The war on intolerance

The war on intolerance

On the subject of Islam and religious extremism, Indonesia's
President, Megawati Soekarnoputri, is impeccably qualified to
speak. Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, has
consistently rejected the idea of itself as a theocratic Islamic
state. Ms Megawati is a devout Muslim who passionately defends
religious tolerance.

Violence, she says, can never be justified on religious
grounds and her Government's determined crackdown on Indonesian
extremists has made her a valuable ally in the U.S.-led war on
terrorism. The question, then, may be whether the U.S. and its
allies, such as Australia, are willing to listen when she speaks
on Islam and the world.

This week Ms Megawati opened an international conference in
Jakarta of Muslim leaders on the promotion of moderate, peaceful
Islam. The delegates from Islamic universities and governments
from more than 40 nations argued that Muslims themselves must
present a peaceful face if negative stereotypes -- which link
Islam to terrorism and violence -- are to be effectively
confronted. Islam, they say, must embrace modernity and co-exist
peacefully alongside other religions.

However, Ms Megawati also insists the war on terrorism cannot
be won without addressing the counterproductive, and what she
says are unjust, attitudes of the West towards majority Muslim
nations. At a political level, these include the statelessness of
the Palestinian people, the invasion of Iraq, and the scant
influence the Muslim world wields on the world stage. She
mentions especially the absence of a permanent Muslim
representative on the United Nations Security Council. At a
grassroots level, there is abject poverty, powerlessness and
ignorance in some communities. Among others, there is the common
perception that the West has stigmatised Muslims in general
because of the brutality and violence of extremists.

Ms Megawati is not playing the victim card. She admonishes
Islamic scholars, telling them they must formulate a more open,
more diverse socio-religious concept and engage with Western
ideas and technology. Otherwise, she warns, their societies will
be left behind.

Any moves by Muslim leaders to promote moderation and to
engage with the West can only benefit global efforts to combat
extremism. The soul-searching this demands of Muslims includes
the rejection of their negative stereotypes of the U.S. and its
allies. There is clearly similar room for a more sophisticated
and critical self-appraisal among Western leaders of the wider
consequences of the war on terrorism. Listening to Muslim leaders
such as Megawati Soekarnoputri is a good start.

-- The Sydney Morning Herald.

On efforts to arrest war criminals

They are wanted for war crimes (in Bosnia). These two, Serb
leader Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic, have been on the
run from the international community's justice system for eight
years. All attempts to arrest them and bring them to trial have
been fruitless, even though NATO has had tens of thousands of
soldiers in Bosnia in recent years.

Have they looked hard enough? Has the effort been as it should
be?

The contrast is striking when compared to the massive hunt
American forces undertook for former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein
and his closest associates. Saddam is now in jail after he was
humiliatingly pulled from a hole in the ground in the middle of
December.

Karadzic and Mladic managed to get away. If NATO has not taken
seriously the task of finding war criminals in an area where they
have large forces, it is a serious blot on the alliance's record.
War criminals must be brought to justice as quickly as possible.

-- Aftenposten, Oslo, Norway

Iranian elections

These elections had very little to do with democracy. More
than 2,000 candidates had been removed from the lists on the
orders of the hard-line controlled Guardian Council. The most
important reformist parties boycotted the elections. Even the
official turnout was only 50.6 percent when previously it had
been 67 percent. In the capital, Tehran, only about a third of
eligible voters turned out.

Any immediate changes in Iranian policy will probably not be
very radical because already during the previous Parliament's
term Khamenei and the Guardian Council exercised almost
dictatorial powers. The attempts by Parliament and President
Mohammad Khatami to steer Iran in the direction of a genuine
democracy were strangled time and time again. Now, Khatami is
largely on his own. The great hopes held in him have almost
completely faded.

As far as foreign policy is concerned, Iran is in a precarious
position. It has tried to ease relations with the European Union
and has inched open the door for the first time to inspections of
its nuclear program. Relations with the U.S. remain extremely
cold. The real reins of foreign relations most probably have been
held by Khamenei the whole time, and not by the president or
Parliament, so the likelihood of any striking changes is not very
great.

-- Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki, Finland

Israeli barrier

Israel has of course the right to defend itself against
suicide terror. No country can stand the recurrent human
slaughter which Israel is exposed to by the Palestinian
extremists. A security barrier should be a last resort when all
other alternatives have been tested. This is not the case under
(Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon's leadership. There has
been no Israeli interest in a negotiated solution with the
Palestinians. But in the current situation, it is hard to deny
Israel the right to have a temporary barrier to protect its
people. But it must in this case run along the so called green
line, that is the 1967 border. One could possibly imagine certain
deviations when it comes to areas that Israel and the
Palestinians already have agreed on should go to Israel in future
"land tradings."

But as long as Israel chooses to draw the line at its own
discretion, the rest of the world must continue to protest, also
through the Hague court.

-- Expressen, Stockholm, Sweden

On repealing a right

President Bush made it official Tuesday: He wants to add an
element of discrimination to the U.S. Constitution.

Bush announced his support for a constitutional amendment to
ban same-sex marriage because "a few judges and local
authorities" are undermining a "fundamental institution of
civilization."

Nonsense. The real reason behind this renewed pitch for the
amendment is the prospect that laws that discriminate against
same-sex marriage are not sustainable under the equal protection
provisions of the 14th Amendment. At some point, perhaps soon,
the issue will reach the U.S. Supreme Court -- and the reasoning
it used to strike down a Texas sodomy law last year may similarly
invalidate laws that deny gays and lesbians the full rights and
responsibilities of marriage. This nation has just begun to
confront the many enduring inequities faced by same-sex couples.

The president's announcement is likely to elevate gay marriage
as an issue in the 2004 election. The purpose of constitutional
amendments should be to address the oversights -- or, in some
cases, hypocrisies and contradictions -- of our founding fathers.
The threshold for a constitutional amendment is substantial, and
properly so. It would require approval of two-thirds of the U.S.
House and Senate, and ratification by 38 states.

Even Americans who are uneasy about the notion of same-sex
marriage should object to this assault on the Constitution.
-- San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco

Elections in Afghanistan

The possibility that Osama bin Laden may be caught during the
ensuing military operations along the Afghan-Pakistan border has
obscured the primary reason for all this activity: to allow
Afghanistan to hold an election this summer. The overwhelming
concern is that the rise of a Taliban insurgency in south and
east Afghanistan will make a credible election more or less
impossible. The Taliban has not hidden its determination to
sabotage the democratic process. Its followers distribute
leaflets in Afghanistan promising to kill anyone who even
registers.

By most accounts, Islamabad agreed to mobilize its soldiers
with some reluctance. But pressure from Washington and recent
assassination attempts on Pervez Musharraf brought (Pakistan) on
board. Pakistani troops are expected to gradually spread
themselves throughout the border areas, flush out Taliban and al-
Qaeda members and, in some cases, drive them across the border
into the hands of waiting U.S.-Afghan troops. Even if the
military cards all fall into place, other problems remain. For
example, only 1 million of Afghanistan's estimated 10.5 million-
strong electorate have so far been placed on the rolls. The
delicate balance between the Kabul-based Hamid Karzai government
and the various warlords may yet unravel.

Afghanistan's chances of putting together an elected
legislature by June seem dim, but Mr. Karzai still hopes to pull
off a presidential election. All nations, including India, who
have a stake in the success of post-Taliban Afghanistan want to
see some forward political movement in that country. Even an
imperfect election should be seen as acceptable. But even a half-
poll will require that the present military action succeed in
putting the lid on the Taliban for a few months. Bin Laden's
capture is more exciting, but of secondary importance.
-- Hindustan Times, New Delhi, India

EU's relationship with Russia

Once upon a time, there was a clear line in Russian foreign
policy.

The admission of former eastern bloc states to NATO was seen
as a bad thing, but the expansion of the European Union was in
principle a good thing.

The approach of what used to be the enemy alliance was seen as
a danger in Moscow, but the European Union coming closer was seen
as an opportunity.

Today, that seems to have been reversed.

Russia is relaxed about the NATO entry of more eastern
Europeans, but the EU's eastward expansion on May 1 is causing
worry in Moscow.

Russia is concerned about its exports to the new EU countries
and, apparently, also about the well-being of Russians in the
Baltic states. ...

The (European) Union has a problem with its Russia policy.
That is bad, but what is worse is that it has a problem with
Russia.

-- Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Munich, Germany

Israel's security barrier

It is often said that one man's terrorist is another man's
freedom fighter. By extension, is not one man's "Berlin Wall"
another man's "peace line?" Israel's controversial construction
of a security fence between Jewish and Palestinian areas, which
has landed the government of Ariel Sharon in the International
Court of Justice in the Hague, is widely condemned in this
country and elsewhere as a unilateral repartition of the Holy
Land.

But few of those who have loudly denounced Israel, including
Jack Straw and the Foreign Office, seem to remember that similar
barriers exist in a part of the United Kingdom. We refer, of
course, to the "peace lines" of Belfast, first erected in the
early 1970s at the behest of the British Army. Israel's fence
exists to prevent suicide bombings. The Belfast peace lines exist
to prevent large-scale inter-communal disorders such as the
burning of Catholic Bombay Street by loyalist mobs in 1969. But a
barrier is a barrier, whatever its name. Good fences cannot quite
be said to have made good neighbors, to use Robert Frost's famous
phrase in his poem Mending Wall, but they have ensured that the
very worst has not happened between two sets of people who can no
longer live with each other. And they have served the additional
purpose of releasing soldiers and policemen from guarding every
sectarian interface.

But what of the effects of such barriers within these walled
communities? To some degree, the existence of these barriers is
also symptomatic of the decision by the British and Israeli
states to relinquish a measure of their responsibilities in
hostile areas.
-- The Daily Telegraph, London

Post-Milosevic Serbia

Slobodan Milosevic was overthrown in 2000 but his legacy
continues to poison Serb society. Under his regime organized
crime flourished because it was run by top officials in the
administration. After his fall these sinister networks survived.
They have blighted Serbian society ever since.

Now we have two more murder trials. That of the men accused of
assassinating reformist Serbian Premier Zoran Djindic a year ago
has been going on two months. The prosecution of ten people
accused of murdering Milosevic's rival Ivan Stambolic just before
the 2000 presidential elections an act which led to the Serbian
dictators fall began yesterday.

The overwhelming impression is that Serbia is still a country
dominated by sinister forces where intimidation, bribery and
hidden loyalties to the ruthless old guard play an important
role. This is the way many ordinary decent Serbs see it. The
euphoria that followed Milosevic's ouster has been succeeded by a
quiet despair. The evidence for this is that three times now
voter turnout at presidential elections has been so low that the
polls are invalid. As long as Serbs do not believe that they are
their own masters, and as long as Serb politicians allow their
divisions to be exploited by shadowy elements of the former
regime, they will continue in instability. That is why these two
trials are so important. If the investigators have done their
work properly and the prosecutions are successful, they can begin
to squeeze out the poison in Serbia's system.

-- ArabNews, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

--------------

Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo, on the Iranian elections:

It cannot be said that the conservatives' overwhelming victory
translates into huge voter support by the Iranian people. A low
voter turnout speaks for itself. Perhaps the real problem that
the election outcome raised is that a significant number of
voters expressed their discontent and mistrust in the theocracy
by abstaining from casting their ballots.

The Iranian people do not want the conservatives to delay
economic reforms implemented by the Khatami administration. Nor
do they want the judiciary to overtly crack down on anti-regime
forces or to take a step backward by antagonizing the rest of the
world on the problem of Iran's nuclear development. Unless the
conservatives show a flexible and realistic attitude, they surely
will lose the people's trust in them very soon.

Democratization of an Islamic country must be carried out by
trial and error. The international community should be
encouraging Iran to move forward and be carefully watching it
each step it takes toward this goal.

---

The Morning Call, Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Ralph Nader:

Give Ralph Nader high marks for fidelity to his political
beliefs. On political strategy, however, he flunks.

Mr. Nader, 69, announced on Sunday that he will be a candidate
for president, and will seek to get on the ballot in all 50
states as an independent. ...

Democratic leaders and the leadership of the Green Party,
whose banner he carried in 2000, urged him not to run. Many in
the consumer organizations he founded 50 years ago likewise don't
want him to run. Even the progressive magazine The Nation, which
first published a car-safety article by him in 1959, urged him
not to run in a long editorial headed "Dear Ralph."

... Without party backing, his blip on the political radar
screen will be dim and fleeting. The likelihood of him affecting
the November outcome is smaller than four years ago.

So, this is more like good, clean fun than a crisis for the
republic. Damage done will be mostly to Mr. Nader's own
reputation and message.

... For now, he fosters the belief that he will risk seeing
President Bush be re-elected for the sake of his own campaign.
That tells Democrats that the process he prescribes is more
important than the result or product -- exactly the charge he
laid at the feet of the unscrupulous in business and government
all those years ago.

---

The Miami Herald, Miami, on identifying legitimate asylum
claims from Haiti:

Once again, a calamity is brewing in Haiti. Once again, we
fear that the U.S. government will slam the door on Haitians with
valid asylum claims, without even the pretense of a screening,
and return them to face persecution, if not death, in their
homeland. ...

The climate is ripe for an exodus of desperate people taking
to the seas seeking the safety of distant shores. We hope that
diplomatic efforts and international intervention prevents such a
crisis. But should it come to pass, the Bush administration
shouldn't repeat the mistakes of the past or continue current
policies that deny refugees the chance to earn asylum protection
on the merit of their cases.

Our government has an obligation to protect U.S. shores from
an uncontrolled human tide. And not all of those who flee would
have a legitimate claim to asylum. People who aren't specific
targets because of their activism or other cause may not qualify
for asylum. Nevertheless, international refugee law dictates that
governments, including ours, give persons with legitimate claims
a fair shot at proving their case. ...

The political violence raging in Haiti suggests that more, not
fewer, people may be forced to flee. Those with valid claims
deserve a genuine opportunity to prove their case.

---

The Cincinnati Post, Cincinnati, Ohio, on holding suspected
enemy combatants:

The U.S. Supreme Court came to the right decision Friday when
it agreed to decide whether the Bush administration can hold U.S.
citizens indefinitely, without access to lawyers or courts, when
they are suspected of being enemy combatants.

This administration has made a sweeping and highly
questionable assertion of government power. It has established an
extralegal maximum-security prison at Guantanamo that now holds
650 prisoners, mostly captured in Afghanistan and alleged to be
hard-core Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters.

The screening of the prisoners, some of them there two years,
has gone slowly; only about 80 have been returned to their home
countries. ...

The administration has a still-evolving plan for military
tribunals to try some of the prisoners, but none have been yet.
And officials told the New York Times that if a prisoner was
convicted by a tribunal and served a sentence, they might still
hold the prisoner indefinitely. This would reduce the tribunal to
a charade.

The Supreme Court, it appears, will eventually address all the
major legal issues involving the Guantanamo detainees. In the
meantime, Congress ought to provide stronger oversight of the
Bush administration's legal improvisations involving those
prisoners.

----

The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, on the legacy of Flight 800:

Fuel tank explosions on airliners have killed 346 people,
including everyone aboard TWA Flight 800. That plane blew up just
after it took off from New York's John F. Kennedy Airport in
1996.

But the Federal Aviation Administration says that such
accidents need never happen again, thanks to a technological
breakthrough. FAA researchers have developed a system that
replaces oxygen in center fuel tanks with nitrogen or another
inert gas that does not produce flammable vapors.

FAA Administrator Marion Blakey called the innovation a major
moment in the safety of aviation. ...

The FAA wants all new planes to be equipped with the system
and is proposing a safety requirement that would compel airlines
to retrofit existing Boeing and Airbus jets, beginning in
2006. ...

The FAA's decision to go forward with the new technology is
reasonable, given the risk posed by oxygen in fuel tanks. ... The
cost per plane is $140,000 to $220,000, and with 3,800 commercial
jets involved, the total cost could be as high as $700 million.

Not surprisingly, the airline industry isn't rushing to
embrace the idea. ...

Mr. Blakey said it would be irresponsible not to go forward
with what he described as a practical solution. ...
---

GetAP 1.00 -- FEB 27, 2004 09:59:13
;AP;
ANPA ..r..
Editorial Roundup
By The Associated Press=
JP/

By The Associated Press=
Here are excerpts from editorials in newspapers around the world:
---
This Day, Johannesburg, South Africa:

President Robert Mugabe's announcement on Monday night that he
was not prepared to hold talks with the main opposition party,
the Movement for Democratic Change, will have come as no surprise
to most Zimbabweans. After all, putting MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai on trial for treason seems a strange way of
negotiating. ...
However, the news may come as more of a surprise to South
Africans, who have been assured by President Thabo Mbeki that he
is mediating between the ruling ZANU-PF and MDC to ensure they
negotiate an end to the country's political deadlock. ...

By ruling out talks with the MDC leader, Mugabe raises some
awkward questions for South Africa an its policy of "quiet
diplomacy." Mbeki has lobbied the leaders of the Commonwealth and
the European Union not to renew sanctions or the suspension of
Zimbabwe on the grounds that these talks would soon happen.

If this is not the case, there are only two possible
explanations.

One, South Africa has been duped all along by a recalcitrant
dictator whose methods are increasingly at odds with Mbeki's
vision of an African renaissance.

Two, the pretense of talks was a fig leaf disguising a policy
by Pretoria to block a union-based opposition party and back
Mugabe in his struggle to hold on to power despite increasingly
undemocratic methods.

If the first is true, it makes South African diplomacy look
naive.

If the second is true, Pretoria will need to find another fig
leaf.

---

---
Daily Gleaner, Kingston, Jamaica, on coping with Haitian refugees:

Under its international treaty obligations and on a 'good
neighborly' basis, Jamaica will have to take in Haitian refugees
fleeing the political chaos in their country, but such an influx
of asylum seekers could hardly come at a worse time. Jamaica is
facing its own economic crisis and funds for taking care of
refugees will be hard to come by without international
contributions from large countries like the U.S., Canada and,
especially, France which, as an ex-colonial power in Haiti's
history, has a strong moral obligation to help find solutions for
the present state of affairs.

If large numbers of Haitians do arrive in Jamaica, the cost of
dealing with them could be enormous. There is not only the
problem of shelter and food but the logistics of health care.
Haiti is a country with a high incidence of diseases like AIDS
and tuberculosis and we would need to be especially careful in
how the refugees are screened and, if found to be unhealthy, how
to keep the sick safely isolated. ...

In an election year, America will not welcome another flood of
Haitian refugees into Florida where President Bush's brother is
the Governor. Perhaps Jamaica could use diplomatic back channels
to get the U.S. to cover the costs of any refugees we are forced
to accept perhaps in some kind of secured encampment until
normality is restored in their homeland.

There are some who feel that Jamaica, given its present state
of crime and corruption, could well become another Haiti. Perhaps
what is happening there is a providential warning of what we must
avoid at all costs even as we extend a hand of friendship to
those who have no choice but to flee their country.
---

Corriere della Sera, Milan, Italy, on debate over postwar
Iraq:

Effective multilateralism, as rightly desired by the
Europeans, will never be achieved if it is conceived as against
the U.S.; nor will it be achieved without the U.S..

If Kofi Annan was asked whether he wanted the withdrawal of
the coalition troops before taking action, he would reply ...
that he needs security, that is, armed forces that the UN does
not have.

In "robust" military missions, even those with a UN mandate,
the UN cannot command.

It would be a waste of time to think about retracting forces
today just to send them back tomorrow under a UN-NATO framework,
which is what is hopefully being prepared.

Taking this reality into account and confronting it
responsibly does not take anything away from legitimate
opposition to the war -- perhaps it adds to it.

One of the important lessons of the war in Iraq could be to
put an end to the era of ambiguity: the UN, the U.S. and Europe,
are not in different worlds, they need each other.

But in order that this necessary relationship also produces
results substantial reforms are necessary -- among which the
definition of new criteria for the legitimate use of force.
---

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GetAP 1.00 -- FEB 27, 2004 09:59:00