------- Index of Articles
NUCLEAR
Italian newspapers on DU in Sardinia
MILITARY
Rumsfeld, in Afghanistan, Says U.S. Ready for Taliban
U.S. waits to 'hear' bin Laden
After New Raids, Bush Again Urges Israeli Pullback
Israel's Threat of an Attack on a Church Is Pulled Back
Bush demands Israel 'quit'
Bustling U.S. Air Base Materializes in the Mud
Saudi Proposes Mideast Action Led by the U.S.
Tribesmen say U.S. troops now in border region
Venezuelans Press for Truth About Killings During Chávez Protests
ACTIVISTS
As Egypt Curbs Dissent, Critic Fears His Fate at Trial
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- depleted uranium
Italian newspapers on DU in Sardinia
From: "vlario" <vlario@yahoo.it>
Dear all,
Saturday 27 april 2002 all the Italian newspapers spoke about DU in Sardinia and the fact that there were children born with genetic damages.
The Italian toll is:
- 134 ill - military
- 15 deaths
- 12 children with genetic damages from military personnel
- 11 children with genetic damages from civilian people around the Firing Range in Sardinia (IT).
The same day on the SAT channel RAINEWS-24 at 18:30 there was a program about the fact that DU weapons were burned in Bosnia 18 times per day for some weeks. We are in fact experiencing most damages from people who serviced in Bosnia.
Marco Saba Istituto Europeo Ricerca e Sviluppo del Sociale via Santa Sofia 27 Milano - Italy Tel (IT+) 340 5006545
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Rumsfeld, in Afghanistan, Says U.S. Ready for Taliban
April 27, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-afghan-rumsfeld.html
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Saturday 12,000 U.S. and other Western troops would ``go after'' any al Qaeda and Taliban guerrillas who regroup to launch a spring offensive in Afghanistan.
Rumsfeld, who flew into this unsettled country for talks with interim leader Hamid Karzai and other Afghan officials, said the security situation had improved somewhat since he first visited in December. But he said there would be no U.S. peacekeeping troops in Afghanistan despite pressure from international aid organizations.
Friday night, at least three rockets were fired at Kabul's main airport, although there were no casualties or damage. And the fragile security situation was underlined by reports of fresh fighting between rival warlords in the eastern city of Gardez.
Soon after he arrived at Bagram Air Base, about 50 km (30 miles) north of Kabul, Rumsfeld met some of the 7,000 U.S. and 5,000 other Western troops in Afghanistan, many of them based at Bagram.
``No,'' he told reporters, when asked if he was concerned about a successful resurgence of the Taliban and al Qaeda.
``There are a lot of people saying now that spring is coming, the Taliban and al Qaeda will reorganize,'' he told reporters traveling with him from Kyrgyzstan where he met that country's president on a Central Asian trip.
``Well, if they do, we'll go after them,'' he said.
``ENDING THE TERROR''
Speaking to several hundred heavily armed U.S. and allied troops in an aircraft hanger at Bagram, Rumsfeld said the world was determined to end ``the tyranny of terror.''
``This coalition stands on the front line between freedom and fear,'' he added, praising the American and other troops.
``The Afghanistan theater has been the first one, but it won't be the last. There is no question but that Afghanistan is indeed a proving ground.''
But Rumsfeld has warned that despite the overthrow of Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers and major victories over fugitive Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda guerrilla network, the war in Afghanistan, launched in early October, was not over.
In an interview with reporters traveling with him, the secretary pledged continued U.S. military support for an international security force of military peacekeepers -- now headed by Britain and expected to be taken over by Turkey -- but promised no U.S. troops would be sent despite pressure from international aid and human rights groups.
``There's no question but that we are involved in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF),'' he said.
``U.S. troops are providing intelligence for ISAF, logistics for ISAF, quick reaction support for ISAF. We're certainly ready to provide the same kind of support we're providing the current ISAF.''
Citing security progress despite instability in a country torn by decades of war and internal strife, he noted that Germany was helping train an Afghan police force and that the British and others were already training an Afghan national army, an effort which the Pentagon will join next month.
``The (interim) government has been in place a while, various coalition forces have had an opportunity to conduct a number of sweeps and drive out and capture additional Taliban and al Qaeda,'' Rumsfeld said.
But he stressed it was critical to keep moving toward ``a reasonably secure environment'' in Afghanistan to assure settlement of displaced Afghans and for the economy of this desperately poor country to begin to recover.
``Now when I say 'reasonably secure environment', in the case of Afghanistan, we are not looking for a model like the United States or Western Europe,'' he said.
``It is a country that is used to a good deal of unrest.''
--------
U.S. waits to 'hear' bin Laden
April 27, 2002
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020427-96583721.htm
U.S. intelligence assets have not "heard" from Osama bin Laden in nearly five months, further fueling speculation that the world's most wanted man may be dead, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday.
"We haven't heard hide nor hair of him since December, in terms of anything hard," Mr. Rumsfeld told troops manning a coalition air base in Kyrgyzstan. Coalition countries recently opened a base in the former Soviet republic to launch air strikes and supply missions into landlocked Afghanistan.
Bin Laden surfaced briefly in December just as U.S. and anti-Taliban Afghans believed they had him cornered in Tora Bora, a mountain region in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border. He issued a video urging more attacks on Americans, appearing grayer, thinner and emotionally stressed. He did not move his left arm during the 33-minute diatribe.
U.S. intelligence officials also believe they detected bin Laden's voice in Tora Bora around Dec. 5 on a short-range radio directing his al Qaeda army.
Since those two events, the elusive terror mastermind has gone unseen and unheard by American intelligence collectors.
Some analysts believe he was wounded by a U.S. air strike in Afghanistan in late November and is incapacitated or, perhaps, dead. Others believe he is laying low, not wanting to risk capture by trying to smuggle out another homemade video to the Arab-language Al Jazeera TV station in Qatar.
There are no confirmed intelligence reports of his death. Al Qaeda supporters two weeks ago took extraordinary steps to try to prove to the public that bin Laden is alive and healthy. Supporters released a video showing bin Laden and his top aide, Ayman Zawahiri, seated outside in a springtime setting.
But government analyst believe bin Laden made the tape shortly after September 11 and that perhaps background scenes were added to make it look recent.
If bin Laden is alive, he is neutralized, Mr. Rumsfeld told the troops.
"The reality is, he is probably not very effective right now in running the al Qaeda organization" which carried out the September 11 attacks on America. "We've got so much pressure on it that it is very difficult for them to raise money. It's difficult for them to train."
Thinking ahead to the day U.S. forces find bin Laden, the defense chief said, "He'll either be killed in some attack that takes place when we find him or he'll be captured or surrender, which I doubt he'll surrender. But he could be captured, in which case we would have an opportunity to visit with him."
On the question of Iraq, Mr. Rumsfeld kept up the verbal pressure on Saddam Hussein. He said more than a decade of U.N. sanctions and enforcement of two large "no-fly" zones north and south have "not been successful in inhibiting or impeding their development of weapons of mass destruction."
He said Saddam is still pursuing nuclear weapons, a situation that other senior Bush administration officials have said cannot be tolerated.
"We know that their nuclear scientists have been kept together and we know that they have an active appetite for biological weapons," he said.
-------- israel / palestine
After New Raids, Bush Again Urges Israeli Pullback
New York Times
April 27, 2002
By JAMES BENNET
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/27/international/middleeast/27MIDE.html
JERUSALEM - President Bush called sharply today for Israel to halt its incursions into Palestinian-controlled territory, after Israeli ground forces killed 2 men and arrested at least 11 in a raid on Qalqilya, a West Bank city they had previously invaded.
"It's time to end this," Mr. Bush said from his ranch in Crawford, Tex., where he had met a day earlier with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. The president's renewed demand seemed to reflect Saudi insistence that the United States take some distance from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel.
But Mr. Bush was requesting, again, a halt to an operation that is broadly popular with Israelis and that has restored the domestic standing of Mr. Sharon.
With a strong majority of Israelis saying they felt safer after the offensive, 65 percent described themselves as pleased with Mr. Sharon's performance, in a poll published today by the newspaper Maariv. In mid-March, two weeks before the mission began, his support had collapsed, sinking to 35 percent in a Maariv poll, which is conducted regularly and samples some 500 Israelis each time, often registering marked volatility.
With such backing for his policies, Mr. Sharon is still hesitating over admitting a United Nations team to investigate the events at the refugee camp at Jenin. Palestinians charge that hundreds of civilians may have been killed by the Israeli military at the camp, an assertion the army rejects.
After a day of maneuvering at the United Nations in New York, it was announced that the team - which Secretary General Kofi Annan had insisted would arrive in Israel on Saturday morning - would not go to Israel before Sunday, in deference to the Sabbath.
"This should end with a positive result," said Under Secretary Kieran Prendergast, who has negotiated for two days with representatives sent by Mr. Sharon to voice Israel's objections to the mission. But there was still a chance that the Israeli cabinet could refuse to accept the mission, or restrict its operations.
Mr. Bush first called for an Israeli withdrawal on April 4, and he later suggested that he was satisfied with Israel's partial pullback from most of the cities and towns it had seized since late March, in what it called a hunt for terrorists.
Israeli officials say they have been left no choice by a Palestinian administration that refuses to crack down on violence, but Palestinians accuse Israel of seeking to erase the boundaries of autonomous Palestinian zones created under the Oslo peace accord.
Mr. Bush affirmed his support for Israel today, but he said the Israelis "understand my position," adding, "I've been very clear, and there has been some progress, but it's now time to quit it altogether."
On Thursday, Prince Abdullah warned Mr. Bush that the United States would continue to lose credibility in the Arab world if it did not temper its support for Israel.
Before Mr. Bush spoke, Israeli forces also raided four other West Bank villages today, arresting 20 men, the army said.
After a nearly two-week lull, Israel's northern border heated up again, as the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah renewed its attacks on Israeli outposts there. Israel responded with artillery fire.
Earlier this month, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell flew to Lebanon and Syria to press for quiet on the northern border, where regular fire fights had threatened to widen the conflict.
As Israeli soldiers maintain sieges in the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem, Israeli forces elsewhere are now relying on tips from their intelligence services to move in and out of Palestinian areas in pursuit of wanted men, the army said.
In Ramallah today, Palestinians and foreign supporters clashed with Israeli soldiers as several hundred demonstrators tried to march to the besieged headquarters of Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader. About a dozen people were reported wounded.
Israeli officials said that in attacking Qalqilya, the army had stopped three suicide bombers on their way to carry out a synchronized attack. An official said that once Mr. Bush knew of that outcome, he would be supportive of the Israeli raid.
The army said it had found several suicide belts in Qalqilya. It also said it had killed Raed Nazal, the local leader of the militant Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. But Palestinian officials did not immediately confirm that claim.
Mr. Sharon is raising taxes in part to pay for the military operation, the Israeli economy is continuing its slump, and the shekel is sliding against the dollar. But none of that seemed to matter, as some Israelis began tentatively returning this week to cafes and other public spaces in hopes that suicide bombings may have been stopped, at least for now.
Demonstrators in the West Bank and Gaza today vented Palestinians' simmering anger over an Israeli offensive that placed hundreds of thousands of them under 24-hour curfew, and which cost an unknown number of civilian lives along with those of many gunmen. Hundreds of homes were damaged or destroyed, as were some mosques. Some Israeli commentators have questioned whether the military assault will contribute to peace in the long term.
But Israelis are so pleased with the operation - Israel's biggest ground offensive in 20 years - that a plurality of 48 percent of those interviewed for the Maariv poll said journalists critical of government policy and the military operation should be forbidden to appear on television.
A majority of 55 percent backed a decision to cancel a performance planned to honor a popular singer, Yaffa Yarkoni. She criticized the military operation after the performance was scheduled.
A poll published today by the newspaper Yediot Ahronot also showed a rebound for the prime minister. Asked if they relied on Mr. Sharon to "lead the country successfully," 64 percent of respondents said they did, up from 45 percent in March. Both newspaper polls had margins of error of 4.5 percentage points.
The Israeli government argues that the United Nations mission to Jenin is stacked to judge Israel harshly, by emphasizing humanitarian concerns and ignoring military considerations and the threat Israel felt it faced from militants in the refugee camp. Palestinians charge a cover-up by Israel.
Israel particularly objects to Cornelio Sommaruga of Switzerland, the former president of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The team is headed by Martti Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president and longtime European diplomat who helped to negotiate an end to the 1999 war over Kosovo, and includes Sadako Ogata of Japan, the former United Nations high commissioner for refugees.
"Israel wants to hide the massacres and disasters committed in the camp," said Nabil Aburdeineh, an aide to Mr. Arafat. "Israel continues challenging the international community."
In a statement tonight, Israel's defense minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, said, "We want the fact-finding team to operate according to the principles of justice, and first and foremost to examine how Jenin turned into the `suicide bomber capital.' "
He said it was surprising that the United Nations had not called for investigations after deadly Palestinian suicide bombings.
Israeli officials said tonight that Palestinians in Jenin were digging up bodies of those who died before the Israeli attack and adding them to a mass grave of more than two dozen people who were killed during the operation. More than 40 bodies of people killed in the fighting have been identified by hospital officials in Jenin.
--------
BETHLEHEM
Israel's Threat of an Attack on a Church Is Pulled Back
New York Times
April 27, 2002
By C. J. CHIVERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/27/international/middleeast/27BETH.html
BETHLEHEM, West Bank - In a day of on-again off-again warnings on the siege of the Church of the Nativity, an Israeli spokesman told reporters twice today that Palestinians inside the compound did not have unlimited time to negotiate and that military force might be used to end the standoff.
Then, late tonight, another official appeared to backtrack from the earlier comments, insisting that a military attack on the church was all but impossible.
The source of the first comments, Capt. Joel Leyden, asserted in briefings to reporters during the day that "all options are open in regards to military tactics." He effectively left open the possibility of a commando sweep through the church, which is built on the ground where Christians believe Jesus was born.
"This is not an open-ended negotiation, and there is a possibility of a military option being used," the captain warned, adding that in any attack, Israel would try to avoid or minimize damage to the sacred objects within the compound.
With the tougher posture, which Captain Leyden said had been communicated to Palestinian negotiators, Israel appeared to defy a pledge that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said he had received last week from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon not to attack the 1,400-year-old basilica. About 225 people are thought to have sought shelter there.
But Israel softened its stance tonight when another spokesman, Capt. Jacob Dallal, said, "The Israeli Defense Forces policy has been, and remains, to conclude this standoff and hostage-taking crisis peacefully."
Facing continued images in the news media of tanks leveling their guns at unarmed men at the church's entrance, and new accounts of hardship and solidarity inside from Palestinians who have emerged, the Israeli military repeatedly insisted that the standoff was actually a hostile seizure by about 30 terrorists. It said the people inside - including Palestinian officials and civilians, as well clergymen from three Christian denominations - were the terrorists' hostages.
The description contrasted sharply with the accounts of three young Palestinians who emerged from the church on Thursday to help carry two bodies. They said the people inside the church had taken shelter to escape the Israeli assault on Bethlehem's market early this month, and had stayed inside voluntarily to support the entrapped gunmen.
"Nobody can tell them to go out or to stay," said Fuad Hasan al-Aham, 19, one of the Palestinians who left the church at gunpoint on Thursday and were released by Israel early this morning. "The decision to leave or stay is a very personal one."
Mr. Aham said the Palestinians inside were content to remain another month, even though they had run out of food and were subsisting on a broth of boiled water and grass.
"The young men inside feel their presence is very important," Mr. Aham said, explaining that they help keep the grounds clean and stand watch, ready to assist the gunmen if Israel attacks.
The released men said Israeli snipers frequently shot into the church's windows and courtyard. At times, they said, civilians seeking food were shot at; also, they said, some religious objects had been damaged.
More shooting occurred today, as gunfire reverberated in Manger Square at about 3 p.m. About an hour later, a familiar scene repeated itself, as an Israeli tank and teams of infantrymen advanced in front of the tiny Door of Humility, and two Palestinians, freshly wounded by gunfire, were brought out on stretchers.
Captain Leyden said that the Palestinians had been hurt after terrorists shot at Israeli soldiers, and that the Israelis had only returned fire. All the captain would say about the wounded was that they were "pretty high on the list" of men wanted by Israel.
Independent information on the incident was hard to obtain, because once the Israeli forces had advanced on the church, a group of soldiers assigned to policing reporters threw smoke grenades to obscure the evacuation of the wounded.
Captain Leyden said today that Israel "has nothing to hide and wants to work with journalists to help them get their information as efficiently and as professionally as possible." A few hours later, other soldiers threw more smoke grenades.
In addition to the wounded, four Palestinians left the compound today - two at 11:30 a.m. and two more at 1 p.m. - but Israel did not provide any information about them either, other than to describe them as "hostages who were peacefully released through negotiations."
--------
Bush demands Israel 'quit'
April 27, 2002
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020427-14737538.htm
CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush insisted yesterday that Israel withdraw from Palestinian areas once and for all and told Congress not to blindly favor Israel over the Arab world.
Less than 24 hours after Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah told Mr. Bush that he was not doing enough to rein in Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the president repeated his demand that Israeli forces stop their incursions into Palestinian areas. But instead of pulling out, Israeli forces rolled through four West Bank towns yesterday.
"It's now time to quit it altogether," the president told reporters at his ranch here. "It's time to end this."
Meanwhile, the White House disclosed that Mr. Bush and Prince Abdullah were unable in discussions Thursday to reach agreement on a new eight-point plan the Saudi prince presented. Its demand for an armed peacekeeping force and other points conflict with the administration's policy, but press secretary Ari Fleischer said the Saudi paper was constructive and that talks continue.
Mr. Bush also declined to endorse a bipartisan congressional proposal to tack an additional $200 million in aid to Israel onto a supplemental budget bill. The president told Congress not to go overboard in its support for Israel.
"This is clearly a Congress that believes that our relationship with Israel is unique," Mr. Bush said. "I also hope and believe that Congress recognizes we've got interests in the area, as well, beyond Israel - that we've got to have good relationships with the Saudis and the Jordanians and the Egyptians - and our foreign policy is aimed to do that."
Asked how he responded to Prince Abdullah's warning that U.S. credibility will suffer unless Mr. Sharon is reined in, Mr. Bush indicated that he stood up for Israel.
"I told the crown prince that we've got a unique relationship with Israel and that one thing that the world can count on is that we will not allow Israel to be crushed," the president said. "I think that's an important statement to make."
But for the second day in a row, Mr. Bush placed a greater onus on Israelis than Arabs in resolving the Middle East conflict. The president appeared increasingly mindful that Israel has not yet heeded his call, first uttered more than three weeks ago, to withdraw "without delay."
"Israelis understand my position. I've been very clear, and there's been some progress," Mr. Bush said. "We'll see what happens. I know they've heard us."
At the same time, Mr. Bush said he reminded Prince Abdullah during their five-hour meeting at the ranch "about the obligations of the Arab nations." The president said the obligations include pressuring Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to rein in terrorists and cleansing the Arab press of vitriolic anti-Semitism.
"All parties have responsibilities in order to make sure there's peace," Mr. Bush said. "The crown prince is interested in peace in the region, and so am I."
He added: "The crown prince was clear in his denunciation of terror. Chairman Arafat has got obligations, and so do the Israelis. And I once again enunciated what those obligations are so that the crown prince understands my foreign policy."
The eight-point Saudi plan discussed on Thursday calls for an end to Israeli incursions into the West Bank town of Ramallah, deployment of an international peacekeeping force, reconstruction of damaged Palestinian areas, a renunciation of violence, a focus on talks toward a political settlement to Israeli-Palestinian issues and an end to Israeli settlements in Palestinian areas.
It also calls for the United States to support Israeli withdrawal from lands seized in the 1967 Middle East war, in exchange for recognition of Israel's borders.
Some members of the Republican Party have said they do not understand the president's insistence on circumscribing Israel's counterattack against terrorists while keeping the United States' war against terrorism open-ended. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas introduced a resolution supporting Israel, although yesterday he postponed a vote on it at the request of the White House.
Other conservative Republicans have expressed dismay at plans by the United Nations to dispatch a fact-finding committee into the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin in the West Bank to investigate accusations of an Israeli massacre. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told Congress earlier this week that there was no evidence of such a massacre.
Mr. Sharon said yesterday that such accusations were a "terrible blood libel" and tried to delay today's scheduled arrival of the U.N. team until he can clarify the scope of the investigation.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan agreed yesterday to Israeli demands to delay until tomorrow the arrival in Jenin of his fact-finding team.
The decision, announced by Mr. Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, suggested that the Israeli government had agreed to the mission but said a formal Israeli decision would be made tomorrow.
On Thursday, Mr. Bush called on Israel to resolve standoffs with Palestinians at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and Mr. Arafat's bombed-out headquarters in Ramallah. But yesterday, Israeli forces continued to encircle both sites, saying Palestinian terrorists are holed up inside.
After briefing reporters yesterday, Mr. Bush headed to another Texas ranch for what he called a "friend raiser."
"This is opposed to a fund raiser," the president explained.
"It's just kind of a cute way of saying, 'I'm going to go over and see people and thank them for being a part of my campaign.' And they actually get to do this for free."
-------- Kyrgyzstan
KYRGYZSTANA
Bustling U.S. Air Base Materializes in the Mud
New York Times
April 27, 2002
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/27/international/asia/27KYRG.html
PETER J. GANCI AIR BASE, Kyrgyzstan - Four months ago, this was a muddy prairie next to a sleepy airport in what used to be a nearly forgotten part of the Soviet Union.
Today it looks like a scene from "M*A*S*H" and is at the new front lines of the American military presence. Nearly 2,000 soldiers, about half of them American, are camped out here in air-conditioned tents.
At the landing strip nearby, FA-18 fighter jets and French Mirages take off on daily sorties over Afghanistan, rattling the windows of nearby farmers as they roar into the sky. Spanish, Dutch and Danish cargo planes fly in and out as well, along with KC-135 tankers to provide the combat jets with in-flight refueling.
"Everything you see here has literally been done since the middle of January," said Gen. Wayne Lloyd, who returned to active duty with the Air National Guard to take on the job of base commander in mid-March. "This was done in the dead of winter, in the middle of frostbite-freezing cold."
Officially, the air base here, named after the New York City Fire Department's highest-ranking uniformed officer, who died in the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11, is only temporary and will be closed after the war in Afghanistan has ended. But no one knows just how long the mission will last, or even how its end will be defined.
"We will stay as long as it takes," General Lloyd said. "I can't say when that will be, but I don't think it will be in the next few weeks."
Kyrgyzstan, a impoverished former Soviet republic with five million people, is one of several Central Asian countries that have abruptly become important strategic allies of the United States. It shares a border with Afghanistan and quickly opened itself to the American-led military coalition that declared war on the Taliban regime.
About 2,000 American troops are also stationed in neighboring Uzbekistan, at Hanabad, near the border with Afghanistan. A small contingent of American soldiers is in Tajikistan, one of the poorest and most chaotic countries in Central Asia.
Though almost everyone here lives and works inside tents, the elaborate infrastructure implies a more extended presence.
The base has a central power plant, its own hospital center, two industrial-sized kitchens, a recreation center and an expansive fitness center. Soldiers can watch live American sports on wide-screen television sets. They can send e-mail at what amounts to an Internet cafe. They can work out on weights, treadmills and cycling machines.
The population has grown so quickly that French forces here decided to set up the second of those kitchens, catering to French tastes.
"I could tell from the start that this would be one of the better bases," said Clint Parks, an airman who came here two months ago and had previously worked at the air base in Kuwait. "The living conditions are great here. I was surprised by how much they have."
Inevitably, the buildup here and in neighboring countries has provoked uneasiness.
Russian leaders have been remarkably supportive of the effort, given how intensely they resisted the expansion of NATO into Poland and the Czech Republic. But diplomats and regional experts say that both Russia and China are uncomfortable about American forces so close to their borders, and they predict that tensions will escalate if the bases stay in place longer than expected.
Air Force officials here estimate they have already pumped more than $13 million in cash into Kyrgyzstan's economy. A single takeoff or landing can cost as much as $7,000 in fees paid to the government. The base has spent millions of dollars on everything from gravel and jet fuel to televisions, computers, cell phones and even guided tours.
That is a lot of money in a country where the average person earns about $270 a year and the national debt is equal to about $300 a person.
American officials have also increased economic aid sharply, not just to Kyrgyzstan but to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan as well. The State Department also recently announced plans to provide about $30 million to help Central Asian countries fight trafficking in weapons, and $20 million to help Uzbekistan strengthen export controls and border inspections.
In theory, the flow of new money ought to make life better for people in these countries. But none of the Central Asian countries are bastions of good government.
Kyrgyzstan remains one of the world's most impoverished countries. It has made a genuine effort toward democracy and Western-style economic reforms, but it can hardly yet be called democratic. In March, the police killed seven people and wounded more than a dozen others who were protesting the imprisonment of a member of Parliament.
Uzbekistan remains notorious for brutal political repression as well as for corruption and hostility to market-opening economic reforms. Tajikistan, which was embroiled in civil war for five years, remains a major corridor for heroin traffickers and so hostile to economic reform that Western aid institutions have almost stopped providing help.
It is perhaps not surprising that people who live near the new air base here fail to see it as a boon to their pocketbooks.
"When the Mirages take off, the noise rattles the windows," said Sonya, a woman in the nearby village of Mramornoe who was unwilling to give her last name. "They take off at all hours of the day and night, and it really bothers me. It also bothers the animals. The hens are not laying eggs."
A Kyrgyzstani public television station recently reported that 60 percent of people surveyed around Bishkek, the capital, which is nearby, would just as soon not have the base.
Local villagers are quick to explain why. Dirt roads and open fields near the airport have been cut off. Local people who board buses at the airport for the ride into Bishkek now have to show their identity papers because the airport has become a restricted area. Furthermore, although the foreign soldiers seem friendly, they spend little money locally.
"We don't see any benefit to us," said Nina Grigorevna Haritonona, a retired doctor in Mramornoe. "They don't spend any money here. They even have their own food."
-------- mideast
Saudi Proposes Mideast Action Led by the U.S.
New York Times
April 27, 2002
By PATRICK E. TYLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/27/international/middleeast/27DIPL.html
HOUSTON - Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia presented an eight-point proposal to President Bush on Thursday calling for an end to the Israeli military action in the West Bank and the opening of an American-led peace initiative in the Middle East supported by international peacekeepers, American and Saudi officials said today.
Speaking to reporters at Mr. Bush's Crawford, Tex., ranch, the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said the Bush administration welcomed the Saudi proposals as "constructive" and said that extensive discussions between senior White House and Saudi officials were under way on how to respond.
The Saudi proposal, presented during Abdullah's meeting with Mr. Bush on Thursday, calls for an American-led effort to provide aid and help with reconstruction to Palestinians. The Saudis view a commitment of American aid to the Palestinians as a way of restoring trust with the Arab world and demonstrating American commitment to a balanced peace strategy, one that shows "solidarity" with Palestinians as well as Israelis.
The Bush administration has endorsed aid to Palestinians and reconstruction efforts, although progress has been stymied by violence.
The Saudi plan also calls for a renunciation of violence by both sides, as well as an end to construction of Israeli settlements on lands that would be part of a new Palestinian state should Israel accept the peace initiative offered in Beirut in March by Arab leaders. That initiative, proposed by the Saudi crown prince, offers Arab recognition of Israel and normalization of relations in return for Israel's withdrawal to the borders that existed before the 1967 war.
Officials in Washington said today that the Bush administration did not want to appear to be acting under pressure in responding to the proposals after Saudi officials warned on Thursday of "grave consequences" if the United States failed to curb the ongoing Israeli military campaign in the Palestinian territories.
No specific time frame was set for a formal American response to the plan, which was formulated to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks. However, Mr. Fleischer, speaking somewhat elliptically, said time frames "can be shortened if trust is strengthened - and the president believes the meeting yesterday helped strengthen that trust, and that helps to reduce the time."
Officials close to the Saudi delegation said that Abdullah, after delivering a sober warning to the White House on Thursday that a "deep rift" was coming in relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States over the Bush administration's Middle East policy, was hoping for an administration response before the crown prince leaves the country on Sunday, after dining with oil industry executives here Saturday night.
Underscoring the importance of his discussions with the prince, President Bush turned to his father, former President George Bush, to meet with Abdullah today. The former president, whose leadership of the Persian Gulf war in 1991 endeared him to many Saudis, rode by train for about 90 minutes with the prince from Houston to College Station. The two men then toured Mr. Bush's presidential library at Texas A&M University. They made no public remarks but shared a warm farewell after the meeting.
The diplomatic struggle over Saudi Arabia's proposal, the text of which the White House declined to make public, appears to have motivated Mr. Bush and his senior advisers to re-evaluate their peace strategy in the Middle East after weeks of internal debate.
At the same time, Mr. Bush, speaking to reporters at his Texas ranch, did not refer to the Saudi proposal when he said that "one thing that the world can count on is that we will not allow Israel to be crushed."
He added, however, that "it's now time" for Israeli military forces to completely end their military campaign in the West Bank, where intense street battles continued today.
"I told the crown prince that we've got a unique relationship with Israel," Mr. Bush said.
Mr. Bush, again without making reference to the Saudi plan, said on Thursday that, "The Crown Prince is going to be in America for several more days, and officials from both our governments will be continuing our discussions with the hope that our efforts can help return us to the path of peace - a lasting peace."
Among the most difficult issues addressed by the Saudi proposal are the future of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the borders of any Palestinian state. Mr. Fleischer said the United States believes that those questions must be "taken up as part of the political talks between Israel and the Palestinians."
Referring to the Saudi proposals, Mr. Fleischer said: "There's a lot of overlap between what we want to do. Many of these things are what the president talked about in his April 4th Rose Garden remarks as the responsibilities of all three parties. And so we'll continue to talk to the Saudis and continue to make progress around those eight."
The White House did not make the plan public in the context of Mr. Bush's five-hour meeting with the Abdullah on Thursday. Instead, the proposals emerged today during a briefing by Mr. Fleischer after The New York Times obtained the details of the proposals and asked for an administration response.
The Saudi proposals appeared to be close to ideas that have been advocated by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who has expressed an interest both in using multinational forces to return stability to the Palestinian territories and in organizing an international peace conference.
One senior administration official said today, "The macro discussions are very positive, but the micro is awful." He also suggested that Saudi Arabia's staging the meeting with Mr. Bush as a make-or-break encounter between frustrated allies was intended for audiences in the Arab world, where leaders urged Abdullah to speak for them in demanding American action.
"The Saudis wanted this to play, `We came and expressed Arab anger,' and that is fine with us," a senior official said.
The crown prince gave the eight-point proposal to the president Tuesday night as part of the prepared text of his remarks so Mr. Bush would be familiar with its contents.
Instead of responding to the proposal, the White House sent to the Saudis a "draft" joint statement for the meeting between the two men that made no reference to the proposals and mischaracterized the Saudi peace initiative adopted by the Beirut summit meeting.
The Saudis were angered by the White House joint statement, and when they protested to Mr. Powell's office, his staff indicated they did not have a copy of the document. Saudi officials faxed it to them, said a person familiar with the Saudi-American negotiations this week.
When the crown prince met with Vice President Cheney on Wednesday, an official familiar with the discussion said "a New York fire brigade" could not have quenched the heat of the frustration the Saudi leader expressed in the meeting. Mr. Cheney, early the next morning, flew to Crawford to brief Mr. Bush on the encounter before Abdullah arrived at the president's ranch after a 50-minute ride from the Waco airport accompanied by Mr. Powell.
In his prepared remarks in the meeting with Mr. Bush, the crown prince told the president that the United States had two options. In one, it could apply the necessary pressure to get the immediate Israeli withdrawal from all occupied territories and end the siege of Mr. Arafat. This, he said, would defuse the conflict immediately and pave the way for political negotiations.
The second option, he said, was permitting Israel to "abuse the distinctive relationship with the U.S." in support of "extremist policies" of the Sharon government. The consequences of this would be an intense spiral of violence that would result in a complete collapse of security and stability in the region.
-------- pakistan
Tribesmen say U.S. troops now in border region
04/27/2002
Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/world/2002/04/27/afghan.htm
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) - U.S. forces and Pakistani troops searched an Islamic school in a region near the Afghan border that has become a new focus for American personnel hunting for adherents of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, tribal elders and Muslim clerics said Saturday.
Both U.S. and Pakistani officials have recently said that a small U.S. force is operating in the wild tribal region, but the comments were the first reliable reports of American troops spotted by people in the area.
"The Pakistani forces with the help of American soldiers on Friday stormed a religious school at Darpa Khel to search for al-Qaeda men," said Maulvi Abdul Hafeez, a prominent cleric in Mir Ali, about 200 miles southwest of Peshawar. "We condemn this Pakistan-U.S. operation."
The building was empty and no arrests were made, Hafeez said. The school was set up by prominent Taliban leader Jalaluddin Haqqani during the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, he added.
Afghan Islamic Press, a private news agency based in Pakistan, reported that about 10 U.S. soldiers and 200 Pakistani paramilitary troops attacked Haqqani's school at Darpa Khel on Friday evening.
At MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., Commander Frank Merriman, a spokesman at the Central Command headquarters of Gen. Tommy Franks, said "We really can't confirm ongoing operations."
Franks had in previous days denied reports that coalition forces have entered Pakistan in search of al-Qaeda members, but several American officials in Washington have said U.S. personnel already are in rugged northwestern Pakistan.
A U.S. defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity said U.S. troops would be sent in if reconnaissance were to find any fighters.
The Bush administration sees the entry of U.S. personnel into the tribal regions as the beginning of a dangerous but necessary phase in the hunt for al-Qaeda fighters who have taken refuge outside Afghanistan.
Tribal areas lie west of the capital, Islamabad, just inside the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan's Paktia and Paktika provinces. They are traditional strongholds for bin Laden, the Saudi-born fugitive who heads al-Qaeda.
U.S. officials say Haqqani, the Taliban's former minister of frontier affairs, has been supporting efforts by al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters intent on regrouping.
Before the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, Haqqani ruled much of Paktia province and consented to bin Laden's construction of training camps there.
Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has defied strong anti-American sentiment among Pakistanis and supported Bush in the anti-terrorism campaign. The reports of U.S. forces chasing al-Qaeda inside Pakistan adds fuel to opponents of Musharraf.
Maulana Samiul Haq, the head of the biggest Islamic school in Pakistan - one that attended by many leaders of the Taliban - denounced the raid.
"The entry of Americans .... is an insult to this sacred place," Haq told a crowd of 6,000 people who gathered in Peshawar, near the tribal areas, to protest the raid and a referendum Tuesday in which Pakistan's president is seeking to extend his term.
The Pakistani army treads lightly in the tribal regions and has been unable to police its border alone.
Hafeez said the tribal elders and religious leaders were appealing to the Pakistani government to refrain from conducting more operations, asserting that neither al-Qaeda nor Taliban members are hiding there.
"In order to prevent these kind of raids in future we have started consulting other tribal elders and clerics. We will not let American forces operate in our areas," Hafeez told The Associated Press by phone on Saturday.
-------- venezuela
As Fears Linger,
Venezuelans Press for Truth About Killings During Chávez Protests
New York Times
April 27, 2002
By GINGER THOMPSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/27/international/americas/27VICT.html
CARACAS, Venezuela - On the day power in Venezuela briefly changed hands, Mohamad Yusef Merhi and his 18-year-old son joined hundreds of thousands of protesters in an unauthorized march across the capital to demand the resignation of President Hugo Chávez.
Euphoria moved the sea of unarmed people past police officers warning of danger, and Mr. Merhi's son, a high school senior, got swept up in the chanting: "Not a single step back."
But soon after, gunfire from a bridge and scattered rooftops burst through the bravado, setting off a political crisis and leaving 17 Venezuelans dying in the streets. Among them was Mr. Merhi's son, Jesús Espinoza, whose skull was shattered by a bullet that slammed through the top of his head.
Two weeks after the violence, distrust and confusion linger over the events of April 11, which left more than 100 people injured.
Clashing political camps, divided mainly by their support for or opposition to Mr. Chávez, fill radio and television airwaves with accusations against one other for pushing the country to violence. Human rights investigators charge that Mr. Chávez's government, considered a leading suspect in the shootings, is incapable of guaranteeing an impartial investigation.
All the victims were killed in shooting that covered some three blocks south of the Miraflores Palace. Although survivors report that gunfire seemed to come at them from all directions, most of those who died - whether Chávez supporters or government opponents - suffered a single gunshot wound to the head, suggesting that trained sharpshooters were at work.
In at least five cases, the downward trajectory of the bullet wounds support eyewitness accounts of sharpshooters firing on the protesters from atop towers in the area.
On Thursday, the National Assembly voted to establish an independent truth commission to support and monitor government investigations into the violence. The nine-member panel, which is expected to file its first report within 45 days, will include three legislators and representatives from human rights organizations, the Roman Catholic Church and two universities.
Law enforcement investigators have begun collecting evidence from the killings. As a team of 15 agents and 20 homicide experts start analyzing hours of videotape and recorded police transmissions, Venezuelans have begun pressing for a complete response to these questions: Who are the 16 men and the woman who died, and how did they die?
Information cobbled together from funeral homes, hospitals and the morgue and from relatives of the dead indicates that the shooting victims were in fact a broad cross section of people living on either side of the economic and social turmoil that polarizes Venezuela.
Most seemed motivated to march by various degrees of civic conviction. In 11 of the 17 cases examined, the number of Chávez supporters killed was almost equal to the number of opponents, like Mr. Merhi, who were killed. At least one of the victims happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Among the victims was Alexis Bordones Sotelo, 52, a retired administrator at an oil subsidiary who was in Caracas to meet his new granddaughter and decided to take part in the march against Mr. Chávez.
There was 47-year-old Jorge Tortoza, a newspaper photographer whose work focused on the crime that ravages life in the slums. Ruddy Urbano Duque, 38, was an artisan who sold handmade leather belts and key chains on the street. Relatives who recovered his body from the morgue said his face was painted with pro-Chávez slogans.
A file clerk, Nelson Zambrano, 23, was shot while leaving his job at the presidential compound. And 29-year-old Jhonnie Palencia was a mattress factory worker and leader of the leftist political party called Bandera Roja, or Red Flag.
In a rundown tenement near the airport, a 27-year-old appliance salesman recalled April 11. The salesman, Luber Caro, and his father, Luis Alberto, joined a countermarch of thousands of people who headed to the presidential palace in support of Mr. Chávez.
The two men considered themselves regulars on this country's turbulent protest circuit. The elder Mr. Caro, a union leader at an appliance manufacturing company, had helped lead numerous labor strikes. But the call of April 11, the younger Mr. Caro said, felt more urgent.
"The opposition wanted to overthrow Chávez," Mr. Caro said. "We had to go defend him." The price of this solidarity proved high. Mr. Caro's father was killed by a bullet that smashed through his face.
The families of the dead struggle against their own feelings of outrage, seeking some kind of closure. Their instinct tells them that the violence was orchestrated by powerful political interests. But their minds acknowledge that, for now, all is murky. "This was not one political band against another," said Jeanette Flores, an actress and sister of Mr. Urbano, the artisan who was killed. "This was a fight of Venezuelans against Venezuelans. All of us should be ashamed. And if there is ever a real investigation, I bet we'll see that more than one side is to blame."
The family of Mr. Tortoza, the newspaper photographer, has begun its own investigation. Seated around their coffee table, the photographer's siblings and cousins pore through newspaper clippings of the events of April 11, seeking to reconstruct the sequence of the shootings.
They have collected photos that show, from every angle, Mr. Tortoza on Baralt Avenue, bleeding from a head wound. They have memorized the action on video clips, pointing out protesters before they fall in the line of fire. "It doesn't help, no matter how many times I watch it," said Sonia Tortoza de Blanco, sister of Mr. Tortoza. The video, she said, "leaves me with more questions than answers."
Mr. Tortoza and a reporter, Jenny Oropeza, covered "sucesos," or the cop beat. He was a serious man, she said, whose passions showed in the way he aimed his lens. He never flinched about taking photos of the most brutalized bodies. But sometimes, Ms. Oropeza said, when most of the other photographers crowded around a corpse, Mr. Tortoza would focus on police officers providing assistance to the survivors.
His instincts told him early in the morning of April 11 that the march against Mr. Chávez could bring trouble. He talked about it over breakfast with his sister. Both of them felt that Mr. Chávez's opponents were seeking to provoke violence.
"Things are getting worse," Mr. Tortoza said, referring to an indefinite work stoppage that had been called by the president's opponents. "It seems to me that they want to overthrow the government. I can't tell how this is going to end."
"I can," Ms. Blanco responded. She said that Mr. Chávez's opponents were seeking at least "one death."
Many of the relatives interviewed said they had isolated themselves until they could work through some of their grief. Others said they had not come forward because they worried that dueling political camps would seize upon the deaths of their loved ones to ignite tensions. Others said that they were afraid.
"Things seem so tense that I still don't know if there are people out there who would attack me or my family if we speak," said María Capote, mother of Jesús Espinoza, the dead high school senior. She only agreed to be interviewed after checking with trusted human rights investigators. "The people who killed my son are still out there."
That kind of fear is new, said Liliana Ortega, a leading human rights investigator. Her agency was formed after food riots of 1989, in which hundreds of people were killed. The exact number and identities of the dead have never been confirmed. No one was ever convicted for the killings. Still, Ms. Ortega said, in the days following those riots relatives of the dead quickly began forming support groups and investigative committees. They held news conferences and marches.
Since April 11, she said, her office has received threats by telephone and the Internet. Only a handful of the relatives of the dead have filed complaints. "People are afraid," Ms. Ortega said. "That is clear."
Alexis Bordones's family members said they lacked faith in the system. "I don't have much faith in earthly justice," said his son-in-law, José Ramón Alvarez. "Here, all the investigations go nowhere. There's never anyone punished."
Mr. Bordones, the former oil company administrator, loved to read and write poetry. He had voted for Mr. Chávez, Mr. Alvarez said, but had been increasingly disenchanted by a declining economy and a slump in foreign investment.
Mr. Chávez's move to appoint his own allies to control the state-run oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, prompted Mr. Bordones to join the protests on April 11.
Relatives recall last seeing him alive when he left his daughter's house carrying a Venezuelan flag. Later images of Mr. Bordones's body flashed across television screens. The flag covered his chest.
-------- ACTIVISTS
As Egypt Curbs Dissent, Critic Fears His Fate at Trial
New York Times
April 27, 2002
By TIM GOLDEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/27/international/middleeast/27EGYP.html
CAIRO - Egypt's most prominent democracy activist looks tired.
Saad Eddin Ibrahim moves slowly around his airy apartment here, his shuffling a reminder of small strokes he says he suffered during a recent eight-month prison stay. He is bracing for a new trial scheduled to start on Saturday, before a judge with a reputation for severity. And he is discouraged by what he sees as the government's effort to contain the outrage of his countrymen over Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.
"The security services are getting stronger," said Mr. Ibrahim, an Egyptian-American sociologist who is widely known abroad. "Political parties are getting weaker. Civil society organizations are being muffled. Human rights groups are being intimidated again."
Egypt's leaders are not doing so well, either, he said. "The saddest thing is that they are wasting opportunities that this country has to be better, because of a hardening of the political arteries, because the elite is not getting any oxygen," he said. "I may have been having these small strokes, but they have been having big ones."
Mr. Ibrahim, 63, is one of many Egyptians who now see a difficult time ahead, one in which public anger over the conflict in Israel threatens to spark a tinder of domestic grievances about a stagnating economy and autocratic governance.
In the past several years, the government of President Hosni Mubarak has extended its authoritarian hand, taking on not only Islamist militants but also human rights activists, intellectuals and gays.
Since his first arrest in June 2000, Mr. Ibrahim has been a symbol of that shift. Along with 27 others connected to the Cairo research center he founded, Mr. Ibrahim was put on trial in February 2001 on charges that included sullying Egypt's reputation, accepting foreign donations without permission and embezzlement. He was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison.
The case resonated in part because of the many protest flags that Mr. Ibrahim has hoisted - for open elections, human rights, an end to discrimination against the Coptic Christian minority - and because his voice has easily carried abroad.
The prosecution was also striking because Mr. Ibrahim had enjoyed access to the inner circles of Egyptian power, at times even acting as an adviser to Mr. Mubarak.
Mr. Ibrahim's prison sentence prompted complaints from governments and human rights groups abroad. In February, the verdict was overturned by an appeals court.
But preparations for the retrial of Mr. Ibrahim and some of his co-defendants have not indicated any softening of approach. The new proceeding was scheduled quickly in the Supreme Security Court, and petitions by Mr. Ibrahim's lawyers that he be allowed to travel to the United States for medical treatment have gone unanswered.
"It is part of their trying to teach me a lesson," Mr. Ibrahim said, "and the learning curve is very low."
But since his release 10 weeks ago, Mr. Ibrahim has not been his old sharp-tongued self, at least in public. His colleagues, who have had to defend themselves without access to the support Mr. Ibrahim can command, appear even more chastened.
"This case has been a blunt message to young researchers that we will not be allowed to do fieldwork in areas like human rights and political awareness," said Khaled Fayyad, 30, who directed a project on political education and voter rights for Mr. Ibrahim's Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies.
Mr. Fayyad also said he would not work again with Mr. Ibrahim, whom he accused of failing to look out for subordinates. "He was supposed to be the captain of the ship," Mr. Fayyad said. "Instead, he acted like any other sailor, worrying only about his own rescue."
Mr. Ibrahim has disputed the assertion that he did not worry about the others, about half of whom received suspended sentences and will not be retried. But he agreed that the case is about more than just himself. During the early 1990's, he said, while the government was fighting Islamist militants, it was happy to have him on prime-time television to criticize Islamist violence from a liberal perspective.
"As soon as they thought they had gotten the Islamists under control and I began monitoring the 1995 election, they canceled the program," he recalled.
Although the current crisis in Israel "gives civil society a moment when it can reassert itself with legitimate dissent," Mr. Ibrahim said, the government remains wary that such dissent will spread. That risk, he added, is rooted in the government's long reluctance to give Egyptians a clear picture of its foreign policies or military strength.
Egyptians, he said, "don't know that war is not an option." He added: "They don't know that the peace treaty with Israel is still binding. Most of those kids demonstrating weren't even born when that peace treaty was signed. They see the Palestinians resisting the Israelis with no arms, with nothing, and they ask, `What are all these armies we have for?' "
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