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- In Focus -
RAMBOUILLET ACCORDS
U.S. State Department Summary
Read the complete Kosovo Peace Agreement
WASHINGTON - The Rambouillet Accords that the United States and European allies are seeking to negotiate between the Yugoslav Serbian government and Kosovo's ethnic Albanians will provide self-government, peace, and security in the embattled province, the State Department says.
Following is the text of a summary of the accords, issued by the department March 1.
The Rambouillet Accords are a three year interim agreement that will provide democratic self-government, peace, and security for everyone living in Kosovo.
1. Democratic self government will include all matters of daily importance to people in Kosovo, including education, health care, and
economic development. Kosovo will have a president, an assembly, its own courts, strong local government, and national community institutions with the authority needed to protect each community's identity.
2. Security will be guaranteed by international troops deployed on the
ground throughout Kosovo. Local police representative of all national communities in Kosovo will provide routine law enforcement. Federal and Republic security forces will leave Kosovo, except for a limited border protection presence.
3. An international meeting will be convened after three years to
determine a mechanism for a final settlement for Kosovo. The will of the people will be an important factor at the international meeting.
Democratic Self-Government.During the interim period, citizens in Kosovo will govern themselves
democratically through Kosovo institutions.
4. Kosovo will have a constitution. The constitution calls for the democratic selection of a president, a prime minister and government,
an assembly, and strong communal authorities. Kosovo will have its own supreme court, constitutional court, other courts, and prosecutors.
5. Free and fair elections will be held within nine months of entry
Security and Cooperation in Europe.)
6. Kosovo will have the authority to make laws not subject to revision by Serbia or the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, including levying taxes, instituting programs of economic, scientific, technological, regional, and social development, conducting foreign relations within its areas of responsibility in the same manner as a republic, and all matters of local government.
7. Kosovo and its national communities will perform most functions presently handled by the Republic of Serbia. Citizens in Kosovo will
be able to call upon republic institutions for assistance if they wish. The federal republic will not be permitted to act in ways
injurious to Kosovo.
8. National communities in Kosovo will be able to control their own
identities, including preserving their languages and operating schools and hospitals. All other authorities are forbidden from interfering.
9. Human rights and the rights of the members of all national
communities will be guaranteed.
10. The international community will play a role in ensuring that these provisions are carried out, through a civilian implementation mission, an ombudsman and constitutional court judges selected under international auspices, OSCE supervision of elections, and an international military presence.
Peace and Security. The parties invite NATO to deploy a military force (KFOR), which will be authorized to use necessary force to ensure compliance with the accords, protect international agencies involved with implementation, and provide a secure environment for everyone in Kosovo. All other security forces will withdraw or be phased out under the supervision of KFOR, according to a balanced schedule of reciprocal steps by all sides specified in the accords.
11. The Kosovo Liberation Army will hand over security in Kosovo to NATO troops, and will be demilitarized.
12. Yugoslav army forces will withdraw completely from Kosovo, except for a limited border guard force (active only within a 5 kilometer border zone) and associated personnel.
13. Serb security forces will withdraw completely except for a limited number of border police and, for a transitional period, a limited international implementation mission until local police are trained to replace them.
14. Local police will take over all policing duties in Kosovo within one year, extendable for a limited period only by the chief of the mplementation mission.
A Mechanism for Determining a Final Settlement. Three years after entry into force of the accords, an international meeting will be convened to determine a mechanism for a final settlement for Kosovo, on the basis of the will of the people, opinions of relevant authorities, each party's efforts regarding the implementation of the accords, and the Helsinki Final Act.
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- In Focus -
Clinton's polls in nose-dive
By Kaye Grogan, Contributor
WASHINGTON - Slobodan Milosevic has accomplished the impossible in two weeks. He has sent the President's "poll ratings" on a serious decline. Something no one else has been afforded the luxury of doing thus far. The President of Yugoslavia is refusing to lie down and cry "wolf" as this administration had hoped he would. In fact reports are indicating that the tyrant type leader is becoming stronger than ever... since the onslaught of bombs hitting his small country have occured.
The Clinton administration is accusing the Serbs of engaging in genocide against ethnic Albanians, and is warning Milosevic that he can be tried as a war criminal. Most of the news media have been barred from the scenes, so it's difficult to know what is really going on in the war torn vicinity. Although 19 nations are behind the NATO intervention, it is unclear where and how all of this will play-out.
ke Saddam Hussein, Milosevic seems to be in for the long haul, and this spells out trouble. This dog's tail may just wag off! The President may have bitten off more than he can chew. His poll ratings may hit zero if ground troops are sent in and soldiers start to come home in body bags! Pentagon spokeman Kenneth Bacon estimated that at the very least 200,000 ground soldiers would be needed to take over Kosovo. As of today, the administration says it is not comtemplating sending ground troops into the conflict.
While the Viet Nam war was going on and American soldiers were being blown to "Kingdom Come", Bill Clinton was in Russia demonstrating, burning and stomping the American Flag on foreign soil. It's one thing to wage a protest against war, but to do it against one's own country on foreign soil... speaks volumes. Although one is cautioned to look to the future ahead...can the past be far behind?
it seems this president has been bomb and trigger happy ever since he has been in office. He tells the American people how important it is to get and keep rulers like Milosevic in tow, but yet countries like China who practice inhumane atrocities against their people daily are ignored and let off of the hook and have gained the rank of "Most favored Nation." This acceptance of China speaks in volumes, too.
While bombs were falling in Yugoslavia the president took out time to play a round of golf! He has gotten some flack from this seemingly unconcerned approach, and it is much deserved. News of prominent Kosovar Albanian leaders being executed by the Serbs, leaves a foul taste in the mouth along with a sobering affect.
Reports of women and children being held in refugee concentration camps to be used as hostages and human shields, sounds a lot like a replay of the atrocities during the Viet Nam period, when the vietnamese sent their own small children carrying hand grenades to the Americans...to be blown up along with the enemy. This is not war, this is beyond all humanity... beyond all comprehension.
America has a bad record of trying to baby-sit the world. It doesn't take a village to raise the world! This country has been fighting amongst themselves for at least 600 years. Slobodan Milosevic is responsible for the events that led to the war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia, and now Kosovo. This man sounds like a modern day Hitler.
With so much unrest in the world, will America ever be at peace again? Who will emerge next? The Chinese? Now that they have our weapons' formulas and the technology to cause massive power outages, can we ever have an effective national security in place again?
Most would agree...absolutely not!
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Many Cities Crowds Call for Bombing Halt
Attack sets off angry protests, flag burning and
U.S. embassies raids.
By Agence France-Presse
PARIS - Thousands of protesters took to the streets Sunday in several cities in Europe, Australia and the United States to demand an end to NATO bombings in Yugoslavia.
One of the biggest demonstrations was in Vienna, where some 9,000 Serbs rallied on St. Stephen's Square, according to the local police. In Paris, clashes broke out as the police fired tear gas at some 300 pro-Serbian demonstrators who threw bottles and rocks at the United States Embassy.
In Australia, the police said some 6,000 Serbs rallied in Melbourne, 7,000 in Sydney and 400 in Canberra, burning American flags and pelting the police with eggs. Some 300,000 people from the former Yugoslavia, most of them Serbs, live in Australia.
In Los Angeles, around 1,000 people, mostly Serbian-Americans, held a peaceful protest outside a Federal building.
In Sweden, around 1,000 people -- mostly Serb immigrants, but also Russians, Greeks and Syrians -- protested in Stockholm and Malmo. There were also anti-American and anti-NATO demonstrations in Milan and Rotterdam.
In Moscow, the United States Embassy was hit by gunfire during a shootout between masked gunman and the police that took place as several hundred protesters were picketing, but no injuries were reported. Protests also occurred in other east European capitals.
In Hungary, which joined NATO two weeks ago, but declined to actively take part in the strikes and only put at NATO's disposal its airspace and airfields, some 250 protesters gathered in Budapest, waving banners and shouting slogans against the air strikes.
On Saturday, some 200 demonstrated in front of the American Embassy there, calling President Clinton a "war criminal" and a "murderer," in a demonstration organized by the communist Labor Party.
In Romania, hundreds of demonstrators, many of them Orthodox priests, marched through central Bucharest today pledging solidarity with Serbs.
Marchers carried candles and signs, including "The Romanian and Serbian peoples are brothers," down the city's widest boulevard.
In Madrid, Serbian soccer players with Spanish clubs protested the NATO raids outside the American embassy. Some of the protesters said they were opposed to the policies of Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav President, but that the NATO air strikes were "just going to make him stronger."
In Greece, some 1,000 people protested outside an air base at Aktion, where American Awacs radar planes are normally stationed, the police said.
They chanted slogans against the United States and NATO, burned a European Union flag, and daubed the walls of the base with anti-American slogans.
In Podgorica, capital of Montenegro, about 1,000 people gathered outside the United States Information Center calling on the United States to "get out of here."
The protesters, mostly supporters of the Serbian Radical Party of ultra-nationalist Deputy Premier Vojislav Seselj, burned a photo of President Clinton and NATO Secretary General Javier Solana.
In Banja Luka, capital of the Bosnian Serb republic, a procession of motorists, mostly students, filed past the British base of NATO peacekeeping forces in Bosnia waving flags and shouting slogans.
Meanwhile, on the Fifth day into the bombing, Americans remained closely divided on the wisdom of the military action against Yugoslavia, new polls have found. Narrow majorities backed the effort but opinion was unsettled, with the prospect of American casualties a worry.
President Clinton's handling of the crisis has not won him the support from Americamns he had hoped for. In a variety of polls, he appears to be losing groubd at home. Support for U.S. involvement in the air campaign, according to a Time-CNN poll was only about 44% after three days of agressive air attacks against Yugoslavia.
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Clinton misleads
public in Kosovo speech
By Milosh Milenkovich, Contributor
WASHINGTON - President Bill Clinton's address to the nation about the Kosovo crisis on Friday was filled with inaccuracies and falsehoods.
Sadly, the President's address contained so many serious errors of fact that any truth he may have intended, was lost. Truth must not be the first casualty of this war. As a direct consequence, our nation faces disaster.
Take Kosovo autonomy, for example. The decision to change Kosovo's autonomous status in 1989 was not taken by Slobodan Milosevic alone. It was a consensual act signed by all the constituent republics of then Yugoslavia, including Kosovo. Its purpose was to amend the 1974 Yugoslav constitution and to avoid paralysis of federal business caused by the veto of a single province.
The use of Albanian Language is another example. Kosovo's Albanian population has never been denied use of their own language or access to Albanian language schools. The Albanian-language university in Pristina and the many Albanian language newspapers published in Kosovo attest to this fact.
Take the dissolution of Yugoslavia, for another. Serbia did not start the wars with Croatia and Bosnia. These were precipitated by the actions these republics and by Slovenia in declaring illegal and unilateral independence in violation of the then federal Yugoslav constitution. Premature recognition of these illegal acts by the European Union and the wider international including the United States, negated the negotiation process and made war inevitable.
Then, there is that "Moral Imperative". The claim to a "moral imperative" is false. The U.S. took no action in 1995 when over 250,000 Serbs were ethnically cleansed from Croatia. In the present situation no such moral authority has been conferred upon the NATO action. Pope John Paul has described this as a "defeat for humanity." NATO is acting without UN authority and in direct violation of international law as framed in the UN Charter, the NATO Treaty, and the Helsinki Accords.
Mr. Clinton's reference to a "peace agreement" at Rambouillet is disingenuous. It is a cardinal principle of international law embodied in the Vienna Convention on Treaties adopted on May 26, 1963 and which entered into force on January 27, 1980 that agreements negotiated under threat of force are null and void. Section 2, Articles 51 and 52 make clear that coercion in impermissible as a negotiating instrument. Coercion was, however, the central theme of the Rambouillet talks. There was no "peace agreement" only a choice between signature and bombing.
Saving lives is only pretext. The claim that the U.S. is acting "because we care about saving innocent lives" has already been shown to be false. NATO actions have caused civilian casualties
The "wider war" claim that the U.S. is acting to prevent is misleading. Already instability in Macedonia and new concerns about renewed disturbances in Albania show that the NATO action will likely increase the risks to regional stability. The encouragement of separatism and irredentism, for example in the form of a greater Albania, will have dangerous Europe-die consequences.
Much of the history and geography cited by Mr. Clinton in the address was faulty. Turkey lies East not South of Kosovo; World War 1 started not because Europe was slow to realize the dangers of war but for the opposite reason, namely that Europe mobilized prematurely.
The Serbian Unity Congress has been in the forefront of efforts to build a negotiated and durable peace in Kosovo and to bring about democratic reform in Serbia. These efforts will be severely compromised by the illegal bombing campaign. We call upon the President to call an immediate halt to this immoral, illegal and counterproductive action.
The US is violating a number of international laws in attacking Serbia over Kosovo, which is part of a sovereign independent state.(1) It is a violation of Article 2 of the UN Charter that prohibits the use of force against a sovereign state where it has not committed aggression on other states. Serbia did not attack any neighboring states outside its sovereign borders. The Security Council did not sanction the use of force here. If the issue had been submitted to the Security Council, it would certainly have been vetoed by Russia and China. NATO knows it and therefore bypassed it.(2) It is a violation of NATO's own charter which claims it is a defensive organizations and is only committed to force if one of its members is attacked. No member of NATO was attacked.(3) The so-called Rambouillet "Agreement" (there was no "agreement" by Serbia) is a violation of the 1980 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties which forbids coercion and force to compel any state to sign a treaty or agreement. Serbia is being asked to sign this "Agreement" through NATO bombs and missiles.(4) It is a violation of the Helsinki Accords Final Act of 1975 which guarantees the territorial frontiers of the states of Europe. What this so-called peace plan offers is (a) the severance of Kosovo through NATO bombing with immediate effect; or (b) the severance of Kosovo through NATO occupation three years later.(5) If the sequel to the bombing is recogntion of Kosovo as an independent state, this will violate international law that prohibits recognition of provinces that unilaterally declare independence against the wishes of the federal authorities.
These unlawful actions will set precedents that will undermine stability elsewhere in the world.
[Editor's Note: Milosh Milenkovich, is the President of the Serbian Unity Congress.]
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Our Objective
By William Jefferson Clinton
OVAL OFFICE - I'm about to receive a briefing from the national security team. I'm very grateful that our crews returned home safely after their work last night. And I'm very grateful that the United States Congress has expressed its support for them.
I want to say again that our purpose here is to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe or a wider war. Our objective is to make it clear that Serbia must either choose peace or we will limit its ability to make war. And we're going to get a briefing and lay further plans today.
He [Mr. Milosevic] has to choose peace or we have to try to limit his ability to make war. That's what we're trying to do. And I think that's been very clear. If you look at what happened at the Rambouillet talks, the arrangement was basically supported by all of Europe, the United States, the Kosovars. The Russians agreed that it was a fair agreement -- they did not agree to the military involvement of NATO, but they agreed that it was a fair agreement. Only Mr. Milosevic and the Serbs declined to deal with the evident responsibility they have to choose the path of peace instead of the path of aggression and war.
So I think that it is clear -- I don't know how to make it any clearer -- that we either have to have a choice for peace by Serbia, not just stopping the killing for an hour or two, but a choice for peace, or we will do our best to limit their ability to make war on those people.
The exit strategy is what it always is in a military operation -- it's when the mission is completed.
I believe we can create a situation in which we have limited their ability to make war and thereby increase the prospects that they can protect themselves better. I do believe that.
Well, you know, they [Russians] have quite a lot of arms on their own. They made a lot of arms in the Former Yugoslavia. I told the American people they had a very impressive air defense system and they had lots of other arms and weapons. I have no intention of supporting any lifting of the arms embargo on Serbia. I think that would be a terrible mistake. We would be far better off if they didn't have as many arms as they do; then they would be out there making peace and accommodating these ethnic differences and figuring out ways they can live together.
I believe that many Americans really had not thought a lot about this until the last two days. I hope that a lot of them heard my presentation last night. I did my very best to explain what we were doing and why, and I believe that a majority of them will support what we're trying to do here. I also believe very strongly that it is my responsibility to make this judgment based on what I think is in the long-term interests of the American people.
I think he knows what needs to be done.
[Editor's Note: This text was adapted from the televised Press Conference in the Oval Office held at 12:10 PM EST on 3/25/99.]
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B-52 Humanitarianism
U.S. Bombings produce what it purports to prevent.
By Jan Oberg, Sweden Correspondent, Daily Republican Newspaper
LUND, Sweden - NATO's unwise, counterproductive and non-legal bombing of sovereign Yugoslavia is justified by President Bill Clinton, EU and other Western leaders and media with reference to humanitarian concerns. Supposedly air strikes serve to stop ethnic cleansing, future massacres, refugee flows, and prevent innocent children and women from being killed. Diplomatically expressed, this comes from the marketing department. Bombings will to produce what it purports to prevent, right after the bombing campaign has started. This argument lacks credibility.
Why did the West do absolutely nothing before this crisis became violent? There were many opportunities for a negotiated solutions. TFF, for instance, has suggested a variety of options since 1992 that could have prevented violence and the killing we've seen the last year. In no other conflict has there been so many early warnings and so little preventive diplomacy. Kosovo's catastrophe was among the most predictable of all. It is intellectual nonsense that everything else has been tried and NATO bombings was the only option left.
The immediate consequence of the threats of NATO air strikes is that OSCE's Verification mission had to be withdrawn and that almost all humanitarian organizations withdrew to protect their staff. More refugees are now running over the border to Macedonia. With fewer ears and eyes on the ground, its free for all sides - NATO included - to step up the killing.
NATO bombings will be perceived as a punishment of Serbs and a clear support to Albanian hardliners. Serbs will feel that it was the Albanian side that called this hell upon them. Thus, the little hope we may have had about Serbs and Albanians living peaceful together or as trustful neighbours in the foreseeable future, is now gone. Producing hate is the opposite of a humanitarian effort.
The Kosovo war has caused the death of about 2.000 people during the last year. This is serious, every human life is sacred. However, the international community has chosen not to intervene in the following when: 80.000 have been killed in Algeria; perhaps 10.000 in the Ethiopian-Eritrean war the last couple of weeks; 820,000 in Rwanda the last five years; 1.500,000 in Sudan the last 15 years; more than 1 million people have died because of the Western sanctions against the Iraqi people; perhaps as many as 500,000 have died in Burma since 1948.
An estimated 100.000 people die every day, around the world - not in wars but because they lack the most basic such as water, clothes, shelter, food, medicine. 100 mill people have no home; there are already some 40 million refugees; 70 Third World countries have lower standards of living today than 30 years ago; at least 800 million people go hungry to bed. In money terms, a fraction of the world's military expenditures could alleviate most of that suffering.
The world's military expenditures - NATO making up most of it - equals the combined income of the 50% poorest of the world's population. Pentagon alone spends 20 times more than the entire budget of the United Nations. And the UN - the world's most important humanitarian organization - is completely ignored in the Kosovo conflict and, these very days, forced out of Macedonia. When will the media begin to ask what this type of 'peace'-making costs - and what we could do in terms of real relief and peace for a similar sum?
Serious problems inside Yugoslavia exist. For example, 250.000 citizens are now displaced inside Kosovo or refugees in Macedonia - about 10% of the Kosovo-Serbs and 10% of the Kosovo-Albanians. They certainly need help. But so do the 650.000 mostly Serb refugees (according to UNHCR) who have fled from Croatia, Bosnia and elsewhere during the dissolution of ex-Yugoslavia, about half of them ethnically cleansed from Croatia in 1995. from Croatia. It's Europe's largest refugee problem - largely going unnoticed.
The majority of citizens suffer one way or the other from that, not the least the sick and the pensioners. They and everybody else will stand behind President Milosevic in this crisis.
All the 'soft' humanitarian coating of this type of militarist policies is probably an attempt to convince women, soldiers' and pilots' wives and mothers and the general do-good sentiment in the American public. But will they still believe this when the casualty figures rise?
Our thoughts go to all friends and colleagues of the foundation, Serbs, Albanians, Macedonians and others in all of the region, innocent good-hearted people who are again to pay the price for 'politics' and power game by their own leaders and the international community's leaders. Citizens in NATO countries were not heard either. Thus, I draw the following conclusion about this type of B-52 humanitarianism: 1) Humanitarian concerns is the rhetoric of the smiling Western crocodile. It is either deliberate misinformation or a view based on incomplete analysis. There is no global political will to do something about humanitarian problems where they really exist. 2) In Kosovo, we risk blowing up a low-casualty war to become a major war and creating a tenfold larger humanitarian catastrophe. 3) It seems the only humanitarian problems in which there is a political will to do something are those which seem fit for 'NATO treatment' - in short, it is faked. 4) What a wonderful world it would be if the world's most powerful nation, its president and its allies were determined to do something to alleviate suffering around the world. 5) Now the combination of their limited creativity, their unlimited cocksureness and overwhelming military power threatens to only increase the world's humanitarian problems.
[Dr. Jan Oberg has worked with TFF mitigation-team in this conflict region since 1992. He is the Director of the a Conflict Mitigation team to the Balkans and Georgia].
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YUGOSLAVIA DOWN
Milosevic scenario illuminates the weakness in UN use-of-force capabilities.
By Howard Hobbs, Editors' Desk
WASHINGTON - On the eve of the 21st century, the international community is mired down in a phony war that threatens international peace and security in Southern Europe. The old rules, norms, and procedures of the bipolar Cold War environment which regulated international hostilities have collapsed with the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
This disintegration should have provided an opportunity for the world community to realize the world's remaining superpower, the US sets the tone for the international community in the regulation of international conflict.
Throughout the 1990s, US security policy has been inconsistent especially towards the UN. Instead of distancing itself from the UN, the US should utilize the organization's collective and multilateral security mechanism to help maintain international peace and stability.
Generally, US and NATO policies complement each other. Critical to conflict resolution is the capability to use and project military force. Currently, use-of-force through the UN has been severely limited. The UN has demonstrated only two viable use-of-force options--traditional, non-coercive peacekeeping and the authorization of all-out, military peace enforcement.
The UN truly requires the ability to calibrate its responses given a particular threat. But NATO is more flexible. In order to fully realize this military element, for example. NATO must have US participation. The US, in turn, needs the multilateral military authorization which NATO provides to successfully realize its expansive foreign policy aims that complement those of Mr. Clinton.
The former Yugoslavia illuminates the weakness in current UN use-of-force capabilities and demonstrates the need for US and NATO participation, according to Joesph Elston of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
Ethnic nationalism has altered the history of Yugoslavia, effectively widening the split between Serbs and Croats to a nearly irreconcilable state, and was the main cause of Yugoslavia's collapse.
What we have today is the historical legacy of insurrections and wars for national 'liberation' and 'unification' in territories with Serbian, Croatian and Bulgarian populations. In opposition to extreme 'instrumentalist' interpretations, it argues that the dynamics of the continuing ethnic rivalries in the region cannot be fully understood without considering the abiding power of historical myths and memories of past conflicts to provide lasting standards for legitimate political action.
These standards, by virtue of which national leaders have commanded authority, can be seen as a peculiar 'mandate of history.' They have been propagated by generations of nationalist intellectuals, but also in various folk genres, everyday forms of communication and social practices which have flown largely outside of official channels.
At times the ethos underlying both written and oral culture in the region has cast political leaders in historically inherited roles which they have been only partially free to reinterpret. They have therefore repeatedly pursued a core of 'national ideals' to the point of self-destruction, impervious to compromise and unimpeded by significant domestic opposition. This pattern, however, has not been irreversible.
Despite unceasing nationalist propaganda and persistent ethnocentric understandings of nationhood, following Bulgaria's military defeats of 1913 and 1918 the country's peasant majority largely lost interest in the redemption of the territories claimed by Bulgarian nationalists.
This shift resulted mainly from the peasants' increased alienation from all state institutions and state-sponsored projects. The waning of language oriented nationalism was thus part of a general failure of state building which has also generated social apathy and lack of grassroots pressures for social, economic and political reform.
The greatest challenge for some of the states and entities created on the territory of the former Yugoslavia will be to overcome the excessive focus on ethnohistorical grievances and 'rights' intensified by the long lasting effects of Mr. Clinton's War, and the resulting suffering and the deterioration of public life that social demobilization and excessive cynicism can incur in its survivors.
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Azerbaijan Detains Russian MiGS
Warplanes & tactical nukes for Yugoslavia's defense against US attack.
By Tatsudo Akayama, Foreign Correspondent
BAKU, Azerbaijan - A huge Russian Cargo transport landed here during the night, has been discovered to contain six disassembled Russian MiG fighter jets in its cargo bay. The Russian pilot and crew have been arrested and the Cargo jet impounded at the Azerbaijani airport. It appears the war materiel was intended for use in Yugoslavia by Slobo Milosevic.
The Russian government officials contacted told reporters its destination was Slovakia, however.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Rakhmanin said Tuesday that the huge Cargo plane was flown by a private Russian carrier,and that its cargo belonged to the former Soviet republic of Kazakstan and was en route to Bratislava, Slovakia, from Taldy-Kurgan, Kazakstan.
However, that appears to be a hastily contrived cover-story, because, Bratislava, Slovakia's Defense Ministry said it was not aware of any scheduled Russian MiG deliveries.
Reports from the ground in Azerbaijan said that, although the Russian Cargo jet had landed on March 18th, Azerbaijani officials had not reported the incident until Tuesday when news reports of an impending U.S. led NATO attack on Yugoslavia had reached the area.
According to the Azerbaijani government's adviser on international relations, Vafa Guluzade, the arms shipment was illegal, "...the plane was possibly heading to Yugoslavia, a Russian ally that is under an international arms embargo."
Tuesday, Russia's Defense and Foreign Ministries have been working on options to act in connection with United States strikes against Yugoslavia authorized by a 58-41 Senate vote on Tuesday.
An ITAR-TASS newswire correspondent said windows of the Foreign and Defense Ministries buildings were lit throughout Tuesday night and that the ministers were on hand at their offices.
Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev has told reporters that all actions by the Defense Ministry will be aimed at increasing the combat readiness of Russia's armed forces.
According to the information available to TASS, in case the situation takes an unfavorable turn for Russia, the Ministry is "preparing proposals on possible deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Byelorussia."
Meanwhile, U.S. B-52 bombers took off from their base in Britain on Wednesday, and air raid sirens sounded in Kosovo's capital after NATO gave the go-ahead for allied airstrikes on Yugoslavia. Eight B-52 bombers armed with 20 cruise missiles each for possible attacks on Serb air defenses flew out of their base in Gloucestershire, England.
The Clinton administration's military attack against Yugoslavia will mark the first time in history that the U.S. or its defense alliance, NATO, has declared war and made hostile military attacks on a sovereign nation. NATO had threatened bombardment if Milosevic rejected a Clinton administration plan to provide interim self-rule to the ethnic Albanian populace of Yugoslavia.
The Tanjug government news agency said the U.S. airstrikes are based on hearsay and "...false reports of an alleged humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo," over which neither the U.S. nor NATO has any national security interest nor jurisdiction, in any event.
China has repeatedly expressed its opposition to the use of force against Yugoslavia. The Deputy Foreign Minister, Yang Jiechi, told reporters today, China has "...opposed the use of force in international affairs and interference in the domestic affairs of other countries."
Earlier, China's ambassador to the United Nations, Qin Huasun said "...any military action against Yugoslavia would be a breach of international law."
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Clinton's War on Serbia
Milosevic refuses one-sided terms of "settlement".
By Jan Oberg, Sweden Correspondent, Daily Republican Newspaper
LUND, Sweden - Congress moves closer to authorizing an act of war against the nation of Serbia, today.
"We're now picking sides in a civil war [within Yugoslavia] where the United States interests are not clear," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) railing against Clinton's war-like policy. The administration has no post-bombing policy, she argued. "Before we go bombing sovereign nations, we ought to have a plan."
The military provisions in the Kosovo Agreement on the table in Paris has nothing to do with peacekeeping. Neither the civilian nor the military provisions will help bring about peace among Serbs and Albanians. It will further antagonize the 10 million citizens of Yugoslavia and the international community.
There is simply nothing in it for the Yugoslavs and that's why I am deeply afraid that we are likely to see something very bad happen very soon. This whole affair has nothing to do with violence prevention, the appropriate term would be: peace-prevention.
What does the Kosovo Agreement in Paris, the "peace" agreement actually contain?
I have studied the Agreement as it has undergone remarkable changes over time. This document has been changed so it would be acceptable to the Albanian delegates. So much, in fact, that the Yugoslavs, who were once ready to accept the political parts at an earlier stage - now find the altered document unacceptable both in terms of political and military aspects.
In a long-term perspective, we are now witnessing the third round of Western-aided destruction of former Yugoslavia. First, there were the violence in Slovenia and Croatia; then Bosnia-Hercegovina and now present Yugoslavia/Kosovo threatening to not spill over into but drag Macedonia down in international warfare. In all cases, one or more actors were armed by Western powers, in all cases the UN was squeezed out and NATO came in, in all cases violence was not prevented in time and everywhere some peace plan was introduced that secured Western control and permits use of unlimited force "if necessary" - and in all cases ordinary citizens are the main victims.
"I'm afraid we may be starting something we can't get out of," said Assistant Majority Leader Don Nickles (R). "We may be there for years and years and years."
A vote is scheduled today on a resolution drafted by Sen. Robert C. Smith(R) and introduced by Majority Leader Trent Lott(R) that would bar funding for the airstrikes – or for any other military operations in and around Kosovo – without prior approval of Congress. The only exceptions would be intelligence and logistical support and any action to defend U.S. forces against "immediate threat."
The outcome was in doubt, however, because 60 votes would be required for passage and Lott spokesman John Czwartacki said he "had reason to doubt" that such a super-majority could be achieved. Czwartacki also held open the possibility of "some kind of agreement" to avoid such a stand-off.
Senator Joseph Biden, ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters he believed that a majority of senators would vote to authorize the airstrikes. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner(R) is one of the few Republicans to openly support U.S. military action against the Serbs. But Senator Biden(D) expressed doubt whether the Senate could get to a straight up-or-down vote on the issue, given the procedure that Lott has employed to get a vote on Smith's proposal.
It begins to look like a pattern, a strategy.
[Dr. Jan Oberg has worked with TFF mitigation-team in this conflict region since 1992. He is the Director of the a Conflict Mitigation team to the Balkans and Georgia. Daily Republican staff writers also contributed to this story]
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Kosovo's Failed Peace Agreement
Terms of "settlement" are deceptive and one sided.
By Jan Oberg, Sweden Correspondent, Daily Republican Newspaper
Read the complete Kosovo Peace Agreement
LUND, Sweden - The so called Kosovo Peace Agreement being discussed these very hours in Paris is filled with unwelcome surprises. No recognised, sovereign state would accept all the CIVILIAN provisions and the MILITARY implementation on its territory of a plan like this. No state likes to receive "sign or be bombed" ultimatums, particularly not when the said plan implies the de facto end of its status as a sovereign state with territorial integrity.
The standard news media story this week on television's CNN, BBC, and some world newspapers conveys the impression that the Serbs are just stubborn and stall the peace negotiations, whereas the Albanian side is cooperative. Further evidence of the effectiveness of this misinformation campaign has been unearthed a letter from their delegation leader of March 15th. In it, the writer states that Yugoslavia deserves punishment, and Albanians are praised for their "courage to compromise for peace." In truth, reality is a great deal more complicated.
It is obnvious that no one has raised the simple question: Could there be some REASONS why Serbs say no and Albanians indicate that they will say yes? Ask yourself why media and diplomats discuss the game and the blame, not the substance. The document on the table, among other things, decides SOME CRITICAL ISSUES. For example, the self-governing Kosovo can influence Yugoslav politics while the authorities of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia [FRY] are barred from influencing Kosovo's internal affairs? The Constitution and laws of Kosovo cannot be modified by FRY or by Serbia while Kosovo citizens would be elected to the Federal and Republican assemblies and governments and to its courts
There is also no definition of the term "national communities" - used throughout the document as a basic category - but talks about their "fair representation" and their "additional rights."
The Agreement would take precedence over legislation, i.e. of that of FRY?
It is defective, also in that there is to be equal rights and equal access to employment in public services but does not stipulate what that means for the 10-20 per cent of the people in the province who are NOT Albanians. The Implementation Mission, IM, is to have its own radio and television in Kosovo.
FRY is prevented from prosecuting crimes related to the conflict and holds that past political and resistance activities shall not be a bar to holding office in Kosovo.
The decisions of the Kosovo Supreme Court are to be executed by all FRY authorities, and the communal boundaries can be changed - which, in its consequences, will permit gerrymandering to create majority compacts. The OSCE would supervise an election program in consultation with the Parties asa FRY is not considered capable of holding elections, while the Chief of the OSCE/EU Implementation Mission, CIM, has the authority to issue binding directives to the Parties on all important matters he sees fit. As in Bosnia, he can dismiss public security personnel and he can remove and appoint officials and curtail existing institutions - meaning he would be able to overrule election results, and there is no mention of FRY veto in any area.
Kosovo would function as a free market economy, as laid down in its so called "constitution." FRY would give Kosovo an equitable share of benefits derived from international transactions while the economic resources and profits of the province are to be reallocated with "the distribution of powers and responsibilities set forth in this agreement." This hardly clarifies what to do with the province's considerable natural resources and industrial facilities.
Substantial economic aid and a donor's conference is to be arranged without mention of help to normalise the Yugoslav economy, suspend anctions or otherwise help the 650.000 refugees in FRY, the largest number in Europe.
Three years ahead, an international meeting is to be convened "to determine a mechanism for a final settlement for Kosovo, on the basis of the will of the people, opinions of the relevant authorities..." This is so ambiguous it invites trouble.
The civilian porions of the proposed document lacks any reference to civilian peace-keeping, trust-building, civil society-based reconciliation, conflict-resolution training, support for NGOs, peace education or human rights training etc.
So the chances that Albanians, Serbs and other citizens should begin to build trust and learn to live peacefully side by side during these three years is nil.
There are two types of semantic tricks in this text. The sovereign, recognised state of Yugoslavia is treated in terms of language and provisions on an equal footing with the Albanian self-proclaimed, non-recognized Kosova and its military unit, the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA. But this is a legal document, so it implies that - in practical terms, seventy to eighty per cent of the provisions and requirements are directed at the FRY, not at Kosova, since only the former has the institutions, legal means and enforcement capacity to comply. In most cases when the document states what "the Parties" shall do, it applies only to the FRY. The document repeatedly appears to respect FRY's sovereignty and integrity while grossly interfering with it in two ways. First, by establishing clearly asymmetric relations of influence and obligations between FRY and the self governing Kosovo. Second, it makes the Civilian Chief of Implementation Mission, CIM, the de facto ruler of the province, modelled upon the Dayton Accords and its Office of the High Representative.
This document is freely available on the Internet. It is the February 23 version that none of the parties would sign at the time in Rambouillet. Why are these provisions not analysed? Why do we not have a qualified debate about whether or not this is a fair, trust and peace building settlement? Why only the focus on the game and NOT on the problems and issues? This is not a sports event, what is at stake is the lives of around ten million people and future generations. So, what is the role of media and intellectuals if not to look into these matters?
No state in the West - least of all those of the Contact Group - would even consider granting self-government along these lines or being bullied into it by military threats and a military implementation.
The Military Implementation of the Agreement, is most interesting. For instance, the Agreement does NOT mention the word KLA? It makes NATO the highest military authority on that territory of sovereign Yugoslavia, and FRY is barred from defining its border defence. More shocking, is the fact that the KLA's demilitarisation powers arw not defined in the agreement.[Dr. Jan Oberg has worked with TFF mitigation-team in this conflict region since 1992. He is the Director of the a Conflict Mitigation team to the Balkans and Georgia].
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NY Times Delayed China Spy Story
Would timely publication of the Times story have endangered national
security?
By Art Hoppe Jr. Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON - The New York Times has confirmed that it acceded to the FBI's request and held for one day a front-page story about China's theft of U.S. nuclear secrets. A second request was rejected.
The Times article said that China had miniaturized its nuclear bombs using information stolen from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The story was supposed to run on March 5.
The FBI asked the Times to delay the article because the main suspect in the theft, a Taiwanese born, American scientist, was due to be interviewed by the bureau that day.
The story contained at least two facts the scientist didn't know, including his failing a lie detector test, Times editor Joseph Lelyveld told reporters.
Lelyveld said "... the FBI asked the Times to hold off for an additional day."
The story wich was not run until March 6, did not name the suspect, Wen Ho Lee. Two days later, he was fired. No charges have been filed.
Times spokeswoman Lisa Carparelli confirmed that the Times delayed publication for a day at the FBI's request. She was unable to provide further details and Lelyveld did not return a call for comment.
Bill Carver, an FBI spokesman in Washington, refused to comment.
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COMMUNIST CHINA DENIES
But Lee was invited to Beijing for nuclear weapons institute presentation.
By Tatsudo Akayama, Pacific News Bureau
TOKYO - The Taiwanese born American scientist, Wen Ho Lee, who was fired last week from a U.S. weapons, has been in Beijing at nuclear weapons institute. Lee may have presented, at least, two documents depicted as research papers relating to problems in controlling explosions. He has been accused by the Clinton administration of revealing U.S. nuclear secrets to Beijing.
Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji today denied allegations China stole U.S. nuclear weapons secrets and said China ties to the U.S. Commerce Depratment were being "...sacrificed to partisan struggles in Washington."
"There has emerged an anti-China wave in the United States. This makes us feel uneasy. I don't think my visit to the United States will bring me into a minefield but I do expect to encounter some hostile or some unfriendly atmosphere there," Zhu told news reportes in Beijing.
Rongji's news conference dealing touched on ties with the U.S. as he urged Washington and the European Union to admit China into the World Trade Organization.
Stopping short of denial that Beijing had stolen nuclear secrets from the U.S. Mr. Rongji asked, "Why should China have taken such risks?" He had no comment, however, when asked about Lee's visit China in 1985 and his invitation to Beijing to present information at the Institute of Applied Physics where research on nuclear weapons development was being conducted.
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AFTER THE EURO, ADOPT A
EUROPEAN CONSTITUTION
Urgent need for a real democratic government and for deep democratic reform .
By Paolo Vacca, Belgium Correspondent
BRUSSLES, Belgium - Several non-governmental organisations and citizens are struggling for European political unity and are carrying out across Europe a "Campaign for a European Constitution", launched by UEF (Union of European Federalists) and JEF (Young European Federalists).
The European Union has now a single currency, the Euro. This is a great event, and gives the Europeans unprecedented opportunities, but at the same time it makes urgent the need for a real and democratic government of Europe and for a deep democratic reform of all the European Union's institutions.
The management of the European economy after the birth of the Euro, the enlargement to new countries, the mass unemployment, the challenges of globalisation, point to the need for building up of a more stable and peaceful world order. To face this, Europe needs to go rapidly ahead towards a real democratic and effective European Government and a real European Constitution.
The intervention of Europe's citizens, who so far have been substantially excluded from the building of Europe, could well prove to be decisive to win over the resistance of national governments.
[Contact the writer through The Palace de Luxembourg.]
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$1.3B Hurricane Relief
House comittee approves Central American humanitarian aid.
By Art Hoppe, Jr. Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON - Ignoring a White House veto threat, a House committee approved a $1.3 billion measure Thursday that offers hurricane relief aid for Central America. Passage came after Republicans included cuts in foreign aid and other programs.
The overall bill, which also contains help for Jordan and American farmers, was approved by the House Appropriations Committee by voice vote. The full House may debate the legislation in two weeks.
White House budget chief Jacob Lew had sent committee leaders a letter warning of a veto by President Clinton because the bill's cuts "would seriously undermine America's capacity to pursue its foreign policy objectives and promote our economic security."
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Secret of his success
Leaves "modern liberalism" up in the air.
By Andrew Ping, Staff Writer
BERKELEY - President Clinton has weathered stormy waters and continued to hold a high approval rating, despite the fact that most Americans don't like or agree with is misconduct in office. How did he do it? Why didn't people want to see him removed from office? There have been plenty of explanations, but political theory gives us an answer that shows Mr. Clinton for what he is: a corrupt man who will do anything to stay in office.
Some background is necessary to understand the situation. America was founded on certain principles, including individual freedom and responsibility, small government that interferes as little as possible in most matters, and equality of opportunity to allow for fair competition. These ideas are often associated with "Lockean Liberalism," or what is contemporarily called "Conservatism".
Even Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" policies didn't stamp out the prevailing view of the American people. "Liberal" came to refer to those policies. Ronald Reagan, an incredibly popular president, had the intelligence to use the basic American values to undermine the Democratic party, which for 40 years had supported programs that went against the basic tenets of American political culture. "Liberal" became a dirty word, and no Democrat would refer to himself as such.
President Clinton's success can easily be connected to playing on the basic ideals of American society. As a "New Democrat" he promised liberal reforms but boasted smaller government. Programs like national healthcare fell by the wayside, since they were only decoys to get the votes of the underprivileged. In short, Clinton is using Republican politics to appeal to underlying public values, while masking his tactics with a thin liberal veneer to claim he's a Democrat.
The result is that we have a perpetual fund raising and PR campaign by a president who stands for nothing. He's not false to his Oath of Office, false to his marriage vows, but more importantly, he is false to the long standing tenets of his own political party.
It is an admission that the ideals of the Republican party are the popular ones, the American ones, while "modern liberalism" hasn't the proverbial leg to stand on.
[Editors' Note: Andrew Ping is a Senior at U.C. Berkeley. His syndicated Column "View From The Terrace" is published in the National Edition of the Daily Republican Newspaper every Friday.]
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When doctors go to court
The patient's secrets soon become public knowledge.
By Howard Hobbs, Editors' Desk
PALO ALTO - The psychiatrists' promise of clinical privacy is part of the Hippocratic Oath. But that oath contains an escape clause most people are unaware of. The oath itself is, "All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession... which ought not to be spread abroad, will keep secret and will never reveal."
American medicine increasingly faces such questions, and psychiatrists (and other mental health professionals) are often on the front lines.
Insurance companies and other parties to law suits over personal injury want to know what people tell their psychotherapists. They also want to know what therapists think about the needs, capabilities, and prognoses of their patients. This is hardly surprising. People tell therapists things about their actions, experiences, and finances that they tell nobody else. Mental health professionals' diagnostic and predictive judgments, in turn, serve many nontherapeutic purposes. Clinical judgments bear on decisions about criminal responsibility, tort liability, insurability, career advancement, and myriad other responsibilities, rights and opportunities. Litigants, insurers, employers, and public officials thus commonly ask psychotherapists to reveal things that perhaps "ought not to be spread abroad."
Yet, psychiatric testimony is necessary in any personal injury case. However the use of unreliable and invalid psychiatric opinion during trials has emerged in large measure because the courts have failed to rigorously hold psychiatric testimony to the reasonable standards demanded of other expert testimony. The courts seem dazzled by the aura generally accorded to the medical profession and statements made by doctors that appear to be based upon scientific expertise, to be objective, and trustworthy.
Making matters worse, the legal standards for admitting expert testimony are not clear, particularly when it comes to psychiatric testimony. This situation has been long standing. Karl M. Bowman,M.D., a professor of psychiatry at the U.C. Medical School in Berkeley, told this writer in 1968 that "...In the attempt to protect the rights of the individual, a great many tragedies have occurred, namely, to secure mentally sick persons proper care with a minimum harm to the patient, as well as making certain that persons who are not mentally sick are not improperly treated."
When presented with requests for testimony, therapists and other health care professionals typically are at a loss as to what they should do. The American Medical Association's code of ethics permits physicians to disclose confidential clinical information whenever they are "required to do so by law." Other ethical codes applicable to mental health professionals contain similar language.
As Ralph Slovenko shows compellingly in Psychotherapy and Confidentiality the law's stance toward clinical confidentiality in the mental health sphere is less than solicitous. Slovenko's book is the most comprehensive review yet published of the legal duties of mental health professionals to keep and reveal clinical secrets. From a therapeutic perspective, the legal landscape he surveys is bleak. In the first half of his book, Slovenko examines the scope and limits of the psychotherapist-patient and physician-patient privileges, which are meant to reassure patients that what they say in the clinic or in the therapist's office is beyond the reach of judges, jurors, and litigants. He demonstrates that this assurance is largely illusory. Through its many exceptions, the law of therapeutic privilege subordinates confidentiality to the need, in the law's quaint phrase, for "every man's evidence." In criminal proceedings, child-custody cases, and, to a lesser extent, tort and contract litigation, clinical confidences are better protected by the tests of relevancy that courts apply to all potential evidence than by the porous rules of therapeutic privilege.
As Slovenko shows in the second half of the book, the law's lukewarm treatment of clinical privacy extends beyond the realm of testimonial privilege.
The law requires clinicians to tell public authorities or potential victims about myriad dangers that psychiatric patients might pose, and at times the law allows therapists to reveal clinical confidences to a patient's employer on the grounds of their relevance to job performance. Unlawful breaches of confidentiality are often made with impunity, since patients are reluctant to risk further embarrassment by going to court. Slovenko reports that therapists are less likely to be sued for violating patients' confidences than for failing to reveal clinical information to third parties who claim injury.
The largest gap in the law's protection of clinical confidences may be the carte blanche it gives to disclosure once patients have given their "consent."
Health insurers and employers routinely offer services or opportunities on the condition that consent to the release of clinical information be provided. Withholding consent in such circumstances is often not a realistic choice, yet the law typically treats this consent as voluntary. Although some question the extent to which the law should regard such consent as uncoerced and thus valid, Slovenko takes its legitimacy as a given.
More generally, Slovenko parses the law of clinical confidentiality in a largely descriptive fashion and is uncritical of the developments he chronicles. His encyclopedic book is a valuable reference for health care professionals, especially psychotherapists, who are interested in what the law of medical privacy minimally requires, but it encourages reflexive deference to the law as the arbiter of what health care professionals ought to do.
In so doing, the book gives short shrift to their therapeutic, patient-oriented perspective as a distinct moral factor that is relevant to decisions about keeping secrets in the ambiguous situations that lead clinicians to consult the law.
Too often, the law offers no clear answers, and clinicians can serve their patients and influence the law's course by making and defending patient-oriented ethical judgments. Slovenko suggests that socializing with "homosexuals" constitutes "acting out" against "the rules of society," and he approvingly cites Karl Menninger's characterization of homosexuality as "an illegal type of gratification."
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CLINTON SHIFTS BLAME ON CHINA SPIES
White House cites Reagan's failure to protect national security
interests.
By William Heartstone, Staff Writer
WASHINGTON - The Clinton White house, in response to a story in the Daily Republican Newspaper on Saturday, has launched what it calls an investigationinto the loss of critical U.S. nuclear secrets and missle guidance technology that appears to be in the hands of Communist China.
But, the Clinton White House insists that it should be the Ronald Wilson Reagan administration who is to blame for the loss of the advanced nuclear warhead technology, according to Mr. Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger.
Mr. Berger told reporters over the weekend, "...there was a serious security problem at the national labs dating back to the mid-1980s, which we were going to deal with in a systematic and comprehensive way."
However, Mr. Clinton had not begun to tighten security until after the news hit the streets on Saturday, nearly seven years into the Clinton administration.
According to information pieced together in the past three days, the Clinton White House has known the details of the security breach for over two years and has failed to take any corrective action until news accounts were made public on Saturday.
Making matters worse, a senior administration officials told reporters Saturday the Enegry chief Bill Richardson, was not briefed by the White House on the Chinese breach of U.S. security measures ahead of Saturday's news reports.
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Rhetoric of Democracy
Government land use issue has Commonwealth of Guam crying for justice.
By Tony Artero, Pacific News Bureau
AGANA, Guam - Joe Pangelinan is a hero to his people. In that way, he is like many on Guam who, though damaged economically, still look to a government that ignores his condition and his desperation. Since the end of WWII hostilities he has suffered under a conspiracy to deny him of his fundamental property rights and economic freedoms.
After 50 plus years, he still dreams of obtaining his liberty. But now, he has begun to organize a plan. He hopes others will join him. He wants his family and his neighbors to unite and fight as a unit for the restoration of property rights on Guam.
Today, his family and neighbors got together an organizing committee and they agreed on a Constitution for their organization.
The popular local reaction on the land issue to date is one of total agreement with the individuals crying for justice, but not the key government officials. The government, is still showing token acknowledgment to this historic problem and offering no solution. In fact, the "leaders" are, once again, placing the cart before the horse and are still controlling everything even for the misuse and abusive use of the land.
In the particular area where Joe Pangelinan's property is located, a local senator, Anthony C. Blaz, has a Bill introduced to create a new "municipality" for that area of Guam, which has been abandoned by the military since the late 1940s, but held hostage all these years for no-good reason and therefore has no people living there. .
The sitting governor (amidst the pending court battle on runaway fraudulent election), through his Guam Economic Development Authority, is pushing to cut deals with foreign conglomerates on the use of that property. He is of course looking at increasing his personal gain and popularity, as always, while virtually ignoring all together the property owners, who have already suffered five decades of damages.
The mentality of growing the government amidst economic chaos goes on. People on Guam have been defrauded and betrayed by politicians and bureaucrats alike for too long. The marching order has always been and still is, "Damn The Deficit, Grow The Government!"
Key local and federal government officials have been ransacking the land on Guam for other than serving the people who really own the land. Tyjan area, Joe Pangelinan's area, and many other areas of Guam, since World War II, have been occupied like the troubled "West Bank" of Israel.
The crys have all been heard for decades. "It's Time" for this overdue justice to be rendered. But, WWII crimes committed on Guam and its people have not seen any light at the end of a very long tunnel.
The irony here is that Guam has been under the U.S. flag since 1898. However, the peace loving Chamorros are now willing to betray their own in a heartbeat. Similarly, America, "a peace loving nation," seems willing to comit acts of war without justification. Remember any "battle cry" for a war against VietNam?
It's high time we commit ourselves to reform the the excesses of governmennt and stop ransacking other people's land.
It is my hope we do not have to wait any longer. History teached that people will fight for their land. We can well imagine what the headlines might be, what bloody riots will be reported, where National Guard troops will be called out, and where UN Peace Keeping teams will be sent if it doesn't stop now.
The conditions on Guam are the products of "hard work" by government "leaders" without any planning. Yet, are all considered "politically correct," even if fraudulent like that of the so-called "I Ta-No'Ta Land Use Plan."
"I'm from the government and I'm here to help you" as reported by the Pacific Daily News front page story of February 23, 1997, on public housing. "People are lucky. They're well-taken care of, they live here until they die...the only thing I can do is help provide the facilities for their success, hoping to promote self-sufficiency,". A government official was heard to say. Its the joke of this millennium.
We know from experience that handouts promote dependency. These unfunded mandates together with abortion, the wetland and wildlife regulations, are a cancer slowly eating away our family and community values. Joe Pangelinan sees all this as interference and the ruination of the cohesive and beautifully structured Chamorro culture of pre WWII Guam. He says it is the reason why people today are screaming for the return of their property.
Interest in land is the very reason why the U.S. Government has consistently taken steps to decrease private land holdings while distracting the people with the subtle increase in their dependency on government handouts.
People here want to work the land not the government. We want a free enterprise system. We want to buy and sell our lands. In other words, we want freedom to ring over our private property from Udall Point Main to Udall Point Guam. But that is one thing that the Clinton White House won't provide Joe Pangelinan plenty of. Free enterprise is the thing we call freedom and justice for all.
[Mr. Atero is the Bureau Chief for the Pacific News Bureau of the Daily Republican Newspaper on Guam. He testified before the House of Representsatives Resource Commission on October 19, 1997 on pending HR 100 - Guam's Commonwealth Act. He is a retired U.S. Navy Submariner, and a Real Estate executive on Guam.]
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CHINA HAS U.S. NUCLEAR MISSLE WARHEADS
Breakdown in national security measures of Clinton administration blamed.
By William Heartstone, Staff Writer
WASHINGTON - Until recently, Communist China's nuclear weapons designs were a generation behind those of the United States, largely because Beijing was unable to produce small warheads that could be launched from a single missile at multiple targets and form the backbone of a modern nuclear force.
However, by the third year of William Jefferson Clinton's first-term as president, Conmmunist China suddenly obtained the knowledge and the components to build such weapons and to successfully test them. What made this Chinese breakthrough possible?
It was through Chinese espionage uncovered in 1995. By the following year, government investigators concluded that Communist China had obtained secrets from major nuclear weapons facilities in the U.S.
Now, U.S. officials assert that the White House sought to minimize the espionage issue for policy reasons. "This conflicted with their China policy," a U.S.official was quoted as saying, at the time."It undercut the administration's efforts to have a strategic partnership with the Chinese."
In a late Friday New York Times' breaking news story by James Risen and Jeff Gerth the writers point to evidence that the Clinton administration may be responsible for the loss of vital U.S. security, in the matter. Throughout the government, the White House response to the theft of nuclear secrets was depicted as "...marked by delays, inaction and skepticism -- even though senior intelligence officials regarded it as one of the most damaging spy cases in recent history."
According to the Times' story, that is someting the Clinton White House denies. "The idea that we tried to cover up or downplay these allegations to limit the damage to United States-Chinese relations is absolutely wrong," said Gary Samore, the senior National Security Council official who handled the issue.
The White House was told of the nuclear espionage in the summer of 1997, as Mr. Clinton was making ready for what he was calling the U.S.-Chinese summit, a face-to-face meeting with Communist leaders he said was intended to "...improve relations with Beijing." The FBI had made no arrests in the incident.
Making matters worse, President Clinton's chief of intelligence at the Energey Department, was ordered last year by senior Clinton officials not to tell Congress about the theft of nuclear bomb secrets because of White House fears that news of the breach of security might fuel a political attack on Mr. Clinton's Most Favored Nation status for China, officials are believed to have told the Times investigators.
If it is true that White House officials concealed Chinese spying in order to prevent political opposition to the administration's dealings with China, it would be another Clinton administration fiasco. Failing to take immediate corrective action should be considered a justifiable cause for bring criminal charges against those Clinton adminisration officials responsible.
The Clinton administration continued to advocate looser controls over sales of supercomputers and other equipment, even as intelligence analysts documented the scope of China's espionage.
In consequence of Mr. Clinton's failed administration, China's technical advance allows it to make mobile missiles, ballistic missiles with multiple warheads and small warheads for submarines.
The Clinton administration has granted the Chinese increased access to U.S. nuclear laboratories to support his policy of engagement with China on a scale as never before. The FBI still has made no arrests.
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Israel Taped Clinton+Lewinsky
Strategists pondered how to use the highly embarrassing evidence.
By Edward Davidian, Staff Writer
WASHINGTON - The Israeli intelligence agency, MOSSAD, taped President Clinton's phone sex sessions with Monica Lewinsky and used them to counter moves by the FBI investigating a Tel Aviv mole inside the White House, The London Telegraph reported in today's columns. The damaging disclosure is supported by a credibly source. The incident has also been aired in a new book about the Israeli intelligence agency shadow operations inthe U.S.
Now in bookstores, Gordon Thomas' book, Gideon's Spies writes that the spy agency learned of the Clinton-Lewinsky calls in March, 1997, at a time when it was concerned that an investigation could blow the cover of a high-level mole, code-named Mega, carefully planted close inside the Clinton administration.
Thomas writes, "Agents knew they could not tap the president's high-security telephones, so they tapped Lewinsky's."
Mossad's strategists pondered how to use the highly embarrassing taped conversations; they were the stuff of blackmail - though no one suggested any attempt should be made to blackmail the president of the United States," Thomas thinks.
"Some strategists urged [Mossad director Danny] Yatom to use the back-door channel with Washington and let the FBI know Mossad was aware of the president's phone calls: it would be a not-very subtle way of telling the agency to back off in their continuing hunt for Mega.
Other analysts urged a wait-and-see policy, arguing that "...the information would remain explosive whenever it was released," according to the Thomas narrative.
President Clinton told Lewinsky on March 27, 1997, that he "...suspected that a foreign embassy was tapping his telephones," Kenneth Starr wrote in his report to the House Judiciart Committee.
White House spokesman David Leavy, asked about the Thomas book on Wednesday, would not say whether the White House had suspicious that a foreign government was tapping Clinton's communications.
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Americans Executed in Rawanda
Retaliation for Clinton foreign policy ties with Rawanda Tutsis.
By Tatsudo Akayma, Overseas Correspondent
NAIROBI, Kenya - First reports of the deaths said Ugandan police reported the Americans were killed in the crossfire of an "...army rescue attempt." However, Uganda's deputy chief of military intelligence, Noble Mayombo, has backtracked and told reporters that Rwandan rebels bludgeoned and hacked the Americans to death along with six other tourists in the Ugandan highlands," on Monday.
Meanwhile, a Clinton administration spokesperson said nothing about the death of the Americans in a prepared statement, "...the rebels who kidnapped the tourists on Monday and killed their Ugandan guides, will be brought to justice."
However, the U.S. State Department has identified the two dead Americans as Rob Haubner, 48, and Susan Miller, 43, a married couple from Portland, Oregon.
"They killed four women and four men with knives, machetes and axes," according to Hussein Kivumi, a rain forest camp supervisor close by the scene of the executions.
Witnesses at the scene said the Americans had their heads crushed in and deep slashes with machetes.
Linda Adams, a Californian who miraculously escaped before the killings began said the victims marched up to the captors who then asked each of them what country they were from.
Word from the Uganda French Embassy deputy Anne Peltier, is that the captors singled out the Americans. Peltier, who had been among those originally captured, was being quoted in The Nation, a Nairobi news service, that she was freed with a message for authorities, "... the action was being taken because of US and British government support for Rwanda's Tutsi population."
The Rawanda government now says that the bloodbath began before dawn Monday when about 130 Hutus ambushed and killed three Uganda Park rangers who were accompanying the tourists on a trek in the Uganda uplands.
After looting the campsites and robbing the tourists, the rebels began a forced march through the jungle with more than thirty captives. During the procession, about a dozen captives escaped and found their way back to safety.
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The Specter Of Deflation
Wild spending has sparked fears about the coming deflation.
By Robert J. Samuelson
WASHINGTON - In the history of the past 30 years, the rise and fall of inflation plays a huge and unheralded role in shaping politics and social change. The advent of double-digit inflation in the United States and Britain propelled Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan to power, transforming politics in these countries and the world. Low inflation has now sustained America's economic boom, which helped President Clinton survive impeachment and has buoyed the stock market. But with inflation apparently tamed, do we now face the opposite threat: deflation? Good question.
The fact that it's being asked reflects a dramatic reversal. In 1979 inflation (as measured by the consumer price index) was 13 percent in the United States. In France, Italy and Britain it was 12, 20 and 17 percent, respectively, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In 1998 inflation in those countries was 1.6 percent (U.S.), 0.3 percent (France), 1.5 percent (Italy) and 2.7 percent (Britain). Behind these figures lies an intellectual revolution.
What was discarded was the notion that easy money could, by stimulating borrowing and spending, expand production and reduce unemployment. Just the opposite occurred. By fostering inflation ("too much money chasing too few goods"), it upset the economy. Companies thought they could pass along higher costs in higher prices. Workers expected that ever-higher wages would more than offset inflation. The Federal Reserve lurched between loose policies (which raised inflation) and tight policies (which tried to quell it). In the 1981-82 recession, short-term interest rates reached 22 percent; monthly unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent.
It was this harsh episode — and the growing conviction that the Fed would resist any run-up of prices — that gradually purged mostinflationary expectations. The same thing happened in Europe. But hardly anyone imagined that the process might lead to deflation. This possibility is no longer outlandish. The Economist recently put deflation on its cover. And last week German Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine warned against deflation.
Let's define our terms. Just as inflation is the persistent rise of most prices — not just some prices going up — deflation is the persistent fall of most prices. We don't have that yet in the United States. Last year's low inflation blended price increases and decreases. College tuition was up 3.9 percent, hotel rates 3.8 percent and used cars 3.5 percent. Meanwhile, gasoline was down 15.4 percent, computers 35.8 percent and women's clothes 1 percent. What we've had is "disinflation" — a drop of inflation.
So have most countries. But not all. In Japan and China there's modest deflation. In Japan consumer prices have dipped slightly in recent months, and wholesale prices declined 4.4 percent in 1998. In China retail prices have dropped for 14 months, says economist Nicholas Lardy of the Brookings Institution. More conspicuous has been the deflation of globally traded raw materials. At $10 to $12 a barrel, oil prices are at 1977-78 levels; soybean prices are the lowest since 1976.
Economist Rosanne Cahn of Credit Suisse First Boston attributes U.S. disinflation to three causes: worldwide over-investment, which has created surpluses; deregulation of some industries (airlines, communications, financial services), which has intensified competition, and weak bargaining power by workers, which has enabled companies to hold down labor costs. But deflation — where it exists — seems to stem from one main cause: gluts. There's too much supply chasing too little demand.
Even in 1995, China reported that production capacity for more than 900 major goods (from telephones to film) was almost twice demand, says Lardy. Japan's industrial output in 1998 was slightly lower than in 1989, says Douglas Ostrom of the Japan Economic Institute. Because industry had expanded, he reckons that factories operated at about 82 percent of capacity. As for raw materials, Asia's slump has depressed worldwide demand and led to oversupply.
If mild, deflation is tolerable. Lower prices expand people's purchasing power. Saudi Arabia and Texas may lose from lower oil prices, but consumers — paying less for gasoline — may spend more for toys or software. The effects on the economy may cancel. But at some point, the damage to producers may overwhelm any benefit to consumers. If prices sink too low, companies can't cover costs or service debts. They fire workers, cancel investment or go out of business. The process can feed on itself, as the buying power of distressed companies — or countries — shrinks. Or consumers may postpone purchases because they think prices will drop further.
In the 19th century, the United States experienced the tamer deflation. After the Civil War, wages and agricultural prices slowly declined. Although this did not stop economic growth, it did feed unrest among farmers, who felt squeezed between falling prices and fixed debts. In the Great Depression, most of the world suffered the sharper type of deflation. From 1929 to 1932, U.S. wholesale prices plunged about 32 percent. Bankruptcies and unemployment soared. Production collapsed.
The obvious ways to stop deflation are to curb supply or expand demand. As noted, the first is painful and possibly self-defeating. But inevitably, it's occurring. Even some Japanese companies are shutting plants and resorting to layoffs. Expanding demand is more fun. For this reason, The Economist correctly urges the European central bank to cut interest rates and chides the Bank of Japan for not expanding the money supply faster. But these blunt approaches may not fully erase oversupply.
The largest bulwark now against worldwide deflation is the festive U.S. economy. Indeed, its irrepressible growth last week pushed up long-term interest rates on fears (yup!) of higher inflation. But there are contradictory signs. Since early 1998, industrial utilization (the share of factory capacity being used) has declined. This suggests possible surpluses that could depress prices, profits and production. For now, deflation remains a specter. But should the specter become reality, we can be sure that deflation — like the inflation before it — will unsettle the social and political order.
[Editor's Note: Samuelson began his journalism career as a reporter on The Washington Post's business desk in 1969. After four years he left the paper to free-lance. His articles were published by the Sunday Times of London, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, the New Republic and other publications. He joined the National Journal as an economics correspondent in 1976 and began writing its "Economic Focus" column. He started writing a column for The Washington Post in 1977. In 1984, Samuelson left the National Journal and joined Newsweek as a contributing editor. ]© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company.
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Chinese Operative Stung in San Diego
Arranging to smuggle secret U.S. missle gyroscopes to Communist China.
By William Heartsone, Staff Writer
SAN DIEGO - A Chinese National traveling under the name, Yao Yi was arrested here in San Diego on Tuesday while he was attempting to obtain sensitive missle equipment that control U.S. missile guidance systems. He was apparently arranging to smuggle it to Communist China, authorities said today.
Yao Yi was in the the U.S. supposedly attending an international fiber optics educational conference on Tuesday where he was arrested. A preliminary hearing was held on Friday in federal court where he was ordered to be taken by U.S. Marshals to Boston to face charges, accroding to Assistant U.S. Attorney Despena F. Billings in a Press Release today.
The Chinese man was arrested in California, while in the process of negotiating for the purchase of sensitive U.S. fiber optic gyroscopes manufactured by a Massachusetts defense contractor. A copy of the federal criminal complaint filed in federal court was obtained only today.
Reliable federal sources confirmed that the Communist Chinese military was attempting to "...enhance the accuracy of its long-range weapons with the high-tech American equipment." Control and export of such materiel has been reassigned to the State Department, recently.
The State Department refused to approve the sale to Yao Yi, who then moved to secretly export the gyroscopes through a Boston firm that was a front for a U.S. Customs Service sting operation described in the criminal complaint.
Another suspect involved in helping Yao Yi is Collin Xu, living in Montreal. He has been charged with violations of the Arms Export Control Act, conspiracy and money laundering in connection with the incident.
The gyroscopes are key components in navigational systems for, among other ICBM's, and bomber aircraft guidance navigation. Making matters worse, they can be used to stabilize platforms for weapons systems,as well.
The Defense Department told Congress last week that Communist China's cruise and ballistics missiles will continue to be used to attain military and political goals through intimidation of the U.S.
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