Beijing's hard line on Hong Kong
April 29, 2003
I have tried to bite my tongue and write no more on the depressing dictats being handed down from Beijing. It must make the people of Hong Kong feel like recalcitrant children being scolded by the nanny. We know what's best for you sonny, and believe me, democracy is not what you want.
And then there is dear old Tung Chee-hwa; if he was not so unpopular; if he could hire capable people around him instead of pro Beijing sycophants; and frankly, if he was not so useless there would probably be less demand for change.
Beijing cannot fight the march of democracy. All across Europe, Russia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, South Korea, South Africa, the United States and on and on the voting goes as hundreds of millions march to polls. It will happen in Hong Kong. The Basic Law contains promises that ultimately the Chief Executive and all members of Legco will be returned by universal suffrage elections; i.e. by all adults having the right to vote irrespective of sex, race, occupation, literacy etc. Hong Kong's people want that right sooner, not later.
There have been some entertaining news reports this week: China Daily reported that: "Universal suffrage is no panacea for Hong Kong's problems. And radical changes to the political system will trigger a negative impact on the SAR, a central government official said yesterday". In a separate report this bastion of balanced journalism reported that: "Major political parties and the business community in Hong Kong voiced their support yesterday for the decision by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPCSC) that rules out universal suffrage in 2007 and 2008".
Better still was this offering from minor league property developer Ronnie Chan who was reported on Dow Jones as follows: "Leading property tycoon Wednesday defended China's decision to delay indefinitely broader democracy for Hong Kong, blaming the city's recent political turmoil on what he called "aggressive" pro-democracy groups bent on confronting the central government in Beijing". Chan, who has a US passport (granted by one of the world's great democracies Ronnie!!) said that "Hong Kong people don't feel they are truly a part of China, raising the possibility that direct elections could spark a political crisis by returning a leader who is unacceptable to the Beijing authorities". I fear Ronnie will not even see the irony. He is too busy lining his pockets.
Hong Kong suffers from having leaders, in politics and business, who tell Beijing what they think Beijing wants to hear or that continue to protect their own vested power and interests. And the Chinese people still suffer from having a media that tells them only what the government wants them to hear!
As the communists in Beijing prop up their dead ideology by embracing capitalism they are counting on the people preferring stability and growing prosperity over individual rights and freedoms. The two are not exclusive they are complementary.
Beijing is also hoping that by sending such a strong message at this time more and more people in Hong Kong will just assume that it is futile to keep banging their heads against Beijing's great wall. In Hong Kong the pro-democracy campaigners think differently and will argue that this is all the more reason to protest and all the more reason to make their vote count at the limited Legco elections later in the year.
Michael DeGolyer is an associate professor of the government and international studies department at Hong Kong Baptist University. In the Hong Kong Standard he summarised why the democratic processes work and why they are embraced: "The key reason," he says, "rests in the discovery that competition, transparency, and market forces are conducive to growing prosperity. What works in economics and corporate governance works in politics and social governance. Conversely, economic monopoly and corruption grow in the same soil as political monopoly and corruption. Lack of open, accountable government guarantees impoverishment and oppression. It also assures recurrent instability. Democracy has spread so widely because it solves many of the problems raised by economic development and global competition. Corruption in democracies leads rapidly to reform whereas dictatorships and oligopolies suppress reforms until the governing system explodes or collapses".
"By attempting to resist the rising tide of democratisation, the Standing Committee dooms us to drown under a tide of uncompetitiveness, corruption and instability."
Amen to that.
In the meantime, as Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing rather forcefully has reminded us all: "Are you clear on that? Hong Kong is China's Hong Kong."
Britain's sorry isolation
April 26,2003
What a mess; Referendums are not he way to govern a country. The British elected a pro European and pro Euro Labour government by an overwhelming majority. The people don't govern the country and indeed should not be trusted to do so. The nation is far more versed in the Beckham sex life and Eastenders than it will ever be in the pros and cons of European participation.
As the Observer leader points out yesterday no one question cannot capture the complexity of the European constitution. And frankly the Constitution is a big word for what is no more than an integration of the existing EU treaty structure.
It is up to the pro Europeans now to argue the benefits. The euro-sceptic media will produce endless stories of waste and bureacracy. The benefits of European Union membership have to be told. The EU has been portrayed only as a threat.
Britain's European Commissioner, Chris Patten, (one of my favourite people) has said that in the event of a "no" vote Britain would have to pull out of the EU.
The danger of Britain sitting between an EU from which it is excluded and a unilateralist United States where it is welcome only on American terms has not been spelt out. We have never detailed the benefits of building an integrated, democratic Europe. The referendum offers us that chance and we should seize it with enthusiasm. He is right. After almost 30 years of EU membership Britain has to decide whether it wants to make a success of Europe or not.
And if not in Europe then where is Britain. Britain's allegiance to the unilateralist United States is only accepted in terms that are defined by the Americans, not the British.
This is the chance to sell the benefits of building an integrated, democratic Europe. The alternative is a weak and isolated nation that is living in the past and not the future.
|
Let the great debate begin After the dismal debacle last year of the abolition of the office of Lord Chancellor and establishing an independent Supreme Court of Appeal with zero preparation, we would have hoped New Labour insiders would have learned a lesson. Too often they appear to act as if centralised, limitless power has gone to their heads. But we are where we are. There are important arguments against referendums; one question cannot capture the complexity of the constitution. However it is phrased it will lend itself to manipulation by a demotic media. None the less, an educated, articulate electorate demands more and more to participate in key decisions, and constitutional change ranks among them. It is a moot point whether the degree of change proposed by the EU Constitutional Treaty, which is essentially about integrating the existing EU treaty structure, justifies a referendum; the Government's argument that it did not was a strong one. But a weakened government with depleting political capital was in no position to resist the demand. Now, the opportunity must be seized. Both sides must put their case in a way that enables the public to decide the future interests of the nation. Europe, too, needs to argue the case for the constitution. To date, scare stories and distorted facts have gone unchallenged; the advantages of British European Union membership have been unsung. The EU has been portrayed only as a threat. The danger of Britain sitting between an EU from which it is excluded and a unilateralist United States where it is welcome only on American terms has not been spelt out. We have never detailed the benefits of building an integrated, democratic Europe. The referendum offers us that chance and we should seize it with enthusiasm.
|
Would you embrace this man?
23 April 2004
The official version:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il hugs former Chinese president Jiang Zemin(L) during a meeting in Beijing, as seen in this video released April 21, 2004. Kim Jong-il told China's leaders he would be patient, flexible and engaged in six-party talks on his nuclear programs, saying what they hoped to hear in an unannounced three-day visit ending on Wednesday. (CCTV/Reuters)
Others:
KIM "Come up and see my warhead"
|
Bangkok Blaze Leaves Thousands Homeless Fri Apr 23, Reuters
BANGKOK (Reuters) - A fire that raged for three hours on Friday through a Bangkok slum near the Australian and German embassies destroyed thousands of people's homes, officials said. The blaze, which sent a pall of thick, black smoke towering into the sky, broke out in a densely populated area packed with wooden homes. "When I saw the flames, I just ran. I've got nothing left," said one distraught resident fleeing the flames. A five-story block of flats next to the slum was also destroyed. "We need to find shelter for 2,000 to 3,000 people left homeless tonight after we have put out the fire," Prasarn Bamrungpan, chief of Bangkok's Sathorn District, told Reuters. Desperate residents could be seen spraying homes with water from garden hoses to stop the fire from spreading, or emptying the contents of their homes in a bid to save a few possessions. Officials said there had been no reports of casualties and no clues to the cause of the blaze. |
||
Losing Our Edge?
April 22, 2004
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
New York Times
I was just out in Silicon Valley, checking in with high-tech entrepreneurs about
the state of their business. I wouldn't say they were universally gloomy, but I
did detect something I hadn't detected before: a real undertow of concern that
America is losing its competitive edge vis-à-vis China, India, Japan and other
Asian tigers, and that the Bush team is deaf, dumb and blind to this situation.
Several executives explained to me that they were opening new plants in Asia -
not because of cheaper labor. Labor is a small component now in an automated
high-tech manufacturing plant. It is because governments in these countries are
so eager for employment and the transfer of technology to their young
populations that they are offering huge tax holidays for U.S. manufacturers who
will set up shop. Because most of these countries also offer some form of
national health insurance, U.S. companies shed that huge open liability as well.
Other executives complained bitterly that the Department of Homeland Security is
making it so hard for legitimate foreigners to get visas to study or work in
America that many have given up the age-old dream of coming here. Instead, they
are studying in England and other Western European nations, and even China. This
is leading to a twofold disaster.
First, one of America's greatest assets - its ability to skim the cream off the
first-round intellectual draft choices from around the world and bring them to
our shores to innovate - will be diminished, and that in turn will shrink our
talent pool. And second, we could lose a whole generation of foreigners who
would normally come here to study, and then would take American ideas and
American relationships back home. In a decade we will feel that loss in
America's standing around the world.
Still others pointed out that the percentage of Americans graduating with
bachelor's degrees in science and engineering is less than half of the
comparable percentage in China and Japan, and that U.S. government investments
are flagging in basic research in physics, chemistry and
engineering. Anyone who thinks that all the Indian and Chinese techies are doing
is answering call-center phones or solving tech problems for Dell customers is
sadly mistaken. U.S. firms are moving serious research and development to India
and China.
The bottom line: we are actually in the middle of two struggles right now. One
is against the Islamist terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere, and the other is a
competitiveness-and-innovation struggle against India, China, Japan and their
neighbors. And while we are all fixated on the former (I've been no exception),
we are completely ignoring the latter. We have got to get our focus back in
balance, not to mention our budget. We can't wage war on income taxes and
terrorism and a war for innovation at the same time.
Craig Barrett, the C.E.O. of Intel, noted that Intel sponsors an international
science competition every year.This year it attracted some 50,000 American high
school kids. "I was in China 10 days ago," Mr. Barrett said, "and I asked them
how many kids in China participated in the local science fairs that feed into
the national fair [and ultimately the Intel finals]. They told me six million
kids."
For now, the U.S. still excels at teaching science and engineering at the
graduate level, and also in university research. But as the Chinese get more
feeder stock coming up through their high schools and colleges, "they will get
to the same level as us after a decade," Mr. Barrett said.
"We are not graduating the volume, we do not have a lock on the infrastructure,
we do not have a lock on the new ideas, and we are either flat-lining, or in
real dollars cutting back, our investments in physical science."
And what is the Bush strategy? Let's go to Mars. Hello? Right now we should have
a Manhattan Project to develop a hydrogen-based energy economy - it's within
reach and would serve our economy, our environment and our foreign policy by
diminishing our dependence on foreign oil. Instead, the
Bush team says let's go to Mars. Where is Congress? Out to lunch - or, worse,
obsessed with trying to keep Susie Smith's job at the local pillow factory that
is moving to the Caribbean - without thinking about a national competitiveness
strategy. And where is Wall Street? So many of the plutocrats there know that
the Bush fiscal policy is a long-term disaster. They know it - but they won't
say a word because they are too greedy or too gutless.
The only crisis the U.S. thinks it's in today is the war on terrorism, Mr.
Barrett said. "It's not."
Let freedom ring
April 21,2004
On May 1, 2004 ten countries will join the enlarged European Community.
60 years ago Europe was still at war. Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania were part of the Soviet Union. Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic were Soviet satellites.
Now Europe is united, not by war or empire but by economic goals and shared democratic visions.
The right wing press in England ahs been making an issue of European migrants heading to England and sapping the welfare state. But as the mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania's capital said "'Lithuanians like to be patriots. A lot of the American-Lithuanians are coming back. Their future will be here.'
The new Europe will have an over-riding European constitution; this is primarily needed as a set of rules that make the expanded EU workable and that combine and rationalise many different documents that have been put in place over the short life of the EU.
Part of the momentum behind the constitution was the fear that 25 governments, each with a veto, would turn policy and decision-making into an impossible task without an extension of majority voting and a clear setting out of the EU's remit. The Guardian's lead editorial below sets out the logic behind the European constitution. Without it the EU will be a mess. There has been huge waste in the EU; no one doubts that. There have been significant sovereignty issues. But a Britain standing alone outside the EU is unthinkable. Embrace the opportunity; embrace new friends; embrace the Euro as a currency of choice. Isolation is nothing to be proud of.
May 1 will be a historic day. Those countries that used to be enslaved in the Eastern bloc deserve their opportunity. Let freedom ring indeed.
| Back-foot battle
Leader Wednesday April 21, 2004 The Guardian Let battle be joined, Tony Blair stirringly declared in the Commons yesterday. It sounded good, but it also rang hollow. It is impossible, seven years into a Labour government, not to hear such words without wishing Mr Blair had said them in 1997. If Labour had taken the battle over Europe to the Conservatives and the rightwing press when its authority was at its greatest and theirs was at its nadir, then victory in the European Union constitution referendum that Mr Blair announced yesterday would seem more attainable. Today, the battle is not being fought on terms set by Labour, some of whose most senior members are themselves hostile to the constitution. It is being fought on terms set by Rupert Murdoch and his emissary Irwin Steltzer, whose ultimatum - call a referendum on Europe or News International will back the Tories - was apparently delivered to Mr Blair during the Easter recess. Mr Blair said many of the right things in his statement to parliament yesterday. Subject to the expected agreement in June on Britain's so-called "red lines" on such subjects as taxation, foreign policy, defence, social security, criminal justice and treaty change, the prospective EU constitution is a positive draft, which Mr Blair correctly said, it is in Britain's interests to sign. It will help the newly enlarged 25-nation European Union to work better, doing away with the rotating six-month presidency, confining the use of the veto to areas where it is truly necessary and blocking the graphically named bureaucratic process known as "competence creep". It checks the momentum of federalism, it increases the power of national parliaments, it puts the European Council - controlled by the member states - in the agenda-setting place previously occupied by the commission, and it generally draws the line in places which British governments and British public opinion have long advocated. In a less hysterical political culture than ours, the case would be listened to more carefully than it is. The Conservative party remains deaf to all this, as Michael Howard made clear yesterday. If his party was serious about Europe, it would see the constitution not as a threat but an opportunity. It would see, in particular, that EU enlargement will create many new possibilities for the anti-federalist approach that the Tories advocate. It would be more open to the new alliances and priorities that the 10 new entrants will bring to the table. As a new report by Heather Grabbe for the Centre for European Reform makes clear, these new members will redress some of the imbalances of the old: they will be Atlanticist on defence, hostile to the dominance of the Franco-German axis, supporters of deregulation, opponents of tax harmonisation and critics of the EU budget. The constitution, partly drafted to embrace their concerns, offers the forces of reform a rare opportunity. The Tories, fixated on the European threat and on point scoring, miss all this; Mr Howard opposes any EU constitution under any circumstances, a position which inescapably leads to the suspicion that the Tory party's real goal is to wreck an EU of which it wants no part anyway. Mr Blair made a good start to a long campaign yesterday. But he has a lot to prove after many false dawns on Europe. He has marched the pro-European forces up the hill and down again too often for them to rally unquestioningly to his standard this time. Perhaps this really is the great defining moment. But Mr Blair has issued his call to arms as a tactical ploy rather than as a clarion call. It may indeed be stand-up-and-be-counted time on Europe at last. Many Labour MPs, though, still prefer to sit on their hands, while other potential allies may have lost heart. There is a huge job to do. But is there the spirit and the drive to do it? That, not Mr Howard, may prove to be Mr Blair's biggest problem in the end. |
In from the cold
On 1 May, a new Europe will join together - from Lisbon to Latvia. Ed Vulliamy reports on how the fall of the Wall swept across the continent
Ed Vulliamy
Sunday April 11, 2004
The Observer
This coming May Day, Europe will transform, irrevocably. The continent may not look very different that morning - 'the only change I will notice is that my cigarettes may cost more,' says the former Polish prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki. But, as Mazowiecki also insists, the most epic European moment since 1945 will have occurred overnight.
And maybe since even before that date; since the Treaty of Vienna in 1815, or of Versailles in 1919, which ended the Napoleonic and First World Wars. From 1 May, a united Europe will extend - for the first time bound by means of peace, not empire or warfare - from Lisbon to the borders of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.
Ten more countries will have joined the European Union, seven of which lived (and in living memory) under the Third Reich and Stalinist Communism - now emerging, then, from some cruel kernel of the 20th century to embark on a new epoch in the 21st. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were part of the Soviet Union. Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic were satellites under the Warsaw Pact. Slovenia had been part of socialist Yugoslavia. All had fallen under the Nazi jackboot of Germany, until the Reich was rolled back by the Red Army. (The other two are Malta and Cyprus, with former Communist Romania and Bulgaria set to join in 2007.)
The accession of erstwhile Communist countries is a fruition of the process that began in Poland with Solidarnosc in 1980, and in Berlin with the first chip hammered from the wall in November 1989. It is a case, says Polish novelist Nina Witoszek, 'of the unimaginable coming true', a change born at its core of what she calls 'a spirit of renaissance, of enlightenment in the true sense of the word'.
I remember chiselling at the wall in Berlin with my brother that weekend, during the longest and best party I will ever go to. A few weeks later, I was in Bucharest, where the unthinkable was happening: tanks strewn with flowers grinding over cobblestones as harbingers of liberation, not tyranny; the smell of charred masonry hanging heavy in the air, women cheering and kissing the soldiers. The 'velvet revolution' spread: Prague, Warsaw, Sofia, Bratislava and Budapest, people - suddenly without fear, suddenly empowered - taking to the streets and dictatorships tumbling, like a house of cards, across Eastern Europe. And the denouement to all this will come when the clock strikes midnight on the evening of 30 April.
But reading British papers or listening on the 'British Street', you would not think such an epic event was upon us. In contrast to the excitement in Eastern Europe, enlargement is classified as a 'European Union' story, at best. At worst, and more commonly, enlargement detonates not uplift but xenophobic fear and loathing.
Suddenly, our new partner citizens in the EU - those same people whose deliverance from Communism, wrought by their own bravery, we celebrated 14 years ago - have become potential 'benefit tourists' (Daily Mail), agents of 'social upheaval' (Financial Times), a 'menace' (the Mail again) to our social services, a horde of gypsies, or a 'flood tide' (Daily Express) of 'millions of immigrants' (the Mail again). Government talk is not of liberty or union, but of 'habitual residence requirements' and 'employment registration certificates'.
The legality of Britain's U-turn - the government will tighten the UK's habitual residence requirement, a discretionary test limiting workers' access to means-tested benefits, including housing benefit - is likely to be challenged in the European Court. But for once, Britain is not alone in its Europhobia: social democratic Sweden - usually empathetic towards immigrants and asylum seekers - has likewise scrambled to backtrack, introducing similar curbs; as have the Dutch, the Belgians, the Danes and finally - reluctantly and only because of Blair and Blunkett - the Irish. Germany, Austria and Italy have always said they would ban immigrants until 2011; France is likely to go the same way.
For no other country is accession to the European Union more cogent and poignant than for Poland, whose population of 38m is greater than that of all the other accession countries put together (35m).
But that is not the point. Nor is it only that the fact that the first wound in Communism's side was the Gdansk shipyard strike by Solidarnosc in 1980. Norman Davies - who, despite being British, is the nation's 'official' historian - calls Poland 'God's Playground', by way of recalling the armies which have heaved their bloody way to and fro across the birch-strewn plains: Swedish, Prussian, Imperial Russian, Austro-Hungarian, Soviet Russian, Nazi German, Soviet again... all these predator powers sought to crush Poland, and most in turn faced resistance from the Poles' defiant courage.
For an independent Poland to belong to the European community of nations is what Michal Czyz calls 'a miracle'. Czyz heads the special EU department at Poland's foreign ministry, and opens our interview with a routine political address. But one mention of the British snub to his citizens, and the man - the Pole - in him is unleashed from inside the politician. 'It comes as a sad surprise to us,' he begins, 'that, one by one, these countries which promised to be open have changed their position. We knew Germany and Austria had already decided on a full seven-year moratorium. But Britain and Sweden promised two years ago they would be open - now that promise is broken. Even Britain is insisting on special registration and restrictions. The perception of this in Poland is very negative and, I would say, to the detriment of the EU as a whole. We feel that we are being punished for being too optimistic - there was a conviction that we were strong enough, enthusiastic enough, that we met the many demands on us. That what your countries did in decades and centuries to become market economies, we had done in 10 years.'
Czyz's views are shared by his opponents in the opposition Civic Platform, whose secretary general is former mayor of Warsaw, Pawel Piskorski. 'It has all turned out much worse than expected,' he tells me. 'Our problem is that come May 1st, all the obligations and requirements - even the disadvantages of membership - will be visible to the people, while the advantages will be hidden, or deferred.'
Piskorski understands how economic downturn can produce fears in any society, either visibly expressed, as by fascist movements such as Jörg Haider's in Austria and Jean-Marie Le Pen's in France, 'or less visibly so, as in Britain'.
But Piskorski raises the issue of whether the tidal wave of emigrants from Eastern Europe will indeed leave. He cites areas of Poland where unemployment is as high as 30 per cent, and yet 'people still do not even come to Warsaw, where there is work. Remember,' he says, 'it is not easy for someone from a small farm, with no language and no education, to go to Britain and find a job. All signs are that you are more likely to have a migration of highly educated people leaving for Western Europe.'
Most of the workers will come from Poland, and if there is an enduring giant in Polish politics, it is not actually the bold Lech Walesa, but the man who became the country's first prime minister after Communism, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, now preparing to stand for election to the European parliament in Strasbourg. (He last hit the world headlines as the United Nations' Special Rapporteur to Bosnia, reporting and then resigning in disgust at the UN's failure to act in rescuing the country's Muslims, facing genocide.)
Mazowiecki is a tireless sage, describing himself as someone who 'has not yet got used to freedom, in a world where if you have not been deprived of it, you don't really know what freedom is'.
'It all depends on what we are being asked,' he says, pulling on his cigarette. 'Are we joining what you already are, or are we joining you in helping to plan what this great adventure - the new Europe - will be? There's a lesson here that neither we nor you have learnt: what does "Europe" mean? Does it mean that we are joining you, or that we are all coming together? Our history is one of a people with a sense of political responsibility. So we ask to be treated as people with something to say, not just little people to put in the corner.'
India's vibrant democracy
April 20 2004
660 million people are eligible to vote on one of five voting days over the next three weeks in the world's largest and most remarkable democracy, India.
With the economy growing at 8% this year and with a successful and winning cricket tour of long-time enemies, Pakistan, just completed, the BJP led ruling coalition is a shoe-in to win the election and may even win an outright majority. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will remain Prime Minster when the votes are finally tallied on 13 May.
The coalition has helped the moderate the more extreme Hindu nationalist elements of the BJP. The country may benefit from tactical voting that ensures that the BJP does not have outright control of Parliament.
The voting takes place over three weeks to allow about 400,000 troops to protect candidates, voters and poll workers from possible attack from the separatist groups who do not see the value of the democratic process.
The logistics are amazing; electronic voting will be used for the first time (there will be no chad in India) in each of the 199,975 polling stations across the country.
The opposition Congress Party is led, or more realistically not led, by Sonia Gandhi, widow or assassinated Rajiv Gandhi. This should be her swan song. India's democracy benefits from a strong and resilient opposition. Congress does not provide this but will hopefully not be so wiped out that they cannot rebuild under new forward looking leadership.
They will be voting in the impoverished eastern state of Orissa, where the average per capita income is around 700 rupees per month (less than £9).
Meanwhile in one of the richest and most sophisticated cities in the world the people of Hong Kong are being told by their Beijing mandarins that they cannot be trusted to vote for the leadership of their choice. What a sad, sad, irony.
Do not apply for this vacancy
April 19 2004
28 days ago the Israelis used a helicopter gun ship to assassinate the wheelchair bound Hamas leader Sahiek Ahmed Yassin.
At the weekend the Israelis used the same tactic to assassinate his successor Abdel-Aziz Tantissi.
This is not a vacancy that anyone wanting a long life should be applying for. But it is a vacancy that is creating a new core of martyrs and that will bring inevitable and bloody retribution.
And last week the Israeli Prime Minister was in Washington shaking hands with the US President over a proposed deal for the Middle East. This deal which has not been discussed with or accepted by the Palestinians would see Israel leave Gaza but retain key portions of the disputed West Bank. The US has to be tacitly supporting Sharon's murderous tactics.
Israel is clearly not looking for a negotiated solution; it is seeking to enforce its will by force and fear; and while the Americans continue to offer their support then Israel will ignore censure from the rest of the World.
The hundreds of thousands who took to the streets in Gaza city yesterday should remind us all that Palestinian retribution is only a matter of where and when. They have not been invited to talk. Their leaders are being picked off one by one. They will respond in the way they know best.
April 19, 2004
The Wrong War
ollow
me, said the president. And, tragically, we did.
With his misbegotten war in Iraq, his failure to throw everything we had at
Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and his fantasy of using military might as a magic
wand to "change the world,"
Each act is more heartbreaking than the last. Pfc. Keith Maupin, who was kidnapped near Baghdad on April 9, showed up on a videotape broadcast by Al Jazeera last Friday. He was in the custody of masked gunmen and, understandably, frightened.
"My name is Keith Matthew Maupin," he said, looking nervously into the camera. "I am a soldier from the First Division. I am married with a 10-month-old son."
Private Maupin is 20 years old and should never have been sent into the flaming horror of Iraq. Now we don't know how to get him out.
On the same day that Private Maupin was kidnapped, 20-year-old Specialist Michelle Witmer was killed when her Humvee was attacked in Baghdad. Ms. Witmer's two sisters, Charity and Rachel, were also serving in Iraq. All three women were members of the National Guard.
American troops are enduring the deadliest period since the start of the war. And while they continue to fight courageously and sometimes die, they are fighting and dying in the wrong war.
This is the height of absurdity.
One of the things I remember from my time in the service many years ago was the ubiquitous presence of large posters with the phrase, in big block letters: Know Your Enemy.
This is a bit of military wisdom that seems to have escaped President Bush.
The United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, by Al Qaeda, not Iraq.
All Americans and most of the world would have united behind President Bush for an all-out war against Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The relatives and friends of any troops who lost their lives in that effort would have known clearly and unmistakably what their loved ones had died for.
But Mr. Bush had other things on his mind. With Osama and the top leadership of Al Qaeda still at large, and with the U.S. still gripped by the trauma of Sept. 11, the president turned his attention to Iraq.
Less than two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to Bob Woodward's account in his new book, "Plan of Attack," President Bush ordered Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to have plans drawn up for a war against Iraq. Mr. Bush insisted that this be done with the greatest of secrecy. The president did not even fully inform his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, or his secretary of state, Colin Powell, about his directive to Mr. Rumsfeld.
Thus began the peeling away of resources crucial to the nation's fight against its most fervent enemy, Al Qaeda.
Gen. Tommy Franks, who at the time was head of the United States Central Command and in charge of the Afghan war, was reported by Mr. Woodward to have uttered a string of obscenities when he was ordered to develop a plan for invading Iraq.
President Bush may truly believe, as he suggested at his press conference last week, that he is carrying out a mission that has been sanctioned by the divine. But he has in fact made the world less safe with his catastrophic decision to wage war in Iraq. At least 700 G.I.'s and thousands of innocent Iraqis, including many women and children, are dead. Untold numbers have been maimed and there is no end to the carnage in sight.
Meanwhile, instead of destroying the terrorists, our real enemies, we've energized them. The invasion and occupation of Iraq has become a rallying cry for Islamic militants. Qaeda-type terror is spreading, not receding. And Osama bin Laden is still at large.
Even as I write this, reporters from The Times and other news outlets are filing stories about marines dying in ambush and other acts of mayhem and anarchy across Iraq. This was not part of the plan. The administration and its apologists spread fantasies of a fresh dawn of freedom emerging in Iraq and spreading across the Arab world. Instead we are spilling the blood of innocents in a nightmare from which many thousands will never awaken.
Over rated soaking Songkran
April 15 2004
At the risk of upsetting a few of my friends from Thailand here are a few thoughts on the three day and seemingly endless Songkran.
Without family to visit, and without an excuse to leave Bangkok I have spent three days largely hibernating in my apartment to avoid goons hurling klong water.
This is the Thai new year and should be a time of celebration. The old traditions of gently pouring water over the hands of family members have been largely replaced by pick up trucks carrying a dozen goons hurling water from massive barrels over anyone or any vehicle nearby.
For one day this might be fun; for three days (maybe five this week) it is tiresome. It is not a friendly affair. Some of it is simply threatening and dangerous. Fine if you want to play. No fun at all if you are trying to go about your business without getting attacked. And yes, some people were working the last three days.
And it is not just water that is thrown; it is creams, powders, dirt and dyes that are mixed into the water. And when this is thrown at a moving car or a motorbike it can and does cause injury and death. Yet there is almost no police control and the road toll statistics are highly questionable.
There are many wonderful and gentle Thai traditions such as Loy Krathong. But Songkran has lost its sense of history. Forget sprinkling water on the hands of friends and family and wishing them a Happy New Year. You cannot go anywhere on foot. Silom last night (I was in a taxi) was one massive water fight.
Surely this needs to be regulated - you should have a choice whether you want to be in a water fight and drenched or not. Keep the fights in designated zones and let people decide if they want to go or not. Otherwise just keep it to the old gentle ways. And one day is enough!
We should all be able to enjoy Songkran in the way that we want to. It would be good to enjoy the city when it is so quiet with so many people away from the city. To go to the parks, malls and markets. But you cannot do this is peace, safely and staying dry.
I suspect the traditions are better respected in the provinces especially in the North. I also suspect that some of the more aggressive behaviour in Bangkok is from farangs who think this is an excuse to behave like football hooligans.
Lesson learned; I will not be in Bangkok for next year's Songkran.
Bonk it like Beckham
April 13 2004
There are times when I do not understand the British media. They desperately need the Beckhams to see newspapers; not a day passes without this garish family being pictured or written about in the news of gossip magazines. And do not doubt that the Beckhams need the media to maintain their profile and to support their promotional endorsements.
So why is the media digging up quite so much dirt on the Beckham love life. And how complicated can it get. The News of the World paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to Ms Rebecca Koos, one time pr assistant to Mr. Beckham until she was fired to be replaced by Victoria Beckham's PR company. Her revenge is vicious. Yet the Sun, with the same owner as the News of the World describes Ms. Koos as the "sleazy senorita" and is seeking an exclusive interview with the Beckhans.
On Thursday this week Ms. Koos will be giving a media inteview to guess who - Sky News (who owns Sky News - oh yes the same owner as the Sun and the NotW. It is estimated that she will make gbp500,000 from a couple of nights of alleged bedroom gymnastics and a few suggestive text messages with the England football captain.
A second girl has come forward giving the story as Asian connection. Malaysian born Sarah Marbeck has alleged that she met Beckham when Manchester United toured Singapore. She certainly gives a good description of the Shangri-La Hotel. She presumably is not baring all out of the goodness of her heart - I need to tell all to show the real David Beckham. There will be a substantial payment for her story.
Frankly who cares? Except that it says a lot about the British love of sleaze and scandal and the disgrace that is known as the British media.
To be honest the Beckhams created this hell for themselves when they decided to become the most famous couple in the world. As a more restrained British report said "They are not wicked people, nor are they deserving of the vile glee with which some have exposed their apparently disintegrating marriage but, guilty of vanity and greed, they sold their souls to a devil disguised as a tabloid editor and his cohort with the cash".
But these are two real people with two young boys; their choices have been made. If only they were willing to accept a long and happy marriage in return for no attention at all. The trouble is they would hat the anonymity.
If I were the Beckhams (scary thought) I would take my money and run. I would set up somewhere nice like Canada where no one knows me. David can run a football clinic and Victoria a creche and they will all live happily ever after. And the English football team will struggle even more in Europe (who will the media blame then) and the media will have to find someone else to persecute.
O Canada; Oy Vey United States
Four years ago Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post wrote a long essay to end his tour as Canadian correspondent. His gloomy assessment of Canada's future as a self-governing, independent country contained this remarkable reflection on its past.
Over the years, Canadians might have coalesced around a shared sense of history but for the fact that they have so little of it they consider worth remembering. The country never fought a revolution or a civil war, pioneered no great social or political movement, produced no great world leader and committed no memorable atrocities – as one writer put it, Canada has no Lincolns, no Gettysburgs and no Gettysburg addresses.
To which Carleton University history professor Blair Nearby responded with customary Canadian restraint, "If history is wars and confrontation and winner-take-all decisions, then we don't have very much of that...But if you think that history can be a record of individuals arriving at decisions through consensus, negotiation or through the political system then we have a pretty long and commendable record."
Indeed they do.
The U.S. and Canada share a common border and much else. We are alike ethnically and economically. We eat the same foods. We watch the same movies. We speak the same language. But we think and act differently. And this difference has become more and more evident in recent months.
Both the United States and Canada uncoupled from Britain. We did so rapidly and violently. Canada did so gradually and peacefully. Canada did not achieve sovereignty until 1867. One might argue that in this case haste made waste. Our initial attempt at nation building proved catastrophic. In 1861-1865, more than 600,000 Americans lost their lives in the Civil War, a greater number of deaths than occurred in all the other wars we have fought put together.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom it appears that Canadians, not Americans are more willing to innovate and take risks, at least in public policy. Consider the different strategies our two countries have embraced to provide health care to our residents.
Americans and Canadians began debating the idea of universal health care in the 1930s. On this side of the border, President Roosevelt abandoned the idea. Thirty years later President Kennedy raised the idea again only to abandon it under pressure from critics like Ronald Reagan who called it "Marxist." Thirty years later President Clinton refused to allow national health insurance to become a part of his health care initiative. Reportedly, he and Hillary concluded it would amount to political suicide.
On the northern side of the border, Canadian provinces began creating pilot universal health care systems in the 1930s and 1940s. The insurance plans first covered hospitals and then doctors. In 1965, the entire country embraced a health care plan that was uniquely Canadian. Authority over the kinds of services provided was left in the hands of the provinces. Private hospitals and doctors, not the state, delivered the services. Patients could choose their doctor. The system was non-profit. A single insurance company paid the bills.
At the time Canada embraced national health insurance it was spending about the same percentage of its budget on health care as the U.S. Today it spends a third less. And while all Canadians are covered, in the U.S. some 45 million Americans lack health insurance.
National health insurance allows Canadians greater freedom and latitude to plan their lives. No one in Canada takes a job or remains in a job because of its health benefits. Canadians do not strike over lack of health coverage.
By not tying health insurance to the job, Canadian businesses have become more competitive. In the U.S., automakers spend about $1,200 per car on health insurance. In Canada, the cost is about $120 per car. In November 2002, officials from Ford, GM and DaimlerChrysler wrote Canadian policymakers urging them to maintain and strengthen their national health system. "The public health system significantly reduces total labor costs...compared to the cost of equivalent private health insurance services purchased by U.S.-based automakers."
Needless to say, the car companies did not send a similar letter to American policy makers.
Canadians make different decisions than we do about the importance of privacy and public access. In the U.S., life can be patented. Last year the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that in Canada it cannot. Life is not property north of the border.
Last month a Canadian federal judge ruled that the sharing of music via the Internet isn't theft and doesn't violate copyright laws. The same day the judge handed down that decision, the U.S. House judiciary committee approved the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2004. The Act imposes fines of up to $250,000 and three years jail time for anyone sharing music.
In 1969, Canada liberalized its abortion law at the same time as a growing number of U.S. states were doing so. Initially the procedure required approval of a Canadian hospital's Therapeutic Abortion Committee. But when that process resulted in unequal access the Canadian Supreme Court threw out the entire law. Efforts to recriminalize abortion failed.
Which means Canada is the only democratic industrialized nation in the world with no laws restricting abortion. Meanwhile American legislatures and courts have made it increasingly difficult for poor and rural women to have access to this procedure. Interestingly Canada's abortion rate is much lower than that of the U.S. Its rates of abortion-related complications and maternal mortality are among the lowest in the world.
The debate about same-sex marriage is occurring in both Canada and the U.S. but the intensity and nature of the debate are very different. Just as Massachusetts recently declared gay marriage legal in that state so have the Canadian provinces of Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec. In Canada, there's no move to alter the Canadian constitution to prohibit gay marriage. Indeed, half of all Canadians back the Prime Minister's support of a federal law legalizing gay marriage. Revealingly, there does not appear to be a rush to the altar by Canada's same sex couples. They're sure they have time.
There's one more issue on which Canada and the U.S. take dramatically different positions: internationalism. After Canada refused to join the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, radio talk show hosts maligned Canada in a tone almost as disrespectful and colorful as the one they used to criticize France.
Canadians responded that they were not afraid to fight. Indeed, they noted that unlike the U.S. Canada did not have to be attacked before it sent troops to defend democracy against Hitler and Mussolini.
It was not military action per se but unilateral action that Canada opposed. The U.S. sees coalitions as weakening its influence. This is why we rarely join international organizations unless we have veto or dominant power (e.g. World Bank, IMF, United Nations). Canada, on the other hand, doesn't seek a dominant hand. It believes that coalitions multiply capacity rather than weaken it.
Canada has been a leading advocate of the landmine conventions and International Criminal Court, neither of which the U.S. has joined. The names of the Canadian cities that hatched the plans to reduce ozone formation and greenhouse gas buildup are etched into the history of several of the key treaties themselves; the Montreal Protocol, the Toronto Atmospheric Accord.
Under President Clinton, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution 98-0 declaring our unwillingness to sign the Kyoto protocol. In one of his first acts in office, President Bush formally withdrew from the negotiating process itself. A little more than a year later Canada became the 100th country to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Jean Chrétien, then Canada's Prime Minister, gave this advice to Environmental Minister David Anderson who was to present the documents to the United Nations. "You say to them, Canada is a good citizen of the world."
Canadians march to a different drummer. Which doesn't mean they march in lockstep. Debates can be as stormy north of the border as south. After Parliament's decision to ratify Kyoto, Alberta, the Texas of Canada, spearheaded national opposition. Gay marriage has come under attack by various religious groups. There is a determined effort in several provinces to privatize parts of the Canadian health care system.
Vigorous debate simply affirms that democracy is alive and well in our northern neighbor. We are a democracy too. But perhaps less thoughtful and deliberative than Canada's.
David Morris is vice president of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
BUDGET CARRIERS: Tourism due for major shift
Published on Apr 12, 2004 The Nation, Bangkok
Short-haul, impulse, weekend, regional trips to explode with air travel for masses
After years of one crisis after another, the advent of low-cost airlines has helped lift spirits in |the Asia-Pacific travel industry.
Also known as no-frills or low-fare airlines, their appearance and robust growth in a number of Pacific Asia Travel Association countries looks set to trigger a boom in intra-regional and domestic travel.
Effectively, low-cost airlines are bringing regional air transportation down to the same level as buses and trains, and slotting themselves into the vast price gap that existed between surface and air transport.
Their growth plans fit perfectly with small regional destinations' desire for more aviation access, as well as national objectives to promote greater regional economic |integration via free trade, upgraded infrastructure development and decongestion in the mainstream mega-cities.
The language now used to describe the impact of low-cost carriers on the aviation industry - such as "revolution" and "agent of change" - applies equally well to their potential impact on travel and tourism.
While some say it is |democratising travel by making air transport affordable for more people than ever before, others say it is making air travel no different from any other product - and soon to be available in supermarkets.
Pacific Asia Travel Association aviation analyst KC Sim said: "What is certain is that many people will be swayed to travel more frequently and more impulsively to destinations served by low-cost airlines. Long weekends will become gold mines on the calendar and the reasons for travel will become increasingly tied to the pursuit of individual whims and fancies. Niche segment stakeholders such as spas and golf course operators, dive site operators, shopping and culinary destinations or just simply rest-'n'-relax resorts, stand to gain".
This huge surge in aviation capacity has significant implications for |Asia-Pacific travel, especially when China and India are included in the equation.
More jobs will be created in aviation, ranging from cabin crew to engineering and maintenance. Over time, national tourism organisations and the private sector will be forced to take a fresh |look at how and where they spend |marketing dollars, leading to a potential shift away from Japan, Europe and North America towards intra-regional sources.
In Asia Pacific Aviation Outlook 2004, Centre for Asia-Pacific Aviation (Capa) managing director Peter Harbison said it could and should be the best year ever for aviation. The signs ahead are positive, he said.
Liberalisation of air services is accelerating rapidly and consumer sentiment is positive in most countries. Underlying economic conditions across the region are currently favourable in a way that has rarely occurred, with all countries synchronised in favourable growth patterns.
Harbison said that in these circumstances, provided airlines managed capacity effectively, growth should |flow straight to the bottom line. It |should also be good news for aircraft manufacturers, as profitability and demand coincide. Similarly, airports and the tourism industry should experience solid results.
In this climate, the investment prospects for a tide of airport |privatisation across the region are correspondingly strong.
Capa said 235 Asia-Pacific cities had populations exceeding 500,000 and 130 cities had more than |one million. A total of 339 regional airports are capable of accepting B737/A320 equipment, yet most of these are now ignored by international connections. Of the more than 256 million international visitor arrivals recorded by the Asia-Pacific region last year, more than 70 per cent originated from within the region.
Asia accounted for 30 per cent of all visitor arrivals in South Asia and a |dramatic 75 per cent and 71 per cent of all arrivals in Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia, respectively. Intra-Pacific travel accounted for 23 per cent of all arrivals.
Domestic travel is also significant. It is estimated that last year Chinese travellers made 870 million trips valued at US$42 billion (Bt1.54 trillion) within their own boundaries, while Thais are estimated to have made a total of 66 million domestic trips.
By 2010, it is estimated that there
will be at least 680 million Asians with discretionary income, at least some of
which will be spent on travel.