INTERNATIONAL NEWS IN BRIEF
CHILE
Crimes of Pinochet and Kissinger
Stripped of immunity by Chile's Supreme Court Aug. 26,
former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet is now open to
prosecution for the deaths of thousands of leftist political
activists during his rule from 1973 to 1990.
A U.S. Senate committee report also revealed in July that
Pinochet, now 88, had hidden $8 million in assets from
international prosecutors, aided by Riggs Bank, the largest
bank in Washington, D.C. (Washington Post, July 15)
Pinochet ordered the deaths as part of Operation Condor, the
military code name for the collaboration of six South American
regimes--Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and
Argentina--in the murder and torture of tens of thousands of
leftists and their families during the 1970s. (Reuters, Aug.
27)
The CIA backed these six military dictatorships, including
the "regime change" that brought Pinochet to power in 1973. The
coup, engineered by U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger,
resulted in the death of popularly elected Socialist President
Salvador Allende, the slaughter of some 30,000
worker-organizers and the torture and exile of tens of
thousands more.
Chilean courts have asked Kissinger to testify about the
coup. On Aug. 26 new information emerged from the nonprofit
National Security Archive that Kissinger also encouraged brutal
human rights violations during the Argentinean "dirty war," the
New York Times reported.
Kissinger has had to limit his international travel because
he could face arrest as a war criminal in some countries.
(MediaStudy.com)
The U.S. has attempted to shield ruling class political
figures from prosecution by refusing to recognize the United
Nations International Criminal Court, authorized in 1998 to
prosecute cases of genocide, war crimes and crimes against
humanity against nationals of countries unwilling or unable to
try the cases themselves.
EQUATORIAL GUINEA
Colonial dogs of war bark again
South African police arrested Mark Thatcher, son of
ex-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Aug. 25 on
suspicion of bankrolling a coup against President Teodoro
Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea. The country is sub-Saharan
Africa's third-largest oil producer.
Thatcher allegedly invested $275,000 in the coup attempt.
According to the Aug. 29 London Times, other British financiers
could be implicated, including Jeffrey Howard, Lord Archer,
deputy chair of Britain's Conservative Party when it was headed
by Thatcher's mother, and David Hart, the ruling-class figure
who advised her during the 1980s miners' strike.
The coup attempt collapsed in March 2004 with the arrest of
89 mercenaries when their jet stopped in Harare, Zimbabwe, to
pick up an arms shipment. Most were South Africans.
Among the group was Thatcher's close friend Simon Mann,
formerly of Britain's elite Special Air Service commando unit,
who has run private "hired-gun" military companies in South
Africa and Britain. (London Times)
Mann pled guilty and was convicted Aug. 27 of violating
Zimbabwe's Firearms Act and Public Order and Security Act by
conspiring to buy and possess weapons. (Harare Herald)
Also part of the attempt was Mann's assistant, Nick du Toit,
a former commander of apartheid South Africa's notorious
"Buffalo" regiment, which murdered and tortured Namibian
freedom fighters. (London Times)
On Aug. 29 the London Times speculated: "Did western
governments quietly give the nod to the attempted coup, while
remaining firmly on the sidelines?" Those in the inner circle
of the coup evidently believed that part of the Bush
administration backed the overthrow of President Obiang
Nguema.
PANAMA
Did Bush arrange terrorist pardons?
Cuba broke diplomatic relations with Panama Aug. 26 after
outgoing President Mireya Moscoso pardoned four Cuban
right-wing terrorists convicted of plotting to kill President
Fidel Castro during a 2000 visit. On their release, three of
the men immediately flew to Miami.
All four--Luis Posada Carriles, Gaspar Jimenez, Guillermo
Novo and Pedro Remon--have a history of terrorist acts and
close links to counter-revolutionary Cuban American groups.
Remon pled guilty in 1986 to conspiring to bomb the Cuban
Mission to the United Nations and assassinate the Cuban
ambassador.
Novo was convicted in the 1976 Washington, D.C., car-bomb
murder of former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier, a cabinet
minister in the Salvador Allende government, and his colleague
Ronni Moffit. That conviction was later overturned on a
technicality. (Associated Press)
Peter Korhnbluh, author of "The Pinochet File," notes that
Novo was "one of the leading Cuban exiles who collaborated with
the Chilean secret police in the 1970s to conduct terrorist
operations outside of Chile."
After he left Cuba in 1959, Posada trained under the CIA. In
connection with Alpha 66, a Miami terrorist group, he organized
bombings, drug running, murders and assassination attempts in
an effort to destabilize Cuba's revolution. He was convicted in
Venezuela for the 1976 bombing of a Cubana airliner that killed
all 73 people on board, but escaped from prison in 1985.
(Working For Change)
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's government also broke
diplomatic ties with Panama in protest. Meanwhile Panamanian
students, outraged by the pardons, threw Molotov cocktails at
police. (CNN.com)
Both the U.S. State Department and President Moscoso deny
the Bush administration pressured her to pardon the four
terrorists, CBS News reported. As he campaigns for re-election,
Bush needs to carry the key state of Florida, where the
right-wing Cuban organizations have been a dominant political
force.
Next week Moscoso must hand over power to President-elect
Martin Torrijos, who is friendly to Cuba, condemned the
pardons, and announced plans to restore diplomatic relations
when he takes office. (CNN.com)
KENYA
Masai lead fight for land
The struggle of African peoples to regain their lands from
colonial occupation is expanding. In Kenya, Masai protesters
are marching onto the huge ranches of white settlers and
reclaiming the rangeland as pasturage for their traditional
cattle herds. The Masai are one of over 50 different tribal
nations in Kenya.
In August 2002, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's
government began to expropriate land from white farmers who
defied a timetable to relinquish the massive farm holdings
acquired during colonial occupation. Before those land
seizures, 4,500 white commercial farmers controlled at least 70
percent of the most arable lands. Black workers on these lands
earned the equivalent of $5 per month. (Workers World, Aug. 29,
2002)
The Kenyan actions began in mid-August on the 100th
anniversary of the British establishment of reservations for
the Masai far from the lush Rift Valley, and far from any land
desired for European settlement.
On Aug. 24 a group of Masai attempted to march from downtown
Nairobi to the British High Commission to dramatize their
rejection of these colonial agreements. Police in riot gear
fired tear gas, attacked the marchers, and shot and killed an
elderly Masai man. Over 100 Masai have been arrested.
The government calls the occupying Masai "invaders" and
refuses to recognize their historic claims. A "land reform"
proposal in a new draft constitution suggests the reduction of
current 950-year leases to white ranchers to 99 years. The
minister for lands and housing, Amos Kimunya, says, "when those
leases expire ... it is possible that the land may be
reallocated." (New York Times, Aug. 25)
The government is also intent on protecting Kenya's growing
tourist industry by discouraging the country's other
nationalities from asserting land claims and keeping the Masai
dependent and on display for tourists.
Roselinda Soipoan, a Masai lawyer defending the protestors,
said: "We're associated with wild animals. If a tourist comes
to Kenya and doesn't see a Masai, it's like they didn't see an
elephant or rhino. We're human beings, and we have a right to
agitate for our rights." (New York Times)
Kenya won its independence in 1964 after a protracted
struggle directed in part by Jomo Kenyatta, who became the
first president. Kenyatta was a leader of the Mau Mau, a secret
society drawn mainly from the Kikuyu nation, which fought an
armed rebellion against the British for self-determination in
the 1950s.
--Minnie Bruce Pratt
Reprinted from the Sept. 9, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
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