Hague sees ‘opportunity’ to end Somalia terror

Πηγή: The Gulf Today
By AFP
Feb 4 2012

NAIROBI: Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Friday there was an “opportunity” to end the crisis in Somalia and tackle terrorism and piracy there, after a landmark visit to the war-torn nation.

“I came away confident that there is an opportunity for the world to help Somalis achieve the better future they deserve,” said Hague, the first British foreign secretary to visit the anarchic nation for two decades.

“Recent political and security gains in Somalia mean there is a historic opportunity to turn a corner in the country and to lay the foundations for greater stability in the long-term.”

Britain considers Somalia a direct threat to its security on fears that British nationals have joined the Al-Qaeda-linked Shehab insurgents who are fighting to topple the weak Western-backed government in Mogadishu.

In recent years, several foreign fighters — some of them Somalis from the diaspora — have joined the hardline Shebab’s ruthless battles to seize control of the country.

Pirates in central and northern Somalia have also plagued shipping and hold British nationals as well as other foreigners hostage for ransom.

“We need more effective action to disrupt the terrorism and piracy which are such a serious threat to international security and the lives of people, including British nationals,” Hague said.

He called for “better co-ordination of international aid” as well as greater support for the 10,000-strong African Union force, which is protecting the embattled government from Shebab attacks.

Troops from neighbouring countries are converging on the Shebab - Kenyan forces in the south, Ethiopia’s army in the south and west, and the AU troops in Mogadishu.

Hague also voiced support for Kenya’s ongoing incursion into southern Somalia after Nairobi sent troops and tanks to attack Shebab positions last October.

“We are very appreciative of the role Kenya has played and recognise how Kenya has been in the front line,” Hague said, after meeting Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki.

“We have the challenge of working closely together on Somalia... It will be very difficult, it is full of danger.”

Security was tightened in Mogadishu for Hague’s visit on Thursday, which came ahead of a London conference due on Feb.23 aimed at resolving the protracted crises in the lawless Horn of Africa nation.

UK: Disorder no excuse to clamp down on Internet

Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague makes listens on stage during the opening session at the London Cyberspace Conference in London, Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011

Πηγή: AP
By JILL LAWLESS

Nov 2 2011

LONDON (AP) — Governments must not clamp down on Internet and mobile phone networks at times of social unrest, the British government said Tuesday — weeks after suggesting police should do just that during riots.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said the fact that criminals and terrorists can exploit digital networks is not "justification for states to censor their citizens."

And Prime Minister David Cameron said governments "must not use cybersecurity as an excuse for censorship or to deny their people the opportunities that the Internet represents."

After riots spread across England in August — with the help of instant digital communications — Cameron briefly raised the idea of giving British authorities greater power to disrupt the use of cell phone services or social networking tools during civil unrest.

Cameron and Hague spoke as a two-day international cybersecurity conference opened Tuesday in London. Their stance contrasts with calls by Russia and China for tighter regulation of the Internet through binding international treaties.

Britain supports the less proscriptive idea of internationally agreed online "norms of behavior." That approach was backed by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who warned against imposing a "repressive global code" for the Internet.

"What citizens do online should not, as some have suggested, be decreed solely by groups of governments making decisions for them somewhere on high," Biden said in a speech delivered by videolink from Washington.

Biden said the U.S. opposed "an international legal instrument that would lead to exclusive government control over Internet resources, institutions and content and national barriers on the free flow of information online. "

The conference is being held amid a rapid rise in cyber attacks on governments and businesses — from criminals, terrorists and other states.

Cameron said cybercrime cost Britain 27 billion pounds ($43 million) a year, and that the country faced daily "attempts on an industrial scale to steal valuable information from individuals and companies."

The prime minister told the conference that governments "cannot leave cyberspace open to the criminals and the terrorists that threaten our security and our prosperity but at the same time we cannot just go down the heavy-handed route."

"The balance we have got to strike is between freedom and a free-for-all," he said.

Hague said Britain rejected "the view that government suppression of the Internet, phone networks and social media at times of unrest is acceptable."

The British government took a tougher line after riots flared across England in August, the country's worst social unrest in decades.

Police accused young criminals of using Facebook, Twitter and Blackberry's instant messaging service to coordinate looting sprees. Several people have been convicted of inciting violence using social media, including two men jailed for four years each for trying to start riots with Facebook postings.

Cameron said after the riots that the government would look at whether cell phone services and social networks could be disrupted during disorder. Executives from Facebook, Twitter and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. were summoned for crisis talks with senior government officials.

After meeting the media firms, the government said it would not seek new powers to shut down Facebook, Twitter or BlackBerry Messenger in times of crisis, but would "build on the existing relationships and cooperation to crack down on the networks being used for criminal behavior."

Civil liberties groups said Britain and other Western governments should take care not to fall into a double standard.

"It's very easy to defend the case of black and white — human rights against dictatorships around the world," said John Kampfner, chief executive of Index on Censorship. "But as soon as our own Western-style stability of the state is called into question, well then freedom of expression is expendable.

"There should be one rule for all, including Western governments."

Hague Is Asked to Investigate Vatican Over Abuse

Πηγή: New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
September 13, 2011

Human rights lawyers and victims of clergy sexual abuse filed a complaint on Tuesday urging the International Criminal Court in The Hague to investigate and prosecute Pope Benedict XVI and three top Vatican officials for crimes against humanity for what they described as abetting and covering up the rape and sexual assault of children by priests.

The formal filing of nearly 80 pages by two American advocacy groups, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the most substantive effort yet to hold the pope and the Vatican accountable in an international court for sexual abuse by priests.

A spokesperson at the court said that the prosecutor’s office would examine the papers, “as we do with all such communications.” The first step will be “to analyze whether the alleged crimes fall under the court’s jurisdiction,” Florence Olara, the prosecutor’s spokeswoman said.

Complaints about the Vatican and child abuse by Catholic priests have been received at the court before, court records showed. But Ms. Olara said that details are not normally disclosed by the court unless a case goes forward.

Lawyers familiar with the I.C.C. said that it was unlikely that complaint against the Vatican would fit the court’s mandate to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. But even an examination of the issue by the prosecution office would appear to serve the plaintiffs’ goal of getting international attention for the case.

The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the spokesman for the Vatican, said he had no comment.

Vatican officials have often said that the decisions about priests accused of abuse are made by bishops — not by the Vatican hierarchy — and that the church is far more decentralized than is widely believed.

But the lawyers and abuse victims who are taking the case to the international court say their action is necessary because all the cases brought against priests and bishops in various countries have not been sufficient to prevent the crimes from continuing.

“National jurisdictions can’t really get their arms around this,” said Pamela Spees, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, who helped prepare the filing. “Prosecuting individual instances of child molestation or sexual assault has not gotten at the larger systemic problem here. Accountability is the goal, and the I.C.C. makes the most sense, given that it’s a global problem.”

In addition to Pope Benedict XVI, the filing asks the court to prosecute Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state; Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the previous secretary of state and the current dean of the College of Cardinals; and Cardinal William J. Levada, who is head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office designated to receive cases of clergy sexual abuse that are forwarded by bishops.

A central question is whether the accusations will fit the court’s criteria. The International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed after July 1, 2002, when the court opened. It is independent of the United Nations and has jurisdiction in the 117 countries that so far have ratified the Rome Statute that created the court. Italy, Germany and the Netherlands are signatories, while the Vatican and the United States are not.

The filing against the Vatican cites five cases in which priests have been accused of abuse in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the United States; the priests in these cases are from Belgium, India and the United States.

Ms. Spees said she hoped to persuade the court that the cases were within its jurisdiction, because they involve abuses that she said were “systematic and widespread,” and because the pope and two of the three cardinals named in the filing are from nations that are signatories to the Rome Statute.

Experts in international law said they thought the court’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, would be reluctant to accept the cases because of thorny jurisdictional questions, as well as political and religious sensitivities.

They said that the sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic priests was sufficiently heinous and numerous to meet the court’s standards. The question is whether the facts show that the Vatican officials actually perpetuated the abuse.

Mark Ellis, executive director of the International Bar Association, which is based in London, said he thought that the court would open a preliminary investigation to determine whether it has jurisdiction — and that it would probably conclude that it did not.

“Crimes against humanity means acts that are committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population,” Mr. Ellis said. “What you’re looking at is really a policy, in which the government or the authorities are planning the attack.”

“When you look at the concept of why and how the I.C.C. was created, I just don’t think this fits,” he said. “But the filing does something that’s important. It raises awareness. Ultimately the plaintiffs will elevate this in the public eye and it will force the court to respond.”

Libya is not an advertisement for intervention

A hole caused by Nato bombings in Gaddafi's main Bab Al-Aziziya compound in Libya's capital, Tripoli. Photograph: Sergey Ponomarev/AP

Πηγή: Guardian

By Simon Jenkins

Friday 26 August 2011 08.00 BST

Several claims have been made about Nato's involvement in Libya that have little basis in reality

Nato – chiefly Britain – appears to have toppled the Gaddafi regime in Libya to "liberate" its people. The days are over where the mere triumph of arms justifies itself. The rightness of a war and the honesty of its methods are vital if the new "liberal interventionism" is to carry its proclaimed moral clout. The Libyan operation is already being declared a classic success for the ideology. The following claims have been made for it over the past six months.

Intervention was necessary to prevent a massacre in Benghazi

There had been no massacre in Benghazi, only the threat of an attack on the city by Gaddafi if the rebels failed to negotiate. While the threat was real, the assumption of "thousands" of deaths was Nato propaganda to justify its desire to "do something" for the Arab spring. Whether it reinforced the rebels in their intransigence must now be moot.

The threat to Benghazi was the sole basis on which UN and Arab league support was obtained for a no-fly zone. The threat was averted within days. No further resolution was gained to support a Nato advance on Tripoli, let alone to kill Gaddafi from the air, because one would not have been forthcoming. The ambition to topple the regime was based on the claim to be "protecting civilians" by installing a more democratic one.

The claim that the intervention "saved thousands of lives" was thus wholly conjectural, and must be set against the thousands that have certainly been lost, and may yet be lost, through the intervention. These deaths can be justified only on the thesis that any precipitated revolution is worth any number of lives – as is asserted by apologists for Iraq.

There would be no foreign troops on the ground

This Nato pledge was mendacious. From the moment air power failed to achieve the undeclared goal of Tripoli's surrender, the pledge was broken. British ground troops were extensively deployed in Libya, the distinction between overt and covert forces being spurious. "Special" soldiers are still soldiers, and will shortly be releasing a flood of "how I captured Tripoli" memoirs. Close air support is also identical in tactical effect to ground artillery, as deployed in the final assault on the Gaddafi compound. Britain gave the rebels an air force – and can hardly withdraw it now.

Britain was not taking sides in a foreign civil war

This has been stated throughout, but it clearly was. The rescue of Benghazi mutated, as did the Iraq venture, into a wider war to remove a regime no longer to Britain's liking. Aid of every sort was given to the rebels, from political and diplomatic support to training, logistics and reportedly battlefield leadership in the attack on Tripoli.

Throughout the campaign, the British government has said it is "for the Libyan people to decide their own fate" and its involvement would end once a tyrant had departed the scene. That was naive. Britain has, with Nato, most emphatically decided the fate of the Libyan people. It has brought anarchy in the place of order, hoping that anarchy will be brief. It cannot disown the consequences.

The foreign secretary, William Hague, admitted as much this week. He declared: "We're not looking at British troops being a significant part of a stabilisation operation." We were told there would be no troops at all. But Britain cannot wreck someone else's country and then walk away from it. From the start of this operation David Cameron knew that if he toppled Gaddafi, he would own the place. It was no good constantly saying he would "learn from Iraq". The lesson of Iraq was, don't do it in the first place.