Violence rocks Chitungwiza
Monday, 07 November 2011 00:00
Lloyd Gumbo and Felex Share Herald Reporters
VIOLENCE reared its ugly head again when MDC-T and Zanu-PF youths clashed in Chitungwiza yesterday. They attacked each other with stones, knobkerries and iron bars. The clashes started in the morning at Chibuku Stadium where MDC-T was scheduled to hold a rally.
Riot police fought running battles with the youths as they tried to quell the violence. At some point, the youths attacked policemen with stones.
Police spokesperson Chief Superintendent Oliver Mandipaka said they were still investigating the violence and no arrests had been made by late last night.
He said police would "ruthlessly" deal with perpetrators of violence.
"We are still gathering information on what happened on the ground, but it is unnecessary for political parties to clash in that fashion.
"There is need for reason to prevail and we implore our officers on the ground not to relax and to deal with violent elements ruthlessly. It is unlawful and illegal to destroy the country in that way," he said.
Residents in the neighbourhood were forced to stay indoors to avoid being caught in the crossfire.
The rally had to be called off after the violence continued for about an hour.
MDC-T youths attacked a Zimpapers vehicle, shuttering one of its windows.
Zanu-PF spokesperson Cde Rugare Gumbo said MDC-T youths had provoked the situation by forcing people to attend its rally.
"I was briefed of what they were doing on Saturday night and I think this morning they met their match in the form of angry Chitungwiza residents who did not want to go to the rally."
Addressing journalists in Harare soon after the skirmishes, MDC-T secretary-general Mr Tendai Biti blamed Zanu-PF for the violence.
He said this was a clear strategy by Zanu-PF to push them out of the inclusive Government.
Said Mr Biti: "Zanu-PF is using violence for the arbitration of political scores in the country. This is neither the beginning nor the end of systematic violence against our party but we will remain committed despite provocation.
"The police, despite clearing us, watched helplessly as our members were being assaulted."
Zanu-PF Chitungwiza district co-ordinating committee chairman Cde Wilfred Gwekwete distanced his party from the viole- nce.
He said MDC-T youths had intimidated residents on the eve of the planned rally.
"What has happened has got nothing to do with our party. They came with over 22 vehicles, intimidating residents to come for the rally. We made police reports on the issue," he said.
"As for the clashes, it might be angry residents who wanted to inquire why they were being forced to attend the rally. Put Zanu-PF out of this," he said.
The incident followed shortly after a group of MDC-T youths clashed with police officers in Harare.
Police were trying to arrest some vendors who had assaulted their colleagues and a musician who had complained about some pirated music disc.
Labels: CADRES, MDC VIOLENCE, TENDAI BITI
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Venture into sugarcane production, farmers urged
Monday, 07 November 2011 00:00
Masvingo Bureau
Vice President Joice Mujuru has challenged communal farmers in and around Chiredzi to venture into commercial sugarcane production. She said the farmers should utilise two sugarcane mills at Hippo Valley and Triangle estates that are operating below capacity due to depressed cane supplies.
Thousands of these farmers, she said, could transform their lives by taking advantage of the mills owned by Tongaat Hullet. The mills are producing nearly 400 000 tonnes of sugar out of their installed milling capacity of 600 000 tonnes per annum.
Speaking after touring the Joice Mujuru irrigation scheme in Chiredzi, VP Mujuru urged communal farmers to take advantage of the sugar mills.
"I would want to urge people in this area to seriously consider sugarcane production.
"Commercial sugarcane production will change people's lives as there are many Zimbabweans earning money out of sugarcane production."
She was however, unhappy that more than 1 000 new sugarcane farmers at Mkwasine, Hippo Valley and Triangle Estates were not from Chiredzi district. She said Government, the provincial leadership and sugar companies would engage the local leadership on ways local people could benefit from the projects. VP Mujuru also toured the Joice Mujuru Crocodile Farm which has more than 200 crocodiles.
She said Government would assist the crocodile farmers with access to markets for their crocodile products.
"I want to emphasise that it is very important for communities to realise that they should not wait for the Government to initiate development for them."
She said the communities should be at the forefront of development and production.
"Communities should work for Government not for Government to work for them.
"Once there is production in communities the sources for taxes by Government increases and that engenders development and prosperity," she said.
Besides crocodile farming, villagers at Joice Mujuru Irrigation Scheme are also involved in crop production.
Labels: AGRICULTURE, JOICE MUJURU, SUGAR CANE
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The single story, Julius Malema
Monday, 07 November 2011 00:00
Lovemore Ranga Mataire
The article by South African author and commentator Udo Froese titled "Confusion of ANC leadership" on 24 October, 2011 reveals the extent to which many have missed the plot in their interpretation of issues confronting the ANC in particular, and South Africa in general.
Froese's analysis on Julius Malema and the ANC dwelt more on the symptomatic dimensions and failed to address the genesis of the current contradictions inherent within the South African transformational fabric.
The major weakness of his analysis, which is synonymous with most narratives on Africa, is its attachment of a single story identity to anything and everything unfolding within the ANC and its youth league led by Malema.
Ignorant of why Malema fails to fit in a box, Froese attaches a single story identity of a rabble-rouser and regrettably fails to inform the public of the real issues at play.
His veiled instigation to punish and silence Malema is nothing but a knee jerk response to a major problem that, unless addressed, is bound to have such a cataclysmic contagion effect across the region and Africa.
Froese's piece fits into the same scope of those that view Malema through a narrow aperture and generally regard him as politically "dangerous, radical, racist, bigoted, stupid, corrupt and ignorant", a narrow narrative woven into a damning dark tale. It would have been helpful for Froese to have read An Inconvenient Youth - Julius Malema and the New ANC, a recent book by Fiona Forde, which offers a refreshing understanding of the multi-layered intricate workings of the ANC as a ruling party, how it struggles with power, within itself and with the idea of South Africa.
Published in September 2011, the author confesses to have also once viewed Malema and the ANC through the narrow lens of a single story, until 2009, when Nigerian writer Chimanda Ngozi Adichie delivered a speech at Oxford University and spoke about the "single story" and the dangers of interpreting life or people through a narrow lens.
"As a young girl she was an avid reader, but her middle class upbringing exposed her to American rather than African children's books. So when she started dabbling with her own stories, as young girls do, she found she was mentally locked into the characters and tales she had read about. She wouldn't understand until many years later."
Ngozi Adichie's opening words would always be followed by characters "who were white and blue-eyed. They played in the snow. They ate apples and they talked a lot about the weather - how lovely it was the sun came up".
All this despite the fact that she had never set foot outside Nigeria. They did not have snow, and they ate mangoes instead of apples. They never dwelt on the weather; under the ever present African sun, there was no need. Years later, Ngozi Adichie was also at the end of the narrow lens when her university roommate in the United States was surprised to find out that Ngozi could speak English fluently, ignorant of the fact that it is the official language in Nigeria. That roommate had a "single story of Africa".
It is this single story dilemma or trap that distorts the interpretation and analysis of the ANC Youth League president, especially in South Africa, where the white dominated media tends to view him through narrow lens, with his work always reported off the "single story". It is critical to avoid forcing Malema into a box.
Like every mortal, Malema is an imperfect being, prone to inevitable human frailties. But it is prudent that we examine the substance of the issues he raises 17 years after the birth the Rainbow Nation.
In 1994 when South Africa achieved democratic rule, Malema was just 13-years-old, having been born on 3 March, 1981. Despite his youth, Malema rose through the ranks to become one of the most dominant voices articulating the aspirations of the once oppressed blacks.
"Julius Malema was 13 when apartheid came to an end and he lived the rest of his formative years in the democratic dispensation. But for him and many others, 1994 did not bring transformation overnight. His teen years were very tough and the Malema family struggled to get by. The poverty that hung over that household in some ways became more endemic because it was one of the families that 1994 left behind," writes Forde.
In short, Malema's message to South Africa is simple and nakedly honest: South Africa is not yet Uhuru.
Malema derives his moral mandate in raising these unfulfilled aspirations from his upbringing in one of the poorest suburbs (Disteneng) of South Africa. He was born to an epileptic and emotionally challenged mother who left her job when sickness took hold of her.
The young Malema knew nothing but poverty, a second class citizen in his own country.
He was reared among his extended family, the majority being women, and he learned to raise his voice at a young age to be heard. So what are the issues that Malema is raising that resonate among blacks?
According to Forde, Malema is touching on hot political issues like land reform, the need to share wealth, nationalisation and the need for the African majority to be at the centre of decision making processes. Malema is frustrated at the slow pace of transformation.
On land, South Africa's majority population is landless while up north in Zimbabwe, where the Matangiras are now established commercial farmers, it is a different story.
The second issue is that of the economy, which 17 years after majority rule is still in the hands of whites. The state's grip of the economy is weak and the fact that so many of the large corporations are still controlled by whites does little to nurture solid state capital relations.
Third, its judiciary, which is lauded by many pundits as independent, is still a sad relic of the apartheid era despite being headed by a black judge. The same cannot be said of Zimbabwe where we have completely indigenised the bench to reflect the demographic balance and our aspirations as a nation.
Fourth, Malema is convinced that the security sector in South Africa is maladjusted. Very few South Africans can be proud of their army, which during the formative years of that country's majority rule could not be sent to any peace keeping missions because the various combat groups patched together under the SANDF could not gel.
Widespread prevalence of crime is also testimony to a combination of debilitating factors, which include the breakdown of the social fabric owing to the high unemployment rate and the second is the non-integration of the police force, which seems to have different command structures.
The recent sacking of Police Commissioner Bheki Cele is sure proof of a maladjusted system buckling under a myriad of forces.
These are the issues that Malema is raising. They may be laced with rhetoric but no one can dispute their authenticity and immediacy. Yes, Malema does sometimes play to the gallery, but is any politician ever immune to gamesmanship?
Ideologically, Malema is informed by the rich history of the ANC, which has always stood on the side of the marginalised. Is it a surprise that he should find refuge within Zanu-PF's empowerment policies, while casting the MDC and Botswana's ruling party as agents of Western imperialism?
Malema's ideological leanings are inimical to the white hegemonic hold on economic power. The prospect of Malema forging a united front with Zanu- PF makes the white establishment in South Africa quiver with trepidation. Even Forde, herself a white Irish woman, cannot escape from her inherent insecurity and prejudice when she writes about Malema's visit to Zimbabwe. She clearly shows her disdain when Malema addressed the South African media soon after his return from Zimbabwe.
"But Malema ignored what they had to say and instead chose to restate and reinforce his views as the press conference got under way. ‘We want Zanu PF to be retained in power. That's what we want. We are not going to relate with some Mickey Mouse we don't know. We relate with people we've got a history together (sic)'".
This, in my view is the cardinal sin that Malema is being crucified for.
It does not end there. Forde highlights a conversation she had with ANC Youth League Treasurer Pule Mabe during a visit to Zimbabwe. Mabe told her of the possibility of the two countries (South Africa and Zimbabwe) becoming superpowers of Africa given the enormous natural resources within their armpits.
"You see, South Africa is the biggest producer of platinum in the world," Mabe tells Forde. "Zimbabwe is sitting on big reserves of platinum as well."
The two southern Africa countries are sitting on the vast majority of the world's deposits, he points out.
Indeed, so large is South Africa's platinum wealth that it now supplies in excess of 80 percent of global demand. Zimbabwe's deposits are also not insignificant.
The deposits in Zimbabwe are attractive in that they are closer to the surface than those of South Africa, making mining operations less costly and profit margins wider.
"So if we work together, we can create a superpower. Africa's first big superpower. And then we will be fully independent and we will stand up to the world. Africa can't do that without a superpower," Mabe is quoted as saying.
This strategic vision and revolutionary pan-African thinking is the real reason why Malema and his allies are being persecuted.
The disappointment is that the ANC is oblivious to the obtrusive interests of imperialists in the whole saga. These are imperialists who clearly are apprehensive of any talk of strategic alliance among African nations.
It is the same white imperialists who are swift to ridicule Malema as nothing more than an uneducated township boy, and yet the same uneducated boy pulled one of the most extraordinary political coups of all time at Polokwane not so long ago.
Anyone who attaches a single story narrative to Malema is either naive or mischievous.
Forde makes a crucial concession:
"But what got lost in emotion and commotion was one crucial fact; Malema is not stupid. He is not classically educated nor is he broadly informed but he is enormously clever and his ability to manipulate information- one of his key definitions of intelligence- is as remarkable as his ability to recall it, which is what makes him the cunning and wily character that he is and a master at exploiting opportunity."
Malema is a product of poverty, politics, power and a racial past and his anger must come as "no surprise in a society that is not only still divided along racial lines but tethering on a lethal mix of unfulfilled promises from the transition, gross inequality in socio-economic terms" and an ANC still ideologically transforming itself from a liberation movement into a political party.
The ANC is still searching for its soul and seemingly at loss as to how to deal with emerging internal contradictions.
In the words of Forde, the ANC is in a state of interregnum- the old notions are slowly becoming obsolete while the new ones are still to be born and defined. It is this political vacuity that Malema occupies and manipulates.
ANC needs to do some serious introspection and deal with issues that seemingly make the party look dysfunctional.
What the ANC leadership will decide on Malema at his disciplinary hearing is indeed their right, but this will not sweep away the simmering anger over the slow pace of transformation owing mainly to the unequal distribution of resources.
Labels: ANC, ANC YOUTH LEAGUE, BHEKI CELE, JULIUS MALEMA, LAND REFORM
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Africa must shun Western aid
Monday, 07 November 2011 00:00
Tendai Moyo
It seems some world leaders, though misguided, are clearly driven by archaic and racist theories propagated by discredited individuals like Charles Darwin, who centuries ago proclaimed that the white people are a superior race with the inherent responsibility to enlighten and subjugate other dark-coloured races.
This could succinctly explain recent condescending threats by British Prime Minister David Cameron to cut aid on countries that are not supportive of the indecorous homosexual rights. Surely if this is not the highest exhibition of the so-called superiority complex then what could it be?
Mr Cameron in an interview with BBC was quoted saying that, "Britain is now one of the premier aid givers in the world. We want to see countries that receive our aid adhering to proper human rights, and that includes how people treat gay and lesbian people."
He went on to say that, "British aid should have more strings attached, in terms of do you persecute people for their faith or their Christianity, or do you persecute people for their sexuality? We don't think that's acceptable."
What the British premier dismally failed to realise was that his empty threats were actually a form of persecution against those whose faith do not condone the disgusting and uncivilised practice of homosexuality.
In a way, though blurred by failed racist theories, his statements betrayed his blatant hypocrisy and disdain for other peoples' religions and beliefs. This kind of distorted thinking inordinately reveals a bigoted failure to appreciate that there are a plethora of other cultures in the world that view homosexuality as anathema.
To most Africans, the issue of homosexuality is an affront to their moral and cultural values and thus is inadmissible in their social or political discourse. It is an abomination by all standards and remains so despite the hollow threats from Cameron. Mr Cameron should also appreciate that Africa, in its plurality; also has 19 countries that have Islam as the dominant religion.
Islam strictly forbids homosexuality. A simple statement from Prophet Muhammad reinforces this belief.
It says, "When a man mounts another man, the throne of God shakes". This graphically explains why homosexuality is not tolerated in Islamic countries.
It does not matter whether Cameron withdraws his aid or not, Islamic countries will not condone his pro-homosexual mantra due to their undiluted religious faith. This is the brute reality that Mr Cameron should simply swallow. This world is constituted by a people with diverse cultural orientations and as such it is purely unfathomable for him to believe that his culture should be superimposed upon other world races.
Notwithstanding being an affront to the Africans' moral and cultural norms, the attempt to foist homosexuality on Africa evidently undermines the inviolable principle of sovereignty which categorically upholds a nation's right to determine its own policy of governance. Where is our sovereignty now if the "big brothers" of this world would like to coerce us into adopting their despicable cultural practices that are clearly averse to our cultural beliefs?
Although Cameron rightly acknowledges that we have divergent cultural backgrounds when he said, "They are in a different place from us on this issue . . ." he went on to disdainfully proclaim that, "I think these countries are all on a journey and its up to us to try and help them along on that journey."
What an insult! The British premier feels that we should get a lot of handholding for us to be delivered from our culturally informed anti-gay position. Like children, he feels westerners have the moral obligation to guide us into supporting the unnatural act of homosexuality. As usual, the imperialists think that they have been God-sent to alienate us from our culture and beliefs.
This is a brazen continuation of their previous forays during slavery and colonialism to ideologically and physically subjugate Africans for their own benefit.
The British premier's opaque thinking also opens the issue of "aid" to another trajectory of debate. The question is who benefits from this "aid"? In other words, who does the "aid" aid, the donor or the dependent?
Clearly, from Cameron's line of thinking, the "aid" is a tool created to conveniently aid the perpetuation of the supposed superiority of the Caucasians over other races. Like sanctions, it is a congenial instrument designed to cow other races into pandering to the depraved whims of the Caucasian ego.
We could put it in another way: when Cameron advocates for gay rights in Africa, in the belief that such a dispensation is superior, he gains votes because he is doing the age-old phenomenon of civilisation.
In their racist mentalities, whites believe that they are duty-bound to "civilise" lesser people. And what do we get from it? Just like the "civilising" mission of colonialism raped and underdeveloped the continent, "democratisation" and "human rights" will ultimately spell ill for Africa.
The most important point to make here is that nothing good will come out of a self-serving and Godforsaken West. So what is there for Africa to learn?
The inescapable lesson for Africans is for them to gradually wean themselves from being overly dependent on Western aid. Countries in the continent should come up with self-empowering policies that should disentangle them from the parasitic hands of Western donors. In this vein, programmes like the land reform and the indigenisation and empowerment programme should be viewed as appropriate measures to protect African identity and dignity.
The people of Zimbabwe must now rethink the ideas about foreign direct investment and jobs that are being propounded by some sections of the country. Nothing comes free: Britain and the West will tie conditions such as homosexuality for them to invest and create jobs in the country. The myopic and ultimately unhelpful ideas about jobs and investment must be rejected by all self-respecting
Zimbabweans for it opens the door for destructive western influence.
However, Zimbabwe is now practically immune from Cameron's threats because it is not currently receiving any meaningful aid from the British. In fact, it is trying to diligently harness its natural resources for the benefit of its people without any assistance from these foreigners. More importantly, recent developments have shown that these international bullies can surely be tamed. At the Commonwealth leaders' summit in Australia, the African caucus managed to put asunder Western efforts to force the group to adopt a recommendation that calls for an end to laws against homosexuality in 41 member nations.
Similarly, a caucus of African diamond producers at the recently held Kimberly Process plenary session in Kinshasa DRC also successfully stood up against spirited attempts by Western countries and their allies to block Zimbabwe from selling its diamonds from Marange without any hindrances. It is clear that if African countries stand together, they can defeat imperialism and its self arrogated superiority complex.
Labels: DONORS, KIMBERLEY PROCESS, NEOCOLONIALISM
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Southeast Asia: U.S. Completing Asian NATO To Confront China
by Rick Rozoff
Global Research, November 7, 2011
Stop NATO
Since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization adopted its first Strategic Concept for the 21st century a year ago this month in Portugal, and in the process all but formalized the bloc as a global military intervention force, discussion has been rife concerning a collective partnership with the 54-nation African Union, a “mini-NATO” in the Persian Gulf and another in the Arctic Ocean and the Baltic Sea, the culmination of the transformation of the Mediterranean into a NATO sea and the effective “NATOization” of the ten-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). [1-5]
The U.S.-dominated military alliance, whose current American ambassador, Ivo Daalder, for years has advocated becoming a full-fledged global NATO (in one instance in an article with that precise title), expanded from 16 to 28 full members in the decade beginning in 1999 and has over forty partners in four continents outside the Euro-Atlantic zone under the auspices of programs like the Partnership for Peace in Europe and Asia, the Mediterranean Dialogue in Africa and the Middle East, the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative in the Persian Gulf, the Contact Country format in the Asia-Pacific region (Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea), Annual National Programs with Georgia and Ukraine, the Afghanistan-Pakistan-International Security Assistance Force Tripartite Commission, the NATO-Russia Council, the NATO Training Mission-Iraq and NATO-Training Mission – Afghanistan (with a Libyan version to follow), a bilateral agreement with the Transitional Federal Government in Somalia where NATO has airlifted thousands of Ugandan and Burundian troops for the war there and other arrangements.
Formal partnerships with the African Union and ASEAN would gain the world’s only military bloc fifty new cohorts in Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Mauritania and Morocco – the last not an African Union member – are already members of the Mediterranean Dialogue) and ten in Southeast Asia: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore. Thailand and Vietnam.
In addition, in September U.S. permanent representative to NATO Daalder told Indian journalists visiting the Alliance’s headquarters in Brussels:
“I think it is important to have a dialogue (with India) and deepen that dialogue.
“It is through dialogue, through understanding each other’s perceptions and perhaps by working on misperceptions that may exist, that we can strengthen the relations between India and NATO.”
He also bluntly suggested that India, a founding member of the 120-nation Non-Aligned Movement, should abandon its policy of neutrality and collaborate with the U.S. and NATO in the development of an international interceptor missile system.
In articles written in the last decade, including the aforementioned “Global NATO,” [6] Daalder and fellow Brookings Institution and Council on Foreign Relations officials argued for partnerships between the bloc and nations around the world under Daalder’s concept of an Alliance of Democratic States and other mechanisms. The countries mentioned by name include Australia, Botswana, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa and South Korea. [7]
Immediately ahead of the NATO summit in Lisbon, Daalder was quoted stating:
“We’re launching Nato 3.0.
“It is no longer just about Europe – it’s not a global alliance but it is a global actor. We need to look for opportunities to work with countries we haven’t worked with before, like India, China and Brazil.”
The month before, in October of last year, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a video post on his blog, “We should reach out to new and important partners, including China and India.”
With NATO as the prime mover and in charge, that is. He added: “We should encourage consultations between interested allies and partners on security issues of common concern, with NATO as a hub for those discussions.”
In September of this year he told the Xinhua News Agency: “I would very much like to see a strengthened dialogue between China and NATO.”
China and India were among 47 nations represented at a meeting at NATO headquarters on September 14 to discuss naval operations in the Gulf of Aden and in the broader Indian Ocean where NATO runs Operation Ocean Shield. Other non-NATO nations present were Australia, Egypt, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates. At the time the last two were supplying warplanes for NATO’s Operation Unified Protector assault against Libya.
If the architects of an international NATO realize their ambitions fully, more than 140 of the world’s 194 nations will be members or partners of the North Atlantic Alliance. Their troops, military hardware and air and other bases will be available to the U.S.-dominated bloc for actions nearly everywhere in the world, as warplanes from NATO partner Israel have recently been training in Romania, Greece and a NATO air base in Sardinia for strikes against Iran.
With every nation on the European continent and every European island nation except for Cyprus now either a NATO member or partner and with the Alliance now firmly ensconced in Africa, the Middle East and the Indian Ocean, the U.S. and its Western allies are concentrating their firepower on East Asia.
The war in Afghanistan is in its eleventh year and it has provided NATO the opportunity to integrate the militaries of over fifteen Asian-Pacific countries (including the Middle East and the South Caucasus in that category) through supplying troops and other military personnel to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force: Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Georgia, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mongolia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Tonga, Turkey and United Arab Emirates. All but Bahrain and Japan are what the bloc refers to as Troop Contributing Nations, of which Kazakhstan is to be the 49th, with its parliament at least temporarily blocking the formalization of that status.
Before his death late last year U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke was recruiting Bangladesh to become the 50th official supplier of troops for NATO’s Afghan war. [8]
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently concluded an eight-day trip to Asia, his first as Pentagon chief, where he visited Indonesia, Japan and South Korea.
On the first leg of his journey he met with the defense ministers of the ten members of ASEAN. Indonesia holds the organization’s chairmanship this year. Next year it will be transferred to Cambodia, where at the same time Panetta was in East Asia his subordinate, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia Robert Scher, visited for two days to solidify military relations with the host nation where U.S. Army Pacific has led multinational Angkor Sentinel military exercises for the past two years.
Xinhua quoted the Pentagon official as saying:
“It’s a fruitful visit. I participated in a series of productive meetings with the Cambodian Ministry of Defense and Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) to discuss the growing U.S.-Cambodia bilateral defense relationship…”
He was additionally cited stating he “had discussions about Cambodia’s objectives as it approaches to take over the chairmanship of ASEAN in 2012.
“The U.S. Department of Defense is committed to continuing to work with the RCAF to develop a professional force that will contribute to regional and international peace and stability” and “the United States’ overall commitment is to enhance its engagement in the Asia-Pacific region in the future.”
While in Indonesia, Panetta indulged in the affectation of identifying himself as “a son of the U.S. Pacific coast,” having been raised in California, as his commander-in-chief, Hawaii-born President Barack Obama, has touted himself as America’s first Pacific head of state.
He met with Indonesian Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro, according to the Stars and Stripes newspaper, “to discuss growing bilateral military relations and broader issues facing Southeast Asia…[c]hief among those issues [being] China’s growing assertiveness in an area it considers its own backyard.”
In his own words, “I’ve made it very clear that the United States remains a Pacific power, that we will continue to strengthen our presence in this part of the world and that we will remain a force…in this region.”
Later in Japan, the Pentagon chief told American troops at the Yokota Air Base near Tokyo: “We are not anticipating any cutbacks in this region. If anything we are going to strengthen our presence in the Pacific.” Two weeks earlier Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had spoken in a similar vein: “Probably the greatest opportunities in the years ahead will be found in the Asia Pacific region, which is why we have renewed America’s leadership and pre-eminent role there.”
In July of 2010 Clinton attended the ASEAN Regional Forum in Hanoi and entered the fray in the disputes between ASEAN member states and China over the Spratly and Paracel islands in the South China Sea, in essence pledging the U.S. as guarantor for ASEAN against China. Panetta’s meeting with his ten ASEAN counterparts last month provided an overt military component to the commitment.
While in Japan the defense secretary celebrated a half century of American-Japanese military colloboration enshrined in the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan of 1960, adding, “And it will be for the next 50 years as well.”
Panetta also told assembled U.S. and Japanese troops: “I just had the opportunity to be in Indonesia and meet with the (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) defense ministers. And I conveyed the same message to them: the United States will continue to work with all of them to improve our cooperation, to improve our assistance, and to make sure that we strengthen security for all nations in the Pacific region.”
Southeast Asia has a population of approximately 600 million, two-thirds that of the Western Hemisphere and almost three-quarters that of Europe. It contains one of the world’s most vital shipping lanes, the Strait of Malacca. The strait runs for 600 miles between Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore to the east and the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the west.
According to the United Nations International Maritime Organization, at least 50,000 ships pass through the waterway annually, transporting 30 percent of the goods traded in the world, including oil from the Persian Gulf to major East Asian nations like China, Japan and South Korea. As many as 20 million barrels of oil a day pass through the Strait of Malacca, an amount that will only increase with the further advance of the Asian Century. [9]
Since the end of the Cold War the U.S. and its Western allies have expanded NATO throughout Europe and combined that effort with the creation of an Asian NATO that in part consists of the revival and expansion of other Cold War military alliances based on NATO: The Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS).
But what is being built currently is far more extensive than all the latter three combined and is, moreover, not complementary to but in collusion with NATO, the Afghan war serving the purpose of unifying East and West under American and NATO control as the Korean War and Vietnam War did for the creation and consolidation of SEATO and ANZUS.
In May of 2010 the Atlantic Council of the United States, the main NATO lobbying group in the Western Hemisphere and indeed in the world, posted an article by Max Boot, the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and frequent lecturer at the Army War College and the Command and General Staff College, titled “Building an East Asian NATO.”
It contained this excerpt:
“A common complaint heard among American officials and policy analysts is that in East Asia – one of the most important and conflict-prone areas of the planet – there is no security architecture comparable to NATO. The U.S. has ties to many key countries, notably Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the Philippines, Australia, Thailand, and Taiwan. But they do not have strong ties to one another, and there is no joint military planning of the kind that NATO undertakes…” [10]
In recent months the topic of a NATO-ASEAN military partnership has been given increased attention.
In August U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell gave an interview to The Australian in which he said:
“One of the most important challenges for US foreign policy is to effect a transition from the immediate and vexing challenges of the Middle East to the long-term and deeply consequential issues in Asia.”
“There is an undeniable assertive quality to Chinese foreign policy and we’re seeing that play out in the South China Sea and elsewhere.
“What has been effective in the past year or so is the number of countries in the Asia-Pacific (that) have been prepared to say to China that greater transparency (from China in military matters) is in the interests of the Asia-Pacific region.
“I think what you see is an across-the-board effort (by the US) to articulate India as playing a greater role in Asia, and also revitalising relations with ASEAN – both ASEAN as an institution, and with its key members, such as Indonesia, Vietnam and Singapore, and revitalising what used to be a very important relationship with The Philippines.” [11]
His comments paralleled those of defense chief Panetta and other Pentagon officials in affirming that with the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and the beginning of a drawdown in Afghanistan, the Pentagon is focusing on East Asia, with NATO to take a greater role in policing the Greater/Broader/New Middle East and Africa in order to free up the American military to shift to the east.
In July an article appeared in the Jakarta Post with the title “Sketching out a future ASEAN-NATO partnership” by Evan A. Laksmana, identified as a researcher for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta, presumably an affiliate of the think tank of the same name in Washington, D.C. Indonesia, recall, currently chairs ASEAN.
The author’s comments included:
“As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) enters its seventh decade and as ASEAN consolidates its regional community building ahead of and beyond 2015, the bodies have much to learn from each other.
“For NATO, ASEAN will be increasingly critical for the future of Asian stability and order and would be an ideal candidate for a strategic counterpart to tackle common regional and global security challenges – especially when ASEAN consolidates its regional community building, allowing it to share NATO’s role as a community of like-minded nations…
“Southeast Asia’s geopolitical, geo-strategic, and geo-economic value also suggests that NATO’s future missions beyond its traditional area of operations might increasingly depend on ASEAN.”
Further, he recommended:
“Any future ASEAN-NATO partnership could at least be placed within five major policy areas: peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR), maritime security, defense reform and counterterrorism.”
“These five areas of engagement could be further executed in four levels of cooperation: strategic, institutional, operational and people-to-people.
“Strategically, NATO can engage ASEAN in discussions and dialogue regarding the five security issues using two tracks.
“In track one, the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting Plus (consisting of all ASEAN countries plus Australia, the US, China, South Korea, Japan, India, Russia and New Zealand) as well as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) provide critical dialogue venues.
“In track two, two groupings are crucial: the ASEAN Institutes of Strategic and International Studies (ASEAN-ISIS), a network of nine major think tanks in Southeast Asia, and the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP), a network of nearly all major Asia Pacific think tanks.
“Institutionally, NATO could explore future cooperation or collaboration with either the ASEAN Secretariat, the network of ASEAN Peacekeeping Centers, the ASEAN Center for Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief or even the ASEAN Institute for Peace and Reconciliation.
“Other forms of diplomatic defense activities such as port visits or officer exchanges that are more practical and ‘neutral’ might also help alleviate some of the sensitivities of regional countries regarding NATO’s visibility.”
The writer ended his piece with these comments:
“This would slowly and gradually raise the public profile and awareness of NATO’s potential contribution to regional stability.
“This is at least the writer’s impression from discussions with various NATO officials on a recent trip.
“NATO should at least start thinking of engaging ASEAN early to avoid any surprises when a new, region-wide crisis in Asia comes knocking. For ASEAN, if we are serious about boosting our regional security community building, would it hurt to learn from a multi-national organization that has had the longest practical experience in the endeavor?” [12]
Three days later an article appeared in the Pakistani press called “NATO knocks at the door of ASEAN” by Dr. Jassim Taqui, which issued these warnings:
“Having failed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has decided to change direction towards Southeast Asia. In this regard, NATO shows a keen interest to establish a partnership with ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations).”
Although “the United States continued to influence ASEAN since 1997,” now “Washington is combining with India to influence the region in a bid to neutralize the rising cooperation between ASEAN and China.
“During her visit to India, the US Secretary of State Ms Hillary Clinton urged India to expand its traditional sphere of influence from South Asia to Central Asia and Southeast Asia to contain China’s increasing assertiveness. Ostensibly, Clinton’s slip of the tongue suggests a strategy that aims to encircle China in its backyard in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Rim on one hand and to boost engagement in Central Asia, on China’s western flank, on the other.
“Clinton’s tone is confrontational. It justifies the containment of China by Washington and New Delhi on the ground of ‘common values and interests.’ Clinton also announced that the
Obama administration would soon launch a three-way dialogue with India and Japan to counter China.” [13]
At the beginning of the year U.S. Defense Department spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters:
“We have 28,500 troops on the Korean Peninsula. We’ve got, I think, north of 50,000 troops in Japan. So we have significant assets already there. Over the long-term lay-down of our forces in the Pacific, we are looking at ways to even bolster that, not necessarily in Korea and Japan, but along the Pacific Rim, particularly in Southeast Asia.” [14]
In September a U.S. Pacific Command spokesperson told The Diplomat "that ASEAN's pursuit of regional defence industry collaboration would helpadvance US national interests in the Asia-Pacific as it would usher in a new'set of standards, similar to NATO, (that) will facilitate interoperabilityamong ASEAN and US militaries.'"
The feature also stated:
"From an operational perspective, the adoption of NATO standards by ASEAN would advance long-term plug-and-play interoperability between NATO and ASEAN militaries. While this would improve joint-military action across numerous mission spaces, it also would allow Pentagon defence planners to view ASEAN militaries as potential forward-based force multipliers for some regional scenarios with potential adversaries, including China." [15]
As the year nears it end it is apparent that the Pentagon and its increasingly global military bloc, NATO, are concentrating on integrating the militaries of Southeast Asia in their inexorable drive to contain and confront China and abort the emergence of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a viable, non-military alternative to them in Eurasia.
Notes
1) Africa: Global NATO Seeks To Recruit 50 New Military Partners Stop NATO, February 20, 2011 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/africa-global-nato-seeks-to-recruit-50-new-military-partners
2) US envisions NATO of the Gulf RT, October 31, 2011 http://rt.com/news/us-military-iraq-iran-171/ ... U.S. And NATO Allies Escalate Military Buildup Against Iran Stop NATO,December 6, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/s-and-nato-allies-escalate-military-buildup-around-iran/
3) Britain Spearheads “Mini-NATO” In Arctic Ocean, Baltic Sea Stop NATO, January 22, 2011 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/britain-spearheads-mini-nato-in-arctic-ocean-baltic-sea/
4) Cyprus: U.S. To Dominate All Europe, Mediterranean Through NATO Stop NATO, March 3, 2011 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/cyprus-u-s-to-dominate-all-europe-mediterranean-through-nato
5) North Korea As Pretext: U.S. Builds Asian Military Alliance Against China And Russia Stop NATO, December 3, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/north-korea-as-pretext-u-s-builds-asian-military-alliance-against-china-and-russia/ ...
After NATO Summit, U.S. To Intensify Military Drive Into Asia Stop NATO, November 17, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/after-nato-summit-u-s-to-intensify-military-drive-into-asia ... Southeast Asia: West Completes Plans For Asian NATO Stop NATO, October 21, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/10/21/southeast-asia-west-completes-plans-for-asian-nato
6) Global NATO, Ivo Daalder and James Goldgeier Foreign Affairs, September-October 2006 http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/61922/ivo-daalder-and-james-goldgeier/global-nato
7) West Plots To Supplant United Nations With Global NATO Stop NATO, May 27, 2009 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/154
8) Bangladesh: U.S. And NATO Forge New Military Partnership In South Asia Stop NATO, September 29, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/bangladesh-u-s-and-nato-forge-new-partnership-in-south-asia
9) Southeast Asia: West Completes Plans For Asian NATO Stop NATO, October 21, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/10/21/southeast-asia-west-completes-plans-for-asian-nato
10) Building an East Asian NATO, Max Boot Atlantic Council, May 12, 2010 http://www.acus.org/natosource/building-east-asian-nato
11) US keeps an eagle eye on Asia The Australian, August 15, 2011
12) Sketching out a future ASEAN-NATO partnership, Evan A. Laksmana Jakarta Post, July 26, 2011
13) NATO knocks the door of ASEAN, Dr. Jassim Taqui Pakistan Observer, July 29, 2011 http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=105831
14) US considers boosting force in Asia: Pentagon Yonhap News, January 28, 2011 http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2931600
15) A NATO-Like ASEAN?, Eddie Walsh The Diplomat, September 20, 2011 http://the-diplomat.com/new-leaders-forum/2011/09/20/a-nato-like-asean
Rick Rozoff is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Labels: CHINA, NATO, WAR CRIMES
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Dissecting the Iran ‘Terror Plot’
by Gareth Porter
Global Research, November 7, 2011
Consortiumnews - 2011-11-05
Photo: Saudi Ambassador Adel A. Al-JubeirAs Israel again ratchets up its threats to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, anti-Iran propaganda, which could rally the American people behind another Middle East war, becomes critical. At this key moment, Gareth Porter takes a deeper look at an alleged Iranian assassination plot.
At a press conference on Oct. 11, the Obama administration unveiled a spectacular charge against the government of Iran: The Qods Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had plotted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, right in Washington, DC, in a place where large numbers of innocent bystanders could have been killed.
High-level officials of the Qods Force were said to be involved, the only question being how far up in the Iranian government the complicity went.
The U.S. tale of the Iranian plot was greeted with unusual skepticism on the part of Iran specialists and independent policy analysts, and even elements of the mainstream media. The critics observed that the alleged assassination scheme was not in Iran’s interest, and that it bore scant resemblance to past operations attributed to the foreign special operations branch of Iranian intelligence.
The Qods Force, it was widely believed, would not send a person like Iranian-American used-car dealer Manssor Arbabsiar, known to friends in Corpus Christi, Texas, as forgetful and disorganized, to hire the hit squad for such a sensitive covert action.
But administration officials claimed they had hard evidence to back up the charge. They cited a 21-page deposition by a supervising FBI agent in the “amended criminal complaint” filed against Arbabsiar and an accomplice who remains at large, Gholam Shakuri. [1]
It was all there, the officials insisted: several meetings between Arbabsiar and a man he thought was a member of a leading Mexican drug cartel, Los Zetas, with a reputation for cold-blooded killing; secretly recorded, incriminating statements by Arbabsiar and Shakuri, his alleged handler in Tehran; and finally, Arbabsiar’s confession after his arrest, which clearly implicates Qods Force agents in a plan to murder a foreign diplomat on U.S. soil.
A close analysis of the FBI deposition reveals, however, that independent evidence for the charge that Arbabsiar was sent by the Qods Force on a mission to arrange for the assassination of Jubeir is lacking. The FBI account is full of holes and contradictions, moreover.
The document gives good reason to doubt that Arbabsiar and his confederates in Iran had the intention of assassinating Jubeir, and to believe instead that the FBI hatched the plot as part of a sting operation.
Case of the Missing Quotes
The FBI account suggests that, from the inaugural meetings between Arbabsiar and his supposed Los Zetas contact, a Drug Enforcement Agency informant, Arbabsiar was advocating a terrorist strike against the Saudi embassy.
The government narrative states that, in the very first meeting on May 24, Arbabsiar asked the informant about his “knowledge, if any, with respect to explosives” and said he was interested in “among other things, attacking an embassy of Saudi Arabia.”
It also notes that in the meetings prior to July 14, the DEA informant “had reported that he and Arbabsiar had discussed the possibility of attacks on a number of other targets,” including “foreign government facilities associated with Saudi Arabia and with another country,” located “within and outside the United States.”
But the allegations that the Iranian-American used-car salesman wanted to “attack” the Saudi embassy and other targets rest entirely upon the testimony of the DEA informant with whom he was meeting. The informant is a drug dealer who had been indicted for a narcotics violation in a U.S. state but had the charges dropped “in exchange for cooperation in various drug investigations,” according to the FBI account.
The informant is not an independent source of information, but someone paid to help pursue FBI objectives.
The most suspicious aspect of the administration’s case, in fact, is the complete absence of any direct quote from Arbabsiar suggesting interest in, much less advocacy of, assassinating the Saudi ambassador or carrying out other attacks in a series of meetings with the DEA informant between June 23 and July 14.
The deposition does not even indicate how many times the two actually met during those three weeks, suggesting that the number was substantial, and that the lack of primary evidence from those meetings is a sensitive issue.
And although the FBI account specifies that the July 14 and 17 meetings were recorded “at the direction of law enforcement agents,” it is carefully ambiguous about whether or not the earlier meetings were recorded.
The lack of quotations is a crucial problem for the official case for a simple reason: If Arbabsiar had said anything even hinting in the May 24 meeting or in a subsequent meeting at the desire to mount a terrorist attack, it would have triggered the immediate involvement of the FBI’s National Security Branch and its counter-terrorism division.
The FBI would then have instructed the DEA informant to record all of the meetings with Arbabsiar, as is standard practice in such cases, according to a former FBI official interviewed for this article. And that would mean that those meetings were indeed recorded.
The fact that the FBI account does not include a single quotation from Arbabsiar in the June 23-July 14 meetings means either that Arbabsiar did not say anything that raised such alarms at the FBI or that he was saying something sufficiently different from what is now claimed that the administration chooses not to quote from it.
In either case, the lack of such quotes further suggests that it was not Arbabsiar, but the DEA informant, acting as part of an FBI sting operation, who pushed the idea of assassinating Jubeir. A possible explanation is that Arbabsiar was suggesting surveillance of targets that could be hit if Iran were to be attacked by Israel with Saudi connivance.
“The Saudi Arabia” and the $100,000
The July 14 meeting between Arbabsiar and the DEA informant is the first from which the criminal complaint offers actual quotations from the secretly recorded conversation. The FBI’s retelling supplies selected bits of conversation — mostly from the informant — aimed at portraying the meeting as revolving around the assassination plot. But when carefully studied, the account reveals a different story.
The quotations attributed to the DEA informant suggest that he was under orders to get a response from Arbabsiar that could be interpreted as assent to an assassination plot. For example, the informant tells Arbabsiar, “You just want the, the main guy.”
There is no quoted response from the car dealer. Instead, the FBI narrative simply asserts that Arbabsiar “confirmed that he just wanted the ‘ambassador.’” At the end of the meeting, the informant declares, “We’re gonna start doing the guy.” But again, no response from Arbabsiar is quoted.
Two statements by the informant appear on their face to relate to a broader set of Saudi targets than Adel al-Jubeir. The informant tells Arbabsiar that he would need “at least four guys” and would “take the one point five for the Saudi Arabia.”
The FBI agent who signed the deposition explains, “I understand this to mean that he would need to use four men to assassinate the Ambassador and that the cost to Arbabsiar of the assassination would be $1.5 million.” But, apart from the agent’s surmise, there is no hint that either cited phrase referred to a proposal to assassinate the ambassador.
Given that there had already been discussion of multiple Saudi targets, as well as those of an unnamed third country (probably Israel), it seems more reasonable to interpret the words “the Saudi Arabia” to refer to a set of missions relating to Saudi Arabia in order to distinguish them from the other target list.
Then the informant repeats the same wording, telling Arbabsiar he would “go ahead and work on the Saudi Arabia, get all the information that we can.” This language does not show that Arbabsiar proposed the killing of Jubeir, much less approved it.
And the FBI narrative states that the Iranian-American “agreed that the assassination of the Ambassador should be handled first.” Again, that curious wording does not assert that Arbabsiar said an assassination should be carried out first, but suggests he was agreeing that the subject should be discussed first.
The absence of any quote from Arbabsiar about an assassination plot, combined with the multiple ambiguities surrounding the statements attributed to the DEA informant, suggest that the main subject of the July 14 meeting was something broader than an assassination plot, and that it was the government’s own agent who had brought up the subject of assassinating the ambassador in the meeting, rather than Arbabsiar.
The government reconstruction of the July 14 meeting also introduces the keystone of the Obama administration’s public case: $100,000 that was to be transferred to a bank account that the DEA informant said he would make known to Arbabsiar.
The FBI deposition asserts repeatedly that whenever Arbabsiar or the DEA informant mention the $100,000, they are talking about a “down payment” on the assassination. But the document contains no statement from either of them linking that $100,000 to any assassination plan. In fact, it provides details suggesting that the $100,000 could not have been linked to such a plan.
The FBI deposition states that the informant and Arbabsiar “discussed how Arbabsiar would pay [the informant],” but offers no statement from either individual even mentioning a “payment,” or any reason for transferring the money to a bank account. Furthermore, it does not actually claim that Arbabsiar made any commitment to any action against Jubeir at either the July 14 or 17 meetings.
And when the informant is quoted in the July 17 meeting as saying, “I don’t know exactly what your cousin wants me to do,” it appears to be an acknowledgement that he had gotten no indication prior to July 17 that Arbabsiar’s Tehran interlocutors wanted the Saudi ambassador dead.
The deposition does not even claim that Arbabsiar’s supposed handlers had approved a plan to kill Jubeir until after the Iranian-American returned to his native country on July 20.
Nevertheless, Arbabsiar is quoted telling the informant on July 14 that the full $100,000 had already been collected in cash at the home of “a certain individual.” Preparations for the transfer of the $100,000 had thus commenced well before the assassination plot allegedly got the green light.
The amount of $100,000 does not even appear credible as a “down payment” on a job that the FBI account says was to have cost a total of $1.5 million. It would represent a mere 6 percent of the full price.
Bearing in mind that the DEA informant was supposed to be representing the demand of a ruthlessly profit-motivated Los Zetas drug cartel for a high-stakes political assassination well outside its purview, 6 percent of the total would represent far too little for a “down payment.”
The $100,000 wire transfer must have been related to an understanding that had been reached on something other than the assassination plan. Yet it has been cited by the administration and reported by news media as proof of the plot — and key evidence of Iran’s complicity therein. [2]
The Qods Force Connection
The FBI account of the July 17 meeting shows the DEA informant leading Arbabsiar into a statement of support for an assassination. The informant, obviously following an FBI script, says, “I don’t know what exactly your cousin wants me to do.”
But the deposition notes “further conversation” following that invitation for a clear position on a proposal coming from the informant, indicating that what Arbabsiar was saying did not support the administration’s allegation that assassination plot was coming from Tehran.
After the FBI evidently sought again to get the straightforward answer it was seeking, however, Arbabsiar is quoted as saying: “He wants you to kill this guy.”
The informant then presents a fanciful plan to bomb an imaginary restaurant in Washington where Arbabsiar was told the Saudi ambassador liked to dine twice a week and where many “like, American people” would be present.
“You want me to do it outside or in the restaurant?” asks the informant, to which question the Iranian-American replies, “Doesn’t matter how you do it.” At another point in the conversation, Arbabsiar goes further, saying, “They want that guy done. If the hundred go with him, fuck ‘em.”
These statements appear at first blush to be conclusive evidence that Arbabsiar and his Iranian overseers were contracting for the assassination of Jubeir, regardless of lives lost. But there are two crucial questions that the FBI account leaves unanswered: Was Arbabsiar speaking on behalf of the Qods Force or some element of it?
And if he was, was he talking about a plan that was to go into effect as soon as possible or was it understood that they were talking about a contingency plan that would only be carried out under specific circumstances?
The deposition includes several instances of Arbabsiar’s bragging about a cousin who is a general, out of uniform and involved in covert external operations, including in Iraq — clearly implying that he belongs to the Qods Force.
Arbabsiar is said to have claimed that the cousin and another Iranian official gave him funds for his contacts with the drug cartel. “I got the money coming,” he says.
Subsequently, in one of the most extensive quotations from the recorded conversations, Arbabsiar says, “This is politics, so these people they pay this government … he’s got the, got the government behind him … he’s not paying from his pocket.”
The FBI narrative identifies the person referred to here as Arbabsiar’s cousin, a Qods Force officer later named as Abdul Reza Shahlai, but again, there is not a single direct quotation backing the claim. And the reference to “these people” who “pay this government” suggests that “he” is connected to a group with illicit financial ties to government officials.
This excerpt could be particularly significant in light of press reports quoting a U.S. law enforcement official saying that Arbabsiar had offered “tons of opium” to the drug cartel and that he and the informant had discussed what the New York Times called a “side deal” on the Iranian-held narcotics. [3]
If these reports are accurate, it seems possible that Arbabsiar approached Los Zetas on behalf of Iranians who control a portion of the opium being smuggled through Iran from Afghanistan, while seeking to impress the drug cartel operative with his claim to have close ties to the Qods Force through Shahlai.
But if the DEA informant then pressed him to authenticate his Qods Force connection, he may have begun discussing covert operations against Iran’s enemies in North America.
The only alleged evidence that Arbabsiar was speaking for Shahlai and the Qods Force is Arbabsiar’s own confession, summarized in the criminal complaint. But, at minimum, that testimony was provided after he had been arrested and had a strong interest in telling the FBI what it wanted to hear.
The deposition makes much of a series of three phone conversations on Oct. 4, 5 and 7 between Arbabsiar and someone who Arbabsiar tells his FBI handlers is Gholam Shakuri, presenting them as confirmation of the involvement of Qods Force officers in the assassination scheme.
But the FBI apparently had no way of ascertaining whether the person to whom Arababsiar was talking was actually Shakuri. After the Oct. 4 call, for example, the FBI account merely records that Arbabsiar “indicated that the person he was speaking with was Shakuri.”
On their face, moreover, these conversations prove nothing. In the first of the three calls, the person at the other end of the line, whom Arbabsiar identifies to his FBI contact as Shakuri but whose identity is not otherwise established, asks, “What news … what did you do about the building?”
The FBI agent again suggests, “based on my training, experience and participation in this investigation,” that these queries were a “reference to the plot to murder the Ambassador and a question about its status.”
But Arbabsiar is said to have claimed in his confession that he was instructed by Shakuri to use the code word “Chevrolet” to refer to the plot to kill the ambassador. In a second recorded conversation, Arbabsiar immediately says, “I wanted to tell you the Chevrolet is ready, it’s ready, uh, to be done. I should continue, right?”
After further exchange, the man purported to be “Shakuri” says, “So buy it, buy it.” Despite the obvious invocation of a code word, it remains unclear what Arbabsiar was to “buy.” “Chevrolet” could actually have been a reference to a drug-related deal, or a generic plan having to do with Saudi and other targets, or something else.
In a third recorded conversation on Oct. 7, both Arbabsiar and “Shakuri” refer to a demand by a purported cartel figure for another $50,000 on top of the original $100,000 transferred by wire earlier. But there is no other evidence of such a demand. It appears to be a mere device of the FBI to get “Shakuri” on record as talking about the $100,000.
And here it should be recalled that the account in the deposition shows that the transfer of the $100,000 had been agreed on before any indication of agreement on a plan to kill the ambassador.
The invocation of a fictional demand for $50,000, along with the dramatic difference between the first conversation and the second and third conversations, suggests yet another possibility: The second and third conversations were set up in advance by Arbabsiar to provide a transcript to bolster the administration’s case.
Terrorist Plot or Deterrence Strategy?
Even if Qods Forces officials indeed directed Arbabsiar to contact the Los Zetas cartel, it cannot be assumed that they intended to carry out one or more terrorist attacks in the United States. The killing of a foreign ambassador in Washington (not to speak of additional attacks on Saudi and Israeli buildings), if linked to Iran, would invite swift and massive U.S. military retaliation.
If, on the other hand, the Qods Force men instructed Arbabsiar to conduct surveillance of those targets and prepare contingency plans for hitting them if Iran were attacked, the whole story begins to make more sense.
Iran lacks the conventional means to deter attack by a powerful adversary. In its decades-long standoffs with the United States and Israel, amidst recurrent talk of “preemptive” strikes by those powers, Iran has relied on threats of proxy retaliation against U.S. and allied state targets in the Middle East. [4]
The Iranian military support for Lebanon’s Hizballah, in particular, is widely recognized as prompted primarily by Iran’s need to deter U.S. and Israeli attack. [5]
In one case in 1994-1995, Saudi Arabian Shi‘a militants carried out surveillance of potential U.S. military and diplomatic targets in Saudi Arabia, in a way that was quickly noticed by U.S. and Saudi intelligence. [6]
Although the consensus among U.S. intelligence analysts was that Iran was preparing for a terrorist attack, Ronald Neumann, then the State Department’s intelligence officer for Iran and Iraq, noted that Iran had done the same thing whenever U.S.-Iranian tensions had risen.
He suggested that Iran could be using the surveillance for deterrence, to let Washington know that its interests in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere would be in danger if Iran were attacked. [7]
Unfortunately for Iran’s deterrent strategy, however, Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda was also carrying out surveillance of U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia, and in November 1995 and again in June 1996, that group bombed two facilities housing U.S. servicemen.
The bombing of Khobar Towers in June 1996, which killed 19 U.S. soldiers and one Saudi Arabian, was blamed by the Clinton administration’s FBI and CIA leadership on Iranian-sponsored Shi‘a from Saudi Arabia, with prodding from Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan, despite the fact that bin Laden claimed responsibility not once but twice, in interviews with the London-based newspaper, al-Quds al-‘Arabi. [8]
Hani al-Sayigh, one of the Saudi Arabian Shi‘a accused by the Saudi and U.S. governments of conspiring to attack the Khobar Towers, admitted to Assistant Attorney General Eric Dubelier, who interviewed him at a Canadian detention facility in May 1997, that he had participated in the surveillance of U.S. military targets in Saudi Arabia on behalf of Iranian intelligence.
But, according to the FBI report on the interview, al-Sayigh insisted that Iran had never intended to attack any of those sites unless it was first attacked by the United States. And when Dubelier asked a question later in the interview that was based on the premise that the surveillance effort was preparation for a terrorist attack, al-Sayigh corrected him. [9]
With threats of an Israeli or U.S. bombing attack on Iran, with Saudi complicity, mounting since the mid-2000s, a similar campaign of surveillance of Saudi and Israeli targets in North America would fit the framework of what the Pentagon has called Iran’s “asymmetric warfare doctrine.”
If Arbabsiar spoke of such a campaign in his initial meeting with the DEA informant, he certainly would have piqued the interest of FBI counter-terrorism personnel. And this scenario would also explain why the series of meetings in late June and the first half of July did not produce a single statement by Arbabsiar that the administration could quote to advance its case that the Iranian-American was interested in assassinating Adel al-Jubeir or carrying out other acts of terrorism.
A plan to conduct surveillance and be ready to act on contingency plans would also explain why someone as lacking in relevant experience and skills as Arbabsiar might have been acceptable to the Qods Force.
Not only would the mission not have required absolute secrecy; it would have been based on the assumption that the surveillance would become known to U.S. intelligence relatively quickly, as did the monitoring of U.S. targets in Saudi Arabia in 1994-1995.
The Qods Force officials were certainly well aware that the Drug Enforcement Agency had penetrated various Mexican drug cartels, in some cases even at the very top level. U.S. court proceedings involving Mexican drug traffickers who were highly placed in the Sinaloa drug cartel between 2009 and early 2011 reveal that the U.S. made deals with leaders of the cartel to report what they knew about rival cartel operations in return for a hands-off approach to their drug trafficking. [10]
Further underlining the degree to which the cartels were honeycombed with people on the U.S. payroll, the DEA informant in this case was not merely posing as a drug trafficker but is reportedly an actual associate of Los Zetas with access to its upper echelons, who has been given immunity from prosecution to cooperate with the DEA. [11]
When Did Arbabsiar Join the Sting?
The Obama administration’s account of the alleged Iranian plot has Arbabsiar suddenly changing from terrorist conspirator to active collaborator with the FBI upon his Sept. 29 arrest at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.
He is said to have provided a confession immediately upon being apprehended, after waiving his right to a lawyer, and then to have waived that right repeatedly again while being interviewed by the FBI. Then Arbabsiar cooperated in making the series of secretly recorded phone calls to someone he identified as Shakuri.
For someone facing such serious charges to provide the details with which to make the case against him, while renouncing benefit of counsel, is odd, to say the least. The official story raises questions not only about what agreement was reached between Arbabsiar and the FBI to ensure his cooperation but about when that agreement was reached.
One clue that Arbabsiar was brought into the sting operation well before his arrest is the DEA informant’s demand in a Sept. 20 phone conversation with Arbabsiar in Tehran that he either come up with half the $1.5 million total fee or come to Mexico to be the guarantee that the full amount would be paid.
Yet the FBI account of that conversation shows Arbabsiar telling the informant, without even consulting with his contacts in Tehran, “I’m gonna go over there [in] two [or] three days.” Later in the same evening, he calls back to ask how long he would need to remain in Mexico.
Even if Arbabsiar were as feckless as some reports have suggested, he would certainly not have agreed so readily to put his fate in the hands of the murderous Los Zetas cartel — unless he knew that he was not really in danger, because the U.S. government would intercept him and bring him to the United States.
Making the episode even stranger, Arbabsiar’s confession claims that when he told Shakuri about the purported Los Zetas demand, Shakuri refused to provide any more money to the cartel, advised him against going to Mexico and warned him that if he did so, he would be on his own.
Further supporting the conclusion that Arbabsiar had become part of the sting operation before his arrest is the fact there was no reason for the FBI to pose the demand — through the DEA informant – for more money or Arbabsiar’s presence in Mexico except to provide an excuse to get him out of Iran, so he could provide a full confession implicating the Qods Force and be the centerpiece of the case against Iran.
The larger aim of the FBI sting operation, which ABC News has reported was dubbed Operation Red Coalition, was clearly to link the alleged assassination plot to Qods Force officers.
The logical moment for the FBI to have recruited the Iranian-American would have been right after the FBI recorded him talking about wiring money to the bank account and casually approving the idea of bombing a restaurant and before his planned departure from Mexico for Iran.
The only way to ensure that Arbabsiar would come back, of course, would be to offer him a substantial amount of money to serve as an informant for the FBI during his stay in Iran, which he would receive only upon returning.
If Arbabsiar had already been enlisted, of course, it would also mean the keystone of the case — the wiring of $100,000 to a secret FBI bank account — was a part of the FBI sting.
FBI Trickery in Terrorism Cases
FBI deceit in constructing a case for an Iranian terror plot should come as no surprise, given its record of domestic terrorism prosecutions based on sting operations involving entrapment and skullduggery.
Central to these stings has been the creation of fictional terrorist plots by the FBI itself. In 2006 the “Gonzales Guidelines” for the use of FBI informants removed previous prohibitions on actions to “initiate a plan or strategy to commit a federal, state or local offense.” [12]
Perhaps the most notorious of all these domestic terrorism sting operations is the case in which Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain, leaders of their Albany, New York, mosque, were sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for allegedly laundering profits from the sale of a shoulder-launched missile for a Pakistani militant group that was planning to assassinate a Pakistani diplomat in New York City.
In fact, there was no such terrorist plot, and the alleged crime was the result of an elaborate FBI scam directed against two innocent men. [13] It began when an FBI informant pretending to be a Pakistani businessman insinuated himself into Hossain’s life and extended him a $50,000 loan for his pizza parlor.
Only months after the informant had begun loaning the money did he show Hossain a shoulder-launched missile, and suggest that he was also selling arms to his “Muslim brothers.” It was a devious form of entrapment; the prosecutors later argued that Hossain should have known the loan could have come from money made in the sale of weapons to terrorists and was therefore guilty of money laundering.
The FBI approach to entrapping Hossain’s friend Aref was even more underhanded. Aref was never even made aware of the missile or the phony story of the illegal arms sale. But on one occasion, when he was present to witness the transfer of loan money, what was later said to have been the missile’s trigger system was left on a table in the room.
Prosecutors then argued the theory that Aref had seen the trigger, which looks much like a staple gun, and thus had become part of a conspiracy to “assist in money laundering.”
Many other domestic terrorism cases have involved deceptive tactics and economic inducements deployed by the FBI to involve American Muslims in fictional terrorist plots. The Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University’s Law School found more than 20 terrorism cases that involved some combination of “paid informants, selection of investigation based on perceived religious identity, [and] a plot that was created by the government.” [14]
This history makes it clear that the Justice Department and FBI are prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to fabricate terrorism cases against targeted individuals, and that misrepresenting these individuals’ intentions and actual behavior has long been standard practice.
The trickery and deceit in past “counter-terrorism” sting operations provides further reason to question the veracity of the Obama administration’s allegations in the bizarre case of Manssor Arbabsiar.
Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006. [This article was originally published by Middle East Research and Information Project.]
Notes
[1] The full text of the “amended criminal complaint” is online at: http://www.jdsupra.com/post/documentViewer.aspx?fid=a334ea94-9f4f-4364-8…
[2] See New York Times, October 12, 2011 and Reuters, October 12, 2011.
[3] See New York Times, October 12, 2011 and Bloomberg, October 12, 2011.
[4] For an official US recognition of Iran’s “assymetric warfare doctrine” as a tool of deterrence of “any would-be invader,” see Department of Defense, Unclassified Report on Military Power of Iran, April 2010, p. 1.
[5] See, for example, Michael Young, “Another Israel-Hezbollah War?” Middle East Security at Harvard, National Security Study Program, February 28, 2008: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2008/02/another_israel_hezbollah_war/
[6] See Los Angeles Times, October 15, 1997 and Steve Coll, Ghost Wars (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), p. 276.
[7] Gareth Porter, “US Officials Leaked a False Story Blaming Iran,” Inter Press Service, June 24, 2009.
[8] Gareth Porter, “FBI Ignored Compelling Evidence of Bin Laden Role,” Inter Press Service, June 25, 2009.
[9] Gareth Porter, “US May Have Concealed Deterrent Aim of Iranian Plan,” Inter Press Service, October 21, 2011.
[10] New York Times, October 24, 2011.
[11] So said ProPublica reporter Sebastian Rotella in his podcast of October 18, 2011, online at: http://www.propublica.org/podcast/item/podcast-sebastian-rotella-on-the-…
[12] Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, Targeted and Entrapped: Manufacturing the “Homegrown Threat” in the United States (New York, 2011), p. 14.
[13] This account of the case is drawn from Petra Bartosiewicz, “To Catch a Terrorist,” Harper’s (August 2011).
[14] Targeted and Entrapped, pp. 50-52, fn 17.
Gareth Porter is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Labels: COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, IRAN, NEOCOLONIALISM, TERRORISM
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'Set me free', Mujuru tells hubby death probe police
07/11/2011 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
VICE President Joice Mujuru has asked to be “set free” as she launched an impassioned new plea for police to release their findings into her husband’s death probe. Retired army commander General Solomon Mujuru died on August 15 in mystery blaze which ripped through his police-guarded farm residence in Beatrice.
A multi-department police probe into the investigation is complete, according to police chief Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri. But police have asked for an inquest instead – a judge-led investigation held in open court to test all the evidence and establish cause of death. No date has been set for the inquest.
Speaking to farmers in Masvingo last Friday, Mujuru betrayed growing impatience with the legal system.
"I am still in the dark like you about how exactly my husband died,” Mujuru said. “I do not think that you expected him to go that way.
“We are now waiting for an explanation on his death so that we can be set free."
Mujuru has publicly raised her suspicions of foul play, stating that a decorated war veteran like her husband would have managed to escape an ordinary fire. Mujuru said a bedroom where he was found had large windows to the outside – fuelling rumours that he may have been incapacitated or already dead by the time the fire rapidly spread through the 14-room farmhouse.
Mujuru was given the title 'kingmaker' in Zimbabwean politics, as one of the alleged three centres of power within President Robert Mugabe's factional Zanu PF party. At the other end was Defence Minister Emerson Mnangagwa, with Mugabe holding the two camps together.
Labels: JOICE MUJURU
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Kabimba pleads for Sata to be given more time
By Kabanda Chulu
Mon 07 Nov. 2011, 14:00 CAT
PRESIDENT Sata should be given time to settle down because like many Zambians he is in a state of shock that PF has emerged victorious, says Wynter Kabimba. And Copperbelt district PF officials have expressed displeasure that President Michael Sata and his government has failed to give them jobs and is now embracing people who did not sacrifice and campaigned for MMD.
During a meeting on Saturday in Kitwe attended by a paltry crowd of PF officials who showed disappointment and failed to chant slogans with the vigour that used to characterize previous meetings prior to the September general elections, Kabimba, who is PF general secretary, asked for calm and patience.
"There is no party functionary that President Sata doesn't know and we know that some of you weren't adopted but you still went ahead and financed those who were adopted, so don't run away, this is your party unless you want to run away from honey… all of us 'tuli pa bench', time will come, like they do in football even with five minutes to go changes can be made and you go in and can score and win for the team," Kabimba said.
"So let us give President Sata time to settle. We have just been in power for six weeks, most of us including President Sata didn't believe PF will win. So like everyone else, we are all in a state of shock just like MMD never expected to lose. This victory is a revolution and it came like a coup d'état but only that it was through the ballot. So we are all in a state of shock and this is the mindset we are changing and we have to bear with one another."
He said President Sata was a human being who was bound to make mistakes.
"There are many mistakes he has made and reversed through appointments and with Xavier Chungu, he listened and reversed the appointment. With Mwamba, (Emmanuel) he was still a civil servant despite being attached to late President Chiluba's office. So in a way we should defend President Sata's mistakes but now you people are in the forefront of gossiping about those mistakes," Kabimba said.
"In a polite way, we shall express our displeasure to President Sata over certain things but not everyone can be absorbed in government jobs. And if anything let us push government to work hard and create opportunities for everybody to excel rather than wait for government jobs. So don't think of being a PS or DC because you will wait at State House until 2016, since the queue is very long."
He explained that some appointments were meant to foster national unity.
"People like David Matongo and others were appointed to foster unity and victory for PF should not divide us but strengthen us, so don't feel frustrated and if the President is difficult to be seen, officials can see me and this is why I stayed out of cabinet because I want to be the link between government and the party," Kabimba said.
He warned members of parliament, including ministers, that have developed a tendency of not working with party structures of severe penalties.
"I will issue a circular compelling all MPs to work with elected officials; there is nothing like I don't like this person; in PF we are here not to like each other but to work towards a common goal of developing the country," Kabimba said.
He said there should be no running of politics in markets and bus stations and those found wanting of extorting money would face the law.
"It is now PF policy and ZANAMA should now close operations since no association will exist inside markets. In fact, Elvis Nkandu should go like RB has left, let Elvis go back to DR Congo where he comes from and bring Simba beer; we shall buy because that era is gone and we shall not allow it again," Kabimba said.
He said the party should be the driving force of government.
"Your role as officials is extremely important and we need support of all people, including those defectors. And we should not be scared of them because there are no vacancies to fill. And if someone like Joe Malanji joins today, I will not be scared since I will remain GS until 2016. So these people defecting will just be ordinary members," said Kabimba.
"The mistake we have made is to receive them in Lusaka. But if defectors come from Copperbelt let them be received here. So forgive us, it will not happen again. And personally I have no interest in those defecting."
Earlier, Kitwe District chairman Allan Mwewa requested that guidelines should be given on how to welcome defectors because most of them do not mean well.
"We are concerned about the lack of information flow between secretariat and the districts. After elections we have gone into total darkness and members are also worried that they are not benefiting from government jobs and appointments," said Mwewa.
Labels: MICHAEL SATA, PF, WYNTER KABIMBA, XAVIER CHUNGU, ZANAMA
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COMMENT - Talk about bluster. It is called breaking the law, former minister Siliya, and now it's time to pay. I remember when she did a show with ZambiaBlogTalkRadio, and one of the conditions was that she would not answer any question outside of the topic - so no questions answered in public about ZAMTEL. She does not have that luxury in court, without the judge being allowed to draw an inference from her silence. How dare she call accountability for corruption 'wiping out the opposition' and by implication, 'persecution'.
PF wants to wipe out opposition - Siliya
By Chibaula Silwamba and Bright Mukwasa
Fri 04 Nov. 2011, 13:00 CAT
MMD says the ruling Patriotic Front wants to use court petitions to wipe out or weaken it and other opposition political parties. And the MMD thanked the PF government for appointing some of its members of parliament as deputy ministers.
Addressing a media briefing in Lusaka yesterday, MMD spokesperson and Petauke Central member of parliament, Dora Siliya, said the former ruling party recognised that every candidate had the right to petition any election but the PF's petitions in 50 out of 150 constituencies raised concerns.
"We don't believe that this right should be abused in an attempt to wipe out or even weaken the opposition. Otherwise, how do we explain the unprecedented 50 petitions by the PF?" said Siliya, whose election was also been petitioned by PF's Leonard Banda.
"What is even more interesting is that the ruling party has petitioned its own institutions such as the ECZ Electoral Commission of Zambia and the Attorney General. Is that an indication that this election was fraudulent?"
While in power, the MMD and its Mufumbwe parliamentary candidate Mulondwe Muzungu last year petitioned the by-election results, and sued the ECZ and Attorney General.
Siliya said the MMD would fight the PF's high number of petitions because it viewed it as an assault on democracy.
She said Zambians under the MMD in 1991 demanded multiparty politics hence the citizens should reject any manoeuvres to take the country back to a one party state.
Siliya admitted that there was a perception that the MMD and some of its members were corrupt.
"We will fight this perception so that the public can continue to appreciate MMD as a responsible opposition necessary for the continued development of this party," Siliya said.
"We believe that when we the politicians are seen to be unnecessarily bringing each other down, comfort for all political parties lies in those who practice law, who must indeed provide clear direction as arbitrators, so that reality and not perception, and the law, not political witch-hunting, serves us all."
Siliya said the morale and confidence of the MMD was low, as expected, after its September 20 electoral defeat.
"We wish to show gratitude to the PF government for appointing some of our parliamentarians into the executive. We see this as part of continued national building," Siliya said.
She said the MMD had set up a committee to be chaired by its chairperson for foreign affairs Dr Kalombo Mwansa to do a postmortem on the party's performance in the last elections.
"The fact is that after 20 years in office, we are in opposition now. Factors contributing to this included an inability to heed to the needs of many urban dwellers and failure to address the needs of many young people such as affordable education facilities and jobs," Siliya admitted.
Siliya took note of party members defecting from the MMD and said the former ruling party could not stop them from leaving if they could not stomach being in opposition.
She said most leaders and members still believed in the party and found new inspiration and energy from within themselves and as a group.
Siliya said discipline and an immediate recruitment drive was of the most essence to the MMD.
"We can learn from the tenacity of the PF and President Michael Sata who within 10 years turned around an opposition party into a party in government," Siliya said.
She said there was neither power vacuum nor struggle in the MMD.
Siliya said every member of the MMD was free to aspire for the party presidency to replace Rupiah Banda, who had indicated that he wants to retire.
The MMD, which took power from Kenneth Kaunda's UNIP in 1991 in the first key multiparty election, was voted out in the September 20 tripartite elections.
Banda lost to 74-year-old Sata.
The MMD got 55 seats in parliament, though one of its parliamentarians resigned, leaving it with only 54 legislators at the moment. President Sata's PF, formed in 2001 as a breakaway party from the MMD, has 60 elected parliamentarians and eight nominated members bringing the total to 68.
The UPND has 28 parliamentarians, the Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD) has one each, three are independent parliamentarians while another three seats are vacant awaiting the November 24 by-election. The total number of elected parliamentarians is supposed to be 150 and eight nominated, making it a 158-member legislature.
Labels: CORRUPTION, DORA SILIYA, PF
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I simply represented a gold buyer’s interest – Maureen
TIME PUBLISHED - Monday, November 7, 2011, 5:03 am
MAUREEN Mwanawasa, wife of late President Levy Mwanawasa, represented a prospective gold buyer, but has stated that the connection was not sinister in anyway as the ‘golden triangle’ unravels.
“I represented one of the people that were interested in buying the gold,” the former First Lady, a Lusaka lawyer from Mwanawasa and Company said, “We gave a South African client the necessary advice and got our fees for the job…that is all we did.”
Mrs Mwanawasa identified the client as a Mr Moto Mabanga who could not meet the sale criteria stipulated by the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) which required the interested party to buy the entire 118 kilogrammes of gold at once.
“Our client just wanted part of the gold and not the entire amount,” Mrs Mwanawasa said, “We just provided the necessary legal documents at Mwanawasa and Company. That is all I know about the gold. I went to see Mr Zulu at DEC with our client’s offer and later he called us to say our client did not qualify to buy the gold.”
The gold with a present day value of about US$6 million or K32 billion was ostensibly sold at US$4 million after being seized from two Zimbabweans. Former President, Rupiah Banda and his former press assistant Dickson Jere recently in Lusaka and Mfuwe met a Swiss man, Nicolae Buzaianu, who is believed to have bought the gold.
Mr Jere did not answer his phone more than three times yesterday when the Daily Mail called him. He is said to be in South Africa on business. The Swiss man has asked Mr Sakwiba Sikota of Central Chambers to sue the Zambian government and demand US$100 million for being linked to the gold but President Sata, who cannot be sued as a head of State has instead challenged Buzaianu, 42, to come to Zambia and “explain” himself if he is not tainted.
The President who has embarked on a spirited campaign against corruption that has won him kudos locally and internationally also disclosed that the Swiss man whom he stripped of diplomatic status at UNESCO in Paris is on a DEC “watch-list.”
Mystery surrounds how the gold was sold while in DEC custody but information reaching the Daily Mail suggests that the seized gold excited lots of top government officials leading to an abortive attempt to switch it for fake bullion while it was still in DEC custody. The attempt to switch the gold for fake bullion was thwarted by a named female senior DEC official.
[Zambia Daily Mail]
Labels: CORRUPTION, DEC, GOLD, MAUREEN MWANAWASA
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ZCCM-IH to disclose the whereabouts of K850 billion next month after board approval
TIME PUBLISHED - Monday, November 7, 2011, 5:13 am
ZAMBIA Consolidated Copper Mines Investment Holdings (ZCCM-IH) has
broken its silence regarding the whereabouts of the US$167.5 million Barrick Gold paid for a 2.28 percent stake in Lumwana Mining Company (LMC).“The funds are
placed in short-term investments with local financial institutions,” ZCCM-IH said in a statement placed in the Daily Mail following
concerns from minister of Mines and Minerals Development Wylbur Simuusa that the company might have either ‘misplaced’ or ‘misapplied’ the money.
ZCCM-IH, in a management statement, said it will disclose the whereabouts of the money after a board approval next month because doing so before the board’s consent would be tantamount to flouting listing rules. The company is listed on the Lusaka and New York bourses.
Last week, Mr Simuusa gave the company a one-week ultimatum to account for the money which in Kwacha terms stands at tens of billions and could provide a major boost to poverty reduction programmes.
Former minister of Finance Situmbeko Musokotwane, in an interview via phone from Zimbabwe where he is doing some work, said he is confident the money could not have been misapplied.
ZCCM-IH, in a management statement, said it will disclose the whereabouts of the money after a board approval next month because doing so before the board’s consent would be tantamount to flouting listing rules.
“If there are any suspicions by the minister (Mr Simuusa) that the money is missing,” Mr Situmbeko said, “the matter must be reported to the police.”
The Peter Munk owned gold digger paid Australia’s Equinox Minerals up to US$7.5 billion for LMC and insisted on buying off the 2.28 percent stake Zambia had even after the local competition commission advised that ZCCM-IH must maintain the stake which by extension gave ZCCM-IH a stake in the multi-billion Jabil copper and gold mine in Saudi Arabia.
Criticism mounted regarding ZCCM-IH’s decision to take a ‘measly’ US$167.5million from the largest gold digger in the world instead of actually demanding a large stake in the mine that has an extendable 35-year lease life.
However, speculation has been escalating that ZCCM-IH only agreed to give up the 2.28 percent stake in LMC after Canada’s Prime Minister from 1984 to 1993 Brian Mulroney visited State House with a Zambian author based in the United States.
Barrick Gold is a Canadian owned mine. The nature of discussions Mr Mulroney “quietly” had at State House with the Zambian author and State House officials remains unknown.
[Zambia Daily Mail]
Labels: CANADA, CORRUPTION, LUMWANA MINING COMPANY, SITUMBEKO MUSOKOTWANE, WYLBUR SIMUUSA, ZCCM-IH
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