(WORKERS WORLD NEWS DIGEST #176 PART TWO) ========================================== LOCKERBIE, USS COLE: WASHINGTON PUTS POLITCIAL AIMS BEFORE FACTS By Deirdre Griswold Over 100 agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and countless U.S. military personnel are in Yemen. They are reported to have interrogated at least 1,500 people and set up concentration camps full of suspects. They are said to be investigating the explosion that crippled the destroyer USS Cole on Oct. 12, leaving 17 U.S. sailors dead and 39 wounded. High-ranking officials of the Pentagon and the Clinton administration claim their agents are conducting a criminal investigation to find out who was behind the explosion. Judging by previous incidents, however, what is happening in Washington is not an examination of facts but a political discussion about whom to attack next. That is certainly what happened after the explosion of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988. All 259 people aboard the plane plus 11 on the ground were killed. The United States quickly blamed Libya for the explosion--not because it had convincing evidence that Libyans were responsible, but because it had political reasons for wanting to isolate and intimidate this independent-minded oil-producing country. It imposed brutal sanctions on Libya that have lasted until the present. For years, the U.S. demanded that President Muammar Qaddafi turn over two Libyan airport employees for trial. In April 1999, after suffering under both United Nations and U.S. sanctions, the Libyan government surprised Washing ton and London by agreeing to a proposal that the two men be tried by a Scottish court in a neutral country--the Netherlands. The trial began in May of this year. CASE FALLS APART Now the case against Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima, the two Libyans charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder and contravention of airport security, has come apart. The "star witness" presented by the U.S. and Britain--a Libyan contract employee for the CIA who has lived under the U.S. witness protection program since 1991--has turned out to be a dud. The prosecution made a big deal of the testimony of Abdul Majid Giaka, who had worked at the Tripoli airport with the accused. They put him behind a bulletproof screen. People in the courtroom saw and heard him on computer-distorted television. But after all the drama, he could not testify that the two Libyans had put a bomb on the plane. The prosecution had no other credible evidence to present. As we go to press, it is being reported that the trial of the Libyans has been suspended, and that a Palestinian, Abu Talb, who is already serving a life sentence in Sweden, has "confessed" to the bombing. This, of course, is politically more useful to the U.S. at this time, when there is a general uprising of the Palestinian people against the U.S. client state, Israel. As President Yasser Arafat meets with Bill Clinton in Egypt, hanging over his head is the threat that the U.S. will now blame both Pan Am 103 and the Cole explosion on Palestinians in an effort to whip up public support for acts of war contemplated by U.S. forces or their Israeli counterparts. Nor is Arafat the only Arab leader waiting to see how Washington will play this. Any Middle East country or group in a struggle with U.S. imperialism--especially Iraq--has good reason to worry about where the blame will fall. KHARTOUM--ANOTHER ALICE IN WONDERLAND SCENARIO Lockerbie isn't the only example of this. There was also the U.S. missile attack on a pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan, after U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were bombed on Aug. 7, 1998. It is now admitted that the U.S. had no evidence that Sudan or the owners of the factory had anything to do with the embassy bombings. But that didn't matter. "Sentence first--verdict afterwards," as the Queen of Hearts said in "Alice in Wonderland." Washington wanted to show its immense military power, and any target would do--even an innocent factory that provided half of Africa's medicines. When Pan Am flight 103 blew up, the speculation over who might have had a grudge against the U.S. read like a list of the countries assaulted and humiliated by Washington. At the top of the list was Iran. Hadn't the USS Vincennes blasted a civilian Iranian airliner out of the sky that year, killing 290 people? The captain of the Vincennes said he had mistaken the plane for a jet fighter--an obvious lie that infuriated the Muslim world. So the press had everyone convinced that Iran must have planted the Pan Am bomb. Washington eventually decided, however, that it wanted to go after Libya. And, in a classic case of "blame the victim," it said Libya had to be behind the Pan Am explosion because it wanted revenge for the 1986 Pentagon bombing of Tripoli. BRING THE TROOPS AND SHIPS HOME Lost in all the media focus on the Cole explosion is any discussion of why people in the Middle East are so enraged at the U.S. that they will sacrifice their lives in such an attack. U.S. and British imperialism control the enormous oil wealth of the Middle East through a monopoly on its marketing and transportation. In countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain, they keep a privileged oligarchy in power without even the pretense of democracy. Over the past two decades Washington has fueled war and violence against not only the Palestinian people but against Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Afghan istan, Yemen and others. U.S. troops are stationed throughout the region. U.S. ships prowl the waters of the Red Sea, the Mediterranean and the Gulf. Inevitably, U.S. military personnel like the crew of the Cole become the targets of popular anger. The politicians here tell the grieving families that their wives, husbands, sons or daughters "died for their country." But the truth is that they died for Gulf Oil and Exxon-Mobil. They are victims of these rapacious corporations, as are the Palestinians and the peoples of the Middle East. Who was to blame for the deaths of young German soldiers in World War II? Was it the Yugoslav and French Partisans who fought the Nazis with "sneak attacks" because they had no tanks or planes? Or was it Hitler and German imperialism? The war hawks tried to blame the Vietnamese people for U.S. combat deaths in Vietnam. But the soldiers themselves began to realize that their biggest enemy was their own officers. The anti-war movement knew that the way to save their lives was to bring them home. Would forcing the U.S. out of the Middle East be a defeat? Only for the corporate billionaires and the military- industrial complex. Just as with Vietnam, it would be a victory for the workers and all oppressed peoples. - END - ------------------------- FROM EGYPT TO ABU DHABI: ROUNDUP OF SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINE By Joyce Chediac The following sampling of protests, gathered from Middle Eastern and Western news sources, indicates the mood in the Arab world: Thousands of Egyptian protesters rushed out of Oct. 13 prayers at Cairo's Al-Azhar Mosque to march in the streets denouncing Israel's air, land and sea attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. "Where is the Egyptian army?" they shouted, as they demanded to be able to fight for Palestine. Protesters burned Israeli and U.S. flags and called for the cancellation of the 21- year-old peace treaty with Israel. Students from Cairo University protested the Oct. 16-17 Sharm al-Sheik summit meeting as a "betrayal of all the Palestinian martyrs." Banners demanded that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak not be allowed on Egyptian soil. And students chanted, "Mubarak, you coward. You are an agent for America." Police arrested 65 people trying to force their way out of the university's gates toward the nearby Israeli embassy. Hundreds of intellectuals and journalists were expected to participate in a sit-down strike called by the Press Syndicate to protest holding the summit on Egyptian soil. The opposition Al-Ababi newspaper said the purpose of "the Sharm el-Sheik summit is to abort the Arab people's uprising." Every day, some 200 Egyptian people donate blood for wounded Palestinians. Cairo parents bring their children to shake hands with wounded Palestinians brought to Egypt for treatment. Calls for the Arab countries to use their oil resources and economic clout to counter Israeli attacks on Palestinians resounded across Lebanon on Oct. 13, along with a denunciation of all ties and negotiations with Israel and demands for a boycott on U.S. goods. Daily demonstrations continue throughout Lebanon. The Hezbollah movement there captured a fourth Israeli soldier, this time a colonel, as a "gift" to the Palestinian resistance. Palestinians of the Druze religious denomination are the only Palestinians living within Israeli borders who serve in the Israeli military. Lebanese Druze leaders issued a statement calling on their Palestinian Druze brothers in the Israeli army to reject compulsory military service, mutiny and desert. In Damascus, Syria, where protests have occurred daily, police used tear gas to disperse 2,000 angry people who tried to reach the U.S. Embassy Oct. 13. The demonstrators burned U.S. and Israeli flags and implored President Bashar Assad to open the borders for attacks on Israel. Iraq's governing Ba'ath Party estimated that a million Iraqi men and women have volunteered to fight alongside the Palestinians. A group of children waving Palestinian flags carried models of the Scud missiles that Iraq fired on Israeli cities during the 1991 Gulf War, while other protestors torched Israeli and U.S. flags. "I'm doing this for Jerusalem and for Mohammed al-Durra," said 12-year old Mohammed Awad, referring to a Palestinian boy who was killed by Israeli soldiers. Saudi Arabian women in Jidda, from some of the country's richest families, walked through the streets in silent protest against Israeli murder of Palestinians. Such actions are very rare. Oman closed its commercial representation in Tel Aviv and Israel's trade office in Muscat. Demonstrators in Qatar called on their government to follow suit, shouting, "If Oman has done it, Qatar must do it." There was even a protest in Kuwait. A 12-hour telethon led by Abu Dhabi Television and involving at least 11 Arab stations raised more than $28 million by Oct. 13 to support the Palestinian people. Yemen's leader, Ali Abdallah Saleh, said he wished his country had a common border with the West Bank or Gaza Strip so it could help the Palestinians fight Israel. After riot police repeatedly used tear gas against demonstrators trying to reach the Israeli embassy, all protests in Jordan were banned. As a concession Jordan has delayed sending its representative to Israel. Shots fired across the border into Israel wounded two Israeli soldiers. More than half of Jordan's population is Palestinian. When someone is killed on the West Bank, relatives receive condolences in Jordan. - END - ------------------------- AS U.S., ISRAEL TRY TO QUASH PROTESTS: REBELLIOLN SWEEPS THROUGH PALESTINIAN TOWNS By Richard Becker The new uprising, or Intifada, convulsing the West Bank and Gaza nears its third week. The death toll stands at 103, all but seven Palestinian, with more than 3,000 seriously wounded. All major Palestinian towns and cities are surrounded by Israeli armor and troops, and are completely cut off from each other. Yet the struggle continues with undiminished intensity. "Our central objective must now be to stop the violence," said President Clinton at the summit meeting held Oct. 16-17 in Egypt. The meeting, attended by Clinton and his national security advisors, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Autho rity President Yasir Arafat, ended with a vague verbal agreement reflecting Clinton's pre-defined objective, but nothing in writing. What does Clinton mean when he talks about "violence?" 'STOP THE VIOLENCE' MEANS 'STOP RESISTING' The U.S. and Israel function as a team. They want the Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank, Gaza and inside the 1948 borders of Israel to cease demonstrating, marching and fighting the Israeli occupation army. When the U.S. and Israel say, "stop the violence," they are really telling the Palestinians to "stop resisting oppression." Clinton did not call for an end to the Israeli occupation, which itself is concentrated, systematic violence against the Palestinian population permeating every aspect of their lives. Since 1967, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been arrested, routinely tortured, beaten and imprisoned. The Israeli army and police have killed thousands and illegally expelled thousands more from their homeland. Uncounted Palestinian homes have been demolished and lands seized to build housing/fortresses for more than 200,000 Israeli settlers. All of this is documented by international, Palestinian and Israeli organizations. The institutionalized violence of the Israeli occupation is perpetrated with U.S. arms, money and support. 'PEACE PROCESS' BRINGS LITTLE CHANGE The Middle East "peace process" has not improved the situation. After seven years of negotiations, the zones under Palestinian control remain islands of territory, separated from each other by Israeli settlements and by-pass roads. These zones are now totally cut off from each other by Israeli forces, revealing the limits of Palestinian sovereignty under the present talks. Palestinians are deeply angered by the sharp deterioration in living conditions since the negotiations began. "The figures are startling," said Katharine Viner of the Guardian of London on Oct. 14. "Palestinian GNP has fallen by 35 percent since the start of the Oslo peace process in 1993; unemployment has reached record levels, up to 40 percent in some areas; the average income is $1,500 per head in the West Bank and Gaza, compared with $2,500 in 1987, and with $17,000 in Israel. "The closure policy, whereby cities are cut off from each other, has had disastrous economic and social consequences-- disrupting trade, but also feeding a mounting sense of injustice. "As a tourist with a British passport you are free to travel wherever you like in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel; but a Muslim Palestinian from Ramallah may not visit Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque, 10 miles away; and a Christian Palestinian from Bethlehem may not visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, a distance of seven miles. ISRAELI OFFICIAL: WE WRITE U.S. PROPOSALS "About 18 months ago," said the Guardian reporter, "I visited the Amari refugee camp between Jerusalem and Ramallah . . . A Palestinian woman there, while bringing me tea, apologized for the fact that her children had dirty faces and clothes; it was because the camp received water only twice a week, she said. I looked up the hill to see a gleaming settlement, Bet-El, illegally built on Palestinian land outside of Israel, the grass on its lawns green and lush, watered with sprinklers. "No wonder there is rage. Ordinary Palestinians always felt that the peace process was weighted against them--a fact apparently reflected by an anonymous Israeli government source quoted this week in the Independent: 'The Palestinians always complain that we know the details of every proposal from the Americans before they do,' he said. 'There's a good reason for that; we write them.'" The Guardian report continued: "The 'East Jerusalem' earmarked for the Palestinians at Camp David did not include the Arab part of the Old City, the bustling Damascus Gate, the shop-lined Salah al-Din Street or the Mount of Olives-- all of which are currently Arab sections of the city. The 'East Jerusalem' on offer at Camp David in fact effectively constituted the suburb of Abu Dis and the village of Bethany- -like asking for Trafalgar Square and being required to settle for Croydon. No Palestinian leader could accept it and survive." RESISTANCE WILL CONTINUE The imperialists, led by the United States, have been riding high. The Clinton administration did not doubt its ability to force the Palestinians to accept U.S./Israeli terms at Camp David this past summer. It literally held Arafat hostage. When Arafat refused these terms, the U.S. opened a propaganda campaign against the Palestinians, giving the Israeli government a green light to stage new provocations, like Israeli fascist Ariel Sharon's "visit" to the Al-Aqsa mosque on Sept. 28. That incident sparked the latest upheaval, but it was only the fuse. As the new Intifada continues, the anti-imperialist struggle has intensified throughout the Middle East, and a high-tech U.S. ship which served as part of the blockade of Iraq was severely damaged in an apparent bombing attack in Yemen. The events of the past three weeks show that a century of oppression, exploitation and humiliation imposed by imperialists seeking domination over the area's oil wealth has not defeated the Palestinians or the other people of the Middle East. The people of the region will not and have not been crushed. They refuse to accept a destiny devoid of hope and will continue their fight for true self-determination. - END - (Copyleft Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
