WikiLeaks cables support criticism of ICTY judge

Judge Theodor Meron

Πηγή: globalpost
By AFP
June 18 2013

US diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks appear to support claims by a Danish judge that the American head of the war crimes court for the former Yugoslavia furthered US administration aims to acquit senior suspects, a Danish newspaper said Tuesday.

Judge Frederik Harhoff last week claimed in a letter sent to his colleagues and leaked in the Danish press that the president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Theodor Meron, had pressured judges to acquit leading Croatian and Serbian officers.

US State Department cables from The Hague published by WikiLeaks appear to support his claim, including one from 2003 documenting a meeting between Meron and an unnamed US ambassador.

In the meeting, Meron allegedly pleaded for the US government to vote to terminate the mandate of then ICTY chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, describing her as "primarily a media person who is primarily interested in her own legacy".

"Meron urged the USG (US government) to oppose renewal and expressed reservations about a one-year extension of her mandate," the cable says of Del Ponte, who left court in 2008.

Denmark's leftwing independent daily Information, which revealed the existence of the US cables, said Del Ponte had "dragged out court cases and thus put obstacles in the way of the US and Russia to complete the work of the tribunal".

The paper said Harhoff believed that Meron pushed for court proceedings to be expedited in the interests of saving resources and winding up the work of the 20-year long legal process.

The ICTY was created in 1993 to try perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the the bloody break-up of the former Yugoslavia.

Serbs have frequently criticised the tribunal's perceived bias against their nationals, who were frequently convicted, while Croats, Bosniaks and Kosovars were acquitted.

A passage from another confidential cable later in 2003 on a meeting between Meron and another US ambassador identified the judge as "the tribunal's pre-eminent supporter of United States government efforts".

Information quoted an unnamed former legal advisor to the ICTY as saying the cables showed Meron had a close working policy relationship with the US government.

"It is the perception among my former colleagues that the tribunal president takes instructions from the US government. And the WikiLeaks documents certainly do not help his case," the advisor said.

In his letter, Harhoff claimed the acquittals of two Croatian generals -- Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac -- and three Serbs -- former Yugoslav army chief General Momcilo Perisic, Serbian state security service chief Jovica Stanisic and his deputy Franko Simatovic -- were contrary to the tribunal's set practice of holding military commanders responsible for crimes committed by subordinates.

Harhoff said the court was instead moving towards a policy that commanders could only be convicted if it could be proven that they knew of their subordinates' intention to commit crime.

Harhoff suggested that US or Israeli officials were involved in the acquittals.

The acquittals beg "the question of how this military logic pressures the international criminal justice system? Have any American or Israeli officials ever exerted pressure on the American presiding judge... to ensure a change of direction?" Harhoff wrote.

"We will probably never know.

"But reports of the same American presiding judge's tenacious pressure on his colleagues in the Gotovina-Perisic cases makes you think he was determined to achieve an acquittal -- and especially that he was lucky enough to convince the elderly Turkish judge to change his mind at the last minute," he added.

The only Turkish judge sitting at the ICTY is Mehmet Guney, 77.

"Most of the cases will lead to commanding officers walking free from here on. So the American (and Israeli) military leaders can breathe a sigh of relief," Harhoff wrote.

Is Obama keeping our troops in Afghanistan to protect the opium trade?

Their real mission?

Πηγή: Examiner
By Dave Gibson
June 19 2013

In 2000, the Taliban banned opium production in Afghanistan, making it illegal to grow poppies. Any farmer caught cultivating the cash crop would be severely punished, usually by death. By the middle of 2001, there was basically no opium produced in Afghanistan, though that nation ordinarily led the world in production of the drug. However, since the start of the U.S. led invasion, the poppy fields began growing again and the opium trade is flourishing as never before.

The Taliban had relied on opium sales to finance their operations until July 2000. It was then that the regime's leader Mullah Mohammed Omar issued a ban on the drug trade, because he claimed that it conflicted with Islamic law. Less than a year later, a U.N. delegation visited the areas of the country where poppies were traditionally grown and found nothing.

The head of the U.N. Drug Control Programsaid: "There are no poppies. It's amazing." By January 2002, the U.S. military had the Taliban on the run and the poppy fields had returned in earnest. At the same time, the U.S. and NATO nations signed a worldwide ban on opium production.

The U.N. released a report on the return of the Afghan opium trade which noted: "Afghanistan has been the main source of illicit opium: 70 percent of global illicit opium production in 2000 and up to 90 percent of heroin in European drug markets originated from Afghanistan."

The report went on to say: "There are reliable indications that opium cultivation has resumed since October 2001 in some areas (such as the southern provinces Uruzgan, Helmand, Nangarhar, and Kandahar), following the effective implementation of the Taliban ban on cultivation in 2001, not only because of the breakdown in law and order, but also because the farmers are desperate to find a means of survival following the prolonged drought."

Despite the Bush administration claims at the time that the international drug trade helped finance terrorism, a blind-eye was turned to the activities of the Afghan warlords and the Pashtun mafia. The U.S. and our NATO partners ignored the re-introduction of the poppy crops and allowed opium production to flourish. In 2007, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime released a report which found that during 2006, opium production increased by 50 percent from the previous year.

Afghanistan produced a record of 6,700 metric tons in 2006, and was responsible for 92 percent of the world's opium production. This rise corresponded with the dramatic fall of Southeast Asia's opium production, which, in contrast only produced 370 metric tons that same year. In the past, it has been reported that the CIA is involved in Afghanistan's opium production, or at least in protecting it.

In March 2002, a U.S. foreign intelligence official speaking on the condition of anonymity, reminded a reporter with NewsMax.com of the CIA's record of involvement with the international drug trade.

The official said:

"The CIA did almost the identical thing during the Vietnam War, which had catastrophic consequences--the increase in the heroin trade in the USA beginning in the 1970's is directly attributable to the CIA. The CIA has been complicit in the global drug trade for years, so I guess they just want to carry on their favorite business.The sole reason why organized crime groups and terrorists have the power that they do is all because of drug trafficking. Like the old saying, 'those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.'"

The following is a listing of Afghanistan’s opium crop in metric tons, since 2001:

-2001...185mt

-2002...3,400mt

-2003...3,600mt

-2004...4,200mt

-2005...4,100mt

-2006...6,700mt

-2007...8,200mt

-2008...7,700mt

-2009…6,900mt

-2010…3,600mt

-2011...5,800mt

-2012..3,700mt

(Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Afghanistan Opium Survey Summary Findings)

Afghanistan’s 2010 crop was nearly cut in half from the previous year’s production due to a blight hitting the poppy fields. However, the reduced supply tripled the price of opium, earning the farmers $605 million last year, up 38 percent from 2009. The current high price is now convincing many of that country’s farmers to give up on growing traditional crops such as wheat, and enter opium production.

In addition to being the world’s number one opium supplier, Afghanistan is now the largest producer of hashish, producing between 1,500 and 3,500 tons annually.

While the U.S. government claims to be making strides in the eradication of Afghanistan’s opium fields, the United Nations reports that only 5,351 hectares of opium were eradicated in 2009, less than 4 percent of the amount planted. In 2010, the amount of land used for poppy cultivation was 123,000 hectares, with the amount reportedly eradicated, unchanged from 2009.

By the end of 2012, 154,000 hectares were being devoted to the poppy crop.

Though Afghanistan produces about 90 percent of the world's opium supply, a mere 2 percent of the drug is actually seized within that country’s borders.

Afghanistan could now be fairly described as a 'narco-state' and the role that the U.S. military has played in that nation's illicit evolution cannot be ignored.

In fact, a recent New York Times article stated:

“This country is on its way to becoming the world’s first true narco-state,” said one international law enforcement official, who did not want to be quoted criticizing the Afghan government. “The opium trade is a much bigger part of the economy already than narcotics ever were in Bolivia or Colombia.”

But Mirwais Yasini, a former head of counternarcotics for the Afghan government and now a prominent member of Parliament, said, “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“But if it goes on like this in the future, I am worried about that happening,” he said.

Mr. Yasini said eradication efforts had been countered by insecurity, compounded by corruption at local, provincial and national levels. “I don’t see anything tangible that has been done,” he said. “There is no meaningful crop substitution and no effective enforcement.”

The United Nations has estimated in the past that opium trafficking makes up 15 percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product, a figure that is expected to rise as international military and development spending declines with the NATO withdrawal at the end of 2014.

As of May 19, 2013, a total of 2,227 U.S. service members have been killed in Afghanistan.

Attac study says where rescue funds for Greece end up

Πηγή: DW
June 17 2013

The anti-globalization pressure group Attac has published a study indicating that the bulk of the rescue funds made available for Greece have tended to go to help banks. Ordinary people haven't profited much, it said.

More than three quarters of all rescue funds for Greece went directly to banks and rich investors, German daily newspaper "Süddeutsche Zeitung" claimed Monday, quoting a fresh study by the anti-capitalist pressure alliance Attac.

The group said out of the 207 billion euros ($276 billion) earmarked so far by international creditors, 160 billion euros ended up with Greek lenders and investors.

"Political elites have not been trying to rescue the Greek population, but the finance sector," said Lisa Mittendrein from Attac Austria.

According to the calculations made by the pressure group, the government in Athens put 58 billion euros into the domestic bank's recapitalization program. Another 55 billion euros were used to pay back sovereign bonds and 11 billion euros more to buy back accumulated debt.

Berlin not amused

Attac maintained an additional 35 billion euros were spent with a view to sweeten the 2012 debt reduction scheme also known as the Greek haircut for affected insurance companies and investment funds.

The group also said that only a small proportion of the money that actually did reach the Greek state budget could be used do anything meaningful for the population, as 35 billion euros had to be spent on debt servicing for the holders of sovereign bond bills.

"The widespread belief supported by European politicians that the various rescue packages for Greece have helped ordinary people in the country is no longer tenable," Mittendrein commented. Instead, she argued, Greeks have been made to foot the bill in terms of harsh austerity measures with all the known drastic social consequences like record-high unemployment.

The German government rejected the conclusions made by Attac, arguing that Greeks have profited from the government in Athens having more time to implement reforms. Berlin also claimed that all Greeks had profited from saving lenders from bankruptcy.