washingtontimes.com James Morrison

News and dispatches from the diplomatic corridor.

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     Indian Ambassador Lalit Mansingh denounced India's nuclear rival Pakistan in a recent speech for failing to stop terrorists from creeping into Pakistan's remote western mountainous region bordering Afghanistan.      "In short, terrorism is back in business in Pakistan," Mr. Mansingh told the Woman's National Democratic Club.      Mr. Mansingh blamed Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for allowing remnants of Afghanistan's brutal Taliban government and al Qaeda terrorists to find refuge in Pakistan's tribal areas.      Gen. Musharraf last year promised to prevent Pakistan from becoming a haven for terrorists and to end the cross-border infiltration of militants into Indian-controlled Kashmir.      "Musharraf has gone back on every single commitment he made last year," Mr. Mansingh said.      The ambassador noted that Pakistan had "nurtured the Taliban and fostered the growth of al Qaeda" in Afghanistan before the United States crushed the regime and scattered the terrorists' base.      "It comes as no surprise to us that Osama bin Laden and his gang of terrorists have found a welcome sanctuary in the rugged mountains of western Pakistan," Mr. Mansingh said.      "Two of the four provinces of Pakistan that adjoin Afghanistan are today led by governments that are openly supportive of bin Laden and al Qaeda."      On Iraq, Mr. Mansingh said India supports the goals of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, which requires Saddam Hussein to disclose and dismantle his weapons of mass destruction.      "The issue of foremost concern to the people of the United States today is Iraq," he said.      "Naturally," he added, "it is our hope that the crisis can still be resolved peacefully and that whatever further action is contemplated against Iraq will be undertaken with the authority of the United Nations."      Mr. Mansingh said India is worried about the economic consequences of a war in Iraq.      "In calculating the costs of war, one must not ignore its potential impact on the stability and economy of the region and, indeed, on the well-being and security of the long-suffering Iraqi people," he said.      "India has special concerns arising from the presence of millions of our expatriates who live and work in the Gulf region, from threat to the security of oil supplies and [from the] volatility that could follow military action."            Maisto to OAS      John Maisto, former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela and now a Latin America specialist at the National Security Council, is expected to be nominated to serve as U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States, an administration source said.      Mr. Maisto would replace Roger Noriega, who is awaiting Senate confirmation on his nomination to the post of assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.      Mr. Maisto's pending nomination has upset conservatives who see him as soft on leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. As ambassador to Venezuela, Mr. Maisto privately assured members of Congress that Mr. Chavez should not be taken seriously.      "Now look at Venezuela," the administration source said, referring to the recent widespread protests against Mr. Chavez that crippled the country's vital oil industry.            New embassy in Kenya      The United States next week will dedicate a new embassy in Kenya, four and a half years after the old one was destroyed in a terrorist bombing claimed by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.      The embassy, which has operated out of temporary quarters, said yesterday that three top State Department officials will attend a flag-raising ceremony at the new diplomatic complex in Gigiri, a suburb of the capital, Nairobi.      Grant S. Green Jr., undersecretary for management, will preside over the ceremony. He will be accompanied by Charles E. Williams, director of overseas buildings operations, and Walter H. Kansteiner III, assistant secretary of state for African affairs.      The new diplomatic complex will include a memorial to the 12 Americans and 201 Kenyans killed in the Aug. 7, 1998, bombing at the old embassy in downtown Nairobi. The massive blast injured 5,000 others.      A bomb on the same day damaged the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania and killed 11 Tanzanians.

To contact James Morrison, call 202/636-3297, fax 202/832-7278 or e-mail jmorrison@washingtontimes.com.

www.republicons.org by: Scott   Thomas 2/27/2003   In his speech on February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell once again asserted that Saddam Hussein had ties to al Qaeda (yawn). Yet even intelligence operatives in the FBI and CIA argue that such ties don't exist. Their unending threats and unwavering stance is likened to grasping at straws in an already failed policy that has already caused untold suffering to the Iraqi people. Powell's tactics on Wednesday, then Ashcroft's "orange alert" on Friday, Feb. 7, was simply an attempt to further their selfish goals through fear-mongering and is still not a case for war. He and his cohorts are still using Americans' sorrow and fear about September 11th to "sell" this war to us. I, for one, am not buying.

It also masks the the hypocrisy behind the inspections. Though Saddam Hussein, and brutal despots like him, should certainly be disarmed through international efforts, the bigger question remains as to why this is being carried out by governments with just as many human rights violations in their closet, past and present. The constant mantra of "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, repeated ad nauseum, and obviously fabricated evidence with no possibility of verification, cannot hide the fact that the governments of the United States, Great Britain, France, and others, have much larger arsenals -- including nuclear weapons, have colonized the entire planet, and whose own business interests are pressing the need for a full-scale ground invasion-- to get that oil.

At this point in history, the US military/industrial/media complex stands as the biggest threat to world peace and security. With a nuclear arsenal of over 7,000 missiles, conventional weapons tipped with depleted uranium (DU) which remains deadly for centuries, hundreds of thousands of military personnel, bases and nuclear submarines throughout the world, why hasn't the UN resolved to disarm the US? Our government invented the Bomb, is the only nation on Earth to actually use it twice, carried out a low-intensity nuclear war in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq for the past dozen years using DU, and now has a policy of pre-emptive strikes on any nation it feels threatens its global domination. It has invaded many nations weaker than itself or provided military support for fascist regimes throughout the years for no other reason than their desire for self-determination that did not agree with US business interests: the Philippines, Cuba, Korea, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Iraq, Iran, Columbia, Venezuela, et al. This is certainly more colonization than Saddam Hussein has ever achieved, yet no one in the UN seems to notice the pink elephant in the middle of the room. Or perhaps UN justice is selective, not according to the rule of law, but the law of the jungle

Since Bush and Co. cannot make the case for war, I would like to make the case for impeachment. In 1999, Congress saw fit to impeach (unsuccessfully) Pres. Bill Clinton, not for his war crimes in Yugoslavia and Iraq (impeachable offenses), but for a sex scandal because the Republicans saw an opportunity to discredit the Democrats for a 2000 victory. Yet Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft (and maybe Powell) are responsible for blatantly violating the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, continuing an ongoing war against Iraqi civilians, ordering "first strike" aggression towards Afghanistan, Iraq, and possibly N. Korea, ordering and condoning assassinations, torture and physical and psychological coercion of prisoners, and ordering false statements and propaganda to be given to the public, all violations of international law and the Geneva convention. Bush & Co. have also backed out of the IBM treaty and reinvigorated Star Wars, sparking a new arms race. These guys make Nixon look like a petty thief.

For more info go to VoteToImpeach.org and sign the petition.

Scott Thomas is a peace activist and co-chair of the Taos/Rio Arriba County (TRAC) Green Party in Taos, NM   For more information visit: www.VoteToImpeach.org

washingtontimes.com EDITORIAL • February 27, 2003

     In Venezuela, the heavy-handed charges against two opposition leaders suggest President Hugo Chavez is determined to prove his harshest detractors right. And the best that can be said of the recent violence perpetrated by Chavez supporters is that the president has become unable to secure the safety of citizens.      At midnight last Wednesday, business leader Carlos Fernandez, one of the leading organizers of a two-month strike that ended Feb. 4, was arrested by armed police agents while at a restaurant and charged with rebellion and incitement, among other things. Labor leader Carlos Ortega, also a strike organizer, faces a warrant for his arrest on the same charges and has gone into hiding. The Venezuelan Embassy didn't respond to our request for comments on these actions.      These grave charges seem inconsistent with involvement in a strike, however injurious it may have been to the economy. But they become even more worrisome when examining their context.      After the strike was called on Dec. 2, Mr. Chavez began threatening extra-judicial retaliation against those involved. Earlier this month, when Venezuela imposed new currency-exchange restrictions, Mr. Chavez said "orders [to officials] will be: not one dollar to coup mongers." And Mr. Chavez had "sentenced" strikers from the bully pulpit. Shortly before Mr. Fernandez was arrested last week, Mr. Chavez said oil-industry strikers were "terrorists" and "coup mongers" and must be sent to jail. On Friday, Mr. Chavez demanded 20-year prison terms for Messrs. Fernandez and Ortega. "These oligarchs believed that they were untouchable. There are no untouchables in Venezuela. A criminal is a criminal," he said.      Mr. Chavez has managed to carry out his extra-judicial designs through the judiciary. And human-rights groups are taking notice. "The judiciary has a key role in preventing these events from triggering an escalation of the human-rights crisis," said Amnesty International in a statement Friday. Amnesty also has expressed concern regarding the vigilantes wreaking violence to counter opposition to Mr. Chavez. Earlier this month, the corpses of three dissident soldiers and one woman were found, with signs of torture. The victims had participated in an anti-Chavez demonstrations. Amnesty called for an impartial investigation into the killings.      The terrorist bombings at the Spanish Embassy and Colombian Embassy yesterday were also perpetrated in Mr. Chavez's name. Leaflets scattered at both sites said, "Our revolution will not be negotiated, only deepened." Interestingly, Mr. Chavez had recently lashed out against the governments of Spain, the United States and Colombia for criticizing the Chavez administration. "I ask of all of the countries of this continent and the world . . . Are you going to stop this meddling?" He said, "It's worth remembering that the Spanish ambassador was here, in this room, applauding the [April] coup," and added, "We say the same thing to the government in Washington. Stop making mistakes."      The timing of the bombings, which injured five persons, was not lost on the White House. "We note that these bombings followed the sharp verbal attacks by President Chavez on the international community as well as Venezuelans," said State Department deputy spokesman Philip Reeker.      Any of these recent incidents is worrisome enough. Collectively, they suggest that the current Venezuelan government is not merely a left-wing populist regime, but may be evolving into a police state. If Mr. Chavez does not pull back into constitutional government, it will be a tragedy for the Venezuelan people and the beginning of a substantial foreign-policy danger for the hemisphere.

www.grandforks.com Posted on Wed, Feb. 26, 2003 GEORGE GEDDA Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Top State Department officials told a delegation of Venezuelans Wednesday that political disruptions have created serious doubts about the country's reliability as an oil supplier, an administration official said.

They called on the Venezuelan government and the opposition to negotiate a settlement to their differences, said Charles Barclay, spokesman for the State Department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.

The officials passed the message to Energy and Mines Minister Rafael Ramirez and the president of the Venezuelan state oil company, Ali Rodriguez.

The Venezuelan delegation was told that the way for the country to restore its reputation as a reliable oil supplier is for the government and the opposition to reach agreement on a "constitutional, democratic, peaceful and electoral solution," Barclay said.

The U.S. officials also urged that the parties work with Organization of American States Secretary General Cesar Gaviria, who has tried in vain to promote a settlement.

Wednesday's meeting occurred three days after Chavez assailed Gaviria for speaking out about the detention of a strike leader, saying his comments were "totally out of place."

He also criticized State Department spokesman Richard Boucher for saying last week that Washington was concerned that the detention could hinder peace talks.

"Gentlemen of Washington ... we don't meddle in your internal affairs," Chavez said. "Why does a spokesman have to come out and say they are worried? No, that is Venezuela's business."

Venezuela has been a leading source of U.S. oil imports, accounting last year for about 1.5 million barrels a day. Most analysts place part of the blame for the low supplies of crude and petroleum products in the United States on the loss of Venezuelan oil imports.

A general strike that was called in December as a protest against Chavez paralyzed the oil industry for a time and devastated the national economy. Oil production has recovered somewhat in recent weeks but is still well below normal.

www.bayarea.com Posted on Wed, Feb. 26, 2003 By GORDON WITTENMYER Saint Paul Pioneer Press

FORT MYERS, Fla. - Gasoline was so scarce that Johan Santana once traded shifts with relatives for eight days waiting in line at a gas station that had no gas but told customers the tanker truck was due any day.

The fuel was so valuable that once he decided to buy some on the black market and paid 30 times the government rate, he sped home as quickly as possible with his 195 liters out of fear he would be robbed, or worse.

"Just carrying gas in your car is dangerous," the Minnesota Twins pitcher said. "I knew I was in danger the whole time. But you have no choice."

That kind of danger became a way of life this winter for the major leaguers and minor leaguers who make their year-round homes in their native Venezuela - the South American political hot spot, where anti-government protesters have been killed and a nearly 3-month-old general strike by business owners threatens to destroy the economy.

"It's scary," said Twins second baseman Luis Rivas, whose hometown of LaGuaira is just outside the Venezuelan capital, and epicenter of unrest, Caracas. He now lives several hours away but has friends and family near the capital.

"We couldn't do nothing," Rivas said. "You never know what's going to happen_something bad. You have to be in your home."

Santana, Rivas and pitcher Juan Rincon, who lives in the oil-rich region around Lake Maracaibo, spent much of their offseasons as virtual shut-ins, avoiding the streets except as necessary to make discreet purchases of gasoline or to drive to Caracas for visa applications or to get to the airport to fly to Florida for spring training.

"It's a nightmare," Rivas said.

The cause of the upheaval is strong-arm President Hugo Chavez, an ally of Cuba's Fidel Castro who is trying to take greater control of what has been a representative government. As anger among the private business powers grew in the tropical nation made prosperous by oil, nationwide business shutdowns began - a one-day strike in November and then another on Dec. 2 that has yet to be lifted.

JOBLESS AND DESPERATE

The strike has put people across the country out of work, resulted in countless protests, most visibly_and deadly_in Caracas, and filled the streets of Venezuela with growing numbers of people, many with growing desperation.

"Every time you step out of your home, you're in danger," Rincon said. "People aren't working. A lot of people were fired from the petroleum plants. The malls have been closed for almost a month.

"People in the streets might think you have money. I'm lucky in my hometown (of 4 million people); not too many people know me."

Many banks are open for only a few hours daily and no longer operate a currency exchange program because of the wildly fluctuating value of the Bolivar, Venezuela's currency. The players protect their U.S. wages and bonuses with base accounts in this country, transferring funds to Venezuelan accounts as needed.

Other businesses also operate within strictly limited hours and are starting to suffer supply shortages, Rincon said. Makers of soft drinks, beer and other products have shut down.

And with the gas shortage, police cars are becoming an increasingly rare sight, along with other emergency vehicles such as ambulances.

"We've never been through this before," Rincon said.

And the Twins thought contraction was tough to survive.

"There was a lot of concern," Minnesota manager Ron Gardenhire said. "You throw the baseball stuff out the window. It comes down to their lives. You have guys getting robbed for gas, people getting taken out of their cars and beaten."

As recently as 1991, economic reforms in Venezuela after oil prices dropped resulted in widespread protests, with hundreds killed. And the government endured two attempted coups in 1992.

But no political or economic crisis in the lifetimes of these early-20-something Twins has lasted this long or affected their lives so personally_and never has it canceled their winter baseball season.

BASEBALL SEASON CANCELED

With the start of the Dec. 2 strike came the end of the Venezuelan winter league. Santana was due to start pitching for his team Dec. 4. Rivas managed to play one game before the strike. And Rincon started early because he anticipated a possible strike but still got in only 11 innings before the shutdown.

Rincon, who had access to workout facilities and players to throw to near his home, has appeared strong in the early part of camp. Santana, who didn't throw all winter, brought a lingering hamstring pull from a late-December attempt at conditioning. Rivas didn't practice much and put on five to 10 pounds during the forced break.

"I'm glad I took some rest," Santana said. "But now I've got to start all over again."

Said Rivas: "You can tell the difference. It's going to be hard. But I got here early (by about a week) to start, and I don't think it's going to be a problem."

If anything, the biggest problem for the Venezuelan players, once Major League Baseball intervened to make special arrangements for teams to obtain their players' visas, also was the source of their biggest relief: Leaving behind their country_and their loved ones.

"I still worry," Santana said. "I'm glad I'm here, because I need to play. But I'm still worried because my family and friends are there. It's not easy to be here and think about friends there and the whole situation going on right now."

Rivas has a sister and grandmother living near Caracas.

"I wanted to leave, but sometimes I wanted to stay with my family," he said.

For whatever might have been lost in conditioning and practice time, the Twins were fortunate. None of their players from Venezuela, nor the handful of U.S. coaches and players sent there for winter league ball, was directly involved in any of the violence. No one was robbed or hurt.

And, so far, the harrowing offseason hasn't made them start house hunting in the United States.

"Still, I love my country," Santana said. "That's where I'm from. My family's all there. As long as I can, I'll stay there, and we'll see how it goes.

"Hopefully, everything will change, and it will get back to normal."