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International news in brief

FRANCE
Auto manufacturer
apologizes to China

Citroen-Peugeot, the French automaker whose cars have been banned in the United States for violating highway safety regulations, apologized for offending the 1.3 billion inhabitants of the People’s Republic of China in an advertisement which mocked the Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong. The ad showed Mao’s most famous portrait, distorted to show him smirking, along with a snide slogan trying to equate the automaker with Mao’s belief in continuous revolution.

One Chinese resident said, “It is not only insulting Chairman Mao, but the whole Chinese nation.” (Shanghai Daily, Jan. 15)

“Chairman Mao is the symbol of China, and what Citroen did lacks basic respect to China,” said another.

This comes just after massive celebrations of Mao’s 114th birthday spread across China. A Taiwanese newspaper commented that “Mao Zedong fever was sweeping the mainland” of China.

The Atlantic Monthly reported that 10 million copies of Chairman Mao’s collected works were sold last year in China and an epic-style film, “The Story of Chairman Mao,” was recently released on Chinese television.

People’s Daily reports that 5,000 people view Chairman Mao’s body in its mausoleum daily.

It is in this atmosphere that Citroen gave a serious and long awaited apology.

—Caleb Maupin

PAKISTAN
Rejects CIA claims

The Bush administration must have thought it could prop up the regime of Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf by getting the CIA to support his contention that Muslim militants were behind the assassination of opposition politician Benazir Bhutto. But that has proven to be another wild miscalculation on the part of U.S. imperialism and its secret police agency.

Bhutto was killed after a mass rally in Rawalpindi on Dec. 27 when her motorcade was attacked by both gunfire and bombs. Immediately, the government’s story of what had happened was disputed by eyewitness accounts, videotape and the opinion of doctors who had not been allowed to conduct an autopsy.

Bhutto’s political group, the Pakistan People’s Party, rejected the official account of how she died. The party says she was shot, while the government says she hit her head on part of her car after a bomb blast.

Now the PPP says the government’s claim that a teenager confessed to being part of an al Qaida-linked plot behind the assassination is just a “cock and bull story” meant to alleviate pressure on Musharraf, who began an eight-day European tour on Jan. 20. In addition, “Human rights groups warned that the confession may have been obtained under torture and repeated calls for an independent international investigation.” (The Guardian [Britain], Jan. 21)

Washington has supported General Musharraf against the democratic movement in Pakistan ever since he seized power in a 1999 coup. It has given his regime billions of dollars in weapons to be an ally in its fictitious but brutal “war on terror” aimed against Afghanistan, whose resistance fighters are trying to expel the imperialist armies from their country.

Washington’s intervention once again on behalf of the dictatorship is only stirring up more anger among the Pakistani people.

—Deirdre Griswold

AFGHANISTAN
Occupation sees U.S. troop minisurge

The United States has ordered 3,200 additional Marines to Afghanistan this coming spring amid concerns over NATO’s willingness to sustain necessary troop levels to continue the occupation of that country. The bulk of the troops will be sent in to serve under NATO-led forces. Many others will train forces under Afghanistan’s U.S. sponsored puppet government led by President Hamid Karzai.

According to Rand Corp.’s Afghanistan analyst, Seth Jones, “NATO’s need is in the South at the moment. But what the U.S. has found is that most NATO countries are not willing to deploy forces to conduct combat operations where they’re needed most.”

The Pentagon has sought to keep the pressure on NATO to commit more forces by explicitly stating that this is a one-time mission to last less than seven months, after which NATO would need to send more troops.

But after a recent meeting of U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates with NATO members in Scotland, the Pentagon suggested that NATO would not be required to make specific commitments and could assist the U.S.-led occupation in other ways.

NATO’s reluctance to commit more troops could be a signal that many members are responding to popular pressure to bring their troops home. This would deal a blow to U.S. imperialism as it struggles to maintain dual occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq and might mean the 3,200 Marines will stay in Afghanistan beyond the promised seven months.

—David Hoskins

CANADA
Do U.S. and Israel practice torture?

It was shocking, just shocking that an internal manual for Canadian diplomats told the truth—the United States and Israel are states which practice torture. The manual even singled out Guantánamo for special mention and pointed to a U.S. interrogation manual that allows blindfolding or hooding, forced nudity, isolation and sleep deprivation.

This revelation created a huge stir in U.S.-Canada relations and was widely reported in the Canadian press. According to a Lexis-Nexis search of the U.S. press, only the three national papers of record—The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and Washington Post—plus USA Today carried the story.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a Conservative who sent troops to back up the U.S. in Afghanistan and who has spent the first two years of his government “mending” relations with the U.S., was so embarrassed by the revelations that he sent his foreign minister Maxime Bernier out immediately to disavow the leak.

“The training manual is not a policy document and does not reflect the views of policies of this government,” said a statement from Bernier’s spokesman.

The document surfaced on the same day a Canadian judge struck down a refugee agreement with the U.S. The judge said Canada has failed to ensure that the U.S. respects rules governing torture and refugee rights.

—G. Dunkel

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