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We Bombed the Wrong Side? April 22, 2004 From The National Post, Canada, April 6, 2004 Five years ago our television screens were dominated by pictures of Kosovo-Albanian refugees escaping across Kosovo’s borders to the sanctuaries of Macedonia and Albania. Shrill reports indicated that Slobodan Milosevic’s security forces were conducting a campaign of genocide and that at least 100,000 Kosovo-Albanians had been exterminated and buried in mass graves throughout the Serbian province. NATO sprung into action and, in spite of the fact no member nation of the alliance was threatened, commenced bombing not only Kosovo, but the infrastructure and population of Serbia itself — without the authorizing United Nations resolution so revered by Canadian leadership, past and present. Those of us who warned that the West was being sucked in on the side of an extremist, militant, Kosovo-Albanian independence movement were dismissed as appeasers. The fact that the lead organization...

Fortsatt omvänd etnisk rensning i Kosovo: Alltför genant för världssamfundet På danska och på engelska Dags att kontrollera verkligheten bakom verklighetsföreställningen Tillbaka till ruta ett. Några dagar före femårsdagen av kriget mot det som då kallades Jugoslavien, stack den etniska rensningen åter upp sitt fula huvud på Balkan. Carl Bildt, ytterst kunnig och klarsynt före detta diplomat i området, sade att vi fick se fem år av internationell politik gå upp i rök. Bildt har rätt i huvudsak men hans tidsperspektiv är för kort; det är 15 år av västvärldens politik för konflikt(fel)hantering som har gått upp i rök. Och det är sannerligen vissa som har skäl att försöka tona ner denna katastrof och dess följder: det så kallade världssamfundet och dess allierade den albanska ledningen i Kosovo. När Milosevic och extremisterna på den serbiska sidan begick brott där på 1990-talet, pekades de ut som förövare, ofta innan någon hade...

Reporting Kosovo – violence now proves the stories missed in 1999 were the most important March 22, 2004 The recurrent theme of The First Casualty, the classic account of war reporting through the ages, by Phillip Knightley, is the unforgiving verdict of history on the way conflicts are presented by journalists to their readers and audiences. It recounts a struggle between media and the military, from the earliest authentic frontline despatches, in the Crimea – which exposed a face of war the generals would rather have remained hidden – through World Wars I and II, Vietnam, the 1991 Gulf War and, in more recent editions, Kosovo, which Knightley sees as a ‘final victory’ for military propagandists over the cause of honest reporting. In all these cases, journalism, the first draft of history, had to be substantially redrafted as hindsight showed that important parts of the story – often the most...

Rapport fra World Social Forum 16 februari 2004 World Social Forum, 2004. Mumbai, Indien For mig at se var hovedbudskabet i årets WSF det at den aktuelle økonomiske verdensorden er i dyb krise. Det er desperation der præger den hidsige jagt på profit, hvori også terroristjagten og de dermed begrundede krige har sin del. På en workshop om "Udenlandsk kapital til U-lande??", som Attac-Tyskland afholdt, udtalte Riaz K.Tayob, sydafrikansk økonom, specialiseret i "FDI" (Foreign Direct Investments): "Tro ikke at det bare handler om at DE er grådige, det vil de gerne have os til at tro for at dække over den egentlige årsag. Den hidsige profitjagt der siden 70-erne har opfundet stadig nye veje at udnytte (der er nemlig ikke flere reelle tilgange penge kan produceres på), bunder i at kapitalismen er i krise, en krise der hele tiden fordybes. Derfor er DE desperate, derfor bliver verden et stadig farligere...

Den dystre lærdom om Irak* 16 ferbuar 2004 På attende måned raser med uformindsket styrke debatten, både internationalt og herhjemme, om grundlaget for krigen mod Irak. For de af os, som fra starten påpegede, at den amerikanske (og den britiske) regerings motiver for at vælge krigen havde meget lidt med eventuelle irakiske masseødelæggelsesvåben eller graden af efterlevelse af FN-resolutioner at gøre, er dette ikke overraskende. Trods den omfattende debat er imidlertid nogle afgørende pointer om det nære historiske forløb, som blev fremført af nogle af os, der talte imod krigen, stort set blevet overset eller glemt: 1) I december 1998 beordrede præsident Clinton FNâs våbeninspektører (UNSCOM) trukket ud af Irak, fordi USA og Storbritannien havde besluttet – uden om FNâs Sikkerhedsråd og i øvrigt med aktiv dansk støtte – at gennemføre en bombekampagne mod Irak som "straf" for manglende samarbejde med FN. I sin sidste rapport konkluderede UNSCOM imidlertid dengang,...

Go to Gaza February 16, 2004 Do you want to make the deal of a lifetime? Go to Gaza! The government has kindly laid on armored vehicles for this purpose. Once there, you can obtain the villa you have dreamt about all your life, with two floors and a green lawn, for next to nothing. The State is rich. You can put up greenhouses and produce flowers or vegetables. Once upon a time you could engage Palestinian workers, who would work for a pittance. They had no alternative, because their land was taken away from them. Now this is too dangerous, so you will engage workers from Thailand, who get even less. There are no legal problems, such as a minimum wage, annual vacations, dismissal indemnities or any of that nonsense. Israeli law does not apply. The prevailing law is a relic of the pre-1967 Egyptian occupation, and the conditions...

‘Power and Weakness’ or Challenge and Response? February 6, 2004 Introduction The relationship between the United States and the countries of Western Europe, like most relationships, whether personal or international, is hard to capture in writing. Few of the hundreds of articles devoted to it succeed in presenting in a satisfactory or accurate balance the elements of practice and psychology, of reality and rhetoric, of action and ideology, that compose the whole. There is a constant temptation to exaggerate transatlantic differences or similarities, whether to suit the argument or the prejudice of the writer or merely to reduce the complexities of the true picture to manageable scale for an essay, article or short report. Nor is it easy to capture the dynamics of attitudes on the two sides of the oceans as individual leaders and the political systems and societies they represent try to adapt to changing international realities, including...

Flyktingar i Serbien och Montenegro February 6, 2004 Trehundrasjuttioniotusenetthundratrettiofem. Så många flyktingar finns det i Serbien och Montenegro. Merparten av dem kommer ursprungligen från Kroatien eller Bosnien-Hercegovina och har serbisk etnicitet. 379 135 personer är väldigt många människor. Merparten av alla dessa människor lever i total misär på kollektiva center eller i eget boende i s.k. hus som borde ha varit rivna för länge sedan. Bortsett från den lilla hjälp de får från internationella hjälporganisationer får de klara sig bäst de kan. Det handlar nog inte om en ovilja från de serbiska myndigheternas sida att hjälpa dem utan mer om en total brist på resurser. Efter många års sanktioner, diverse krig och NATO:s bombhärjningar mot bl.a den serbiska infrastrukturen då många tiotusentals arbeten strök med, är det kanske inte helt svårt att förstå. Det finns flyktingar från Kroatien och Bosnien-Hercegovina i Sverige också. Men här kallas de för asylsökare och...

A Fox called Lion January 16, 2004 You really can’t rely on these Arabs. Take this fellow, Qaddafi. For decades he played the clown. The whole world laughed at him (except when he downed a French plane in Chad and the Pan-Am jet over Lockerbie.) His Libya was a "rogue state", an international pariah. He was working on Weapons of Mass Destruction. The Americans hated him, and from time to time bombed him, killing his daughter on one such occasions. You could rely on good old Qaddafi. He supplied us with an alibi for producing all kinds of interesting weapons. Everybody understood that with such people around, Israel needs the doomsday weapon, and that it’s useless to talk about peace. And then, suddenly… Suddenly Qaddafi becomes the darling of the world. Look at him, in his Bedouin robes: a serious man, a sober and pragmatic statesman. Pays a fortune to...

Teach Us to Dance to the Rhythm of Africa January 16, 2004 It’s difficult to imagine a more challenging journey than the one Ginn Fourie faces. She is a senior lecturer in Physiotherapy at the University of Cape Town. After Lyndi’s death she focused on a new direction of study: Reconciliation in SA for a doctoral thesis. For many of her white compatriots it’s a journey into the heart of darkest Africa – a place where the chant "kill the boer, kill the farmer” still inspires fear. How can you possibly travel alone to the seat of the military wing of the Pan Africanist Congress, to the place where the man who gave the order to kill your daughter, is to be honoured by his people? That’s the question Ginn’s been asked countless times. It’s like going into Dingaan’s kraal, a somewhat conservative relative warned her. All sorts of emotions...

REPORTING THE WORLD: March 22, 2002 A hundred-page guide to the latest ideas on war reporting, based on tough, honest debates with 200 top journalists and analysts who together came up with a practical checklist for the ethical reporting of conflict. The book shows how patterns of reporting violence may exert a cumulative influence on the behaviour of parties to a conflict and, therefore, the course of subsequent events. It suggests that conflict analysis skills could help journalists come to grips with their responsibilities, by clarifying the connections between reporting and reality on the ground. There are detailed sections on Israel & the Palestinians; Macedonia; Africa & the DRC; Iraq, and Indonesia. Including practical examples of stories on each conflict demonstrating how each could be radically enhanced if the checklist points are applied. "First class" – Fergal Keane, Special Correspondent, BBC “A thoughtful blend of academic rigour and journalistic experience…...

911 Probe Public Signatures Sought January 9, 2004 9-11 Widow Files rico Lawsuit PHILADELPHIA – Ellen Mariani, whose husband died in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks when UAL 175 was flown into the World Trade Center, has filed suit in a US District Court alleging Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld and other co-defendents had sufficient warning to stop the terrorist attacks but failed to either warn or protect the public. According to a recent CBS News, the Republican 9-11 Commission Chairman agrees: 9/11 Chair: Attack Was Preventable (CBS News — December 18, 2003) For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston…. Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame. See...