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Saturday,
January 19, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Fatah militant guns down 6 Israelis
WINDOW ON PAKISTAN |
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ICJ poser to USA on Al-Qaida men
2
Algerians charged with Al-Qaida links
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BNP wins
all 5 seats in byelections
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Fatah militant guns down 6 Israelis
Tel Aviv, January 18 Early Palestinian reports said at
least one policeman was killed and 14 were wounded in the retaliatory
bombing on Tulkarem by the Israelis. An Israeli army spokeswoman said
the bombing was in response to the attack late yesterday evening in
which a heavily armed Palestinian man opened fire and detonated a
grenade, killing and wounding people at a confirmation celebration in
the hall. The attacker was killed by police officers who rushed to
the scene. It was the first suicide attack in Israel since Palestinian
leader Yasser Arafat declared a ceasefire on December 16. Israeli
radio said at least 20 tanks and armoured vehicles as well as
paratroops were sent to Ramallah. Israeli government spokesman Avi
Pasner said the attack deserved a strong reaction. He said Arafat
should be held personally responsible for it. Wounded in the attack
were about 30 Israeli civilians attending the confirmation party in
the hall. Three of the wounded were in a serious condition. The
attacker was identified as Abed-el-Malec Hassunah, 26, a resident of
the Palestinian village of Beth-Imrin, north of Nablus on the West
Bank. He carried out the attack using an M-16 semi-automatic assault
rifle and a hand grenade. The Al-Aqsa Brigades, a wing of Arafat’s
Fatah political movement, claimed responsibility late yesterday for
the hadera attack, CNN reported. The group said it was avenging the
death early Thursday of an Al-Aqsa militant, apparently in firefight
with Israeli forces near the West Bank city of Nablus. GAZA: The
Israeli army said on Friday it had killed a Palestinian man as he
tried to infiltrate into Israel from the Gaza Strip on Thursday. An
army spokeswoman said the man was one of three Palestinians who had
tried to sneak across the border near the Karni crossing. Israeli
border guards fired a tank shell in the direction of the Palestinians,
hitting one of them. His body was found by Israeli troops early on
Friday and he had not been carrying any weapons, the army added.
Palestinian security sources confirmed the incident, and said the
Palestinians were from the Rafah refugee camp further to the south.
DPA, Reuters |
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WINDOW ON PAKISTAN HAS Pakistan’s
President Pervez Musharraf chosen a brand new road for his country?
Commentators writing for the mainline Pakistani newspapers will say it
is a big yes. Many of them are angry with India’s attitude while
responding to Musharraf’s address that lays the foundation of a
moderate, peaceloving, Islamic nation and seeks to end the dark days
of theocratic regime and ethnic violence. Dawn, in its editorial,
said, “many countries including the USA, Britain, Russia, China, EU
nations and France have wholeheartedly welcomed the address. The
Indians, quite predictably, were less effusive. After mulling over the
contents of the address, Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh
addressed a press conference in which he offered a grudging
appreciation of some of the measures announced”. It, however, echoed
the sentiments expressed by India that “with the world community
giving Musharraf a thumbs up, the next challenge for Pakistan will be
to carry through, with the same courageous determination, the radical
measures unveiled in the address”. This is precisely what Indian
leaders across the political spectrum have been asking for. Surely
India could not offer a standing ovation when Pakistan was pushing in
armed brigands into Kashmir. If the Pakistani establishment and the
people wish to develop a moderate welfare state, the world would
surely welcome. The dismantling of the Islamic extremist institutions
and apparatus is much more in the interest of the people of Pakistan
than the rest of the world though several countries including the
mighty USA and India have suffered a good deal and many others
including Russia, China and Britain were bound to suffer. In Pakistan,
last year alone, 400 people including 76 doctors, were gunned down by
the extremists in ethnic cleansing. What Pakistan was exporting to
rest of the world, it was having a taste of it back home too. This had
been worrying a large section of the Pakistani intelligentsia. This is
why most newspapers and saner political segments in Pakistan have
wholeheartedly welcomed the ban and arrest of Islamic fundamentalists
and jehadis. Rolling back the policy launched by Gen Zia, twenty years
back is no easy task. For India, however, the major concern is
Kashmir. How would that problem be solved and how Pakistan’s
government under the present military ruler and its ruling elite see
this? Dawn and Nation have called Musharraf’s address courageous and
urged the President to move forward fast in first dismantling the
extremist apparatus and then leading the region to peace and
stability. But Najam Sethi’s comment in the Friday Times is
thought-provoking. It is clear to all in Pakistan that it no longer
could train and push jehadis into the valley. It is also clear that
once it stops crossborder terrorism in Kashmir, it would not be able
to draw attention to its claims. According to the Friday Times,
Pakistan has two choices; one is to draw the line and accept the
challenge, having done everything it could to deesaclate
diplomatically while matching India’s military build up; two, to
wriggle out of the present situation and live to fight another day.
Both choices are tough. “In executing its strategy to pressure
Pakistan, India is relying not just on its own conventional strength,
but the international environment in which the two adversaries are
operating.... As things stand, it should be quite clear that while
ideally the USA and Britain would want the crisis resolved without the
two countries coming to blows, in the event a bout becomes inevitable,
as they would not be averse to looking the other way to give new Delhi
some room “to teach Pakistan a lesson.” The editorial says
Musharraf’s dilemma is that these elements (the jehadis which the
USA wants to finish in Pakistan and stop crossborder help) have been
part of Islamabad’s strategy to put a squeeze on India. Getting rid
of them runs the risk of losing the most amenable proxies to keep the
heat on India. But not doing so would run the greater risk of the
facing the same, perhaps worse, situation that forced General
Musharraf in September 2001 to effect a volte-face on Afghanistan. In
this scenario, the role of the USA is clear. Its objective is to
retain the integrity of Pakistan, but force it to shape up as a benign
and militarily weak state that does not punch around. This crisis has
given a great opportunity to do that? Besides, it has also afforded
Washington more room vis-a-vis New Delhi.” Sethi has also advised
Pakistani government to use the crisis to its advantage and strengthen
the economic base, required much for any military gains and operate as
a middle level power. Hope some one is listening to the advice.
Choices indeed are limited. Once Pakistan dismantles its crossborder
terrorist operations, India would be under tremendous pressure and
have little choice but to sit back and talk on Kashmir. This is what
other newspapers including Nation has talked about. |
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ICJ poser to USA on Al-Qaida men London, January 18 The Geneva-based ICJ said in a news release it is also asking the USA “to abide by its international and national legal obligations.” The ICJ comments came as concern is growing among civil libertarians in Europe, including the UK that is a key partner in the US war on terrorism, over the confinement of some 80 Afghan prisoners at the naval base. During a news conference that he jointly addressed with visiting Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes in Washington Thursday, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, “The issue as to what happens to those people will follow the interrogations and the process of getting as much information out of them as we can, so we can prevent other terrorist attacks. “Some may or may not end up in a military commission, others conceivably in the US criminal court system, others could be returned to their countries of nationality and be prosecuted there.” Rumsfeld said some prisoners “could be kept in detention for a period.” He described the detainees as ‘quite dangerous people,’ many of whom had threatened to kill Americans ‘the first chance they get.” “Detention is possible if the persons detained are prisoners of war, but the USA has refused such status to Taliban fighters even though, as members of the armed forces, they are entitled to it. Doubts as to whether Al Qaida fighters are entitled to such status are reasonable, and could justify brief detention with a view to their status being determined by a competent tribunal, as required by Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention.” However, at present this obligation and possible basis of detention do not appear to be respected, the Commission said. “If there is the intention to charge detainees with a crime, then the detainees should have been promptly charged with an offence, over which the U.S. has jurisdiction, brought before a judicial authority, accorded the services of a lawyer and have the right to challenge the basis of detention under habeas corpus proceedings. These are obligations under the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which the U.S. is a party, as well as rules of U.S. due process law. It is important to note that both the Geneva Conventions and human rights law apply simultaneously,” it said. “In relation to any crimes alleged, prisoners of war may not be tried for merely fighting in the armed conflict, except for those actions that amount to war crimes. Unless a prisoner of war is charged with an international crime, or a crime over which the USA has jurisdiction that is not mere participation in the armed conflict, prisoners of war must be voluntarily repatriated at the cessation of active hostilities,” the ICJ said. WASHINGTON: Among the Al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners held on a US Navy base in Cuba is the former Taliban army chief of staff, Mullah Fazel Mazloom, US defence officials said. The Pentagon has refused to publicly identify any of the prisoners, whom it classifies as “detainees” rather than prisoners of war.
IANS, AP |
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2 Algerians
charged with Al-Qaida links London, January 18 The police in Leicester, central England, said they had arrested four more people, including two women, on Friday, after making 13 arrests on Thursday. The four, aged between 28 and 31, were arrested under the Immigration Act and were being held in custody in Leicestershire, the police said. Algerian Baghdad Meziane, 36, appeared in court charged with being a leader of the Al-Qaida network. A second Algerian, Brahim Benmerzouga, (30), was charged with being a member of the group. The two were arrested in September.
Reuters |
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BNP wins all 5 seats in byelections Dhaka, January 18 Earlier, the coalition was reported to be leading in yesterday’s byelections in the five constituencies in central and southern Bangladesh in a virtually one-sided election battle. Election officials said candidates of Ms Zia’s Right wing Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) were poised to capture all five seats after the main Opposition Awami League, withdrew from the poll alleging harassment by the police and pro-government activists. “We cannot take part in the byelections when the ruling coalition is not allowing our candidates to undertake normal electioneering,” Awami League’s senior leader Abdus Samad Azad said. Officials said day-long voting in the byelections began yesterday in central districts of Narail, Faridpur and Munshiganj and the southern Barguna district mostly known to be Opposition strongholds. Although there were 23 candidates officially running for the five vacant seats, the Awami League’s decision on Tuesday to pull back from the race assured the BNP of an easy victory. With the addition of five new party lawmakers the BNP, the dominant partner in the coalition which includes the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami, has 196 seats in the 300-member National Assembly.
DPA |
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Dozens die as lava
enters Congo town Gisenyi (Rwanda), January 18 UN officials estimated 45 people had died in the 24 hours after tongues of red-hot lava began forking from Nyiragongo volcano through villages on its slopes, down through Goma itself and on into Lake Kivu, which straddles the Rwandan border. “This is going to be a human catastrophe,” said an official from a contingent of UN ceasefire observers deployed in the eastern Congolese city of more than half a million. “We have to find them shelter, put them up in camps. There’s no electricity, no running water.” The UN observers are part of efforts to end a civil war. In parts of the town, the river of liquid rock had stopped flowing. But in other areas crowds gathered to gaze in mingled awe and horror as lava continued to snake into doorways and down streets. Parts of the runway at Goma airport had disappeared under the smoking tide. In the nearby town of Gisenyi, just across the border in Rwanda, displaced people lined the sides of the roads overnight, lying down to sleep anywhere they could find a patch of ground. Men slept in the middle of the main road, huddled between broken-down trucks. Military sources in Gisenyi said the number of people who had fled across the border to Rwanda could be as high as 300,000. The flow was the other way eight years ago, when Goma was home to thousands fleeing Rwanda’s 1994 ethnic bloodletting. The 3,469-metre (11,380 ft) Nyiragongo volcano is one of eight scattered along the borders of Rwanda, Congo and Uganda. The region is dense with tropical forests and home to rare mountain gorillas which inhabit the slopes of the mostly dormant volcanoes.
Reuters |
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