Asia News Digest
Private Mercenaries May Flood Afghanistan Soon
With the Afghan Presidential elections scheduled to be held on Oct. 9, and the threat of anti-U.S. and anti-Kabul groups inciting violence to disrupt the elections, private mercenaries from the United States and United Kingdom are pouring into Afghanistan. Afghanistan is reportedly getting close to $100 million in additional money from the international donors to conduct the elections. With money and violence in abundance, it is now open season for the mercenaries.
Dressed in civilian clothes, but packing lethal firepower, the presence of the "private security" people is felt very much in Afghanistan, eyewitnesses report. According to International Alert, a magazine that keeps tabs on the mercenary "industry," the global market for private securitypart of the "service sector," in economic jargonis expected to grow to $210 billion by 2010, from the $55.6 billion recorded in 2000. A third of the U.S. budget for the war in Iraq is reportedly spent on private military companies, such as the British-based ArmorGroup and Global Risk Strategies; and the U.S.-based Dyncorp and Blackwater Security Consulting, for example.
Wolfowitz Laments Weak U.S.-Pak Military Relations
Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee on Aug. 10, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said: "I think one of our problems in Pakistan today is that for too long we deprived ourselves of one of the most important instruments of influence.... In a country where the military is one of the most important institutions, the United States severed the contact between our military and their military." Wolfowitz, along with two senior U.S. generals, was called in by the Committee to discuss policy and the implementations for the U.S. military in the war on terror.
Wolfowitz outlined a two-pronged strategy for dealing with this problem: an enormous increase in U.S. economic assistance for Pakistan and working with the Pakistani military in a comprehensive way.
Pentagon Steps Up Central Asian Agenda
U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is in Azerbaijan and has met with President Ilahm Aliyev. "I agree completely that our security relationship continues to grow and to strengthen," said Rumsfeld at the start of that meeting. Said Aliyev: "We are very happy, we have high-level cooperation in the military sphere." Beyond the expression of happiness, Aliyev's Defense Minister Safar Abiyev, in no uncertain terms, asked Rumsfeld to help Azerbaijan wrest control of Karabakh from the Armenians. Abiyev made clear that Azerbaijan is unhappy about the "failure" of the Minsk Group of 11 states, led by Russia and France, to help Baku on Karabakh.
Rumsfeld's visit followed closely the visit by Iranian President Mohammad Khatami to Baku (Aug. 5-7). Khatami's visit to Azerbaijan is part of the now-adopted Iranian strategy to improve relations with its neighbors. Rumsfeld's trip was to counter Khatami's trip and keep the Azeris hostile toward Iran.
There are indications that the Pentagon is moving definitively to ensure a stronger presence in Central Asia, where Russia and China meet. U.S. Chief of Staff Richard Myers was in Uzbekistan where he met with President Islam Karimov on Aug. 12 and assured him an additional $21 million in military aid. The United States maintains a military base in Uzbekistan.
Ex-Defence Chiefs, Diplomats Denounce Howard Deception
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has been stung by a publicized statement, endorsed by 43 retired senior defense officials and diplomats, which calls for "Honest, Considered and Balanced Foreign and Security Policies," the Canberra Times reported Aug. 9.
The statement read (in part): "We believe that a re-elected Howard Government or an elected Latham government must give priority to truth in government. Australians must be able to believe they are being told the truth by our leaders, especially in situations as grave as committing our forces to war. We are concerned that Australia was committed to join the invasion of Iraq on the basis of false assumptions and the deception of the Australian people. Above all, it is wrong and dangerous for our elected representatives to mislead the Australian people. If we cannot trust the word of our Government, Australia cannot expect it to be trusted by others."
Prominent among the endorsers were two former chiefs of the Australian Defence Force, Adm. Alan Beaumont and Gen. Peter Gration. Gration endorsed a statement advertised in a major daily by the Australian associates of Lyndon LaRouche, the Citizens Electoral Council, last June. General Gration was viciously harassed for this action. This time, he has been joined by 43 others of similar standing, and their intervention has severely embarrassed the Howard government, in the lead-up to the elections.
Wiser Heads Likely To Prevail on Attendance at ASEM Meeting
Indonesia's Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said on Aug. 4 that he is confident that the October Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) will take place in Hanoi, Vietnam. The meeting will induct the 10 new EU members along with three ASEAN membersLaos, Cambodia, and Myanmar. The ruckus surrounding whether or not Myanmar would attend appears to have been settled.
Hassan, who was speaking as the spokesman for the current ASEAN Chairman, Indonesia, told AFP: "Asia and the 15 members of the European Union realize the importance of this process. Therefore, I am confident that all parties feel it is imperative that ASEM not to be sidetracked and its role not to be diminished only because of the issue of Myanmar."
A senior Myanmar official said: "I am confident wiser counsel will prevail."
Philippines President Grasps at Straws To Deal with Power Shortage
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo suggested on Aug. 6 that the Bataan nuclear power plant (BNPP), which has remained mothballed since 1986, due to stiff political opposition, should be converted into a gas-fired utility. Her suggestion was met with skepticism and questions about whether such conversion plan exists.
The BNPP plant was built during the regime of former President Ferdinand Marcos. His successor, Corazon Aquino, shut down the plant in 1986, before it was even commissioned. Meanwhile, the government is still paying $155,000 a day in interest charges on a loan for the plant that will not be fully paid up till 2018.
Opposition politician Crispin Beltran has suggested that instead of reviving BNPP, the government should buy back the oil refinery Petron, which was privatized in the 1990s under Fidel Ramos. The Philippines government still holds a 40% share of Petron.
Saifullah Arrest Is Significant
Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed confirmed on Aug. 8 that Qari Safullah Akhtar, a link between foreign jihadis (a.k.a. al-Qaeda) and the Pakistan domestic varieties, has been arrested in Dubai, and will be extradited to Pakistan shortly.
Qari Saifullah's arrest is a very significant arrest, not simply because Frances Townsend, President Bush's Homeland Security adviser, said so while talking to the Fox New Sunday program, but because Qari Saifullah used to head the Harkatul Jihad al-Islami (HUJI), which has been lined to al-Qaeda. In fact, intelligence reports indicate that Saifullah played a key role in bringing the Taliban supremo Mullah Mohammad Omar and al-Qaeda chief, Osama bin Laden, together.
Saifullah used to run six al-Qaeda training camps along the Pakistan-Afghanistan borders, including the high-powered one in Khost, where, reports indicate, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Chechens were trained for "action" in Chechnya.
Interestingly, Qari Saifullah is also known as "Mr. Arakan," i.e., the man-in-charge of the Arakanese Muslim militants who are engaged in a violent uprising against the Myanmar government, which seeks an autonomous region in the Arakan hills of Myanmar. A significant number of Arakan Muslims are safe-housed in Karachi.
India, Myanmar Sign Telephone Service Deal
India announced the week of Aug. 1 a $7 million loan to Myanmar for establishing a direct telephone-link between the two countries, a diplomatic source in Yangon stated. The project, which is expected to begin in the next few months, will include installing new telecommunications equipment in Yangon and Mandalay, as well as establishing a fiber-optic-cable connection between Tamu and Moreh on the India-Myanmar border.
Currently, the telephone connection between the two countries is routed through Britain, which makes the tariff on phone calls between the two countries very expensive and a security hazard.
Ricciardoni Returns to Philippines To Renew U.S. Threats
Filipino Foreign Secretary Delia Albert held talks with the U.S. Ambassador Frank Ricciardoni, who had flown home for consultations with his superiors after Washington accused Manila of caving into terrorists. Speaking to the press after the meeting, they exchanged statements of continued friendship, being friends for 100 years, but Ricciardoni added: "I wouldn't suggest to you nothing happened. We did have a very serious disagreement. It is one that has an impact on our interests and also on the Philippines, as well as our allies and the Iraqis, and there is no gainsaying that."
Ricciardoni backed up U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher's earlier statement that the Philippines was out of the "coalition of the willing."
Hysterical Outburst at LaRouche, CEC in Australian Court
A senior member of Australia's Howard government cracked under political pressure on Aug. 10, with a hysterical outburst against Lyndon LaRouche and the LaRouche-affiliated Citizens Electoral Council (CEC), in the Australian Senate. Queensland National Party Senator Ron Boswell, who has attacked LaRouche and the CEC in Parliament before, made the same old references to the CEC as a "cult," and LaRouche as a failed Presidential candidate who preys on the "vulnerable, gullible, and elderly" for money, using "voodoo economics."
Although not much was new, Boswell did give away the two sources of his fear: CEC's high-profile election campaigns, particularly in his home state; and the youth movement. Defending Australia's Jabotinskyite Leibler brothers, Boswell attacked a recent youth deployment to a Jewish community function, and charged that young people are used to raise most of the CEC's money. He also railed at the CEC's election advertising in a north Queensland district, and its funding.
Following his outburst, a rival Senator called in to the CEC office, to says: "You are really hurting them."
|