complaint establish a prima facie case. We reserve the right to further substantiate and supplement this complaint with a dossier of photographs and witness accounts. Most of these facts can be readily verified from the international press, NATO's own admissions and reports of the Yugoslav government. The Prosecutor will, no doubt, uncover more evidence during the course of his/her investigation. The facts stated in this complaint clearly document violations of the Geneva Convention and Laws and Customs of War as recognized by Articles 2 and 3 respectively of the ICT Statute by NATO's military and political leaders and personnel.
5.3 If the Prosecutors Office and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia is to maintain any credibility for impartiality, then it must do so by applying justice equally and evenhandedly. This is a unique opportunity for the ICT to prove to the world that it does, in fact, act independently, and that it neither "seeks nor receives instructions from any Government or source" as stipulated by the ICT Statute. Prosecutor Louise Arbour appears to have already commenced investigations into alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Kosovo. In her April 27 interview on BBC Panorama, Prosecutor Arbour proclaimed that, "We have always made clear that we will always explore personal criminal liability at the very highest possible level that the evidence will sustain." This investigation can not and should not be limited to the alleged conduct of the Serbs, nor the KLA, but must include the conduct of all actors in the area, which includes the actions of NATO's political and military leaders and responsible NATO personnel. If the Prosecutor's Office is to investigate allegations of Serb war crimes in the area, as it has stated repeatedly, then it must also impartially investigate allegations of war crimes perpetrated by NATO's political and military leadership and its personnel. Where the evidence exists, the ICT must indict all offenders within its area of competence, irrespective of the position, nationality or popularity of those offenders.
5.4 There can be no doubt that the criminal conduct of NATO's political and military leaders and responsible NATO personnel, as outlined above, was willful and wanton. Even if we were to suspend our disbelief and assume that the killing and injury of civilians, the bombing of a passenger train, refugee convoys, private homes, businesses, schools, museums, hospitals, cemeteries, monasteries, bus and the systematic and knowing contamination and poisoning of the environment were not premeditated acts aimed to cause unnecessary human suffering and destruction, it must be accepted that when NATO's political and military leaders initiated this aggression, and NATO's personnel implemented its leadership's decision, they all knew that their unlawful conduct would, with practical certainty, result in unjustifiable suffering on the part of the civilian population and unjustifiable devastation. They thus, knowingly, accepted these consequences, and nonetheless, decided to push on, upon determination that this suffering was an "acceptable" outcome. The mens rea requirement for criminally, willful and wanton conduct has been met.
5.5 NATO's political and military leaders and responsible NATO personnel have thus accepted responsibility for the unlawful murder and injury of civilians and the extensive devastation that their bombing has inflicted, as an "unfortunate" but "inevitable" outcome of their actions. The mockery and flagrant abuse of international law by NATO's political and military leaders evidence that the air strikes must be deemed, as a matter of law, unlawful. Playing semantics games and dismissing war crimes as "collateral damage" does not alter the fact that war crimes have been committed and their perpetrators must be brought to justice.
5.6 NATO's political and military leaders and responsible NATO personnel must be held accountable for their actions. The degree and level of criminal responsibility of each respective individual who contributed to the decision making and/or order and/or performance of the criminal actions outlined in this complaint is an issue for the ICT to determine.
-------- puerto rico
Vieques Quiet But Not At Peace
By Susan Soltero,
May 4, 2000 (ENS)
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/may2000/2000L-05-04-03.html
VIEQUES, Puerto Rico - The white beaches on the eastern tip of the island of Vieques are empty again. Early this morning, in what was a mostly peaceful event, close to 200 demonstrators were removed by U.S. federal agents from restricted lands owned by the U.S. Navy.
Federal agent removes protesters from Vieques camp this morning. (Photo courtesy Vieques, PR, a U.S. War Zone)
Among them are priests and community leaders who had made their homes in the Vieques protest camps as an act of civil disobedience against the naval bombing using live ordnance. New York City councilman Jose Rivera, New York state legislator Roberto Ramirez, and U.S. Representative Nydia Velazquez, a New York Democrat, were taken away from the protest encampments by federal agents. U.S. Representative Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat, was was detained at a makeshift chapel inside the bombing range when the agents arrived.
Now things are quiet. The live fire bombing range is again home only to plants and animals, among them several species in danger of extinction - the West Indian manatee, Brown pelican, the Leatherback and Hawskbill sea turtles that have reclaimed the bombing range since bombing stopped 387 days ago. But within two weeks they will again feel the effects of bomb blasts as the Navy begins target practice again.
The removals took place in a respectful and sometimes friendly manner, with some protesters asking permission to keep or move personal items that were in restricted areas before they were taken away.
The protesters in front of the land entrance to the Camp Garcia military base were arrested first by FBI agents. Later in the morning, ships carrying marines in riot gear arrived in boats at the harder to reach encampments where the actual target range is on the eastern tip of Vieques. There, the eight camps were emptied one by one.
Map showing location of Vieques, Puerto Rico
Priests and nuns were searched for weapons and protesters were all airlifted to the main island of Puerto Rico.
Now the mood in the Puerto Rican capital city of San Juan has changed dramatically. Once word of the early morning arrests spread, people hit the streets. The largest universities canceled classes at the request of students who went to protest in front of the gates of two military bases: one in the San Juan metro area, the other in Ceiba on Puerto Rico's east coast.
Union leaders, residents, community leaders have joined the demonstrations. Confrontations were inevitable. Police clashed with students in front of Fort Buchanan in Guaynabo and pepper spray was used, but serious injuries were not reported.
At the Roosevelt Roads Navy Base in Ceiba, protesters arrested would not sign any documents and another impasse occurred.
Governor Pedro Rosello of Puerto Rico (Photo courtesy Office of the Governor)
Although the breakup of the Vieques protest camps was expected, most Puerto Ricans do not agree with the accord reached by Governor Pedro Rosello and President Bill Clinton in January.
Under the agreement, the bombing in Vieques will continue for three more years and residents of Vieques will have a chance to vote in a referendum as to whether they want the bombings to continue after that time period.
But the majority of residents, backed by religious leaders, feel Governor Rossello should not have allowed bombing to continue at all, which was the recommendation of panel appointed by the governor himself.
Radamés Tirado, former mayor of Vieques, said, "There are places in the world, on American soil, where one cannot do certain things because there are animals, flora and fauna. Nonetheless we are people and no one takes us into account. We are species in danger of extinction. We, the people of Vieques, are in danger of extinction. And nobody hears us."
After 60 years of bombings, cancer rates are far above normal on Vieques. The noise and the fact that the U.S. Navy owns two thirds of the land on an island with three phosphorescent bays makes the development of tourism difficult.
Missiles lying on the ocean floor at Vieques (Photo courtesy Vieques, PR, a U.S. War Zone)
Ismael Guadalupe, a member of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques said, "We have no petrochemical plants or pharmaceuticals or any other such industry; the only culprit of the high incidence of cancer is the U.S. military. At the Atlantic Fleet weapons Training Area, the U.S. Navy tests bombs. This area is the most devastated; if you walk through there, you'll see bombs, craters, shrapnel and destruction everywhere. The area smells of chemicals."
Unemployment is high among the nearly 10,000 residents of Vieques. In addition, there is resentment because the Navy frequently rents out its bombing facility to the armed forces of other NATO countries to the tune of over 80 million dollars a year.
Although Clinton promised 40 million dollars in aid to residents of Vieques, there has been no word on whether that part of the agreement will still be honored.
There is suspicion because the Navy has gone back on its word before. Publicly, Navy spokesmen said the beaches were being cleaned up after each exercise. But once the range was occupied by protesters, they discovered that bombs littered not only the bombing range, but the ocean floor surrounding most of the eastern side of Vieques - bombs that have laid there for years.
Leaking barrels with unknown chemicals inside sunken ships in Vieques' waters. (Photo courtesy University of Georgia)
The protesters say they have evidence that ordnance with depleted uranium casings have been used several times. Ships filled with barrels of unknown substances were sunk after being used for target practice without being cleaned up.
James Porter, a professor of ecology and marine sciences at the University of Georgia, was the coral reef expert who, with two other divers, discovered that live bombs and two sunken ships lay in the waters off Vieques. Existence of the bombs and possible toxic waste in dozens of corroding drums still on the two vessels was made public in December 1999.
The waste barrels are clearly leaking material into the water, Porter said. The team's best estimate is that there are perhaps 900 to 1,000 barrels at this site, which is also littered with unexploded ordnance.
"The Puerto Ricans said they were told the holes in the reefs came from hurricanes and that there were no bombs in the waters off the islands," said Porter. "We examined the area carefully and found that the holes were not from hurricanes, and there were a large number of live bombs in the waters as much as 400 yards offshore hundreds of live artillery shells and bombs."
The opposition wants the Navy to clean up some of the mess. The Navy says cleanup would be too expensive. But a French entrepreneur who now resides in Puerto Rico claims he can make money from detonating and reselling parts of used munitions. Several investors have already expressed interest in this project.
In the meantime, the bombings are scheduled to continue with inert, not live ordnance. But exercises with inert bombs still make noise affecting the quality of the residents' lives. People who oppose any kind of bombing say inert bombs also release gunpowder and other toxic chemicals in an area that tests have already shown is already full of heavy metals such as arsenic and cyanide.
The exercises will take an inevitable toll on the wildlife that has already reclaimed the area, critics point out.
The protesters have threatened to return to the restricted beaches. Meanwhile, Vieques may be quieter, but it is still not at peace.
----
Vieques Bombing Protesters Removed
May 4, 2000 (ENS)
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/may2000/2000L-05-04-01.html
VIEQUES, Puerto Rico, U.S. federal agents arrived in helicopters at dawn to remove demonstrators camped out in protest of a U.S. Navy bombing range off the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. For the past year, the presence of the protesters has prevented use of the range.
An MK-82 inert practice bomb sits on Monte David, the most heavily bombed area of Vieques, named for David Sanes Rodriguez who was killed by a mis-fired bomb last August. (Photo courtesy Vieques Libre)
Demonstrators say the island and nearby sea floor are littered with live ordnance. They blame the bombing practice for 50 civilian deaths and injuries since 1941. Vieques protesters say the bombing is devastating marine life and preventing the peaceful development of their island.
Federal agents turned off the microwave equipment of local television stations and donned riot gear to remove fishermen, priests and nuns camped out in the U.S. target range and a key protest area next to the target range.
The protestors removed include grassroots community leaders, religious leaders, elected officials from Puerto Rico and the United States including two members of the U.S. Congress and members of the Puerto Rican Legislature; leaders of the Puerto Rican Independence party, students, union members, and well known artists.
New York City councilman Jose Rivera, New York state legislator Roberto Ramirez, and U.S. Representative Nydia Velazquez, a New York Democrat, were taken away from the protest encampments by federal agents.
Illinois Congressman Luis Gutierrez campaigning in his home state. (Photo courtesy Office of the Congressman)
U.S. Representative Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat, was also was detained at a makeshift chapel of religious groups inside the bombing range when the agents arrived.
While the arrests to the entrance of Camp Garcia were held peacefully, the arrests on the target range, an area only accessible by boat, were done more aggresively.
Protesters have said that if detained, they would be replaced by others who would cut through the fence and could go in to Camp Garcia on horseback.
Spirits were high and protestors were calm as they promised to be back to prevent the resumption of the bombings. "The struggle of David versus Goliath has reached a new stage and will surely continue and intensify until the final goal of a Navy-free Vieques is achieved," said a spokesperson for Vieques Libre.
FBI agents explained that people were not arrested but removed from federal property and would be freed after they were given warnings that they would be arrested and charged if they returned to the training ground.
Attorney General Janet Reno confirmed from Washington that agents had cleared eight of 12 protest sites and taken 140 demonstrators to detention sites on the island of Puerto Rico.
Vieques anti-bombing campaigner is interviewed by Washington, DC media. May 3, 2000 (Photo courtesy Vieques Libre)
Reno said, "Today's action was taken with the full support of the government of Puerto Rico and the assistance of the police of Puerto Rico, is the result of joint efforts of the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Customs Service."
Protesters set up protest camps on Vieques more than a year ago, when two 500 pound bombs were launched off target, killing security guard David Sanes Rodriguez, on April 19, 1999. Rodriguez was a civilian worker at an observation post. Since then, bombing has been suspended on the live target range.
The year long protest stems from widespread opposition in Puerto Rico to the U.S. military's use of Vieques, an island off the east coast of the U.S. Caribbean commonwealth, as a base for military exercises. The Navy owns two-thirds of the 52 square mile (135 square kilometer) island and has conducted live fire training there since 1941.
The Navy says there is no other area where the amphibious exercises can be conducted by its Atlantic fleet. The training is set to resume within two weeks.
A RIM-7, NATO Sea Sparrow missile is fired from the forward missile deck on board the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp (LHD 1) during a missile training exercise, August 12, 1999, near the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. (U.S. Navy photo by photographer's mate 3rd class Brett Dawson)
Under an agreement reached last January between President Clinton and Puerto Rico's Governor Pedro Rossello, the Navy can resume its training at Vieques Training Range as long as it only uses inert bombs. In turn, the residents of Puerto Rico will be able to decide through a referendum, whether all training must end in three years or whether it can continue indefinitely.
Protests of the Vieques removal are planned today for San Juan, Puerto Rico, Boston, New York City, Washington, DC, Orlando and Miami, Philadelphia, San Francisco, as well as Toronto, Canada; and Seoul, Korea.
----
U.S. Ready to Remove Vieques Protesters
New York Times
May 4, 2000
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS with JON NORDHEIMER
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/050400pr-vieques.html
WASHINGTON, May 3 -- Backed by three warships reported to be carrying hundreds of marines, the Justice Department is ready to sweep into the Puerto Rican island of Vieques and remove demonstrators who oppose American military training there. Senior administration officials said today that the action could come as early as dawn on Thursday.
As many as 500 federal marshals and F.B.I. agents are expected to take part in the move to dislodge the protesters, who have managed to halt the Navy's use of the eastern end of the 52-square-mile island for more than a year.
The officials cautioned that the exercise, which has been expected for several days, could be called off at the last minute.
The protesters began settling into the Camp Garcia Army Range last year after Navy bombers accidentally killed an island resident, David Sanes Rodriguez, a guard. The site has since become a rallying point for opponents of the vast American military presence in Puerto Rico, a commonwealth of the United States.
The protests have frustrated Pentagon officials who insist that the 60-year-old firing range provides an irreplaceable training site, allowing for simultaneous exercises involving planes, ships and amphibious craft. The scenic island, which has rich coral reefs, is littered with unexploded ordnance.
Under a Jan. 31 agreement between President Clinton and Puerto Rican officials, the Navy agreed to conduct bombing practice with dummy shells. The deal, which was to secure the Navy's use of the island until 2003, guaranteed $40 million in federal aid for the 9,400 islanders who live near the target range.
The Navy promised, moreover, to clean up hundreds of tons of munitions from the western third of the island and hand it back to Puerto Rican control later this year.
The first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, aligned herself with critics of the accord today, asserting that "a small, inhabited island should not be used for target practice." Mrs. Clinton, a candidate for the Senate in New York, a state with a large Puerto Rican population, said, "I urge the Pentagon to negotiate a peaceful resolution to this problem."
Representatives Nydia M. Velazquez, Democrat of Brooklyn, and Luis V. Gutierrez, Democrat of Illinois, went to Vieques to assess the situation and encourage the protesters.
Ms. Velazquez, who was born in Puerto Rico, warned that a use of federal force would not only upset many of Puerto Rico's four million residents, but also antagonize Puerto Ricans living on the mainland.
Attorney General Janet Reno is expected to direct the raid, marking her second use of federal force in a month in a volatile situation involving Hispanic groups. Less than two weeks ago, Ms. Reno oversaw the seizure of Elián González, the 6-year-old Cuban boy who had been living with relatives in Miami after his rescue at sea in November, in a display that many Cuban-Americans and their political allies denounced as excessive.
On Vieques, anxiety gripped islanders who for days have shared rumors of "impending invasion" by federal forces.
Dozens of protesters who have stationed themselves at the main entrance gate to the firing range seemed split between doubt over a brewing confrontation and a determination to complete their vigil.
Several voiced hopes that the situation would not erupt in violence.
Manuela Santiago, the mayor of Vieques, said she and others on the island feared that some protesters who have come here from the main island of Puerto Rico might provoke violence.
Also at the site today was Lolita Lebrón, who was convicted in the attack by Puerto Rican nationalists on Congress in 1954 and pardoned by Mr. President Clinton last fall.
"I have renounced violence," Ms. Lebrón said, "but I am still fighting for the freedom of the Puerto Rican people."
Ms. Lebrón, who is now 80, said, "I want to be arrested with the people of Vieques who want to stop the bombing and tell the American government they have abused this paradise for too many years. "I just hope the Americans don't keep an old lady like me waiting too long in this heat."
---
Navy Protest Intensifies
Officials Urge Clinton to Defuse Puerto Rican Showdown
Washington Post
Thursday, May 4, 2000; Page A03
By Sylvia Moreno Washington Post Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-05/04/206l-050400-idx.html
VIEQUES, Puerto Rico, May 3-A coalition of clergy, members of Congress and New York officials of Puerto Rican descent asked President Clinton yesterday to call off the threatened arrests of local residents who took over a naval bombing range after an errant missile killed a civilian last year, predicting civil unrest if a federal raid occurs.
They want the administration to negotiate a settlement with the dozens of protesters. "To arrest the people would be a terrible mistake, and we appeal to the president to stop this nonsense. We are peaceful demonstrators," said Bishop Alvaro Corrado del Rio of the Diocese of Caguas.
"Arrests are only going to open a wider spectrum of civil disobedience in Vieques and Puerto Rico," he said. "This is unjust and an abuse of the people of Vieques."
The National Council of Churches sent a letter to the Clinton administration urging it to back off from its threat of U.S. police action against the protesters and to immediately cease using the island for military target practice.
But a senior Pentagon official said today that "the decision-making process [on the raid] is complete but the plan allows a lot of flexibility in execution. The final call on when to go in will be made on the law enforcement side."
And government sources in Washington said the decision on when to move the protesters will be made by the FBI SWAT team commander on the scene in coordination with the bureau's Strategic Information Operations Command in Washington.
Federal sources have said the raid could happen late this week.
Supporters of the protesters also warned of the potential backlash a federal raid could have for first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is running for the Senate in New York, where people of Puerto Rican descent make up 6 percent of the electorate.
"A small, inhabited island should not be used for target practice," the first lady said in a statement. "I urge the Pentagon to negotiate a peaceful resolution to this situation." "This will have a lot of political implications," said Rep. Nydia M. Velazquez (D-N.Y.).
The president "needs to read my words. I don't need to threaten the president," she said. "But aren't we being hypocrites by exporting democracy to Bosnia and Croatia while we don't have democracy in Vieques?"
Once just a ragtag group of protesters little known outside this island town, the dissidents, and their cause, drew supporters from as far away as Chicago and New York to their turf--a dozen illegal seaside camps that are reachable only by boat. Last week, other Puerto Ricans consecrated the First Ecumenical Church of Puerto Rico. On the altar of the open-air wooden structure is a poster that reads, "No More Bombing Vieques" in English and Spanish.
"The people of Vieques have been extra patient and generous with the Navy for 60 years," said Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.), who joined the protesters Tuesday. "Their petition is for peace, and it's a nonnegotiable one."
Naval bombing and training exercises came to a halt here a year ago following the death of civilian security guard David Sanes Rodriguez. The incident sparked the smoldering discontent of local residents still resentful of the federal expropriation in 1941 of the eastern and western ends of the island to build a bombing range and an ammunition depot. The island's 9,300 residents live between the installations.
Within weeks of the accident, protest camps of multi-colored tents sprang up on the bombing range, forcing the Navy to cancel training maneuvers. In an attempt to appease protesters, Clinton and the administration of Gov. Pedro Rossello agreed to a deal in January that will give Vieques $40 million in exchange for allowing the Navy to conduct exercises with mock bombs that contain no explosives. In addition, the residents of Vieques will also vote on a referendum sometime between this August and February 2002 on whether the Navy may resume using live ammunition. If voters say yes, Vieques will receive an additional $50 million. If they defeat the proposal, the Navy must clean up its practice range--littered with rusting targets and live bombs--and stop all training by May 1, 2003.
That agreement only angered the protesters, who increased their numbers and the illegal beach encampments, leading to the federal ultimatum that they abandon the range.
Staff writers Roberto Suro and David A. Vise in Washington contributed to this report.
---
The Vieques Standoff
Washington Post
Thursday, May 4, 2000; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-05/04/151l-050400-idx.html
FOR DECADES, Puerto Ricans have been understandably unhappy with the U.S. Navy's use of Vieques Island--a 52-square-mile chip of territory just off the Puerto Rican coast--as a live-fire practice field for the Navy and Marine Corps. The military's use of the island has, historically, caused the relocation of many residents, disrupted the quiet of island life for those who remained and left the environment littered with ordnance, some spent, some unexploded. And for many Puerto Ricans, Vieques also symbolizes the awkward reality that their American citizenship is not entirely first class. This uneasiness turned to outrage last April when a civilian security guard was accidentally killed by bombs from a Marine Corps jet. Demonstrations broke out across Puerto Rico, and many of the island's religious, civic and political leaders demanded an end to the Navy's presence on Vieques.
Those demonstrations continue, in the form of an encampment by protesters on the Vieques range itself. The Navy wishes to resume training exercises--suspended after last year's tragedy--but the protesters say the federal government will have to oust them by force first. Troops and FBI agents stand poised to do just that. And they should--with no more force than is absolutely necessary, but expeditiously.
Led by the island's not-very-popular pro-independence party, the protesters are standing in the way not only of the Navy but also of a compromise solution that has been worked out between Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro Rossello and President Clinton. The 9,500 residents of Vieques will be able to vote next year on two options: a ban on all Navy exercises by May 1, 2003, or a resumption of Navy live-fire exercises in exchange for $50 million in extra federal aid. In the meantime, the U.S. military may train, but only with dummy munitions. The deal required concessions on all sides--the Pentagon continues to insist that Vieques provides an irreplaceable training environment--but that's the nature of negotiations. The people of Vieques can't end the bombing immediately. But they can have that result, if they want it, within three short years.
The protesters insist "peace for Vieques" must come now but say they'll go quietly if the federal government moves to arrest them. But they also plainly relish a confrontation that would lead to more unrest in Puerto Rico and create an election-year furor for Puerto Rican voters on the mainland. Hence New York Senate candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton's freshly declared opposition to federal action; hence the presence on Vieques of Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), who arrived not to urge common sense but to join the protest. In the face of such pressures, the Clinton administration has no choice but to assert legitimate federal authority on Vieques, thus paving the way for the lawful, democratic solution that Puerto Rico's elected leaders have wisely--indeed, courageously--accepted.
---
Protesters Arrested on Vieques Bombing Range
New York Times
May 4, 2000
By EDWARD WONG
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/late/04cnd-vieques-protest.html
In a dawn raid that lasted less than an hour, federal agents removed about 140 protesters today from the United States naval base on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, where demonstrators had been camped out for more than a year in an effort to block use of the area as a military training site.
More than 300 agents , mostly from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Marshals Service and wearing helmets and bulletproof vests, swept in and arrested about 60 protesters beside the main gate and fanned out to seize those scattered around a dozen camps.
Two members of Congress who are of Puerto Rican descent -- Representative Nydia Velázquez, a Democrat from New York, and Representative Luis Gutierrez, a Democrat from Illinois -- were among those rounded up.
Helicoptors buzzed above the area as three warships carrying hundreds of marines waited off-shore in case there were any outbreaks of violence, which apparently did not occur, federal officials said. One man chained himself to a tank but was eventually removed by agents.
"I am pleased that so far the operation has gone very, very smoothly," Attorney General Janet Reno said at a news conference this morning. "Upon arriving on the island, federal agents advised trespassers that they must leave the naval installation. Those individuals who were detained are being transported to a detention center on the island."
Ms. Reno said the protesters had violated a federal statute that makes it illegal to trespass on military property. But the protesters would not be charged with anything unless they tried to re-enter the property or attacked federal officers, she said.
"We're trying to make sure that people understand that we intend to enforce the laws, but that we want to do so in a fair and measured way," Ms. Reno said.
By 3 p.m., federal agents were still searching the base for stragglers, but had secured a dozen camps scattered around the area, Justice Department officials said. The United States Coast Guard had formed a blockade around waters and land adjacent to the bombing range. Vessels were warned to stay away until May 13.
There was immediate outrage in some quarters over the government action. Protesters began settling last year in the Camp Garcia Army Range, which has been used as an artillery testing site for the last 60 years, after two 500-pound bombs from Navy airplanes overshot their targets and killed a civilian security guard, David Sanes Rodriguez, in April of 1999. The scenic island, which is rich with coral reefs, has become a rallying point for critics of the long-standing United States military presence in Puerto Rico.
"I think it's going to be very difficult for the U.S. government to justify this," Roberto Ramirez, a New York Democratic Assemblyman from the Bronx, said through a crackling cell telephone from a boat that was leaving Vieques. "It was not the most polite effort that could be undertaken."
Mr. Ramirez said he was singing and praying with a group of about a dozen protesters -- including two other New York politicians -- outside the main gate of Camp Garcia when United States marshals rounded them up and handcuffed them. He said they were then loaded onto a military truck and driven to a detention center, where some people were forced to stand outside as it rained. At about 1 p.m., he said, they were loaded onto the truck again and taken to a harbor. There, about 60 people were put on a boat to be transferred to the Roosevelt Roads naval base on the main island, where most protesters were being taken.
Jose Rivera, a New York City Councilman, was also detained by United States marshals. A Justice Department official said at 3 p.m. that he was being processed.
A spokeswoman for Nydia Velázquez said this afternoon that the congresswoman had been processed and released.
The sweep this morning was the second high-profile action ordered by Ms. Reno in the last two weeks. She also oversaw the April 22 seizure of Elián González, the 6-year-old Cuban shipwreck survivor, from the home of his relatives in Miami.
Pentagon officials, frustrated with the year-long protest, pushed for the Vieques raid, saying that the range was an irreplaceable training site. They argued that the area allowed for simultaneous exercises involving airplanes, ships and amphibious craft. Federal officials in turn agreed that law enforcement agents rather than military troops should remove the protesters because they had more experience in such actions, Ms. Reno said.
President Clinton and Puerto Rican officials reached an agreement on Jan. 31 that limited the Navy to using dummy shells during bombing practice. The Navy would have use of the island until 2003. In return, the federal government would give $40 million in aid to the 9,400 islanders who live near the range. In addition, a referendum would be held in which residents could determine whether they wanted the Navy to leave.
The Navy also promised to clean up hundreds of tons of munitions from the western third of the island and hand that area back to the Puerto Rico government later this year.
"The president is pleased that the operation moved forward in a peaceful fashion and that the directive can now be implemented to allow for the necessary military training and allow the people of Vieques to determine their own future," Joe Lockhart, the White House spokesman, said at a news conference this morning.
But on Wednesday, Hillary Rodham Clinton, a candidate for the United States Senate seat in New York, broke with the White House by criticizing the agreement, saying that "a small, inhabited island should not be used for target practice."
"I urge the Pentagon to negotiate a peaceful resolution to this problem," said Ms. Clinton. Mrs. Clinton and others asked the government to hold an immediate referendum in which the people of Vieques would decide whether they wanted the military exercises to continue.
---
Reno says eviction at Vieques is peaceful
USA Today
05/04/00- Updated 04:21 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/ndsthu01.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - More than 160 protesters peacefully removed from a U.S. Navy bombing range on Vieques Thursday will escape all charges so long as they don't return and haven't assaulted federal officers, Attorney General Janet Reno said.
Reno spoke as the early morning operation, begun at 5:05 a.m. EDT, on the Puerto Rican island neared its end.
A federal law enforcement official said later that some 100 deputy U.S. marshals had cleared about 30 demonstrators away from the front gate of Camp Garcia, and another 45 left there voluntarily.
Inside the camp's bombing range, about 200 FBI agents removed 139 protesters, including Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., from 12 camp sites that had been occupied for up to a year, according to this official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
One protester, who had chained himself inside a tank, remained in the area at midday.
The protesters were being taken by barge to the Roosevelt Roads naval station on Puerto Rico's main island. Their names were to be taken down prior to their release, so that they would be subject to arrest on trespassing charges if they returned to the base.
The Coast Guard, which established a three-mile-wide security zone in the waters around the base on Vieques, intercepted nine boats there this morning and turned them back, this official said.
President Clinton was advised during the night by his chief of staff, John Podesta, that the operation had begun and was briefed on its progress this morning, White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said.
''The president is pleased that the operation moved forward in a peaceful fashion,'' Lockhart said.
He added that Clinton believes all parties now should move forward on their agreement to hold a referendum as early as next year on the range's future while letting the Navy use the base in the meantime.
Clinton, on a visit to tout charter schools, walked past a handful of protesters outside a Minneapolis restaurant. The protesters chanted for the U.S. Navy to leave Vieques.
Reno said that as long as protesters don't commit violence against federal officers or try to re-enter the base, they won't be charged.
''We're trying to make sure that people understand that we intend to enforce the laws but that we want to do so in a fair and measured way,'' she told reporters in her weekly news conference.
More than 200 FBI agents and 100 deputy marshals participated in the operation, said federal law enforcement officials.
''I am pleased that so far the operation has gone very, very smoothly,'' Reno said. ''All indications are that the protesters have handled themselves in a peaceful and dignified manner.''
Although the protesters were moving without a fight, Reno said they wanted to be taken into custody to underscore their opposition to the bombing range.
She said no special court order was needed to evict the protesters because they were in violation of federal laws against trespassing on U.S. military property.
''The military had the authority to act, but in this instance it was felt that law enforcement had more experience in a situation like this,'' Reno said.
A raid to clear the base had been expected since three U.S. warships carrying Marines arrived in the Vieques area Monday. Reno said the Navy and Marines had ultimate responsibility for securing the range.
Earlier Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard said it was blockading waters and land adjacent to the bombing range and warned people to stay away.
Reno spoke about four hours after the operation began. She emphasized that the action was taken ''with the full support of the government of Puerto Rico and the assistance of the police of Puerto Rico.''
''I think it was pretty straightforward,'' she said of the operation.
And she shrugged off any comparisons between that operation and the armed raid that took Elian Gonzalez from the home of his Miami relatives and returned him to his Cuban father two weeks ago.
Asked whether the lessons of that raid had influenced agents in the Vieques operation, notable for its careful on-scene negotiations with protesters, Reno simply said, ''No.''
---
Today, Thursday, May 4, 2000, at 5:30 A.M. federal authorities began to arrest the people conducting Civil Disobedience in Vieques. For more details, please access news media.
This is the moment to put forward the planned activities. Today and tomorrow protests will take place in U.S. and Puerto Rico, please access (http://www.micronetix.net/virus/emergency.htm) for scheduled protests.
For more information: wwww.ViequesLibre.org
The time to act is NOW
QUE VIVA PUERTO RICO y VIEQUES LIBRE. NOT ONE MORE BOMB !!!
Contact: Anthony Cruz - vieques2000@hotmail.com
Condemn the U.S. invasion of Vieques by attendingthese protests events that will be held in the following areas. (See http://www.micronetix.net/virus/emergency.htm for times and places.)
So far protests May 4th and 5th have been scheduled for:
Boston, Massachusetts Burlington, Vermont Cornell University Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH Hartford, Connecticut Miami, Florida Minnesota, Minneapolis Montpelier, Vermont New Orleans, Louisiana New York City Orlando, Florida Philadelphia, Pennsylvania San Francisco, California San Juan, Puerto Rico Seoul, South Korea Springfield, Massachusetts Toronto, Canada Tucson, Arizona Vieques, Puerto Rico Washington, D.C. --
On May 5 there will be a mobilization in Lafayette Park, in front of the White House at at noon. Please, contact the media and call your people. DC Contact: David Santiago 202-223-3915 ext. 308
---
Vieques Island protesters removed
Masked federal agents peacefully end protesters' occupation of U.S. Navy's disputed bombing range in Puerto Rico
ASSOCIATED PRESS,
THE BALTIMORE SUN
May 4, 2000
http://www.sunspot.net/content/cover/story?section=cover&pagename=story&storyid=1150340203553
VIEQUES, Puerto Rico -- Masked federal agents peacefully removed protesters, including two U.S. lawmakers, from the gates of a U.S. Navy bombing range on Vieques Island they had blocked for more than a year.
Protesters at the main entrance to the range and at other sites within were taken away within 40 minutes, but agents in helicopters were continuing to move on about a dozen other camps, including that of Puerto Rico's Independence Party leader Ruben Berrios.
It was unclear how the operation was going on the bomb-strewn range, where some protesters have threatened to scatter into the bush around unexploded ordnance they have marked out -- posing a threat to themselves and any pursuers.
At the gates to the Navy's Camp Garcia, those detained were taken to a guardhouse where some held up their hands to show they had been handcuffed.
''Puerto Rico has been invaded again,'' New York City councilman Jose Rivera said as he was led away by a U.S. marshal. ''I can promise you tomorrow there will be civil disobedience all over the United States.''
He was taken away along with New York state legislator Roberto Ramirez and U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., who said: ''We are here to express our solidarity, and that solidarity has no limits.''
U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., also was detained at a makeshift chapel of religious groups inside the bombing range when the agents arrived. With Gutierrez were at least two bishops and a dozen nuns.
''They are trying to be extremely kind and generous and courteous but I think they understand that they are wrong because they have lost any moral authority,'' Gutierrez said.
Protesters have said that if detained, they would be replaced by others who would cut through the fence and could go in on horseback.
Opponents charge the exercises have damaged their health, coral reefs, fishing grounds and endangered species and have stunted development on the island, where the Navy employs only 100 local people and unemployment is 18 percent, compared to the island average of 12 percent.
A raid to clear the base has been expected since Monday, when three U.S. warships, reportedly carrying 1,000 Marines, arrived in the Vieques area, looming ominously offshore before retreating a little farther to sea. The Marines reportedly would secure the range's perimeter once protesters are removed.
Earlier today, the U.S. Coast Guard announced it was taking ''immediate action'' and blockading waters and land adjacent to the bombing range -- on the eastern end of the island. A Coast Guard statement warned vessels and people to stay away from the waters until midnight May 13.
Today's raid came despite calls for President Clinton -- including from his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the World Council of Churches -- to avoid a confrontation and instead hold an immediate referendum for the people of Vieques to decide whether they wanted the Navy to continue its exercises.
On Wednesday, Gutierrez said he believed there was ''a struggle going on (in Washington) between those who are responding positively to the wishes and claims for justice of the people of Vieques and another group that just wishes to arrest everybody and is with the military,'' he said.
Protesters invaded the range after two 500-pound bombs were launched off-target, killing civilian security guard David Sanes Rodriguez, 35, on April 19, 1999.
The Navy said Sanes was the first fatality in 60 years of exercises on Vieques.
It says the Vieques range is vital to national security and is the only place its Atlantic fleet can conduct simultaneous air, sea and amphibious training using live munitions. It has been blocked since stray bombs killed Sanes, unleashing pent up frustrations throughout Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory of 4 million Spanish speakers.
Today, federal agents arrived in vans with no lights, and were backed by glum-looking Puerto Rican anti-riot police in bulletproof vests, carrying sidearms and batons. The Puerto Rican police have said they would be in charge only of crowd control -- not arrests.
''You must leave the property immediately .. If you do not leave promptly, we will have to remove you,'' a U.S. Marshal said over a megaphone at 5:15 a.m.
Within minutes, four helicopters, one with red lights blinking, swept toward the range and the protest camps.
---
Protesters Arrested on Vieques Bombing Range
New York Times
May 4, 2000
By EDWARD WONG
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/late/04cnd-vieques-protest.html
In a dawn raid that lasted less than an hour, federal agents removed about 140 protesters today from the United States naval base on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, where demonstrators had been camped out for more than a year in an effort to block use of the area as a military training site.
More than 300 agents , mostly from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Marshals Service and wearing helmets and bulletproof vests, swept in and arrested about 60 protesters beside the main gate and fanned out to seize those scattered around a dozen camps.
Two members of Congress who are of Puerto Rican descent -- Representative Nydia Velázquez, a Democrat from New York, and Representative Luis Gutierrez, a Democrat from Illinois -- were among those rounded up.
Helicoptors buzzed above the area as three warships carrying hundreds of marines waited off-shore in case there were any outbreaks of violence, which apparently did not occur, federal officials said. One man chained himself to a tank but was eventually removed by agents.
"I am pleased that so far the operation has gone very, very smoothly," Attorney General Janet Reno said at a news conference this morning. "Upon arriving on the island, federal agents advised trespassers that they must leave the naval installation. Those individuals who were detained are being transported to a detention center on the island."
Ms. Reno said the protesters had violated a federal statute that makes it illegal to trespass on military property. But the protesters would not be charged with anything unless they tried to re-enter the property or attacked federal officers, she said.
"We're trying to make sure that people understand that we intend to enforce the laws, but that we want to do so in a fair and measured way," Ms. Reno said.
By 3 p.m., federal agents were still searching the base for stragglers, but had secured a dozen camps scattered around the area, Justice Department officials said. The United States Coast Guard had formed a blockade around waters and land adjacent to the bombing range. Vessels were warned to stay away until May 13.
There was immediate outrage in some quarters over the government action. Protesters began settling last year in the Camp Garcia Army Range, which has been used as an artillery testing site for the last 60 years, after two 500-pound bombs from Navy airplanes overshot their targets and killed a civilian security guard, David Sanes Rodriguez, in April of 1999. The scenic island, which is rich with coral reefs, has become a rallying point for critics of the long-standing United States military presence in Puerto Rico.
"I think it's going to be very difficult for the U.S. government to justify this," Roberto Ramirez, a New York Democratic Assemblyman from the Bronx, said through a crackling cell telephone from a boat that was leaving Vieques. "It was not the most polite effort that could be undertaken."
Mr. Ramirez said he was singing and praying with a group of about a dozen protesters -- including two other New York politicians -- outside the main gate of Camp Garcia when United States marshals rounded them up and handcuffed them. He said they were then loaded onto a military truck and driven to a detention center, where some people were forced to stand outside as it rained. At about 1 p.m., he said, they were loaded onto the truck again and taken to a harbor. There, about 60 people were put on a boat to be transferred to the Roosevelt Roads naval base on the main island, where most protesters were being taken.
Jose Rivera, a New York City Councilman, was also detained by United States marshals. A Justice Department official said at 3 p.m. that he was being processed.
A spokeswoman for Nydia Velázquez said this afternoon that the congresswoman had been processed and released.
The sweep this morning was the second high-profile action ordered by Ms. Reno in the last two weeks. She also oversaw the April 22 seizure of Elián González, the 6-year-old Cuban shipwreck survivor, from the home of his relatives in Miami.
Pentagon officials, frustrated with the year-long protest, pushed for the Vieques raid, saying that the range was an irreplaceable training site. They argued that the area allowed for simultaneous exercises involving airplanes, ships and amphibious craft. Federal officials in turn agreed that law enforcement agents rather than military troops should remove the protesters because they had more experience in such actions, Ms. Reno said.
President Clinton and Puerto Rican officials reached an agreement on Jan. 31 that limited the Navy to using dummy shells during bombing practice. The Navy would have use of the island until 2003. In return, the federal government would give $40 million in aid to the 9,400 islanders who live near the range. In addition, a referendum would be held in which residents could determine whether they wanted the Navy to leave.
The Navy also promised to clean up hundreds of tons of munitions from the western third of the island and hand that area back to the Puerto Rico government later this year.
"The president is pleased that the operation moved forward in a peaceful fashion and that the directive can now be implemented to allow for the necessary military training and allow the people of Vieques to determine their own future," Joe Lockhart, the White House spokesman, said at a news conference this morning.
But on Wednesday, Hillary Rodham Clinton, a candidate for the United States Senate seat in New York, broke with the White House by criticizing the agreement, saying that "a small, inhabited island should not be used for target practice."
"I urge the Pentagon to negotiate a peaceful resolution to this problem," said Ms. Clinton. Mrs. Clinton and others asked the government to hold an immediate referendum in which the people of Vieques would decide whether they wanted the military exercises to continue.
---
Federal raid on Vieques could deliver another hit to Gore's Hispanic support
Washington Times
May 4, 2000
By Andrew Cain THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/national/default-200054231344.htm
Vice President Al Gore faces the prospect of another federal raid that could anger the Clinton administration's Hispanic supporters.
Federal agents are poised to evict Puerto Rican protesters from a Navy firing range on the island of Vieques, less than two weeks after armed agents angered Cuban-Americans by seizing 6-year-old shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez from his relatives' home in Miami.
"Puerto Ricans are united on this. It will be an issue in November," Rep. Jose E. Serrano, New York Democrat, said yesterday.
"This is going to be worse than Miami for the Clinton administration," Jose Aponte, a prominent Democrat in Puerto Rico, said on Tuesday.
Mr. Gore, who broke with President Clinton on the Elian Gonzalez case, hoping to keep Florida's 25 electoral votes in play, will not say whether he supports a federal raid to evict the protesters in Vieques.
"It would be inappropriate for us to comment on a potential law-enforcement operation," said Matt Gobush, a foreign-policy spokesman for Mr. Gore's office.
But Puerto Rican politicians from New York and Illinois, home to large concentrations of Puerto Ricans, are urging the Clinton administration not to evict the protesters. Reps. Nydia M. Velazquez, New York Democrat, and Luis V. Gutierrez, Illinois Democrat, joined the protesters yesterday in Vieques.
"The whole idea of getting the people out and then having the referendum [on whether the Navy should remain in Vieques] doesn't make sense," Mr. Serrano said in a telephone interview.
"We're asking the president to call them off, to hold the referendum and see what the people think."
First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton - who is seeking a U.S. Senate seat in New York, home to 1.4 million Puerto Ricans -spoke to Mr. Serrano Tuesday and issued a statement in which she reiterated her opposition to federal maneuvers at Vieques.
Mrs. Clinton said in a statement that "a small inhabited island should not be used as target practice."
Mr. Gore said during a campaign stop in Atlanta that the Navy should leave Vieques, but he would not comment on the protesters.
Some Puerto Ricans may wish for a more specific response on the demonstrators, but "the big issue is, do you support the Navy leaving Puerto Rico?" Mr. Serrano said.
Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore have enjoyed strong support among Hispanic voters. The Democrats won among Hispanic voters 72 percent to 21 percent in the 1996 presidential election.
Mr. Gore led Texas Gov. George W. Bush among Hispanics by 41 percent in California's March 17 open primary.
But Mr. Bush, who is courting Hispanic voters this week in California, won nearly half the Hispanic votes in his 1998 re-election bid in Texas.
Presidential spokesman Joe Lockhart on Tuesday cut off a questioner who asked whether the White House has any second thoughts about the use of force following the raid in the Little Havana section of Miami.
"I'm not going to speculate on what may or may not happen," Mr. Lockhart said.
Protest leaders in Vieques warn that the operation could trigger demonstrations on the main island of Puerto Rico, where most of the political leadership and public sentiment are firmly in support of the Vieques protesters.
"Any action to remove us will be the beginning, not the end of the protests," said Ruben Berrios, head of the Puerto Rican Independence Party, who has camped illegally on the bombing range for the past year.
"If they arrest us, they can expect a million people to protest because this issue has united Puerto Ricans of all political persuasions as never before."
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
-------- russia
HOUSE COMMITTEE ADOPTS GEJDENSON BILL TO PREVENT NUCLEAR ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER IN EUROPE
Thu, 4 May 2000
Sam Gejdenson Committee on International Relations Ranking Democratic Member U.S. House of Representatives B-360 Rayburn Building Washington, D.C. 20515 (202) 225-6735
HOUSE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS COMMITTEE ADOPTS GEJDENSON BILL TO PREVENT NUCLEAR ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER IN EUROPE
Mandates Study, Earmarks Funds, Calls on Russian President Putin to Tackle Thorny Post-Cold War Problem of Rotting Soviet Era Nuclear Submarines Described as "Chernobyl in Slow Motion"
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Barbara Feinstein / Jason Gross, 225-6735
Washington, DC. -- May 3, 2000. Citing environmental and security threats posed by rotting nuclear submarines in Russia's Northern Fleet, U.S. Rep. Sam Gejdenson (D-CT), Senior Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, steered legislation with bipartisan support through the committee today. HR 4249, the Cross Border Cooperation and Environmental Safety in Northern Europe Act of 2000, was adopted by voice vote in Committee today and will now go the floor for a vote by the whole House.
Rep. Doug Bereuter (R-Neb), a senior Republican Member of the House International Relations Committee, signed on as a co-sponsor at the mark-up, adding: "This may be one of the most important pieces of legislation we mark up in Committee this year."
H.R. 4249, the Cross Border Cooperation and Environmental Safety in Northern Europe Act of 2000 calls on Russian President Putin to rapidly conclude pending nuclear waste management agreements to enable assistance programs from European sources to go forward. The bill also mandates a study from the Secretary of State to assess the environmental threat of decaying submarines to American allies in Europe and proliferation threats to the national security of the United States.
"A lot of people thought this problem would just disappear with the end of the Cold War, but the threat is real and it persists." said Gejdenson, whose Congressional District includes nuclear submarine makers Electric Boat and U.S. Naval Base New London. Gejdenson's parents were born in Lithuania and Belarus, countries in the Northern Europe region threatened by a submarine mishap.
Funding under the Combined Threat Reduction plan, known more commonly as Nunn-Lugar, has dismantled 12 ballistic missile submarines - deemed to be the highest threat to U.S. National Security. Combined international and Russian efforts have dismantled other submarines, but over 150 retired submarines remain exposed to theft and sabotage.
"This bill gives us the opportunity to proactively prevent a serious environmental crisis," said Gejdenson. "Twenty-one thousand spent fuel assemblies from Russian submarines are lying exposed near Andreeyeva Bay and nearly sixty decrepit nuclear submarines are languishing in Northwest Russia," he added.
At the Committee markup, Gejdenson presented chilling examples of recent incidents which could have resulted in tragedy. One such case occurred less than five months ago in January at a base near Vilyuchinsk, Russia. Two sailors bribed a guard and boarded a decommissioned attack submarine, then broke into the reactor compartment and began removing cables and metal.
According to press reports, while stealing these parts, the sailors could easily have caused a meltdown in the still-operating reactor of the submarine, if its control rods had not been bolted down by an engineer two days earlier so the thieves were unable to raise them.
Gejdenson's legislation won the endorsement of leading proliferation and environmental watchdog groups.
One of the leading U.S. experts on the Russian Submarine issue, Dr. James Clay Moltz, Director of the NIS Nonproliferation Project at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, said in support of the current bill: "The presence of large numbers of decommissioned but not defueled attack submarines in the Russian Northern Fleet poses serious environmental, proliferation-related, and security threats. These vessels are vulnerable to nuclear accidents from the on-going theft of materials and control systems by impoverished sailors, the sinking of corroded vessels, and periodic electrical outages at Russian naval facilities. Given that many of these submarines were designed to carry nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and torpedoes, it is in U.S. interests to dismantle them as soon as possible."
Thomas Jandl, Director of Bellona USA, an international environmental/proliferation group that has a leading force on this issue concurred, saying: "One in five members of the world's nuclear reactors is located in Northwest Russia on the Kola Peninsula. Aging reactors, often stored in rusting submarines that are no longer airtight, pose a serous threat to the Arctic Ocean and the world's fishing grounds. Equally important for the geographically distant United States, the looming threat - described as 'Chernobyl in slow motion' - prevents the economic growth needed to help Russia and the region develop free markets and full democracy."
Gejdenson's bill also directs the U.S. Government to spend $4 million of already budgeted money in Northern Europe on environmental cleanup and civil society projects under the framework of the Northern European Initiative -- a U.S. approach to promote stability in the Baltic Sea region.
However his legislation states clearly that it is Europeans who must continue to take the lead. "It is not necessary for the U.S. to spend large sums of money on these projects, but it is in our national interest to provide leadership and expertise on submarine dismantlement efforts," said Gejdenson. "This is a case where our unparalleled experience in this field makes us the indispensable nation."
----
Russian President Ratifies START II
Associated Press
May 4, 2000 Filed at 11:13 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-START-II.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- President Vladimir Putin signed the START II treaty on Thursday, affirming the Russian parliament's approval of the plan to cut U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, the presidential press service said.
The treaty obligates Russia and the United States to slash nuclear stockpiles to 3,000-3,500 nuclear warheads each. It was approved last month by both chambers of parliament, ending seven years of deadlock.
Putin, who won election in March, has made nuclear arms reduction a key part of his agenda. Boris Yeltsin, the previous president, failed to get the agreement approved by the parliament because of strong opposition from Communists and nationalists.
Putin, however, has warned the United States that he will abandon all arms control agreements if Washington presses ahead with plans for a limited nuclear defense system. Putin claims the U.S. move would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and lead to another major nuclear arms race.
New amendments to START II still must be approved by the U.S Senate before the treaty takes effect. But Russia's approval sets the stage for talks on further arms cuts.
---
Russian president signs START II treaty
USA Today
05/04/00
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#lock
MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin signed the START II treaty on Thursday, affirming the Russian parliament's approval of the plan to cut U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, the presidential press service said. The treaty obligates Russia and the United States to slash nuclear stockpiles to 3,000-3,500 nuclear warheads each. It was approved last month by both chambers of parliament, ending seven years of deadlock. Putin, who won election in March, has made nuclear arms reduction a key part of his agenda. Putin, however, has warned the United States that he will abandon all arms control agreements if Washington presses ahead with plans for a limited nuclear defense system. Putin claims the U.S. move would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and lead to another major nuclear arms race.
-------- spying
Iranian Courts Hear 'Confessions' in Shooting and Spy Cases
New York Times
May 4, 2000
By SUSAN SACHS
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/050400iran-rdp.html
TEHRAN, Iran, May 3 -- In a packed courtroom covered with flowery oriental carpets, two smiling young men told a judge today that they had decided to shoot one of the country's leading reformers because they believed that he was corrupt and an enemy of Islam.
The trial, in which eight men are charged in the attempted assassination of the reformer, Saeed Hajjarian, an editor and political strategist close to President Mohammad Khatami, has mesmerized this city.
Mr. Hajjarian's plight is the most vivid illustration of the setbacks suffered by Iran's reformers. The bearded young men who say they attacked him out of religious zeal are seen as an ominous reminder of the violence that lurks under the surface of Iran's political turmoil.
At the same time, in a courtroom in the southern city of Shiraz, 2 of the 13 Jewish men charged with spying for Israel confessed today to charges of espionage, according to their lawyers.
The admissions do not prove the government's case, the lawyers said, because no evidence has been presented to show that the men disclosed classified information. In all, three of the accused men -- all of those brought to trial so far in two days of closed hearings -- have now said they spied for Israel.
They and most of their co-defendants have been in prison for 15 months but were able to consult with lawyers only three weeks ago.
Both trials are being heard in Revolutionary Courts, the branch of Iran's legal system that deals with political and moral crimes, drug trafficking and crimes involving national security. In those courts, the judge investigates, brings charges, prosecutes and renders a verdict.
The Hajjarian trial is being held in open court attended by several hundred people, with a large yellow banner reading "The Judiciary Is the Axis of the Islamic System" stretched across one corner. The spy case is taking place with only the defendants and their lawyers present, despite the protests of family members and human rights groups.
But both proceedings have focused unusual attention, in Iran and outside, on the quality of justice that victims and defendants receive.
Mr. Hajjarian was shot once in the face on March 12 by a man who fled on the type of high-powered motorcycle reserved for members of Iran's security forces.
Last year, security officials said that "rogue elements" within their ranks had assassinated democracy advocates. No one has yet gone on trial for those killings. One security official who was arrested died in prison while awaiting trial. The authorities said he had committed suicide.
The two defendants who have testified so far in the Hajjarian case maintained that they were not part of any official group and knew each other only through a neighborhood vigilante squad that had assigned itself the job of attacking those they believed to be un-Islamic.
They said they had been encouraged to shoot Mr. Hajjarian by an associate who had convinced them that the reformer was an enemy of religion. Mr. Hajjarian was released from the hospital late Tuesday, in a wheelchair and with a bullet still in his neck.
The shooting raised alarms in Iran about the effect of recent statements of several leading conservative clerics and members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is controlled by the clergy. In speeches and communiqués, the hard-liners have justified violence against anyone who opposes the Islamic system of government, and they have labeled many reformers as anti-Islam.
In the present charged atmosphere -- in which reformers, whose candidates won a sweeping victory in first-round voting for Parliament in February, have been arrested and jailed for insulting Islam -- such talk is dangerous, reform leaders say.
In a statement quoted today by the official Iranian press agency, Mohammad Reza Khatami, the president's brother and leader of the reform coalition that swept the polls, said those advocating violence in the name of religion harm Islam.
"Advocates of violence under the current situation present a tarnished image of Islam," he said, adding that "Islam, with such friends, needs no other foes."
Support for that view was not on display when two of the eight men charged in the Hajjarian shooting took the stand today.
Saeed Asgar, 20, the confessed gunman, said in the first session of the trial last week that he believed he was performing his "religious duties" by shooting Mr. Hajjarian.
In the second session today, he said he had not even known what Mr. Hajjarian looked like and had needed a signal from one of his friends to point him out on a crowded street outside the Tehran city hall. On that signal, Mr. Asgar told the court, he walked up to his victim and fired once, then rode away on a waiting motorcycle driven by an accomplice.
Some distance away, he removed the extra pair of pants he was wearing -- so as not to be recognized by witnesses, he explained. He then went to the movies and paid his water bill at a local bank before heading home.
"We didn't really want to kill him," Mr. Asgar said. "The agreement between us was to beat him up." He added that he did not know why the plan had changed.
A second man, Mohsen Majidi, said he had provided the motorcycle and the gun for the shooting. He said a friend, who has not yet testified, had urged the attack on Mr. Hajjarian. "He came to my place and criticized him as a symbol of vice and said he was doing stuff against the Islamic system," Mr. Majidi told the court.
The casual attitude of the defendants appeared to puzzle even the Revolutionary Court judge, who ordered psychiatric evaluations of the eight defendants earlier this week. The examinations, a doctor told the court, found them all sane and responsible for their actions.
The attitude of the defendants in the espionage trial in Shiraz has also puzzled many observers, including their lawyers, say human rights activists and foreign diplomats monitoring the intensely watched trial.
On Monday, after the first closed hearing, Hamid Tefileen, a shoe store clerk who is accused of being the ringleader of a spy network, confessed to spying. He made the confession first in Revolutionary Court and then in an interview on the state television. He said he had visited Israel, where his mother and two of his siblings live, and in 1994 received training from Israel's secret service, an assertion that Israel has denied.
Mr. Tefileen was taken from the courtroom to meet with reporters today and again proclaimed his guilt, saying he had been motivated by money and a misplaced enthusiasm for the Promised Land. Two other men, Ramin Nematizadeh and Shahrokh Paknahad, joined him in admitting to espionage.
But the lead defense lawyer in the case expressed skepticism at the confessions, which he said were not admissible under Iranian law because they had come from suspects who had spent a year or more in prison. "The accused may have been sick and tired of his condition and may be willing to say anything to get his ordeal over with one way or another," said the lawyer, Esmail Nosari.
Lawyers also rebutted the Revolutionary Court judge's charge that the Jews had committed espionage under the law, saying the defendants had no access to classified information.
---
World Scene
2 more Iranian Jews confess to spying
Washington Times
May 4, 2000
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-2000542255.htm
SHIRAZ, Iran - Two more Iranian Jews said yesterday they spied for Israel, bringing to three the number of defendants who have confessed to espionage in a trial that has attracted international concern. Defense lawyers for the 13 Jews on trial on spying charges questioned the validity of the confessions and criticized the court, in which the judge acts as prosecutor and judge. The provincial judiciary chief, Hossein Ali Amiri, told reporters the three confessed to spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence service and "were driven by financial and religious motivations." If convicted, the defendants could be sentenced to death, the maximum penalty for passing secret information that damages national security.
-------- terrorism
Residents Testify About Explosion in Second Day of Lockerbie Trial
New York Times
May 4, 2000
By CHRISTOPHER S. WREN
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/late/04cnd-lockerbie-trial.html
Witnesses today described the carnage caused by the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over the Scottish village of Lockerbie in December 1988, killing 159 people in the jetliner and 11 on the ground.
The testimony came on the second day of the trial of two Libyans who are accused of having planted the bomb in a suitcase that was checked aboard the airliner.
The trial, which opened yesterday, was attended today by about 40 families of the bombing victims, some of whom quietly held hands while witnesses offered graphic accounts of the wreckage dropping on Lockerbie, the stench of aviation fuel, houses burning in the town and its tidy streets littered with broken glass, metal debris and body parts.
The trial is being held at Camp Zeist, a former military air base in the Netherlands. Part of the base has been declared Scottish territory for the duration of the trial, which is being conducted according to Scottish law before a panel of Scottish judges. It is expected to last about a year.
The defendants, Abdelbasit Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, were handed over in April 1999 by the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, under an compromise brokered by the United Nations that would try them under Scottish law in a neutral country and not in the United States or Britain, where many of victims lived.
The legal strategy behind today's testimony was unclear, said Donald McNeil, The New York Times correspondent covering the trial, because the crash is an established fact and because there is no jury to sway (the case is being heard by three Scottish judges). Mr. McNeil suggested that the British government was concerned for the victims' families and had the witnesses testify as a mark of respect, to let the families know that they were not forgotten and that their grief mattered.
When the jetliner exploded, Jasmine Bell, 53, a social worker was visiting her brother in Lockerbie that night. She testified, according to news agencies, that "There was fire just raining down right beside me. I was dodging as it landed."
"I was stepping backwards to avoid the fire, really," Mrs. Bell said. "I stepped back and back and back until my back was against the wall; I couldn't go any further."
When her son asked about a lump lying in the street, she told him it was meat, she told the court, "Then it registered that it wasn't 'just meat'."
Another witness, Roland Stevenson, said he heard the explosion and, climbing out of his car, saw a fireball and then "a black mass with lights, gliding at a shallow angle over the town." The aircraft's wing fell intact "from wingtip to wingtip," but with "no fuselage, no tail, no engines," Reuters quoted him as testifying.
Robert Peacock, a Scotsman who lives west of Lockerbie, said he heard a sound like a continuous roll of thunder, and looking up, saw the broken plane missing its tail.
"For quite a long time you could see the flames," Mr. Peacock said, according to The Associated Press. "The sky was lighted up, five or 10 minutes."
Stewart Kilpatrick, who found the body of a young girl near his front door after the airliner broke apart, told the court, "I do my best just not think about it. It's the easiest way to get through."
In their notification of defense, the defendants' lawyers blamed the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on two militant Palestinian groups: the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front.
But the Popular Front splinter group told the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat that it had "absolutely no connection to this case." The Saudi-owned newspaper quoted the group's assistant secretary-general, Talal Naji, as saying, "We have never carried out any operations against civilian targets or planes." Mr. Naji said that his organization "has concentrated its struggle against the Zionist enemy and its targets inside occupied Palestine," a reference to Israel.
The Popular Front-General Command was blamed for bombing a Swissair jet in 1970, killing 47 people, and masterminding hijackings in 1968 and 1969.
The Jerusalem faction of the Popular Struggle Front, which has joined peace negotiations with Israel, also denied responsibility.
"It's a false accusation which we condemn," said Samir Ghosheh, the group's director, who is also a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee, according to the AP.
---
Residents describe fireball in the sky
USA Today
05/04/00- Updated 09:05 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/nwsthu01.htm
CAMP ZEIST, Netherlands (AP) - The trial of two Libyans accused of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 continued Thursday, with residents of Lockerbie, Scotland, describing the horror of the plane's mid-air explosion.
Resident Jasmine Anne Bell, 53, testified on Thursday that she had to dodge metallic pieces from the sky. "I stepped back and back and back until my back was against the wall; I couldn't go any further," she said. That's when her brother, who lived in the worst-hit area, pulled her to safety. When the fire subsided, he went out to cover the dead with white sheets.
Some 270 people, including 11 Lockerbie residents, were killed when the plane exploded on Dec. 21, 1988 in what prosecutors allege was an act of terrorism by the two alleged Libyan intelligence agents, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah.
The trial went into its second day Thursday with prosecutors calling a quick succession of witnesses who saw the crash. Families of the victims held onto each other in the public gallery behind bulletproof glass in the special Scottish court set up at Camp Zeist, a former U.S. air base 40 miles east of Amsterdam.
In calling witnesses who saw the crash, the prosecution sought to establish the Scottish judiciary's jurisdiction by proving the location of the explosion.
Stephen Charles Tegel, the manager of a food processing company, said he was driving near Lockerbie when he saw the explosion overhead. ''There was the flash and then an orange glowing object which continued in a gradually descending trajectory that was getting ever steeper as it went through he sky,'' he said.
The wreckage hit the ground in ''a massive fireball that was V-shaped. Two distinct flames shot into the air, one higher than the other,'' he said.
Robert Peacock, who lives west of Lockerbie, said he ran out of his house when he heard what sounded like a continuous roll of thunder, and saw the broken plane in the sky.
''I could see the tail part certainly wasn't there,'' he said. ''For quite a long time you could see the flames. The sky was lighted up, five or 10 minutes.''
Stewart Kilpatrick, who found the body of a young girl a few feet from his front door, said it took years for the town to return to normal. ''I do my best just not think about it. It's the easiest way to get through,'' he said.
In the defendant's dock, al-Megrahi leaned toward his video monitor to study a map of Lockerbie as he listened to an Arabic translation of the testimony through his earphones. The two men face a mandatory life sentence if convicted of murder or endangering the safety of the aircraft.
Defense lawyers said they intended to show the bombing was carried out by two militant groups: the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and the Palestine Popular Struggle Front.
The Damascus-based PFLP-GC, which bombed a Swissair jet in 1970, killing 47 people, and masterminded hijackings in 1968 and 1969, refused to comment Wednesday. Its leader, Ahmed Jabril, denied his group was responsible soon after the Lockerbie bombing.
The Jerusalem faction of the Popular Struggle Front, which has joined peace negotiations with Israel, denied any role in the bombing. ''It's a false accusation which we condemn,'' said Samir Ghosheh, director of the group and member of the Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee.
The group's Syrian-based factions, which oppose the peace process, did not comment.
The proceedings are expected to last one year, with prosecutors reserving the right to call more than 1,000 witnesses and defense attorneys submitting a list of 125 witnesses.
-------- us military
PENTAGON DOWNPLAYS IMPORTANCE OF BMD TEST
May 4, 2000
By Jim Wolf
From: "Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space" globalnet@mindspring.com
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (Reuters) - Pentagon planners are playing down the importance of a coming test many outsiders had viewed as a crucial hurdle for a proposed U.S. anti-missile shield.
Project leaders say they do not want a failure in the next test to automatically derail the tight timeline for national missile defense deployment.
The next shot, "no sooner than June 26," need not necessarily hit its target for the project to get a thumbs up at an impending Pentagon "deployment readiness review," officials said at the Army's Space and Missile Defense Command here this week.
If a miss occurs, "it will depend on what caused the failure," said Mike Biddle, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO).
A mechanical glitch, as opposed to a design flaw, might not be a show stopper, he said, even though it might mean launching a multi-billion-dollar program based on a 1-for-3 record.
The coming test will be the last of its kind before President Clinton is to make a high-stakes decision on whether to break ground for the multi-billion-dollar project, which critics argue could trigger a new arms race.
Russia has said the United States would put decades of arms-control efforts at risk by building a missile shield barred by the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union.
The proposed system would use ground-based interceptor missiles to launch "kill vehicles" designed to destroy their targets by smashing into them outside the earth's atmosphere.
So far, the national missile defense program has succeeded once and failed once in tests often likened to trying to hit one speeding bullet with another.
Initially, the BMDO had said it wanted two successful hits before the readiness review, which is due to take place about 30 days after the coming test. The review will assess the maturity of the technology, project feasibility and cost.
Biddle said the original 2-for-3 goal had been "self-imposed," not an absolute requirement. Even so, hitting the next target could all but ensure the breaking of ground next spring for construction of a radar station in Alaska, the start of missile defense deployment.
Defense Secretary Bill Cohen told Congress April 26 that a second hit "would be sufficient for me to make a recommendation to the president to go forward."
"You'll have to make a determination on your own as to whether you think that there is a viable threat out there," Cohen told the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee. "I happen to believe that given the spread of technology that, yes, if it isn't here today, it'll be here tomorrow."
Clinton is expected to decide by November at the latest on launching the first phase of the plan, which is to be completed by 2005 in line with what U.S. intelligence calls the mounting missile threat from countries like North Korea, Iran and Iraq.
The first intercept, over the Pacific on Oct. 2, 1999, smashed a dummy warhead. But the second, on Jan. 18, missed by less than 100 meters when water molecules froze in a cooling pipe the width of a human hair and blocked the interceptor's heat-seeking sensors.
Lt. Gen. John Costello, who heads the Army Space and Missile Defense Command, told reporters here he was confident now that "that the system will work" and that "we're on the right track."
The third test would be the most complex yet, incorporating an inflight communications system used to update the Raytheon-built Exo-atmospheric "kill vehicle" twice during flight on the target.
In recent weeks, the Pentagon has projected the total life cycle cost of the proposed system, including research and development, acquisition and staffing, at $36.2 billion in then-year dollars from 1991 to 2026, taking inflation projections into account.
Boeing is the lead system integrator for the ground-based program. TRW builds the system's battle command, control and communications system. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor on the current booster system.
----
Panel: Navy should allow women on subs
USA Today
05/04/00- Updated 04:15 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/nphoto.htm
WASHINGTON - A Pentagon civilian advisory panel has recommended that the Navy allow women to serve aboard submarines, one of the last areas of the military that remain the exclusive preserve of men. The recommendation is a landmark in the debate about the proper role of women in the military. The Navy argues there is too little room on submarines to accommodate women's privacy needs, although it has permitted women to serve aboard most combat ships - including aircraft carriers - since 1994. Many defense officials believe it is unlikely the Navy will take any action on this politically sensitive issue before next year at the earliest.
---
Panel asks Navy to put female officers in subs
Washington Times
May 4, 2000
By Rowan Scarborough
http://208.246.212.80/national/default-200054231934.htm
The Pentagon's civilian advisory committee on military women has recommended the Navy sexually integrate submarines by first putting female officers on ballistic missile submarines.
The recommendation from the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS) represents a new tactic in its unsuccessful drive to convince the Navy to make male-only submarines coed.
A "working copy" of its pending report to the Navy says complete integration should begin by putting female officers on Ohio-class missile submarines, a much larger ship than Los Angeles attack subs.
By recommending female officers, but not enlisted sailors, the committee is attempting to blunt the Navy's chief argument that insufficient space exists for women's privacy, even on the bigger boats. The 155-sailor Ohio-class submarines can lurk undetected for months under the sea, armed with long-range Trident ballistic missiles. The Navy had no immediate comment yesterday.
Committee spokeswoman Army Maj. Susan Kolb said they picked officers and missile subs because of the vessel's larger size and because officer quarters would provide more privacy than enlisted berthing.
"They need to first introduce women into the larger submarines before any recommendation could be made on the smaller submarines," Maj. Kolb said.
Last summer, for the first time, the Navy dispatched female ROTC students to spend two nights on Ohio subs - a sign to some that the Navy is inching toward coed submarines. Previously, the future women officers were restricted to day trips.
The new DACOWITS report also recommends the Navy redesign Virginia-class subs now under construction to accommodate women - a move the Navy says will cost $4 million more per ship and take away war-fighting capabilities.
The committee is comprised of 36 civilians, including five men, appointed by the defense secretary. The 34 members attending a meeting last weekend voted unanimously to integrate submarines. The panel is chaired by Vickie McCall, a real estate agent who serves on the Utah Alcohol and Beverage Control Commission.
The Navy is not expected to accept mixed-sex subs anytime soon. A Navy memo provided to the advisory committee describes the cramped living and working conditions for toiling male submariners.
The memo concluded by saying, "The Navy's decision regarding the assignment of women to submarines has been reviewed, determining that no new information has become available . . . which would provide a basis for changing the policy."
In response, the committee's report states: "DACOWITS acknowledges the Navy's concerns regarding privacy, habitability and the costs associated with integrating women into the submarine community. However, the Navy's historic experience and commitment to utilization of women on other platforms provides a model for change. Drawing on these experiences will better enable the Navy to overcome obstacles it perceives as prohibiting integration of women into submarine service."
On redesigning the entire Virginia class, the committee wrote, "Current experience indicates it is unreasonable to presume that women will not be assigned to submarines sometime in the next 40 years (estimated service life of Virginia-class submarines). Redesign now before this submarine class begins full production will avoid even more costly reconfiguration in the future."
The Navy memo to the committee said neither Los Angeles- nor Ohio-class subs meet habitability standards for men, much less for an influx of women needing special privacy considerations.
Reconstructing boats to take on women, the Navy said, would "further reduce existing below-standard conditions or require the removal of equipment as a space and weight trade-off which would result in reduced operational capabilities of the ship or require lengthening the ship to obtain additional space and weight margin. This option would be very costly."
A Navy briefing paper obtained by The Washington Times says redesigning the Virginia subs, which are due for operation in 2004, "would have two negative effects: further degrade habitability for both genders and require removal of operational equipment reducing warfighting effectiveness."
The committee has had mixed success. For example, it has recommended for years that the Army sexually integrate crews for the multiple launch rocket system. The Army has refused each time.
The Navy sexually integrated most combat ships in 1994, including 5,000-sailor aircraft carriers. But it excluded submarines because of tight living conditions, tense months at sea and worries that sexual tension could ruin unit cohesion.
Adm. Jay Johnson, the chief of naval operations and a career aviator, opposes putting women on subs. But several Navy sources say his chosen successor, Adm. Vernon Clark, may be more amenable. Adm. Johnson's term ends this summer.
Navy Secretary Richard Danzig told a group of submarine officers and contractors last year that the silent service's racial and all-male profile could hurt its appeal to budget-writing lawmakers.
"The most Narcissus-like thing about creating something in your own image, about being in love with your own image, is the continued and continuous existence of this segment of the Navy as a white-male preserve," he said. Aides later said Mr. Danzig has no immediate plans to change the barrier.
-------- us nuc facilities
-------- kentucky
Apparent violations discussed at meeting:
USEC denies wrongdoing At Paducah, Portsmouth
Portsmouth Daily Times
Thursday, May 4, 2000
From: "Vina Colley" vcolley@earthlink.net
Rockville, MD (AP) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a meeting Wednesday to address possible violations by the U.S. Enrichment Corp. at the Paducah and Portsmouth gaseous diffusion plants in Kentucky and Ohio. USEC officials attended the meeting and denied wrongdoing, Michael Weber, an NRC director who was present at the meeting said in a telephone interview. USEC did not return a telephone call for comment. NRC is investigating whether USEC made various changes at the plants without first getting proper approval from the commission. Some of he apparent violations, if they occurred, could have increased the potential for a criticality or an uncontrolled nuclear reaction, Weber said. One change, outlined in an NRC report, is that USEC changed the required response time of a criticality alarm system at the Paducah plant. It said the change would cause the system to sound an alarm from detection of a criticality event after two seconds instead of half a second.
----
Lawyer: fewer USEC job cuts
Severance packages will pay about $17,500 for the average plant worker.
By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
http://www.paducahsun.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?/200005/04+00ql_news.html+20000504+news
USEC Inc. will cut 225 fewer uranium enrichment plant jobs this year than previously announced and the Department of Energy will offer about $17,500 in enhanced severance for the average worker, according to a Washington lawyer for the atomic workers' union. Union policy analyst Richard Miller said DOE upper management briefed him Wednesday and will make the announcement today. On Monday, a department spokesman said news of enhanced severance would come by the end of the week, but details still were being ironed out.
USEC, which operates DOE-owned plants at Paducah and near Portsmouth, Ohio, will cut 550 jobs in July and another 75 by the end of the year, Miller said. Earlier, USEC said there would be 850 jobs eliminated â€" roughly 425 at each plant â€" to cut costs amid serious financial trouble.
"I don't have an allocation between the plants for the 625, but we know there will be 350 salaried and 275 bargaining unit people eliminated," Miller said. "That's about a quarter less than what USEC announced."
He said there still could be layoffs in 2001 to fill out the 850 quota. Miller said he had not been briefed by USEC, but understands the firm will entertain voluntary reductions from Friday until May 24.
USEC had said it would pay only normal severance and any additional help would have to come from DOE. In lieu of regular severance, the department will pay a lump sum of $12,500 for workers hired after July 1993 and $17,500 for those hired before then, Miller said.
"Clearly, for the most junior people, this is a much more generous arrangement," he said. "If you're more senior, it doesn't tend to favor you."
Miller said newer union workers would be better off to take $12,500 instead of the regular three to seven weeks' pay, depending on tenure. But those with 20 years or more service probably would come out ahead taking regular severance, he said.
Normal severance for union workers ranges from 3 to 26 weeks, and from 4.3 to 30.4 weeks for salaried employees, depending on length of service.
"The package is roughly 50 percent of what got offered last year," he said, referring to the completion of about 500 previous job cuts starting in 1998, almost half of which were at Paducah. The earlier package included double severance pay plus generous health insurance benefits.
DOE's new offer is to pay the full employer's share of company health insurance for one year after severance and 50 percent of the share in the second year, Miller said. The package offers more expensive transitional insurance called COBRA in the third year.
Miller said the offer falls well short of what displaced workers deserve, considering the burden placed on them by the federal government.
"Our concern is it seems that DOE and USEC cannot find a way to reach common ground to help people in these communities who were victims of the Russian deal or USEC's privatization," he said. "Either way, they're victims of administration initiatives through no fault of their own and yet they're given inequitable treatment compared with other DOE sites."
Under a government-endorsed nuclear disarmament plan, USEC is buying enough Russian uranium to equal the production of one of the plants at prices lower than plant production costs. Since it was privatized almost two years ago, USEC has plummeted financially and is considering closing a plant. Miller testified before Congress last month that he expects both plants to close within three years unless the government bails out the corporation.
Miller said the severance package is particularly hollow in light of the $3.6 million "golden parachute" that USEC President and Chief Executive Officer William "Nick" Timbers will receive if he is fired.
----
USEC tries to correct NRC safety concerns
By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
http://www.paducahsun.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?/200005/04+00qm_news.html+20000504+news
USEC Inc. managers met Wednesday with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission trying to resolve apparent nuclear safety violations for making unauthorized changes at uranium enrichment plants here and near Portsmouth, Ohio. Melanie Galloway, chief of the NRC Enforcement Section, said the matter is "very detailed and technical" and could take at least six weeks to resolve. If USEC is found to have committed violations, the company could be fined, depending on the severity of the violations, she said.
She said enforcement conferences, which are common for nuclear facilities, typically involve one issue, but this involves seven â€" four at Paducah and three at Portsmouth.
"It has to do with procedure and process review," said NRC spokeswoman Pam Alloway-Mueller. "It's not anything that poses an immediate public health concern."
Elizabeth Stuckle, USEC spokeswoman, said the commission's stance is that seven of 150 changes made at the two plants required NRC approval. At the conference, USEC addressed the seven issues, saying the changes were permissible and posed no threat to safety, she said.
A March 17 NRC letter to USEC President and Chief Executive Officer William "Nick" Timbers cites the issues, six of which were raised as part of the 1999 annual review as part of the plants' certificates of operation.
Among the questionable changes at Paducah was extending from a half-second to two seconds the time alarms sound after detecting an uncontrolled nuclear reaction called a criticality. NRC said the change was unjustified because it posed an increased radiation risk to workers near a criticality.
----
Nuclear Waste Cleanup: DOE's Paducah Plan Faces Uncertainties and Excludes Costly Cleanup Activities.
Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 14:11:07 EDT
From: easlavin@aol.com
RCED-00-96. 37 pp. plus 2 appendices (10 pp.) April 28, 2000.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/rc00096.pdf
-------- ohio
Fewer Uranium Workers To Lose Jobs
Excite News
Updated 4:49 PM ET May 4, 2000
By KATHERINE RIZZO, Associated Press Writer
http://news.excite.com/news/ap/000504/16/uranium-workers
WASHINGTON (AP) - Job cuts at the nation's two uranium enrichment plants won't be as severe as expected, officials announced Thursday. But union leaders said even fewer workers would lose jobs if the company that owns the plants hadn't rejected a request for early retirements.
"They treat the waste better than the workers as far as I'm concerned," said Dan Minter, union president at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio.
U.S. Enrichment Corp., owner of the former government plants in Ohio and Kentucky, in February announced plans to cut 850 jobs - 22 percent of the total work force. But attrition and increased work for the facilities since then mean 225 fewer jobs must be eliminated, company officials said.
The 625 workers who will lose their jobs may choose between a severance package based on years of service or a lump-sum payment of between $12,500 and $17,500 if they choose to go voluntarily, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, which will pay most of the costs.
In addition, the federal government will pay the employer's share of company health insurance for one year and half that amount for a second year.
Roughly 350 jobs will be cut at the Ohio plant, and 275 from the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky, USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle said.
Employees will have until May 24 to sign up for "voluntary separation" and the lump-sum benefits package. After that, USEC will decide which positions are eliminated, and the workers will get only a standard severance based on years of service.
Weeks of negotiation over ways to blunt the effect of the layoffs ended Wednesday with USEC refusing to let older workers take early retirement, a move Minter estimated would have been attractive to about 150 workers at his plant.
Federal rules require that any money taken from the pension fund be recorded on the books as a deduction from profits. The company's profits have been shrinking, and executive vice president James Miller said USEC officials did not want to further harm shareholders.
"We have to deal with the rules," he said. "We aren't just able to dip into a pension fund for ongoing employees."
Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Ohio, expressed disgust with the company's decision.
"It's just one more example of the callous attitude that this company has toward its workers and one more reason privatization is a bad idea," he said.
Strickland noted USEC Chairman William "Nick" Timbers, who earned $1.2 million in salary and bonuses last year, negotiated a $3.6 million "golden parachute" should he lose his job.
USEC was part of the government before it was spun off in 1998 in a $1.9 billion stock sale. It provides uranium fuel for civilian power plants, accounting for about a third of the worldwide market.
Its profits have declined sharply because of a slump in the uranium market and increasing costs at the aging plants.
------- texas
Contaminated Texas Air Base Blamed for Neighbors' Illnesses
By Cat Lazaroff
May 4, 2000 (ENS)
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/may2000/2000L-05-04-07.html
SAN ANTONIO, Texas, Almost 15 years of dumping hazardous chemicals at San Antonio's Kelly Air Force Base has taken its toll on the health of nearby residents and now threatens the city's supply of drinking water, claim documents released this week by an environmental watchdog group.
The Texas chapter of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Texas PEER) blames plumes of toxic contamination that run beneath more than 20,000 homes in the poorer Hispanic districts surrounding the airbase.
From 1940 to 1955, this site held a chemical evaporation pit used as an unlined disposal pit for chromium plating sludge and wastes (Two photos courtesy Kelly AFB)
Located on 4,000 acres and surrounded by residential neighborhoods, Kelly Air Force Base (KAFB) warehouses and maintains aircraft, jet engines and accessory components, including nuclear materials, for worldwide distribution. Activities at the base can generate as much as 282,000 tons of hazardous waste per year, all in close proximity to neighboring communities.
The base, which is scheduled to close in July 2001, has been called the "top priority" cleanup site in Texas by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). To date, the U.S. Air Force has spent about $150 million to remove contaminated soil, debris and equipment, and construct water treatment facilities to clean up contaminated water running about 20 feet below the ground.
A public health assessment released last year by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) concluded that contamination from KAFB does not pose a significant health risk. "No one is coming into contact with harmful levels of contamination from Kelly," said Dick Walters, a public affairs specialist with Kelly Air Force Base's Environmental Program. "There's nothing reaching people that could make them sick. Its not the Air Force saying that, its the health people."
But problems persist. Walters acknowledges that there are water contamination problems on the base, and that some polluted plumes do extend beneath surrounding neighborhoods.
However, he says those near surface plumes do not pose a danger to anyone. "The shallow underground water stopped being a drinking water source for these people in the 1950s," Walters told ENS. When a drought hit the region, wells dried up, and neighborhoods were hooked into the city of San Antonio's municipal drinking water supply, which comes from the Edwards Aquifer, deep below the known contamination.
The Kelly AFB golf course sits atop a former landfill that received construction materials, mixed solvents and drummed wastes
"If something can't touch you, it's not going to harm you," said Walters. "No one is coming into contact with harmful pollutants from Kelly Air Force Base."
But Texas PEER says residents are being affected by the contamination. These plumes of contaminated groundwater extend throughout a shallow aquifer which runs beneath more than 20,000 homes near the base. The aquifer is still used by local residents to water their lawns and gardens, the group found. So while local residents are not drinking directly from the polluted source, they still may face exposure to toxins through domestic and recreational contact or from volatile vapors which may enter their homes from the contaminated plumes below.
In 1997, a health survey by the Southwest Public Workers' Union in the poor, Hispanic neighborhood of North Kelly Gardens found that, "91 percent of the adults and 79 percent of the children are suffering multiple illnesses," ranging from ear, nose and throat conditions to central nervous system disorders.
Yolanda Johnson has lived one block from KAFB in North Kelly Gardens since 1965. She and others in the predominantly Hispanic surrounding communities have been complaining for years about health problems from contamination at the base.
Yolanda Johnson has lived near Kelly Air Force Base for 35 years (Two photos courtesy Texas PEER)
Johnson says she remembers watching her children play at the fenceline of KAFB, while a few feet away air force personnel dumped contaminated waste into an open pit in the ground. At the time, Johnson did not know what they were dumping, but she knew it smelled bad and, "when it would rain, this pit would overflow and it would come into our neighborhood," she told Texas PEER.
"My children started getting sick," Johnson remembered. "I have two children whose legs start bowing, and their arms start bowing. And I kept thinking, 'There must be something wrong here,' because my children were healthy and now their bones were bowing."
Scientists at KAFB released information in 1983 indicating that toxic waste had been dumped into an uncovered pit, much like the one described by Johnson, from 1960 to 1973. The waste contained carcinogens such as benzene, chlorobenzene, perchloroethylene and trichloroethylene and created plumes of contaminated groundwater which still run beneath nearby residential areas.
Armando Quintanilla, another local resident, worked at KAFB from 1945 until his retirement in 1992 and was aware of the many pollutants generated at the base.
Armando Quintanilla worked for Kelly AFB for 47 years
"The trichloroethylene [a solvent used to degrease aircraft parts] was intentionally dumped by the Air Force into the ground, which went into the groundwater and has now gone as far as three miles from the fenceline at KAFB," Quintanilla told Texas PEER.
Now there is growing concern that contaminants from KAFB have migrated deeper into the Edwards Aquifer, the drinking water source for the City of San Antonio.
In June 1999, several groups including the Committee for Environmental Justice Action, a group of residents living near KAFB, the Southwest Public Workers' Union, Resource Center for Community Health and Environmental Justice, and the Texas chapter of the Sierra Club filed a petition with the EPA and Governor George W. Bush to designate Kelly Air Force Base as a federal Superfund site.
Superfund designation allows residents of affected areas to apply for federal grant money to allow them to participate in the government's cleanup decisions, often by hiring their own experts to advise them on cleanup proposals. However, the state of Texas opposed listing KAFB as a federal Superfund site.
Local residents fear that without Superfund designation, the Air Force could leave town next year without completing a cleanup. But Walters says that is simply not the case.
This section of Kelly AFB contains former landfills, a fire control training site and a low-level radioactive disposal site (Photo courtesy Kelly AFB)
"The Air Force is committed to stay until the cleanup is done," he said. Under federal law, the EPA regional administrator, "must certify that all necessary cleanup work has been done" before the property can be turned over to civilian hands. In addition, "if the new owners find anything later, the Air Force is required to come back and clean it up," said Walters.
Texas PEER says current cleanup efforts are haphazard and incomplete, and the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission (TNRCC), the state's pollution control agency, has yet to take enforcement action or begin a cleanup at Kelly Air Force Base.
"Kelly is typical of the TNRCC's 'Don't Worry, Be Happy' approach to toxic contamination of poor communities," said Texas PEER coordinator Erin Rogers. "The Air Force can skip town secure in the knowledge that, after years of dithering, Texas is not going to start enforcing pollution laws today."
In a memo circulated within TNRCC in 1995, the agency acknowledged "extensive environmental contamination at the base," and concluded that little had been done to correct the problem, in part because KAFB had "been trying to circumvent the regulatory process for the last six years."
Hundreds of thousands of gallons of jet fuel were spilled at Kelly AFB (Photo courtesy Texas PEER)
Yet in a 1999 report, TNRCC calls Kelly Air Force Base a "cleanup and reuse success story."
"The cleanup is on schedule with final remedies for a majority of sites to be in place by December 2000," the report reads. "Interim remedies are successfully operating for several groundwater plumes. Redevelopment goals are being met with over 2,000 new jobs already in place."
Citing TNRCC's failure to take enforcement action against the Air Force, its opposition to Superfund listing and a host of other concerns, community groups have filed a federal civil rights complaint alleging discrimination against the Latino community near the base.
As part of their complaint, community members asserted that KAFB, TNRCC, the city of San Antonio, the EPA, and two other organizations "discriminate against Latino residents that live near Kelly AFB in San Antonio, Texas by ignoring their environmental protection and public health needs." The citizens cited numerous examples of "institutional racism" related to contamination at KAFB, including exclusion of community members from decision making meetings related to the closure and cleanup of KAFB.
The groups also cited the withholding of information from the public regarding the nature and extent of contamination, including failure to inform potential home buyers of federally subsidized property about the environmental condition of the property.
The groundwater beneath this site contains vinyl chloride, benzene, chlorobenzene, pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls, toxic metals and other pollutants (Photo courtesy Kelly AFB)
Walters, the KAFB public affairs specialist, says the general public and the surrounding community have been well informed about contamination sources and cleanup efforts on the base. Both Yolanda Johnson and Armando Quintanilla, who gave interviews for the Texas PEER report, have been members of Kelly Air Force Base's Restoration Advisory Board since November 1994.
While the environmental justice case is pending, local residents continue to live each day in their contaminated neighborhoods, and new families continue to move in, lured by the prospect of affordable housing but unaware of the risks, Texas PEER says.
"That's what concerns me," said Yolanda Johnson. "We have a lot of young marriages here. A lot of young children moving in because it's affordable housing. And they move in and they don't know that eventually they'll be sick like we are. And I think that's a very sad thing to happen."
-------- us nuc weapons
Will 'limited' nuclear defense system cost more than its worth?
Earth Times
05/03/00
By TOM WICKER Earth Times News Service
http://www.earthtimes.org/may/opinionwilllimitednucleardefensemay4_00.htm
Is the threat of an attack by a "rouge nation" (Iran and North Korea are the usual suspects) so serious that a "limited" missile defense must be built to protect US cities? The Clinton Administration wants to do it. So do important Republicans, who demand that the President leave the decision to his successor. For a lot of good reasons, nevertheless, the nation should say "no":
To deploy such a defense over repeated Russian objections, and those of some of the European allies, risks the dissolution of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty--the centerpiece of three decades of nuclear peace--because the US would be forced to withdraw from it.
That, in turn could have unpredictable but probably damaging consequences on the international campaign for non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, which the US supposedly leads.
Even if such a defense against a terrorist missile were built, a "rouge nation" still could smuggle a nuclear bomb in a suitcase, or by other clandestine means, into New York harbor or any other US port.
The huge, costly US missile arsenal already in existence has no real, purpose save deterring nuclear attack (by a "rogue nation" or anyone); why should say, Saddam Hussein launch a rogue missile at an American city when he knows that only a small portion of the US arsenal then could obliterate his country?
Though proponents glibly insist that the $4 billion estimated annual expenditure for a limited missile defense would be "only" one percent of the yearly federal budget, the 15-year $60 billion total could be infinitely better spent on education, health, housing, environmental threats and/or other real needs.
Experience with Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" pipe dream, as well as tests so far of the much less extensive "limited" missile defense, have demonstrated above all the immense technological difficulties, still unsolved, and the astronomical costs of such a system.
Those who say technical and expense objections also were raised by persons who opposed trying to put a man on the moon are arguing only by analogy and anecdote -and it would be more nearly relevant to cite those who warned from the start against the untold waste of funds on the failed Star Wars project.
And, anyway, the "rogue nation" threat (not perceived by some US allies) rests on intelligence findings (not of any leader's intent but of some unspecified nation's relatively distant "capability"); Americans surprised by nuclear weapons developments in India and Pakistan, to say nothing of the other Cold War intelligence failures, should have learned to be wary of spooky misjudgments.
In short, must the US invest $60 billion, or probably more, in funds badly needed elsewhere (while the Republican presidential candidate is advocating an enormous tax cut) in technology that has never worked and may never work, this risking renewed nuclear proliferation, in order to guard against a threat not proven to exist and which, if it does, could be carried out by a the smuggled suitcase trick or by other means?
That question is particularly apt because the US already has, indisputably in its nuclear force the means to blow any attacking nation, rogue or otherwise, off the map.
Would the US actually do that, it may be asked? And even if it did, what good would such a response do those Americans already dead from a North Korean or an Iranian missile?
These are plausible questions--but no more and perhaps less so than the obvious first question: Why should any national leader, even if personally irrational, take the chance that for temporary small gain, he and his people might permanently lose everything?
As for whether Bill Clinton or Al Gore or George W. Bush should make the presidential decision, the Republicans may be right, probably for the wrong reasons, to advocate delay. Both Bush and Gore say they are in favor of deploying the "limited" defense, and it's hard to see how a decision by Clinton could bind either of them, either way, in the future. And for such a huge project, a few months delay in decision could hardly matter.
What might be gained, however, by leaving the matter to the next President, would be more time for the development or failure of the complex technology of missile defense, for consultation with properly concerned allies, for sober study (outside the pressures of a presidential campaign) of a question that is fundamentally political, and for the American public to consider (not merely acquiesce in) a matter that so concerns its deepest interests.
Maybe that's what some proponents are afraid of--that time and deliberation will work for a more rational decision, and against a deployment not only more costly but more destructive than it's worth.
---
Cease-and-desist imperative
Washington Times
May 4, 2000
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/commentary-200054154123.htm
Recent evidence of the Clinton-Gore administration's wholesale mismanagement of nuclear strategy and related matters adds urgency to what amounted to a recent "stop-work" order conveyed in a letter to the president from Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and 24 of his colleagues.
At this rate, Congress may feel compelled to issue an actual injunction directing Mr. Clinton to cease and desist before this pursuit of a presidential "legacy" - at seemingly any price - translates into additional, real and lasting harm to America's capability to deter and, if necessary, to defeat attacks on its vital interests.
Consider a few of these worrisome developments:
• Last Monday, representatives of what is, arguably, the most anti-nuclear American administration in history agreed to a joint statement with Russia, China, Britain and France to ban the bomb. To be sure, the utterly addled idea of ridding the planet of nuclear arms has been a rhetorical goal of the U.S. government for some time. This pointed affirmation of an "unequivocal commitment to complete disarmament," however, is certain greatly to intensify pressure on the United States to take concrete, near-term steps in this direction -and, thus, set an example for others to follow.
Never mind that others will not follow America's lead, should it make the mistake of actually eliminating its nuclear arsenal - certainly not the rogue nuclear wannabes we currently have to be most worried about deterring. It is, moreover, inconceivable that Russia and China would actually comply with such an obligation, either, given its inherent unverifiability.
But now, as always, for the West's anti-nuclear crowd, the idea is to disarm the one you're with. And the United States' actual or potential adversaries are only too happy cynically to promise to do the same. After all, they stand to benefit from a huge shift in what the Soviets used to call the strategic "correlation of forces" should America actually follow through with this sort of unilateral disarmament.
• Last week, the New York Times released the text of the "Grand Compromise" to which the Clinton-Gore administration hopes the Russians will agree. It proposes to purchase Moscow's assent to a ground-based U.S. "national missile defense" that is so limited it will not cover all of the country or protect against more than a handful of incoming ballistic missiles. The price: reductions in U.S. nuclear forces to such low levels that it would be impracticable to maintain a strategic "Triad," long understood to be essential to a robust deterrent posture.
Worse yet, in their effort to sell the Russians on such a "compromise," the administration is resorting - whether out of incompetence or by design is unclear - to arguments likely to make it even harder either to provide credible nuclear deterrence or competent missile defenses.
Specifically, the administration has advised the Russians they can always rely upon a "launch on warning" strategy to mitigate stated concerns that American defenses could presage and enable a pre-emptive U.S. nuclear strike. By dignifying this absurd proposition - even before the end of the Cold War made such fears preposterous, the idea was inconceivable - the Clinton-Gore team is only reinforcing the Kremlin's propaganda line that nuclear war will be made more imminent by our pursuit of protection against missile attack.
One upshot of this gambit is renewed energy behind another hardy perennial on the anti-nuclear community's agenda: the idea of "de-alerting" of U.S. -and, ostensibly, Russian - nuclear forces. Were American weapons on day-to-day alert to be dismantled or otherwise disabled, however, more than a "launch on warning" option would be foreclosed: The deterrent value of the United States' arsenal would be eviscerated since, as a practical matter, it would be politically (if not technically) problematic to restore these weapons to operational status.
• The Clinton-Gore administration also is inflicting unnecessary injury on America's alliance relationships with its approach to missile defense. This is the effect of allowing the desire to preserve the obsolete 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty to drive policy and programmatic decisions, rather than a goal of optimizing the coverage, cost-effectiveness or speed with which anti-missile systems can be deployed.
The latter considerations argue for an aggressive near-term effort to adapt the Navy's AEGIS fleet air defense ships for this purpose. By so doing, the United States could make clear that its "national" missile defense system will actually be a global capability, thus denying critics and those who would divide America from her allies the argument that the former will be protected at the latters' expense. These risks could be even further reduced if, thanks to the generally excellent ties maintained by our Navy with those of allied nations, opportunities for cooperation in adapting various friendly countries' ships for missile defense purposes are fully exploited.
It looks as though differences between the Gore and Bush camps on foreign and defense policy are going to feature prominently in the 2000 election, after all. The radical and/or reckless disarmament policies being pursued by President Clinton, with the aggressive support of his vice president, offer the Texas governor a particularly promising opportunity to showcase a contrasting vision of an American deterrent that remains strong and credible and that is complemented as quickly as possible with a global, anti-missile defense, starting at sea.
In the meantime, it behooves Gov. Bush and like-minded members of Congress to find ways of compelling President Clinton to refrain from further compounding the damaging legacy in these areas now being left to his successor.
Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is the president of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for The Washington Times.
-------- us politics
WHY AL AND GEORGE SING IN PERFECT HARMONY FROM THE CORPORATE SONGBOOK
Corporations That Have Put At Least $50,000 Into Both Gore and Bush
From: magnu96196@aol.com
Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 19:46:06 EDT
AT&T* Philip Morris* Amer Financial Group* Microsoft* Atlantic Richfield Co.* SBC Communications* Enron* Mirage Resorts* Federal Express* Citigroup* Amer Airlines* Bell Atlantic* Anheuser-Busch* Limited Inc.* Pfizer* Rite Aid* Schering-Plough* BellSouth* Joseph E. Seagram & Sons* Bristol-Myers Squibb* Union Pacific* Blue Cross & Blue* Shield* MBNA Corp* America Online* Amer Intl Group* MCI Worldcom* Ernst & Young* Circus Circus* Enterprises* Sprint* AFLAC* Time Warner* Boeing* Prudential Insurance* Ocean Spray Cranberries* Paine Webber* MGM Grand* Archer Daniels Midland* Walt Disney* Coca-Cola* Flo-Sun Sugar Co.* Lockheed Martin* Intl. Game Technology* United Airlines* Oracle* Exxon Mobil* United Technologies* US West* Pacific Gas & Electric* Upjohn* Owens Corning* Chevron* Park Place* Entertainment* Bacardi Martini USA* Boston Capital Partners* Eli Lilly & Co.* Georgia-Pacific* Amer Home Products* Amer Express* Bechtel Group* Loews Corp* Sunoco* General Electric* Northern Telecom* General Dynamics* New York Life Insurance* United HealthCare
----
Jabs Fly in Presidential Ring Over Social Security's Future
New York Times
May 4, 2000
By JAMES DAO with FRANK BRUNI
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/050400wh-dem-gore.html
WASHINGTON, May 3 -- In a sharp exchange that gave the presidential campaign the intensity of a day in late October, Vice President Al Gore accused Gov. George W. Bush today of devising a "secret plan" that could bankrupt the Social Security system. Hours later, Mr. Bush tartly questioned the vice president's honesty and predicted that Mr. Gore's attacking style would soon backfire.
Echoing a theme he has repeated often in recent days, Mr. Gore used a speech to union officials in New Jersey to assert that Mr. Bush, the likely Republican nominee, was quietly developing a "risky" plan to allow individual investment accounts in Social Security that would jeopardize millions of taxpayers' savings.
"How does the Bush plan propose to deal with the bankruptcy of Social Security that his privatization scheme would cause?" Mr. Gore told a gathering of A.F.L.-C.I.O. officials in Atlantic City. "He doesn't even bother to provide an answer. He just smiles and goes on with the smug assumption that there's no need to share with you the details of what he wants to do."
Responding to Mr. Gore's cascade of attacks, Mr. Bush spent much of a plane flight this afternoon from Austin, Tex., to Palm Springs, Calif., telling reporters that the vice president had flatly misrepresented his record on a host of issues, ranging from the Texas budget to his positions on China and Russia to his crime-fighting policies.
"Someone running for the highest office of the land should stick to the facts," Mr. Bush said. "I think it is a pattern to say things, to stretch the truth. He's the man who said he invented the Internet."
Asked whether Mr. Gore's aggressive campaigning might work as well against him as it did against former Senator Bill Bradley during the Democratic primaries, Mr. Bush said he planned to respond faster and more forcefully than Mr. Bradley.
"It's not going to work here," he said.
In fact, rather than being aggrieved by his opponent's attacks, Mr. Bush seemed somewhat amused by the constant salvos from the vice president, suggesting that Mr. Gore's strategy was self-defeating.
"Pretty soon, it's going to have a corrosive effect on his campaign if he's not telling the truth," Mr. Bush said of Mr. Gore during the 78-minute airborne news conference. "The fact that he relies on facts -- says things that are not factual -- are going to undermine his campaign."
He added: "The more outrageous he gets, the more outrageous allegations he makes against me, the more skeptical people will become."
Mr. Gore's aides clearly disagree. Privately, they contend that the slashing strategy they employed during the primaries will work again in the general election, provided they avoid the appearance of attacking Mr. Bush personally. They have done that, they argue, by focusing on issues like Social Security, tax cuts, health care and gun control.
"The primaries showed that voters believe that vigorously debating your opponent on issues is considered fair play," said one adviser to Mr. Gore.
Mr. Gore also used his Atlantic City speech to discuss his own proposal for keeping the Social Security system solvent. Under that plan, he would use the system's surplus to pay down the national debt, which in turn would reduce the federal government's interest payments. Those savings would then be put back into the Social Security trust fund, keeping the system solvent for an additional 13 years or more.
"I will devote all interest from debt reduction to shore up Social Security," Mr. Gore said. "I think it is wrong to cut benefits, raise the retirement age or risk your retirement savings in a game of stock market roulette."
But that description amounted to one brief passage in a 35-minute speech that was devoted mainly to attacking Mr. Bush on a variety of fronts, particularly Social Security.
Under the proposal floated by Mr. Bush's aides in recent days, taxpayers would be allowed to invest a small part of their Social Security payroll taxes in the stock or bond markets. Mr. Bush's aides argue that such a plan would help taxpayers take advantage of the stock market's historic growth.
But Mr. Gore asserted today that the plan would make the system vulnerable to huge market fluctuations that could hurt millions of retirees. And as he has repeatedly done in recent days, he suggested that Mr. Bush was charting a course that was "reckless" and "irresponsible."
"To me, Social Security is more than a government program," he said. "It is a solemn compact between the generations." Governor Bush, he added, "seems to believe differently."
Mr. Gore asserted that Mr. Bush had "left the door wide open" to raising the retirement age for Social Security as a means of bolstering the system. That approach, he argued, would be harmful to people who do strenuous manual labor and physically cannot postpone retirement. And he accused Mr. Bush of wanting to cut Social Security spending to pay for a tax cut that Mr. Gore argues would favor the rich.
"What about the waitress who's carrying a heavy tray, what about the longshoreman, what about the steelworker and the auto workers?" he asked. "When they get to the current retirement age, they don't want to be told that in order to finance some risky tax scheme for the wealthy, they are going to have to keep on working until they are 70 years old."
Mr. Bush's aides acknowledge that he has not ruled out raising the retirement age. But they note that he has not formulated a detailed plan yet, only the general principles for one. Those include not increasing Social Security taxes, not cutting benefits and setting aside the Social Security surplus in a "lockbox" to make sure it is used only on Social Security.
It was Mr. Bush's lack of a detailed plan that caused Mr. Gore to accuse the Texas governor of devising a "secret plan" today.
"He wants to spring it on you after the election," Mr. Gore said. "Well, I think he may be underestimating the capacity of the American people to figure out for ourselves what the details of his secret plan would mean for each and every American."
But if Mr. Gore's barbs were meant to rattle Mr. Bush, they failed. Indeed, what was extraordinary about today's exchange was the almost delighted mood that Mr. Bush brought to his end of it.
Mr. Bush was on his way to California for several days of campaigning, including a fund-raiser in Palm Springs tonight for the Republican Party that was expected to bring in about $1 million.
On the flight, Mr. Bush revealed a few more glimmers than usual of his obvious distaste for what he seems to see as Mr. Gore's desperation to be president. Usually, Mr. Bush does a more thorough job of pulling his punches when he is asked what he thinks about Mr. Gore as a person.
After a reporter told Mr. Bush that Mr. Gore, whose first grandchild was born on the Fourth of July, sometimes says to Hispanic audiences that he hopes his second grandchild will be born on Cinco de Mayo, Mr. Bush muttered, "Totally pathetic."
At another point, talking about his own desire for the presidency, Mr. Bush said: "I'm willing to work for it. What I'm not willing to do is sell my soul to become the president."
Asked if Mr. Gore would do that, Mr. Bush arched an eyebrow and said, "That's for you all to figure out."
Mr. Bush did not use the word "lied," and when reporters did, he corrected them, coyly repeating again and again that he was simply setting the record straight and expressing his "disappointment" in Mr. Gore's behavior. But he did use the words disappointment or disappointed at least half a dozen times.
"The vice president said I've never submitted a budget as governor of Texas" said Mr. Bush, reciting the comments by Mr. Gore that he deemed untruthful. "He talked about recidivism rates that were totally inaccurate numbers."
"He said I called China and Russia enemies," Mr. Bush added. "Have I ever referred to China and Russia as enemies?"
Mr. Bush shook his head and veered toward what he clearly intended to be a kind of emotional and moral high ground. "I just am disappointed and I think Americans will be disappointed when they find out the truth," he said.
---
Democratic committee accuses DeLay of racketeering
Washington Times
May 4, 2000
By Steve Miller The Democratic Congressional
http://208.246.212.80/national/default-200054225534.htm
Campaign Committee, led by Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, yesterday filed a lawsuit against House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, accusing him of racketeering and extortion in his Republican fund-raising activities.
The committee accused Mr. DeLay of peddling political influence in exchange for donations and establishing tax-exempt groups to "launder" soft money from unidentified sources. The suit also names three of those groups as defendants.
Some named in the lawsuit called the case a frivolous attack on political speech.
"The essence of their complaint is that Tom DeLay helped raise money for outside groups . . . which support issues that he supports," said James Bopp Jr., attorney for the Republican Majority Issues Committee and the U.S. Family Network, two of the three outside groups also named in the lawsuit.
The civil action, which was announced at a news conference by the Democratic panel's chairman, Mr. Kennedy of Rhode Island, claims that Mr. DeLay helped establish the three tax-exempt groups in order to hide the source of contributions.
The lawsuit seeks a judge's order to stop the groups' activities and win unspecified financial damages.
"This has been a consistent, flagrant and continuous effort by Mr. DeLay to retain control of the House of Representatives," Mr. Kennedy said. "For the first time, we are seeing the development of a completely shadow political organization."
The lawsuit's racketeering complaint claims that Mr. DeLay helped form three tax-exempt groups, which both he and those groups deny.
The suit also charges that Mr. DeLay extorted campaign funds by making threats against some groups to withhold favorable action on legislation unless a donation was made.
Mr. DeLay's press secretary, Emily Miller, said the Democrats have made previous efforts to disrupt his actions, only to be stymied by both the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission.
She noted that several top Democratic Party contributors, notably the Sierra Club and the AFL-CIO, have used similar techniques to keep their donors private.
"Now conservatives are catching up, and it's threatening to Democrats," Miss Miller said. "I don't think anyone in their right mind would believe that this lawsuit has any validity. It has no criminal charges because no laws have been broken. It's a last-ditch attempt to make Tom DeLay the new Newt Gingrich."
The three tax-exempt defendants, which also include Americans for Economic Growth, are accused in the suit of accepting donations intended for the Republican Party and "falsely asserting that they are not 'political committees' " to evade donation-reporting requirements.
Contributions to political parties, known as soft money, are generally subject to public disclosure. But some tax-exempt groups that do not have to name their donors can accept money from individuals, then pass them along to parties as soft-money contributions.
The lawsuit relied on newspaper accounts of Mr. DeLay's fund raising, said Bob Bauer, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. He said that no one has been interviewed or investigated yet.
"We have enough basis here," Mr. Bauer said at the news conference. "Over time, people have become aware and Mr. DeLay has been less than subtle" in his fund-raising activities.
"These facts have been put before us on a silver platter . . . shined by Mr. DeLay."
Mr. DeLay is scheduled to give a speech today at the National Press Club on cultural renewal.
Karl Gallant, chairman of Republican Majority Issues Committee, said in a statement that the "consequences of this frivolous abuse of the legal system could be devastating to the viability of the First Amendment."
He pointed out that the Sierra Club has been performing the same function - using private money for political donations - for the Democratic Party since 1996. That group is projected to spend up to $5 million on issue ads in 20 House districts this year.
Mr. Bopp, the attorney for two of the defendant groups, added: "Politicians do this all the time. What they are saying is a crime is the same thing liberal groups do. What they are trying to do is criminalize lawful First Amendment activity."
Democrats filed a complaint in December about several groups linked to Mr. DeLay - including Americans for Economic Growth and the U.S. Family Network -with the Federal Election Commission after learning that the National Republican Congressional Committee gave the U.S. Family Network $500,000.
No action has been taken on that complaint.
The lawsuit was filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which is a law used to break up organized crime and drug cartels. The statute grew out of a 1967 investigation of organized crime.
Since then, it has also been used by and against businesses and political groups such as pro-life demonstrators.
Mr. Kennedy's uncle, Robert F. Kennedy, raised concerns about the First Amendment implication of the original statute in 1968.
At that time, Mr. Kennedy feared it would be used by the Nixon administration to crack down on Vietnam War protesters. The statute was amended before becoming law in 1970.
-------- chemical weapons
USA Today
05/04/00
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm
Kentucky Richmond - Environmentalists may not like the idea of a chemical weapons disposal plant at the Blue Grass Army Depot, but economists say it would be a financial boon for Madison County. Construction of the $600 million federal facility could begin within four years and employ more than 700 workers. Other workers would be needed within two years for support projects, such as building roads and warehouses and upgrading power, water and sewage plants, officials said.
--------genetic engineering
New Theme For Shareholder Activism: Policing Genetically Modified Food
New York Times
May 4, 2000
By JENNIFER FRIEDLIN NYTimes.com/TheStreet.com, 3:30 p.m.
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/financial/04tsc-foods.html
A growing global backlash against gene-altered food has found a new battleground: the annual corporate shareholder meeting.
Twenty-one resolutions calling for restraints on the use of genetically modified ingredients are on the annual meeting agendas at some of America's leading food and seed manufacturers this year, up from zero a year ago.
The resolutions vary in severity, but many call for more long-term research before genetically altered animals and plants are used in food. Others propose mandatory labeling of any products with genetically altered ingredients.
None of the resolutions are expected to pass, and the few that have been put to a vote so far have been overwhelmingly defeated. But even in defeat, all of the resolutions have garnered the minimum 3 percent of the shareholder vote required to automatically reappear on the annual meeting agenda next year, under Securities and Exchange Commission rules.
Moreover, experts in shareholder activism say the resolutions are already making an impact by putting a sensitive consumer issue squarely in the faces of American corporate executives.
Some activists draw a parallel to the initially slow momentum of the anti-apartheid shareholder resolution movement 30 years ago, which pressured American companies to quit doing business with South Africa. That movement ultimately played an important role in the downfall of South Africa's white minority racist regime.
"The goal of shareholder resolutions is to move a company in a certain direction. At 6 percent to 8 percent you're getting the company's attention. At 10 percent you are getting action," said Michael Passoff, associate director of the corporate accountability program of the As You Sow Foundation, a shareholder advocacy organization. "At 15 percent of anti-apartheid votes, companies were making decisions, but it took a few years."
Although genetically modified foods have been declared safe by the food industry and the government, activists say no issue has drawn as much shareholder attention since the anti-apartheid movement. As a result, they say, some companies are likely to be more inclined to revisit their policies as a result of the resolutions and the support they are mustering. Shareholders at Coca Cola , Kellogg , Phillip Morris and PepsiCo have already voted on the resolutions, which garnered a respective 8.3 percent, 5.6 percent, 4 percent and 3.2 percent of the support of voting shares.
Advocates of more testing and labeling of genetically modified foods call the shareholder resolution effort an important part of a broader international outcry against such products.
"Change will come because of a synergy of factors," said Tim Smith, executive director of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, which has coordinated the resolutions on behalf of 300 religious and socially concerned investor groups that have more than $100 million in investments.
Some recent steps taken by the federal government, companies and farmers show they already are sensitive to consumer concerns.
On Wednesday, the Clinton administration announced it would require biotechnology companies to notify the Food and Drug Administration 120 days before introducing any new genetically engineered ingredients for food and animal feed. The FDA will then post its conclusions as well as product safety data regarding these products on the Internet.
Until now, biotechnology companies had not been required to notify the FDA before selling modified products.
The administration also said it would set standards for companies that want to voluntarily label products in order to indicate whether they contain genetically altered substances.
Although critics of the biotechnology industry said the moves fell short of their demands, these steps could provide some momentum for the movement against genetically modified food. Manufacturers who want to allay consumer concerns may have a hard time using labels to their advantage since genetically modified products pervade many everyday grocery staples in America.
About half of U.S. soybean and about a quarter of corn crops are grown from genetically modified seeds, which farmers like because they are more pest resistant. Even when conventional seeds are used, the crops tend to get mixed together during the manufacturing process.
This will make it difficult for many suppliers and manufacturers to assure that their foods are free of genetically modified ingredients.
Take Coca-Cola. The company says it does not use any genetically modified ingredients in its soft drinks since the corn protein that is altered in the modification process never makes it into the final product. But they cannot necessarily guarantee that the corn used to make the corn syrup did not come from a genetically modified seed.
"Attempting to stamp our product biotech or non-biotech would be misleading," said Trey Paris, Coke's manager for global communications.
Some companies are starting to ask suppliers to provide them with non-genetically modified products while others are declaring that certain of their products do not contain genetically modified ingredients. But understanding whether a company is making substantial efforts to rid its products of such ingredients is not necessarily easy.
McDonald's has requested that its potato supplier, J.R. Simplot, provide it with conventional potatoes. But genetically modified potatoes account for only 4 percent of the potatoes grown in the U.S., according to a McDonald's spokesman, making the move relatively painless. Meanwhile, Heinz and Gerber said they were eliminating genetically modified ingredients from their baby foods. Infant foods, however, are pretty much derived from pure fruits and vegetables, such as carrots and peas, which are not genetically modified.
The big problem lies with more complex processed foods that use ingredients derived from corn and soybean byproducts. In response to the growing concerns, particularly overseas, suppliers such as Archer Daniels Midland are asking farmers to keep conventional crops and genetically modified crops separate during the entire growing and harvesting cycle.
"We are encouraging farmers to segregate crops," said Larry Cunningham, senior vice president for corporate affairs at Archer Daniels Midland. "And we have an opportunity to also benefit from it. In Europe and Japan some people are willing to pay a premium for segregated crops."
A study conducted by Pioneer Hi-Bred , a subsidiary of DuPont , indicated that, of the 1,200 U.S. processors surveyed, 24 percent were planning to segregate corn crops this year, up from 11 percent in 1999, and 20 percent were planning to segregate soybean crops, up from 8 percent last year.
Segregation at the processing stage depends on farmers' ability to guarantee that the conventionally grown crops they are selling have not been tainted by residue in the combines and augers, or by cross pollination in the case of corn. Farmers, who currently reap most of the benefits from genetically modified foods in the form of heartier crops, must now decide whether to make the investment needed to guarantee segregation.
Farmers are already starting to scale back the acreage dedicated to genetically modified varieties of soybeans. A U.S. Department of Agriculture survey of 63,400 soybean farmers showed that 52 percent of their acreage would be dedicated to genetically modified soybeans, down from 57 percent in 1999.
Some corn growers said they also expected a partial return to conventional seeds until U.S., European and Japanese consumers were convinced that genetically modified foods do not pose a health or environmental risk.
Gary Goldberg, president of the American Corn Growers Association, said farmers were currently doing the math to evaluate whether it would pay to clean out their combines and augers every time they switched crops, a process that could take up to three hours.
Goldberg said such a decision had nothing to do with whether farmers like genetically modified crops. Rather, he said, "It's an issue of what they can afford."
---
A Second Death Linked to Gene Therapy
New York Times
May 4, 2000
By PHILIP J. HILTS
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/health/050400hth-gene-therapy.html
BOSTON, May 3 -- Researchers at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center here failed to report the death of a patient in gene therapy experiments and might have contributed to the growth of cancer in another patient, whose condition was also reported improperly, investigators for the Food and Drug Administration have said.
Their accusation were made in April in a letter to the hospital and the chief researcher in the experiment, Dr. Jeffrey M. Isner, and was recently posted on the agency's Web site.
The experiment has been stopped.
The news comes as scientists, hospitals and companies sponsoring gene therapy experiments have been working to assure the public of the safety of the experiments after the death of a patient in a gene experiment at the University of Pennsylvania last year.
Jack Cumming, president of the Vascular Genetics Inc. of Durham, N.C., the company sponsoring the experiment at St. Elizabeth's, acknowledged today that there had been some "problems" in the gene therapy experiment. Mr. Cumming said the company would do everything it could to satisfy the F.D.A. in correcting the problems. He said he was "very optimistic" that positive results would be presented to the agency this summer.
Mr. Cumming said he would not dispute the agency's findings and said that his company had hired two outside groups to audit and monitor all the experiments it had begun around the country, including the one at St. Elizabeth's. The groups were hired after the company learned that the federal agency was writing a warning letter, he said.
Sonia Hagopian, a spokeswoman for the St. Elizabeth's, said the hospital took the warning letter very seriously, and added: "We are focusing all our resources on producing a thorough and thoughtful response to the F.D.A."
The hospital's public relations office said Dr. Isner would not be available for comment at this time.
The problems in the experiment were reported on Tuesday in The Washington Post and The Boston Herald.
In the experiment at St. Elizabeth's, which was jointly sponsored by Tufts University, a gene that makes a substance called V.E.G.F. (for vascular endothelial growth factor) was injected directly into the hearts of patients with blocked heart vessels. Researchers hoped the gene would start making the growth factor, which is the body's natural substance to make blood vessels grow.
Inspectors for the federal agency said they found several violations of the rules of the experiment in a routine check in March. One patient in the experiment died two months after receiving the experimental therapy, but the researchers failed to report the death to the agency. The agency is investigating to determine if the treatment was the cause of the death.
In another case, a patient was included in the study although he should have been kept out under the rules of the experiment. The patient was a heavy smoker and a small mass had appeared in one lung, the agency said. Because the experimental therapy used a chemical designed to increase the growth of blood vessels, the agency said, it was possible that it increased the supply of blood to the growing tumor.
The agency's warning letter noted that the St. Elizabeth's researchers saw the mass when it was less than a centimeter in July 1999, then again in August when it was two centimeters in diameter, but went ahead with the treatment on Sept. 21, 1999. Two months later, the agency said, the patient was hospitalized with chest pain, and the mass was found to have grown to five centimeters.
There was no evidence in the patient's records or the experiment records that either the patient or his doctor was notified of the growth of the mass, investigators said.
The hospital and the researchers have 15 days to tell the agency how they will correct the problems in the experiment. The F.D.A. has the authority to ban the researchers from future work using federal money.
This and three other experiments carried on by Dr. Isner were stopped when the agency first began its inspection in February and have not resumed.
Dr. Isner is a founder of the company leading the trials and is a major stockholder in it.
-----------
Posted
without profit or payment for research and educational
purposes only,
in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107.