Mission & Justice

Tom Coghlan; 17/5/08

Western secret services in Afghanistan are acting like South American “death squads”, a United Nations human rights expert has claimed. Professor Richard Alston of the United Nations Human Rights Council said the intelligence agencies and Afghan militias were targeting suspected insurgency leaders with “impunity”. Their missions, he said, were “unaccountable to any international military authority”. Although Professor Alston refused to identify which intelligence services he was talking about, his comments follow criticism of the activities of CIA units, often by military personnel from other nations operating in Afghanistan.

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Rotem Sela; 16/5/08

The Israeli mission to the United Nations is seeking clarifications after an official communique released by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s bureau made specific reference to the word “nakba,” according to a report broadcast on Israel Radio early Friday morning. The report said the UN chief telephoned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to express his solidarity with the Palestinians on the day they mark the “nakba,” the Arabic word meaning “catastrophe” that is used in reference to the founding of the state of Israel. Danny Carmon, Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UN, told Israel Radio that the term “‘nakba’ is a tool of Arab propaganda used to undermine the legitimacy of the establishment of the State of Israel, and it must not be part of the lexicon of the UN.”

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Amin Abbas; 14/5/08

Tomorrow Palestinians - geographically displaced, politically divided and economically distressed - will be marking 60 years since al-Nakbah (the great catastrophe). Their misfortune began in May 1948, on the same day Israel celebrates its 60th birthday. The yin-yang character of the day marks a new beginning for one people and the beginning of the end for the other. Most people think of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as one between two warring countries and people. This is no fault of theirs. The terminology describing the place is baffling. Occupied Territories, West Bank and Gaza Strip, 67 green-line borders, 242 borders, armistice borders, UN partition borders: the list goes on. As opposed to Israel, where does Palestine begin and end? Who are its inhabitants?

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9/5/08

The first UN aid plane arrived in cyclone-ravaged Burma last night, but US and other international efforts were on hold after the country’s military generals rescinded their approval for American planes to enter Burma. The generals had bowed to international pressure, agreeing to allow the US military to fly critical aid to survivors of last Saturday’s cyclone, which has left up to 100,000 feared dead and one million missing. Thailand’s Supreme Commander Boonsrang Niumpradit said yesterday Bangkok had convinced Burma’s secretive junta to accept US assistance using planes that have been in Thai-US military exercises. A US embassy official confirmed the decision, but US ambassador to Thailand Eric John said later the flight was not going ahead.

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Tom Hyland; 4/5/08

Prisoners captured by Australian and Dutch troops in Afghanistan allege they have been beaten after being handed over to the notorious Afghan secret police. While the Australian Defence Force says there is no evidence prisoners taken by Australian troops have been mistreated, official documents show three have complained they were beaten around the head by secret police after being captured by the Dutch-Australian taskforce. The Dutch documents show prisoners are routinely handed over to Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS), which human rights groups accuse of torturing and abusing prisoners.

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Mark Dodd; 1/5/08

Kevin Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generations has been applauded by the UN, but the world body has raised serious concerns about Australia’s compliance with its treaty obligations to combat torture. Questions were raised yesterday by the UN Committee Against Torture in its review of Canberra’s compliance with the international conventions on torture, cruelty, inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment. A copy of the committee’s review was received by The Australian. Australia is among 145 nations that are signatories to the convention on torture and is obliged to present itself for periodic review by the UN. Australia was praised for closing down offshore detention centres for asylum-seekers, but the UN wanted to know why the Government was building a new centre on Christmas Island.

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30/4/08

Libya stands by its United Nation envoy’s comparison of the plight of Palestinians in Gaza to the Holocaust and deplores a walkout by Western diplomats in protest at the comments, official Libyan media reported on Wednesday. Libya’s Foreign Ministry summoned the ambassadors of France, Belgium and Britain and the U.S. charge d’affaires and asked them to explain the April 23 walkout at the UN Security Council, the Jana news agency reported. Western UN envoys walked out of a Council discussion that day after a Libyan diplomat likened the plight of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to the Nazi Holocaust. “The Libyan representative at the Security Council was right to express the stance of his country,” Jana quoted Abdelatti Abidi, head of the ministry’s European Affairs department, as saying. Among the diplomats who left the council chamber were the U.S., French, British, Belgian and Costa Rican envoys, diplomats have said. Some others remained. Such protests against fellow Security Council members are rare, diplomats said.

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28/4/08

Seven Palestinians have been killed during a raid by the Israeli army in the northern Gaza Strip, six of them by a shell which hit a family home. Four children and an elderly man were among the dead. The children’s mother was taken to hospital but died later as doctors struggled to save her life. The health ministry said shells were fired at a house in the town of Beit Hanoun - the family inside were eating breakfast at the time. The Israeli army said an air raid was targeting a group of armed men near the house.

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Paul Toohey; 26/4/08

Rebel lieutenant Gastao Salsinha last night surrendered after two years on the run and put himself in the personal control of East Timor’s most senior army officer, Brigadier Tuar Matan Ruak. Salsinha’s capitulation will hopefully bring to an end two years of stand-offs, negotiations and violence that has torn the country apart. Salsinha, who allegedly led the attack on Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao on February 11 while Alfredo Reinado launched the raid on President Jose Ramos Horta’s compound, spent yesterday sitting in a house in Ermera, in the west of East Timor, with a Catholic Church priest acting as his mediator as armed forces surrounded the position. Negotiators had gone to a house near the town of Gleno, atSalsinha’s suggestion, to collect him.

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Rory McCarthy; 25/4/08

The United Nations was to halt food hand-outs for up to 800,000 Palestinians yesterday because of a severe fuel shortage in Gaza brought on by an Israeli economic blockade. John Ging, the director of operations in Gaza for the UN Relief and Works Agency, which supports Palestinian refugees, said there had been an inadequate supply of fuel from Israel to Gaza for 10 months until it was finally halted two weeks ago. “The devastating humanitarian impact is entirely predictable,” Mr Ging said.

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