Kenya's humanitarian crisis grows

At least 180,000 people have been displaced by unrest as the humanitarian crisis grows after last week's disputed election in Kenya, say UN officials.

Some have been housed in makeshift camps while others have sought refuge in police stations or churches, fleeing violence that has claimed 350 lives.

In badly-affected western Kenya nearly all the refugees are hungry, and several children have died of exposure.

A top UN official in Nairobi says about 500,000 Kenyans need urgent help.

The UN World Food Programme said it was scrambling to bring food to 100,000 displaced people in the Rift Valley area.

'High hatred levels'

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which is set to distribute the food, issued an international appeal for aid.

"The level of hatred is very high. Violence of tribal origin is the worst - it knows no limits and is extremely difficult to quell," said Alexandre Liebeskind, deputy head of ICRC operations for the Horn of Africa.

Opposition protests appeared to falter on Friday while the government said it might accept a fresh election, but only if it was ordered by a court.

The officially-declared results of the 27 December presidential poll - giving victory to incumbent President Mwai Kibaki over opposition rival Raila Odinga - unleashed a wave of violence.

Protesters furious at alleged electoral fraud, went on the rampage, killing scores of people and torching churches, businesses and homes.

A statement by a group of independent UN rights experts on Friday said: "We are profoundly alarmed by the reports of incitement to racial hatred and the growing frictions between the different ethnic groups in Kenya."

The BBC's Karen Allen in the Rift Valley town of Eldoret says the Catholic Church is now spearheading a co-ordinated relief effort to get blankets, tents and food to around 30,000 local people who have been made homeless.

'Blackmail'

The secretary-general of Mr Odinga's opposition ODM party called on Friday for fresh polls within three months and said the current electoral commission should not be involved.

"The current crisis is not caused by the Kenyan people - it is caused by Kibaki and his henchmen, who messed up the result after the Kenyan people had voted," Anyang Nyongo told the BBC.

Military police are guarding key points in Nairobi

A Kenyan government spokesman, Alfred Mutua, said Mr Kibaki was not in principle opposed to fresh elections but said the opposition's three-month deadline smacked of "blackmail".

"We would accept even another election, as long as the constitution is followed," he told Reuters news agency.

The opposition had earlier dismissed the prospect of taking its complaints to the courts.

Flexibility

The BBC's Grant Ferrett in Nairobi says both government and opposition are now trying to show more flexibility.

After a meeting with Mr Kibaki, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu said the president seemed prepared to consider a national unity government.

"The president was not averse to the idea of coalitions - but clearly there has to be an acceptance that there is a governing authority," Mr Tutu was quoted as saying by Reuters.

In other developments:

• Top US diplomat Jendayi Frazer was due in Kenya for talks aimed at bringing the two sides together
• French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he believed the Kenyan elections had been rigged

The unrest hits Kenya's tourism as visitors cut short holidays

In Nairobi on Friday, the security forces appeared to have succeeded for a second day in blocking a planned opposition rally from happening. They sealed off Uhuru (Freedom) Park, the venue for the proposed protests.

Thousands of police were deployed around the city, though fewer than on Thursday, when tear gas and water cannon were deployed against protesters.

And with traffic back on the streets, some shops and businesses have re-opened, as the city attempts to return to something like a normal life.

While the recent trigger for the troubles was the election, Kenyan politics
has been dogged by ethnic tensions since independence in 1963.

Mr Kibaki depends heavily on support from the largest ethnic group, the Kikuyus, while the western Luo and Kalenjin groups - who are seeking greater autonomy - back Mr Odinga.

News Source : BBC News

Imprisming Pakistan

It was no surprise when US Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted that even though Washington was cooperating with Pakistan to combat al-Qaeda along its border, American forces were ready to act “unilaterally” to take out terror targets. (1) Neither was it unpredictable that Frederick Kagan, who devised the Iraq troop surge, urged the US to consider sending elite troops to Pakistan to seize its nuclear weapons. And now, as a result of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, presidential hopefuls are already debating on how the United States should combat and control Pakistan’s ‘terrorist?’ groups.

Last year during a 60 Minutes interview, Pakistani President Musharraf was correct in thinking it was a “rude remark” when the United States threatened to bomb Pakistan “back to the stone age,” unless it cooperated in the US-led Global War On Terror? His most recent statements on how, “The West must share some of the blame for his country’s current political crisis,” may be also be accurate. The ghosts of US Cold War Past and the ghosts of US Global War On Terror Present have, and still are, haunting Pakistan.

In mathematical terms, a prism is used to bend or alter the appearance of light. In the context of political and international affairs, a ‘prism,’ or the practice of ‘imprisming,’ means to observe another country or event through a view that is biased or distorted, and which is based upon a nation’s personal goals and xenophobic (fear of everything) ideology. Tragically over the years, the United States has mistakenly ‘imprismed’ Pakistan through the geopolitics of the Cold War, the Soviet Union‘s intervention in Afghanistan, and the immediate Global War On Terror.

The imprisment of Pakistan started in 1947 with the beginning of the Cold War. Presidents Harry S. Truman, and later Dwight D. Eisenhower, sought to control the Asian territories surrounding the Soviet Union and the Middle East. In theory, the Baghdad Pact, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the South East Treaty Organization (SEATO), would protect important Middle Eastern resources, like oil, while at the same time encircling and eventually defeating the Soviet Union. In reality, these treaties and policies of containment and military interventions led to the humiliation of millions of Pakistanis, while fueling the rise of Jihadists and other separatist movements.

By 1953, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had already visited and rallied Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Britain, and Turkey, into a military pact threatening the use of nuclear weapons if attacked by the Soviet Union. The Baghdad Pact, as it was called, injected anti-Western sentiments into Pakistan (and the Middle East), fueled Arab Nationalism, pushed Israel into developing its own nuclear arsenal-not to mention the proliferation of nuclear technologies, and alienated India, who was in a dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir . (2)

When India refused to subordinate itself to America’s dream of dominating Asia, Dulles again traveled to Pakistan in order to bind it into a military and economic union known as SEATO. SEATO was another mutual defense pact that would supposedly resist the spread of Communism in Asia. While Ayub Khan, Pakistan’s general, signed on to SEATO and began receiving billions of dollars worth of US military aid and weapons, he also led a military coup and suspended the constitution, disbanded all political parties and declared martial law. United States officials looked the other way as many Pakistanis, especially the poor and oppressed, suffered and experienced numerous violations and human rights abuses. Pakistan would find itself caught in the middle of the Baghdad Pact, SEATO, and the machinations of US-Soviet Wars.

As American presidents and military officials continued to delude themselves in trying to surround the USSR, (along with isolating China which by now experienced its own Communist Revolution), and protect their colonial interests in Indochina; Pakistan had become an American military outpost with a massive intelligence gathering facility in Peshawar. When the Soviets shot down an American U-2 spy plane in 1960, it had flown from a Pakistani airbase. American military objectives, however, were becoming more elusive, since relations with India and other nations in Asia worsened. Successive military leaders in Pakistan were using US manufactured armaments against India and other separatist movements and groups throughout Asia. Saddled with American military interventionist policies, both Pakistan and the US were experiencing blowback.

Furthermore, the United States became alarmed in 1962 when the Sino-India War occurred and Pakistan allied itself with Communist China. President John F. Kennedy quickly visited India also offering it military aid. Pakistan threatened to leave SEATO. Vice President Johnson abruptly canceled a visit to Pakistan causing embarrassment and confusion. President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger continued US involvement in the post colonial complexities of India, Pakistan and Asia. Nixon secretly relied on Pakistan in 1969 as a line of contact for his ‘Opening to China’ and Triangular Diplomacy tactics. Two years later, though, Nixon and Kissinger turned around and threatened to withdraw military aid in their support of the Bangladeshis. Nixon would directly intervene militarily by sending US naval forces to the Bay of Bengal. (3)

There was little Pakistan could do, since its military leaders and the wealthy were now imprismed by its dependency on military aid from the United States. Poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, inflation, disparity between rich and poor, and high expenditures on military weapons bought by Pakistani rulers and provided by the US, increased unrest and separatist movements across Pakistan. A deep resentment towards Western imperialism and its backing of harsh military rulers, along with economic aid that seldom reached the poor, flamed the fires of revolt.

When General Zra ul-Haq seized power in 1977 due to national strikes and disturbances, he declared martial law and banned trade unions. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who founded the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and supported the poor, was imprisoned and hanged for supposedly authorizing the murder of a political opponent. Although the evidence and trial was faulty, Washington looked the other way and continued to fund succeeding military regimes. Its relationship with Pakistan had always been about using it as a pawn to control the geopolitics of Asia. Seldom was it about empowering the oppressed and spreading democracy.

The formal greeting among Muslims in Pakistan is “Salaam alaikum” (“Peace be with you”). The correct response is “Wa alaikum as Salaam” (“And also to you”). Regrettably, in the past 60 years instead of replying with “peace,” the US has answered with militarism, a dangerous Cold War ideology, and disorderly, chaotic policies. Through the US’s prism of inconsistent support and armed interventions, along with billions of dollars in weapons and unaccountable aid, it is little wonder that Pakistan is in a of emergency. This prism has also given rise to separatist movements and Jihadists, diminished democratic reforms and popular movements, and failed to locate and find Osama bin Laden. It may even have triggered the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Many of Pakistan’s failures has been the result of its long imprisment by America.

News Source : World News

Pakistani President Musharraf denies his role in Bhutto death

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has said assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto ignored government warnings -- and defended himself against accusations that he had a role in her slaying.

President Musharraf blamed inefficiencies not conspiracy for the crime scene being cleaned.

He also admitted Thursday he is not satisfied with the investigation into her death, making his comments to reporters in a rare news conference held in English.

The first question to the Pakistani leader after his 20-minute address dealt with the myriad of conspiracy theories that blame Musharraf's government for helping orchestrate last week's assassination of Bhutto, who led the opposition's push for Musharraf to abandon his role as Pakistan's military leader.

"Frankly, I consider the question below my dignity to answer, but however I would like to answer it," Musharraf told the reporter from Britain's Sky News.

"I'm not a feudal and I'm not a tribal -- I have been brought up in a very educated and civilized family which believes in values, which believes in principles, which believes in character.

"My family, by any imagination, is not a family which believes in killing people, assassinating, intriguing. And that is all there I want to say."

Later, he accused Bhutto of "ignoring" warnings from the government and detailed the security provided to the former prime minister in Liaquat Bagh, the Rawalpindi park where she was killed last week.

"She was informed of the threat to her, the first time about three to four weeks back when she wanted to the same place," Musharraf said. "The intelligence agencies knew there was a threat and we told her not to go. ...

"So therefore she went on her own volition, ignoring the threat."

The park, often a place for political gatherings, is named after Pakistan's first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, who was assassinated in 1951.

More than 1,000 police were patrolling the park where Bhutto's convoy passed last Thursday, and government snipers patrolled each building's rooftop, Musharraf said. Bhutto was traveling in a bulletproof vehicle, and had handpicked the head of her security detail, he said.

Musharraf pointed out that no one else in the vehicle was injured when gunshots rang out, followed by suicide blast that killed nearly two dozen people in the crowd.

"Nobody gets hurt (inside the car), only she when she ... decides to rise above the sunroof," he said.

He asked reporters to consider what he would have to gain from any role in assassination.

"Anyone who wants to assassinate or do anything of this kind must weigh pros and cons," he said " Would I ... be the maximum gainer or is there somebody else here who could gain more? So this is another element that I leave to your judgment."

He expressed his dissatisfaction with the way investigators immediately cleaned the area where Bhutto was killed, possibly wiping away key forensic evidence.

"It's unnecessary. It shouldn't have been done," Musharraf said. "But if you are meaning that they did it by design to hide evidence -- no.

"It is just inefficiency ... on the part of these people who think that things have to be cleared and the road has to be cleared and traffic has to go through.

"But certainly I'm sure that they didn't do it with an intention of hiding some secrets or that the intelligence agencies ... had instructed them to hide this. No, I don't believe that."

Meanwhile, a team of Scotland Yard investigators arrived in Islamabad Friday morning to assist in the probe into Bhutto's assassination, Interior Ministry spokesman Iqbal Javed Cheema said.

The five British forensic experts will meet with Interior Ministry officials Friday before joining the Pakistan investigative team, Cheema said.

Musharraf said Wednesday that he expected the Scotland Yard investigators would help "solve all the confusion" surrounding the case.

News Source : CNN