The Destroyed Republic of Congo

/ death and destruction / outside the visible media universe /

"I am convinced now, that the lives of Congolese people no longer mean anything to anybody. Not to those who kill us like flies, our brothers who help kill us or those you call the international community. Even God does not listen to our prayers any more and abandons us."

Salvatore Bulamuzi, a member of the Lendu community whose parents, two wives and five children were all killed in recent attacks on the town of Bunia, north-eastern DRC. - from an AI 2003 report

If there was ever any real doubt that Africans are simply not considered important by the rest of the world - and particularly by the rest of the world's media - the sheer fact that the little news item, linked to from this post's title, was indeed, a little news item, should put it to rest. I quote:

Some 1,200 people in the DRC die daily from conflict-related causes. More than 20 per cent of the children die before their fifth birthday and one in 10 die in the first year of life. The refugee agency’s appeal last year for the repatriation and reintegration of Congolese refugees received only 14 per cent of the needed funding, or $10.6 million out of the $75 million required.

Meanwhile, of $14.7 million requested for UNHCR's programme for internally displaced people (IDPs) in a country the size of Western Europe, only $3.2 million had come in.

Now this is not the result of war - this is just the aftermath of a war: the deadliest war after WWII, whose victims direct and indirect numbered by 2004, a year after the peace accord was signed, around 4 million people. These were butchered, fell ill, starved or wasted away in the period of just five years. If the 1,200 figure is any guide we're talking about an extra ~0.8 million dead since the official ceasefire.

No wonder then that the UN has listed the Congo disaster as one of the "10 Stories the World Should Hear More About" or that Reuters had it at the top of its "forgotten" disasters list.

The sheer numbers are so huge as to be almost inconceivable. Yet it turns out that the per capita foreign aid that Congo receives is minimal, when it gets there at all. Why is that? Why is Congo receiving, per capita, 25 times less foreign aid than Kosovo for example? How are the needs prioritized? After all as dire as the situation in Kosovo might be, there certainly aren't any plague epidemics and reports of little girls being boiled alive, so by all indications one would expect a similar level of news exposure and humanitarian aid.

An interesting answer comes from Larry Thompson, Director of Advocacy for Refugees International, in an article posted in the International Council of Voluntary Agencies' website, he suggests:

Why do some humanitarian emergencies receive more attention than others?

Answers to this question usually focus on three topics. First, media coverage of the emergency; secondly, the national interests of the aid donors, and third, the influence of aid organizations.

* Media coverage. This is what is often called "the CNN factor" Humanitarian emergencies which receive extensive publicity, such as Kosovo and, recently, Afghanistan are believed to get more attention and assistance from donors. Thus, humanitarian emergencies which are unpublicized, such as the Congo, may receive less assistance. The theory behind the "CNN factor" is that people and governments respond to the needs of people they see on their television screens.

* National Interests of the AID donors. Humanitarian assistance is perceived by the big donors as an arm of their foreign policy. Afghanistan is a recent example in which the United States and its allies perceived that providing humanitarian aid to Afghan civilians was important to achieving political and military objectives.

Humanitarian aid in Kosovo in 1999 had an even closer link to the interests of the large powers, especially the Europeans. Certainly, one reason why large amounts of aid was provided to Kosovar refugees in Macedonia and Albania was to prevent the refugees from trying to immigrate to other countries in Europe. "Keep the refugees comfortable in Macedonia - and they won't try to go to Paris" was how one relief worker described to me a factor underlying the generosity of European aid donors. U.S. humanitarian aid to Haiti in the mid 1990s had much the same purpose: keep the Haitians at home.

* Influence of aid organizations. Another factor influencing the level of humanitarian aid is the lobbying and influence of aid and citizen's organizations for a particular cause. Southern Sudan, for example, is cited as one area in which donors have provided humanitarian assistance over a long period of time primarily because aid agencies and non-governmental organizations have maintained pressure on donor countries to provide assistance.

An even better example might be the cause of the Tibetans versus that of the Uighers [note: that's Uighurs properly]. The plight of the Tibetans, whose culture is being overrun by the Han Chinese, is familiar to most of us. But how many have ever heard of the Uighers - a people in western China who have a similar cause? Why? Some observers have said the difference is that the Tibetans have a support structure of foreigners and foreign organizations plus a charismatic leader - and the Uighers do not.

So, what is the answer to the question as to why Kosovar refugees received $207 each in UN assistance in 1999 and Congolese refugees and displaced persons received only $8? The Kosovars had on their side at least two of the above three factors: their plight had the attention of the media and they were important to the national interests of the large donors of international assistance. The Congo had none of the three factors listed above operating in its favor.

The author then goes on to add such factors as racial and ethnic kinship, traditional ties and accessibility of stricken area to humanitarian organizations...

Yet there are other sides to this: who's arming the conflict, what's fueling it and who profits?

On the first question the answer is "a lot of people": from the US military aid that helped arm the warring parties in the first place, to the fact that 17% of all weapons in the DRC were found to be made in China, to "arms dealers, brokers and transporters from many countries including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Israel, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, the UK and USA", there is certainly money to be made selling weapons - and its very easy to smuggle them in through porous borders - with countries that were themselves embroiled in the war. It seems that the ban on arms exports to any of the warring factions is more or less moot: AK-47's are jokingly referred to as Congolese credit cards...

As for the root cause of the fighting, it suffices to note that in the DRC:

"...The Congo River system has 10 percent to 12 percent of the world's hydroelectric capacity. More than 50 percent of all the tropical hardwoods in Africa are inside the Congo. It has been in the top 10 in terms of production of five or six major minerals: gold, industrial diamonds, copper, cobalt and coltan - the material from which cellular telephones are made..."

So while it is a given that all sorts of local and neighbouring military units and armed groups were struggling to gain control of and riches from Congo's fabulous mineral and forest wealth, at great pain and cost to the local population, it is worth remembering a UN report on plunder in the DRC, that pointed to quite less marginal figures as culprits in the wartime pillage. In fact as Keith Harmon Snow and David Barouski write on Znet:

...Some people are aware that war in the Congo is driven by the desire to extract raw materials, including diamonds, gold, columbium tantalite (coltan), niobium, cobalt, copper, uranium and petroleum. Mining in the Congo by western companies proceeds at an unprecedented rate, and it is reported that some $6 million in raw cobalt alone: an element of superalloys essential for nuclear, chemical, aerospace and defense industries exits DRC daily. Any analysis of the geopolitics in the Congo requires an understanding of the organized crime perpetrated through multinational businesses, in order to understand the reasons why the Congolese people have suffered a virtually unending war since 1996...

The UN has 17000 troops in the area and all sorts of diplomats and mediators, doing what they can (and a few implicated in a major scandal as well), but to limited effect - though one has to give the UN credit for brokering the peace process in the Congo - whatever the shortfalls of this peace may be. They are quite proud - and justifiably so - of the fact that they are about to oversee elections in the DRC and of the general progress achieved:

Look at where the country was even three years ago, at the time the [peace] agreements were signed, and look now, with most of the country pacified and the [armed groups in the] east increasingly being put under pressure.

The great hope here is the determination of the Congolese people. There are an estimated 28 million voters here. [Of them,] 25.6 million went out and registered. That's not like driving up to the shopping centre and going to register. These people have had to walk 20km or 30km, stand in line for seven or eight hours, perhaps come back the next day in order to get that voting card.

Then these same people went out - two-thirds of them, 15 million - in December to vote for a constitution that most had never seen and very few had ever read, because they saw this as the next ticket to be punched on the way to elect their own leaders.

Locals seem to be less optimistic about the elections:

...There are hardly any colours flying for any of the other candidates contesting the election. It looks as if Oriental Province is a sure thing for the young and incumbent president. Almost every observer IRIN encountered said the same thing: "Kabila has the money, so he will win."

At Yasira market, a vendor sells unlicensed drugs; others offer smoked fish, bananas and cassava cake wrapped in leaves. Aside from petty trade, the economy is at a virtual standstill. The electorate here, as in other villages throughout the impoverished heart of the Congo, is needy: "We want money, beer or T-shirts," one voter said.

In Kisangani, people walked around in T-shirts emblazoned with the images and names of candidates a month before the official start of campaigning.

"In all this misery, you can buy a poor man with a piece of soap," said Sister Marie Madeleine Bofoe, head of the Catholic NGO Caritas in Isangi.

This also illustrates a paradox: an election to end despotism is making an entire society gamble with its future. "We don't know any of the candidates, and we have no idea who to vote for," said Bebale Bombole, a fish vendor.

With more than 9,600 parliamentary candidates and a campaign period limited to one month, many voters will not be able to make an informed decision...

Meanwhile the opposition isn't really impressed by the process either:

We have said to everybody that the electoral process imposed on the Congolese people is not a good one. The impression we have gotten is that our [international] partners don't want to organise [proper] elections. We can't understand why our partners are just pushing us to go to elections without asking the question, "But what about after the elections?"

With all this as background, the EU is about to embark on a military mission to the DRC to help with the elections. The mission will "support MONUC in its peacekeeping efforts where necessary; the EU is responsible for protecting and -- if necessary -- evacuating election personnel, election observers and U.N. personnel. They will also protect and remove civilians out of danger zones, if such form, and provide MONUC with information from the EU's military intelligence services." The mission will consist of 2000 troops and be under German command. There are serious misgivings about this deployment in Germany however. Deutsche Welle notes:

"..how serious can Europe really be about this mission, when Central Africa's big hope rests on the shoulders of just 2,000 European soldiers, many of whom will never actually be stationed in the country? And what are they supposed to secure in this country saddled with unrest? A poorly prepared election in which former warlords will surrender to the ballot?

If the observers are right, then interim President Joseph Kabila will profit more than anyone else from the presence of European soldiers in DR Congo. As far as security goes, he prefers to rely on his private army. Kabila is friendly with the French, who are involved in power politics in the region and therefore play a decisive role in the conflict. Paris is only concerned with stability and the status quo in Africa, regardless of whether dictators or democrats come out on top. Since no one wants to hear about that in Berlin, France was able to lure the Germans into DR Congo by assuring them that the mission would strengthen the European Union's position as a global security power...

...That all sounds very nice, but DR Congo is a poor choice for improving the EU's reputation. As soon as the situation escalates, the European mini-force will have to make a run for it -- and leave a lot of disappointed people behind.

It seems that the main motive for this expedition is less the protection of the (already flawed) Congolese elections and more a grand opening for the European Security an Defense Policy and, possibly, the protection of French interests in the country. Already the opposition is calling EU Envoys in the country "public enemies":

...According to Bomanza the International Electoral Commission (IEC) has been instructed to organize the polls to convert them into a plebiscite for Kabila. For this the European Development Commissioner, Louis Michel bears a large responsibility. His support for Kabila can be traced back to January 2002, when he managed to convince Congolese participants at a round-table meeting in Brussels to accept Kabila as the president of the future transitional government, said Bomanza.

"The Congolese people consider the EU's Special Envoy in the Great Lakes, Aldo Ajello, and Louis Michel as its public enemies", he added.

while the sentiment on the street in Kinshasha isn't exactly always pro-european:

Tyres were burning on Kinshasa's main boulevard, tear gas hung in the air and the whole angry mob was screaming at once.

But one voice eventually rose above the rest: "The Belgians and the rest of their European friends will have to watch out," shouted Jean Bosco Muaka.

"This place is no longer their colony and, if they aren't careful, we may have to burn a few of them," the lawyer and parliamentary candidate added as some fellow protestors ran their fingers across their necks in a menacing gesture.

Just weeks ahead of Democratic Republic of Congo's first free elections in 40 years, visiting U.N. Security Council delegates this week told politicians to tone down election rhetoric and avoid inflaming ethnic tensions.

But Monday's protests, called by opposition parties unhappy with preparations for the July 30 polls which are meant to draw a line under years of war and chaos, demonstrated mounting hostility to foreign involvement in Congo.

"There is a clear 'anti-international community' sentiment growing out there," a U.N. official told Reuters.

"They see us as having already decided who will be elected," said the official, who asked not to be named. "They are totally frustrated with the process and could start taking it out on soft targets, which is worrying."

The scope, the circumstances and the timing of this EU unit is troubling: rather than being sent there under UN command with some tangible humanitarian goal, the EU's presence is seen as legitimizing rather suspicious elections - in a country in which at least one of its member states has both interests and clients. Having said that, this mission is indeed at the UN's request and is thus surely legitimate. Whether it is wise, relevant or disinterested, is another matter.

Meanwhile, from another point of view, this operation is described as "cosmetic" by those that wish to see a more "militarily involved" EU. Jean-Yves Haine and Bastian Giegerich write in the IHT that:

...The mission's rationale has more to do with French-German cohesion and with the EU's desire to bolster the credibility of the European Security and Defense Policy after the fiasco over the European constitutional treaty's rejection in referendums in France and the Netherlands. The actual reality on the ground in Congo is only a secondary factor...

To sum it up the two facts that are making me suspicious of whether anybody has a clear and acceptable goal in mind is that a. the EU force will be there to safeguard against "bad losers" and oversee the elections which b. most consider very one-sided and the opposition is renouncing as rigged - so if the elections are "flawed" the EU force will be using force against people who will rightfully demonstrate. So are "we" (in the EU) helping in setting up another de facto dictator by lending him credibility or are "we" doing whatever the UN tells us with no agenda of our own...? I'd love to read some local perspective on this - so I would be grateful for any suggested sources (or your personal views if you are from the DRC or the region).

Anyway, the story developing in the DRC needs some drastically more serious exposure - and since the Real Media aren't doing that job, I wonder if bloggers can step up and try to publicize the extent and urgency of the DRC's ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, that is currently claiming one Bosnia every three months...

Cross posted over at the European Tribune, slightly edited

Why Nuclear Power Cannot Be A Major Energy Source

/ not that cheap /
A very interesting analysis on the limitations of nuclear power:

"It takes a lot of fossil energy to mine uranium, and then to extract and prepare the right isotope for use in a nuclear reactor. It takes even more fossil energy to build the reactor, and, when its life is over, to decommission it and look after its radioactive waste.

As a result, with current technology, there is only a limited amount of uranium ore in the world that is rich enough to allow more energy to be produced by the whole nuclear process than the process itself consumes. This amount of ore might be enough to supply the world's total current electricity demand for about six years.
Moreover, because of the amount of fossil fuel and fluorine used in the enrichment process, significant quantities of greenhouse gases are released. As a result, nuclear energy is by no means a 'climate-friendly' technology."

The article also explains why proposed alternatives to Uranium, such as Thorium, are a long way down the road (despite recent developments and publicity)
See also this discussion over at Eurotrib about "peak Uranium".

Stiglitz: Those Who Must Be Compensated Are the Bolivians, Not the Companies

delooting the gas fields
While W is concerned about the "erosion of democracy in Venezuela and Bolivia", after the "nationalization" of oil and gas resources in Bolivia, some more or less unexpected allies have come to Morales' defence.
First Joseph Stiglitz, former VP of the World Bank who:

...emphasized that the failure of the neoliberal model imposed by the Washington Consensus that set out to reduce the role of the State in national economies to the minimum is evident, and underscored that Bolivia, once one of the best students of the neoliberal model, "felt all the pains (of its application) but has experienced no gains -- it's clear that it must have a change in its economic model."

In this context, Stiglitz did not wish to characterize the new energy policy of Evo Morales as nationalization, but would call it the "recovery" of Bolivia's resources, or the "return to Bolivia of a property that already was hers." Further, he indicated that Bolivia should receive a just value for the exploitation of its natural resources.

"When a person was robbed of a painting and then it is given back to him, we don't call it renationalization, but return of a property that was his to begin with," explained Stiglitz. In the same way, he questioned the existing contracts between the State of Bolivia and petro multinationals, highlighting that "in reality. there was no sale, since it was not made in accordance with laws or approval of the Congress -- where there is no property to be nationalized, there can't be nationalization."

That means that it was necessary to change the previous conditions "one way or another," added Stiglitz...

Then even more unexpectedly French President Jacques Chirac, put in a kind word for Evo:

French President Jacques Chirac said the Bolivian government's seizure of oil and gas assets would help channel more funds to the poor.

"What should be put in place -- and what I understand is the idea -- is that an agreement between the companies concerned for the sharing of profits should be more favorable to the public than is currently the case," Chirac said in an interview with Brazilian television TV Globo...

...Chirac said that he has spoken with Morales who told him the move clearly ``excludes the arbitrary seizing of assets or exclusion of the companies concerned.''

"I have much respect for Mr. Morales who, in a certain way, is showing honor to a people who need it," Chirac said in the interview with Brazilian television.

Meanwhile investment isn't drying up, as IMF credit is cut off and Bolivia responds to Bush that it is his government rather than Morales' who is a permanent threat to democracy in Latin America. (And in his own country one might add..)

In another article, Georges Monbiot points out the egregious double standards involved in Bolivia's treatment in most of the West...

Iran: Consequences of a war

The Oxford Research Group, under the rather unnerving url iranbodycount.org presents an analysis of things that might happen in case Bush is that crazy:

"This briefing paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the likely nature of US or Israeli military action that would be intended to disable Iran’s nuclear capabilities. It outlines both the immediate consequences in terms of loss of human life, facilities and infrastructure, and also the likely Iranian responses, which would be extensive.

An attack on Iranian nuclear infrastructure would signal the start of a protracted military confrontation that would probably grow to involve Iraq, Israel and Lebanon, as well as the USA and Iran. The report concludes that a military response to the current crisis in relations with Iran is a particularly dangerous option and should not be considered further. Alternative approaches must be sought, however difficult these may be."

Iran deploys its war machine

/ the difference a letter makes /
Iason Athanasiadis is a freelance journalist and photographer residing in Tehran - probably one of the most knowledgable and perceptive western correspondents in the Middle East. In this article in the Asia Times, he describes Iranian preperations for a possible US/Israeli attack, the mentality of the Iranian military and their plans he notes:

...a fundamental transition that Iran's Revolutionary Guard (RG) is undergoing as it moves away from focusing on waging its defense of the country on the borders - unrealistic in view of the vast territory that requires securing and the gulf separating Iranian and US military capabilities - and toward drawing the enemy into the heartland and defeating it with asymmetrical tactics.

At the same time, the RG is moving away from a joint command with the ordinary army and taking a more prominent role in controlling Iran's often porous borders, even as it makes each of Iran's border provinces autonomous in the event of war. Iranian military planners know that the first step taken by an invading force would be to occupy oil-rich Khuzestan province, secure the sensitive Strait of Hormuz and cut off the Iranian military's oil supply, forcing it to depend on its limited stocks.

Foreign diplomats who monitor Iran's army make it clear that Iran's leadership has acknowledged it stands little chance of defeating the US Army with conventional military doctrine. The shift in focus to guerrilla warfare against an occupying army in the aftermath of a successful invasion mirrors developments in Iraq, where a triumphant US campaign has been followed by three years of slow hemorrhaging at the hands of insurgents...

Athanasiadis mentions in passing the fact that Iran is probably in possesion of these nasty little anti-ship missiles, state of the art and currently "unbeatable", which promise to make the Straits of Hormuz a rather dangerous playground - with all that this implies for the worlds energy supply (considering that 40% of it passes through these Straits daily).

Speaking of Athanasiadis and countries that start with Ira: he recently published in Greekworks a very interesting letter from Iraq, offering an unsanitized version of his experiences in the "most terrifying city on earth"... Well worth the read.

ESF demo Athens, May 6 2006

/ We're ready for the Champions League /
Thomas, of Anatomy of Melancholy, has posted in flickr some photos from the ESF demonstration.

I note that we've put up quite a team. An American striker (move over Eto'o):



And a French french midfielder:



Anyway the March last week was quite impressive, all things considered, especially since the police and the media were preparing for and announcing this as if it were the arrival of Attila's hordes. The number of participants was around 40.000 I'd figure, possibly more, because the march seemed to diffuse around the whole area. Included in the march, but ignored by the corporate media, were representatives of the Stray Dog Liberation Front of Athens:


[from nkdx's collection]

Greek wiretaps: calling home

/ wiretap dancing /
Following up the huge wiretap scandal I've posted about previously (1, 2, 3), there are many developments most of which seem not to be widely reported outside Greece.

So lets start with what has been reported. The Guardian, on April 10, wrote, recapping the situation as it stood then, that:

Vodafone faces harsh criticism this week from Greece's independent telephone watchdog for its role in an espionage scandal that has rocked the country.

In a report into the affair, the watchdog, known as ADAE, is expected to deliver a withering verdict on the mobile phone giant following the discovery of more eavesdropping devices lurking in the central system of its Greek subsidiary...

...The watchdog's findings follow what is widely considered to be an inadequate judicial inquiry, ordered by the ruling conservative New Democracy party a year ago when the illegal software was discovered after a barrage of customer complaints.

The scandal has reached the highest echelons, with the prime minister's chief of staff and executives of both Vodafone and its software supplier, Ericsson, being called to testify last week before a parliamentary committee investigating the taps.

The firms gave conflicting accounts of how a rogue bugging program came to be installed in the network. Ericsson's regional chief, Bill Zikou, said the Swedish-based company had openly provided Vodafone with software permitting legally sanctioned surveillance - a claim fiercely denied by the mobile operator, which insisted it was not informed of its existence...

...There were claims last week that while the Americans dismantled the devices after the Games, The Greek EYP intelligence service ordered the eavesdropping operation to be continued through Vodafone.

The death of Vodafone Greece's top technician, Costas Tsalikides, found hanged in his bathroom a day after the bugs were first detected last year, has fuelled charges of a cover-up. A colleague at the company has claimed that the 39-year-old unwittingly discovered the wiretaps and was about to go public. Solving the riddle over the apparent suicide is now seen as key to the whole spy mystery...

This is all quite accurate. But ADAE and the ongoing investigation has released new evidence: We now know for a fact that Tsalikidis phone had been used one hour after his estimated time of death and before the family found his hanging body. This makes, I figure, the "suicide" scenario even more unlikely. The phone had been used the night before his death, at a time when the investigation has shown Tsalikidis was not in his house. For more information on Costas Tsalikidis, you might want to visit the site that his family and their lawyer have created, titled Why Costas? as a tribute to the man and as a vehicle for information they want to make public regarding the case and the murder, quite probably, of their loved one.

If this whole case sounds to you like a spy thriller, you're not alone. According to the Observer:

...After buffeting Athens for nearly four months, the seamy story of intrigue and espionage that has implicated the Greek government and portable phone operator Vodafone has been pinpointed by Hollywood for the big screen.

A leading US film company has dispatched scouts to the capital to see whether the film can be made in situ and whether any of the cast of characters are willing to be involved. These, so far, include Greece's Prime Minister, Costas Karamanlis, most of his cabinet, the heads of the armed forces, human rights groups, journalists and a host of Arab businessmen.

All share the same fate of having had their mobile phones monitored, by 'persons unknown', both before and after the 2004 Olympic Games. The unnamed film company believes the scandal has all the ingredients of a big spy thriller. The discovery of the illegal wiretaps, and the ruling conservatives' decision to go public, has provided a snapshot of the underhand methods of intelligence services rarely seen in the real world. 'They're calling it "Watergate, made in Greece",' says one insider.

If made, the movie would capture a period of extraordinary dealings for mobile giant Vodafone, whose Greek CEO, George Koronia, has been approached to participate. Greece's independent telecoms watchdog, ADAE, recently issued a withering verdict on Vodafone's role in the imbroglio, claiming the company not only concealed information but erased evidence of its own involvement by destroying the logs of staff visitors to at least one of its four bugged communication centres.

The article goes on to mention some of the new facts that ADAE's investigation has uncovered such as:

"...that the Vodafone mobile phones that intercepted the calls had received text messages from the UK, the USA, Australia and Sweden - an oblique reference to 'foreign secret services'."

But that's not all. What the article does not mention is that we now know where some of the calls from the "shadow phones" used in the wiretap were made to: There were 11 logged phone calls to Laurel Maryland, USA. Now take a look at the map below: Laurel is literally next door to Fort Meade, and that is a "startling" coincidence: Guess which US government agency is headquartered in Fort Mead... Yep, it's them: the most active warrantless wiretappers in the world...

When they found out about it the ADAE people, pretty much peed their pants after which they decided that the best course of action was doing absolutely nothing. I translate from the Greek business daily Imerisia, reporting on ADAE's testimony before a Greek Parliament Committee:

"Answering the insistent questions of the MPs E. Venizelos [Socialist] and L. Kanelli [Communist], about whether ADAE made any attempts to discover who the US phone numbers belong to and whether they called these phone numbers, Mr. Lambrinopoulos [president of ADAE] was blunt:

"We thought about it, but we were afraid about where these phone numbers might lead us. The capabilities from over there are quite extensive. It's one thing if the phone numbers belonged to a private residence, but if they belonged to someone else, like a company or a service?" he asked, causing unease among the MPs.

"What scared you so much that you wouldn't even call 411 over there?" L. Kanelli insisted.

"Don't you understand that we can't compromise ourselves? It could be someone that shouldn't see the number calling. We can't risk it. It's not personal fear. Any action could have turned out undermining the investigation. What if there was somebody "difficult" on the other end?" Lambrinopoulos noted characteristically.

In a related point E. Venizelos claimed that "either [the Greek Secret Service] EYP didn't understand / didn't want to follow this up or it understood perfectly what was happening and was ordered to tamper with the evidence", ADAE's president "left EYP on a limb, stating that they should have had found the card phones and the calls to the US."

Later, Mr. Lambrinopoulos would disavow the obvious, after being careful not to "undermine the investigation" by trivially comfirming it:

In a statement yesterday, ADAE said that the calls to those four countries needed further investigation but added that there was no evidence to suggest foreign agencies had been involved in tapping some 100 phones.

The watchdog also said that it had no evidence to support claims that the calls made to the USA were actually made to the National Security Agency in Maryland.

The investigation is ongoing, but let me tell you something about this story: If the NSA can be shown to have been heavily involved in these wiretaps, and if Tsalikidis was indeed murdered as part of the cover-up - hypotheticals that are not by any means far-fetched - then a US agency is connected - directly or indirectly - with the murder of a citizen of an allied country, a man whose only crime it seems was his professional diligence, and Vodafone, Ericsson and the Greek government by their inaction or collusion, were accomplices and/or the physical perpetrators. And thus this story will never reach the courts, I wager, because someone most excruciatingly "difficult" is, indeed, on the other end of that line...



[crossposted on the European Tribune]

The EU's Security Research Programme [pdf]

/ brothers / very big /
Statewatch, has published a report on the development of a European Military-Security complex titled "Arming Big Brother - The EU's Security Research Programme". In it, it presents in rather horrifying detail, the uncelebrated and under-reported story of the EU's efforts at "Security Research", the people who will get rich off it and the bloody scary, undemocratic world of European Lobbying. The whole thing presents a clear and present danger to democracy in the EU, as it entails the development of a host of very sensitive technologies as far as civil rights are concerned:

"...Myriad local and global surveillance systems; the introduction of biometric identifiers; RFID, electronic tagging and satellite monitoring; "less-lethal weapons"; paramilitary equipment for public order and crisis management; and the militarization of border controls -– technological advances in law enforcement are often welcomed uncritically but rarely are these technologies neutral, in either application or effect. Military organisations dominate research and development in these areas
under the banner of "“dual-use"” technology, avoiding both the constraints and controversies of the arms trade. Tomorrow'’s technologies of control quickly become today's political imperative; contentious policies appear increasingly irresistible. There are strong arguments for regulating, limiting and resisting the development of the security-industrial complex but as yet there has been precious little debate..."

Apart from the research itself, the whole process is brimming with practically unaccountable and unelected committees deciding on critical issues, heavy lobbying by powerful corporations and a lack of public scrutiny that is becoming par for the EU course. A brief summary:

The militarisation of the EU is a controversial development that should be fiercely contested. EU funding of military research is also very controversial, from both a
constitutional and political perspective. This Statewatch-TNI report examines the development of the EU Security Research Programme (ESRP) and the growing security-industrial complex in Europe it is being set up to support. With the global market for technologies of repression more lucrative than ever in the wake of 11 September 2001, it is on a healthy expansion course. There are strong arguments for regulating, limiting and resisting the development of the security-industrial complex but as yet there has been precious little debate.

The story of the ESRP is one of "“Big Brother"” meets market fundamentalism. It was personified by the establishment in 2003 of a "Group of Personalities"” (GoP) comprised of EU officials and Europe'’s biggest arms and IT companies who argued that European multinationals are losing out to their US competitors because the US government is providing them with a billion dollars a year for security research. The European Commission responded by giving these companies a seat at the EU table, a proposed budget of one billion euros for "“security"” research and all but full control over the development and implementation of the programme. In effect, the EU is funding the diversification of these companies into the more legitimate and highly lucrative "dual use"” sector, allowing them to design future EU security policies and allowing corporate interests to determine the public interest.

The planned Security Research Programme raises important issues about EU policy-making and the future of Europe. Europe faces serious security challenges: not just terrorism, but disease, climate change, poverty, inequality, environmental degradation, resource depletion and other sources of insecurity. Rather than being part of a broader strategy to combat these challenges, the ESRP is part of a broader EU counter-terrorism strategy almost singularly orientated to achieving security based primarily on the use of military force and the demands of law enforcement. Freedom and democracy are being undermined by the very policies adopted in their name.

Related to this other piece of dystopic europlanning, previously reported here.

Not too many posts lately...

But between a heavy work schedule, family, a busy (but almost equally unattended to) Greek blog and Greek Easter, I haven't had that much time to sit down and blog properly.

However I did manage to post a couple of diaries over at the European Tribune, which might be of interest to some of my readers here:

The Appeal of the Resistance Fighters - about how the surviving protagonists of the French resistance are still in a fighting mood.

and

Prodi and the European Constitution - in which Prodi suggests a new European Constitution, exactly like the one the Monde Diplomatique predicted, right before the French referendum, will be proposed sooner or later.

I'm not sure how it will go but I hope to be posting more frequently, at least slightly more frequently, from now on...

A History of the car bomb: part I, part II

/ vehicles / lethal /
Mike Davis writes about the history of the "poor man's airforce", the car bomb, from its origins at the hands of an Italian-American armed Anarchist, through its use in Palestine, Vietnam, Ireland, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Sri-Lanka all the way to today's Iraq. The cheapest WMD around, equally deadly in the hands of a rightwing kook in Oklahoma city, the Italian Mafia, the Hezbollah, The IRA, or the CIA and Al Qaeda. Excerpt (though it's hard to pick only one):

Twenty-first century hindsight makes it clear that the defeat of the U.S. intervention in Lebanon in 1983-84, followed by the CIA's dirty war in Afghanistan, had wider and more potent geopolitical repercussions than the loss of Saigon in 1975. The Vietnam War was, of course, an epic struggle whose imprint upon domestic American politics remains profound, but it belonged to the era of the Cold War's bipolar superpower rivalry. Hezbollah's war in Beirut and south Lebanon, on the other hand, prefigured (and even inspired) the "asymmetric" conflicts that characterize the millennium. Moreover, unlike peoples' war on the scale sustained by the NLF and the North Vietnamese for more than a generation, car-bombing and suicide terrorism are easily franchised and gruesomely applicable in a variety of scenarios. Although rural guerrillas survive in rugged redoubts like Kashmir, the Khyber Pass, and the Andes, the center of gravity of global insurgency has moved from the countryside back to the cities and their slum peripheries. In this post-Cold-War urban context, the Hezbollah bombing of the Marine barracks has become the gold standard of terrorism; the 9/11 attacks, it can be argued, were only an inevitable scaling-up of the suicide truck bomb to airliners.