World Media Watch

by Gloria R. Lalumia

BuzzFlash Note: WMW provides BuzzFlash readers foreign views and perspectives that are not usually available from the media here in the U.S. The presentation of these articles from these international publications is not an endorsement of their viewpoints.

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WORLD MEDIA WATCH FOR SEPTEMBER 20, 2004

1//The Independent, UK--OPTIMISM IN LONDON, CARNAGE IN IRAQ (The second Iraq war, between coalition forces and insurgents, is now under way in what has become the "crucible" of the global war on terrorism, Tony Blair declared yesterday after talks with Iraq's interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, at 10 Downing Street. The two leaders presented a determinedly upbeat picture of everyday life in Iraq. They insisted that despite the recent upsurge in violence elections scheduled for January would go ahead…Responding to Mr Blair's attempt to move the issue away from the "first" Iraq war, the Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy, demanded that the Prime Minister publicly apologise for the "illegal" war in Iraq. Mr Kennedy accused Mr Blair of "a litany of betrayal" and of stretching the truth over the basis for going to war, including the assertion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.)

2//Institute for War & Peace Reporting, UK--PATCHWORK OF INSURGENT GROUPS RUNS FALLUJAH (Five months after United States Marines called off their attack on Fallujah, citizens of the town live under the often capricious rule of different groups of mujahideen, or holy warriors – ranging from Islamists and ultra-Islamists to Baathists and outright bandits. The few police still on the streets of the town are entirely at the insurgents’ beck and call… residents say the groups are united on the battlefield and would fight side by side if US or Iraqi government troops were to launch a new push into Fallujah – a move that some believe likely because of the recent round of air and artillery strikes…Iraqi government forces are absent from the equation of power in the town. The police play little role, there is no National Guard, and even the Fallujah Protection Brigade, established last April to keep order in the town, was dissolved a month ago when its members were seen fighting alongside the insurgents.)

3//IslamOnline, Qatar--MEGAWATI TO LOSE VOTE FOR FLAWED POLICIES: ANALYSTS (As the final round of Indonesia’s presidential elections are to start Monday, September 20 , chances for Megawati Sukarnoputri to remain office appear slim due to her flawed policies on terrorism and failure to make political alliances, analysts said on Sunday, September 19 . Opinion polls show the battle in the country's first direct presidential ballot would be won by frontrunner Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono after three years of Megawati’s rule…But analysts say the fact that the vote comes 10 days after the Australian embassy in Jakarta was bombed and left nine people killed has delivered a harsh decisive blow to Megawati’s ambitions for a second term.)

4//The Moscow Times, Russia--YELTSIN GENTLY RAPS PUTIN OVER HIS POLITICAL PLANS (In his most explicit public comments about his successor's policies, former President Boris Yeltsin issued a soft warning that President Vladimir Putin's plans to put more power in his hands could roll back democratic freedoms…"A stifling of freedoms and a rollback of democratic rights would mean, among other things, a victory for the terrorists," he said. "Only a democratic country can successfully resist terrorism and count on standing shoulder to shoulder with all of the world's civilized countries."…Yeltsin has to be cautious in criticizing the Kremlin because he has lost all the political connections he once had, said Andrei Ryabov of the Carnegie Moscow Center. "I'm afraid that the current balance of power is not in Yeltsin's favor. He does not enjoy the influence that he used to. This is why he has to soften his words," Ryabov said.)

5//The Daily Star, Lebanon--BEIRUT MEET SEEKS STRATEGIES TO COUNTER U.S. POLICIES
(Civil society is more than making its presence felt and "it is no longer a question of whether Washington will eventually be defeated by the Iraqi resistance, the question is how long it will hang on to an impossible situation," according to Walden Bello, speaking at the "Where Next for the Anti-War and Anti-Globalization Movements?" three-day conference being held in Beirut. The conference has gathered over 300 attendees in search of an international strategy - "or global plan of action" - to counter the spreading initiative of war and imperialistic, "U.S.-led globalization" and a reply to the continuous U.S. occupation of Iraq and its endorsement of aggressive projects in the Middle East region.)

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1//The Independent, UK 20 September 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=563627

OPTIMISM IN LONDON, CARNAGE IN IRAQ
By Colin Brown Deputy Political Editor

The second Iraq war, between coalition forces and insurgents, is now under way in what has become the "crucible" of the global war on terrorism, Tony Blair declared yesterday after talks with Iraq's interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, at 10 Downing Street.

The two leaders presented a determinedly upbeat picture of everyday life in Iraq. They insisted that despite the recent upsurge in violence elections scheduled for January would go ahead. The terrorists would be defeated, they said. Writing in The Independent today Mr Allawi condemns "sceptics and nay-sayers" and urges "all nations to assist Iraq". The talks were held as two Americans and a Briton, Kenneth Bigley, 62, an engineer from Liverpool, who were kidnapped last week, faced execution. Their captors have set a deadline of today for their demands to be met.

Yesterday a grisly video emerged showing the decapitation of three members of a Kurdish party who had been held by rebels. A second film was screened on the Arab satellite channel al-Jazeera showing 25 Iraqi soldiers who have been kidnapped by extremists.

Mr Blair said: "Whatever the disagreements about the first conflict in Iraq to remove Saddam, in this conflict now taking place in Iraq, this is the crucible in which the future of this global terrorism will be determined. Either it will succeed and this terrorism will grow, or we will succeed, the Iraqi people will succeed and this global terrorism will be delivered a huge defeat.

"I do say to people in this new Iraqi conflict, whatever the disagreements about the removal of Saddam, there is only one side for sensible and reasonable people to be on. Now is not the time for the international community to divide or disagree but to come together behind what is happening in Iraq."

Mr Blair was accused of attempting to draw a line under his unpopular decision to back George Bush in the war on Iraq in advance of next week's Labour Party conference. Some left-wing MPs said it was "offensive" for the Prime Minister to host talks with Mr Allawi, who had CIA links and was chosen by the Bush administration.

With Mr Allawi standing by his side, Mr Blair said the West should "realise that the struggle of this Prime Minister and the Iraqi people for liberty and democracy and stability is our struggle too". The US and the UK would "see it through until it is finished - until it finishes in victory, not of America or Britain or the West but the victory of the Iraqi people," he said.

(SNIP)

Mr Blair brushed aside reports that British troop numbers would be increased, or cut, in Iraq. "The real issue is how you build the capability of the Iraqi security forces, the Iraqi army [and] police anti- terrorist capability, intelligence capability and so on," he said.

(SNIP)

Responding to Mr Blair's attempt to move the issue away from the "first" Iraq war, the Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy, demanded that the Prime Minister publicly apologise for the "illegal" war in Iraq. Mr Kennedy accused Mr Blair of "a litany of betrayal" and of stretching the truth over the basis for going to war, including the assertion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

2//Institute for War & Peace Reporting, UK (ICR No. 83, 17-Sep-04)
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/irq/irq_83_1_eng.txt

By Dhiya Rassan in Fallujah
Dhiya Rassan is an IWPR trainee in Baghdad.

PATCHWORK OF INSURGENT GROUPS RUNS FALLUJAH
Various groups, from foreign fundamentalists to former Saddam loyalists, differ on points of Islamic law but unite to fight Coalition forces.

(SNIP)

Five months after United States Marines called off their attack on Fallujah, citizens of the town live under the often capricious rule of different groups of mujahideen, or holy warriors – ranging from Islamists and ultra-Islamists to Baathists and outright bandits.

The few police still on the streets of the town are entirely at the insurgents’ beck and call.
Divided ideologically, the various religious groups argue over issues ranging from the proper way to finance their respective movements to the treatment of foreign and Iraqi captives.
Nonetheless, residents say the groups are united on the battlefield and would fight side by side if US or Iraqi government troops were to launch a new push into Fallujah – a move that some believe likely because of the recent round of air and artillery strikes.

According to Fallujans, the Black Banners – the most feared of the town’s insurgents – are commanded by Omar al-Hadid, an Iraqi said to be affiliated with the al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. The Black Banners represent the bulk of the Syrian and other foreign fighters based in town, residents say, and are the most puritan of the groups.

They reportedly ban anything from cigarettes to popular music cassettes. Their reputation for unpredictable behaviour means that in the neighbourhoods where their checkpoints predominate, few people venture out of doors.

But the Black Banners compensate for the economic hardships brought by their presence. They readily pay several times the value of anything they commandeer, drawing on apparently ample funds.

That reputation, however, does not attach to the fighters loyal to Ahmed Samaka, who maintains Fallujah’s tradition of highway banditry by attacking US and other convoys on the roads outside town.

A letter posted on the storefronts in the name of the Consultative Council of the Mujahideen, a group of Fallujah clerics, accuses Samaka's men of taking cars without compensating their owners. "The recent behaviour of Ahmed Samaka puts him outside the boundaries of Islam," said the letter.

A third force, which is loyal to Majed Abu Darah, a former Baghdad district security chief under Saddam Hussein, has little street presence. These men are mostly former members of the Republican Guard, and are said to come out only to fight off Coalition incursions.
Fallujah's senior mujahideen leader and head of the Consultative Council is Abdullah al-Janabi, a white-bearded preacher from the puritan Salafi movement.

His men go about unmasked, wearing white dishdasha robes, and appear to enjoy a friendly rapport with the inhabitants.

Ahmed Naami, a spokesmen for Janabi, insisted that his group does not coordinate with Omar Hadid, although he described the radical leader as a "mujahid, and a pious man".
Naami said Janabi's own group does not have foreign funding, but survives on "our personal finances and the spoils of war" – including "cargo, money, cars, and ransom" both from Coalition forces and from Iraqis caught "collaborating" with them.

Apparently, there is disagreement between Janabi and Hadid's group over the treatment of hostages. The Black Banners have a reputation for killing any foreigner or accused collaborator who falls into their hands, while Naami claims that Janabi's group only seeks ransom and "does not kill any spy or hostage”.

(SNIP)

Iraqi government forces are absent from the equation of power in the town. The police play little role, there is no National Guard, and even the Fallujah Protection Brigade, established last April to keep order in the town, was dissolved a month ago when its members were seen fighting alongside the insurgents.

"The mujahideen don't let us carry weapons or get together," said one police officer, unarmed and in a dishevelled uniform. His entire job now consists of watching traffic, he said.

Like many in Fallujah, this policeman expressed resentment at insurgents who are capable of calling someone a spy merely for talking with people from out of town or trying to make a call on a satellite phone.

"I hate them,” he said. “The mujahideen can decide 'you're a good man', or 'you're a spy.' If it's 'you're a spy', then you're finished."

Others resent the mujahideen’s contempt for anyone who chooses not to carry arms.
"When I see them, I say 'Welcome! Welcome mujahideen! God grant you victory!' But in my heart I curse them," said one merchant.

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3//IslamOnline, Qatar Last Update: Sun., Sept. 19, 2004- Sha`ban 05-18:15 GMT
http://www.islamonline.net/English/index.shtml

MEGAWATI TO LOSE VOTE FOR FLAWED POLICIES: ANALYSTS
By Kazi Mahmood, IOL Southeast Asia Correspondent

KUALA LUMPUR, September 19 (IslamOnline.net) – As the final round of Indonesia’s presidential elections are to start Monday, September 20 , chances for Megawati Sukarnoputri to remain office appear slim due to her flawed policies on terrorism and failure to make political alliances, analysts said on Sunday, September 19.

Opinion polls show the battle in the country's first direct presidential ballot would be won by frontrunner Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono after three years of Megawati’s rule.

Every single survey and telephone poll has unveiled that Yudhoyono is leading the race - though Megawati is still fighting an uphill battle to keep her job intact.

But analysts say the fact that the vote comes 10 days after the Australian embassy in Jakarta was bombed and left nine people killed has delivered a harsh decisive blow to Megawati’s ambitions for a second term.

“The fact that the bombing took place during the run-up to the presidential polls indicates a failure on the part of the Megawati regime to quell terrorism and this will reflect on the poll results,” Mahmud Slamet, a political expert on Islamic politics, told IslamOnline.net.
“It is a failure by the police too and the public in general views such a failure as a ‘trade mark’ of the Megawati regime, which grew unpopular in the eyes of the poor and not so wealthy Indonesians in the long run,” Slamet added.

Press reports carried statements by Indonesian officials asking police to be on high alert across the world's most populous Muslim nation amid fears of more attacks.

The attack on Australian Embassy was blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which Megawati’s government used to say it had been totally dismantled.

(SNIP)

Early results should start coming in on Monday night.

A final result will be declared on October5 . And the next president will be sworn in on October 20.

4//The Moscow Times, Russia Monday, September 20, 2004. Page 4.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/09/20/011.html

YELTSIN GENTLY RAPS PUTIN OVER HIS POLITICAL PLANS
By Francesca Mereu, Staff Writer

In his most explicit public comments about his successor's policies, former President Boris Yeltsin issued a soft warning that President Vladimir Putin's plans to put more power in his hands could roll back democratic freedoms.

Yeltsin, 73, said in an interview published Friday that the Kremlin should avoid undermining the Constitution despite the need to fight terrorism in the wake of the Beslan massacre.

"We will not allow ourselves to deviate from the letter and, most importantly, the spirit of the Constitution that our country adopted by popular referendum in 1993," Yeltsin was quoted by the Moskovskiye Novosti weekly as saying.

"A stifling of freedoms and a rollback of democratic rights would mean, among other things, a victory for the terrorists," he said. "Only a democratic country can successfully resist terrorism and count on standing shoulder to shoulder with all of the world's civilized countries."

(SNIP)

The Constitution, which was drafted by Yeltsin advisers amid political fights in a Communist-controlled State Duma, placed a lot of power in the president's hands but introduced direct elections for governors and reserved half of the seats in the Duma to directly elected deputies.

But Putin said last Monday that he intends to change that by drafting a bill allowing him to nominate regional leaders, who would then be confirmed by local legislatures. He also promised a bill under which voters would only cast ballots for parties — not directly elected candidates — in Duma elections.

The European Union and the United States have criticized the move as a weakening of democracy and a step back to Soviet times.

Analysts called Yeltsin's words "soft" and "careful."

Yeltsin has to be cautious in criticizing the Kremlin because he has lost all the political connections he once had, said Andrei Ryabov of the Carnegie Moscow Center.

"I'm afraid that the current balance of power is not in Yeltsin's favor. He does not enjoy the influence that he used to. This is why he has to soften his words," Ryabov said.

(MORE)

5//The Daily Star, Lebanon Monday, September 20, 2004
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=8531

BEIRUT MEET SEEKS STRATEGIES TO COUNTER U.S. POLICIES
3-day conference gathers 300 participants, focuses mainly on situations in Iraq, Palestine

By Mayssam Zaaroura, Daily Star staff

BEIRUT: On Feb. 15, 2003, 10 to 15 million angry protesters marched the streets of the world's major cities. The next day, The New York Times wrote that there are "two super powers left in the world today, the U.S. and global civil society."

Civil society is more than making its presence felt and "it is no longer a question of whether Washington will eventually be defeated by the Iraqi resistance, the question is how long it will hang on to an impossible situation," according to Walden Bello, speaking at the "Where Next for the Anti-War and Anti-Globalization Movements?" three-day conference being held in Beirut.

The conference has gathered over 300 attendees in search of an international strategy - "or global plan of action" - to counter the spreading initiative of war and imperialistic, "U.S.-led globalization" and a reply to the continuous U.S. occupation of Iraq and its endorsement of aggressive projects in the Middle East region.

Intellectual gatherings, national Islamic political forces, human rights associations, peace activists, cultural forums, political parties, non-governmental organizations and delegations representing every continent on the planet gathered at Le Bristol Hotel in Hamra on Friday creating a multicultural hub of noise, cameras, laptops and telephones.

Some of the main figures attending the meeting included Abdel-Amir al-Rukaby, leader of the Iraqi delegation and an intellectual who, allegedly, was suggested as a member of an interim council before the Iraqi war, as an alternative to the U.S.-led war against Iraq and the Saddam Hussein regime, a retired admiral from the Indian Army turned peace activist, Ramu Ramdas, and Dr. Nahla Chahal, a Lebanese human rights activist from the International Civilian Campaign for the Protection of the Palestinian People.

The conference focused on three main issues: defining the international movement's situation, determining its strengths and weakness and drafting a final statement regarding the movement's course of action to be announced on Monday.

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