[ sorry for cross-posting - it's urgent. any mobilisations? please 'reply-to-all' to spread the word quickly! ]
http://sydney.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=25333&group=webcast Howard to meet suspected war criminal Henry Kissinger tomorrow - by Nick Montgomery (Melb IMC) 1:30pm Mon Jan 20 '03 article#25333 American statesman and former secretary of state during the Vietnam War, Henry Kissinger, will be visiting Sydney this week in a non-official capacity. Kissinger, an influential foreign policy heavyweight in the American political scene, plans to have an audience with prominent Australian politicians on Monday and Tuesday including the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. PM John Howard, a long-standing admirer of the 72-year-old Kissinger, will take time out from holidays to meet the 72-year-old policy analyst on Tuesday and is expected to ask advice on the Iraqi face-off. Kissinger remains the most controversial of the former US secretary of states and is either loved or loathed by the international community. Various journalists, academics, and activists have accused Kissinger of carrying out crimes against humanity after commandeering an illegal bombing campaign in Cambodia during the Vietnam war which some have likened to a holocaust, while others, notably rightwing politicians, have praised Kissinger for his endeavourers to end the Indochina conflict which culminated in the shared Nobel Peace Prize of 1973. Kissinger's actions during the Cold war were of important influence on Australia affairs. Most recently, left wing journalist Christopher Hitchens lunched a scathing attack on Kissinger and called for his indictment as a war criminal in mainstream magazine 'Vanity Fair'. http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1111/1809_302/69839383/p1/article.jhtml?term=kissinger http://www.eclipse.net/~tgardnet/kiss/hitchens.html In "THE CASE AGAINST HENRY KISSINGER", Hitchens raised questions about the role of Henry Kissinger in giving a green light to the invasion that has left perhaps 200,000 dead in the years since and also brought Australia and Indonesia perilously close to all out conflict on several occasions. The legacy of Kissingers Indo-china policy is still being felt throughout the post cold war years, culminating in a policy of military intervention in East Timor under the Howard Government. The Howard government at this stage would not comment on Kissinger's status as a war criminal nor the criticism of Prime Minister Howard's approach to the Iraqi crisis during the holiday season. A spokesperson for Greens leader Bob Brown who protested with activists in opposition to the offical visit of the chairman of the National People's Congress, Li Peng, (dubbed the butcher of Beijing) to Australia last year, said the Greens would object to Howard's meeting with any suspected war criminal. Pundits are claiming if the PM can organize time to meet with a suspected war criminal during the holiday season then he must make time to debate any decision to join a war with Iraq in parliament. As the anti-war movement grows the labor party, the 'ailing' democratic and the 'rising' green parties have unanimously called for a "conscience vote" in the Australian senate before any decision is made to support either possible American unilateral military action or United Nations sanctioned action. However, any parliamentary debate looks unlikely, after Mr. Howard asserted last month that a parliamentary debate would most probably proceed the deployment of 1,500 Australia troops to fight the oil rich Iraq state. -- -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Sub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink