BIN LADEN IS SPANISH. (bin Laden è spagnolo)

Gaspar Llamazares se ha tomado "muy en serio" la utilización que ha hecho el FBI de una fotografía suya para realizar un retrato robot del probable aspecto de Osama bin Laden en la actualidad. "Sería cómica, si no afectara a la seguridad y la libertad de los ciudadanos", ha declarado a un grupo de periodistas en la sede de Izquierda Unida.

El diputado y ex coordinador general de IU ha afirmado que hasta ahora tenía reticencias para viajar a EEUU, pero que a partir de este momento no irá a ese país, porque si lo hace "tendría dificultades". "La seguridad de Bin Laden no peligra, pero la mía sí", ha comentado. Lo más preocupante de este asunto, según ha dicho, es que esta manera de utilizar fotografías afecta "a personas que no están incursas en ningún proceso judicial ni han cometido delito".

"Demuestra el escaso nivel y las manos en las que está la seguridad", ha indicado. La pregunta clave, en su opinión, es ésta: "¿Qué hace la foto de un dirigente político en los archivos del FBI?". "Espero que sea el fruto de una casualidad, que demuestre incompetencia", ha añadido, "porque, si no fuese así, demostraría mala fe y sería mucho más grave".

Una vez que un portavoz del FBI ha admitido a ELMUNDO.es que han utilizado la fotografía de Llamazares para confeccionar el retrato robot del terrorista más buscado del mundo –porque al especialista encargado de realizarlo no le gustaban los rostros y pelo que tenían en su base de datos–, el diputado de IU va a pedir al Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores español que exija explicaciones al Gobierno de EEUU.

Y espera que también intervenga el Ministerio del Interior con la policía europea, para comprobar si la fotografía ha sido extraída de Google o se encontraba en los archivos del FBI.
El Gobierno pedirá explicaciones a EEUU

Esta mañana, después de conocer la noticia que ayer desveló elmundo.es, el presidente del Gobierno, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, y los ministrso de Asuntos Exteriores, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, y del Interior, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, han telefoneado a Gaspar Llamazares para mostrarle su solidaridad.

Los tres expresaron al diputado y ex coordinador general de Izquierda Unida (IU) la sorpresa que les ha producido saber que el FBI ha utilizado una fotografía de Llamazares para elaborar un retrato robot del aspecto actual que podría tener el terrorista saudí Osama bin Laden.

También le dijeron que el Gobierno va a solicitar explicaciones a las autoridades de Estados Unidos, para saber cómo es posible que se haya podido producir este hecho. Llamazares no ha recibido ninguna explicación ni una llamada del embajador de EEUU en Madrid, y cree que "es lo mínimo que podía hacer". Los servicios jurídicos de Izquierda Unida van a estudiar lo ocurrido para decidir si llevan a cabo alguna denuncia judicial en defensa del derecho al honor y la imagen del diputado.

El dirigente del PP Esteban González Pons ha afirmado a ELMUNDO.es que se trata de un asunto "serio" que merece "un gesto de protesta" por parte del Gobierno ante las autoridades estadounidenses, informa Carmen Remírez de Ganuza. "Si no fuera tan serio, sonaría a broma", ha dicho en la Interparlamentaria del PP en Palma.
(El Mundo)

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING IN ADEN

A year ago, Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh made the startling revelation that his country's security forces apprehended a group of Islamists linked to the Israeli intelligence forces. "A terrorist cell was apprehended and will be referred to the courts for its links with the Israeli intelligence services," he promised.

Saleh added, "You will hear about the trial proceedings." Nothing was ever heard and the trail went cold. Welcome to the magical land of Yemen, where in the womb of time the Arabian Nights were played out.

Combine Yemen with the mystique of Islam, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and the Israeli intelligence and you get a heady mix. The head of the US Central Command, General David Petraeus, dropped in at the capital, Sana'a, on Saturday and vowed to Saleh increased American aid to fight al-Qaeda. United States President Barack Obama promptly echoed Petraeus' promise, assuring that the US would step up intelligence-sharing and training of Yemeni forces and perhaps carry out joint attacks against militants in the region.

Many accounts say that Obama, who is widely regarded as a gifted and intelligent politician, is blundering into a catastrophic mistake by starting another war that could turn out to be as bloody and chaotic and unwinnable as Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, on the face of it, Obama does seem erratic. The parallels with Afghanistan are striking. There has been an attempt to destroy a US plane by a Nigerian student who says he received training in Yemen. And America wants to go to war.

Yemen, too, is a land of wonderfully beautiful rugged mountains that could be a guerilla paradise. Yemenis are a hospitable lot, like Afghan tribesmen, but as Irish journalist Patrick Cockurn recollects, while they are generous to passing strangers, they "deem the laws of hospitality to lapse when the stranger leaves their tribal territory, at which time he becomes 'a good back to shoot at'." Surely, there is romance in the air - almost like in the Hindu Kush. Fiercely nationalistic, almost every Yemeni has a gun. Yemen is also, like Afghanistan, a land of conflicting authorities, and with foreign intervention, a little civil war is waiting to flare up.

Is Obama so incredibly forgetful of his own December 1 speech outlining his Afghan strategy that he violated his own canons? Certainly not. Obama is a smart man. The intervention in Yemen will go down as one of the smartest moves that he ever made for perpetuating the US's global hegemony. It is America's answer to China's surge.

A cursory look at the map of region will show that Yemen is one of the most strategic lands adjoining waters of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula. It flanks Saudi Arabia and Oman, which are vital American protectorates. In effect, Uncle Sam is "marking territory" - like a dog on a lamppost. Russia has been toying with the idea of reopening its Soviet-era base in Aden. Well, the US has pipped Moscow in the race.

The US has signaled that the odyssey doesn't end with Yemen. It is also moving into Somalia and Kenya. With that, the US establishes its military presence in an entire unbroken stretch of real estate all along the Indian Ocean's western rim. Chinese officials have of late spoken of their need to establish a naval base in the region. The US has now foreclosed China's options. The only country with a coastline that is available for China to set up a naval base in the region will be Iran. All other countries have a Western military presence.

The American intervention in Yemen is not going to be on the pattern of Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama will ensure he doesn't receive any body bags of American servicemen serving in Yemen. That is what the American public expects from him. He will only deploy drone aircraft and special forces and "focus on providing intelligence and training to help Yemen counter al-Qaeda militants", according to the US military. Obama's main core objective will be to establish an enduring military presence in Yemen. This serves many purposes.

First, the US move has to be viewed against the historic backdrop of the Shi'ite awakening in the region. The Shi'ites (mostly of the Zaidi group) have been traditionally suppressed in Yemen. Shi'ite uprisings have been a recurring theme in Yemen's history. There has been a deliberate attempt to minimize the percentage of Shi'ites in Yemen, but they could be anywhere up to 45%.

More importantly, in the northern part of the country, they constitute the majority. What bothers the US and moderate Sunni Arab states - and Israel - is that the Believing Youth Organization led by Hussein Badr al-Houthi, which is entrenched in northern Yemen, is modeled after Hezbollah in Lebanon in all respects - politically, economically, socially and culturally.

Yemenis are an intelligent people and are famous in the Arabian Peninsula for their democratic temperament. The Yemeni Shi'ite empowerment on a Hezbollah-model would have far-reaching regional implications. Next-door Oman, which is a key American base, is predominantly Shi'ite. Even more sensitive is the likelihood of the dangerous idea of Shi'ite empowerment spreading to Saudi Arabia's highly restive Shi'ite regions adjoining Yemen, which on top of it all, also happen to be the reservoir of the country's fabulous oil wealth.

Saudi Arabia is entering a highly sensitive phase of political transition as a new generation is set to take over the leadership in Riyadh, and the palace intrigues and fault lines within the royal family are likely to get exacerbated. To put it mildly, given the vast scale of institutionalized Shi'ite persecution in Saudi Arabia by the Wahhabi establishment, Shi'ite empowerment is a veritable minefield that Riyadh is petrified about at this juncture. Its threshold of patience is wearing thin, as the recent uncharacteristic resort to military power against the north Yemeni Shi'ite communities bordering Saudi Arabia testifies.

The US faces a classic dilemma. It is all right for Obama to highlight the need of reform in Muslim societies - as he did eloquently in his Cairo speech last June. But democratization in the Yemeni context - ironically, in the Arab context - would involve Shi'ite empowerment. After the searing experience in Iraq, Washington is literally perched like a cat on a hot tin roof. It would much rather be aligned with the repressive, autocratic government of Saleh than let the genie of reform out of the bottle in the oil rich-region in which it has profound interests.

Obama has an erudite mind and he is not unaware that what Yemen desperately needs is reform, but he simply doesn't want to think about it. The paradox he faces is that with all its imperfections, Iran happens to be the only "democratic" system operating in that entire region.

Iran's shadow over the Yemeni Shi'ite consciousness worries the US to no end. Simply put, in the ideological struggle going on in the region, Obama finds himself with the ultra-conservative and brutally autocratic oligarchies that constitute the ruling class in the region. Conceivably, he isn't finding it easy. If his own memoirs are to be believed, there could be times when the vague recollections of his childhood in Indonesia and his precious memories of his own mother, who from all accounts was a free-wheeling intellectual and humanist, must be stalking him in the White House corridors.

But Obama is first and foremost a realist. Emotions and personal beliefs drain away and strategic considerations weigh uppermost when he works in the Oval Office. With the military presence in Yemen, the US has tightened the cordon around Iran. In the event of a military attack on Iran, Yemen could be put to use as a springboard by the Israelis. These are weighty considerations for Obama.

The fact is that no one is in control as a Yemeni authority. It is a cakewalk for the formidable Israeli intelligence to carve out a niche in Yemen - just as it did in northern Iraq under somewhat comparable circumstances.

Islamism doesn't deter Israel at all. Saleh couldn't have been far off the mark when he alleged last year that Israeli intelligence had been exposed as having kept links with Yemeni Islamists. The point is, Yemeni Islamists are a highly fragmented lot and no one is sure who owes what sort of allegiance to whom. Israeli intelligence operates marvelously in such twilight zones when the horizon is lacerated with the blood of the vanishing sun.

Israel will find a toehold in Yemen to be a god-sent gift insofar as it registers its presence in the Arabian Peninsula. This is a dream come true for Israel, whose effectiveness as a regional power has always been seriously handicapped by its lack of access to the Persian Gulf region. The overarching US military presence helps.

Israel politically to consolidate its Yemeni chapter. Without doubt, Petraeus is moving on Yemen in tandem with Israel (and Britain). But the "pro-West" Arab states with their rentier mentality have no choice except to remain as mute spectators on the sidelines.

Some among them may actually acquiesce with the Israeli security presence in the region as a safer bet than the spread of the dangerous ideas of Shi'ite empowerment emanating out of Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah. Also, at some stage, Israeli intelligence will begin to infiltrate the extremist Sunni outfits in Yemen, which are commonly known as affiliates of al-Qaeda. That is, if it hasn't done that already. Any such link makes Israel an invaluable ally for the US in its fight against al-Qaeda. In sum, infinite possibilities exist in the paradigm that is taking shape in the Muslim world abutting into the strategic Persian Gulf.

Most important, however, for US global strategies will be the massive gain of control of the port of Aden in Yemen. Britain can vouchsafe that Aden is the gateway to Asia. Control of Aden and the Malacca Strait will put the US in an unassailable position in the "great game" of the Indian Ocean. The sea lanes of the Indian Ocean are literally the jugular veins of China's economy. By controlling them, Washington sends a strong message to Beijing that any notions by the latter that the US is a declining power in Asia would be nothing more than an extravagant indulgence in fantasy.

In the Indian Ocean region, China is increasingly coming under pressure. India is a natural ally of the US in the Indian Ocean region. Both disfavor any significant Chinese naval presence. India is mediating a rapprochement between Washington and Colombo that would help roll back Chinese influence in Sri Lanka. The US has taken a u-turn in its Myanmar policy and is engaging the regime there with the primary intent of eroding China's influence with the military rulers. The Chinese strategy aimed at strengthening influence in Sri Lanka and Myanmar so as to open a new transportation route towards the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and Africa, where it has begun contesting traditional Western economic dominance.

China is keen to whittle down its dependence on the Malacca Strait for its commerce with Europe and West Asia. The US, on the contrary, is determined that China remains vulnerable to the choke point between Indonesia and Malaysia.

An engrossing struggle is breaking out. The US is unhappy with China's efforts to reach the warm waters of the Persian Gulf through the Central Asian region and Pakistan. Slowly but steadily, Washington is tightening the noose around the neck of the Pakistani elites - civilian and military - and forcing them to make a strategic choice between the US and China. This will put those elites in an unenviable dilemma. Like their Indian counterparts, they are inherently "pro-Western" (even when they are "anti-American") and if the Chinese connection is important for Islamabad, that is primarily because it balances perceived Indian hegemony.

The existential questions with which the Pakistani elites are grappling are apparent. They are seeking answers from Obama. Can Obama maintain a balanced relationship vis-a-vis Pakistan and India? Or, will Obama lapse back to the George W Bush era strategy of building up India as the pre-eminent power in the Indian Ocean under whose shadow Pakistan will have to learn to live?

On the other hand, the Indian elites are in no compromising mood. Delhi was on a roll during the Bush days. Now, after the initial misgivings about Obama's political philosophy, Delhi is concluding that he is all but a clone of his illustrious predecessor as regards the broad contours of the US's global strategy - of which containment of China is a core template.

The comfort level is palpably rising in Delhi with regard to the Obama presidency. Delhi takes the surge of the Israeli lobby in Washington as the litmus test for the Obama presidency. The surge suits Delhi, since the Jewish lobby was always a helpful ally in cultivating influence in the US Congress, media and the rabble-rousing think-tankers as well as successive administrations. And all this is happening at a time when the India-Israel security relationship is gaining greater momentum.

United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates is due to visit Delhi in the coming days. The Obama administration is reportedly adopting an increasingly accommodative attitude toward India's longstanding quest for "dual-use" technology from the US. If so, a massive avenue of military cooperation is about to open between the two countries, which will make India a serious challenger to China's growing military prowess. It is a win-win situation as the great Indian arms bazaar offers highly lucrative business for American companies.

Clearly, a cozy three-way US-Israel-India alliance provides the underpinning for all the maneuvering that is going on. It will have significance for the security of the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula. Last year, India formalized a naval presence in Oman.

All-in-all, terrorism experts are counting the trees and missing the wood when they analyze the US foray into Yemen in the limited terms of hunting down al-Qaeda. The hard reality is that Obama, whose main plank used to be "change", has careened away and increasingly defaults to the global strategies of the Bush era. The freshness of the Obama magic is dissipating. Traces of the "revisionism" in his foreign policy orientation are beginning to surface. We can see them already with regard to Iran, Afghanistan, the Middle East and the Israel-Palestine problem, Central Asia and towards China and Russia.

Arguably, this sort of "return of the native" by Obama was inevitable. For one thing, he is but a creature of his circumstances. As someone put it brilliantly, Obama's presidency is like driving a train rather than a car: a train cannot be "steered", the driver can at best set its speed, but ultimately, it must run on its tracks.

Besides, history has no instances of a declining world power meekly accepting its destiny and walking into the sunset. The US cannot give up on its global dominance without putting up a real fight. And the reality of all such momentous struggles is that they cannot be fought piece-meal. You cannot fight China without occupying Yemen.
(Asia Times Online)

ANGOLA'S FORGOTTEN WAR. (La guerra dimenticata dell'Angola)

Togo's national football (soccer) team decided 09 January 2010 to withdraw from the African Cup of Nations in Angola after its team was attacked by gunmen. At least two people were killed and at least six others were wounded in the attack. The attack occurred a few minutes after Togo's team bus, under Angolan military escort, crossed into the Angolan enclave of Cabinda.

As of 2009 the Angolan government claimed that the war in Cabinda is over. However, sporadic attacks on government forces and expatriate workers have continued. A peace deal was signed in 2006 between Angola's government and the rebels under Bento Bembe's leadership, but another FLEC faction has refused to sign on. Illegal detention and torture against suspected separatists continued as of late 2009, when FLEC [Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda] claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of a Chinese worker and the killing of several Angolan soldiers. Antonio Bento Bembe, who once led FLEC, is now a minister without portfolio tasked with human rights.

Human Rights Watch said in a report released 22 Jun 2009 that there was a disturbing pattern of human rights violations by the Angolan armed forces and state intelligence officials. Between September 2007 and March 2009, at least 38 people were arbitrarily arrested by the military in Cabinda and accused of state security crimes. Most were subjected to lengthy incommunicado detention, torture, and cruel or inhumane treatment in military custody and were denied due process rights. Many of those detained were residents of villages in the interior of Cabinda who were arrested during military raids that followed armed attacks attributed to the Liberation Front of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC).

Successive attempts over a quarter of a century to end a "secessionist" conflict in Angola's Cabinda enclave have yet to bear fruit. Political tensions were high in some areas of Cabinda as separatist groups demand a greater share of oil revenue for the province's population. The separatist groups often kidnapped foreign nationals in an attempt to draw attention to their independence claims. The ongoing low-level insurgency group, Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC), active in Cabinda province has a history of threatening foreign nationals with kidnapping.

Often dubbed "Angola's forgotten war", the decades-long conflict in the oil-rich province of 250,000 people took a new turn with a government offensive in October 2002 in the Buco-Zau military region, in northern Cabinda. The armed secessionist movements, with a combined estimated force of no more than 2,000 troops, are no match for the battle-hardened Angolan Armed Forces (FAA - a Portuguese acronym), who in 2002 had finally forced Angola's UNITA rebel movement to sue for peace after three decades of war in the country.

The Angolan economy is highly dependent on its oil sector, which accounts for about half of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and over 90% of export revenues. Cabinda faces a situation similar to the Niger Delta states in Nigeria. Cabinda produces more than half of Angola's oil and accounts for nearly all of its foreign exchange earnings. The province receives about 10% of the taxes paid by ChevronTexaco and its partners operating offshore Cabinda.

Situated in Central Africa between Zaire and Congo, Cabinda stretches along the Atlantic coast and covers an area of about 10,000 square kilometers. A strip of Zairian territory 60 km in width divides Angola from Cabinda. The population of Cabinda, which stands at around 300,000 indigenous people, is comparable in numbers to that of the Seychelles (60,000), of Luxemburg (300,000), of the Gambia and of Equatorial Guinea. Although out of this number only one third live in the actual territory of Cabinda. The other two thirds inhabit the surroundings in a generally stable state on Congolese and Zairian territory. Cabindês is the National Language of Cabinda. However, a large number of Cabinda Citizens speak French. The Cabindans at least for the literate among them, are 90% French speaking and only 10% speak Portuguese. The approved commercial languages are German and French. Unlike most African countries where the majority are Animists, the majority of Cabinda People are Christians.

First visited by the portuguese in the late XV century, Cabinda was composed of 3 Kingdoms : Loango, Kakongo and N'Goyo, at the North of the Congo river, and Ndongo, at the South of the Congo river. When the portuguese arrived to the estuary of the Congo in 1482, they found themselves in contact with one of the largest States in Africa south of the Sahara, and with one of the very few large States situated anywhere near the coastline. This was the Kingdom of the Bakongo, a Bantu People whose King, the Man-i-kongo, had his capital at Mbanzakongo, the modern Sao Salvador. The Kongo Kingdom was a typical 'Sudanic' state, the nucleus of which had been founded, in the late fourteenth or early, fifteenth century, by a conquering group from the small State of Bungu on the north bank of the lower Congo.

Cabinda became a Portuguese Protectorate with the signing of the Treaty of Simulambuco in 1885, and became known as the Portuguese Congo from the earliest 1900 onward. The Cabindansbase their independence claim on the fact that Cabinda was never part of Angola and on the Treaty of Simulambuco of 1885 with the Portuguese as a Portuguese protectorate state. The treaty was part of Portugal's attempt to consolidate its empire during the European powers' scramble for Africa in the late 19th century. In the 1933 Constitution defining the Estado Novo, Cabinda and Angola were considered distinct and separate parts of Portugal. In 1956 Portugal joined the administration of its Protectorate of Cabinda to that of its Colony of Angola.

The year 1960 witnessed the creation of the Freedom Movement for the State of Cabinda (MLEC) followed in 1963 by the forming of two other groups (National Action Committee of the Cabindan People – CAUNC and the Mayombé Alliance – ALLIAMA) supporting the same cause. In 1963 the merger of the three main Independence movements (M.L.E.C., ALIAMA, and C.A.U.N.C.) brought about the creation of FLEC in Pointe-Noire (Loango) Congo. In 1974 the Portugese government authorized FLEC to establish itself on Cabinda territory.

The invasion of Cabinda happened on the 11 of November 1975, when MPLA troops entered Cabinda via Point Noire. They where financially supported by the Oil Giant Chevron, Chevron paid the MPLA to take over the Cabindan oil fields. MPLA troops are still occupying Cabinda. The American Oil Company Chevron is participating along side the MPLA occupying force. Presently, Sonangol daily production is more than 980 000 barrels bringing in more than $8.000.000 a day, providing 90% of angola's GNP. As a result, Cabinda is compared to "Kuwait" in Africa. Since the occupation of the Country of Cabinda by the Communist Armed Forces of angola in 1975, one third of the population has fled to other countries, notably Zaire and the Congo where the number is estimated at 950,000 refugees.

Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) had for years used territory in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Congo-Brazzaville as rear bases from which to launch attacks into Cabinda.

Since the early 1990s, the government of Angola has implemented various measures in order to appease the groups, such as encouraging FLEC members to lay down their arms and join the administration, a move that has met with at least partial success.

The Angolan government has taken heed of complaints from Cabinda’s population about the lack of infrastructure and development in the region and now reinvests 10% of the province’s oil revenues back into the enclave. This is beginning to improve living standards, a crucial element in defusing the conflict.

On 22 May 1996 the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda - Armed Forces of Cabinda (FLEC-FAC) rebels fought with Angolan government troops only a week after FLEC-FAC signed a cease-fire agreement with the government. Since 1975, FLEC-FAC's 3,000-man army had fought the Angolan government for the 2,880-square mile Cabinda province. By late December 1996 clashes between the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) and Angolan government troops continued as the respective forces attempt to capture territory previously held by the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). According to a FLEC spokesman, a succession of recent clashes had resulted in more than five dozen deaths and has injured more than 100 combatants.

Throughout the year 2000 members of the separatist group the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) took hostage several foreigners in Cabinda Province.

In March 2001 FLEC-Renovada, an offshoot of the original FLEC group that is not usually violent, kidnaped five Portuguese employees of a construction company; they were released after 3 months. In May 2000, members of FLEC-FAC kidnaped three foreign and one local employee of a Portuguese company in Cabinda; by July FLEC-FAC had released one of the kidnaped persons for medical reasons. In July it released the remaining abductees.

In 2002 it was widely believed that Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC-FAC), a splinter group of the original FLEC movement, posed the most serious military threat to the government. The government reportedly stationed some 30,000 soldiers in the province for a planned counter-insurgency campaign. In September 2002, the Angolan government announced that it was prepared to open talks with Cabindan separatist groups and offer the province some measure of autonomy, but ruled out the prospect of complete independence. According to Congo, the Angolan Armed Forces advanced into the heart of rebel-held territory and by the end of October 2002 had destroyed Kungo-Shonzo, FLEC-FAC's main base since 1979, in the municipality of Buco-Zau, 110 km from the provincial capital, Cabinda town. The situation deteriorated in October 2002.

Just months later, FAA General Nundo Sachipengo announced that a FLEC-FAC "command post" in the area had been closed down. At the end of December 2002, FAA claimed it had captured the base of another separatist faction, FLEC-Renovada (FLEC-R).

But the apparent containment of Cabinda's separatists has come at a high price. In December 2002, civil rights activists in Angola released details of widespread allegations of human rights abuses by the FAA following the October military campaign against the rebels in the Cabinda enclave. The report, "Terror in Cabinda", contained 20 pages of testimony on alleged abuses, including summary executions, murders, disappearances, arbitrary detention, torture, rape and looting. In one incident reported in November 2002, 30 villagers were said to have died during an attack by a helicopter gunship. In the same month, a 16-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped by 14 soldiers. Although the report cited abuses by both the Angolan security forces and FLEC, the overwhelming number of accusations were made against the FAA.

By the end of February 2003, General Armando da Cruz Neto, the FAA chief of staff, confidently announced: "We are in a position to state that there have been significant changes in Cabinda's military situation as a result of operations carried out by our armed forces. FLEC-Renovada has ceased to operate since late 2002. We could say that the operation launched to restore peace in Cabinda has reached a positive phase. The next phase entails the development of border control mechanisms, so as to prevent FLEC forces from regrouping and returning."

On 8 June 2003, the Angola Press Agency reported that the FLEC-FAC chief of staff, Francisco Luemba, and six other high-ranking officers had surrendered to government authorities.

A recent visit to the Angolan capital, Luanda, by the founder of the main rebel group has been seen as evidence that peace may finally reach the troubled province. Although details surrounding the meeting of Ranque Franque, leader of the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC), with Angolan authorities in July 2003 remained vague, some observers saw it as the latest attempt by the government to move towards a negotiated settlement with separatists, who have battled the central government and each other since Angola achieved independence in 1975.

FAA personnel were responsible for torture and other forms of cruel and degrading treatment, including rape, in Cabinda during the year. The Human Rights Report of Cabinda, published by the Cabinda civic association Mpalabanda, reported 50 cases of torture or cruel and degrading treatment during the year. Police were frequently accused of using torture and coerced confessions during investigations and often beat and released suspects in lieu of trials. Persons suspected of ties to FLEC were allegedly subjected to brutal forms of interrogation. During the year, a visit by the U.N. Special Representative for Human Rights Defenders, Hina Jilani, and a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) brought further attention to the problems in Cabinda. The large number of FAA troops deployed within the Cabindan population was identified as a major contributor to the human rights abuses.

In August 2006, FLEC signed a ceasefire and general amnesty agreement with the government. Fighting persisted, however, as some Cabindans regard the ceasefire as a mockery. The Angolan military, in September 2006, admitted that fighting continues in Cabind and blamed "certain armed groups." In response to increased fighting, FLEC appealed to the African Union's Commission on Human Rights for an intervention.
(GlobalSecurity)

SURPRISES? (Sorprese?)

The presidential election campaign in Ukraine has two main intrigues, if anything extraordinary does not happen in the New Year and Christmas holidays. The first one is a very wide gap between approval ratings of the leaders of the presidential race, Viktor Yanukovych and Yuliya Tymoshenko. When the campaign started, many people said that in the first round Viktor Yanukovych would take 2-5% votes more than Yuliya Tymoshenko would. But according to the recent public opinion polls, the gap has become twice as wide as it was, and now it is about 10%.

Why did this occur? The main reason is a failure of the Cabinet’s budget policy. Ms Tymoshenko hoped to take foreign credits from, in the main, the International

Monetary Fund for a year. The IMF divided the credit up into four tranches. It has issued three tranches, but all of them, in spite of the original agreements, were used for social spending, in other words, “to bribe the voters”. The IMF turned a blind eye to that, but it did not give the fourth tranche suspecting the government not only of spending the money on the social payments but also

of corruption.

Now Yuliya Tymoshenko can indemnify for the budget neither through the domestic incomes nor through the credits. Like in corrida, the moment of truth came, the viewers, the bull and the toreador understand everything. In the case of Yuliya Tymoshenko, the situation is understandable to the political elite, international organizations and Ukraine’s people.

For the first time, there are no Christmas trees in many towns and villages, and the people have too little money to give presents to their children. This did not happen in Ukraine even in hard times. Earlier the government was not ready to fight against the flu, even gauze face-bandages and the cheapest drugs were not sold in the drugstores.

Given the current situation, it is unclear how Yuliya Tymoshenko is going to bridge the gap between herself and Viktor Yanukovych. She has only three weeks (as a matter of fact, only one week because of the holidays) to do that. So, I believe that in the main she will dig up the dirt on her rival even if the dirt is not true at all.

At the beginning of the campaign everybody was sure that Arseniy Yatsenuk would rank third, which would allow him to claim to become Prime Minister. And the second intrigue is that today Serhyi Tigipko ranks third, which I am glad to hear. Probably I am the only person who said that this presidential candidate was very up-and-coming politician. Then his approval rating was about 2% and has reached 9% by now. Serhyi Tigipko has created a good basis to fill a high position after the elections, or to take part in early parliamentary elections with forming his own faction.

Why did Serhyi Tigipko come to rank third? The Ukrainian people do not trust the authorities. Only 3% of the population trust the Parliament. Many presidential candidates are the MPs including Arseniy Yatsenuk. For the recent five years Serhyi Tigipko has been neither MP nor held any high posts. Unlike the other second echelon candidates he is not associated with the current authorities, who have discredited themselves.

(Eurasian Home)

HE'S NOT NAIVE. (Non è ingenuo)

The two largest nuclear powers say they are close to agreeing on a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), although U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have yet to clinch a deal.

Asked by a reporter what the biggest problem was in the talks, Putin said: "What is the problem? The problem is that our American partners are building an anti-missile shield and we are not building one."

Speaking to reporters in the Far Eastern Russian city of Vladivostok, Putin said the U.S. plans would fundamentally disrupt the Cold War balance of power and Russia would thus be forced to develop new offensive weapons.

The comments, from Russia's most powerful politician, showed the seriousness of the problems hampering talks on a replacement for START I and illustrated the deep unease still felt in Moscow over Washington's missile defense plans.

In September, Obama said the United States would scrap parts of George W. Bush's missile defense plans, a step seen as an attempt to allay Kremlin fears that the system was a direct threat to Russia.

Cutting the thousands of nuclear weapons accumulated during the Cold War is the centerpiece of Obama's efforts to "reset" relations with Russia, which the United States is pressing to offer more help on Afghanistan and Iran.
Russia's leaders have remained wary about Obama's revised missile defense plans, which are based on sea- and land-based missile interceptors in Europe.

"If we are not developing an anti-missile shield, then there is a danger that our partners, by creating such 'an umbrella', will feel completely secure and thus can allow themselves to do what they want, disrupting the balance, and aggressiveness will rise immediately," Putin said.

"In order to preserve balance ... we need to develop offensive weapons systems," Putin said, echoing a pledge by Medvedev last week to develop a new generation of strategic nuclear weapons.

Putin said Moscow wanted more information about the U.S. plans in exchange for details about Russia's deployed nuclear offensive missiles.

"The problems of anti-missile defense and offensive weapons are very tightly linked to each other," he said, adding that talks on a new treaty were moving in a generally positive direction.

Russia and the United States failed to agree on a successor to START I by December 5, when the treaty was due to expire, and have extended it as they try to work out a new agreement.

Obama and Medvedev failed to clinch a deal when they met on the sidelines of the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen earlier this month. No reason was given, although they said they were close to an agreement.
(Reuters)

STILLE BOMBARDIERUNG AND SIDE-EFFECTS

Last week U.S. president Barack Obama authorized the bombing of northwest Yemen, resulting in the killing of at least 120 people including children.

The U.S. military support included warplanes and intelligence. However the White House stated that its mission was to fight al-Qaeda's presence in Yemen.
The attacks occurred last Thursday November 17, 2009 and it follows four months of continuing combats in the region, between Yemen and Saudi Arabia -U.S. strong ally- against the Houthi rebels, a religious-based group of mostly Shiite [Shia] Muslims.
The internal conflict in Yemen started in 2004 but the military conflict has restarted in August 2009, after peace talks failed. This has caused the displacement of over 175,000 civilians in the border region between both countries. A humanitarian crisis is increasing in the region, with children being the most affected.
Videos released by the rebels show the violent attacks.
The Obama administration has said the U.S. responded to requests from the government of Yemen. The U.S. says they are fighting against al-Qaeda, as the pro Israel newspaper The New York Times reports:

[U.S.] support was approved by president Obama and came at the request of the Yemeni government. The American contributions were intended to help Yemen to prevent Al Qaeda from mounting attacks against American and other foreign targets inside its borders.

While most U.S. media ignored the attack for two days, the Iran government's international news website Press TV posted this last Saturday November 19:

Upon the orders of Obama, the military warplanes on Thursday blanketed two camps in the North of the Yemeni capital, Sana'a, claiming there were "an imminent attack against a US asset was being planned," ABC News quoted anonymous administration officials as saying on Friday.
The US air raids were then followed by a Yemeni ground forces attack. The operation led to the death of around 120 people of whom many were civilians, including children, the report quoted Yemeni opposition as saying.
Obama also contacted Yemen's President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, after the blitz in order to "congratulate" him on his efforts against 'al-Qaeda,' the US news outlet quoted White House officials as telling reporters earlier.
The latest development comes in the wake of recently intensified attacks on the country's Shia Houthi fighters which has brought about a dire humanitarian situation in northern Yemen.
So far, the US officials have categorically denied any direct involvement in the air strikes on Houthi fighters, alleging they have only targeted growing al-Qaeda training camps, mostly located in southern parts of the Persian Gulf state. Yemen's Houthi fighters however insist US fighter jets have been bombing their region, claiming the lives of civilians in their air raids.


To understand the Yemen conflict, we also must understand of the centuries old Sunni-Shiite rivalry which is wisely used by the U.S., Europe, and especially Israel to maintain and increase its influence in the Middle East region.
Yemen population of 23 million people with an average age of 16 years old, is mostly of Arab origin, about 50-55% are Shaf'i Sunni Muslim religion and 40-45% are Zaydi Shiite [Shia] Muslims, but the country is ruled by the Shiite mostly with close ties to Iran, a Shiite majority country. Yemen is located in the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula and it borders with mostly-Sunni Oman and Saudi Arabia.
Yemen, says it's fighting the al-Qaeda influence in its territory. Al-Qaeda is a Sunni pan-Islamic movement that rejects Jewish-Christian influence in the Muslim countries, and it took credit for the 9/11 attacks in the United States. About 40% of the Guantanamo detainees are from Yemen, and the U.S. embassy in Sanaa has been a target of violent attacks.
Yemen is ruled by president Ali Abdullah Saleh, is a Shia leader who has helped with the unification of the country in the 1960s' after the British colonial rule led to a division of the country. Salh is in power for the last 30 years, and he has accused Shia-ruled Iran of supporting the Houthi rebels.
North Yemen -historically pro western- is dominated by the Shiites, and the southern Yemen is mostly Sunni with a strong Marxist influence remaining from the previous government, which united with the north in 1990.
Yemen military offensive is also being supported by the Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia, whose military latest attack in northern Yemen killed about 54 people, according to Al Jazeera. In that attack, the leader of the Houthis was reportedly killed reports the BBC:

The Houthis, named after their leader's family, say the Saudis are helping the Yemeni government suppress their demand for greater local autonomy. The Houthis say they are trying to reverse the political, economic and religious marginalisation of the Zaydi [Shiite] community in Yemen.
The Zaydi community are a minority in Yemen, but make up the majority in the north of the country. The insurgents have been fighting the government since 2004. The government launched a fresh offensive in August 2009, which precipitated a new wave of intense fighting. It accuses the Houthis of wanting to re-establish Zaydi clerical rule, which ended in 1962.

The United States military is using al-Qaeda as a excuse to support Yemen in this war, but mostly is obvious that it wants to increase its military presence in the Middle East. Pentagon officials declared to the UK's The Daily Telegraph newspaper:

American officials told The Daily Telegraph the country is becoming a "reserve" base for the terrorist network, which considers it a safe haven. "Yemen is becoming a reserve base for al-Qaeda's activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan," said a US military official. [...]
Yemen is the ancestral home of Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the local arm of the network, has provided many of the group's leaders. One of al-Qaeda's worst attacks on [the U.S.], the bombing of the USS Cole, took place in Aden in 2000, killing 17 [U.S.] sailors.

In the other extreme, The Jawa Report, a U.S. based anti-Muslim and conservative news blog -that calls Arabs as "Jawas" I suppose in reference to Indonesia the most populated Muslim nation in the world- is even criticizing the attacks, perhaps in order to attack Obama:

When a counter-terror air strike kills more civilians than an average suicide bombing, can it be called a success? Discounting the dead kids for just a minute and using even the coldest pragmatic standards, the US air strikes in Yemen did much more harm than good to the US on multiple levels and will negatively impact security for a decade.

The Atlantic Wire a well known pro Israel publication founded in 1857 in Boston and now based in Washington, DC, says that Yemen could become "the Next Afghanistan". In other words, another excuse for a U.S. military intervention overseas:

How worried should we be about Yemen? The small Arab state sits south of prosperous Saudia Arabia and just across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia, the world's most failed state. Long plagued by separatist insurgencies and terrorism, many analysts fear that Yemen is on the edge of becoming an international crisis point on the scale of Afghanistan.
Yemenis make up 40% of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. Yemen, along with Somalia and of course Afghanistan, is frequently cited as a safe haven for terrorism. Because al-Qaeda is a predominantly Arab organization, and Yemen is an Arab state unlike Somalia or Afghanistan, some fear it could be more susceptible to al-Qaeda infiltration. Yemen's dilapidated economy, expected to decline over the next year and disintegrate as oil runs out by 2017, could plunge the nation into chaos.
The U.S. is already engaging Yemen's problems, if lightly. On Thursday, a series of bombings hit suspected terrorist sites in Yemen, with apparent American support. The extent of U.S. involvement remains unclear, however, with news reporting ranging from mere intelligence assistance to Yemeni officials to launching cruise missiles against the targets.

One day after the U.S. attacks in Yemen, the pro Israel newspaper The Washington Post announced that the Obama administration is planning to repatriate dozens of Yemeni prisoners from Guantanamo, but the current crisis in Yemen may delay the plans:

The Obama administration is planning to repatriate six Yemenis held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a transfer that could be a prelude to the release of dozens more detainees to Yemen, according to sources with independent knowledge of the matter.
The release is a significant first step toward dealing with the largest group of detainees at the prison -- there are currently 97 Yemenis there -- and toward meeting President Obama's goal of closing the facility.
But Yemen's security problems and lack of resources have spawned fears about its ability to monitor and rehabilitate returnees.

That same day, the U.S. Senate approved the scandalous 2010 Defense Budget of $636 billion dollars, including $128 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This represents an increase of $11 billion from the 2009 budget. The budget was passed in the Senate by a wow 88-10 majority vote, three days after the House approved it with a whooping 395-34 vote.
The U.S. 2010 Budget for Health Care is about $821.7 billion, but a big chuck of it goes to the same Insurance corporations that boycotted the U.S. Health Care reform bill, that now excludes Public Option. In times of recession, U.S. citizens health will continue under the control of private corporations.
With a poverty rate of 46% and growing, Yemen has an external debts of $6 billion dollars and the nation is now facing a worsening humanitarian crisis, with over 175 thousands people being displaced from their homes by the current civil war. The most affected are children, with half of them showing signs of chronic nutrition deprivation.
(Carlos in DC)

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It now appears that air travelers from all across the world are going to be facing tougher security measures and delays. This news comes after a suspected al-Qaeda terrorist came within moments of blowing up a transatlantic jet that was carrying 254 people on board.

The President of the United States, Barack Obama, came back from Christmas holiday to order two anti terrorism reviews as aviation leaders attempt to close loopholes that failed to stop Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. This is a man that is a Nigerian extremist that smuggled explosive materials onto a Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day.

This attack came just four days after a video was posted on an extremist website that showed an al-Qaeda militant in Yemen saying that they are carrying a bomb to hit the enemies of God. Abdulmutallab, a former student of Britain, was restrained by passengers and crew as he attempted to detonate a bomb that was sewn into his underpants.

As the man emerged from the toilet, he put a blanket over his lap and complained about an upset stomach. It was during this time that he tried to operate the bomb. However, passengers and cabin crew restrained him as flames came from his clothing.

Flights are now being delayed as much as four hours as passengers have to face extra screenings and are limited to one item of hand luggage. Under this new measure, in the final hours before landing in the United States, passengers are now banned from standing up, using toilets and holding blankets.
(Comparecarrentals.co.uk)