Civil emergency status for Aceh

Civil emergency status for Aceh

Martial law in Indonesia's troubled province, Aceh, will be
one year old in five days. The government has decided to end
martial law in the country's westernmost province, changing it to
a state of civil emergency.

The imposition of martial law in Aceh has been considered a
legitimate basis for the Indonesian Military (TNI) to wage war on
members of the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM). The latter's
30-year-long attempt to secede from Indonesia paralyzed the
bureaucracy in Aceh until May last year.

The imposition of martial law enabled us to see that the
measure was a bad decision, for it has claimed thousands of
lives.

This daily hopes that whatever policy decisions the government
takes on Aceh, they should be based on the state ideology, to
create a prosperous and peaceful Aceh. The new Aceh should have a
civilized apparatus and military personnel who uphold civilian
supremacy. Aceh should have a functioning bureaucracy to empower
its people's dynamism.

We should not waste time on arguing whether or not the
military should be withdrawn from Aceh totally once the proposed
state of civil emergency is in place. A strong and peaceful
country will always need the presence of the military to uphold
civilian supremacy.

-- Media Indonesia, Jakarta

Another blow to
the press freedom

Another swan song was sung for the country's press freedom
when the Central Jakarta District Court ordered Trust magazine to
pay Rp 1 billion (US$112.360) in a libel case against John
Hamenda and his company PT Petindo Perkasa. The court also
ordered Trust to apologize in a one-page ad in its edition.

The court verdict apparently drew questions, especially
because the panel of judges considered that Trust had failed to
maintain journalistic standards of conduct in its report.
However, witnesses for Trust, from the Indonesia Press Council,
testified that the reports did not violate the Indonesian
journalistic code of ethics.

More interesting is the fact that John Hamenda, the plaintiff,
is now being detained over a BNI bank credit scam. The police
have submitted Hamenda's dossier to the prosecutor's office for
further legal processing.

What Trust did was based on the Press Law on control,
criticism, correction and suggestions for anything relating to
the public interest. Trust should have been protected by law.

Therefore, it is imperative that Trust seeks legal protection
from the Supreme Court in addition to its appeal to the
provincial high court.

The Supreme Court should assign an independent team to
investigate the case, or else press freedom will always be in
jeopardy. -- Koran Tempo, Jakarta

U.S.-Israel

The American declarations on the permanent settlement are
expected to support Israel's position that rules out withdrawal
to the Green Line in the West Bank and rejects the Palestinian
demand for the return of refugees to Israel. The Americans wished
to phrase them ambiguously, in a way compatible with their past
statements - not to tie their hands in the future, and not to
complicate their relations with the Arab states and Europe.

This is therefore a symbolic achievement, which Sharon needs
mainly due to the pressure of Benjamin Netanyahu and other Likud
ministers. They have conditioned their support for the plan on
the annexation of settlement blocs and negating "the right of
return." -- Haaretz, Tel Aviv, Israel

;SHIMBUN;
ANPAk..r..
OtherOp-Chechnya-terror
Terror in Chechnya
JP/06/OTHER

Terror in Chechnya

Terror attacks only cause hatred and sorrow, and they never
benefit the people in Chechnya. Chechens should realize that they
can never achieve a reasonable independence unless they get out
of the vicious cycle of hatred. People in Baltic nations did
their best to avoid bloodshed and instead sang their songs to win
their independence. There must be a wisdom to avoid bloodshed in
Chechnya, too.

-- Mainichi Shimbun, Tokyo

Photos depicting
prisoner abuse

Worse, you say, Donald Rumsfeld?

Worse than the picture of a pile of naked Iraqis forced to
form a human pyramid? Worse than the one of the nude Iraqi
handcuffed to his bed, women's underwear on his head? Worse than
the perky Army Reservist shown holding what looks to be a dog's
leash that encircles the neck of another naked Iraqi?

Worse is coming, a subdued Defense secretary told the Senate
Armed Services Committee Friday.

"Beyond abuse of prisoners, there are other photos that depict
incidents of physical violence towards prisoners, acts that can
only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman,"
Rumsfeld said. "There are many more photographs, and indeed some
videos. Congress and the American people need to know this."

Well, of course we do. We need to know it because these
pictures represent a turning point in the war in Iraq and the war
on terrorism, and the turn takes us in the wrong direction. The
American public and the American Congress have to face up to that
as the American president takes a second look at our plans for
fighting those wars, as he must, and who should be commanding
that fight. --Journal Star, Peoria, Illinois

U.S.-Israel

Bush's radical idea was to be the first administration to
openly endorse a Palestinian state, but to hinge that endorsement
on Palestinian regime change. In his June 2002 speech calling for
a "new and different Palestinian leadership... not compromised by
terrorism," Bush prefigured his push for transformation of the
entire Middle East through the promotion of freedom and
representative government.

The road map that Bush now clings to, we should not forget, is
a bastardization of his original idea. Sure, the road map pointed
to a Palestinian state, but it became a cover for regime without
change

The question then, is not what to "give" Sharon, but when will
Bush return to his bold vision of refusing to give in to Arab
radicalism. Such a return to boldness would begin by ruling out
the any Palestinian "return" to Israel as a matter of principle,
not just through a supposed Israeli veto over the number of
Palestinian immigrants. It is a sad commentary on the state of
the West that, to begin to fight terrorism in earnest, Bush had
to defy almost all of enlightened world opinion.

-- Jerusalem Post, Jerusalem

U.S. prisoner abuse

The abuse of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison has opened
the U.S. to criticism from all sides, including the United
Nations.

The UN has turned a blind eye to far greater abuses than those
at Abu Ghraib.

It condemned Saddam Hussein in numerous resolutions but
allowed him to enrich himself (and the UN and other countries)
for more than a decade under the "oil for food" program, all the
while torturing and killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

It did nothing to halt the slaughter of the people of Rwanda,
or Argentina's "dirty war," or Cuba's recent crackdown on
dissidents.

All of America's alleged "abuses" in Iraq cannot even begin to
compare with those that take place routinely in many of the
nations that so enjoy condemning us now.

-- The Courier, Findlay, Ohio

The Brown vs. Board decision

Fifty years later, the Supreme Court's landmark decision in
the Topeka, Kansas, case of Brown vs. Board of Education offers a
striking example of the power of the law - but also its
limitations - in provoking social change.

Today, desegregation often has given way to resegregation.
Most white students across the country still have little contact
with black or Hispanic students - and vice versa. Schools in
Illinois and New York are the most segregated for black students,
says Harvard researcher Gary Orfield, the primary author of a
report on the subject. For Latinos, schools in New York and
California are the most segregated. And even schools that appear
integrated often turn out to be segregated by classrooms - with
more whites and Asian-Americans in classes for the gifted, and
more blacks and Latinos in classes for those with special needs.

No one mandates today's resegregation through "Jim Crow" laws
or "whites only" signs. The new resegregation results from
differences in income more than skin color. Brown helped launch a
new era of civil rights demonstrations, confrontations,
legislation and reforms that opened doors to new black
opportunities. Parents who can afford to move to districts with
better schools do so. But too many non-white students are
relegated to substandard schools and resources.

America is a better place than it was before Brown. The
decision helped Americans open up opportunities and broaden their
horizons. Although black and Latino students don't have to sit
next to white students in order to learn and perform well, all
students benefit from exposure to others who come from
backgrounds that are different from their own.

-- Chicago Tribune

Drug importation

The Bush administration didn't exactly wave the white flag of
surrender to legal prescription drug reimportation, but HHS
Secretary Tommy Thompson last week signaled that victory is in
sight for the pro-importation forces. Count Thompson's
acknowledgment of inevitability as a pivotal moment in the siege
against the drug industry's Fortress PhRMA.

The industry's lobbying stranglehold on American prescription
prices is yielding to the obvious in the markets and political
life in a country where unfairness has great power to mobilize
citizens to demand redress from government.

Pressing for legal reimportation of drugs that cost less in
other countries has been a popular, easy issue for progressive
officeholders such as Sen. Mark Dayton. In the current Washington
reality, though, the leadership of Republicans is crucial to
getting the job done on affordable prescription drugs.

-- Saint Paul Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minnesota

The war in Chechnya

Vladimir Putin has decided the war in Chechnya doesn't exist.
Less than a week ago, during his investiture address marking the
start of a second mandate, the president barely mentioned
Chechnya.

Three days later on May 9, a terror attack in the Grozny
stadium ... reminded us in horror that Chechnya is still at war.

Relaunched five years ago by Mr. Putin, that dirty war goes
on. With each morning, the cadavers of those tortured overnight
are placed at the end of a street.

Mr. Putin can count on the complicity of Westerners, of the
United States and Europeans. No senatorial inquiry commission
here, no court martialed soldiers, no ONG reports.

Silence. There is no war in Chechnya.

-- Le Monde, Paris

President Nelson Mandela

Ten years ago yesterday President Nelson Mandela officially
assumed the highest office in the land. ...

The next day newspapers across the world splashed the picture
of Mandela and his two deputy presidents - Thabo Mbeki and F.W.
De Klerk - with their hands clasped and arms aloft. Yesterday the
three men were reunited for a special ceremony in parliament.

A sober assessment of the past 10 years might suggest that the
ideals of the covenant spelt out by Mandela on that historic day
have not all been met.

But yesterday it was impossible not to agree with Mandela
himself when he said of the historic events 10 years ago; "Let us
refrain from chauvinistic breast-beating, but let us not also
underrate what we have achieved in establishing a stable and
progressive democracy where we take freedoms seriously; in
building national unity in spite of decades and centuries of
apartheid and colonial rule; in creating a culture in which we
increasingly respect the dignity of all."

-- The Cape Times, Cape Town, South Africa
---------------------------------------------------------------

The Egyptian Gazette, Cairo, Egypt, on Bush's Middle East
policies:

President George W. Bush may pride himself on being the first
U.S. president to evince backing for the creation of a
Palestinian state to live side by side within internationally
recognized borders with Israel. But in the eyes of many people in
the Arab world, he has hardly moved to make his two-state formula
a reality.

Last month, Bush enraged Arabs when he endorsed Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon's unilateral plan to retain big chunks of
the occupied West Bank and opposed the return of millions of
Palestinians displaced since the creation of Israel in 1948. Bush
cited what he termed as realities on the ground for his glaring
tilt toward Israel.

In an apparent bid to mollify Arabs' rage, Bush said during
a joint press conference with King Abdullah II of Jordan that the
United States would not prejudice the outcome of any future talks
between Palestinians and Israelis. Despite its embarrassing woes
in Iraq, the Bush administration is required to put its policy on
Mideast peacemaking in shape and vigorously move to help
Palestinians' statehood dream come true. This will certainly ease
the American quandary in Iraq.

---

El Pais, Madrid, Spain, on Spanish troops in Iraq:

Spanish troops should have never gone to Iraq. And they should
have left even earlier when the U.S. tried to force them to
follow the erroneous shift in U.S. policy from a defensive to an
offensive mission.

General Jose Enrique de Ayala, adjunct to the commander of the
Polish-Spanish brigade, warned in a report at the beginning of
April that the U.S. tried to pressure Spanish forces into taking
offensive actions for which they had no legal authorization, and
the hunt for the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was a mistaken
strategy.

If there were any doubts, the horrors of the torture of Iraqi
prisoners confirms that leaving Iraq was the best moral option
and the most sensible from Spain's military point of view.

The acting Aznar government fulfilled its role by passing de
Ayala's report to the Socialists, but there has not been a single
word of criticism (from the former government) about the absurd
U.S. war.

---

The Fiji Sun, Suva, Fiji, on the status of civilian personnel
in Iraq:

The death of Ratu Sakiusa Lalabalavu, a Global Risks
Strategies officer working in Iraq, brings into sharp focus the
difficulties posed by the outsourcing of military functions by
coalition forces there.

Increasingly, civilian personnel are doing armed tasks
previously undertaken by the military. The cost of maintaining a
fully armed, equipped and protected soldier in the field is far
higher than the cost of an outsourced, lightly armed civilian who
can do the same job, particularly when that civilian comes from a
Third World nation and lacks the financial and benefit
expectations of, say, a British or American citizen.

Still, the terms and conditions are a Godsend to many families
in Fiji, but those signing up for service with private defense
companies in Iraq or elsewhere should be aware of the loopholes
and pitfalls before donning the uniform.

... But by signing up with those private security firms some
call mercenaries the employees enter a legal (and probably moral)
twilight zone.

... It seems that, in the case of the Fiji operatives at
least, if they die at the hands of an aggressor, their lives are
worth more than if they die of natural causes while on duty in
Iraq. Now Ratu Sakiusa's widow is left without a decent
compensation payout because her husband didn't die in combat, but
of a heart attack.

---

The Guardian, London, on the Bush administration's response to
U.S. mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners:

Mr. Rumsfeld did not apologize for the Red Cross reports of
unarmed Iraqi prisoners being shot to death by United States
military personnel. ... He expressed no regret for employing
private contractors to question people who were accused of no
crime, then hiding their sadistic behavior from public scrutiny.
He never mentioned how sorry he might be for turning over
captives to other governments using even cruder torture methods.
He showed no contrition for continuing to hide hundreds of people
in Guantanamo Bay away from the law.

Such leaders have placed themselves outside the bounds of
international law, their own code of justice and their much-
admired constitution. In doing so, they have also removed the
protection of law from those who follow their orders. ...

The Iraq revelations have given much of the world its voice
back. ... We need to hear now from others about how they believe
the torture system came about, and what changes they propose. We
need to hear from John Kerry. And we need to hear from Tony Blair
too. Above all, we need to have a sign from President Bush that
he understands his mistake, not the mistakes of a handful of ill-
trained reservists acting out the policies of intelligence
services. That sign could be given by presidential order, no
permission slip needed from Congress, from coalition partners or
from the United Nations. Close Guantanamo.
---

The Daily Telegraph, London, on British soldiers in Iraq:

Now it is British soldiers who are in the dock. Yesterday's
newspapers read like a lengthy charge-sheet against the Army.

Along with the accusation that troops from the Queen's
Lancashire Regiment tortured Iraqi prisoners, it is alleged that
soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers were involved in
sexual assault, that British observers were present at Abu Ghraib
prison while American guards were mistreating inmates, that our
forces were implicated in the shooting of Iraqi detainees and
civilians, and that details of at least some cases of abuse were
presented by the Red Cross in February.

It is important to emphasize that nothing has been proved
against our Servicemen. ...

That said, it is vital that we get to the bottom of what
happened. ...

The Army is, of course, a human institution, and prone to
human failings. ... If soldiers have abused their positions, they
should be given exemplary and expeditious punishment; and let us
hear no nonsense about young boys far from home facing difficult
circumstances.

Our reputation as a country depends on our comportment abroad.
If our servicemen have been unfairly blackguarded, they will be
entitled to a handsome apology from several newspapers. But if
they are guilty, they are a disgrace to Britain.
--- MORE[

GetAP 1.00 -- MAY 14, 2004 00:54:53