Govt, LTTE break ‘federalism’ taboo in Sri Lanka

COLOMBO, Dec 6: The agreement in oslo between Sri Lanka’s Government and the LTTE to establish a federal structure in the country marks the first time that the two parties have explicitly chosen federalism as the framework for a solution to the long-standing ethnic problem.

The word "federal" has been taboo for many years in Sri Lanka, a self-proclaimed "unitary state", and every past power-sharing package had been broadly described only as "devolution", even when it envisaged creation of regional units of administration under a Central Government.

For the Tamil tiger rebels, who now seem to have come round to the view that Tamil aspirations can be met within a United Sri Lanka, it could be a double climb-down, as they have not only given the impression of shedding separatism as a goal, but also a confederal model as an alternative.

Among the two main parties in the south, the ruling United National Party has described its proposed framework in the past as "asymmetrical devolution", that is, conferring on the north-east more powers than other regions in the country. The PA called its plan "extensive devolution".

With the country’s mood strongly favouring continuation of the present atmosphere of peace, the development is seen widely as the best chance yet to evolve a negotiated settlement, but the parties, as well as Norwegian facilitators, have warned that there could be pitfalls ahead.

Tamil United Liberation Front president V Anandasangaree said the credit should go to the LTTE for pressuring the Government into agreeing to a federal model, shedding decades of opposition to diluting the unitary state.

"It is now left to the opposition to support it. We cannot go to war again. This is the last chance for peace," Anandasangaree said, adding that federalism was also the goal of the late S Chelvanayagam, the founder of the federal party, the forerunner of the TULF.

The Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), the main anti-LTTE Tamil group, had a dig at the tigers for accepting now what the EPDP had been saying for over a decade - power-sharing at the centre, and autonomy at the state level.

"This war, with all the devastation that it brought about, could have been avoided had they agreed to our viewpoint 10 years ago," EPDP general secretary K N Douglas Devananda said.

He was also skeptical about whether the LTTE had really agreed to a federal model, charging that its chief negotiator Anton Balasingham had the habit of saying one thing for the consumption of the international community and exactly the opposite to the Tamil community.

LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran said on Nov 27 that what he was looking for was "internal self-determination", a term which he interpreted as substantial autonomy and self-rule in Tamil areas within a united Sri Lanka. However, he warned that any failure on the part of Colombo to grant this might force him to revive his campaign for secession.

Critics, including the main opposition People’s Alliance saw, in this framework, the ingredients of a "confederation", that is, two states with different administrative structures, but constitutionally united under the sovereignty of a Government in Colombo.

While this led to a flurry of speculations and interpretations, the Government saw it as a "paradigm shift" on the part of the LTTE. (PTI)

‘Pak dispatched nuke material to North Korea this July’

NEW DELHI, Dec 6: With Washington having turned a "blind eye" towards the long-drawn Pakistan-North Korea nuclear nexus till it recently snowballed into a major international issue, reports here say that Islamabad had only this summer dispatched a large volume of special aluminum to Pyongyang for its uranium enrichment programme.

Quoting reports, official sources today said 47 tonnes of special aluminium, which was acquired by Kahuta-based Abdul Qadir Khan Research Laboratory (AQKRL) from a British firm in Blackburn, was flown to Pyongyang on board a Shaheen Airline flight in July this year.

In a recent report, the New York Times had also rejected Islamabad’s claims that it had ended its exchanges with North Korea and reported that US satellites had spotted a Pakistani plane picking up North Korea’s missile parts as recently as last summer.

The daily also asked Washington to "make it plain" to President Pervez Musharraf that "continued behaviour of this sort will not be tolerated."

The sources quoted US intelligence reports as saying that Pakistani assistance to North Korean nuclear programme "continus ago" and added that Washington had "turned a blind eye" towards the nexus for so long.

Pakistan’s own nuclear programme has been "pursued unhindered" despite its adverse economic conditions largely due to liberal financial aid made available by some Arab states, the sources said.

They said there were reports which indicated that in late 1990s, Pyongyang had approached Islamabad for design information and technical support to set up a centrifuge enrichment plant with a view to producing fissile material for its nuclear weapons programme.

Some reports also hinted that there could have been a barter arrangement between the two countries on their respective nuclear programmes, they said, adding that it was due to such an arrangement that Pakistan assisted North Korea in procuring essential requirements.

Pakistan, which earlier used to operate its centrifuge programme based on aluminium rotors of sub-critical Dutch design, later changed to maraging steel rotors of super-critical German design.

It is in this backdrop that it was logical for Islamabad to import 47 tonnes of special aluminium, not required for its own enrichment programme, and dispatched it to Pyongyang, the sources said.

Noted nuclear scientist and the head of AQKRL, after whom the laboratory has been named, had visited North Korea at least 12 times in the 1990s. (PTI)

Zardari released on parole, NAB suspends
anti-corruption drive

ISLAMABAD, Dec 6: Former Pakistan Premier Benazir Bhutto’s husband Asif Ali Zardari has been released from jail on a 15-day parole to celebrate Eid even as the country’s foremost anti-corruption unit "temporarily" suspended its drive against corrupt politicians.

Zardari, imprisoned for over six years in connection with a host of corruption and criminal cases was released on parole yesterday and permitted to go to his hometown Nawabshah in southern Sindh province and join his family.

He was flown from Islamabad, where he has been imprisoned, to the southern city of Karachi, where his family lives.

He was briefly released recently for a week to attend his mother’s funeral.

Importance was being attached to the timing of Zardari’s release as it comes ahead of the inaugural session of the Sindh provincial assembly in which Bhutto-led Pakistan Peoples Party emerged as the largest single party.

After a great deal of criticism the Government has called the Sindh Assembly on Dec 12 amid speculation that the Government has succeeded in splitting the PPP to gain support. Zardari was expected to play a key role along with self-exiled wife in the formation of Sindh Government.

Meanwhile, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has reportedly decided to "temporarily" suspend its accountability drive against politicians following the establishment of a new democratic setup.

Cases against Bhutto and Zardari were also being currently handled by NAB besides corruption cases against 10 defectors from PPP, many of whom have become ministers in the Government headed by Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali.

The military officials led NAB would limit its accountability campaign against bureaucrats and officials of different Government departments suspected of corruption but not the politicians, local daily ‘Dawn’ said today.

For the time being NAB would be silent vis-a-vis suspect politicians by deferring their interrogation sine die. "However, the NAB would continue to closely watch those suspected of corruption in the past and now elected to the assemblies," it quoted NAB officials as saying.

They said it would, however, be difficult to say when exactly the accountability drive against politicians would be resumed. (PTI)

Saddam faces three choices: Rumsfeld

WASHINGTON, Dec 6: Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is faced with three choices - to abandon weapons of mass destruction, cooperate with UN weapons inspectors or to go into exile, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said.

The Iraqi President has three choices before him, he told reporters as Baghdad faces a Sunday deadline under the UN Security Council resolution to declare its weapons of mass destruction programmes.

"He could decide the game is up and open up his country and say, `here are our weapons of mass destruction. Here’s where they’re located. Here are the people who made them,’" Rumsfeld said.

He said if Saddam could fully cooperate with UN inspectors to abandon weapons of mass destruction he can "stay in power and become responsible member of the world community" by putting an end to repression of the Iraqi people and threating neighbouring countries.

"Or he could follow the pattern of game is not up. I’m going to continue to lie and deceive and deny and string along the inspectors and prevent them from finding out, to the extent I’m able, that we’re lying and deceiving and denying,’" Rumsfeld said.

Saddam and his family could also decide to leave Iraq and it would be "nice outcome," he said.

Once he (Saddam) makes his choice, the UN Security Council must decide whether Iraq is complying with their resolution, Rumsfeld said.

"And if they determine it’s not being complied with, then they have to face the reality that for the United Nations to be a relevant institution, they simply cannot allow still one more resolution to be ignored by the Iraqi regime," Rumsfeld said yesterday.

At that point, he said, "every member of the Security Council and every country in the world that participates in the United Nations would have to make a decision, not simply one country."

The US said yesterday that Iraq posseses weapons of mass destruction and Washington had "solid evidence" to prove it, and rejected Baghdad’s repeated denials as having no credibility.

Talking to reporters on possibilty of a war, US President George W Bush said, "that is a question you should ask to Saddam Husein."

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Washington would give UN inspectors criss-crossing Iraq some but not all of its evidence that Baghdad possesses prohibited weapons.

"The burden of proof lies with Saddam Hussein. The world has seen Iraq lie for 10 years and Iraq continues its ways of lying and deceiving to the world when it says it does not have weapons of mass destruction," Fleischer said.

"His opportunity to shed that burden comes this weekend when he will send to the UN a declaration of the weapons he possesses," he said.

Meanwhile, Saddam, giving his first public remarks since the UN inspections resumed a week ago said the searches would help "refute the US pretense that Iraq has produced weapons of mass destruction" during the inspectors’ four-year absence. (PTI)

10 Palestinians killed in Gaza strip raid

BUREIJ REFUGEE CAMP (GAZA STRIP), Dec 6: Ten Palestinians were killed today when some 40 Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles, backed by helicopters, stormed a densely populated Gaza strip refugee camp, Palestinian medical sources said.

The incursion into Al-Bureij camp, which the Palestinians branded an Israeli "massacre", came a few hours after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon claimed that Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network was operating in the Gaza strip.

When Israeli troops withdrew from the camp near Deir Al-Balah around 1:00 am (0300 GMT), 19 Palestinians had also been wounded, five of them seriously.

Four members of the same family were killed when their house was hit by a tank shell, the sources added.

The army confirmed the incursion, saying one soldier was lightly wounded in the fierce gunbattles that erupted between the troops and armed Palestinians.

The commander of Israeli forces in the Gaza strip, General Israel Ziv, told public radio four of the dead were members of the hardline Islamic group Hamas.

During a press conference in Tel Aviv yesterday, Sharon accused Lebanon and the Gaza Strip of sheltering operatives from the Al-Qaeda netowork, which is supected of being behind last week’s twin anti-Israeli attacks in Kenya.

On Wednesday, Israel also revealed that it had arrested and later released a US citizen suspected of ties with Al-Qaeda and Hamas and of transferring money to local radical groups.

Sharon also said Al-Qaeda was present in Lebanon and joining hands with the fundamentalist militia Hezbollah, although both the Lebanese President and the shiite group denied the charge. (AFP)

All eyes on Iraq weapons declaration

BAGHDAD, Dec 6: Iraq will give the United Nations a several thousand page document tomorrow expected to say it has no weapons of mass destruction but Washington has angrily refuted this.

Under a UN Security Council resolution passed last month, Iraq must make the declaration about its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes by Sunday.

If Baghdad is found to be in "material breach" of the resolution, it could set the stage for a military attack on Iraq by the United States and its allies in what Washington has described as a "coalition of the willing".

Iraq says it has no such weapons programmes, and has stated that the list will describe only "dual use technology" that has peaceful as well as military applications.

Security Council diplomats said they believed it could take up to 10 days for the document to be analysed.

UN Weapons Inspectors, who have reported cooperation from Iraq during their visits so far to 20 suspect sites, were taking a break for Eid ul-Fitr, the Muslim festival marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

But UN sources in Iraq said another 30 inspectors would be arriving in Baghdad on Sunday to beef up numbers from the 17 who conducted the first probes. They said inspections would resume at (1100 hrs Ist) on Saturday. White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters in Washington: "Iraq has lied before and is lying now about whether they possess weapons of mass destruction."

"The President of the United States and the Secretary of Defence would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it," he said yesterday.

Hussam Mohammed Amin, head of the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate, has said the declaration would "contain new elements" regarding activities conducted during the absence of the inspectors since they left in 1998.

He said the declaration "covers biological, chemical and missile and nuclear activities, but not prohibited activities".

One diplomat at the Security Council said the file would set a baseline for judging violations. "After the declaration has come in, anything that is found shows that (President) Saddam Hussein meant to deceive," he said.

The declaration, written in both English and Arabic and running to thousands of pages, would be handed over to the United Nations in a low key ceremony in Iraq tomorrow evening before it starts a mammoth air journey across three continents, the UN sources in Iraq said.

They said the document, which might also include CD-Roms holding huge amounts of data electronically, would be flown first to Cyprus on a UN plane and from there to Vienna and New York, before the midnight Sunday deadline.

The part covering Iraq’s nuclear programme would be dispatched to the international atomic energy agency in Vienna, the source said, without giving any exact timings.

The section concerning chemical, biological and ballistic programmes would be sent to the UN monitoring, verification and inspection commission in New York.

An Iraqi Information Ministry official said journalists would be invited to the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate tomorrow morning. It was not immediately clear why. (AGENCIES)

Rumsfeld asks Saddam to go into exile
as the "game is up"

WASHINGTON, Dec 6: The US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said that Iraq’s President Saddam Hussain has two choices: Decide ‘the game is up’ and go into exile or come clean on weapons of mass destruction and stop repressing his own people.

"The response by Iraq, the declaration, as well as their dealings with the inspectors will determine what decision has been made by the Iraqi leadership. They could decide that the game’s up, and Saddam Hussein and his family could leave the country, which would be a nice outcome," he told reporters yesterday after meeting South Korean National Defence Minister Lee Jun.

He said Saddam could decide the game’s up and open his country and declare the location of the weapons of mass destruction as well as the people who were working on them.

"Or he could... Say `the game is not up. I’m going to continue to lie and deceive and deny and string along the inspectors and prevent them from finding out, to the extent I’m able, that we’re lying and deceiving and denying."

"Now those are his choices... How he answers it, which one he picks, he will either deal with the problem of disarming or he will tell the world community that he is unwilling to."

"And the next choice, as the President has suggested, is with the United Nations... They have to make a judgment as to whether or not the resolution that they passed unanimously is being complied with," Rumsfelds said.

"And if they determine it is not being complied with, then they have to face the reality that for the united nations to be a relevant institution, they simply cannot allow still one more resoluton to be ignored by the Iraqi regime," he added. (PTI)

White House Economic Adviser resigns

WASHINGTON, Dec 6: White House Economic Adviser Lawrence Lindsey has submitted his resignation, a senior White House official today said shortly after the planned resignation of Treasury Secretary Paul o’Neill was announced.

"Larry Lindsey has submitted his resignation to the President to pursue endeavors outside the Government," the senior official said. (AGENCIES)

US General now in Gulf for major military exercise

WASHINGTON, Dec 6: The American General who would command any US war against Iraq arrived in Qatar today to preside over a week-long exercise that will test sophisticated military command-and-control for such a conflict, defense officials said.

Army Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the US Central Command, flew to the Gulf state’s big Al Udeid air base near Doha from Tampa, Florida, for command post war game "internal look", which begins on December 9, the officials, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.

Using a sophisticated, mobile electronic command post shipped recently to the base from Florida, a team of about 1,000 US and British military specialists will link US and allied forces throughout the region with each other and central command headquarters in the computer simulation exercise. No troops would take part in the electronic war game.

Dozens of US military aircraft are already stationed at Al Udeid and more would be sent there to join a growing American force in the Gulf if President George W Bush decides to launch a US-led invasion to remove Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

Central Command officials have stressed that, while the exercise itself is scheduled to end on about December 17,, the command post facilities will remain in Qatar indefinitely for possible future use.

Franks arrived as UN Inspectors continued their recently-resumed probe of facilities in Iraq and Baghdad approached Sunday’s deadline set by the United Nations to make a full declaration of its weapons of any nuclear, biological or chemical arms programms.

Iraq has continued to maintain that it has no such programms.

Franks would be in and out of the war games in Qatar from December 9 to 17 and would "preserve his flexibility" as to where he night be needed most, senior central command officials said in a conference call briefing from the United States earlier this week.

The forward-deployed command headquarters would allow Franks to work in close proximity to commanders and their forces, an official said. Their regular headquarters is at McDill Air Force base in Tampa.

The exercise in Qatar will test their ability to deal with "fictitious but realistic" military scenarios, officials said. Iraq was one of 25 countries in the central command area of responsibility but would not be the only consideration, they said. (AGENCIES)

China coal mine fire kills 25: Xinhua

SHANGHAI, Dec 6: A fire swept through a coal mine in Northeast China today, killing 25 of the 29 miners trapped inside, the official Xinhua news agency today reported.

The blaze, at the Wanbao coal mine in Jilin province, had broken out when the crank to one of the mine’s shafts caught fire, Xinhua said. The fate of the four remaining miners was unknown, the agency quoted rescue workers as saying.

China has the world’s largest mining industry, and one of the world’s most deadly. (AGENCIES)

| home | state | national | business | editorial | advertisement | sports
| international | weather | mailbag | suggestions | search | subscribe | send mail |