december 2004
by Robert Fisk
"He who would do good" wrote William Blake, "must do so in minute particulars. General good is the plea of the scoundrel, the hypocrite and the liar."
So the death of Yasser Arafat is a great new opportunity for the Palestinians, is it? The man who personified the Palestinian struggle - "Mr Palestine" - is dead. So things can only get better for the Palestinians. Death means democracy. Death means statehood. That the final demise of the corrupt old guerrilla leader should be a sign of optimism demonstrates just how catastrophic the conflict in the Middle East has now become. It's a bit like Fallujah. The more we destroy it, the crueler we are, the brighter the chances of Iraqi democracy. The more successful we are, the worse things are going to get. That's what George Bush said on Friday: that violence will increase as Iraqi elections grow closer - a total mind warp since the more violent Iraq becomes, the less the chances of any election ever being held.
Note how Bush could not even bring himself to mention Arafat's name. It's the same old agenda. The Palestinians have to have a democracy. They have to prove themselves; they - not the Israelis - have to show that they are a worthy "negotiating partner". And any new leader - the colorless Ahmad Qureia or the equally colorless and undemocratic Abu Mazen - must "control his own people". That was what Arafat failed to do even though he thought his job was to represent his own people, which is what democracy is supposed to be all about.
It's worth noting how this narrative has been written. The Israelis, with their continued occupation, their continued illegal construction of colonies for Jews and Jews only on Arab land, their air strikes and helicopter executions and live-fire shooting at stone-throwing children, are not part of this equation. They are just innocently waiting to find a new "negotiating partner" now that Arafat is in his grave. Ariel Sharon, held "personally responsible" for the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre by the Kahan commission report, remains, in George Bush's words, "a man of peace". No one asks whether he can control his own army. Or whether he can control his own settlers. He wants to close down the colonies in Gaza - even though his spokesman has told us that this will put Palestinian statehood into "formaldehyde".
So let's just take a look back at those tragic years of the Oslo accord. In 1993, we are supposed to believe, the Palestinians were offered statehood and a capital in Jerusalem if they accepted the right of Israel to exist. Oslo said nothing of the kind. It did set down a complex system of Israeli withdrawals from occupied Palestinian land and a timetable that the Israelis were supposed to meet. We all knew that any failure to do so would humiliate Arafat - and make him less able to "control" his own people.
And what happened? It's important, at this supposedly "optimistic" moment, to reflect on the facts of the previous "peace process" in which Europe as well as the United States spent so much time, energy and - in the EU's case - money. Under the Oslo agreement, the occupied West Bank would be divided into three zones. Zone A would come under exclusive Palestinian control, Zone B under Israeli military occupation in participation with the Palestinian Authority, and Zone C under total Israeli occupation. In the West Bank, Zone A comprised only 1.1 per cent of the land whereas in Gaza - overpopulated, rebellious, insurrectionary - almost all the territory was to come under Arafat's control. He, after all, was to be the policeman of Gaza. Zone C in the West Bank comprised 60 per cent of the land, which allowed Israel to continue the rapid expansion of settlements on Arab land.
But a detailed investigation shows that not a single one of these withdrawal agreements was honored by the Israelis. And in the meantime, the number of settlers illegally living on Palestinians' land rose after Oslo from 80,000 to 150,000 - even though the Israelis, as well as the Palestinians, were forbidden from taking "unilateral steps" under the terms of the agreement. The Palestinians saw this, not without reason, as proof of bad faith.
Since facts are sometimes elusive in the Middle East, let's remind ourselves of what happened after Oslo. The Oslo II (Taba) agreement, concluded by Yitzhak Rabin in September 1995 - the month before he was assassinated - promised three Israeli withdrawals: from Zone A (under Palestinian control), Zone B (under Israeli military occupation in co-operation with the Palestinians) and Zone C (exclusive Israeli occupation). These were to be completed by October 1997. Final-status agreement covering Jerusalem, refugees, water and settlements were to have been completed by October 1999, by which time the occupation was supposed to have ended. In January 1997, however, a handful of Jewish settlers were granted 20 per cent of Hebron, despite Israel's obligation under Oslo to leave all West Bank towns. By October 1998, a year late, Israel had not carried out the Taba accords.
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, negotiated a new agreement at Wye River, dividing the second redeployment promised at Taba into two phases - but he only honored the first of them. Netanyahu had promised to reduce the percentage of West Bank land under exclusively Israeli occupation from 72 per cent to 59 per cent, transferring 41 per cent of the West Bank to Zones A and B. But at Sharm el-Sheikh in 1999, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, reneged on the agreement Netanyahu had made at Wye River, fragmenting the latter's two phases into three, the first of which would transfer 7 per cent from Zone C to Zone B. All implementation of the agreements stopped there.
When Arafat finally went to Camp David to meet Barak, he was allegedly offered 95 per cent of the West Bank and Gaza but turned it down and went to war with the second intifada. A study of the maps, however, shows that - with the exclusion of Jerusalem and its extended boundaries, with the exclusion of existing major Jewish colonies and with the inclusion of an Israeli cordon sanitaire, Arafat was offered nearer to 64 per cent of the 22 per cent of mandate Palestine that was left to him. Then a new explosion of Palestinian suicide bombings, usually aimed at Israeli civilians, destroyed Israel's patience with Arafat. Sharon, who had provoked the second intifada by strolling on to the Temple Mount with a thousand policeman, decided that Arafat was a Bin Laden-style "terrorist" and all further contact ended.
This is not to excuse the PLO or Arafat himself. His arrogance and corruption, and his little dictatorship - initially encouraged by the Israelis and Americans who lent Arafat their CIA boys to "train" the Palestinian security services - ensured that no democracy could thrive in "Palestine". And I suspect that while he personally disapproved of suicide bombings, Arafat cynically realized that they had their uses; they proved that Sharon could not provide Israel with the security he promised at his election, at least until he built the new wall - which is stealing further Palestinian land. But that was only one side of the story - and last week Bush and Blair went back to the old game of seeing only the other side. The Palestinians - the victims of 39 years of occupation - must prove themselves worthy of peace with their occupiers. The death of their leader is therefore billed as a glorious occasion that provides hope. All this is part of the self-delusion of Bush and Blair. The reality is that the outlook in the Middle East is bleaker than ever.
Oh yes, and - since we'd be asking this question today if Sharon had gone to meet his maker in an equally mysterious way - just what did Arafat die of?
Robert Fisk is The Independent's award-winning Middle East correspondent.
© 2004 lndependent Newspapers, Ltd.
| God’s
Command to Angels By ALLAMA IQBAL (d. 1938) Translated by: M. Shahid Alam Iqbal was a poet-philosopher born in what is now Pakistan. His poetical works in Urdu and Persian easily earn him the title to the greatest poet in each of these languages in the twentieth century. Marshall
the meek of my world. Arise, set them free. |
What price innocence in the
anarchy of Iraq ?
By Robert Fisk
17
November 2004
Video shows murder of aid worker Margaret Hassan, says her family
Who killed Margaret Hassan? After the grief, the astonishment, heartbreak, anger and fury over the apparent murder of such a good and saintly woman, that is the question that her friends - and, quite possibly, the Iraqi insurgents - will be asking. This Anglo-Irish lady held an Iraqi passport. She had lived in Iraq for 30 years, she had dedicated her life to the welfare of Iraqis in need. She hated the UN sanctions and opposed the Anglo-American invasion. So who killed Margaret Hassan?
Of course, those of us who knew her will reflect on the appalling implications of the video tape which, so her husband believes, is evidence of her death. If Margaret Hassan can be kidnapped and murdered, how much further can we fall into the Iraqi pit? There are no barriers, no frontiers of immorality left. What price is innocence now worth in the anarchy that we have brought to Iraq? The answer is simple: nothing.
I remember her arguing with doctors and truck drivers when a lorry load of medicines arrived for children's cancer wards - courtesy of Independent readers - in 1998. She smiled, cajoled, pleaded to get these leukaemia drugs to Basra and Mosul. She would not have wished to be called an angel - Margaret didn't like clichés. Even now I want to write "doesn't like clichés"; are we really permitted to say that she is dead? For the bureaucrats and the Western leaders who will today express their outrage and sorrow at her reported death, she had nothing but scorn.
Yes, she knew the risks. Margaret Hassan was well aware that many Iraqi women had been kidnapped, raped, ransomed or murdered by the Baghdad mafia. Because she is a Western woman - the first Western woman to be abducted and apparently murdered - we forget how many Iraqi women have already suffered this terrible fate. They go largely unreported in a world which counts dead American soldiers, but ignores fatalities among those with darker skins and browner eyes and a different religion, whom we claimed to have liberated.
And now let's remember the other, earlier videos. Margaret Hassan crying, Margaret Hassan fainting, Margaret Hassan having water thrown over her face to revive her, Margaret Hassan crying again, pleading for the withdrawal of the Black Watch from the Euphrates river basin. In the background of these appalling pictures, there were none of the usual Islamic banners. There were none of the usual armed and hooded men. No Qur'anic recitations.
And when it percolated through to Fallujah and Ramadi that the mere act of kidnapping Margaret Hassan was close to heresy, the combined resistance groups of Fallujah - and the message genuinely came from them - demanded her release. So, incredibly, did Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda man whom the Americans falsely claimed to be leading the Iraqi insurrection - but who has very definitely been involved in kidnapping and beheading foreigners.
Other abducted women - the two Italian aid workers, for example - were freed when their captors recognised their innocence. But not Margaret Hassan, even though she spoke fluent Arabic and could explain her work to her captors in their own language.
There was one mysterious video that floated to the surface this ye, a group of armed men promising to seize Zarqawi, claiming he was anti-Iraqi, politely referring to the occupation armies as "the coalition forces''. This was quickly nicknamed the "Allawi tape": after the US-appointed, ex-CIA agent and ex-Ba'athist who holds the title of "interim Prime Minister" in Iraq, the same Allawi who fatuously claimed there were no civilian deaths in Fallujah.
So, if anyone doubted the murderous nature of the insurgents, what better way to prove their viciousness than to produce evidence of Margaret Hassan's murder? What more ruthless way could there be of demonstrating to the world that America and Allawi's tin pot army were fighting "evil" in Fallujah and the other Iraqi cities that are now controlled by Washington's enemies.
Even in the topsy-turvy world of Iraq, nobody is suggesting that people associated with the government of Mr Allawi had a hand in Margaret Hassan's death. Iraq, after all, is awash with up to 20 insurgent groups but also with rival gangs of criminals seeking to extort money from hostage-taking.
But still the question has to be answered: who killed Margaret Hassan?
'Our hearts are broken... her suffering has ended'
Statement released by Michael, Deirdre, Geraldine and Kathryn Fitzsimons, brothers and sisters of Margaret Hassan, last night
"Our hearts are broken. We have kept hoping for as long as we could, but we now have to accept that Margaret has probably gone and at last her suffering has ended.
"Our prayers and thoughts are with our dear brother-in-law Tahseen. Margaret was a friend of the Arab world, to people of all religions. Her love of the Arab people started in the 1960s when she worked in Palestinian camps, living with the poorest of the poor and supporting the refugees.
"For the past 30 years, Margaret worked tirelessly for the Iraqi people.
"Margaret had only goodwill towards everyone. She had no prejudice against any creed. She dedicated her whole life to working for the poor and vulnerable, helping those who had no one else.
"Those who are guilty of this atrocious act, and those who support them, have no excuses.
"Nobody can justify this. Margaret was against sanctions and the war.
"To commit such a crime against anyone is unforgivable.
"But we cannot believe how anybody could do this to our kind, compassionate sister.
"The gap she leaves will never be filled."
2004©
Independent Digital(UK)Ltd.
Dr. Gideon Polya :SOME
mainstream global media have FINALLY permitted their
readers to glimpse the horrendous reality of Iraq
civilian deaths thanks to a scientific article in the
prestigious medical journal The Lancet - however the
figure typically quoted of "100,000 over 18
months" is a MINIMUM ESTIMATE as outlined in
estimates #1-4 below.
#1. The group of US scientists that just published an
article in the top British medical journal The Lancet
(online, 29 October 2004) found 0.1 to 0.2 million
civilian "excess deaths" in post-invasion Iraq;
that mortality increased post-invasion; and that violent
death increased dramatically post-invasion.
>From primary survey data, The Lancet article
calculated a post-invasion Iraq annual mortality rate of
12.3 deaths per 1000 (corresponding to 300,120
persons per year with The Lancet article's assumption
of a population of 24.4 million ).
However their pre-invasion estimate of an annual
mortality rate of 5.0 deaths /1000 corresponds to
122,000 persons per year - yielding an upper estimate
from The Lancet of "excess deaths" of 178,120
people per year - corresponding to 297,000 "excess
deaths" in 20 months of US war and occupation in
Iraq.
This upper estimate (based on data in The Lancet) of
nearly 300,000 "excess deaths" due to the US
invasion and occupation in Iraq is equivalent to ONE
HUNDRED (100) World Trade Centre atrocities.
This US study is consonant with EXISTING UN and UNICEF
data that has been COMPREHENSIVELY IGNORED by mainstream
global media.
#2. According to UNICEF (2004), in 2002 the under-5
infant mortality was 1,000 in Australia, 108,000 in Iraq
and 283,000 in conquered Afghanistan (up from 277,000 in
2001) - noting that these countries have populations of
about 20, 24 and 22 million, respectively.
>From UNICEF data it can be CONSERVATIVELY estimated
that the post-invasion under-5 infant mortality has been
about 0.2 million in Iraq and 0.9 million in Afghanistan.
These estimates largely IGNORE the effects of invasion
and the evil reality that in Iraq (since 1991) and
Afghanistan (since 2001) there has been an excess
"collateral" mortality of about 2000
Muslim children for every US combat death - as compared
to the murder of about 0.3 Jewish children for
every Axis military death in World War 2.
Of course decent people have to realize that
in the end there is no distinction between racist,
commercially-driven "collateral mass mortality"
and "mass murder".
#3. According to the UN, the current annual death rates
in Iraq's poorest Arab neighbours Jordan and Syria
are 4.3 and 3.9 persons per 1000,
respectively - and the values range from 1.9 to 3.7
persons per 1000 for the prosperous and peaceful
Arab Gulf States.
If we assume a conservative estimate of an annual
death rate in a peaceful, non-occupied Iraq of about 4
persons per 1000 then we would EXPECT 97,600 Iraqi deaths
per year - as compared to the post-invasion estimate by
the US scientists of 300,120.
The difference - the "excess mortality" due to
the US invasion and continued war and occupation -
is 202,520 deaths per year or about 340,000 after 20
months of US-imposed war and occupation.
#4. Using UN and UNICEF data it has been CONSERVATIVELY
calculated that total excess mortality
(excess death, avoidable mortality) in war-ravaged Iraq
since 1991 has been about 1.5 million (with under-5
infant mortality totalling 1.2 million) [see G.
Polya, Australasian Science, June, 2004] and that
the "excess mortality" has been about 1.2
million in post-invasion Afghanistan (with the under-5
infant deaths totalling 0.9 million).
The same kind of calculations (performed after a 12 month
detailed research analysis of global mortality) yielded
estimates of total post-1950 "excess mortality"
(avoidable mortality) of 1.3 billion for the World, 1
billion for the First World-violated Third World and 0.5
billion for the Muslim World - a Muslim Holocaust indeed
and about 100 times greater than the World War 2 Jewish
Holocaust (6 million victims) and the
"forgotten" World War 2 Bengal Famine that
killed 4 million Hindus and Muslims in British-ruled
India.
The ruler is responsible for the ruled. A formal
complaint has been lodged with the International Criminal
Court citing Coalition war crimes in Iraq, specifically
the illegal invasion of a remote, non-threatening country
and horrendous post-invasion Iraq civilian deaths in that
Coalition-occupied land.
Silence kills. Silence is complicity. Please inform
everyone. Save the children.
Dr Gideon Polya
29 Dwyer Street, Macleod, Melbourne, Victoria, 3085,
Australia
e-mail: gpolya@optusnet.com.au
Day & night telephone: +61 3 9459 3649
[Credentials: Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in
a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge
pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets
of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (Taylor & Francis,
New York & London, 2003), and is currently writing a
book on global mortality (numerous articles on this
matter can be found by a simple Google search for
"Gideon Polya")].