WikiLeaks and What The Truth is .. (15)_WikiLeaks exposure and our leaders

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INTERNATIONAL
THE NEWS
WikiLeaks exposure and our leaders
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
By Dr Syed Nazir Gilani

The information released by WikiLeaks on the widespread torture in Kashmir in early 1990s to seek confessions from Kashmiri youth is not any news to human rights defenders and the conscious members of civil society in Kashmir. The news item transported me back in time when I was Field Director (number 2) in the Pakistan Red Cross (now Red Crescent) and used to look after the tracing section covering India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) faced similar challenges in tracing the missing civilian and military nationals of these three countries. Secretary General of Pakistan Red Cross was a retired air commodore and had been reemployed. I was very young and my feet were restless on the roller skates to see his exit at the expiry of fixed extended tenure and step in as number 1. General Zial ul Haq regime did not let it happen.

What has hurt me as a human rights defender, not one of post-1990 regime but one who raised the issue of abuse of power in J & K at an international conference in Dubrovnik, former Yugoslavia in May 1986 and to the utter chagrin of Indian delegation co-chaired (as Kashmiri) one session of the conference with China and Finland, is the leak that the abuse continued because “security forces need promotions” while for militants “the insurgency has become a business”.

There are no two opinions about the use of torture and fake encounters for promotions. We have living examples of such officers in the police who have allegedly used this ‘killing’ as a fast track to seek promotions. It is our duty to name these people and use the rule of law and constitutional guarantees to make them accountable.

But WikiLeaks have made a collateral and instant revelation that “the insurgency has become a business”. Although we don’t have the insurgency of the kind referred to in WikiLeaks today yet it is important for us that we sit and consider this aspect of exposure, which has come from a neutral and important source. A Kashmiri source on this point would have been branded as ‘anti-Tehreek’ and added to the long list of graves scattered all around Kashmir. WikiLeak is far too big and safe for any Kashmiri Fatwa to touch it.

One does not need to wait for WikiLeaks expose on the point that insurgency, soon after its most effective start, slipped into a shocking phase of commercial enterprise in Kashmir, Pakistan and in various capitals of the world. For a discerning observer, the evidence that insurgency became a business is splattered on the streets of Srinagar, in Delhi, in Azad Kashmir, in Pakistan and in Europe. It is important to point out that the Kashmiri has played the role of a weak and submissive commission agent. The bulk of the profit made out of this ‘insurgency business’ has been retained in Islamabad or diverted to other destinations of their benefit. Delhi did not lag behind and successfully pledged itself in the stock market created by the insurgency business. It helped create renegades and militants and renegades became interchangeable identities.

After the WikiLeak expose a common Kashmiri has reason to challenge the authors of militancy and ask them to show gains as against the mounting losses namely, loss of a generation, massive violation of human rights, loss of dignity and respect of a common citizen, opportunity provided to the Indian security forces to come and live within the close proximity of our private life and disturbed the quality of life in Kashmir. One needs to ask a question to the politicians who owned the militancy without any control over it, whether the death of a generation in fact is not the death of the right of self-determination. Someone somewhere has to be made responsible for the deficit caused in the number of Kashmiri population, desperately needed for self-determination.

Another important concern, which needs to be addressed, is the lack of interest in the plight of the common citizens. One does not need a WikiLeak to understand and expose the success and failure of militancy and the separatist politics. A generation has been laid to rest. Another generation decided to seek employment in the Indian security forces. Many of them may not rise in ranks for obvious reasons. Another generation comprises of employable educated unemployed, unemployable educated unemployed and uneducated unemployed. We seem to have lost the focus of our trust obligations towards the people that we claim to represent in their demand for right of self-determination.

It is very disappointing to note that life in Kashmir is over-politicised and it appears that doors of a peaceful, secure, respectful and dignified life have been shut on the people. The common man is nowhere on the radar and all we witness is that everyone is interested in a small road in Srinagar to engage a post-1990 political number. We don’t need numbers in the two Hurriyats but we need at all costs conscientious substantive characters having reliable understanding of the case at home and abroad.

The information made public by WikiLeaks on torture in Kashmir and the fact that the ICRC never got access to ‘Notorious Detention Centre’ Cargo Building should shame us as responsible citizens of the State. It should unease all those in Delhi who have a genuine desire to see the life, honour and property of the people in Kashmir duly protected. It is a question for the Indian civil society to see why the people in Kashmir have not been able to raise their heads as equal people.

The information made public should not be used (or may be used) to march on Delhi, as it is too late for many. It should not be used as an excuse to avoid our part of obligations. Our leaders have failed the present and the future generation on a number of counts. The non-transparent apparatus of Kashmir politics and its political rhetoric has been the worst enemy of the Rights Movement and the common citizen. Our leaders should be brave enough to concede that even today they have no control on the broad spread of Kashmir agenda being handled inside and outside Kashmir. The various centres run by not more than three or more people are in no way run by Kashmiri leaders but by gainfully employed people of Kashmiri origin. One may not take away from their person their title as State Subjects but they are in a difficult cul de sac of the pressures of the purse and personal interests. They can afford to live by compromising on the interests of their people but they have no nerve to disobey the purse that keeps them in charm.

Kashmiri politics is caught in a flux of many variables. The bulk of Srinagar or Muzaffarabad-based politicians have no substantive role. It is the media in Srinagar and TV screens in Islamabad or Delhi that keep their images alive. It is high time we delved into the recesses of our conscience and responded to the WikiLeak exposure that ‘insurgency became a business’ for our politician and killing became a ‘need for the security forces’ for promotion. One has helped the other.

The writer is London-based secretary general of JKCHR - NGO in Special Consultative Status with the United Nations and can be mailed at dr-nazirgilani@jkchr.com


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WikiLeaks disclosures put a question mark over climate change agenda
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
By Noor Aftab

ISLAMABAD: The recent startling disclosures of WikiLeaks about bribes and threats given by the United States and European governments to the developing countries for advancing climate agenda in the past raised serious doubts about outcome of recently concluded Cancun Climate Conference in which rich countries are believed to have quite comfortably re-achieved their desired results.

According to a UK-based newspaper The Guardian, the secret cables sent by the US State Department on July 31, 2009 revealed that the American and European governments used monetary incentives, threats, and even espionage to advance their ìclimateî agenda at the COP-15 global warming summit in Copenhagen last year and beyond.

The newspaper reported hidden behind the save-the-world rhetoric of the global climate change negotiations lies the mucky realpolitik: money and threats buy political support; spying and cyber warfare are used to seek out leverage.

The newspaper described some of the revelations in the diplomatic cables, saying they show ìhow the US seeks dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming; how financial and other aid is used by countries to gain political backing; how distrust, broken promises and creative accounting dog negotiations; and how the US mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the controversial Copenhagen Accord.î

WikiLeaks revealed the US tactics deployed to achieve its aim of overwhelming the opposition to the Copenhagen Climate Accord as it named specific countries of interest including China, France, Japan, Mexico, Russia and the European Union and sought from its diplomats biographical details of individuals such as credit card and frequent-flyer numbers of officials running the climate negotiations.

Some of the comments reviewed in the cables indicated that, for the US government, this sort of ìnegotiatingî is simply business as usual. Discussing the Dutch governmentís ploy to ìsolicit supportî for the climate ìaccordî by sending messages to countries receiving ìdevelopment assistance,î a cable signed by ambassador Fay Levin at the American Embassy in the Netherlands to the US State Department is very revealing. ìThis is an unprecedented move for the Dutch government, which traditionally recoils at any suggestion to use aid money as political leverage.î

Another cable revealed that Saudi Arabia, a country that generally mocked the warmists in Copenhagen, was very eager to obtain investment credits for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and other technology transfer projects that could only become available after conclusion of an agreement on climate.

Cables dealing with ìclimate changeî and the island-nation of the Maldives basically showed the Maldivian regime promising to support the ìCopenhagen Accordî in exchange for US taxpayer money. The ìtangible assistance,î as the regime referred to it, would allegedly be used to finance various pet projects such as a deeper harbour.

It is believed that if a private American company was caught discussing espionage, bribery, and extortion so candidly in an effort to further its agenda, the firm and responsible individuals would almost certainly be prosecuted under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

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Julian Assange tells BBC his concerns over Swedish case
21 December 2010 Last updated at 06:11 GMT

The Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, has told the BBC he is fighting a Swedish extradition warrant over accusations that he sexually assaulted two women because he believes he would be held incommunicado and his Swedish lawyer would be gagged.

In an interview for the Today programme at the mansion in East Anglia where he is now on bail, Mr Assange suggested that the two women involved in the case had gone to the police for advice rather than to make a complaint.

Pressed by John Humphreys over why he was resisting going to Sweden, Mr Assange argued that the restrictions he would face there would mean that no natural justice would occur.

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Assange vows WikiLeaks to stay strong despite new blow
AFP
December 19, 2010, 3:56 pm 124 Comments
AFP © Enlarge photo

ELLINGHAM, United Kingdom (AFP) - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said the site will stay strong despite another blow to its funding and the publication Sunday of new details of the sex crime allegations against him.

The Australian began his third full day under "mansion arrest" at a friend's house while he fights extradition to Sweden, vowing that the whistleblowing website would continue to publish more secre US diplomatic cables.

Assange on Saturday denounced Bank of America, the largest US bank, for becoming the latest institution to halt financial transactions for Wikileaks after MasterCard, PayPal, Visa Europe and others.

The bank said its decision was "based upon our reasonable belief that WikiLeaks may be engaged in activities that are, among other things, inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments."

"It's a new type of business McCarthyism in the US to deprive this organisation of the funds that it needs to survive, to deprive me personally of the funds that my lawyers need to protect me against extradition to the US or to Sweden," Assange told AFP.

The term was coined to describe the anti-communist pursuits of former US senator Joseph McCarthy from the late 1940s to the 1950s.

Assange is staying at Ellingham Hall, the mansion in eastern England of journalist friend Vaughan Smith, as part of the conditions of bail, which he was granted by London's High Court on Thursday.

He must also report daily to a nearby police station and wear an electronic tag.

Several British newspapers published lurid new details of the allegations of sexual assault against two women, over which Swedish prosecutors want to question him. The 39-year-old denies the charges.

The Guardian newspaper -- which has cooperated with WikiLeaks on the publication of the US documents -- and the Mail on Sunday both reported that the two women with whom he had sex in Sweden had gone to police after he refused to take an HIV test.

Assange hit out at Swedish handling of the case, accusing authorities there of leaking fresh details about the case that even he and his defence lawyers have not had access to.

The former computer hacker also reiterated that there were threats against his life and those of the website's staff, but he vowed that WikiLeaks would continue publishing the cables.

"We are a robust organisation. During my time in solitary confinement we continued to publish every day and its not going to change," he said.

Assange claimed earlier in an interview with Forbes magazine that a "megaleak" by the website will target a major US bank "early next year".

WikiLeaks has enraged Washington with its release of thousands of leaked US diplomatic cables and confidential military documents relating to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Assange said Friday it looked "increasingly likely" the US would try to extradite him on charges related to the leaked cables as he savoured his first day on bail.

He said his lawyers believed a secret US grand jury investigation had been started into his role in the release.

Media reports suggest that US prosecutors are trying to build a case against Assange on the grounds that he encouraged a US soldier, Bradley Manning, to steal US cables from a government computer and pass them to WikiLeaks.

A report by congressional researchers said the Espionage Act and other US laws could be used to prosecute Assange, but there is no known precedent for prosecuting publishers in such a case.

The latest US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks indicated that the United Nations offered Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe a retirement package and safe haven overseas if he agreed to stand down.

The offer was made by Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general at the time in 2000, said the memo, which was drawn up by US officials and cited the then-opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

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The Sydney Morning Herald
What a difference WikiLeaks makes
December 18, 2010

The gap between what politicians say and what they really think has never been more evident.

WHISTLEBLOWERS and leaks are not new. They are what make media scrutiny of the secretive workings of governments and corporations possible. This is a fact of life even for governments, which sometimes discreetly release information they think will serve their agendas even though it may be contained in documents marked ''classified'', ''confidential'' or ''top secret''. But when this happens, the government dictates what the public will be allowed to know. That relationship has been turned on its head, however, since WikiLeaks began releasing the 251,287 cables, sent to or from 274 US embassies, that have come into its possession.

So far WikiLeaks has published only a tiny fraction - fewer than 2000 - of its cable cache, in association with newspapers including The Age. Yet even that is an avalanche of information compared with the usual drip-feed from leaks, and it has in equal measures unnerved, frustrated and infuriated the world's governments. This not because publication of the cables has endangered lives or threatened the security of the US, Australia or other nations, although politicians have been quick to make such claims. It is an accusation of last resort, made by people who have been profoundly embarrassed by the WikiLeaks revelations. What publication of the cables has done is to highlight the gulf between what political leaders and diplomats say privately and what they are willing to tell citizens. And because that gulf is so evident, their credibility has been erased on issues, such as the war in Afghanistan, on which they have grown used to lying with impunity.

Advertisement: Story continues below None of this means that governments are never justified in keeping some information confidential, especially if its publication really would endanger national security. Nor is it obvious, as some of the more avid fans of new media confidently assert, that the ease of uploading data to the internet means that governments will never again be able to conceal information from citizens. After all, if WikiLeaks obtained the cables in the way the US State Department and the Pentagon allege - on a computer memory stick provided by a low-ranking US soldier in Iraq - then the website is the beneficiary of sloppy security, not superior hacking skills.

Yesterday Prime Minister Julia Gillard again said that the copying of confidential documents by a person with access to them was an act in breach of US law. Ms Gillard also announced that an Australian Federal Police inquiry had found no breaches of Australian law in WikiLeaks' publication of the cables. Attorney-General Robert McClelland made a similar statement, but Ms Gillard was not deterred from taking a swipe at WikiLeaks and its Australian editor-in-chief, Julian Assange, anyway. The ''wholesale release of information'', she said, had been ''grossly irresponsible''.

It must be wondered whether the Prime Minister thinks the New York Times publication of the Pentagon Papers, which detailed the Johnson administration's deception of Congress and the US public about the Vietnam War, was grossly irresponsible. Those documents were also illegally copied and provided by a person with access to them. Yet it cannot seriously be argued that their publication was not in the public interest. It mattered to Americans that their government's public statements on the war were contradicted by actions it had concealed from them.

And so it is now with the WikiLeaks revelations, in Australia and many other countries around the world. As The Age has argued before, what has been learnt about the national security establishment's view of the war in Afghanistan demolishes the arguments Ms Gillard has used in justification of the war. Those arguments so differ from the advice she and her predecessor, Kevin Rudd, received on the war that the question of whether Australia is acting simply at the behest of the US has been raised with renewed force. The cables portray starkly the difficulty Australian politicians have in distinguishing Australia's national interests from its obligations as a US ally. Australia's ambassador to Washington, Kim Beazley, when opposition leader, pledged that Australia would support the US in any conflict with China over Taiwan. And Mr Rudd's standing as foreign minister has surely been damaged by a series of comments in the cables, from frank assessments of him as a ''control freak'' to his obsession with ''containing'' China and disparaging remarks about Chinese leaders and officials.

Ms Gillard cannot credibly claim that the Australian people did not need to know the contents of these cables. And she should be assured that The Age will keep publishing them.


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