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Project SafeCom News and Updates 10 October 2005
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Project SafeCom
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Oct 09, 2005 16:45 PDT
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Project SafeCom News and Updates 10 October 2005
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¤ - In this Edition - ¤
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1. The Migration Litigation Reform Bill 2005
2. Woomera escapees in wind
3. Scott Parkin: Dissent Isn't Taken Lightly Down Under
4. Cracks in Muslim endorsement of anti-terror laws
5. Forgotten: Chinese long-term detainees
6. Marilyn 'Bakhtiari' Shepherd retires
7. Bakhtiyaris: it's time for official compassion
8. A Central Pillar of Iraq Policy Crumbling
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1. The Migration Litigation Reform Bill 2005
===============================
7 October 2005
Project SafeCom Note
Another D-Day is about to arrive for human rights in Australia - next week
Tuesday, as scheduled on the Parliamentary program for about 12:30: the
tabling of the Migration Litigation Reform Bill 2005.
I think the Bill is a disgrace, but it is also an opportunity to show to
the better informed how the fight to the death between politicians in the
Howard administration and the "refugee lobby" is a callous one, and that
for the politicians, backed up by the best of their legal advisors and
legislation drafters, this fight is one they're fully prepared to fight -
and it seems there's no limit to the budget....
More at http://www.safecom.org.au/litigation-bill2005.htm
To discuss this Bill at Margo Kingston's Webdiary:
http://margokingston.typepad.com/harry_version_2/2005/10/the_migration_l.html#comments
======================
2. Woomera escapees in wind
======================
The Australian
Jeremy Roberts
October 10, 2005
THE Immigration Department has given up hope of tracking down 11
asylum-seekers who escaped from the Woomera detention centre in 2002.
Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone has refused to release the names and
photographs of the five Afghans and six Iranians, who breached the
Migration Act by escaping in a highly publicised breakout staged during a
protest by refugee activists.
If apprehended, the escapees could be prosecuted under federal law, but a
spokesman for Senator Vanstone said it would now be difficult to find them.
"The reality is that if someone goes underground and is actively working to
not be found, it can be very difficult to locate them," the spokesman said.
In the past two years about 30 escaped immigration detainees have been
recaptured and charged, with about one-third prosecuted and convicted, and
the rest pleading guilty or discharged under the Federal Crimes Act for
being too mentally ill to face the charges.
A spokesman for the Immigration Department said the department had no
on-going program to find the escapees.
"The relevant commonwealth and state law enforcement agencies are informed
of any escaped detainee," he said.
"And there is the 'dob-in' line where people can call and report a
suspected escapee."
A spokeswoman for the Australian Federal Police said "extensive inquiries"
had been made since 2002 when the men escaped.
"A number of escaped detainees are yet to be located and are subject to
national alerts at airports and other points of exit to the country," she
said.
The men broke out from Woomera before the centre closed in April 2003.
Prominent Adelaide immigration lawyer Claire O'Connor has defended about 20
escapees and said she doubted the men still at large were in the country.
"The word among the refugee community was that they could easily obtain
fake documents and leave the country," she said.
She said Immigration's resources would be better used finding the many
thousands of visa-overstayers living in the community.
The Immigration website says that in 2003-2004 the department apprehended
more than 19,000 illegal non-citizens.
Last year federal prosecutors appealed the sentences of about 10 escaped
detainees to the South Australian Supreme Court.
In the appeal against the $100 fine imposed on the escaped detainee Mehran
Behrooz, an Iranian, judge Tom Gray found a place for the judicial concept
of "mercy".
"Mr Behrooz's experience of indeterminate detention has been referred to in
the medical evidence as a source of his mental condition and suicidal
tendencies," Justice Gray says in the judgment handed down in April.
"(His mental health history) suggests that his criminal culpability is
materially diminished."
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16867413%255E2702,00.html
========================================
3. Scott Parkin: Dissent Isn't Taken Lightly Down Under
========================================
by Scott Parkin
Thursday, October 6, 2005
CommonDreams.org
"The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines,
with their bodies... A very few -- as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers
in the great sense, and men -- serve the state with their consciences also,
and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly
treated as enemies by it." After the backlash I have seen against the
Australian government's treatment of me, I can honestly say the Australian
people are on the right track to serving their country with their consciences.
Historian Michael Foley said during times of war pacifists often get
mugged. As a nonviolent activist working to end the war in Iraq and the
corporate war profiteering that comes with it, September 2005 has been the
most surreal time of my life and I definitely feel like I got mugged by
Australian Attorney General Phillip Ruddock and the Australian government.
After three lovely months of traveling through Australia and meeting
people, one Wednesday afternoon during the second week of September I was
called by the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, or ASIO, and
asked to come in for an interview. I asked if I was required to do so and
the woman at the other end of the phone said "No, you are not obliged too."
I then asked if this would affect the remaining two weeks of my time in
Australia and she said she couldn't say. I should have listened with closer
attention to that non-answer.
A few days later, walking out of a cafe in Melbourne, I was snatched off
the street by four Australian Federal Police and two Immigration Compliant
Officers. They informed me I was being placed into "questioning detention"
so that the Department of Immigration could assess if they were going to
cancel my tourist visa or not. In truth, "a competent Australian authority"
had already assessed me to be a "direct or indirect risk to Australian
national security", canceled my visa and began the process of removing me
from the country (which would end up costing me $11,000 Australian
dollars). By that evening, I was in solitary confinement at the Melbourne
Custody Center, a maximum security lockup awaiting that not-so free ride
home. In addition, that evening, a media firestorm erupted in Australia and
I became the center of debate over free speech and the criminalization of
dissent in Australia.
I spent a good part of July and August doing workshops on our Houston based
campaign to get Halliburton out of Iraq, people-powered strategies to end
the illegal occupation of Iraq and nonviolent action. The Halliburton talks
discussed the company's history of corruption and cronyism in Iraq, tactics
and strategies used by community organizers in Houston (and elsewhere) to
pressure Halliburton out of Iraq and the campaign in the larger context of
the American antiwar movement. The people power strategies workshop is an
approach to social action that addresses immediate community priorities,
builds power by mobilizing citizens, is framed by core 'citizen values' and
challenges structural inequalities. It imparts on participants methods to
craft a clear strategy in working for social change. The nonviolent action
workshops were facilitated them in the tradition of Thoreau, Gandhi, King
and countless other advocates for nonviolent social change.
I facilitated these trainings at the Brisbane Social Forum, the Sydney
Social Forum and Subplot, a forum for autonomous and student activists. The
latter two venues were precursors for two days of protests against the
Forbes Global CEO Conference at the Sydney Opera House.
During those two days of protests, I also organized a protest outside the
Sydney offices of war profiteer Halliburton's subsidiary KBR. It was a
political theater event where my cohorts and I dressed up as billionaires,
named ourselves "The Coalition of the Billing" and chanted such
insurrectionary chants as "1-2-3-4, we make money when there's war,
5-6-7-8, KBR's really great!" and "We're here, we're rich, get used to
it!". It was a fun little protest and many of the New South Wales police
watching were laughing along with our comedy routine. I can only guess that
Phillip Ruddock and ASIO missed the underlying humor.
While they may currently hold all the legal cards, they are losing the
public debate as lawyers, civil libertarians, environmentalists; former
government whistleblowers, grassroots activists, major media outlets and
some politicians have spoken out and acted on this baffling outrageous
episode. Currently, their best response has been that I "incited spirited
protest". All over Australia, local communities have mobilized and rallied
around my detention and removal. There have been numerous NONVIOLENT
protests, occupations and direct communications all over Australia, and in
the United States, confronting Prime Minister John Howard, Phillip Ruddock
and the Australian government about their shabby handling of me and my
civil rights. Major Australian media outlets have questioned daily why
their government has acted in such a manner. This doesn't even include the
outpouring of support I have read from people all over the world fed up
with this type of behavior from "liberal western democracies" seeking to
restrict and criminalize dissent under the auspices of "national security"
and the "war on terror".
Bob Dylan once alleged to live outside the law you must be honest. I have
been known to live outside the law from time to time and it has given me a
degree of self-realization and honesty which I apply to my activism. I
realize that while my actions are not necessarily the norm in today's
world, they are dictated by conscience or as Thoreau once said "The mass of
men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their
bodies... A very few -- as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the
great sense, and men -- serve the state with their consciences also, and so
necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as
enemies by it." After the backlash I have seen against the Australian
government's treatment of me, I can honestly say the Australian people are
on the right track to serving their country with their consciences.
Scott Parkin is a community organizer from Houston TX and recently traveled
in Australia talking about Halliburton and the US antiwar movement, until
the Australian government forcibly removed him. His e-mail is
spa-@riseup.net.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1006-27.htm
=====================================
4. Cracks in Muslim endorsement of anti-terror laws
=====================================
AM - Saturday 8 October 2005
Reporter: Karen Barlow
EDMOND ROY: Cracks are appearing in this week's much vaunted Muslim
endorsement of the Federal Government's new anti-terror laws.
The President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Dr Ameer
Ali, said on Thursday that all 13 members of Muslim Community Reference
Group had been assured that the laws were needed and that they include
enough safeguards.
But now that view is being disputed by at least two members of the group,
who say they have grave concerns that the laws will unfairly target Muslim
people.
Karen Barlow reports.
KAREN BARLOW: The Federal Government's proposed anti-terror laws are yet to
be introduced or even drafted.
But the unclear and undefined announcement of the laws have left religious,
welfare, legal and civil liberties groups concerned they'll involve racial
or religious profiling.
On Thursday the sell to the Muslim community was on, with the Prime
Minister's handpicked Muslim Community Reference Group being briefed by the
Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock and the Minister for Multicultural
Affairs John Cobb.
The ministers assured the 13 members that there will be significant
judicial oversight, and the laws will be designed to target behaviour, not
race or religion.
After the meeting John Cobb said he was confident the message got through.
And it seemed so by listening to the Chairman of the Reference Group and
the President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Dr Ameer Ali.
AMEER ALI: We think that there's adequate, is balanced laws, it has enough
safeguards, and it protects us from any incident that might happen in this
country.
Not one single dissent was expressed.
KAREN BARLOW: But that unanimous satisfaction is being disputed.
The President of the Islamic Council of Victoria and member of the Muslim
Reference Group, Malcolm Thomas, has released a statement saying:
MALCOLM THOMAS' STATEMENT (read by actor): We note with concern Dr Ameer
Ali's comment that the members of the Muslim Reference Group had
unanimously accepted the new laws. This statement was unauthorised and
totally misrepresents our position.
KAREN BARLOW: Malcolm Thomas says the 13 members had only supported the
intent of the Government's new anti-terror laws.
In his statement, Mr Thomas says the assurances of legal safeguards were
not unanimously accepted.
MALCOLM THOMAS' STATEMENT (read by actor): For example, the Government
might reject racial profiling, but some law enforcement officials do not,
and have sought legal protection for engaging in this practice. And they
will be using these powers, not the Government.
KAREN BARLOW: Dr Waleed Kadous from the Australian Muslim Civil Rights
Advocacy Network wasn't at the Canberra meeting, but says he knows other
members of the Reference Group who feel like Malcolm Thomas.
WALEED KADOUS: And they expressed concerns that these laws would have an
impact on the Muslim community, as well as all of Australians.
KAREN BARLOW: Dr Waleed Kadous wants more community consultation.
WALEED KADOUS: Unfortunately Ameer Ali may not be in contact with the
grassroots and may not have seen the effects of existing legislation the
way that we have. And so I think he may be more willing to put forward a
position without going back to his community and consulting them.
KAREN BARLOW: Are you angry with Dr Ali?
WALEED KADOUS: (pause) I just wish that he would consult his community
more, and before making major decisions like this, at least come back to us
and explain to us what the situation is.
EDMOND ROY: Dr Waleed Kadous from the Australian Muslim Civil Rights
Advocacy Network, ending that report from Karen Barlow.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2005/s1477731.htm
==============================
5. Forgotten: Chinese long-term detainees
==============================
The Australian GREENS (Victoria)
MEDIA RELEASE
PETER JOB, SPOKESPERSON ON REFUGEES
10 October 2005
Greens call for explanation on "Forgotten Chinese" long term detainees
The Victorian Greens today called for the Minister of Immigration to
explain why Chinese asylum seekers in long term detention had been passed
by in changes that had allowed the release of most other long term
detainees into the community.
"There are twenty-two Chinese asylum seekers who have been in detention in
Villawood and Baxter for between two and four years, with a number of
others approaching the two year mark," Victorian Greens Spokesperson on
Refugees, Peter Job, said. "While most other long term detainees have been
offered one kind of bridging visa or another, the majority of Chinese
detainees have been offered nothing."
The detainees' claims of persecution were based on politics, membership of
non-registered Christian churches, and membership of Falungong, Mr. Job
explained. Several women also had claims based on enforced abortions or
contraception.
Mr. Job also noted that the department "had form" in its treatment of
Chinese asylum seekers.
"The defector Chen Yonglin was actively discouraged from seeking
protection, and was put at risk when Department officers phoned the Chinese
embassy. Chinese asylum seekers were traumatised when Chinese officials
were allowed to visit them in detention. The cases of Professor Yuan
Hongbing and his assistant Zhao Jing were delayed an exceptionally long
time even by Department of Immigration standards.
"In light of this track record, we are entitled to ask whether the
Australian government is deliberately making it difficult for Chinese
asylum seekers to seek protection in Australia in order to kowtow to China
for trade reasons.
"China is a nation with a record of repressing, imprisoning, torturing and
otherwise mistreating political and religious dissidents. It has the
highest death penalty rate in the world, and it has a record of forced
abortions and persecuting women who resist.
"Anyone fleeing persecution for their political or religious beliefs, their
spiritual practices, or because of fertility issues should be welcome to
seek protection in Australia." Mr. Job said.
"Given the increasing evidence of the psychologically destructive nature of
long term detention it is astonishing that a nation that professes to
respect human rights continues to allow any asylum seekers at all to
languish in long term detention."
For interviews or further information contact,
Peter Job mobile: 0423 515 603
email: refu-@vic.greens.org.au
-ENDS-
===========================
6. Marilyn 'Bakhtiari' Shepherd retires
===========================
10 October 2005
The truth has been found about the Bakhtiyari family. The lies,
manipulations and distortions came crashing down on DIMIA thanks to an
extraordinary accident of chance and subsequent investigation by an
extraordinary journalist, Paul McGeough.
Afghans all along, as they said, illegally deported to the wrong country.
It is an ever lasting shame this was not found before they were sent to
Pakistan to sleep on the street or maybe be blown to bits in Afghanistan
but such is life.
I have to retire now from this case, I am exhausted beyond description.
For all those on this list who helped thank you, for all those who could
have and refused I got there without you.
Maybe some day this nation will have to face themselves for the treatment
of this innocent little family but I will never, ever care about this
country again.
I will exist.
But if DIMIA keep screwing up I can guarantee I will be there to know about
it.
When the senate don't do their jobs I will be there to find out.
Do people understand now that if the senators had read their questions on
notice about locking people up illegally - 33 of them was what I found and
made public - Cornelia would not have been locked up and we might have
found Vivian over a year earlier.
If those who could, who had the resources, to expose DIMIA for using
phoney, invalid Pakistani ID application forms to cancel visas like I
pleaded all last year the Bakhtiyari family would be here, Ebrahim Khan
would not have spent 15 months in Baxter, a widowed Afghan lady wouldn't
have had the trauma of being called a Pakistani liar and nearly deported, a
young Afghan dentist with two small kids wouldn't have had to face fraud
cancellation or Ghulam Ali, a young unaccompanied kid wouldn't have been
hounded mercilessly for a year for being a fraud and another boy wouldn't
be deemed to be a Pakistani policeman called Mozzafar Ali.
Dozens of them - the joke is a quick check by a sharp lawyer would have
found that the ID numbers were all made invalid in 2000 when the Pakistani
government set up an electronic system.
I work always in conjunction with a dedicated team and they have given me
permission to stop the Bakhtiyari case and see if the truth will bring them
relief.
There is no more I can do so thanks to everyone and anyone who wants to
take up the cudgels for them I say go for it.
Marilyn
=================================
7. Bakhtiyaris: it's time for official compassion
=================================
DISCLAIMER: Project SafeCom does not necessarily endorse the views and
interpretations put forward by Russell Skelton in this opinion piece.
The Age
By Russell Skelton
October 9, 2005
Used and abused, the Bakhtiyari boys speak out. But the enigma remains.
IT SHOULD come as no surprise that the Bakhtiyari brothers - Alamdar and
Montazar - don't think much of the Adelaide-based lawyers who represented
their family or the intense circle of refugee activists who said they spoke
on their behalf.
The Bakhtiyari cause was always a handy headline for those on the front
line fighting mandatary detention, an excuse for activists and lawyers to
resort to the tactics they accused the Howard Government of in its
treatment of asylum seekers.
Everything was fair game. Facts were exaggerated, critics denigrated and
the legal system shamelessly exploited. By constantly forcing the
Government into a corner, Bakhtiyari's legal team, headed by Jeremy Moore,
left no room for compromise.
As 14-year-old Montazar put it last week in an interview with the ABC in
Lahore, Pakistan: "The lawyers didn't really help our family at all in the
end and I would just like to say, on behalf of my family, that they have
nothing to do with my family any more."
Alamdar, 16, was just as blunt: "The thing I want to say is, first of all,
I would like to say sorry to the Government. It was all the advocates, all
the lawyers forcing us to fight against the Government."
But the ABC interview with the boys in Pakistan - a country both Australian
and Pakistani authorities insist they are citizens of - raises as many
questions as it provides answers to the enigma of the Bakhtiyaris. The
whereabouts of their mother, Roqia, father, Ali, and their sisters, claimed
to be living in Kabul, remains secret.
The true history of this family is yet to be revealed. Afghan authorities
apparently determined that Roqia may have come originally from the small
village of Balaw Daoud in Afghanistan's Ghazni province, but have offered
no assurances for Ali because documents he sent to prove his nationality
were false.
Even if it can be proved that Roqia was born in Balaw Daoud (interviews
with her immediate relatives, such as her father, stepmother and two
stepsisters would be a starting point), that wouldn't advance her case for
political asylum.
Roqia always told Australian authorities she was born and raised in Charkh,
another village hundreds of kilometres west of Balaw Daoud.
She testified under oath that she had never travelled outside Charkh before
she fled to Australia via Pakistan.
Roqia told the Refugee Review Tribunal she did not know the names of any
other villages or provinces because she had led a sheltered life.
Various investigations have failed to find evidence that Roqia or Ali lived
in Charkh.
On the evidence now being presented by Alamdar and Montazar, the Charkh
story certainly appears to be a fiction created by people smugglers to
strengthen the family's claim for asylum in Australia.
Both Montazar and Alamdar revealed a very different family history to the
one presented to Australian authorities. While they deny ever living in
Quetta, they say they travelled from country to country.
Alamdar said: "Before we came to Australia, we stayed in Islamabad for two
to three years and my dad used to work in Islamabad, then, before, we lived
in Iran."
Because they lived for long periods outside Afghanistan their case for
political asylum was tenuous at best. As with hundreds of thousands of
displaced Afghans crossing the country's borders seeking safety and work,
it is possible the family holds dual citizenship, which may explain why
Pakistan is happy to claim them. And it remains far from clear what Ali's
origins are. The possibilities are many.
So where does this leave the Bakhtiyaris? Immigration Minister Amanda
Vanstone has correctly ruled out any review of the case, although there is
an argument to be made for this family returning to Australia, not as
refugees but as migrants.
Given that they became the cannon fodder for lawyers and activists in their
battle with the Government; given also that the children had no control
over the decisions of their parents and spent their formative years in
detention, the Government is in a position to dispense compassion. It
should consider doing so.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/bakhtiyaris-its-time-for-official-compassion/2005/10/08/1128563035057.html
==============================
8. A Central Pillar of Iraq Policy Crumbling
==============================
Common Dreams
Published on Sunday, October 9, 2005
by the Los Angeles Times
Bush's administration has insisted that political progress would quell the
insurgency. But the reverse may be true, U.S. analysts say.
by Tyler Marshall and Louise Roug
WASHINGTON — Senior U.S. officials have begun to question a key presumption
of American strategy in Iraq: that establishing democracy there can erode
and ultimately eradicate the insurgency gripping the country.
The expectation that political progress would bring stability has been
fundamental to the Bush administration's approach to rebuilding Iraq, as
well as a central theme of White House rhetoric to convince the American
public that its policy in Iraq remains on course.
But within the last two months, U.S. analysts with access to classified
intelligence have started to challenge this precept, noting a "significant
and disturbing disconnect" between apparent advances on the political front
and efforts to reduce insurgent attacks.
Now, with Saturday's constitutional referendum appearing more likely to
divide than unify the country, some within the administration have
concluded that the quest for democracy in Iraq, at least in its current
form, could actually strengthen the insurgency.
The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Army Gen. George W. Casey, has
acknowledged that such a scenario is possible, while officials elsewhere in
the administration, all of whom declined to be identified because of the
sensitivity of the subject, say they share similar concerns about the
referendum.
Iraq's Sunni Muslim Arabs, who are believed to form the core of the
insurgency, are bitterly opposed to a constitution drafted mainly by the
country's majority Shiite Muslims and ethnic Kurds. Yet from all
indications, the Sunnis will fail to muster enough votes to defeat it.
"It could make people on the fence a little more angry or [make them] come
off the fence," said a senior U.S. official who requested anonymity.
A growing number of experts outside the administration and in Iraq agree
with such assessments.
"If the constitution passes in a non-amicable way, the violence will
increase," said Ali Dabagh, a member of Iraq's transitional National
Assembly who is believed to be close to Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari.
The White House has consistently linked the building of democracy in Iraq
and the broader Middle East with the defeat of the insurgency.
President Bush repeated that assertion Thursday in a policy address to the
National Endowment for Democracy in Washington. "If the peoples of [the
Middle East] are permitted to choose their own destiny and advance by their
own energy and by their participation as free men and women," he declared,
"then the extremists will be marginalized and the flow of violent
radicalism to the rest of the world will slow and eventually end."
Vice President Dick Cheney has put it more succinctly. "I think … we will,
in fact, succeed in getting democracy established in Iraq, and I think when
we do, that will be the end of the insurgency," he told CNN in June.
Those comments echoed an assertion put forward earlier by the Pentagon:
U.S. forces could not defeat the insurgency through military might alone;
success required redeploying troops to protect the nascent democratic
process. That process, commanders said, together with military force, would
eventually smother rebel violence.
Despite what Bush on Thursday called "incredible political progress" in
Iraq since Saddam Hussein's fall 2 1/2 years ago, the Iraqi insurgency has
grown in strength and sophistication. From about 5,000 Hussein loyalists
using leftover Iraqi army equipment, it has mushroomed into a disparate yet
potent force of up to 20,000 equipped with explosives capable of knocking
out even heavily armored military vehicles.
"The surface political process has stumbled forward, but the insurgency
came up and kind of stayed that way," said a U.S. government analyst with
access to classified intelligence. Several analysts, who spoke on condition
of anonymity while discussing intelligence, indicated that initial evidence
of the disconnect began to surface in the spring — after Iraq's first
national elections on Jan. 30 — and it has gradually become clearer since.
Doubts about such a central pillar of Iraq policy come at an awkward time
for the White House: Polls show eroding public confidence in Bush as a
leader and in his management of the war. In recent days, Bush, Cheney and
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have tried to shore up public support
for staying in Iraq.
But Middle East experts say they have found little correlation between
Iraq's emerging democracy and the rebellion's strength.
"The democratic process as it has worked so far has certainly done nothing
to undermine the insurgency," said Nathan Brown, who researches Middle East
political reform at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in
Washington.
Robert Malley, co-author of a September report by the International Crisis
Group, a nonprofit organization that deals with conflict resolution,
concluded that approval of the draft constitution could make things worse.
Malley called the administration's Iraq policy "a case study of pinning too
much hope on an electoral process without doing so much of the other work."
Success in Iraq "is not about democracy or non-democracy; it's about
reaching consensus on a political pact that all parties agree to," said
Malley, a former advisor to President Clinton on Arab-Israeli affairs. "If
they don't agree, the political process won't help."
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, is reportedly trying to
broker eleventh-hour changes in the draft to ease Sunni concerns, but even
if he succeeds, the effect of such concessions would not be immediately
clear, analysts said.
A Western diplomat in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a
government that is unable to provide for basic needs such as security,
electricity, potable water and jobs commands little loyalty.
Brian Jenkins, a terrorism specialist at the Rand Corp. think tank in Santa
Monica, said that a cursory look at history shows "there is no guarantee
that political progress diminishes political violence." He cited Colombia,
Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Northern Ireland, noting that insurgencies
have lasted for decades in those functioning democracies with educated
populations.
He said those militant movements were driven by various factors, including
the political goals of aggrieved groups, profitable criminal activities and
a lack of economic opportunities. Jenkins and others believe that Iraq's
insurgency has already developed several motivating strands that would
probably sustain it for years.
With the divisive constitutional referendum only a week away, the first
trial of the deposed Hussein scheduled to begin this month and the prospect
that the December election will produce a Shiite-dominated parliament,
upcoming events may only further distance Sunni Arabs from Iraq's emerging
democratic state, analysts say.
Sunnis, largely excluded from this summer's crucial negotiations on the
constitution, see the document as rigged against their interests. They
fear, for example, that blunt language outlawing Hussein's Sunni-dominated
Baath Party could be used to block them from jobs in the public sector. The
draft also appears to open the door to a loosely federated system that
could deprive Sunni Arab regions of the benefits of the country's huge oil
reserves.
Some Iraqis accuse the Bush administration of sacrificing a unifying
political process in favor of speed and arbitrary deadlines needed to
sustain American public support for the war and justify the politically
important reduction in U.S. troop levels in Iraq.
"We're short of time — it's the fault of the Americans," Kurdish politician
Mahmoud Othman said. "They are always insisting on short deadlines. It's as
if they're [making] hamburgers and fast food."
Othman added: "If we'd had more time, it would have been possible to get
Sunni participation. When Oct. 15 comes, many won't even have seen the
constitution."
Marshall reported from Washington and Roug from Baghdad. Times staff writer
Mark Mazzetti in Washington contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1009-02.htm
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-|| This is the Project SafeCom Newsletter - also published
-|| as the RAC-VIC Newsletter (Racvicnews) since July 2004 by agreement
-|| with RAC Victoria, which endorsed that their news service be
-|| managed by Project SafeCom. More information about us below.
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-||- Project SafeCom info
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Online archives of our News & Updates:
http://lists.topica.com/lists/safecom/read
Project SafeCom has operated a "virtually full-time" operations office
since TAMPA. At Project SafeCom, an Incorporated Association in Western
Australia, we exist from donations, the sale of some items via our website,
and from memberships. You can make a donation by transferring funds to our
account at Bendigo Community Bank Kulin, BSB Number 633-000. Account name:
Project SafeCom Inc., account 11564 3900, or by sending a cheque or money
order to our address below.
P.O. Box 364 - Narrogin WA 6312 - Phone 0417 090 130
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LINKS:
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ROYAL COMMISSION Petition: download it, print it, put it out - everywhere
around town: http://www.safecom.org.au/royal-commission.htm
The bLog - FIXING AUSTRALIA: http://www.safecom.org.au/fixing-australia.htm
What's New - this page lists all the new additions to the website -
hundreds of pages: http://www.safecom.org.au/whatsnew.htm
Project SafeCom events page: http://www.safecom.org.au/events.htm
The Reading Room: http://www.safecom.org.au/readings.htm
The Project SafeCom shop: http://www.safecom.org.au/products.htm
Our Baxter page: http://www.safecom.org.au/baxter.htm
Project SafeCom's No War position: http://www.safecom.org.au/no-war.htm
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