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Project SafeCom News and Updates 9 March 2006
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Project SafeCom
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Mar 08, 2006 18:10 PST
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Project SafeCom News and Updates 9 March 2006
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¤ - In this Edition - ¤
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1. Federal police consider 'deprogramming' terrorists
2. Visa about-turn as deportee heads back to Sydney
3. Returned deportee's visa uncertain
4. New words to same old song
5. Refugee disease screening questioned
6. Crackdown on migration agents
7. Be wary of media, Muslim body told
8. Multiculturalism: Creating Outsiders
9. Islam & the West: From Chiffon to Shock & Awe
10. Georgiou defeats critics in seat
11. The Downer tentacles stretch to Perth (Pearce, Judi Moylan)
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1. Federal police consider 'deprogramming' terrorists
======================================
ABC ONLINE NEWS
Thursday, March 9, 2006. 0:37am (AEDT)
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty says the AFP has given
consideration to a technique used overseas for "de-radicalising" terrorists.
Commissioner Keelty says the process of "deprogramming" extremists has been
successful in countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan and the UK.
He says the technique involves using respected clerics or people previously
connected with terrorist organisations to convert extremists and provide
information to police.
"In some places they will use a cleric who has a good reputation with the
community and who will be respected and listened to by the people in
custody and in this case they've used somebody who was actually part of the
Mantiki arrangement, so, it's somebody they would have otherwise looked up
to as a natural leader, in terms of a terrorist, and they've turned him
around and used him to convert the others," he said.
"And not only convert the others, but also to provide a significant amount
of information to the Indonesian national police."
Indonesia's anti-terrorist squad Detachment 88 now has former Jemaah
Islamiah (JI) commander Nasir bin Abbas working for them, re-educating
arrested JI recruits.
The Commissioner has told ABC television's Lateline program a change of
Government policy would be needed for the idea to be used in Australia.
"Certainly in the policy preparation we raised it in the context of the
control orders, whether a control order ought to extend that far, but at
this point in time we haven't got a control order that's going to say that
we're going to force people into particular deprogramming," he said.
"But of course the need isn't as present here at the moment and so we need
to deal with these things as they come along."
The Commissioner says there is a fertile environment for terrorism in
Australia.
"There are people who embrace the ideals and, as much as we're all working
together, not only with ASIO and the intelligence community, but the state
and territory police as well, to deal with this situations as they arise
and of course, again, we have matters before the courts, so I'll be very
cautious with what I say, but there are people who we would say are
contemplating or have contemplated, in fact even trained to be in a
position to actually carry out some of the acts we've seen elsewhere in the
world," he said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200603/s1587242.htm
=======================================
2. Visa about-turn as deportee heads back to Sydney
=======================================
Sydney Morning Herald
By Ben Cubby
March 9, 2006
ROBERT JOVICIC, the Australian-raised man deported to Serbia, may not be
allowed to stay in the country after he arrives at Sydney Airport early today.
Mr Jovicic's family and supporters were shocked to learn that the
Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, had not agreed to grant him a
permanent residency visa.
Senator Vanstone, who is overseas, said last week she would allow Mr
Jovicic, 39, to return on compassionate grounds, after agonising over the
decision. But two hours before Mr Jovicic boarded a flight to London to
begin his journey home, he was told by Australian officials they "could not
give definitive advice" on what visa he would be given.
A spokesman for the Department of Immigration said last night the acting
Immigration Minister, Julie Bishop, would make a decision soon.
"It was made clear yesterday to Mr Jovicic and his Australian lawyer that
DIMA is still expecting him to attend the DIMA office in Sydney on the
morning of Friday March 10 at which time the acting minister will consider
the issue of his visa," he said.
Mr Jovicic would not be forced to apply for Serbian citizenship, although
he had been asked to do so in December. Mr Jovicic has told the Herald he
tried to apply for citizenship but was intimidated by a negative response
from Serbian officials.
A spokeswoman for the Jovicic family, Ross Waraker, said he had left a
meeting with immigration officials this week with a clear understanding a
permanent visa would be issued to Mr Jovicic immediately on his return.
"Susannah [Mr Jovicic's sister] is very disturbed on the way they have gone
back on their word," he said.
"It's either just confusion - a bungle of massive proportions - or there is
some sort of strategy at play. We don't really know what to think."
Mr Jovicic, who has a string of convictions for burglary, was deported to
Serbia on character grounds in June 2004.
http://smh.com.au/news/national/visa-aboutturn-as-deportee-heads-back-to-sydney/2006/03/08/1141701574239.html
===========================
3. Returned deportee's visa uncertain
===========================
ABC ONLINE NEWS
Wednesday, March 8, 2006. 4:05pm (AEDT)
The family of stateless man Robert Jovicic says he has been told the
Immigration Minister is yet to decide on his residency status, despite
ordering his return to Australia.
Mr Jovicic was deported to Serbia in 2004 on character grounds despite
living in Australia for 36 of his 38 years.
Serbia refused to recognise him as a citizen, leaving him without access to
medical care, welfare or employment.
Senator Amanda Vanstone announced last week that Mr Jovicic would be
allowed to return to Australia and his permanent residency would be reinstated.
However, Mr Jovicic's sister Susannah says as her brother boarded a flight
home he was handed a letter saying Senator Vanstone's decision on his
status is still pending.
She says the letter has been a source of great anxiety for the family,
provoking fears that her brother could again be deported at any time.
"He might even be wondering, 'Are they going to going to put me on another
flight and send me somewhere else?'" she said.
"'Are they going to put me in detention?
"'Am I going to taste being home for this very short time and then
something awful's going to happen?'"
Ms Jovicic also says her brother's medical care package has been downgraded.
"I have to shake my head because I'm thinking, these are the people at the
top," she said.
"These are the people we've nominated to run a particular area of our
Government and so many facets of it.
"And this is at the highest level, so if Amanda Vanstone didn't give the go
ahead, then how is it that someone could?"
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200603/s1587004.htm
=======================
4. New words to same old song
=======================
Sydney Morning Herald
March 9, 2006
A string of baffling decisions means the jury is still out on how the
Immigration Department is handling change, writes Ben Cubby.
THIS morning at 6.25, Robert Jovicic, the Australian-raised man deported to
Serbia, is due to arrive home after almost two years in exile to an
uncertain fate. The saga of Jovicic's deportation - his suffering overseas
in a country where he has few ties and cannot speak the language, and the
subsequent confusion over whether he will be allowed to stay when he gets
here - is the latest in a string of baffling decisions, scathing reports
and backdowns that have dogged the Department of Immigration.
As Jovicic was leaving Belgrade for a connecting flight from London on
Tuesday night, his family was informed that a decision to allow him to stay
in Australia on compassionate grounds had not yet been made. This
contradicted what the family had been told in meetings with department
officials, they said. It also runs counter to public statements made by the
Immigration Minister, Senator Amanda Vanstone, about Jovicic last week.
The decision to let him return, she said, had been made after "anguished
consideration".
"I don't think Australians want people who aren't citizens and [who]
consistently break the law to be able to stay in Australia," she said.
"Equally, I don't think Australians want someone who has lived in this
country for a long time to find themselves in the circumstances overseas in
which Mr Jovicic finds himself."
But a decision is yet to be made by the minister. Jovicic was issued with a
special purpose visa before departing Belgrade, but it expires at midnight
tonight. He will have to spend nine hours in Australia without valid
residential status before he can apply for permanent residency when
Department of Immigration offices open tomorrow. During this time, he could
theoretically be taken into immigration detention.
His family say he has been encouraged to apply for Serbian citizenship "as
a sign of good faith" immediately upon his return. Jovicic has previously
told the Herald that he reluctantly attempted to apply for Serbian
citizenship twice while in Belgrade, but became intimidated after speaking
with unhelpful Serbian officials.
Vanstone, who is in Bangladesh, was unable to discuss Jovicic's situation,
or explain why her public comments appeared to differ so significantly from
subsequent events.. Jovicic was born in France, but has lived in Australia
since he was two. His parents were born in Serbia. Desperate and freezing,
he drew attention to his plight by sleeping outside the Australian embassy
in Belgrade, an event which drew media attention not just from Australia
but many European nations, prompting surprised questions about Australia's
deportation system.
Jovicic, 39, is no one's idea of a model Australian. He has been before a
court 10 times and recorded 158 convictions, mainly for theft and burglary
to support a heroin addiction. Yet jail or effective treatment were denied
him in Belgrade, where he could not speak the language and lived on the
margins of society.
When he was deported in 2002, following a decision by the then immigration
minister Philip Ruddock, Jovicic and his family say he was escorted roughly
and essentially dumped at the airport in Belgrade. "They left me there. Of
course I was scared, I was terrified," Jovicic said.
The situation of Ali Tastan, a paranoid schizophrenic Australian man who
was judged to be of bad character and deported in January 2003 to Turkey,
is another that critics say reflects poorly on the department's competence
in handling deportations. The Federal Court has ordered that Tastan be
brought home, but he remains in Ankara. He has been sleeping under a bush
on a street near one of the city's main hospitals, and experiences paranoid
delusions which have apparently compelled him to resist recent attempts by
embassy officials to return him to Australia.
The case of convicted armed burglar Stefan Nystrom, heard in the Federal
Court in July, provided a test case and a degree of hope for many of the
hundreds deported under section 501 of the Migration Act. He had lived all
but four weeks of his life in Australia. The court ruled he could not be
deported as he was an "absorbed citizen".
The handling of the Jovicic and Tastan cases has again raised questions of
how well the department is responding to the sweeping changes recommended
by the Palmer and Comrie reports into the wrongful deportation of
Australians Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez Solon.
In some respects, the department has been moving towards an immigration
system that is more humane and accountable than over the past decade. The
recent offer of a settlement to the family of Shayan Badraie, an
11-year-old who was severely traumatised while in Woomera and Villawood
detention camps, reinforced that view. Commonwealth lawyers approached
Badraie's representatives last week and agreed to pay the requested
$400,000, which will mainly go towards the boy's medical costs.
Also last week, Vanstone announced some details on changes being made to
"improve the structure and governance of the department". About 350 staff
had been trained in new procedures, including the sensitive compliance arm,
which focuses on detaining people without valid visas. There are plans to
upgrade the information systems that managed to lose inquiries about Rau
and Solon.
Part of the post-Palmer change was the appointment of Andrew Metcalfe as
department head last July after a stint as deputy head of the Department of
Prime Minister and Cabinet. The former department boss, Bill Farmer, was
made ambassador to Indonesia.
Metcalfe has spoken much about refining department culture so that staff
treat people as clients. Some changes implemented have been cosmetic and
their effect is ambiguous. Last November, for example, Metcalfe provoked
derision by ordering stationery, coffee mugs and computer screensavers for
staff, emblazoned with the department's new slogan: "People - Our
Business". Four hundred colourful foam puzzles with similar messages were
also distributed among senior staff. The exercise cost $26,797.
But bad management at the department was also dragged into focus when a
report by the Commonwealth Ombudsman, John McMillan, was published in
January. McMillan investigated 201 cases of people detained and then
released after the department realised they were lawfully in the country.
He concluded that its ability to make fair and reasonable decisions was
impaired by a lack of relevant, accurate information on people it was
assessing.
Last week, the department was also hit by a report from the National Audit
Office, which detailed problems with the tendering process by which
companies were selected to run detention centres. The appointment of the
detention centre and prison operator GSL had potentially wasted millions of
dollars, and resulted in inferior services.
The department was "unable to provide evidence of financial data and
costings that would support the assertion" that GSL should be chosen to run
centres, the report said. The Government has announced that it will not
extend GSL's contracts after they expire in 2007, although the company has
said it intends to bid again. A member of the steering committee which
evaluated bids for the department was also found to have provided a
reference for GSL.
The mixed report card means it is not clear whether recent changes have
penetrated the department's culture.
"So much for being accountable, and 'People - Our Business' and all that
stuff," said Michaela Byers, the lawyer acting for Jovicic and Tastan.
"This is the same stuff I have been seeing for years from the department.
All the spin we've been hearing from Andrew Metcalfe is about
accountability … this is not proving to me that anything has changed at all."
The drawn-out system leaves families of deportees in a state of tension and
confusion that lasts for years, she said.
Ross Waraker, who has been acting as a spokesman for Jovicic's family, said
Jovicic thought his ordeal was over when Vanstone said she would allow him
to come home. "Robert isn't Serbian, he doesn't want to live in Serbia.
Ultimately, once he gets back, he is his own man, but I can't see him
wanting to do that."
The next big test for the department is likely to be the processing of the
43 West Papuans who arrived at Cape York seeking asylum aboard a large
outrigger canoe on January 18.
They were flown to Christmas Island for processing, at considerable public
expense. The Parliamentary Library estimates the flight, in a C-130
Hercules aircraft, would have cost $35,000 an hour, and if it made a
20-hour round trip from Richmond airbase the flight would have cost $700,000.
To grant asylum to the West Papuans, many of them independence activists,
could damage relations with Indonesia, and annoy the Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade.
To turn them away could be a public relations disaster, and could plausibly
have consequences for the West Papuans, some of whom were reportedly flying
independence banners, banned in Indonesia, on their arrival.
A middle course, one the department is believed to be considering, is to
fudge the issue by granting them a temporary visa that does not specify
humanitarian concerns. Vanstone has committed to deciding the West Papuans'
fate by the end of the month.
http://smh.com.au/news/national/new-words-to-same-old-song/2006/03/08/1141701574263.html
==============================
5. Refugee disease screening questioned
==============================
Sydney Morning Herald
By Andrew Clennell
March 9, 2006
THE Premier, Morris Iemma, has accused the Federal Government of failing to
adequately screen African refugees for diseases and of indirectly being
responsible for gangs of young African men forming in Sydney.
The Premier made his accusations yesterday after it was revealed some
refugees were spending up to 12 months in an African refugee camp after an
initial health screening by the immigration department before travelling to
Australia, leaving open the chance they could arrive with communicable
diseases.
The independent upper house MP, David Oldfield, said if people were not
worried about themselves, then they should "think about their children, or
grandchildren".
"Who are they at school with?" Mr Oldfield said on Channel Seven news. "Who
might bite them, who might spit on them?"
Mr Iemma said people were being put at risk of contracting tuberculosis,
malaria, hepatitis, measles, intestinal parasites and clinical rickets.
He also blamed the lack of English language lessons and Medicare cards for
African asylum seekers on bridging visas as partially responsible for
causing crime problems.
Anne Duffield, a spokeswoman for the parliamentary secretary for
immigration, Andrew Robb, accused Mr Iemma of attempting to "demonise"
African refugees. She said 50 per cent of African refugees had a second
screening and this would soon rise to 100 per cent.
Ms Duffield, a former chief of staff to the former immigration minister
Philip Ruddock said: "I don't know why [Mr Iemma] wants to run with this.
It seems incredibly divisive at a time these people need lots of support.
They don't need to be demonised."
With AAP
http://smh.com.au/news/national/refugee-disease-screening-questioned/2006/03/08/1141701574230.html
=========================
6. Crackdown on migration agents
=========================
news.com.au
From: AAP
March 08, 2006
THE Federal Government is cracking down on migration agents who break the
law in a push to ensure people receive accurate, professional advice.
"People need to know they can rely on the advice they receive from
migration agents, and (that) the agents they employ will act in an
honourable way," Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Multicultural
Affairs Andrew Robb said.
"Agents need to know they must perform at a very high standard or they will
feel the force of sanctions and possible jail terms.
"Strong action is, and will be, taken against migration agents who do the
wrong thing by their clients and undermine the reputation and integrity of
the migration advice profession."
He said the first custodial sentence for a migration agent was handed down
by the NSW District Court two weeks ago.
The man was sentenced to a maximum of two and a half years of periodic
detention for providing false documentation for protection visa applicants,
Mr Robb said.
He was speaking at a ceremony today to launch the Graduation Certificate in
Australian Migration Law and Practice, which he said would raise the
standard of those entering the profession.
But he said he would also review qualifications for existing agents.
"While the certificate will raise the standard of those entering the
profession after July 1, I am also keen to review the qualifications of
existing agents," he said.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18389559-29277,00.html
=============================
7. Be wary of media, Muslim body told
=============================
The Australian
Richard Kerbaj
March 07, 2006
MUSLIM leaders have been given strict instructions by the Immigration
Department on how to handle the media, including warnings they should never
apologise, never be caught lying and should show female journalists the
same respect as males.
In the crash course on media management, the 14 members of John Howard's
Muslim advisory committee, who have bickered openly for months - mostly in
The Australian - were warned not to trust the media as "nothing is off the
record" and the microphone, tape recorder or camera is "always on".
In the draft Muslim Community Reference Group handbook, obtained by The
Australian, the Muslim leaders are told: "Don't lie, don't bluff, don't
panic and don't apologise."
The group, which includes a range of community leaders picked by the Howard
Government last year, is told in the manual: "If you know you will have to
lie during an interview, don't do the interview.
"Sooner or later the truth will come out, and you will lose all credibility."
And the guidelines, prepared by the Department of Immigration and
Multicultural Affairs, have advice on how to deal with women.
"Times have changed - many journalists are women," the handbook says. "Deal
with them in the same manner and with the same respect as you would their
male colleagues."
Despite the training, several group members have defied DIMA's guide by
openly attacking each other and the group itself in the media.
The group's chairman, Ameer Ali, said recently some of its members lacked
"expertise". And The Australian revealed yesterday that one of its senior
members - the nation's Muslim leader, Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali - considered
the body "stillborn", saying it lacked "transparency and vision".
The minister overseeing the advisory body, Immigration Department
Parliamentary Secretary Andrew Robb, defended the advisory committee
yesterday, and dismissed Sheik Hilali's description of the group as
"irrelevant". It was a positive aspect of the reference group to have
differing views, he said.
"He (Sheik Hilali) clearly does not seem to understand the group's
particular role," Mr Robb said. "And to be honest, with the best will in
the world, a 65-year-old sheik cannot give me the perspective of a
22-year-old Muslim. And I want both."
Sheik Hilali attacked the members of the advisory group and suggested they
were being used by the Government to disseminate "propaganda".
But youth sub-group chairwoman Iktimal Hage-Ali said yesterday that while
she respected the Mufti, she disagreed that she was being used by the
Howard Government.
"Everyone has the right to their own views, but the work of the youth
sub-group is progressing really well," she said.
"He is the Mufti and I respect him, but in regards to his comments I have
to disagree with him because I feel as the chair we are doing a good job.
"I am an optimist and I refuse to believe I am being set up by the
Government. If I started to feel like I was only there as a rubber stamp, I
would resign, but that's not how I am feeling."
Sheik Hilali also said he was planning to convene a meeting of the nation's
moderate and radical imams in a bid to stamp out extremism.
Speaking in India yesterday, the Prime Minister gave a cautious welcome to
such a move.
"If he is now setting himself against extremism, if he is an ally within
the Islamic community of the cause of moderate Islam, if he is prepared to
argue against radical Islamic thought, I welcome that very warmly," Mr
Howard said.
According to the handbook, while the group members are told not to treat
the media as "the enemy", an anonymous quote in the media guide warns the
Prime Minister's 14-member team: "Treat the media as you would any other
watchdog. Stay calm, be friendly and never turn your back."
Additional reporting: Patricia Karvelas
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18373610%255E7582,00.html
============================
8. Multiculturalism: Creating Outsiders
============================
New Matilda
By: Eva Cox
Wednesday 8 March 2006
After the Cronulla riots, I was concerned that clashes between groups of
out of control, stirred-up young men would be dismissed as examples of
ingrained racism in Australian society.
As a child-migrant reffo (I arrived in 1948), I am very aware how views
about strangers and the unfamiliar change. While targets change, the
rhetoric stays fairly predictable and the formulations reflect the times.
The anti-reffo, anti-Dago, anti-slab-faced-Balts epithets of my childhood
followed the anti-Catholic, anti-Chinese prejudices earlier last century,
and longer-term anti-Indigenous views.
In all these cases, this prejudice produced assumptions and misinformation
that allowed the out-groups to be demonised. It mixed biology, culture and
religion in varying recipes for hate and exclusion — but often applied it
to ‘them’ out there and not to members of the same group who were known and
liked. These latter members of out-groups were often accepted because they
were seen as behaving ‘like us.’ The prescriptions for acceptance were
often made clear, labelled assimilation, and promoted by governments (Labor
and Liberal), who selected people on the basis that they looked as much
like locals as possible.
Things have changed. The 1967 referendum that increased Federal powers to
serve Indigenous people, changes to the White Australia policy, officially
endorsed moves to integration and multiculturalism — all these were part of
major shifts in public attitudes. For a while, those who arrived here were
welcomed for what they could bring and not just for being able to be
absorbed. These changes made Australia the cosmopolitan, diverse society it
needs to be for ethical, cultural and economic reasons.
I remember, back then, occasional official criticism of particular groups
and some associated media hype, but never the extended demonisation that we
have at present. There was pressure to bring out young Italian women for
workers on the Snowy River Scheme in the 1950s, so ‘over-sexed
Mediterraneans’ would not impose their needs on local girls! In the 1970s,
there was flak about the Mafia during the Nugan Hand scandals, with
predictable assumptions about Sicilians. And there were similar connections
made between Chinese people and Hong Kong triads not so long ago. But apart
from Arthur Calwell’s comment about ‘two Wongs not making a White’ in the
1940s, some anti-Yugoslav terrorist accusations in the 1980s, and Howard
and then Hanson on Asian migration, most politicians have avoided these
types of public statements.
Maybe this was political correctness, but those targeted groups could, at
least, feel they were not subject to official public humiliation.
It is naïve to claim that, because such racist comments are only directed
at ‘some’ of their ilk, then others will not feel targeted. The recent
events at Cronulla and the regularly reported incidents of abuse of
obviously Muslim women show that the public does not distinguish between
‘good and bad’ Muslims.
Such assumptions also fail to understand how such experiences affect the
members of those designated out-groups. I draw on my own experiences as a
secular Jew — I still flinch when people make assumptions about Jews which
generalise on characteristics, both good and bad. I feel responsible for
some of stupid acts of the Israeli Government although I am not a Zionist.
I worry when people in conversation casually mention that some failed
businessman was Jewish — because of the assumption that his Jewishness may
have affected his behaviour.
These experiences indicate how easy it is to feel that acceptance is in
some way contingent on behaving well on terms set by others. A good Jew is
defined in terms of the majority view, and failure to comply may result in
exclusion from both the dominant group and maybe their own community. This
analysis comes from political theorist Hannah Arendt, who stated that
outsiders seeking acceptance needed to become ‘parvenus’ — that is, they
needed to meet the standards of the majority group or risk remaining
pariahs, accepted only in their ghettoes.
This is what the Howard Government is demanding from Australian Muslims:
they must take on our values (whatever they may be) to become acceptable,
or (in some extreme cases) risk loss of residency. Give up all signs of
being different and maybe still be seen as an ‘impostor.’ It is this type
of formulation of acceptance that causes enormous damage to those already
feeling that they are the butt of prejudices.
We risk alienating many because they share some characteristics with a few
hot heads. And the response may well be that fear of rejection will force
some to retreat from the broader community and conform to out-group
(pariah) mores.
Part of the solution is to stop feeding prejudices by association. I have
no problem in saying that supporting violence and revenge is not
appropriate — but violence and revenge are not the characteristics of
Muslims, or even some Muslims. There are plenty of other ratbags who spout
similar nonsense. Comments about God’s laws over-riding Parliament come
from many directions — just read the recent debates on RU486.
Why always mention Muslims? Why name the particular groups as though they
are somehow collectively responsible?
The present debates on ‘some’ Muslims is without precedent in that it is
not just the Coalition involved — Labor has again squibbed and joined in
with the approach.
This dog-whistle political atmosphere abandons the principles of bipartisan
support for not playing the race card, and reinforces mob prejudices that
can spill over into violence on all sides.
About the author
Eva Cox is a Senior Lecturer in Social Inquiry at University of Technology
Sydney, and has an interest in creating more civil societies.
http://www.newmatilda.com//home/articledetail.asp?NewsletterID=200&ArticleID=1414
=====================================
9. Islam & the West: From Chiffon to Shock & Awe
=====================================
New Matilda
By: Robert Fisk
Wednesday 8 March 2006
Everyone in the Middle East rewrites history, but never before have we had
a US Administration so wilfully, dishonestly and ruthlessly reinterpreting
tragedy as success, defeat as victory, death as life — helped, I have to
add, by the compliant American press.
I’m reminded not so much of Vietnam as of the British and French commanders
of World War I who repeatedly lied about military victory over the Kaiser
as they pushed hundreds of thousands of their men through the butchers’
shops of the Somme, Verdun and Gallipoli. The only difference now is that
we are pushing hundreds of thousands of Arabs though the butchers’ shops —
and don’t even care.
Last week’s visit to Beirut by one of the blindest of George W Bush’s bats
— his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice — was indicative of the cruelty
that now pervades Washington. She brazenly talked about the burgeoning
‘democracies’ of the Middle East while utterly ignoring the bloodbaths in
Iraq and the growing sectarian tensions of Lebanon, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Perhaps the key to her indifference can be found in her evidence to the US
Senate Committee on International Affairs where she denounced Iran as ‘the
greatest strategic challenge’ facing the US in the region, because Iran
uses policies that ‘contradict the nature of the kind of Middle East sought
by the United States.’
As Bouthaina Shaaban, one of the brightest of Syria’s not always very
bright team of government ministers, noted: ‘What is the nature of the kind
of Middle East sought by the United States? Should Middle East States adapt
themselves to that nature, designed oceans away?’
As Maureen Dowd, the best and only really worthwhile columnist on the
boring New York Times, observed this month, Bush ‘believes in
self-determination only if he’s doing the determining ... The Bushies are
more obsessed with snooping on Americans than fathoming how other cultures
think and react.’ And conniving with rogue regimes, too, Dowd might have
added.
Take Donald Rumsfeld, the reprehensible man who helped to kick off the
‘shock and awe’ mess that has now trapped more than 100,000 Americans in
the wastes of Iraq. He’s been taking a leisurely trip around North Africa
to consult some of America’s nastiest dictators, among them President Zine
el-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, the man with the largest secret service in
the Arab world and whose policemen have perfected the best method of
gleaning information from suspected ‘terrorists:’ to hold them down and
stuff bleach-soaked rags into their mouths until they have almost drowned.
The Tunisians learned this from the somewhat cruder methods of the
Algerians next door whose government death squads slaughtered quite a few
of the 150,000 victims of the recent war against the Islamists. The
Algerian lads — and I interviewed a few of them after their nightmares
persuaded them to seek asylum in London — would strap their naked victims
to a ladder and, if the ‘chiffon’ torture didn’t work, they’d push a tube
down the victim’s throat and turn on a water tap until the prisoner swelled
up like a balloon. There was a special department (at the Chateauneuf
police station, in case Donald Rumsfeld wants to know) for torturing women,
who were inevitably raped before being dispatched by an execution squad.
All this I mention because Rumsfeld’s also been cosying up to the
Algerians. On a visit to Algiers this month, he announced that:
the United States and Algeria have a multifaceted relationship. It involves
political and economic as well as military-to-military co-operation. And we
very much value the co-operation we are receiving in counter-terrorism ...
Yes, I imagine the ‘chiffon’ technique is easy to learn, the abuse of
prisoners, too — just like Abu Ghraib, for example, which now seems to have
been the fault of journalists rather than America’s thugs.
Rumsfeld’s latest pronouncements have included a defence of the Pentagon’s
system of buying favourable news stories in Iraq with bribes —
‘non-traditional means to provide accurate information’ was his fantasy
description of this latest attempt to obscure the collapse of the American
regime in Baghdad — and an attack on our reporting of the Abu Ghraib
tortures: ‘Consider for a moment the vast quantity of column inches and
hours of television devoted to the detainee abuse [sic] at Abu Ghraib.
Compare that to the volume of coverage and condemnation associated with,
say, the discovery of Saddam Hussein’s mass graves, which were filled with
hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis.’
Let’s expose this whopping lie. We were exposing Saddam’s vile regime,
especially his use of gas, as long ago as 1983. I was refused a visa to
Iraq by Saddam’s satraps for exposing their vile tortures at Abu Ghraib.
And what was Donald Rumsfeld doing? Visiting Baghdad, grovelling before
Saddam, to whom he did not mention the murders and mass graves, which he
knew about, and pleading with the Beast of Baghdad to reopen the US Embassy
in Iraq.
With the usual press courtiers in tow, Rumsfeld has no problems — witness
George Melloan’s recent interview with the Beast of Washington in his
Boeing 737: ‘He generously spares me time for a chat about defence
strategy. Bright sunlight streams in and lights his face ... Sitting across
from him at a desk high above the clouds, one wonders if the ability of
this modern Jove to call down lightning on transgressors will be equal to
the tasks ahead.’
And so myth-making and tragedy go hand in hand. Iraq’s monumental
catastrophe has become routine, shapeless, an incipient ‘civil war.’ Note
how the American framework of disaster is now being portrayed as an Iraqi
vs Iraqi war, as if the huge and brutal US occupation has nothing to do
with the appalling violence in Iraq.
They blow up each other’s mosques? They just don’t want to get on. We told
them to have a non-sectarian government and they refused. That, I suspect,
will be the get-out line when the next deluge overwhelms the Americans in
Iraq.
Winston Churchill, when the Iraqis staged their insurgency against British
rule in 1920, called Iraq ‘an ungrateful volcano.’ But let’s just sit back
and enjoy the view. Democracy is coming to the Middle East. People are
enjoying more liberties. History doesn’t matter, only the future. And the
future for the people of the Middle East is becoming darker and bloodier by
the day.
I guess it just depends whether ‘Jove’ is up to his job when all that
bright sunlight streams in and lights his face.
This article first appeared in The Independent (UK) on 26 February.
About the author
Robert Fisk is the Middle East correspondent for The Independent (UK) and
currently resides in Beirut. Fisk has covered the Israeli invasions of
Lebanon, the Iranian Revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan, the Gulf War, wars in Bosnia and Algeria, the NATO war with
Yugoslavia, and the Palestinian uprisings. His most recent book is The
Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East
(HarperCollins). He is visiting Australia this week.
http://www.newmatilda.com//home/articledetail.asp?NewsletterID=200&ArticleID=1420
=========================
10. Georgiou defeats critics in seat
=========================
The Australian
By Jason Koutsoukis, Canberra
March 9, 2006
MODERATE Liberal MP Petro Georgiou is set to face a challenge to his
preselection in the blue-ribbon seat of Kooyong after internal party
criticism of his performance.
At the annual meeting of the Kooyong federal electorate council in
Canterbury on Tuesday evening, Mr Georgiou was lambasted by local
rank-and-file members for presiding over falling membership and dwindling
fund-raising efforts.
Leading the charge against him is senior Kooyong Liberal George Swinburne,
a former electorate council president, who blamed Mr Georgiou for a
progressive decline in the party's vote in Kooyong in the past five federal
elections.
Despite the criticism, Mr Georgiou, who succeeded former Liberal leader
Andrew Peacock in Kooyong in 1996, won a clean sweep of office-bearer
positions for Kooyong electorate council.
The ballot for electorate president was won by Mr Georgiou's respected ally
Paula Davey. The two vice-presidents' positions also went to Georgiou
supporters, John Pesutto and Prue Webster.
The three positions are coveted because each has a vote in the 55-member
preselection college that votes on who will represent the Liberal Party at
the next federal election in the event of a challenge to Mr Georgiou.
One possible challenger is a former adviser to Prime Minister John Howard,
Joshua Frydenberg.
At the Kooyong meeting, Mr Georgiou received strong backing from state
Liberal MP Ted Baillieu, who called for unity in Kooyong.
One party source said: "Ted emphasised that now was a time for people to
unite, to get behind Petro, and that Kooyong was no place for any disunity."
Senior Victorian upper house member David Davis also called on Kooyong
party members to unite behind Mr Georgiou.
The Liberal Party's senior Victorian, federal Treasurer Peter Costello, is
believed to be backing Mr Georgiou.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/georgiou-defeats-critics-in-seat/2006/03/08/1141701576117.html
==============================================
11. The Downer tentacles stretch to Perth (Pearce, Judi Moylan)
==============================================
Crikey
Date: 8 March 2006
Joseph Poprzeczny writes:
Moves are afoot to parachute a former Alexander Downer staffer into the
blue ribbon WA Liberal seat of Pearce.
Once held by Liberal luminary Fred Chaney and now by former Howard minister
Judi Moylan, Pearce is being seriously eyed off by Brad Haynes, a former
Downer staffer who now works for energy giant Chevron, whose Perth office
is becoming a half-way house for ambitious former federal Liberal staffers.
Also safely ensconced at Chevron is former Senator Nick Minchin staffer and
one-time director of the WA Liberal Party Paul Everingham, a close pal of
Haynes.
According to Perth's Liberal grapevine, Haynes has already had serious
career-oriented chats with Moylan who is planning to depart Pearce for
greener pastures, possibility an overseas posting. One landing spot being
tipped is the ambassadorship to Beijing. Moylan has long had a long-term
interest in the Central Kingdom.
Moylan's ministerial career was brief. Between March 1996 and October 1998
she held two portfolios – Family Services and Status of Women. Until
recently she'd been telling backers in Pearce she intended recontesting the
seat next federal election, but apparently that's no longer her game plan.
She's now in high gear selling Brad to local power brokers, which means
discrete lunches and get-togethers with the former Downer staffer.
Haynes, who over the past few years has been billed as a Downer senior
adviser, also has an interest in East Asia having visited North Korea with
his minister. When he left Downer to join Chevron one parliamentary gossip
sheet gave him a hearty farewell.
“At first we were aghast as, apart from Canberra losing an active and
spunky member of the social scene, we were concerned about Brad's gorgeous
girl, Simone Burford,” it said. “The couple has already endured a
long-distance stint when Brad had a spell in Melbourne.
“The good news is that Simone will accompany Brad to WA after she tidies up
a few bits and pieces in her high-powered role as IT adviser to the Prime
Minister. “Great, now we lose two scenesters!"
“The couple threw a drinks party to celebrate with friends and colleagues.
Delicious food and wines were served.” If Haynes and Moylan can pull off
the Pearce preselection there'll no doubt be more such functions in the
shadow of Parliament House.
CRIKEY: This is interesting evidence of Downer's tentacles spreading. A few
years ago Haynes, just like Downer's daughter Georgina, was awarded a
Chevening scholarship by the British government. (He took leave from
Downer's office to study in the UK). With Downer also reportedly pushing
Joshua Frydenberg in the Victorian seat of Kooyong – currently held by
Petro Georgiou – his support base looks to be on the move – although some
party insiders say Haynes is an opportunist and Downer might not be able to
count on his vote.
http://crikey.com.au/articles/2006/03/08-1556-6315.html
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