A late night conversation in a Swedish summer house between two old friends, one of whom was dying of cancer, could help solve one of the longest- burning questions in Indian politics: was the unassuming, modern and self proclaimedly honest Rajiv Gandhi, a man on the take?
The Bofors bribes affair was the Indian political scandal of the century. The scandal involved Bofors, a historic Swedish arms manufacturer, once owned by Alfred Nobel, the entrepreneur and scientist who invented dynamite and launched the prizes carrying his name. To generations of British schoolboys, the name Bofors means the 40mm AA gun that defended Britain’s skies during the War. But by the 80s, Bofors, based in western Sweden, in Karlskoga – for whose football team the young Sven-Göran Eriksson started his playing career – had fallen on hard times, and faced high unemployment.
A tender from India for 410 howitzers worth over a billion dollars could secure its future. However, a rival gun produced by the French firm Sofma was judged in Indian army gunnery competitions to be both technically superior – and it was cheaper.
But, in a surprise move in March 1987, it was announced that Bofors had won the order. A year later, after an internal enquiry by the Swedish National Bank into suspect Bofors accounting, it emerged that Bofors had paid out millions of dollars to middlemen in bank accounts in Switzerland.
This was surprising. A few months earlier Rajiv Gandhi had publicly announced that there should be none of the customary commissions paid out in the arms industry on this deal. The youthful and idealistic prime Indian minister had been elected on a ticket as Mr Clean. When the scandal emerged, the opposition Hindu nationalists, amid angry scenes in the Indian parliament, accused Gandhi of being a liar.
The Bofors scandal became the big issue of the next election “It is shocking that politicians are, at the end of the day, all the same,” a leading commentator noted. As the cannons started to arrive, and the voting day approached, Bofors became the word even uneducated Indians could associate with Sweden, more so than Abba or Volvo. Stall holders used the word Bofors to mean rotten, as in “this is a Bofors mango”. Gandhi lost heavily in the election.
But the bribes could never be linked to Gandhi directly. Until the day Rajiv was assassinated in 1991, by Tamil separatists, he always angrily denied any knowledge of them, and even today, his widow Sonia, today president of Congress, continues to declare his innocence. The closest link investigators could establish was that the bribes money eventually ended up in a Swiss account belonging to one Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian man-about-town and New Delhi based businessman who was a close friend of the Gandhis. Few believed that Quattrocchi, who was the representative of a fertiliser company, was a likely ultimate beneficiary of arms firm cash. But a financial trail from Quattrocchi himself, to Gandhi, could not be established – and when the Italian was wanted for questioning, he slipped abroad, to Malaysia and then Italy, from where the Indian FBI, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), have been fighting a long battle to extradite him.
Until a few weeks ago, most Indians had put Bofors at the back of their minds, enough to have re-elected Congress into government after its long spell in the doldrums in 2004. But the scandal flared up again in mid January when a Congress party law official went to London to unfreeze bank accounts held by Quattrocchi that allegedly were key pieces of evidence in the extradition case the CBI were building against him. The CBI were caught by surprise; the Indian supreme court scrambled to “refreeze the accounts”, which allegedly contained the money actually received as Quattrocchi’s middle-man’s fee. But it was too late: within days, the accounts, containing several million dollars’ worth, had been emptied, presumably by Quattrocchi himself, and the CBI executed a neat U-turn, saying it had supported the unfreezing all along. Most observers thought it was an attempt by Congress to diminish the chances of Quattrocchi ever receiving enough evidence against him to justify extradition which would once again drag the party over the coals. Does this mean the Congress party is safe from the scandal that has haunted it for two decades? Not if a sensational allegation emerging from Sweden last week can be backed up.
According to Stockholm publisher Stig Edling, speaking last week, his best friend, diplomat Gunnar Hökby, a deputy ambassador in India, told him one evening,14 years ago, when he was dying of cancer, about what had been troubling him for years, but which he had kept quiet about because of his professional pledge of silence. He had been present in a hotel room when Bofors officials handed over $10m in bribes directly, in cash, in a suitcase, to Gandhi.
This allegation, if proven true, would make any testimony from Quattrocchi superfluous in proving beyond doubt that Gandhi was a corrupt man. In 1986, as deputy ambassador at Sweden’s New Delhi embassy, Hökby told Edling he had facilitated the meeting, and he was disgusted, by his boss the Swedish foreign minister’s denials that the Swedish government knew of bribes. The two plotted how to present this revelation, which would harm Congress and embarrass the Swedish government, with its squeaky clean reputation. In fact, behind its honest façade, there was a ruthless determination by the Swedish government to help its surprisingly large arms export industry. It had long looked the other way, on other arms deals, such as when Bofors issued false end user certificates to disguise illegal weapons exports to Iran and Iraq during their 1980s war. .
And now, despite Gandhi’s public disavowal of bribes, it was complicit in facilitating Bofors’s payoffs to the Indian prime minister.
Back in the summer house. the two friends decided to put off the revelation until another day. Sadly, a week later Hökby had a sudden fall and died. “He didn’t tell me the time or date, or name of the hotel, but I trusted my friend completely. He was an honourable man. He was my successor as the publisher of Sweden’s largest bookfirm, Prisma. He was of completely clear mind, and I rang later to reconfirm the details. He was very upset with the Swedish government.”
Lacking many details, Edling tried unsuccessfully to find confirmation elsewhere. Hökby’s wife and children didn’t know. He was worried. As a documentary maker, writer and TV channel owner, he had a reputation to protect. “The Swedish government would have slaughtered me.” To calm his mind, he put his findings into a novel; and, a few years later, wrote one article, but there was no follow-up. “I find that amazing,” he said. Then he did find the Bofors official, one Sigvard Ando, who witnessed the handover. “I asked: Were you there when Bofors handed over the money to Gandhi? He nodded.” He left it at that, sitting on his secret, until approached last week. Another source close to the Swedish foreign ministry contacted by me backed up Edling’s account that Hökby had a story to tell: the ageing ex-diplomat had told one or two close colleagues that he had “been there when Gandhi was paid” though the source says this was never followed up.
Why would he do it? Investigators and observers of politics that I spoke to suggested that Gandhi wanted this one off foreign cash injection to use for his Congress party’s re-election campaign money to free his party’s humiliating financial dependence on Indian businessmen’s donations, who would then often lobby for legislation or favours. Of course, they said, they could not rule out the possibility that the money would be used for Gandhi’s own personal purposes.
Gandhi might have assuaged his conscience by arguing that, since the usual money Bofors or any other arms firm would have paid to middlemen, to be dispensed to army generals and civil servants had instead been channelled to Quattrocchi and to himself directly, he was after all true to his pledge to reduce the aggregate level of corruption in Indian society.
What would be the consequences if Gandhi’s personal receipt of bribes were proven true?. The effects in India could be sensational since Rajiv’s direct involvement would come down as a bombshell. The Bofors scandal still hurts, as last January’s storm over the Quattrocchi accounts shows. One source said it would implicate Sonia Gandhi as a liar and lose Congress the next election. Having been out of power so long, Bofors could put them out of power again.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Auschwitz?
People have objected to the idea that a historian, unlike a journalist perhaps, could be a troublemaker. (Jeremy Paxman said to me once: first rule of journalism. Always set out to cause trouble.)
On the trouble maker-truth-seeker argument...well some of us are only capable of some things, we all form part of a whole. Irving is if nothing else a useful presence, a necessary part of the ecology. His research throws up questions which people simply have to answer: where is the smoking gun on Hitler's order for the holocaust etc. Maybe that's all he wants: to be respected for what he is capable of. He has always generously shared his research with anyone who asks, and - I posit - generosity might be his defining characteristic. When people find a rebuttal to the questions he raises, I think it is uncharitable for them to beat their chests and say in a rather juvenile way "Ha! We have defeated the evil holocaust denier." Rather, he sees himself as part of the collective endeavour, their success is his. I am sure he takes his work extremely seriously. I think his psychological motivation, as an outsider with no formal training, is to be accepted. And the historical establishment, who fear the dislocations his awkward questions pose, piss all over him. And of course Jews don't like him very much either, since he threatens their status quo.
If anyone has the time it is worth reading the Richard Evans attack on Irving. Evans has never written anything memorable, I had never heard of him, yet somehow he has risen to be the prof of history at Cambridge (in British nomenclature, professor is the top cheese, only one post per university).
He was paid 250,000 pounds to destroy Irving's reputation.
But the account Evans gives is of an Irving who changes his mind and is fairly open about doing so....and he also does something quite sneaky.
which is 1) establish what a holocaust denier is 2) establish that Irving is a holocaust denier because of partly agreeing and consorts with them (consortings meaning attending the same conferences, giving a pat on the back, sharing a cab etc)
And therfore that Irving is a holocaust denier. Without discussing whether what the holocaust deniers or at least Irving (who is far from hardcore, and rejected byu the extremists revisionists, who said I told you so when he lost the trial) have some good arguments.
There is something very show trially in the logic of Evans's investigation.
Like the Stalin show trials: establish what an enemy of the state is, shoiw that X is an enemy of the state, then execute him, rather than show that the enemy of the state has good arguments against communism.
On the trouble maker-truth-seeker argument...well some of us are only capable of some things, we all form part of a whole. Irving is if nothing else a useful presence, a necessary part of the ecology. His research throws up questions which people simply have to answer: where is the smoking gun on Hitler's order for the holocaust etc. Maybe that's all he wants: to be respected for what he is capable of. He has always generously shared his research with anyone who asks, and - I posit - generosity might be his defining characteristic. When people find a rebuttal to the questions he raises, I think it is uncharitable for them to beat their chests and say in a rather juvenile way "Ha! We have defeated the evil holocaust denier." Rather, he sees himself as part of the collective endeavour, their success is his. I am sure he takes his work extremely seriously. I think his psychological motivation, as an outsider with no formal training, is to be accepted. And the historical establishment, who fear the dislocations his awkward questions pose, piss all over him. And of course Jews don't like him very much either, since he threatens their status quo.
If anyone has the time it is worth reading the Richard Evans attack on Irving. Evans has never written anything memorable, I had never heard of him, yet somehow he has risen to be the prof of history at Cambridge (in British nomenclature, professor is the top cheese, only one post per university).
He was paid 250,000 pounds to destroy Irving's reputation.
But the account Evans gives is of an Irving who changes his mind and is fairly open about doing so....and he also does something quite sneaky.
which is 1) establish what a holocaust denier is 2) establish that Irving is a holocaust denier because of partly agreeing and consorts with them (consortings meaning attending the same conferences, giving a pat on the back, sharing a cab etc)
And therfore that Irving is a holocaust denier. Without discussing whether what the holocaust deniers or at least Irving (who is far from hardcore, and rejected byu the extremists revisionists, who said I told you so when he lost the trial) have some good arguments.
There is something very show trially in the logic of Evans's investigation.
Like the Stalin show trials: establish what an enemy of the state is, shoiw that X is an enemy of the state, then execute him, rather than show that the enemy of the state has good arguments against communism.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Sudan again
FACT BOX
Bildt's other involvement: Sudan. Background
Southern Sudan was and is one of the poorest areas in the world. Black and Christian and tropical, the area has since Sudan's independence been neglected by the Arab Muslum desert north. A civil war has been fought between the Government of Sudan and the SPLM, the southern people's liberation movement, the latter's goal being a unified and secular Sudan that distributes resources fairly: a woman in southern Sudan is more likely to die during childbirth than have completed primary school.
Then oil was discovered. Lundin Oil and Talisman of Canada were granted concessions the size of Wales in 1996. Reports from Amnesty, Christian Aid and Human Rights watch have savagely criticised the way in which the oil companies used the government of Sudan to protect their security and to clease the concession, while they prospect for oil. Thousands were displaced when Lundin built an all weather road from the pipeline to the Red Sea to its drilling site. In attacks reminiscent of those carried out later in Darfur, the government of Sudan cleared villages along the the path of the future road with Antonov bombers, helicopter gunships and Government of Sudan militias on horseback with assault rifles, burning huts and crop fields to prevent the displaced from returning.
"Thousands died, tens of thousands were displaced," says Egbert Wesselink of the European Coalition of Oil in Sudan. "It is a story that hasn't been nearly well enough told - Sudan's was the forgotten war."
Many of the displaced have returned, but none of the displaced received compensation, let alone a share of the oil wealth on their land. The oil companies say they built schools and hospitals, but a Canadian government report on Talisman said the hospitals were only used by troops and the locals had never heard of the school projects. There was also controversy when oil-company built airbases which were used by the Sudanese airforce for its raids.
When a media storm erupted in Sweden, Bildt was called to defend Lundin. He said: "As far as I am aware, there are no displacements in the area where Lundin operates. We could leave, but everyone we have spoken to wants us to stay and if we left someone else would take over. The Chinese for instance."
Bildt's shares in Lundin have helped make him a millionaire, Sweden's richest politician.
Two years later, Lundin pulled out of that particular oilfield, but not because of pressure from Swedish government or public opinion, but because fighting from southern rebels had made drilling impossible. The company still has, in 2007, concessions in another sector, which it hopes to develop. In contrast to Lundin's good relationship[ to the Sudanese regime, America has had sanctions against Sudan since 1997, punishes foreoign companies that operate in Sudan; and in 2004 Colin Powell called the Sudanese regime "genocidal" for its acts in Darfur. In contrast Bildt has conspicuously failed to criticise the Sudanese regime, and his deputy, Cecilia Malmstrom, former MEP, now Europe minister, who was once a foerce critic, is now siilent. It is worh noting that Bildt's other involvement that has helped make him rich, Vostok Nafta, which has invested in Gazprom, set to build the Baltic pipeline, has been called the long geopolitical arm of president Putin.
Bildt's other involvement: Sudan. Background
Southern Sudan was and is one of the poorest areas in the world. Black and Christian and tropical, the area has since Sudan's independence been neglected by the Arab Muslum desert north. A civil war has been fought between the Government of Sudan and the SPLM, the southern people's liberation movement, the latter's goal being a unified and secular Sudan that distributes resources fairly: a woman in southern Sudan is more likely to die during childbirth than have completed primary school.
Then oil was discovered. Lundin Oil and Talisman of Canada were granted concessions the size of Wales in 1996. Reports from Amnesty, Christian Aid and Human Rights watch have savagely criticised the way in which the oil companies used the government of Sudan to protect their security and to clease the concession, while they prospect for oil. Thousands were displaced when Lundin built an all weather road from the pipeline to the Red Sea to its drilling site. In attacks reminiscent of those carried out later in Darfur, the government of Sudan cleared villages along the the path of the future road with Antonov bombers, helicopter gunships and Government of Sudan militias on horseback with assault rifles, burning huts and crop fields to prevent the displaced from returning.
"Thousands died, tens of thousands were displaced," says Egbert Wesselink of the European Coalition of Oil in Sudan. "It is a story that hasn't been nearly well enough told - Sudan's was the forgotten war."
Many of the displaced have returned, but none of the displaced received compensation, let alone a share of the oil wealth on their land. The oil companies say they built schools and hospitals, but a Canadian government report on Talisman said the hospitals were only used by troops and the locals had never heard of the school projects. There was also controversy when oil-company built airbases which were used by the Sudanese airforce for its raids.
When a media storm erupted in Sweden, Bildt was called to defend Lundin. He said: "As far as I am aware, there are no displacements in the area where Lundin operates. We could leave, but everyone we have spoken to wants us to stay and if we left someone else would take over. The Chinese for instance."
Bildt's shares in Lundin have helped make him a millionaire, Sweden's richest politician.
Two years later, Lundin pulled out of that particular oilfield, but not because of pressure from Swedish government or public opinion, but because fighting from southern rebels had made drilling impossible. The company still has, in 2007, concessions in another sector, which it hopes to develop. In contrast to Lundin's good relationship[ to the Sudanese regime, America has had sanctions against Sudan since 1997, punishes foreoign companies that operate in Sudan; and in 2004 Colin Powell called the Sudanese regime "genocidal" for its acts in Darfur. In contrast Bildt has conspicuously failed to criticise the Sudanese regime, and his deputy, Cecilia Malmstrom, former MEP, now Europe minister, who was once a foerce critic, is now siilent. It is worh noting that Bildt's other involvement that has helped make him rich, Vostok Nafta, which has invested in Gazprom, set to build the Baltic pipeline, has been called the long geopolitical arm of president Putin.
Bildt and Vostok Nafta
Carl Bildt, an alleged bribe and the Baltic pipeline
It is a question with ramifications for the whole of Europe. Is Carl Bildt, Sweden's foreign minister, in the pockets of a dubious independent oil company with too close links to authoritarian regimes?
The question has been exercising the second biggest daily newspaper, Expressen, for a few weeks.
The story is this: during his period as foreign minister, Bildt has received half a million euros (4.8m kronor) from a company which has huge business interests in the prospective gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea connecting Germany to Russia, a company with big interests in EU energy policy in general.
The Swedish Green party said this was a bribe - a bribe designed to bend Bildt's decision in the pipeline's favour, since the pipeline needs his authorisation to go ahead: while it its being built by a Russian German consortium and links German Greifswald to Viborg on the Russian coast, it has to pass through Swedish territorial waters. Near the island of Gotland a pumping station will be set up, guarded by Russian soldiers,
Bildt gave a press conference explaining why he had to augment his fortune in this way (already being Sweden's richest politician, thanks to his business interests), but Expressen, which drove the issue farther than other media, was not impressed.
He said he had no choice but to cash them in; in fact, as this paper and others found out, not only was he not obliged to cash them in, his entitlement to the options lapsed with his appointment to the Swedish foreign ministry and his departure from the board of the oil firm, called Vostok Nafta. The board then, against all regulations, reinstated his right to the options, which he duly cashed in.
Furthermore, it was discoevered that, as a mere board member, Bildt should not have had any options at all. And the amount, several million kronor, was far in excess of what executives ( who are entitled to options) receive in even the biggest Swedish companies.
Why did this particular board member receive so much for doing so little? In Bildt's case it was surely partly because of the work he did for a sister company of Vostok Nafta, Lundin petroleum, both owned by the roguish and recently deceased oil entrepreneur Adolf Lundin, who functioned as a paymaster and godfather to Bildt after he left his EU posts in 2001. Bildt was a prominent board member of Lundin oil also until last autumn; and this job certainly did require much work, especially for a former prime minister of Sweden. Lundin Oil prospects for oil in a number of troubled countries, including Sudan. Lundin's role here has been heavily criticised by a number of NGOs; as complicit in the Sudanese pariah government's ethnic cleansing of the area around the oil fields so that extraction could securely take place. For a small independent oil company engaged in a dirty business and run by a man whom Bildt described as "not exactly a man of the fine salons" it was a coup to land Bildt as a board member, with his strategic skills, his negotiating experience, his articulacy and political credibility.
This was put to good use when the Swedish press got wind of the cleansings and Bildt was wheeled out to explain what Lundin was doing. (see next story) He convinced Swedish public opinion, so Lundin kept its concession, while a Canadian company prospecting a neighbouring concession didn't - lacking an effective advocate of its own in Canada. Bildt's prestige and diplomatic skills may also have help Lundin's contacts with the Sudanese presidency.
That was five years ago; today, Expressen argued, he might once again do his old company's bidding - by giving the green light to the oil pipeline. In case he forgot his loyalties, helped along by the "bribe" of the bogusly awarded share options.
Sweden's chief prosecutor, however, last week said that Bildt had no case to answer, "objectively it could be seen as a bribe, but there is no legal case", and the story has died down. It coincided with the finding that Bildt is the most popular politician in Sweden. "People like their ministers who have done time abroad; they like his cosmopolitanism" wrote one member of the public. "Who cares, people are too jealous of Bildt's contacts and his ability to make money," wrote another blogger.
The other papers started to run affectionate stories of how a stand up comedian made an impersonation of Bildt at a sports gala; the danger was over. Expressen was furious though, found a constitutional expert who called Sweden a "banana monarchy", and rang up a number of foreign journalists, from Der Spiegel to the Sydney Morning Herald, each of whom said that had Bildt been a public figure in their country, he would have been sacked. Jasper von Altenbockum, of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, said: "The equivalent situation is almost unimaginable in Germany; it would have been regarded as amoral and the criticism would have been very hard." Claudia Schoch, of the Neue Zurcher Zeitung, said: "It would be difficult for a Swiss minister to stay in his job after such an incident." A journalist from the Sydney Morning Herald said:"If the Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer had received those sums of money from any company, he would not only have been driven out of his job but driven out of politics."
These comments were duly published, but have made no impact.
Swedish focus is now on the pipeline itself, which is pushed by President Putin, opposed by the leaders of the vulnerable Baltic states and Poland, who fear the ability of Putin to pipe gas directly to western Europe will enable Russia to put pressure on its former satellite states by cutting off their supplies without threatening western Europe's.
So far Bildt has not said a word about the biggest foreign policy issue in Europe. (Nor has he talked of Africa's biggest problem, Darfur, in Sudan, the massacres in which another Bildt contact, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, is deeply implicated.) The opposition social democrats are trying to make hay out of it, calling the pipeline very problematic for Sweden's interests. There are - possibly exaggerated - stories about the dangers of disturbing old chemical weapons and mines from the second world war on the sea floor; the dossier is with the ministry of the environment. Then it's back to Bildt. whose true allegiances he has yet to demonstrate.
It is a question with ramifications for the whole of Europe. Is Carl Bildt, Sweden's foreign minister, in the pockets of a dubious independent oil company with too close links to authoritarian regimes?
The question has been exercising the second biggest daily newspaper, Expressen, for a few weeks.
The story is this: during his period as foreign minister, Bildt has received half a million euros (4.8m kronor) from a company which has huge business interests in the prospective gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea connecting Germany to Russia, a company with big interests in EU energy policy in general.
The Swedish Green party said this was a bribe - a bribe designed to bend Bildt's decision in the pipeline's favour, since the pipeline needs his authorisation to go ahead: while it its being built by a Russian German consortium and links German Greifswald to Viborg on the Russian coast, it has to pass through Swedish territorial waters. Near the island of Gotland a pumping station will be set up, guarded by Russian soldiers,
Bildt gave a press conference explaining why he had to augment his fortune in this way (already being Sweden's richest politician, thanks to his business interests), but Expressen, which drove the issue farther than other media, was not impressed.
He said he had no choice but to cash them in; in fact, as this paper and others found out, not only was he not obliged to cash them in, his entitlement to the options lapsed with his appointment to the Swedish foreign ministry and his departure from the board of the oil firm, called Vostok Nafta. The board then, against all regulations, reinstated his right to the options, which he duly cashed in.
Furthermore, it was discoevered that, as a mere board member, Bildt should not have had any options at all. And the amount, several million kronor, was far in excess of what executives ( who are entitled to options) receive in even the biggest Swedish companies.
Why did this particular board member receive so much for doing so little? In Bildt's case it was surely partly because of the work he did for a sister company of Vostok Nafta, Lundin petroleum, both owned by the roguish and recently deceased oil entrepreneur Adolf Lundin, who functioned as a paymaster and godfather to Bildt after he left his EU posts in 2001. Bildt was a prominent board member of Lundin oil also until last autumn; and this job certainly did require much work, especially for a former prime minister of Sweden. Lundin Oil prospects for oil in a number of troubled countries, including Sudan. Lundin's role here has been heavily criticised by a number of NGOs; as complicit in the Sudanese pariah government's ethnic cleansing of the area around the oil fields so that extraction could securely take place. For a small independent oil company engaged in a dirty business and run by a man whom Bildt described as "not exactly a man of the fine salons" it was a coup to land Bildt as a board member, with his strategic skills, his negotiating experience, his articulacy and political credibility.
This was put to good use when the Swedish press got wind of the cleansings and Bildt was wheeled out to explain what Lundin was doing. (see next story) He convinced Swedish public opinion, so Lundin kept its concession, while a Canadian company prospecting a neighbouring concession didn't - lacking an effective advocate of its own in Canada. Bildt's prestige and diplomatic skills may also have help Lundin's contacts with the Sudanese presidency.
That was five years ago; today, Expressen argued, he might once again do his old company's bidding - by giving the green light to the oil pipeline. In case he forgot his loyalties, helped along by the "bribe" of the bogusly awarded share options.
Sweden's chief prosecutor, however, last week said that Bildt had no case to answer, "objectively it could be seen as a bribe, but there is no legal case", and the story has died down. It coincided with the finding that Bildt is the most popular politician in Sweden. "People like their ministers who have done time abroad; they like his cosmopolitanism" wrote one member of the public. "Who cares, people are too jealous of Bildt's contacts and his ability to make money," wrote another blogger.
The other papers started to run affectionate stories of how a stand up comedian made an impersonation of Bildt at a sports gala; the danger was over. Expressen was furious though, found a constitutional expert who called Sweden a "banana monarchy", and rang up a number of foreign journalists, from Der Spiegel to the Sydney Morning Herald, each of whom said that had Bildt been a public figure in their country, he would have been sacked. Jasper von Altenbockum, of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, said: "The equivalent situation is almost unimaginable in Germany; it would have been regarded as amoral and the criticism would have been very hard." Claudia Schoch, of the Neue Zurcher Zeitung, said: "It would be difficult for a Swiss minister to stay in his job after such an incident." A journalist from the Sydney Morning Herald said:"If the Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer had received those sums of money from any company, he would not only have been driven out of his job but driven out of politics."
These comments were duly published, but have made no impact.
Swedish focus is now on the pipeline itself, which is pushed by President Putin, opposed by the leaders of the vulnerable Baltic states and Poland, who fear the ability of Putin to pipe gas directly to western Europe will enable Russia to put pressure on its former satellite states by cutting off their supplies without threatening western Europe's.
So far Bildt has not said a word about the biggest foreign policy issue in Europe. (Nor has he talked of Africa's biggest problem, Darfur, in Sudan, the massacres in which another Bildt contact, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, is deeply implicated.) The opposition social democrats are trying to make hay out of it, calling the pipeline very problematic for Sweden's interests. There are - possibly exaggerated - stories about the dangers of disturbing old chemical weapons and mines from the second world war on the sea floor; the dossier is with the ministry of the environment. Then it's back to Bildt. whose true allegiances he has yet to demonstrate.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Being outrageous
Why do people on the talkboards, whenever there is a post on holocaust denial, talk all the time about the importance of exercising free speech, instead of just....exercising it.
One outrageousness a day keeps the censors away.
I'll start: Hollywood has ruined the American mind, because day after day all their lives they are taught that the world is divided into good and evil. This simplistic way of the world has basically made America what it is.
Most Europeans, liberals and educated people tend to see the world for what it is - existing in shades of grey. Which is why we don't get enthusiastic about nuking innocent Middle Eastern countries. We simply do not believe they stand for "pure wickedness". They are not a cross between Mordor and Star Wars's Empire. America does not wear white and fights on the side of freedom of the galaxy or the Paladins of Gondor.
Now: second point. Is there a direct link between the simple duality that infects every Hollywood film and the moral dualities of the Old Testament (as opposed to the tolerant forgivingness of the new) ....and why so.
Or,put it this way: who runs Hollywood.
Now, I guess that was an anti-semitic reference. This "nonsense" been exposed to the glaring light of reasonable and intelligent and non biased minds. Now, I look forward to contributors putting their money with their mouths are, what they have been saying throughout this thread, and stepping up to the plate to quash it with the force of their arguments.
(PS The responses I got included: Hollywood is not run by Jews it is run by the Japanese, Sony etc. I responded with an an article by a Hollwood entertainment journalist that quoted Marlon Brando saying on a talk show that there never was any negative stereotyping against "kikes" because they ran it. And then went on to affirm that indeed, 60 percent of Hollywood was Jewish, and so what...the writer was Jewish. Another Israeli writer pointed more intelligently and thoughtfully that The new testement was not as dualistic as I thought, giving examples, and that if Americans hadn't embraced Hollywood, there would have been some other manicheanism to give succour to the stupid...all in the spirit of the piece I wrote. Well done.)
One outrageousness a day keeps the censors away.
I'll start: Hollywood has ruined the American mind, because day after day all their lives they are taught that the world is divided into good and evil. This simplistic way of the world has basically made America what it is.
Most Europeans, liberals and educated people tend to see the world for what it is - existing in shades of grey. Which is why we don't get enthusiastic about nuking innocent Middle Eastern countries. We simply do not believe they stand for "pure wickedness". They are not a cross between Mordor and Star Wars's Empire. America does not wear white and fights on the side of freedom of the galaxy or the Paladins of Gondor.
Now: second point. Is there a direct link between the simple duality that infects every Hollywood film and the moral dualities of the Old Testament (as opposed to the tolerant forgivingness of the new) ....and why so.
Or,put it this way: who runs Hollywood.
Now, I guess that was an anti-semitic reference. This "nonsense" been exposed to the glaring light of reasonable and intelligent and non biased minds. Now, I look forward to contributors putting their money with their mouths are, what they have been saying throughout this thread, and stepping up to the plate to quash it with the force of their arguments.
(PS The responses I got included: Hollywood is not run by Jews it is run by the Japanese, Sony etc. I responded with an an article by a Hollwood entertainment journalist that quoted Marlon Brando saying on a talk show that there never was any negative stereotyping against "kikes" because they ran it. And then went on to affirm that indeed, 60 percent of Hollywood was Jewish, and so what...the writer was Jewish. Another Israeli writer pointed more intelligently and thoughtfully that The new testement was not as dualistic as I thought, giving examples, and that if Americans hadn't embraced Hollywood, there would have been some other manicheanism to give succour to the stupid...all in the spirit of the piece I wrote. Well done.)
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Bush acquaints himself with a library
.....Perhaps it was the shift of setting for his broadcast to the nation to the White House library that made the president seem uncomfortable. With the exception of Laura, the former librarian, the Bush clan are not a bookish lot. The late Brendan Gill reported that having stayed at the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, he scoured the premises late one night in search of something with which to read himself to asleep and could only find “The Fart Book”.
Survival tip of the week
A make-or-break speech by a beleagured American president is usually preceded by a demonstration of American might somewhere on the planet and the run-up to Bush’s address Wednesday night was no exception. The AC-130 U.S. gunship that massacred a convoy of fleeing Islamists on Somalia’s southwestern border, apparently along with dozens of nomads, their families and livestock, was deployed on its mission on Sunday, to make timely newspaper headlines indicative of Bush’s determination to strike at terror wherever it may lurk.
Moral to nomads: when the US president schedules a speech, don’t herd, don’t go to wedding parties, head for the nearest cave
Moral to nomads: when the US president schedules a speech, don’t herd, don’t go to wedding parties, head for the nearest cave
So, the solution to Iraq
Any solution has to be based on sustainable equilibrium between raw power. Therefore, the US should pull out, let them fight each other to a stand still from an audience position of Kurdistan bases - with the US, perhaps, supplying the weaker side with weapons. Only when the fighting sides have made a ceasefire based on de facto relative strengths should the west/UN reintervene.
It won't be a slaughter to the end. Everything stabilises at some level of mutual satisfaction, where the weaker pays some price of submission for his continued survival - if that means a severely diminished status for the Sunni muslims so be it.
It won't be a slaughter to the end. Everything stabilises at some level of mutual satisfaction, where the weaker pays some price of submission for his continued survival - if that means a severely diminished status for the Sunni muslims so be it.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Islamists' guide to wife beating
Here
And why not? I am becoming increasingly fascinated with Muslims. I know to gorgeous western women who have fallen for Muslim men....say they reach the parts of women that (over intellectualised, modern) western men don't. Women always were a bit primitive perhaps. what do they do right
And why not? I am becoming increasingly fascinated with Muslims. I know to gorgeous western women who have fallen for Muslim men....say they reach the parts of women that (over intellectualised, modern) western men don't. Women always were a bit primitive perhaps. what do they do right
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
It's all in the birthrates
There is an interesting piece by Christopher Caldwell in the FT that picked up a book by a German academic called Heinsohn
He writes that the problem in the Muslim world is youth, not Islam, and that any society where 30% of the pop is 15-29 will start to fight. It's not ideology. When Israel built its wall the palestinians started fighting each other.
"The problem, rather, is that in a youth-bulge society there are not enough positions to provide all these young men with prestige and standing. Envy against older, inheriting brothers is unleashed. So is ambition. Military heroism presents itself as a time-honoured way for a second or third son to wrest a position of respectability from an otherwise indifferent society. Societies with a glut of young men become temperamentally different from "singleton societies" such as Europe's, where the prospect of sending an only child to war is almost unthinkable."
The point about Iran is that it has European birthrates, thanks to the revolution and heroic efforts of literacy in women.
It is a pacific country.
He writes that the problem in the Muslim world is youth, not Islam, and that any society where 30% of the pop is 15-29 will start to fight. It's not ideology. When Israel built its wall the palestinians started fighting each other.
"The problem, rather, is that in a youth-bulge society there are not enough positions to provide all these young men with prestige and standing. Envy against older, inheriting brothers is unleashed. So is ambition. Military heroism presents itself as a time-honoured way for a second or third son to wrest a position of respectability from an otherwise indifferent society. Societies with a glut of young men become temperamentally different from "singleton societies" such as Europe's, where the prospect of sending an only child to war is almost unthinkable."
The point about Iran is that it has European birthrates, thanks to the revolution and heroic efforts of literacy in women.
It is a pacific country.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Notes for MSM journalists
Why is that really interesting posts on the Guardian blo gets so few comments. I suppose it is because bloggers have nothing to say. Memo to print journalists: watch the uncommented posts, for these are your niche areas.
Jocks trashing people's homes
Why is terrorism by the strong called spreading democracy, terrorism by the weak called terrorism? Isn't Iran's support of Hizbollah essentially defensive, given it can be nuked at any moment by Israel. I repeat: Iran was attacked by Iraq and suffered first world war type losses. America has suffered a fraction of that, 3000 dead, on 911. Iran has the more virtuous victimhood.
America just doesn't give up persecuting them. They have every reason to fear and hate the west, and see the rank hypocrisy of America's support of unsavoury regimes elsewhere while focuing on the destruiction of in comparative terms a benign one whose big crime is to be independent of the US.
It is completely surrounded by nuclear powers, or US occuped ones. It saw Saddam destroyed because he didn't have nukes.
They see that America might attack them whether they have nukes or not (CIA shows them having no weapons programme.) They know tghey have oil, and that the US is run by a belligerent, hostile, much hated president worldwide.
Wouldn't you want nukes then?
I think we should relax; Iran will be responsible with nukes, knows it will be obliterated if it ever uses them.
I don't know anout Iran's mischiefmaking in Iraq. As said: terrorism is the power of the weak. Make them responsible partners rather than force them to resort to underhand protective measures.
I just distrust anything that comes from the mainstream media and the government. The BBC is dutifully reporting government planted stories that I fear are preparing the groundwork for being able to say that British jetfighters bombed Tehran this morning....little collateral damage.
If that happens, it would be an utter disgrace on this country and curse it forever.
The Iranians might say their meddling in Iraq is straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel....US direct action has murdered an estimated 200,000 Iraqis. You'd keep tabs omn your chaotic neighbour too, if you were Iranians.
Elsewhere I have read that the Iraqi shia are pretty independent of the Iranians.
Sun Tzu said, know your enemy and you will win a hundred battles. America patently doesn'yt know anything about the Middle East except the big oil govt knows it has oil and the stupid populus who dance to the pipers' tune know they are facing another "Hitler".
How many Americans come onto these talkboards and quote Churchill and his fight against fascism, to everyone's embarrassment; they are living in groundhog day too and cannot even remember three years back; it's so absurd to have this giant with a pinhead brain running our destinies.
Funny though isn't it, that China, with its expanding influence in Africa, its nukes, its giant prison camps, its murder of Falun Gong. Hu Jintao is never called Hitler.
Iran is not perfect, we agree, but sometimes you have to exaggerate to face the garbage coming from the other direction.
America must talk to Iran. And someone must drill into that idiot country's head that history and politics is complicated, and requires complex, pragmatic, multivariate solutions. You can't just going around behaving like a drunken football jock trashing other's people's homes.
I look forward to hearing what the EU has to say on this.
America just doesn't give up persecuting them. They have every reason to fear and hate the west, and see the rank hypocrisy of America's support of unsavoury regimes elsewhere while focuing on the destruiction of in comparative terms a benign one whose big crime is to be independent of the US.
It is completely surrounded by nuclear powers, or US occuped ones. It saw Saddam destroyed because he didn't have nukes.
They see that America might attack them whether they have nukes or not (CIA shows them having no weapons programme.) They know tghey have oil, and that the US is run by a belligerent, hostile, much hated president worldwide.
Wouldn't you want nukes then?
I think we should relax; Iran will be responsible with nukes, knows it will be obliterated if it ever uses them.
I don't know anout Iran's mischiefmaking in Iraq. As said: terrorism is the power of the weak. Make them responsible partners rather than force them to resort to underhand protective measures.
I just distrust anything that comes from the mainstream media and the government. The BBC is dutifully reporting government planted stories that I fear are preparing the groundwork for being able to say that British jetfighters bombed Tehran this morning....little collateral damage.
If that happens, it would be an utter disgrace on this country and curse it forever.
The Iranians might say their meddling in Iraq is straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel....US direct action has murdered an estimated 200,000 Iraqis. You'd keep tabs omn your chaotic neighbour too, if you were Iranians.
Elsewhere I have read that the Iraqi shia are pretty independent of the Iranians.
Sun Tzu said, know your enemy and you will win a hundred battles. America patently doesn'yt know anything about the Middle East except the big oil govt knows it has oil and the stupid populus who dance to the pipers' tune know they are facing another "Hitler".
How many Americans come onto these talkboards and quote Churchill and his fight against fascism, to everyone's embarrassment; they are living in groundhog day too and cannot even remember three years back; it's so absurd to have this giant with a pinhead brain running our destinies.
Funny though isn't it, that China, with its expanding influence in Africa, its nukes, its giant prison camps, its murder of Falun Gong. Hu Jintao is never called Hitler.
Iran is not perfect, we agree, but sometimes you have to exaggerate to face the garbage coming from the other direction.
America must talk to Iran. And someone must drill into that idiot country's head that history and politics is complicated, and requires complex, pragmatic, multivariate solutions. You can't just going around behaving like a drunken football jock trashing other's people's homes.
I look forward to hearing what the EU has to say on this.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Attack on Iran?
Is America going to go to war with Iran? Either directly or via its proxy Israel? Insane you might say, because it would disrupt oil supplies, send them shooting to $200 a barrel; implausible, because she hasn't enough forces. Criminal, because it contravenes the Nuremberg conventions and Iran is a country at peace that poses no threat to the US.
So I would have thought not, until I read two figures I held in high regard just over Christmas. One is Scott Ritter, the former UN chief inspector to Iraq, being interviewed in the non-mainstream Democracy Now website on Iran. He had written a book about the preparations for an upcoming war, talking to intelligence officials based the region (he as one himself), carefully scouring the Middle Eastern press for clues that never appear in the New York Times. He spoke of Mujahedeen cult groups, based in Kurdistan and Azerbaijan, once labelled terrorist by the US, now allies, infiltrating across the border into Iran, where they have ethnic brethren, to gather and collect intelligence about Iran's nuclear weapons programme on the ground. He said the Israelis were using this intelligence badly, because they applied a system of analysis that deviated from what they had learnt at the Yom Kippur war, which is to double- and triple- check all facts; intelligence these days, he said, has become more sloppy and faith based. And he predicted with great certainty that Israel would launch strikes, similar to the ones carried out on the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981. There would be tacit support from the Americans, perhaps from ships, perhaps from ground troops in Iraq.
Second, I read the reliable Seymour Hersh's latest piece in the New Yorker, dated November. He has been following Bush's Iran policy for years. He said that the CIA had issued a report earlier this autumn that denied that Iran was running a nuclear weapons programme parallel to its civilian nuclear programme. (To which it is entitled of course according to the Nuclear Proliferation treaty.) The report was based on technical intelligence collected from satellites, measuring the radioactivity of water samples and smoke plumes from factories and power plants. Additional data had been gathered by secret US and Israeli agents placing radioactivity detection devices outside suspected nuclear weapons plants. No amounts of radioactivity were found.
But worryingly this report was being ignored in the White House, where Dick Cheney, chief hawk, was taking no evidence as the fact that Iranians had them and were hiding them. An absurd and unanswerable piece of Alice and Wonderland logic. Nevertheless, it was exactly the kind of argument used to bring the US into the attack on Iraq.
So I was not surpised this morning when I saw the Sunday Times's lead story, saying that Israel had drawn up plans to destroy Iran's uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons. The piece said that two Israeli air force squadrons were training to blow up an Iranian facility by using low kilotonnage bunker busters, quoting Israeli military sources.
According to the paper, conventional laser guided bombs would tunnel under the target and then the mini nukes would be fired into the plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of fallout. “As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished,” said one of the military sources.
The paper speculated that the leaks from their Israeli military sources could be sabre rattling (combined with the arrival of US warships in the Gulf - along with British ones - who authorised them to be there in the total absence of a debate in the UK?)so as to put pressure on the Iranians to stop what they say is only a civilian nuclear programme. But it could also be that the Israelis have made up their minds and are preparing opinion for a strike. Just reading about it becomes a kind of acceding to it.
As for the evidence, the newspaper swallowed a lot of the background, presenting the Israeli line; The Sunday Times wrote: "This is enough, however, to convince some Israelis that Iran is reaching the “point of no return” at which it has the technical know-how to build a nuclear bomb."
It quoted: "Meir Dagan, head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, has told members of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, that his organisation assumes the Iranians will have a complete nuclear device by 2009."
Note how this belief, which is unsupported, is at odds with the CIA assessment.
One thing worth thinking about is that there was a supporting story on the BBC today, talking of Iranian spies' dirty tricks in Iraq - a slight shift of stance from an organisation that just three months ago ran a cultural events week on Iran to counteract US negativism. This was based on a briefing by British officials, suggesting that they could be in on the Israeli-US game to build up opinion against Iran. Note the double standards: there has been nothing on the numerous incursions by American and Israeli spies into Iran.
So it seems the Brits are on board project Middle East conflagration. How disgusting: without any public debate.
And all for what? For US Oil interests? Satisfaction of Bush's cowboy mentality?
So what can Europe do about this? Last February Angela Merkel, the chancellor, refused to make Schroder's mistake of being hostile to the US by accepting that there might be violence against Iran as a last resort - here opposing her foreign minister, the suave and popular Frank Steinmeier, who is a social democrat. In her visit to Washington last week she appeared to have changed her mind, and was totally opposed to a strike. She was unable to get a guarantee from Bush however. (He was denied his backrub.) Let us hope that she manages to create a united front against a strike among EU politicians when they convene at the general affairs council of January 23. They must put the pressure on Blair and ask: are you with us or, disastrously again, with the Americans?
So I would have thought not, until I read two figures I held in high regard just over Christmas. One is Scott Ritter, the former UN chief inspector to Iraq, being interviewed in the non-mainstream Democracy Now website on Iran. He had written a book about the preparations for an upcoming war, talking to intelligence officials based the region (he as one himself), carefully scouring the Middle Eastern press for clues that never appear in the New York Times. He spoke of Mujahedeen cult groups, based in Kurdistan and Azerbaijan, once labelled terrorist by the US, now allies, infiltrating across the border into Iran, where they have ethnic brethren, to gather and collect intelligence about Iran's nuclear weapons programme on the ground. He said the Israelis were using this intelligence badly, because they applied a system of analysis that deviated from what they had learnt at the Yom Kippur war, which is to double- and triple- check all facts; intelligence these days, he said, has become more sloppy and faith based. And he predicted with great certainty that Israel would launch strikes, similar to the ones carried out on the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981. There would be tacit support from the Americans, perhaps from ships, perhaps from ground troops in Iraq.
Second, I read the reliable Seymour Hersh's latest piece in the New Yorker, dated November. He has been following Bush's Iran policy for years. He said that the CIA had issued a report earlier this autumn that denied that Iran was running a nuclear weapons programme parallel to its civilian nuclear programme. (To which it is entitled of course according to the Nuclear Proliferation treaty.) The report was based on technical intelligence collected from satellites, measuring the radioactivity of water samples and smoke plumes from factories and power plants. Additional data had been gathered by secret US and Israeli agents placing radioactivity detection devices outside suspected nuclear weapons plants. No amounts of radioactivity were found.
But worryingly this report was being ignored in the White House, where Dick Cheney, chief hawk, was taking no evidence as the fact that Iranians had them and were hiding them. An absurd and unanswerable piece of Alice and Wonderland logic. Nevertheless, it was exactly the kind of argument used to bring the US into the attack on Iraq.
So I was not surpised this morning when I saw the Sunday Times's lead story, saying that Israel had drawn up plans to destroy Iran's uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons. The piece said that two Israeli air force squadrons were training to blow up an Iranian facility by using low kilotonnage bunker busters, quoting Israeli military sources.
According to the paper, conventional laser guided bombs would tunnel under the target and then the mini nukes would be fired into the plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of fallout. “As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished,” said one of the military sources.
The paper speculated that the leaks from their Israeli military sources could be sabre rattling (combined with the arrival of US warships in the Gulf - along with British ones - who authorised them to be there in the total absence of a debate in the UK?)so as to put pressure on the Iranians to stop what they say is only a civilian nuclear programme. But it could also be that the Israelis have made up their minds and are preparing opinion for a strike. Just reading about it becomes a kind of acceding to it.
As for the evidence, the newspaper swallowed a lot of the background, presenting the Israeli line; The Sunday Times wrote: "This is enough, however, to convince some Israelis that Iran is reaching the “point of no return” at which it has the technical know-how to build a nuclear bomb."
It quoted: "Meir Dagan, head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, has told members of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, that his organisation assumes the Iranians will have a complete nuclear device by 2009."
Note how this belief, which is unsupported, is at odds with the CIA assessment.
One thing worth thinking about is that there was a supporting story on the BBC today, talking of Iranian spies' dirty tricks in Iraq - a slight shift of stance from an organisation that just three months ago ran a cultural events week on Iran to counteract US negativism. This was based on a briefing by British officials, suggesting that they could be in on the Israeli-US game to build up opinion against Iran. Note the double standards: there has been nothing on the numerous incursions by American and Israeli spies into Iran.
So it seems the Brits are on board project Middle East conflagration. How disgusting: without any public debate.
And all for what? For US Oil interests? Satisfaction of Bush's cowboy mentality?
So what can Europe do about this? Last February Angela Merkel, the chancellor, refused to make Schroder's mistake of being hostile to the US by accepting that there might be violence against Iran as a last resort - here opposing her foreign minister, the suave and popular Frank Steinmeier, who is a social democrat. In her visit to Washington last week she appeared to have changed her mind, and was totally opposed to a strike. She was unable to get a guarantee from Bush however. (He was denied his backrub.) Let us hope that she manages to create a united front against a strike among EU politicians when they convene at the general affairs council of January 23. They must put the pressure on Blair and ask: are you with us or, disastrously again, with the Americans?
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Bildt revisited
Carl Bildt is being touted as Europe’s foreign minister, a job that requires tact and negotiation skills. Presumably being an accessory to ethnic cleansing would count against a candidate for this top job.
Yes, we all know Bildt made peace in the ravaged Balkans. But we are talking about Sudan, where Bildt was board member of Lundin, Sweden’s largest independent oil company, which developed an oil field there and facilitated the displacement and murder of thousands of southern Sudanese in the process.
None of this is secret. There are several reports, from Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, Christian Aid, as well as reports from UN rapporteurs, testifying to the massive displacements of villagers cleared by government forces in 2000 so that Lundin could build a road between the pipeline head and its drilling site. They are available on the web: just type in Sudan and oil and the name of the NGO.
While the displacements were happening, Lundin was shtum, not replying to letters or faxes about the goings on. Then, in September, after an NGO spotter plane reported flying over the deserted landscape of what was named Block 5B, an area the size of Belgium, military trucks trundling up and down the oil road the only sign of life, Lundin finally responded to a letter from Human Rights Watch that their security staff had not witnessed any displacements and so they disagreed with observers’ allegations that displacements were taking place. A few months later, when Christian Aid, which wrote the most vociferous report, detailing people being bombed out of their homes by helicopter gunships, turned up in Sweden, there was a brief scandal. Bildt was wheeled in front of the media. He denied any forced displacements had taken place, said Lundin had and would comply with Amnesty rules.
Which more of less backed the point the NGOs were making, most cogently put by Amnesty which wrote:
“By turning a blind eye, in the name of security, to the violations committed by government forces and troops allied to them, [the oil companies] indirectly contribute to violations continuing. The silence of powerful oil companies in the face of injustice and human rights violations cannot be seen as neutral.”
Nevertheless, he was a private person, slipped away, the story died, and Lundin continued its developments – with increasing difficulty, as rebel movements of the displaced peoples fought back. It eventually pulled out in 2003; thousands of deaths later.
Bildt has since refused to talk about this adventurous period in his life, between his Balkans peacemaker post and his accession as Swedish foreign minister in September, a period of association with Lundin that has made him rich through selling its shares, the richest politician in Sweden.
But silence on Sudan won’t do if he goes for the foreign minister’s post, when he would surely have to answer some questions. What did he know about the cleansings and when did he know it. There was ample prior information. He could have presented a better development plan for Lundin, that avoided mass killings What is his response to those NGOs who said they contacted Lundin while the clearings were taking place and received no answer? And when it was absolutely crystal clear that he was in a position to know, when interviewed in front of the Swedish public, why Lundin, why did they still not do anything to improve the human rights situation? Perhaps it is because he still denied – still denies - it ever happened. In which case he could usefully be confronted by some survivors. Here is an eyewitness story, from a displaced child, who lived beyond the area of initial displacment, in 2000, but who was caught up in second wave of clearings in 2002 not far from the Lundin road.
“Dak Yiey is about eight years old. Until mid February 2002 Dak, lived in a small village near Nhialdiu in Rubkona County of Western Upper Nile in southern Sudan. In mid February the forces of the Sudanese government attacked his village. They came first with Antonov bombers - something they had done for the previous few days, but then they came with two helicopter gunships, and many soldiers on horseback, and ground troops. The horse soldiers rode two to a horse - one riding the horse, the other shooting from behind with his gun.
Dak Yiey and his cousin Pouk Deng - also about eight years old - were frightened by the bombers but terrified by the gunships and horsemen. They had never witnessed this type of attack before. When they came to his village, set on the wide open spaces of Western Upper Nile, he and Pouk, like everyone else in the village, ran for their lives. The two of them ran towards the grassy swamps at the edge of the village - the only place which enables them to hide and not be seen and which is
difficult for the horsemen to enter. Dak was in front and Pouk was just behind as they sprinted for cover. The gunships were coming behind them sweeping over the village shooting at anything that moved. The gunships flew low over them firing as they went past. Dak reached the swamp but unfortunately Pouk Deng was shot - in the head - and killed.
After the attack and when the soldiers had gone - having burnt down his village - Dak, his family and other survivors, all traumatised by the attack, fled quickly and almost empty handed westwards, crossing many rivers and swamps until they reached a place they felt would be safe. They feel safer
between the streams, because the horse soldiers cannot cross so quickly and attack them. However they have no protection from the gunships or Antonovs should they come again. It took them days to reach this place, and Dak now lives with many thousands of other displaced people in the south west part of Western Upper Nile. All these people from all the villages around Nhialdiu have gone
west and crossed the streams to hide where they feel safer. Dak, like the others, doesn't know if he will ever be able to return to his home. For now he is too afraid - he still has nightmares and misses his cousin.”
This testimony was recorded a year after Bildt said Lundin would be living up to all Amnesty requirements.
Yes, we all know Bildt made peace in the ravaged Balkans. But we are talking about Sudan, where Bildt was board member of Lundin, Sweden’s largest independent oil company, which developed an oil field there and facilitated the displacement and murder of thousands of southern Sudanese in the process.
None of this is secret. There are several reports, from Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, Christian Aid, as well as reports from UN rapporteurs, testifying to the massive displacements of villagers cleared by government forces in 2000 so that Lundin could build a road between the pipeline head and its drilling site. They are available on the web: just type in Sudan and oil and the name of the NGO.
While the displacements were happening, Lundin was shtum, not replying to letters or faxes about the goings on. Then, in September, after an NGO spotter plane reported flying over the deserted landscape of what was named Block 5B, an area the size of Belgium, military trucks trundling up and down the oil road the only sign of life, Lundin finally responded to a letter from Human Rights Watch that their security staff had not witnessed any displacements and so they disagreed with observers’ allegations that displacements were taking place. A few months later, when Christian Aid, which wrote the most vociferous report, detailing people being bombed out of their homes by helicopter gunships, turned up in Sweden, there was a brief scandal. Bildt was wheeled in front of the media. He denied any forced displacements had taken place, said Lundin had and would comply with Amnesty rules.
Which more of less backed the point the NGOs were making, most cogently put by Amnesty which wrote:
“By turning a blind eye, in the name of security, to the violations committed by government forces and troops allied to them, [the oil companies] indirectly contribute to violations continuing. The silence of powerful oil companies in the face of injustice and human rights violations cannot be seen as neutral.”
Nevertheless, he was a private person, slipped away, the story died, and Lundin continued its developments – with increasing difficulty, as rebel movements of the displaced peoples fought back. It eventually pulled out in 2003; thousands of deaths later.
Bildt has since refused to talk about this adventurous period in his life, between his Balkans peacemaker post and his accession as Swedish foreign minister in September, a period of association with Lundin that has made him rich through selling its shares, the richest politician in Sweden.
But silence on Sudan won’t do if he goes for the foreign minister’s post, when he would surely have to answer some questions. What did he know about the cleansings and when did he know it. There was ample prior information. He could have presented a better development plan for Lundin, that avoided mass killings What is his response to those NGOs who said they contacted Lundin while the clearings were taking place and received no answer? And when it was absolutely crystal clear that he was in a position to know, when interviewed in front of the Swedish public, why Lundin, why did they still not do anything to improve the human rights situation? Perhaps it is because he still denied – still denies - it ever happened. In which case he could usefully be confronted by some survivors. Here is an eyewitness story, from a displaced child, who lived beyond the area of initial displacment, in 2000, but who was caught up in second wave of clearings in 2002 not far from the Lundin road.
“Dak Yiey is about eight years old. Until mid February 2002 Dak, lived in a small village near Nhialdiu in Rubkona County of Western Upper Nile in southern Sudan. In mid February the forces of the Sudanese government attacked his village. They came first with Antonov bombers - something they had done for the previous few days, but then they came with two helicopter gunships, and many soldiers on horseback, and ground troops. The horse soldiers rode two to a horse - one riding the horse, the other shooting from behind with his gun.
Dak Yiey and his cousin Pouk Deng - also about eight years old - were frightened by the bombers but terrified by the gunships and horsemen. They had never witnessed this type of attack before. When they came to his village, set on the wide open spaces of Western Upper Nile, he and Pouk, like everyone else in the village, ran for their lives. The two of them ran towards the grassy swamps at the edge of the village - the only place which enables them to hide and not be seen and which is
difficult for the horsemen to enter. Dak was in front and Pouk was just behind as they sprinted for cover. The gunships were coming behind them sweeping over the village shooting at anything that moved. The gunships flew low over them firing as they went past. Dak reached the swamp but unfortunately Pouk Deng was shot - in the head - and killed.
After the attack and when the soldiers had gone - having burnt down his village - Dak, his family and other survivors, all traumatised by the attack, fled quickly and almost empty handed westwards, crossing many rivers and swamps until they reached a place they felt would be safe. They feel safer
between the streams, because the horse soldiers cannot cross so quickly and attack them. However they have no protection from the gunships or Antonovs should they come again. It took them days to reach this place, and Dak now lives with many thousands of other displaced people in the south west part of Western Upper Nile. All these people from all the villages around Nhialdiu have gone
west and crossed the streams to hide where they feel safer. Dak, like the others, doesn't know if he will ever be able to return to his home. For now he is too afraid - he still has nightmares and misses his cousin.”
This testimony was recorded a year after Bildt said Lundin would be living up to all Amnesty requirements.
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