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Monday,
April 15, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Talks with Arafat useful: Powell
Israeli bloodbath at Jenin |
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Anti-Muslim remarks
alarm Pakistan France, India agree on extradition pact
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WINDOW ON PAKISTAN Chavez back in presidential palace
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Talks with Arafat useful: Powell
Jerusalem, April 14 Emerging from a three-hour meeting with Arafat in Ramallah, Powell said he and Arafat discussed a number of ideas and that aides to both the leaders would hold follow-up meetings tomorrow. However, Powell did not give any indication that they had reached a ceasefire agreement. "We just completed a useful and constructive exchange... and we exchanged a variety of ideas and discussed steps on how we can move forward," Powell told reporters after the meet. Arafat did not come out of his office to speak with reporters but CNN reported that chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, who accompanied Powell, said the Palestinian leader did not emerge from meeting due to security reasons. Political observers said Israeli officials had low expectations from the meeting which was made possible after the Palestinian Authority released a statement yesterday condemning the suicide bombing in downtown Jerusalem which killed six people on Friday. Powell had originally postponed talks with Arafat in view of the bombing. JERUSALEM:
Israel on Sunday offered Palestinian gunmen holed up in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity a deal under which they could surrender and be tried in an Israeli military court or go into exile “forever”. Mr Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the proposal had been given to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and that Israel was now waiting for “a counter proposal from the Palestinian side”. “The terrorists will have two choices: either they will stand trial in Israel and serve a sentence here as a result, those of course who are found guilty...(or) they will be expelled from Israel forever and from the territories,” Gissin told CNN. Israeli tanks and troops have surrounded the Church of the Nativity, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, for almost two weeks after dozens of gunmen stormed into the shrine to take sanctuary from Israeli troops who had invaded Bethlehem. Meanwhile, Israel’s military announced it would end the sweeping ban on entering occupied Palestinian areas in the West Bank. Restrictions will remain, however, in three key areas: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s besieged compound in the city of Ramallah; Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, and the town of Jenin. The army’s decision came in response to a growing chorus of protest from media groups, which have called on the military to stop interfering with coverage of the army’s 17-day-old offensive.
PTI, Reuters |
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Israeli bloodbath at Jenin Jenin, April 14 The guns have fallen silent. The helicopters that swarmed angrily above the city’s roofs, firing indiscriminately into the city’s crowded refugee camp, have been reduced to a single intermittent aircraft on patrol. There are still Israeli soldiers in the city. Still tanks. But the last Palestinian gunmen surrendered two days ago, among them men on Israel’s ‘most wanted’ list. The city’s men have been rounded up for screening. The battle of Jenin is over: in fact, if not in memory. The battle of Jenin will be remembered as the most bitter of Ariel Sharon’s short, vicious war on terrorism — the campaign he has called Operation Protective Wall. More than 100 Palestinians died, perhaps twice that number, many of them civilians. Israel saw its greatest combat loss in a single incident in years, when 13 soldiers were lured into a deadly ambush. Only now is the nature of the battle becoming clear, redefining the mutual animosity of Israeli and Palestinian. The Palestinians have called it a ‘massacre’, alleging that their houses were bulldozed with families still inside, that helicopters fired indiscriminately on a civilian area, and that ambulances were prevented from reaching the wounded in a calculated policy that meant they would bleed to death. Israeli soldiers charge that their colleagues were lured to their deaths, their units were charged by suicide bombers, and that militants they have captured were behind suicide and gun attacks on Israel’s cities. They charge that the camp at Jenin was a cancer that needed to be cut out. What is clear, however, is that between these two positions it is the civilians of Jenin who have suffered the most. For Israelis, Jenin is the ‘cobra’s head’ in Palestinian terrorism. It is from here, they will tell you with some justification, that a large number of the suicide bombers have come. They will tell you that among the senior terrorists captured are Sheikh Ali Safuri of Islamic Jihad, who sent suicide bombers to Hadera, Afula, Haifa and Binyamina. Captured, too, was Thabet Mardawi, one of the sheikh’s colleagues responsible for the deaths of 16 Israelis in a slew of attacks. The suicide bomber behind last Wednesday’s bus bombing near Haifa came from Jenin. But should even their presence permit the wholesale assault on a largely civilian area that resulted in such heavy loss of life? The man in charge of the operation is Brig-Gen Eyal Shlein. Shlein, like Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, denies the Palestinian claims that a ‘massacre’ took place.
The Observer, London |
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Envoy eulogises
suicide bombers London, April 14 The news is likely to strain relations between the oil rich Gulf state and the USA after Ghazi Algosaibi also used the poem to criticise America and said the White House was “filled with darkness”. Mr Algosaibi, in his poem , ‘The Martyrs’, appears to praise suicide bombers for taking direct action while others stood by and did nothing. The short piece stated: ‘You died to honour God’s word. (You) committed suicide? We committed suicide by living like the dead.’
The Observer |
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Anti-Muslim remarks alarm Pakistan Islamabad April 14 “The Government of Pakistan is seriously concerned at the bigoted and extremist message contained in Mr Vajpayee’s remarks” at a public rally in Panaji, a Pakistan Foreign Office statement said. “The international community should take note of dangerous anti-Muslim trends promoted by no less a person than the Prime Minister of India himself,” it said. “The remarks reveal Mr Vajpayee’s anti-Muslim bias. This is a pathetic attempt to divert attention from the recent massacres of hundreds of Muslims by Hindu fanatics in Gujarat,” it said. The statement said, he should choose to call Muslims intolerant.” Vajpayee should also make public his views about the “extremist and terrorist Hindu organisations like the VHP, Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal etc, which are all a part of the RSS family, it said.
PTI |
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France, India agree on extradition pact Paris, April 14 The agreement was reached during talks between Indian and French officials here this week. The Indian delegation to the talks was led by Mr S.R. Tayal, Joint Secretary (Consular, Passport, Visa) in the External Affairs Ministry. The agreement marks the conclusion of a process that began in 1998 when Delhi and Paris agreed to negotiate an extradition treaty. Though they reached broad agreement on the text of the treaty rapidly, differences remained on certain finer points. One of the points related to the identification of criminal activities that would warrant extradition. Due to differences in the penal codes of India and France, a major challenge for the two sides had been to narrow down the set of activities that would be covered by the treaty. Finally, both sides agreed to go by the texts of the international treaties they had signed to arrive at a consensus on the language to be used in the treaty. France is one of the last major European nations to enter into an extradition treaty with India. The UK, Germany and Italy have already signed similar pacts with India.
IANS |
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86 pc vote in East Timor Dili (East Timor), April 14 The territory's first presidential election was the last major step before East Timor becomes the world's newest nation next month, and offered voters a choice between the charismatic Gusmao, who for years led a resistance movement against Indonesia, and veteran politician Francisco Xavier do Amaral. Turnout started slow but picked up during the day. At a news conference after polls had closed the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) estimated 86.3 per cent of the around 430,000 eligible voters had cast ballots. "I just want to say that a turnout of 86.3 per cent is anywhere in the world considered an excellent result," chief electoral officer Valenzuela said. Counting of the votes begins on Monday with official results due on Wednesday. Today’s vote marks another way station for this once-troubled region on its way to statehood. Voters already elected a Parliament last August, for a provisional government led by Chief Minister Mari Alkatiri, who will become Prime Minister on independence day, May 20. But a big mandate for Gusmao, who led East Timor out of colonial status in 1999, will give him a lot of clout over the Fretilin party, which holds 55 of the 88 seats in Parliament. Voting was peaceful and orderly, officials said, and U.N. administration spokeswoman Barbara Reis praised the East Timorese for the "maturity, security and tolerance" they showed in this and last year's elections. The vote was observed by 72 East Timorese and 35 international groups.
Reuters, DPA |
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Anti-India voices
heard in US Congress It is nothing unusual that stray voices strongly critical of India are heard occasionally in the US Congress, and the issues are generally Kashmir, so-called Khalistan and Nagaland. Now the communal violence in Gujarat has given some
lawmakers another stick to beat the Indian Government. Earlier this week, Democrat Congresswoman Cynthia A. McKinney called the attention of the House of Representatives to the happenings in Gujarat and said she was “disturbed” to find out that apparently in the world’s largest secular democracy, a Hindu life was worth twice as much as a Muslim life. Quoting media reports that the Gujarat Government was paying out Rs 2 lakh each to the families of Hindus who were killed in the communal riots, but just Rs1 lakh to the family of each Muslim killed, Ms McKinney said it was “offensive” that a country that claimed it was democratic “thinks that the life of one person or group is twice as valuable as that of another person or group.” “What if our government declared white lives twice as valuable as black ones, or vice versa? Would that be tolerated?”, Ms McKenney, a Black Congresswoman, asked. She again relied on media reports to suggest that the government had “a hand” in the planning of the riots, “an impression that is reinforced by the fact that the police stood by and let the carnage happen.” Two other Congressmen, Republican Dan Burton and Democrat Edolphus Towns, both regulars in taking anti-India stance, used the occasion of Baisakhi greetings to the Sikhs in the USA and India to accuse the Indian Government of “oppression” of the Sikhs. All three called on the US Government to demand a plebiscite in Kashmir, so-called Khalistan and Nagaland and “the other nations seeking to get out from India’s brutal occupation.” Or else, “stop all aid” to India, they urged. |
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WINDOW ON PAKISTAN MUCH before the referendum set for April 30, Gen Pervez Musharraf has declared himself President of the Islamic republic for the next five years. And, if past practices are any guide, General Musharraf shall be President for life. The case of General Zia is before us. The move for referendum, which started after the army commanders okayed it last month, has no sanction of the constitution. But the military dictator, who has successfully kept top politicians Benzair Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif out, does not need sanction. The gun and US backing are enough to see him as permanent ruler. It is another thing that the mainline political parties, much of the media and the intellectual class, sick of the army’s constant control over the polity, have opposed this move. This week as News International reported from Lahore, General Musharraf launched his political campaign amid his first public gathering consisting of public servants, councillors and patronage-seeking politicians. “It was a grand stage-managed show, thanks to the tireless efforts by Governor Khalid Maqbool, a dynamic campaigner that he is, and the Nazims who competed to win state largesse and favours by mobilising a fraction of their electorate. Waving their flags, the activists of competing king’s parties all jumped on to the bandwagon. It was otherwise a replay of officially organised public meetings during Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s era in the 60s, if one recalls childhood glimpses of those gatherings and compares them with this show of ‘popular support’. Perhaps, the names of the characters have changed, but not the script. This is how history repeats itself in this land of the pure without even taking the pain of changing the attire of our messiah,” the daily stated. The People’s Party, Pakistan Muslim League (N), Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, Jammat-i-Islami, JUI(F) and JUI (S) leaders, when contacted by Dawn, unanimously rejected Musharraf’s version of democracy. “Pakistani's constitution clearly states that the federal and provincial legislatures will elect the President, the PPP said. It is “illegal, unconstitutional and immoral” for the General to declare himself President through a referendum. “Political legitimacy, however, will continue to elude General Musharraf just as it eluded General Zia.” Well-known columnist Ayaz Amir wrote in Dawn.” As so often before, the people of Pakistan are once again being asked to suspend disbelief and go along with another ploy to keep someone in power. This is the only interpretation which fits the referendum to whose stirring tune the nation is all set to march: Only fools will waste breath upon legalities. General Musharraf’s referendum has as much basis in the constitution as his coup d’etat. Lord of the jungle, it is up to him whether to lay an egg or deliver a child. Generals Aziz and Mahmood did not consult the constitution when they deposed Nawaz Sharif. General Musharraf did not open the constitution when he declared himself President and all but pushed the hapless Rafiq Tarar out of President’s House. Are there any grounds then for being agitated by General Musharraf’s attempt to anoint himself President for the next five years? There are because far from strengthening anything or anybody, it will take Pakistan further away from the goal which has always eluded it: a stable political order. It is not a question of going back to Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif — the false argument deployed by the apologists of the military government — but of ensuring respect for laws and institutions”. Military interventions are bad precisely for this reason: based upon nothing more fixed than the tips of the army’s bayonets, they lead to the birth of recurring bouts of political anarchy. Who has the right to drag the nation over similar paths again? Amir asked in sheer anguish. |
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Chavez back in presidential palace Caracas, April 14 State-owned television broadcast live images of jubilant crowds of Mr Chavez supporters who had gathered to receive him. Chavez administration’s Vice-President Diosdado Cabello took an oath late last night to serve as an acting President only until Mr Chavez could return to Caracas. “Countrymen in all of Venezuela, I speak to you as the acting President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, a post I assume in accordance with the constitution for the short, temporary absence of the Constitutionally-elected President, Mr Hugo Chavez Frias,” Mr Cabello said after his swearing-in yesterday. A delegation of Mr Chavez supporters picked him up from the Caribbean island of La Orchila early today and escorted him back to Caracas after his military detention. Mr Cabello was sworn in as Venezuela’s acting President, when the interim government that deposed the administration of Mr Chavez resigned yesterday, after holding power for a day. Mr Pedro Carmona, who on Friday led the interim government that ousted Mr Chavez, announced his resignation in an address to the nation.
AFP |
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