One man's terrorist and State Sponsored Terrorism

India has been the long time one time supporter of the Tamil insurgency in Sri Lanka. Pakistan created the Taliban to enforce a friendly neighbor in Afghanistan. The US and Saudi Arabia created the precursors of Al Qaeda to help defeat the Russians in Afghanistan. It's all a game of deception and misdirection that needs to stop!

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One's man terrorist is another's freedom fighter. That at least was the comforting logic employed by a multitude of nations to justify their support for insurgents indulging in violence against civilian populations. In the past few months though, enough has happened to justify a more civilized course of action by all countries.

Three of Asia's most-wanted terrorists have been killed over the

course of the past few months alone: Velupillai Prabhakaran of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka in May, Baitullah Mehsud of the Pakistani Taliban in August and Noordin Mohammad Top of the Jemaah Islamiah in September in Indonesia. The apparent trigger for the successes was a change in heart of the terrorists' key sponsors.

Many other terrorists have been either captured or killed, but the stories of these three terrorists point to the use of "irregulars" to do the dirty job of various countries; and particularly in their own neighborhoods.

Details via Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan.

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• Sri Lanka expels UN communications official (ctv.ca)


• UN holds 'urgent' Sri Lanka talks (news.bbc.co.uk)


• Sri Lanka: 'Tamil heritage for sale in Colombo' (tamilnet.com)


• English Bishops condemn conditions in Sri Lanka camps (tamilnet.com)


• BBC: UN patience wears thin in Sri Lanka (tamilnet.com)


• "Sri Lanka, stop" says Le Monde (tamilnet.com)


• Sri Lanka pledges to resettle displaced civilians (seattletimes.nwsource.com)


• Leak reveals India Maoist threat (news.bbc.co.uk)


• US Orchestrates Pakistan-India Talks While Kashmir Smolders (citizengkar.wordpress.com)
• Bombshell: Bin Laden Worked for US Until 9/11 (citizengkar.wordpress.com)
• US's 'arc of instability' just gets bigger (citizengkar.wordpress.com)
• Obama said Wavering on Troop Escalation in Afghanistan (citizengkar.wordpress.com)
• Are the Taliban Beating NATO on Logistics? Why Washington Needs Iran and Russia (citizengkar.wordpress.com)
• Taliban's bombs came from US, not Iran (citizengkar.wordpress.com)

Myanmar Military Sells Out Disaster Victims

Bloggers Unite - Blogging for Human Rights
In the most cynical act I can recall, Myanmar's military leaders have denied the right to life of tens thousands of refugees of Cyclone Nargis for greed and political reasons. Rather than pulling out all stops by accepting all aid possible to save as many lives as possible, the government is deliberately allowing death on a massive scale to ensure they are credited with the aide that does get through, and to allow some aide to cyphoned off to line their pockets. I'm sure they have decided they already have too many people, and the storm presents a means to cull the herd.
New York Times

The directors of several relief organizations in Myanmar said Wednesday that some of the international aid arriving into the country for the victims of Cyclone Nargis was being stolen, diverted or warehoused by the country’s army.


The United States military’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said there was a possibility that “a significant tropical cyclone” — a second big storm — would form within the next 24 hours and head across the Irrawaddy Delta, the region that suffered most from the first storm that struck on May 3.


In Yangon, the main commercial city, winds were already beginning to whip up Wednesday evening, but it was unclear how strong the storm would become.


Thailand’s prime minister, Samak Sundaravej, flew to Yangon on Wednesday to persuade Myanmar’s leaders to allow more foreign aid workers into the country. The members of the military junta told him they were in control of the relief operations and had no need for foreign experts, he told reporters after returning to Bangkok, The Associated Press reported.


The government said there were no outbreaks of disease or starvation among the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the cyclone. In Yangon, Mr. Sundaravej met the prime minister, Lt. Gen. Thein Sein, The A.P. said.


The aid directors in Myanmar declined to be quoted directly on their concerns about the stolen relief supplies for fear of angering the ruling junta and jeopardizing their operations, although Marcel Wagner, country director of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, confirmed that aid was being diverted by the army. He said the issue would become an increasing problem, although he declined to give further details because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Help Myanmar Recover

Bloggers Unite
Please take action both today by sending an online email and then on May 15th by blogging about helping to pick up the pieces in Myanmar.

Laos' 'Lost Tribe' In Plea For Help

The truth about America's wars is stark and never told. Here we see the results of our last war. Our allies have been hunted to genocide, few remain alive and clearly they will be wiped out soon.
The Shia in Iraq know the fickle nature of the US alliance. They died by the thousands after the first Gulf War. More Iraqis will die every day, and a massacre will surely come after the US military leaves Iraq. Sectarian genocide results from an alliance with the US in war.
Read the whole story.
Al Jazeera English

Al Jazeera's correspondent Tony Birtley travelled in secret to the jungles of northern Laos in search of the last fighters of the CIA's "secret army", a remnant from the days of the Vietnam War. This is his account of his journey.

Myanmar Forces Fire on Protesters

New York Times

Government security forces in Myanmar cracked down for a second day today on nationwide protests, firing shots and tear gas, and raiding at least two Buddhist monasteries, where they beat and arrested dozens of monks, according to reports from the city of Yangon.


Further casualties were reported today, following at least half a dozen deaths on Wednesday.


[..]The government of Myanmar began a violent crackdown on Wednesday after tolerating more than a month of growing protests in cities around the country. Facing its most serious challenge since taking power in 1988, the ruling junta is attempting to contain the uprising by the tens of thousands of monks protesting economic hardships and the political repression of the military junta.


Security forces have clubbed and tear-gassed protesters, fired shots into the air, or according to an Associated Press report today, into a crowd, and arrested hundreds of the monks, who are at the heart of the demonstrations.


According to reports, crowds on the streets were larger than on Wednesday, despite the crackdown.


On Wednesday, in a chaotic day of huge demonstrations, shooting, tear gas and running confrontations between protesters and the military, many people were reported injured and half a dozen were reported to have been killed, most of them by gunshots.


A government announcement said security forces in Yangon, the country’s main city, fired at demonstrators who failed to disperse, killing one man. Foreign news agencies and exile groups reported death tolls ranging from two to eight people.


Despite threats and warnings by the authorities, and despite the beginnings of a violent response, tens of thousands of chanting, cheering protesters flooded the streets, witnesses reported. Monks were in the lead, like religious storm troopers, as one foreign diplomat described the scene.


In response to the violence, the United Nations Security Council called an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss the crisis, but China blocked a Council resolution, backed by the United States and European nations, to condemn the government crackdown.

Al Jazeera English

Uppekha is Buddhist monk and member of the All Burma Buddhist Monks Alliance, one of the groups that has led the wave of anti-government protests in Myanmar.


Based at a monastery in the northern city of Mandalay, Uppekha said he and other monks at the monastery wanted to join the protests, but that their monastery had been surrounded by soldiers.


Speaking by telephone from inside the monastery, he told Al Jazeera of the measures the monks were calling for:

There are three steps that we want.

• The first step is to reduce all commodity prices, fuel prices, rice and cooking oil prices immediately.


• The second step – release all political prisoners, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and all detainees arrested during ongoing demonstrations over the fuel price hike.


• The third step – enter a dialogue with pro-democracy forces for national reconciliation immediately, to resolve the crisis and difficulties facing and suffered by the people.

Confrontation Seems Inevitable in Myanmar

One of the most oppressive regimes is about to crush a movement of Buddhist monks seeking democracy. China is the governments major supporter and likely the only country who can persuade them to do differently. It seems unlikely that will happen given the history of Tiananmen Square.
NDTV.com

Five truckloads of soldiers were seen heading downtown in Myanmar's largest city Tuesday soon after tens of thousands of people led by Buddhist monks defied orders to stay off the streets and marched in another peaceful anti-government protest.


Monks have taken over leadership of anti-government protests that began over a month ago, leading marches for the past eight days that are the largest anti-government protests since a 1988 pro-democracy uprising was brutally suppressed by the military.


The soldiers' movements in Yangon followed announcements by the junta earlier in the day warning monks not to take part in the demonstrations and the public to stay at home or risk arrest. Two army divisions were either already in or moving toward Yangon from outlying areas, including the 22nd, which took part in the suppression of the 1988 uprising, according to diplomats and ethnic guerrillas. ''They (the 22nd) are leaving Karen State to go to Yangon. They could get there pretty quickly. By tomorrow, maybe today,'' said Col Ner Dah Mya, a leader of the Karen National Union, which is fighting the central government. The 77th Division was already in Yangon but not yet deployed, according to an Asian diplomat in the city who demanded anonymity, citing protocol.


The maroon-robed monks, accompanied by cheering supporters, marched for the eighth day of peaceful protests from Yangon's golden Shwedagon Pagoda, while similar shows of defiance were held in the country's second largest city, Mandalay, and the ruby mining town of Mogok.


A monk who addressed the crowd vowed the protests would continue until the government apologizes for mistreating monks at an earlier demonstration in northern Myanmar. ''The protest is not merely for the well-being of people but also for monks struggling for democracy and for people to have an opportunity to determine their own future,'' one monk told The Associated Press. ''People do not tolerate the military government any longer.''


The Asian Human Rights Commission, a private organization based in Hong Kong, said the protesters were being threatened with a colonial-era law under which the junta can ''command any unlawful assembly to disperse'' and if it does not to ''proceed to disperse such assembly by (military) force.'' An assembly of more than five can amount to breaking the law.


The protests in Yangon reached 100,000 on Monday and were the largest since the pro-democracy uprising 19 years ago. The authorities did not stop the protests, even as they built to a scale and fervor that rivaled the 1988 uprising, when the military fired on peaceful crowds and killed thousands, terrorizing the country.

Coup de tat in Fiji?

There is mixed signals coming from Fiji. What appears to be a successful bloodless military coup is denied by the military man leading the armed forces. Speculation is running high with so few facts available.
smh.com.au

FIJI'S Prime Minister, Laisenia Qarase, surrounded by bodyguards at his home in Suva last night, declared he would not resign and that he intended to hold a special cabinet meeting today. Mr Qarase said the military's seizure of weapons yesterday from a special division of the police force was illegal and that it was "a sad day for democracy and the rule of law". He confirmed the military had tried to get into his home to seize weapons they thought were there but were turned away by his bodyguards. He also said he had been summoned to the President's home and that military officers had told him he would have to get out of his car at the gate and walk to the residence, which he refused to do, and he was driven away.
Mr Qarase said he was not afraid of anybody. He agreed he was now in an isolated position and it was a matter of waiting to see "how this develops". "If they have the firepower they can do whatever they like," he said. "We will just wait." Mr Qarase said he would continue to fight for democracy in Fiji. Asked whether he expected foreign intervention, he replied that "our neighbours" had stated publicly that they would not intervene in the affairs of his country.
Fiji was virtually in the hands of the military commander, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, with all police weapons seized and roadblocks around Suva, the capital. The military not only disarmed the Police Tactical Response Division, the country's only armed police unit, but also all bodyguards of ministers, including Mr Qarase's bodyguard. Commodore Bainimarama held a news conference last night in which he said the weapons had been seized to prevent any "dissident" elements from threatening the military or the people. He called on anyone who was contemplating a "criminal act" against the military or the people not to do so. He said it was his intention that the police and military work together and that the weapons had been taken away to prevent any conflict.


As the commodore spoke, truckloads of his soldiers were being dispatched all over Suva, and last night all exits and entry points in the capital were controlled by the military. Commodore Bainimarama declined to say at the news conference whether he was the head of government.

However, government sources in New Zealand and Australia suggest there is shaky support for the military commander within the military, so it seems likely that there will be further changes. New Zealand and Australia are also warning of sanctions should the military seize power.
FT.com

Australian warships are on standby to help with a possible evacuation of Australians left stranded by a military coup. Australia and New Zealand have insisted that they were not planning a military intervention, but warned that Fiji would face sanctions if the military seized power. The crisis in Fiji is particularly bad news for Canberra, which had hoped that its more interventionist policy across the Pacific would help promote stability and democracy in the region.


The standoff in Fiji started a month ago with a dispute over an amnesty proposed by the government for people involved in the last coup in Fiji, in 2000. Mr Bainimarama claimed some of the plotters of that coup have in fact been allowed back in government and that the lenient amnesty would merely reinforce the lawlessness and corruption condoned by Mr Qarase.


On Monday, Alexander Downer, the Australian foreign minister, said Fiji was in the midst of a “tortuously complicated situation.” He suggested that the army’s failure to act decisively reflected internal tensions and “a fair bit of resistance’” to Mr Bainimarama’s efforts to oust the government by military means.

Vietnam, Anxious to Counter Balance China, Reaches Out to US

Since the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979, when they fought a bloody three week border war has been worried about its northern border. Both sides claimed victory, however given the little mention China makes of this war and Vietnam's claim of a major victory, I would venture that Vietnam outclassed the Chinese with their battle hardened troops and inflicted most of the casualties. Both sides may have lost as much as 1/3 to 1/2 of their initial committed ground force in the conflict. I think China has been reluctant to push it's military since then and has been working on modernizing it's forces.
As China modernizes there army, Vietnam will have a much harder time defending it's border. So its interest in developing its relationship with the US, acquiring its technology to replace its aging Russian equipment is Vietnam's best hope to maintain its borders.
U.S. Upbeat After Vietnam Talks - Los Angeles Times

U.S. officials had been careful not to raise expectations ahead of Rumsfeld's visit here, particularly given Vietnam's occasionally tense relations with its northern neighbor, China. But after meetings with Defense Ministry officials and Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, Pentagon officials emerged upbeat, saying Hanoi appeared eager to deepen defense cooperation despite the possibility of antagonizing Beijing. "Both sides agreed we wanted to expand things," a Pentagon official involved in the talks said.


Eleven years after the U.S. and Vietnam normalized diplomatic relations, bilateral defense cooperation remains extremely limited. For example, a U.S. Navy destroyer is scheduled to arrive in Vietnam next month, the fourth U.S. naval ship to make a port call in four years, and two Vietnamese officers will arrive in Texas this month for English-language training. As a result, the moves agreed to during Rumsfeld's visit were small steps. But the defense secretary characterized them as important, particularly alongside a recently signed trade deal and progress toward Vietnam's membership in the World Trade Organization.

One in six countries facing food shortage: Climate change main reason

One in six countries facing food shortage: Climate change main reason: -DAWN - International

One in six countries in the world face food shortages this year because of severe droughts that could become semi-permanent under climate change, UN scientists have warned. In a stark message for world leaders who meet in Gleneagles next week to discuss global warming, Wulf Killman, chairman of the UN food and agriculture organisation’s climate change group, said the droughts that have devastated crops across Africa, central America and south-east Asia in the past year are part of an emerging pattern.


“Africa is our greatest worry,” he said. “Many countries are already in difficulties ... and we see a pattern emerging. Southern Africa is definitely becoming drier and everyone agrees that the climate there is changing. We would expect areas which are already prone to drought to become drier with climate change.”


The food and agriculture organisation and the US government, both of which monitor global food shortages, agree that 34 countries are now experiencing droughts and food shortages and others could join them. Up to 30 million people will need assistance because of the droughts and other natural disasters such as the Asian tsunami.

This is just the beginning of the coming changes. Unfortunately, these changes don't have devastating effects on the primary polluters of greenhouse gases that produce global warming. The US heads the list. For more information on Global Warming, this site has a comprehensive list of articles.

Bush Making Peace with Vietnam??

The Agonist - From tonight's Nelson report:

President Bush accepted Prime Minister Phan Van Khai's invitation today (for next year), while extending the hospitality of the White House. Since virtually every step of the official US-Vietnam Summit was carefully pre-scripted and agreed to, the results were both positive and pre-ordained....the US supports WTO accession and hopes to finish this year (although doubts persist on the practicality of this schedule, and negotiations will continue); there will be increased defense cooperation and an intelligence exchange, etc. (no doubt of major interest to China).


Bush and Khai also agreed progress on human and religious rights needed before Congress can be expected to approve any WTO deal. Management issues also persist, partly because the Vietnamese Government didn't coordinate it's own involved bureaucracies, with some resulting confusion; and two US business groups were dueling behind the scenes for primacy. All in all, a metaphor for the types of things Hanoi needs to work on to resolve issues with business and the international community as it grows into the economic and diplomatic life of Asia.

If one is not paying attention to the subject between the lines, one might conclude Bush has changed his stripes. The truth is Vietnam is the only country to have decisively beaten China TWICE in border wars in this century. Bush is after the intellegence Vietnam can offer. This is just another move in the plan to encircle China with US allies to contain it's hegemony. Bush'll be happy to provide all the disinformation he can to Vietnam, so that we can fight the Chinese to the last Vietnamese.

A New Cold War: China's Quest for Energy Security

The increasing competition for oil promises to create lots of opportunity for comflict. Rather than creating incentives to develop alternative renewable energy supplies, Bush marches into a budding Cold War with China. This cold war is destined to go hot at some point in the next couple decades as oil resources peak and begin to fall off just as demand in China and India begins in earnest.
We are going to find ourselves in WWIII if we don't start working on energy alternatives now.
PINR - Setting the Stage for a New Cold War: China's Quest for Energy Security

To China's south, another long-standing maritime territorial dispute in the South China Sea over the Spratly and Paracel islands threatens to be further enflamed by China's quest for energy security. The 130 islands making up the Paracel islands, which have been occupied by China since 1974, are also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan. The 400 islands of the Spratly islands are claimed partially by the Philippines, Brunei, and Indonesia, and are fully claimed by Vietnam, Taiwan and China. Relations between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (A.S.E.A.N.) have improved with China signing up to A.S.E.A.N.'s Treaty of Amity of Friendship and Cooperation in 2003 and all sides signing the Declaration of the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea in 2002. Nevertheless, tensions remain. In violation of the 2002 agreement, five states have permanent military garrisons on the atolls in addition to surveillance facilities under the guise of "bird watching" towers, weather huts and tourist facilities. The fact that Taiwan is not a signatory to any of these agreements is also a cause for concern.


A particular source of tension derives from the sometimes volatile relations between China and Vietnam. Most recently, China has commenced joint pre-exploration studies with the Philippines in the South China Sea, which has been openly opposed by Vietnam. China, meanwhile, has protested to PetroVietnam welcoming international bids for drilling and exploration activities in the disputed waters and Vietnam starting commercial flights and tours of the disputed territory. Both states have engaged in sporadic clashes on at least four occasions, the most violent of which took place in 1988 in which the Chinese sank three Vietnamese naval vessels, killing 76 sailors. Sino-Vietnamese tensions have recently taken a back seat to the burgeoning trade relationship between both states, with China now becoming Vietnam's third largest trading partner. A hotline was also established between both states in August 2004 as part of a commitment to resolve land and sea border disputes by peaceful means. However, as China expands its naval power projection capabilities and becomes increasingly desperate to access potential energy resources in the region, conflict may once again overtake cooperation.


These regional territorial disputes also have the potential to escalate into international conflicts, given the importance of the waterways to international trade and the number of bilateral security commitments between regional states and major world powers, such as between the U.S. and the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand and between numerous Western powers and their former colonies (e.g. the British to Malaysia and Singapore, French to Vietnam). For example, following the Chinese occupation in February 1995 of the Mischief Reef, which is 135 miles west of the Philippine islands of Palawan, the United States conducted naval exercises with the Philippines close to the disputed territory. The joint exercises may be regarded as a warning to China's increasingly aggressive posturing in the region.

Bangladesh: The Next Islamist Revolution?

Not only can we not win the war on terror the way we are going, we can't win the war in Iraq, but the Bush administration policies based on reports from his own intelligence consultants, Islamist recruitment to the Jihad against America is accelerating.
Bangledesh is just the sort of place where the Jihad will grow in the future. This article does a great job of explaining how it is happening.
Magazine > The Next Islamist Revolution?" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/magazine/23BANG.html?ex=1107463938&ei=1&en=40a2becb0f7ba9ca">The New York Times > Magazine > The Next Islamist Revolution?

Foreign journalists in Bangladesh are followed by intelligence agents; people that reporters interview are questioned afterward. Nonetheless, it is possible to travel through Bangladesh and observe the increased political and religious repression in everyday life, and to verify the simple remark by one journalist there: ''We are losing our freedom.'' The global war on terror is aimed at making the rise of regimes like that of the Taliban impossible, but in Bangladesh, the trend could be going the other way. In Bangladesh, ''Islam is becoming the legitimizing political discourse,'' according to C. Christine Fair, a South Asia specialist at the United States Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan, federally financed policy group in Washington. ''Once you don that religious mantle, who can criticize you? We see this in Pakistan as well, where very few people are brave enough to take the Islamists on. Now this is happening in Bangladesh.'' The region, Fair added, has become a haven where jihadis can move easily and have access to a friendly infrastructure that allows them to regroup and train.