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Tuesday,
February 12, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Iranians’
mass show of protest
Bomb
attack on Oppn daily office Prisoners
complain of US brutality US
lawmakers want action against Iraq 10 Abu
Sayyaf men die in clash |
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2 UN
employees hurt in strike B’desh
admn, judiciary tussle
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Iranians’ mass show of protest Tehran, February 11 US President George W. Bush’s accusation two weeks ago has strengthened the hand of hardliners in Iran, who are vehemently opposed to efforts by reformists around President Mohammad Khatami to improve ties with Washington. “Death to America,” shouted the demonstrators, repeating the ritual chant of the revolution which toppled the US-backed Shah and ushered in the Islamic Republic. “Supreme leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had called for the demonstration to be a “slap in the face of Iran’s enemies”. “The reason that we are under threat is that the USA, or some of its leaders, think they are masters of the world and they want the world to obey their policies,” Khatami told the sea of people in Teheran’s Freedom Square. An effigy of Bush was held aloft with a sign round its neck reading “I made a mistake in threatening Iran”. An Uncle Sam puppet was burnt as the crowd cheered. US officials have accused Iran of developing weapons of mass destruction, giving refuge to Al-Qaida fighters fleeing neighbouring Afghanistan and trying to destabilise the fragile peace there — all charges Iran denies. But Iranian hardliners openly admit to supporting the militant Palestinian Islamic groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have carried out a wave of deadly suicide bombings against Israel. While Khatami promises to create a more democratic Iran have won praise in Europe, the USA is doubtful his promises can be achieved and maintains its hostility to Iran. The Islamic Republic is subject to harsh US sanctions which hurt its all-important oil industry and hamper foreign investment in its ailing economy. Washington broke ties with Teheran after Iranian revolutionaries seized US diplomats in the wake of the revolution in 1980 and held 54 of them hostage for 444 days. Khatami’s efforts to breathe new life into the Islamic Republic through reforms have achieved little in the face of stiff conservative resistance. Now his policy of rapprochement with USA also seems to have fallen by the wayside. “You have threatened the US interests in the region and in the world, and therefore, their anger toward you is natural,” said Khatami. “Of course the USA and the influential Zionist lobby there are not pleased. But the time for this kind of bullying is past and we are sure those threats will harm the USA itself.” He said Iran rejected terrorism as well as domination by the world’s last remaining superpower and had worked for greater understanding in the international arena. “The American nation should ask their leaders till when should they pay the price of their wrong policies? And ‘what was the share of the mistaken policies of American leaders in the horrible September 11 disaster?”, he declared.
Reuters |
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Bomb attack on Oppn daily office
Harare, February 11 The attacks came amid reports that political violence is rising in the run-up to presidential elections next month in which President Robert Mugabe faces the toughest challenge of his 22 years in power. A Daily News journalist told Reuters two petrol bombs were thrown into the newspaper’s offices in the second city of Bulawayo early on Monday. Another two were hurled at a nearby private printing house, Daily Print, which has been handling campaign material for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the journalist said. Nobody was injured and very little equipment damaged. “At Daily Print some furniture was burnt, but the fire brigade managed to put out the fires at our (newspaper) offices and at the other place.” A police spokesman said they were investigating the attacks. The Daily News’s printing machine in Harare was wrecked in a bomb attack a year ago, days after threats against the newspaper by supporters of Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party. The government says the Daily News is a mouthpiece of the MDC, whose leader Morgan Tsvangirai poses the biggest challenge to Mugabe since he came to power when the former Rhodesia gained independence in 1980. The MDC says Mugabe, who turns 78 later this month, knows that he will lose if the March 9-10 presidential election is free and has allowed his supporters to wage a violent campaign.
Reuters |
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Prisoners complain of US brutality
New York, February 11 The men were among 27 Afghans who were released on Thursday after 16 days’ detention in the American base in Kandahar. The Pentagon has acknowledged that the raids were conducted in error, apparently because of flawed intelligence, and that the prisoners were neither members of the Al-Qaida nor Taliban fighters. Local officials put the death toll at 21; the Pentagon says at least 15 Afghans were killed. The accounts of harsh treatment from four of the prisoners, the district police chief among them, were reported today by the New York Times. They offer the first insights into the detention from the Afghans’ point of view. One of them told the paper that the man, who gave the wrong information, is an enemy of the government and he should be handed over to administration and executed. Mr Abdul Rauf, 60, the police chief in Oruzgan, said he was beaten, kicked until his ribs cracked and punched by American soldiers when they stormed the district headquarters in the night of January. 23-24 and took him and his men prisoners. An American officer apologised to him when he was released, he said, asking forgiveness and saying their capture had been a mistake. “I can never forgive them,” Mr Rauf told the Times as he lay on cushions at his home, still clearly suffering from his ordeal. “Why did they bomb us? Why did they do this?” The Governor of Oruzgan Province, Mr Jan Muhammad, the paper said, also expressed anger in the provincial capital, Tirin Kot.
PTI |
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US lawmakers want action against Iraq
Washington, February 11 Saddam should be removed, and soon, Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut said yesterday. “He is a time bomb.” An Iranian official, speaking for a government also labelled an “axis of evil” by Mr George W. Bush, bristled at the President’s threatening language but pledged cooperation in keeping Al-Qaida terrorists out of his country. “What we have experienced in the past couple of weeks has been a great deal of US rhetoric, outright animosity and hostility, that has been put by various US officials against my country,” Javed Zarif, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for International Affairs, said on television’s “Fox News Sunday.” He said Al-Qaida terrorists were “enemies” of Iran and if any were found in his country, “we will return them to their own countries or to the government of Afghanistan.” Mr Bush’s State of the Union speech, lumping Iran, Iraq and North Korea together as an axis threatening international security, continues to resonate — through Congress and around the world — almost two weeks after its delivery. North Korea has called off a visit by a group of former US ambassadors in reaction to Mr Bush’s harsh words, two members of that unofficial delegation said on the weekend. The trip had been arranged at North Korea’s invitation as a way to expand informal dialogue. Mr Lieberman, like many in Congress and apparently Mr Bush himself, does not think all three “axis” countries pose equal threat or deserve the same response. North Korea can be dealt with diplomatically, the Iranians “need us to be very tough” and in Iraq, Saddam can’t remain in power, he said. “We know that he has chemical and biological weapons. and have a reason to believe he is developing nuclear weapons,” he added. Democratic Senator Bob Graham of Florida, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman, agreed, saying on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Saddam was an “evil force.” Republican Senate Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also offered caution and gently questioned Mr Bush’s rhetoric. But Senater Richard Shelby of Alabama, top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, saw confrontation with Iraq as all but inevitable. “These are strong signals of things to come, if these people don’t shape up,” he said.
AP |
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10 Abu Sayyaf men die in clash
Zamboanga (Philippines), February 11 Clashes erupted yesterday in a remote village in Patikul town in Jolo island when army soldiers on patrol caught up with some 80 Abu Sayyaf rebels, said Col Romeo Tolentino, the army brigade chief in Jolo. “Based on the assessment of our troops that conducted the clearing operations, more or less 10 rebels were killed,” Colonel Tolentino said yesterday. The fresh fighting came two days after six government troops, including a young lieutenant, were killed in a gunbattle with Abu Sayyaf gunmen. The Abu Sayyaf is a small group of Islamic militants engaged in kidnappings, extortion and attacks mostly on Christian villages in the country’s troubled south. They have been linked to Saudi militant Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda terror network. More than 600 US troops will join local soldiers in a six-month operation which began last week to crush the guerrillas. North of Jolo in Basilan island, an Abu Sayyaf faction is holding hostage a US Christian missionary couple and a Filipino nurse. Military southern command spokesman Capt Noel Detoyato said government forces were pursuing the gunmen in Patikul’s hinterland villages. “There is an ongoing military operation in the area and our troops were pursuing the Abu Sayyaf,” Captain Detoyato said.
AFP |
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2 UN employees hurt in strike
Jerusalem, February 11 “We regret that two employees of UNESCO were wounded while they were on the upper floors of a building in Gaza,” an official statement said. The UN employees were hurt when F-16 warplanes bombed Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Gaza City compound yesterday, UN special coordinator for the Middle East Terje
Roed-Larsen said in a statement earlier.
AFP |
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B’desh admn, judiciary tussle Dhaka, February 10 Despite political decision by successive governments — the BNP government from 1991 to 1996 and the Awami League government from 1996 to July 2001 — to implement their electoral pledge to separate the judiciary to ensure its independence it could not be materialised. The main player against this promise of all political parties is the bureaucracy. It is alleged by a senior lawyer of the country that the bureaucrats are not willing to lose their power in dealing with the judiciary at the district level. The issue was being dragged since the independence of Bangladesh in 1971. Bangladesh like its neighbours India and Pakistan, inherited the legal system, laws, administrative system from the British. However, the Bangladesh Constitution provides for the independence of the judiciary. But part of the judiciary — the judges and magistrates — in districts are still under the administration. Even the judges in the High Court and Supreme Court are appointed by the President on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. There are instances that the Chief Justice was bypassed while appointing judges. Because of retirements there have been vacancies for two judges in the Supreme Court for a long time. But for obvious reason of tussle with the administration, the appointment of judges in the appellate division is delayed. The tussle began 26 months ago. The Supreme Court in a landmark judgement in December 1999 during the Awami League rule declared the Judicial Service (a cadre service) as illegal and specified 12 actions for the government to separate the judiciary from the administration to ensure the independence of the judiciary. The highest court of the country had said for this no amendment of the Constitution was necessary and it could be done using the power of the President. The interim neutral caretaker government headed by the former Chief Justice of Bangladesh Justice Latifur Rahman during its 90-day tenure made efforts to implement the Supreme Court order. They repeatedly said all preparations in this regard were complete. Finally the caretaker government mainly with bureaucrats as the advisers deferred the implementation for reasons not yet disclosed. The Supreme Court allowed time twice each to the Awami League government and the caretaker government. The Awami League during its five year tenure in the government was very bitter about the judiciary. It was mainly because of delay in trial of convicted killers of the founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The procession with sticks by the party against the judiciary had surprised the nation and is a point of criticism by its opponents. Dr Kamal Hossain, eminent lawyer and former Foreign Minister in the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman government, talking to TNS blamed the bureaucracy for all the delay. He said the officers of the administration with magisterial powers try cases under the laws of the land. |
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The Israeli military expressed
its regrets today at the wounding of two UN employees during an air
strike on Gaza City which damaged a United Nations building late
yesterday, saying it was an error.
