------- Index of Articles
NUCLEAR
All aglow
China overjoyed by U.S. defeat at U.N.
Courting The People of China
European Union Will Open Relations with North Korea
Japanese Worry About Nuke Ships
Japan's Leader Seeks Constitutional Reforms
Russian Official Calls U.S. Missile Scheme Laughable
U.S. To Construct Missile Defense
U.S. Aims to Ease China's Concerns
New Zealand to Probe '50s Nuke Tests
Official: Sub to Be Raised by Sept.
COOLING LOSS MEANS SPECIAL INSPECTION FOR NUKE PLANT
MILITARY
Suspects in Arms Scandal Post Bail
U.N. Sets Kosovo Vote for Nov. 17
NATO okays return of Serb army to Sector B of Kosovo buffer zone
Talks Inching Ahead on Monitoring '72 Germ Warfare Pact
Colombian Tribe Is Threatened by an Encroaching Civil War
OTHER
Senators Criticize F.B.I. on McVeigh Papers
ACTIVISTS
'CREATIVE ACTION'at the M.O.D.
-------- NUCLEAR
All aglow
May 14, 2001
Inside Politics,
Jennifer Harper http://www.washtimes.com/national/inpolitics.htm
While the White House gets serious about a national missile-defense system, the U.N.´s International Atomic Energy Agency has become alarmed that trafficking in nuclear materials like plutonium and enriched uranium is growing around the world.
The agency announced in Stockholm on Friday that it has logged 550 theft incidents since 1993; the rate in 1999 and 2000 was twice that of 1996. In the first three months of 2001, there were 20 confirmed cases, including thefts in Germany, Romania, South Africa and Mexico.
No single incident has so far contained enough for a bomb, but "the Cold War has left the world with a staggering legacy of 3 million kilograms of fissile material," said one Norwegian expert.
There could be as many as 130 terrorist groups that pose a nuclear threat, according to Alex Schmid of the U.N.´s terrorism branch.
"Vigorous efforts need to be made to keep the nuclear genie in the bottle and out of the hands of terrorists," he told New Scientist magazine.
-------- china
China overjoyed by U.S. defeat at U.N.
FROM COMBINED DISPATCHES,
Washington Times Weekly Edition,
May 14, 2001
http://www.americasnewspaper.com/left.shtml
Chinese state media and pro-government experts yesterday hailed the loss of the U.S. seat on the top U.N. human rights body as a rejection of American attempts to bully other nations.
The loss was the inevitable result of Washington's "long-biased condemnation of other countries using the camouflage of 'human rights,'[ ]" Zhu Muzhi, honorary president of the China Society for the Study of Human Rights, was quoted as saying in the China Daily.
The academic organization, like most others in China, is closely linked to the ruling Communist Party.
In a secret vote Thursday by the Economic and Social Council which elects the U.N. Human Rights Commission France, Sweden and Austria were chosen for the three seats allocated to Western countries.
The United States came in fourth in the vote, losing the seat it has held since the panel was formed in 1947.
In the United States, some critics have attributed the loss of the vote to a lack of coordination among European nations and President Bush's failure to gain approval for his choice of U.N. ambassador.
But other critics, in the United States and abroad, say the move reflected growing international resentment of Washington's opposition to international agreements, including a treaty to abolish land mines and another that would create an international criminal court.
Washington has been a major critic of China in the commission, and Beijing crowed over the 10th straight failure last month of a U.S. motion to censure China at the commission's annual meeting in Geneva.
In those votes, China has rallied developing nations to its side, calling the U.S. motion an attempt to harass China and bolster U.S. dominance.
"The U.S. election loss shows that America's long-standing pursuit of confrontation and hegemonism in international relations has aroused widespread anger," the ruling Communist Party's People's Daily said in an editorial.
As China gloated, the United Nations suddenly faced a new crisis over unpaid U.S. dues to the world body, with angry lawmakers on Capitol Hill voting on May 10 to block payments to the U.N. in retaliation for the vote in Geneva.
Democrats joined Republicans in a 252-165 vote that reflected bipartisan outrage over the secret U.N. ballot.
The bill also includes $67 million to rejoin UNESCO, 17 years after the United States left over concerns about political polarization and mismanagement.
"I am particularly concerned that the Congress will not understand that this was just a vote and it doesn't reflect an overriding anti-U.S. sentiment in the U.N.," said William Luers, president of the United Nations Association of the United States.
"It's a vote that can be reversed next year," he said. "I am afraid, though, that this reflects that New York and the U.N. are enemy territory, and why should we do things like pay our dues?"
Many in Washington already were deeply critical of the United Nations.
"They have taken an irresponsible action, and they are being given an opportunity to rectify it," said Rep. Tom Lantos, California Democrat. "Actions have consequences. Our U.N. friends have an option -- if they would like to get the payment, they will vote the United States back on the commission."
France, Austria and Sweden were chosen for the three spots allocated to Western countries, but the defeat was all the more galling to many Americans because some of the world's worst human rights abusers -- Sierra Leone, Sudan and Uganda, for example -- won seats on the commission.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed hope that the United Nations as an institution would not be blamed for the decision, though he conceded that it may take some explaining to lawmakers in Washington.
There was much speculation about why the United States lost its seat. In the corridors at the United Nations, diplomats and U.N. officials said the United States didn't lobby hard enough.
The absence of a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for nearly four months exacerbated the problem, they said.
There is no shortage of possibilities for the U.N. anger at the U.S., including the Bush administration's decision to pull out of the Kyoto agreement to combat global warming and to move ahead with a new missile defense system.
Those decisions followed the Clinton administration's rejection of the treaty to ban land mines, the U.S. Senate's 1999 refusal to ratify the nuclear test ban treaty and more recent coolness toward the creation of an international criminal court.
The United States also has been in the forefront of efforts to get the Human Rights Commission to condemn rights abuses in China, Cuba and other countries.
Most countries on the receiving end of this condemnation are members of the large voting bloc of developing countries at the United Nations, and they usually vote in unison.
----
Courting The People of China
By Ezra F. Vogel
Monday, May 14, 2001; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23578-2001May14?language=printer
I just returned from a month in China, including two weeks at Peking University attending conferences and talking to students and faculty. At Peking University I lectured to an audience of 400 about America, explaining why immigrants from oppression value freedom and democracy and how in opening our West, we found that private enterprise and initiative, backed by a rule of law, worked well.
The good news is that students and faculty there and at other universities in China are eagerly discussing these and other ideas from the West. One sees at Peking University the same kind of open debate and lively curiosity found in the best of universities anywhere in the world: What books should I read to learn more about U.S. values? Why is Silicon Valley so dynamic? How do Americans deal with environmental problems? What happens in single-party states as they open up?
The good news is that students and faculty in China have a chance to learn directly, by going abroad, hearing from other Chinese who have been abroad and going to huge bookstores lined with books from the West, in English and in translation. The Chinese official press and television are under tremendous pressure, because tens of millions of Chinese have access to the Internet, and students take delight in finding ways to get around efforts to impose restraints.
The good news is that the Chinese want their nation to find constructive ways to participate in world activities.
The bad news is that many Chinese, even with increasing access to outside information, are becoming more anti-American. They admire the openness of America, the opportunities it provides to learn and to make money, but they are patriotic and are increasingly convinced that the United States is trying to contain China.
At Harvard, we now have some 500 Chinese students and researchers soaking up American life as well as their academic specialty. They ask me why U.S. officials and members of Congress are so anti-Chinese. They find it hard to believe that the pinpointed target bombing of the part of their Yugoslav Embassy with the most sophisticated electronic equipment was an accident. Why are so many U.S. spy planes flying so near to China? If the Chinese flew as many spy planes near the United States and one crashed, would the United States put up the crew members in an air-conditioned hotel and return them in 11 days?
In announcing his plans for missile defense, President Bush said the United States would seek discussions with allies and with Russia; why did he leave out China? Why is the United States so suspicious of Chinese-Americans? Why do so many in Congress want to keep us from holding the Olympics? Don't they see that if we hold the games it will strengthen our desire for positive international cooperation?
Chinese students recognize that their government would gain goodwill internationally by giving Western correspondents more freedom of maneuver and by stopping arrests of those who attack the government publicly or are suspected of spying. One senses that when this generation gets to power, it will continue to increase protection of individual rights. But Chinese youth are more understanding of their leaders than the American public because they know that disorder has caused tens of millions of deaths in recent decades and that with more than 100 million recent migrants to cities, massive underemployment, increased expectations and an average standard of living below $1,000 a year, tighter controls may be more necessary than in the United States.
The American public has an image of China shaped by the Cold War, by the Soviet Union, China's Cultural Revolution and the 1989 Tiananmen incident. Unlike the Soviet Union, which occupied Eastern Europe and aimed to lead a world revolution, China shows no signs of wanting to occupy territory outside Taiwan, some South Sea Islands and its current boundaries.
The name "Communist Party" still has Cold War connotations in the United States, but having made several visits to the Communist Party School where high officials are trained, I can testify that interest in the market economy is far greater than interest in Marxism-Leninism. Ideas from around the world and global markets have far greater effect in current China than in post-Communist Russia. Chinese students who face Americans lecturing them on the basis of outdated images are quick to take offense.
Our allies in Asia, in Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia do not want to participate in containing China. South Koreans see the bright, open leaders in China that few American politicians are taking the trouble to know, and they like what they see. South Koreans will not want U.S. troops to remain if they are seen to be an anti-Chinese force. And the Japanese public, for all its problems with China in recent years, knows it must live with that country, especially because trade with China is beginning to rival that with the United States. They will not want U.S. troops to stay if they are meant to be part of an anti-Chinese coalition.
China is unlikely to challenge the world's preeminent military, but to exercise global leadership in the new democratic era in East Asia, we need the support of the East Asian public. The United States cannot stop China's economic growth, and as China gains strength there are plenty of reasons we need its cooperation. We do not need an anti-American public in China, determined to build a huge military to counter a perceived U.S. threat. The United States can have a realistic combination of cooperation and competition, but for it to work, we need to find a way to get the positive cooperation of the Chinese public.
The writer is Henry Ford II research professor at Harvard University, where he was director of the Asia Center and Fairbank Center until 1999.
-------- europe
European Union Will Open Relations with North Korea
New York Times
May 14, 2001
By SUZANNE DALEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/14/world/14CND-KOREA.html?searchpv=nytToday
PARIS, May 14 - The European Union announced today that it was opening diplomatic relations with North Korea in an effort to help the country solve its humanitarian crisis. It also said it planned to support peace efforts between the two Koreas, which have remained technically at war since 1950.
In a brief statement in Brussels, the commission said it hoped the move would "facilitate the European Community's efforts in support of reconciliation in the Korean Peninsula, and in particular in support of economic reform and easing of the acute food and health problems" in the North. But the statement gave no further details about when and how ties would be officially opened.
In Seoul, South Korea's foreign ministry hailed the union's decision to open diplomatic relations with the North. Most members of the union already have such relations, with the exception of Ireland and France, which last week said that it would not rush to embrace Pyongyang until the North improved its record on arms proliferation and human rights violations..
The European Union, which sent a delegation to Pyongyang earlier this month, had already announced its intentions to expand its role in the region. That decision shortly after the Bush administration said it was delaying its own talks with North Korea and ordering a policy review on whether discussions should resume.
At the time, Europe's effort to reach out was largely seen as a rebuke to Washington, but since then both sides have said that they agree on European initiatives.
And, in fact, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage raised hopes last week that the United States would soon resume talks with North Korea when he said that the policy review was nearly completed and that he suspected discussions would begin again "in the near future."
In Washington today, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell refused to criticize Europe's decision to establish relations. "That's a choice for the E.U. to make," Secretary Powell said during an interview on CNN. "I don't have anything to say about it." He did say that he had been getting regular reports from his colleagues in the union on the situation.
Mr. Bush made clear last March that he was uncomfortable with continuing the fast-moving talks on the North Korean missile systems that had been pushed by the Clinton administration. When South Korea's president, Kim Dae-Jung, visited the White House last March, Mr. Bush said he did not trust North Korea.
Relations between the two Koreas warmed significantly after a historic summit meeting between the leaders in Pyongyang last June. But contacts stalled after Mr. Bush took a more hawkish stand on regional security matters than former President Bill Clinton.
In recent days, North Korea has lashed out at South Korea and the United States, saying that America's new plans for a missile defense system would bring only death and destruction.
But earlier, during talks with the delegation from the European Union - headed by Sweden's prime minister, Goeran Persson - North Korea's supreme leader, Kim Jong Il, promised that his nation would keep a moratorium on its own missile tests until at least 2003, a move that was seen as a gesture toward Washington.
But Mr. Kim said he would not renounce the export of missiles and missile technology. A member of the union's visiting delegation, Javier Solana, said that the North Korean leader had claimed that technology was part of trade.
"If he finds people who want to buy it, he will sell it," Mr. Solana said.
-------- japan
Japanese Worry About Nuke Ships
New York Times
May 14, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Japan-US-Navy.html?searchpv=aponline
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=ASIA&STORYID=APIS7C00K3O0
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010514/aponline123802_000.htm
TOKYO (AP) -- Residents of a city near Tokyo urged the mayor on Monday to oppose making it the permanent home base for U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.
A citizens group's petition with more than 70,000 signatures, addressed to Yokosuka Mayor Hideo Sawada, asked him to block Navy plans to expand part of an area where the ships are docked.
The group said the construction was aimed at allowing future deployment of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and making the port their permanent base, said city official Nagatoshi Esashi.
The U.S. Naval Headquarters in Japan are located in the city, just south of the capital.
The USS Kitty Hawk, a conventional aircraft carrier, is based at the Yokosuka Naval Base and is expected to be retired around 2008. The citizens group has said it fears the vessel may be replaced with a nuclear-powered carrier.
Cmdr. James Graybeal, a spokesman for Yokosuka U.S. Naval Base, said the project to update Piedmont Pier started a decade ago in preparation for a bigger aircraft carrier and denied any plans to put nuclear-powered carriers in the port.
``It is not programmed to accommodate nuclear-powered aircraft carriers,'' he said. ``There is no plan at this point to port a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the future.''
Japan's constitution bans the use and possession of nuclear arms. A 1964 bilateral agreement requires that the United States notify Japan at least 24 hours prior to port calls by U.S. nuclear-powered submarines.
--------
Japan's Leader Seeks Constitutional Reforms
New York Times
May 14, 2001
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/14/world/14JAPA.html
TOKYO, May 12 - When Junichiro Koizumi became prime minister, much of Japan braced itself for the kind of sweeping economic change hinted at by a politician whose motto has been "structural reform with no sacred cows."
But in his first weeks in office, Mr. Koizumi has focused his zeal for reform not on the debt and overregulation that have dulled Japan's economic performance for years, but on the country's long-sacrosanct Constitution.
Hardly a day goes by when Mr. Koizumi does not invoke the need to revise the document, which was written by the United States in 1946 during its postwar occupation of Japan. And the two areas he has singled out for change go to the heart of Japan's modern identity as a parliamentary democracy and country that forswears war forever.
His top priority is the creation of a more presidential system with direct elections of the prime minister. Some say it is little wonder he has chosen that popular goal, since he enjoys an 80 percent personal approval rating but belongs to a political party that shares little of his enthusiasm for painful economic transformation.
It is far less clear why he has selected his other constitutional aim, of letting Japan legally field an army. Popular opposition to the idea is vast - nearly as great as his own popular support.
In a similar break with custom that hints at a revival of nationalism, Mr. Koizumi has said he will visit a monument to Japan's war dead on the country's memorial day, Aug. 15.
The Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo honors several so-called Class A war criminals who were convicted and executed after Japan's defeat in World War II, and for that reason sitting prime ministers have seldom visited the shrine.
According to a recent nationwide opinion poll by the newspaper Asahi Shimbun, 74 percent of the respondents said they wanted Japan to retain the famous Article 9 of its Constitution, which says the country will "forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation."
"I believe that Article 9 should not be revised," said Tomoko Oshita, a Tokyo civil servant, in a typical comment. "We must avoid war at any cost, and I cannot see any reason for revising it. It feels as if Japan is heading again toward the right."
Mr. Koizumi has himself acknowledged that changing Article 9 is impossible in the short term. And his party's main coalition partner, the Buddhist-affiliated New Komeito, expresses formidable opposition the the idea. Consequently, many political analysts are asking why the prime minister would choose to waste political capital on such a thorny issue.
The most skeptical interpretations say Mr. Koizumi is talking about the Constitution because spelling out painful economic changes would probably damage his popularity before parliamentary elections in July, which could determine his survival as prime minister.
A constitutional debate is a cost-free way of keeping alive his reformist image.
"What kind of energy will be devoted to economic matters, versus these kinds of constitutional matters?" asked Takeshi Sasaki, a political scientist and president of Tokyo University. "This is a big choice for the prime minister. The constitutional matters could be taken up as a way of postponing the economic matters, which require unpopular measures."
Others say the explanation may lie in the complicated calculations of Japan's coalition-based politics. Support for Mr. Koizumi may be strong with the public for now, but enthusiasm for his economic agenda is said to be extremely weak within his governing Liberal Democratic Party.
Seen in this light, the frequent mention of a desire to revise Article 9, like the pledge to visit the shrine, is a tranquilizing sop to the party's conservative mainstream.
The political risk is that even if turning Japan's so-called Self-Defense Force into a formal army is not in the cards anytime soon, the mere proposal raises immediate problems with Mr. Koizumi's pacifist coalition partner, the New Komeito, without whose support the Liberal Democrats would be unable to govern.
Mr. Koizumi's far more popular suggestion that Japan introduce a system of direct election of the prime minister could provide a solution.
Most constitutional experts oppose the idea of direct election of the prime minister, saying it would be inherently incompatible with the parliamentary system.
"There has been no bold or imaginative leadership," said Shinji Kitaoka, a political scientist at Tokyo University," adding that the lack "is obviously inappropriate at a time of global competition."
"This is not the solution," he said, "but the Japanese want change because they are left with the impression that they have very mediocre leaders."
Perhaps more important from Mr. Koizumi's perspective, Japan's largest opposition group, the Democratic Party, enthusiastically supports the direct election idea and, moreover, is far more supportive of the prime minister's economic reforms than his own Liberal Democratic Party.
According to this interpretation, Japan may be moving toward a wholesale realignment of its political parties under Mr. Koizumi, one that could see not only the reconfiguration of alliances, but also the birth of whole new parties.
In an interview this week, Mr. Koizumi's most influential economic adviser, Heizo Takenaka, hinted as much, saying that "another round of political reform could be required" before economic reform could begin in earnest.
-------- missile defense
Russian Official Calls U.S. Missile Scheme Laughable
New York Times
May 14, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-arms-us.html?searchpv=reuters
MOSCOW (Reuters) - An adviser to President Vladimir Putin said in interviews published on Monday that U.S. arguments to justify its planned missile shield made him laugh, but he predicted Washington would build the system anyway.
Former Defense Minister Marshal Igor Sergeyev, in interviews with the RIA and Interfax news agencies, said U.S. negotiators last week had proposed no reasonable alternative to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty to oversee strategic stability.
Sergeyev, who became an adviser to Putin after being replaced as defense minister in March, said Moscow rejected Washington's arguments that ``rogue states'' like North Korea and Iran could produce missiles capable of hitting U.S. territory.
``We will continue to stand for upholding ABM in its current form and oppose U.S. plans for a national anti-missile system,'' Sergeyev told RIA. ``You must not destroy an old house before building a new one where it is more comfortable and safer to live.''
Sergeyev said Russia was now ``certain the United States will proceed with construction of a national anti-missile system.''
Russia has long opposed changes to the ABM treaty, but was restrained in its initial response to Bush's plans, announced in a May 1 speech. Putin said Bush's plans to build the system while reducing nuclear arsenals offered ground for discussion.
Putin has made no comment on the talks last Friday between the U.S. team led by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Russian Foreign Ministry and other experts.
A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said after the talks that the U.S. team had given no answers to complaints that the plan upended 30 years of security arrangements based on ABM.
Reaction among Washington's allies in western Europe and Asia to visits by other negotiating teams was also reserved. Many countries sought additional details of the scheme.
IVANOV VISITS WASHINGTON THIS WEEK
In the interviews, conducted ahead of Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov's visit to Washington this week, Sergeyev said the two sides ``had similar assessments of the rocket potential of third countries, including so-called rogue states, but drew totally different conclusions.''
He could not take seriously U.S. suggestions that Iran and North Korea could produce intercontinental missiles on the basis of 1960s Scud-missile technology currently available to them.
``As a missile specialist, it makes me laugh when the Americans say that on the basis of these first generation missiles, Iran and North Korea could create intercontinental ballistic missiles able to reach U.S. territory,'' he told RIA.
Sergeyev, who ran Russia's missile forces before becoming defense minister, said it was also absurd to suggest that strategic missiles could be produced without testing, which could be subjected to strict controls.
``You would have to be suicidal to fire an armed missile without conducting tests beforehand. There is no such precedent in international practice,'' he said.
``The testing structure of 'rogue states' could be carefully checked by the technical facilities of Russia and the United States. We proposed such joint controls to the Americans.''
He said Russian negotiators had offered to ``create a joint group of missile specialists -- academics and technology experts -- to talk about missile threats in terms of science, not politics. There was no reply to this proposal.''
Russia has proposed a cheaper missile defense alternative to the U.S. scheme, which would rely heavily on diplomacy. But the proposal, handed to NATO in February, has few details.
Sergeyev told Interfax he felt at the talks that Washington ''had no notion of the shape of the system it wanted to create.''
But he said they took place ``in a spirit of partnership,'' described Bush's proposals for cutting strategic arsenals as interesting and suggested an overall control system could be devised using parts of proposals advanced by both sides.
But joint efforts, he said, had to be based on ``long-term prospects of cooperation and trust while maintaining ABM.''
-------
U.S. To Construct Missile Defense
New York Times
May 14, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Russia.html?searchpv=aponline
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration affirmed Monday it would construct a defense against missiles, if one is needed, whatever Russia and other nations may think of the plan.
President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell are expected to make the point when they meet Friday with the Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.
Bush and Powell also are likely to tell Ivanov the administration wants to negotiate reductions in offensive nuclear arsenals, long a Russian goal.
Russia is opposed to the idea of a national missile defense, which is outlawed by a 1972 treaty that Bush has declared an irrelevant relic of the Cold War.
American diplomats have gone to Russia and other far-flung points talking to government officials about a U.S. anti-missile defense.
The Russian reaction was cool. A Russian government spokesman said last week the talks had raised more questions than answers, and a top general threatened countermeasures if the United States went ahead with an anti-missile system.
On Monday, Igor Sergeyev, an adviser to President Vladimir Putin, said the U.S. delegation headed by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz failed to convince Russian officials the plan was wise.
``We did not hear coherent arguments in favor of Washington's plan to deploy a national missile defense system,'' Sergeyev was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
Asked Monday if the United States would go ahead anyhow if Bush and his senior advisers opted for a missile shield, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said ``the secretary has made clear, the president has made clear that we intend to proceed with defense, and defense is part of our ... strategic framework.''
The talks around the world are designed to help other nations ``understand, first of all, our strategic thinking and, second of all, so that we can hear from them on the various factors that need to be considered as we proceed to look for various areas of cooperation.''
The 1972 treaty bars U.S. and Russian national missile defenses, the theory being that potential aggression will be averted because retaliation could be devastating.
Russia has threatened to stop reducing its 7,000-warhead arsenal if the United States breaks out of the treaty. China says fielding missile defenses in Asia -- which the Bush administration said it would consider -- could escalate tensions over Taiwan.
Germany has taken a skeptical stance on a U.S. missile defense, while France also appears unconvinced the futuristic and expensive program is wise.
Boucher said Friday that Bush was not on the verge of choosing among a range of missile defense schemes. None have been tested successfully, and many are purely theoretical at this point.
Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman was due in Ottawa on Tuesday for talks with NATO partner and close ally Canada on the situation.
Powell, in a CNN interview Monday, said the United States hoped to coax Russia into accepting the view that changes in the global security situation require a reexamination of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972.
Powell acknowledged the Kremlin remains unconvinced about the administration's desire to build a national missile defense system.
--------
U.S. Aims to Ease China's Concerns
New York Times
May 14, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Asia-Missile-Defense.html?searchpv=aponline
BEIJING (AP) -- A senior U.S. diplomat on a mission to ease Chinese concerns about a proposed anti-missile system said Monday the defenses would not be as formidable as Beijing fears and that China misunderstands Washington's plans.
James Kelly, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, was to hold talks Tuesday with Chinese officials as part of efforts to win Asian support for President Bush's national missile defense plans.
``Part of the dialogue we will be having with China will be to allay the concerns they've expressed about something much grander than we have in mind,'' Kelly said before leaving for Beijing.
News reports from China ``suggest that they really don't understand'' the plan, Kelly said in Singapore, where he briefed the prime minister about the proposed system.
His tour also covers Japan, South Korea and Australia. Kelly arrived in Beijing on Monday night.
Other U.S. officials have made similar lobbying visits in Europe, where American allies have questioned the planned system to shoot down incoming missiles. The U.S. plan would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the United States and Russia, and some say it might spark a new arms race.
In Moscow, former Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said Monday that a U.S. delegation last week failed to convince Russian officials of the wisdom of a missile shield.
``We did not hear coherent arguments in favor of Washington's plan to deploy a national missile defense system,'' Sergeyev was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
Sergeyev, an adviser to President Vladimir Putin since being replaced as defense minister in March, said he found U.S. arguments about threats from so-called rogue states like North Korea and Iran ``unconvincing''
He said such states have the technology of Soviet-built Scud missiles with which ``it is impossible to create an intercontinental missile capable of threatening U.S. territory. You cannot make a leap over two generations of missiles.''
But the Bush administration restated Monday it would construct a defense against missiles, if one is needed, whatever Russia and other nations may think of the plan.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Secretary of State Colin Powell ``has made clear, the president has made clear that we intend to proceed with defense, and defense is part of our ... strategic framework.''
Russia and China, which fears losing the deterrent power of their nuclear forces, firmly oppose the plan.
China also worries that Washington might extend protection from such a system to rival Taiwan, reducing Beijing's ability to use its growing missile forces to intimidate the island it regards as a renegade province. Chinese officials say they would react strongly to any move to include Taiwan in a regional missile defense.
If Washington builds a system to shield the United States, China has said it may respond by increasing its nuclear arsenal or make its warheads more accurate to overcome the U.S. defenses. China says it already has begun discussions with Russia on how to overcome the system.
Washington says the system is aimed at defending against attacks from missile powers such as North Korea which it regards as unpredictable.
Kelly said the program was not directed at any perceived threat from China. He also echoed President Bush's contention that the ABM treaty is outdated, and said it limits the United States' ability to help its allies.
The missile dispute is among a range of issues bedeviling relations between Beijing and the Bush administration, which has been more critical of China and supportive of Taiwan.
An April 1 collision between an American surveillance plane and a Chinese jet fighter strained relations. The crash killed the Chinese pilot. China detained the U.S. Navy plane's 24 crew members for 11 days and is still holding the plane.
``It's unfortunate that the accident occurred ... and it's unfortunate that the plane is still in China,'' Kelly said.
The plane was not intended as the main topic of talks, but Kelly said the incident would likely mean his one-day China visit would not be ``business as usual.''
-------- new zealand
New Zealand to Probe '50s Nuke Tests
By Ray Lilley
Associated Press Writer
Monday, May 14, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010514/aponline000140_000.htm
WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- The government will ask Britain and Australia whether its servicemen were used as guinea pigs in the 1950s at British nuclear tests in Australia, officials said Monday.
According to Australian military documents released last week, troops dressed in a variety of protective clothing had to run, crawl and drive through a contaminated area to test the protective quality of the clothing.
Defense Minister Mark Burton has instructed officials to provide him with a full briefing after the documents showed New Zealand, Australian and British officers entered the "ground zero" areas of atomic bomb blasts at the Maralinga test site in South Australia shortly after nuclear devices had been detonated.
"The object was to discover what types of clothing would give best protection against radioactive contamination in conditions of warfare," a military memo from Australian government archives said.
Burton asked senior defense officials to check what involvement New Zealand troops had in the program and what risks were involved.
"If there has been any suggestion of those people being put in any risk then we will be looking at whatever steps are necessary to follow that up," he said.
Defense force historian John Crawford said Monday the military had the names of five young officers used to test the protective clothing at the Maralinga bomb test site.
The five were sent to take part in the experiments because New Zealand wanted firsthand information about the effect of nuclear blasts, he told National Radio.
"This group of (senior 1950s military planners) thought that the use of nuclear weapons could occur at any time, and that this group of youngish, up-and-coming officers should then come back to the New Zealand armed forces and pass on their knowledge of what the effects of a nuclear bomb were," Crawford said.
Britain claimed in the European Court of Human Rights in 1997 that humans had never been used as experimental subjects during nuclear weapons trials. London detonated 12 atomic bombs in Australia between 1952 and 1957.
However, Britain's Ministry of Defense acknowledged on Friday it had used the servicemen during clothing tests.
The revelations have caused an uproar in Australia, with demands for an official inquiry.
Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said his government would examine possible links between illnesses suffered by servicemen and exposure to radiation.
-------- russia
Official: Sub to Be Raised by Sept.
The Associated Press
Monday, May 14, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010514/aponline070213_000.htm
MOSCOW -- A top Russian official said Monday that the sunken nuclear submarine Kursk would be raised in a three-month operation that will be finished by Sept. 20, Russian news agencies reported.
Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, who heads the commission investigating the Kursk tragedy, said that an agreement would be signed between Russia and the Dutch and Norwegian firms taking part in the lifting operation on May 20 in St. Petersburg.
The Kursk was one of the Russian Naval Fleet's most modern nuclear submarines. It exploded and sank during maneuvers in the Barents Sea last summer, killing all 118 crewmen.
The government has not released any official explanation of the cause. Most foreign experts say it was most likely was an internal malfunction, such as a torpedo misfiring, that caused an explosion in a forward compartment. However, the government has not officially ruled out the theory that the Kursk collided with another vessel, possibly a foreign submarine.
The Russian government is supposed to share the cost, estimated at $70 million, with the Kursk Foundation, an international fund-raising group.
The ITAR-Tass news agency, citing sources, said that the foreign firms would help lift all but the first compartment of the submarine, which was most heavily damaged. Only Russians would take part in lifting the first compartment.
Klebanov said earlier this year that the submarine's mangled torpedo compartment would be cut away from the vessel and left on the sea floor, in order to minimize the possibility of further explosions.
The plan to lift the Kursk has provoked controversy in Russia. Some of the crewmen's families have said they would prefer to follow the naval tradition of burying their dead at sea.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- new york
COOLING LOSS MEANS SPECIAL INSPECTION FOR NUKE PLANT
May 14, 2001
ENS
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/may2001/2001L-05-14-09.html
BUCHANAN, New York, The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) began a special inspection at the Indian Point 3 nuclear power plant today to look into the details surrounding a loss of spent fuel pool cooling at the plant last week.
The plant in Buchanan is operated by Entergy Nuclear Northeast.
Cooling to the spent fuel pool was lost on May 8 for about 50 minutes. At the time, the plant was shut down and all of the reactor fuel had been off-loaded into the spent fuel pool.
The temperature of the water in the spent fuel pool rose about four degrees to about 155 degrees F.
The NRC will conduct a special inspection to assess the utility's evaluation of the cause of the incident, and corrective actions planned by the utility. The NRC will evaluate the amount of risk created by the event, and determine whether there are implications for other plants that store spent fuel in cooling pools.
Many plants around the nation now store spent fuel in cooling pools while waiting for the federal government to build a permanent high level nuclear waste storage facility for the fuel. Congress and the Department of Energy are now studying a controversial proposal to build a permanent waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
An inspector from the NRC Region I Division of Reactor Safety and an inspector from the Region Division of Reactor Projects will perform the inspection at Indian Point.
A report detailing the findings will be issued about 45 days after the end of the inspection.
-------- MILITARY
-------- arms sales
Suspects in Arms Scandal Post Bail
New York Times
May 14, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-India-Hindujas.html
NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- Two brothers from the billionaire Hinduja family, charged in a 1986 arms sale kickback scandal, have been granted permission to travel outside of India after posting $3.2 million in bail.
According to the Press Trust of India, Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja posted bail and are allowed to stay outside India until Aug. 20.
The brothers are charged with receiving $8.3 million in illegal commissions from the Swedish arms maker AB Bofors to facilitate the sale of howitzers to the Indian army in 1986.
On Saturday, the Supreme Court ruled that two of the Hinduja brothers would be allowed to leave India but asked the third, Prakash Hinduja, to stay in India as a guarantor for Srichand and Gopichand's return.
In Supreme Court, the Hindujas challenged a lower court order that barred them from leaving the country during a federal probe into the bribery allegations.
The brothers have denied that the money paid into their Swiss bank accounts by now-defunct Bofors was a kickback for brokering the gun deal. But they refuse to say what the money was for.
Commissions in defense deals are outlawed in India. If convicted, the Hindujas each face up to seven years in prison.
The Hindujas came to India in January to be questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Indian equivalent of the FBI, which is preparing its case for presentation to the court.
The Hinduja brothers had argued that a Delhi High Court order denying them permission to leave the country lacked ``compassion and sensitiveness'' to their needs.
They said their business in Britain, the United States and other countries was suffering since they were unable to leave India. The Hinduja Group has interests in banking, oil, cable television and Internet services.
-------- balkans
U.N. Sets Kosovo Vote for Nov. 17
New York Times
May 14, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Kosovo-Elections.html
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Setting a date for Kosovo's first general elections under Western auspices, the province's top U.N. administrator urged ethnic Albanians and Serbs to vote in the historic ballot.
The Nov. 17 vote to elect an Assembly that will choose a president will give Kosovo's people ``a chance to influence their lives,'' Hans Haekkerup, head of the U.N. mission in Kosovo, said in a TV broadcast.
``This means that you, the people now -- for the first time in your history -- will be able to decide upon day-to-day affairs in Kosovo,'' he said.
Kosovo has been run by the United Nations and NATO since 1999, when the Western alliance launched a bombing campaign to force former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to halt attacks on ethnic Albanians.
Since then, setting up elections has been one of the province's most difficult decisions, in part because Kosovo's Serbs fear the vote will push the province further from Belgrade's orbit, giving it the status of an independent state.
Haekkerup urged the province's Serbs, who boycotted last year's municipal elections, to vote, warning that minority communities ``will marginalize themselves'' if they stay away.
Yugoslavia's president, Vojislav Kostunica, was supportive but ``did not commit himself'' to participate, Haekkerup said.
Tens of thousands of Serbs, fearful of revenge attacks, have fled Kosovo since NATO took over. Haekkerup offered a provision that would permit them to vote in Serbia proper, but the mechanics of arranging the balloting has not yet been created.
Under the plan for a constitutional and governmental framework, Kosovo -- a province of Serbia -- will be governed by a president, prime minister and 120-member Assembly.
All but 20 Assembly representatives will be elected by direct vote. Ten seats are reserved for Kosovo's Serbs, and other 10 for other ethnic minorities.
The Assembly will choose a president. The president, in turn, will select a prime minister. Haekkerup, however, would have the right to reject any decision or law passed by the new leaders.
U.N. officials and NATO-led peacekeepers will retain control over the judiciary and law enforcement
``We will still be here and still have a role,'' Haekkerup said. ``But we will take a step back.''
--------
NATO okays return of Serb army to Sector B of Kosovo buffer zone
May 14
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010514/1/p6mt.html
BRUSSELS, NATO on Monday authorized the Yugoslav army to return to the last sector of the security zone put up in June 1999 between Kosovo and the rest of Yugoslavia, making its presence in the zone complete, said a diplomatic source.
NATO special envoy Pieter Feith had said in Bujanovac, Yugoslavia, on Friday, "We have discussed a set of arrangements that would ensure that a return of Yugoslav and Serb security forces in Sector B would take place in peaceful and non-violent conditions."
Sector B is the last area of the NATO-imposed buffer zone not yet re-occupied by Belgrade's security forces since former hardline president Slobodan Milosevic fell last year, allowing Yugoslavia to return to the international fold.
The sector, across from the cities of Bujanovac and Presevo, is still occupied by hundreds of ethnic Albanian rebels and has been the scene of frequent clashes between the rebels and Serb police.
Monday's decision was taken by the NATO permanent council of ambassadors, not without misgivings.
Some members, including France, had pushed for a quick return of the Yugoslav army but other allies, the US and Germany among them, had called for prudence.
-------- biological weapons
Talks Inching Ahead on Monitoring '72 Germ Warfare Pact
May 14, 2001
By ELIZABETH OLSON
switchboard.com
GENEVA, May 13 - Lengthy negotiations to fashion a verification scheme for the 29-year-old treaty banning biological weapons are edging closer to agreement, although some important issues are yet to be resolved, the talks' chairman says.
With one more round to go, in July, the six-year negotiations have zeroed in on a half-dozen core areas where disagreement remains, the chairman, Tibor Toth, a Hungarian diplomat, said late last week.
The 1972 biological weapons convention, ratified by 143 countries, bans the development, production and stockpiling of bacteriological and toxin weapons. Although the pact on biological weapons was the first to eliminate a category of arms, no enforcement scheme was provided.
Finding common ground on setting up a system to detect and deter those who would use biological agents as weapons of mass destruction has proved to be a complex process.
Negotiations to add provisions for enforcement started in 1995 after it became clear during the Persian Gulf war that Iraq had developed stocks of biological weapons, including anthrax, even though it had signed the convention.
Also, in 1992, it was disclosed that the former Soviet Union had made biological arms secretly. Germ warfare research is also suspected in a dozen countries, including China, Iran, Libya, North Korea and Syria. Israel, which has not signed the convention, is also believed to have such research.
In an effort to overcome the draft treaty's 1,400 brackets indicating points of disagreement, Mr. Toth introduced a 210-page compromise text, along with 500 pages of explanation, when the current session opened last month. He said the countries have been able to focus better on the disputed issues, and that the negotiations should shift from technical issues to the necessary political decisions in the July session.
Asked whether countries will ultimately agree to a new $25 million to $30 million regime to control biological agents, Mr. Toth replied, "What I'm getting is an overwhelming yes."
He said that countries that had never before spoken up, which he called the "silent majority," had expressed their views in recent weeks and that most had indicated that they would go along with his proposals.
However, the United States' position is unclear. When asked, through the United States mission in Geneva, its delegation declined to comment.
A coalition of private groups said the lack of active American participation in the talks is "an indication that Washington has quietly withdrawn its support of the process."
"The United States knows that countries will be hesitant to open their biotechnology facilities to mandatory inspections if the U.S. doesn't agree to do the same," said Edward Hammond, of one private group, the Sunshine Project. "So the U.S. hopes that silence is all that is necessary to kill the protocol."
The talks on an enforcement scheme for the biological warfare treaty have been stalled over contentious issues such as inspecting laboratories and protecting commercial secrets. Mr. Toth said there are also sharp differences over access to technologies. Developing countries generally are pushing for unrestricted access, while industrialized countries wanted to make sure there were legitimate reasons for such technology transfers.
The governments involved have set a deadline to come up with a new inspection system by the time they are due to hold their fifth review conference in Geneva.
Among arms control issues, Mr. Toth said, biological arms had received relatively scant attention from governments. But he said that he hoped the destructiveness of biological agents like foot-and-mouth disease, would make the public more aware of the importance of strengthening the pact.
-------- colombia
Colombian Tribe Is Threatened by an Encroaching Civil War
New York Times
May 14, 2001
By JUAN FORERO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/14/world/14COLO.html?pagewanted=all
SIMONORWA, Colombia - Spaniards in clanging armor trudged up the mountain first, subjugating Indians in the search for gold. Farmers, clear-cutting forests, came next. Catholic missionaries followed, forbidding the Arhuaco Indians to speak their native tongue or practice their religion.
It amounted to five centuries of encroachment. But the Arhuacos, an agrarian tribe whose nation stretches across the thick forests and fertile valleys of these mountains of northern Colombia, managed to preserve their way of life through stubborn resistance and, later, modern-day political savvy.
Today, in 28 villages like this one, a tribe of 18,000 people operates schools where the ancestral tongue is taught. They hold religious rituals in forest clearings, giving thanks to the creators of the divine mountains and rivers of the range where they live, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Theirs is a traditional life in which men farm, dressed in long white robes, while women maintain homes of adobe and thatched roofs.
But now, the Arhuacos are facing a threat their leaders consider most serious - the arrival of Colombia's brutal civil conflict, a force they say could destroy their tribe.
The concerns are well founded. Across Colombia, leftist rebels are forcibly recruiting Indians to work as guerrillas and jungle guides, while paramilitary gunmen mount retaliatory killing rampages. Some Indian populations, already precariously small, have shrunk by half or more. Entire languages and, in isolated cases, whole tribes that have survived tumult for centuries are now being lost.
Thousands have fled their homelands. Some Indians - their tribes in tatters - beg on urban streets.
"The last two years have been catastrophic," said Augusto Oyuela Caycedo, a Colombian anthropologist at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. "These are groups that have their own language, that have their own race. But in some cases, only 50 people in a tribe are talking the language, and what will happen is they will disappear."
The Arhuacos, while among the strongest, most traditional of all Colombian tribes, have felt powerless as leftists rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia have increasingly trod through their villages. Much to the Arhuacos' alarm, the rebels have insisted on buying provisions and have forcibly recruited young Indians as fighters.
The tribe fears that the guerrillas could soon attract right-wing paramilitary gunmen - who specialize in massacring those they accuse of collaborating with rebels. That is what happened to the Arhuacos' neighbors, the Kankuamus, who were killed by the dozens and relocated to shantytowns by paramilitary gunmen.
"What is coming now are men with guns," said one Arhuaco elder, 43, who asked that his name not be used. "And that has affected us. We don't feel like we did before. We were alone, free. We didn't worry. Now, we feel things are not so normal."
Of Colombia's 84 tribes, about 30 are considered to be seriously endangered because of the conflict and other factors like land invasion, oil exploration and development, according to the Indigenous Organization of Colombia, a nongovernmental group. Four are in imminent danger of disappearing altogether: the Bari of Norte de Santander Province; the Sikuani and the Cuibas of Arauca Province; and the Macaguaje of Amazonas Province.
Advocates for Indians said the threat was most dire in the Chocó- Antioquia region of the northwest, here in parts of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta where the Arhuacos live, in Arauca Province and in the Amazon region.
In the jungles of the Colombian Amazon, as many as 58 tribes are facing encroachment from guerrillas, paramilitaries, the army, gold miners, drug traffickers and gun runners. Unsophisticated in modern- day lobbying and organizing, many of the Indians have simply withdrawn deeper into the jungle.
Advocates for the Indian tribes say that among the most endangered groups are the Nukak hunter-gatherers of Guaviare Province, in southeastern Colombia, whose population has been cut nearly in half, to 500 today from 900 five years ago, because of illness and conflict. In Córdoba Province in northern Colombia, leaders of the Embera-Katios were assassinated and hundreds fled to cities as violence escalated.
In Putumayo, dozens of Cofanes fled to Ecuador after American-supported defoliation of their coca fields and legal crops. Another group from a conflict-ridden region in the south, the Karijonas, has dropped to 70 members, from 280 in 1993.
"The indigenous communities are considered a military objective by all the armed groups," said Alberto Achito, a director at the Indigenous Organization and an Embera-Siapiadara Indian. "Not for belonging to any one side, or having connections, but rather for defending our position."
The Arhuacos of the Sierra Nevada have avoided the fate of many Indian groups, but they are increasingly feeling the pressures from armed groups, notably the rebels.
"They want us to do things for them, everything," said one leader, 48, who like other Arhuacos who talked about the conflict asked that his name not be used. "And as for the youth, they want every family to give a son for the war. They want the war to mix with this culture, and that cannot be."
In an effort to articulate their concerns - and highlight the richness of a culture they want to preserve - Arhuaco leaders invited a reporter and photographer to spend four days on their reservation, observing rituals, learning about ancestral practices and visiting their sacred capital, Nabusimake. In interviews, the Arhuacos spoke in Spanish.
To reach the Arhuacos means a two-hour walk along winding paths from the non-Indian town of Pueblo Bello to here in Simonorwa, the foothills of which rise to become the world's highest coastal mountain. At 19,000 feet, the Sierra is considered among the world's most biologically diverse mountain ranges - featuring eight separate climates, 35 rivers, 1,800 species of flowering plants and 635 species of birds, many of them found nowhere else.
The spectacularly rugged terrain also affords the Arhuacos a measure of isolation - and the chance to live as their ancestors did.
Arhuaco men work and socialize with a mouthful of coca, which they mix with crunched seashells from a pear-shaped gourd. Greetings with other men mean exchanging handfuls of leaves. The women spend much of their time weaving the men's woolen conical hats, colorful pouches and robes that most Arhuacos wear. The villages lack electricity, and most homes lack plumbing.
When it comes to religion, the Arhuacos follow the teachings of wise men called mamos and believe in several "mothers and fathers" who created nature. A central tenet holds that the Sierra is the "heart of the world," which the Arhuacos, wiser than outsiders, must protect.
In monthly rituals held simultaneously across the Arhuaco nation, families gather in forests or hillsides under the guidance of mamos. Holding little cotton threads, rocks or tree shavings, which the Arhuacos see as representations of the many facets of nature, the worshipers project their thoughts into the objects as a way of purifying and honoring nature. The items are later meticulously arranged and left to the mamos to give up as offerings.
"We are happy about living life like this," said Jeremias Torres, 40, an Arhuaco leader. "The point is to live, to live a tranquil life, without being dependent on anyone."
It is a way of life that, at one time, had been on the decline. The tribe, however, made a resurgence from the early 1980's, when they ousted Capuchin missionaries who had squelched its language and religion.
Now, a majority of people in the tribe can speak the native language. A dictionary of Arhuaco is being completed. Indian stories, once passed on orally, are in written form. And in all 28 villages, children are taught in Arhuaco - an increase from just two villages in 1990, said Rubiel Salabata, the tribe's university-trained linguist.
"We are getting our culture back, learning that we should not be ashamed of our way of life," said Aquilino Ramos, 16, who is slowly learning Arhuaco.
Modernity, of course, has touched the Arhuacos.
Baseball caps and running shoes and shiny watches abound. Jeeps ferry Arhuacos from one town to the next, and many live in lowland towns with non-Indians. The young people often prefer the Vallenato music of northern Colombia over traditional pipe and drum melodies. And on nights when the cantinas in non-Indian towns are hopping, some Arhuacos come down from the hills to drink themselves into a stupor.
Isael Niño, 80, a mamo priest and among the tribe's most respected elders, worries about the intrusions. "Now there are many white people who come to hinder," Mr. Niño said. "They come in with their roads, their progress, their electricity."
But it is the conflict that is most distressing, already having touched Arhuaco towns to the west like Yeibin, Singuney and Barranquillita. Rebels, promising adventure, weapons and pay, have recruited youths in those villages.
The Arhuacos, who have learned the art of lobbying and political arm- twisting in their battles to keep non- Indians off their reservation, have sent delegations to Bogotá to meet with ministers, foreign ambassadors and human rights groups.
Indian leaders propose that the government urge the paramilitaries and rebels to declare the Sierra off limits. The proposal may not be realistic, since the government refuses to negotiate with the paramilitaries. Arhuaco leaders, however, say there is no other way.
"We could have, at any moment, a war and they could finish us off, commit genocide," said an Arhuaco leader in Nabusimake. "But we don't carry arms. We must comply with the laws, the mamos say. That's the way we must do it. We are not warlike communities."
-------- OTHER
-------- police
Senators Criticize F.B.I. on McVeigh Papers
New York Times
May 14, 2001
By DOUGLAS JEHL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/14/politics/14EXEC.html
WASHINGTON, May 13 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation came under scathing criticism today from Capitol Hill, with Democratic and Republican lawmakers describing the mishandling of documents in the Timothy J. McVeigh case as the latest in several fiascoes that appeared to reflect deep problems within the agency.
One critic, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, was openly skeptical of the bureau's explanation that a flawed database rather than broader mismanagement lay at the root of the problem, which surfaced just days before Mr. McVeigh was scheduled to be executed for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing. The foul-up has forced the Justice Department to postpone the execution at least until June 11.
Attorney General John Ashcroft has already ordered the Justice Department's inspector general to investigate why the bureau failed until last week to turn over thousands of pages of interview reports and related materials that should have been given to Mr. McVeigh's lawyers before his trial in 1996. But the lawmakers went further today, saying that this F.B.I. lapse and others called out for Congress or a presidential commission to examine what they called matters of culture and competence.
"When you have on major case after major case after major case, mistake after mistake after mistake, it's time for a thorough and complete re-examination," Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said on the CBS program "Face the Nation." A Senate subcommittee is to begin such a review soon, Mr. Schumer said, and he called on President Bush to assemble leading law- enforcement officials to conduct "a top-to-bottom review" of the bureau.
Appearing separately on Sunday television programs, the lawmakers cited what they called F.B.I. bungling in a number of other high- profile cases, including the fatal assaults that ended standoffs between federal agents and citizens in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 and against the Branch Davidians' complex near Waco, Tex., in 1993. They also mentioned the bureau's failure until this year to arrest one of its agents, Robert P. Hanssen, who has been accused of espionage dating back many years.
"I think there's a management culture here that's at fault," Senator Grassley said on ABC's "This Week." "I call it a `cowboy culture.' It's kind of a culture that puts image, public relations and headlines ahead of the fundamentals of the F.B.I."
It remained unclear today how or whether the latest lapse, in the McVeigh case, might affect the final outcome of what was the worst case of domestic terrorism in the United States and what was to have been the first federal execution in 38 years. The execution was postponed to allow Mr. McVeigh's lawyers time to review more than 3,000 pages of documents that were not surrendered until last week by F.B.I. field offices.
Attorney General Ashcroft and other law enforcement officials in the Bush administration have said there is no evidence that the documents were deliberately withheld by anyone, and they say nothing in them changes the fact of Mr. McVeigh's guilt. Mr. McVeigh, 33, was convicted and sentenced to death in 1997 for the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, and he has since acknowledged his guilt.
But lawyers for Mr. McVeigh said today that they were studying "all options" in light of the belated emergence of the documents. "We're looking for anything that provides an arguable basis to go to court and seek relief," one lawyer, Nathan D. Chambers, said on "This Week."
Mr. Chambers and a second lawyer, Robert Nigh Jr., said it was important that they determine how the mistake could have been made. The lawyers have left open the possibility that they might challenge Mr. McVeigh's conviction or his death sentence, and they said today that it might take longer than the 30 days allowed under the reprieve for them to complete their legal review.
A request for a further reprieve would be subject to approval by a judge, and would probably set up a new clash with the Justice Department. Mr. Ashcroft was quoted today in The Daily Oklahoman as saying that "ample time" had been given to the defense lawyers and that he had "no intention" of extending the June 11 execution date.
In their television appearances today, the lawmakers who were critical of the F.B.I. said that they had no doubt about Mr. McVeigh's guilt. But some, including Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said that any suppression of evidence against Mr. McVeigh could also constitute a crime.
"If we find deliberate concealment, that's obstruction of justice, and people ought to go to jail," Senator Specter said on "Fox News Sunday."
-------- activists
'CREATIVE ACTION'at the M.O.D.
Dear anti-nuke networks.
Theres a large action planned for june 18th (same day as the Globalise resistance action in Gothenburg)in Bristol Uk. To make this hit home, then (1) we could do with as many folk in the UK getting along to this, and passing it out on the networks.
(2) ALso some solidarity actions in other countries would be grand.
cheers davey garland <thunderelf@yahoo.co.uk>
Please support a 'CREATIVE ACTION'at the M.O.D. Procurement Centre, Filton, Bristol on MONDAY, 18TH JUNE.
It is a non-violent protest against the procurement and use of weapons causing sickness,death and genetic damage to civilian populations and military personnel and long-term contamination of the environment.
It is being called by Direct Action Against Militarism and Depleted Uraium (DAAMDU) which is a grassroots campaign against low intensity nuclear warfare and the militarism of the New World Order..... however, you are very free to bring your own agendas, be it Trident warheads, clusterbombs, airfuel bombs or any other grouch you have against the MOD i.e.the constant bombing of Iraq!The emphasis of the action is to raise public awareness through non-violence and creativity so bring plenty of banners, flyers, posters,ribbons, music and whatever else.
The action will start with picketing of MOD workers between 7-9am and end with a picnic at noon. There will be intervening actions. Free accomodation is offered in Bristol for the previous night and there will be a non-violent direct action and legal briefing at 7.30pm on Sunday 17th for those interested. A planning meeting will take place on 26th May in Bristol at the Resistance conference (www.resistanceconference.org.uk)
Hundreds of civil servants at the M.O.D. sit is environmentally friendly offices, procuring weapons which will have a devastating impact on the environment for countless generations.
Lets expose the appalling reality!Flyers for the action are available.For these and any further information.Phone 0117 954 0564 or e-mail daamdu@c4.com
Please let us know in advance if you need accomodation for the 17th.
Please forward this e-mail to as many interested people as possible. Thanks!
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