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Loya Jirga inAfghanistan at the end of this page. |
ARTICLES & TEXTS www.wsws.org:
3 January 2002
Oil
company adviser named US representative to Afghanistan by Patrick
Martin
President
Bush has appointed a former aide to the American oil company Unocal,
Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, as special envoy to Afghanistan. The
nomination was announced December 31, nine days after the US-backed
interim government of Hamid Karzai took office in Kabul. The
nomination underscores the real economic and financial interests at
stake in the US military intervention in Central Asia. Khalilzad is
intimately involved in the long-running US efforts to obtain direct
access to the oil and gas resources of the region, largely unexploited
but believed to be the second largest in the world after the Persian
Gulf. As
an adviser for Unocal, Khalilzad drew up a risk analysis of a proposed
gas pipeline from the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan across
Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. He participated in talks
between the oil company and Taliban officials in 1997, which were
aimed at implementing a 1995 agreement to build the pipeline across
western Afghanistan. Unocal
was the lead company in the formation of the Centgas consortium, whose
purpose was to bring to market natural gas from the Dauletabad Field
in south-eastern Turkmenistan, one of the world’s largest. The $2
billion project involved a 48-inch diameter pipeline from the
Afghanistan-Turkmenistan border, passing near the cities of Herat and
Kandahar, crossing into Pakistan near Quetta and linking with existing
pipelines at Multan. An additional $600 million extension to India was
also under consideration. Khalilzad
also lobbied publicly for a more sympathetic US government policy
towards the Taliban. Four years ago, in an op-ed article in the Washington
Post, he defended the Taliban regime against accusations that it
was a sponsor of terrorism, writing, “The Taliban does not practice
the anti-U.S. style of fundamentalism practiced by Iran.” “We
should ... be willing to offer recognition and humanitarian assistance
and to promote international economic reconstruction,” he declared.
“It is time for the United States to reengage” the Afghan regime.
This “reengagement” would, of course, have been enormously
profitable to Unocal, which was otherwise unable to bring gas and oil
to market from landlocked Turkmenistan. Khalilzad
only shifted his position on the Taliban after the Clinton
administration fired cruise missiles at targets in Afghanistan in
August 1998, claiming that terrorists under the direction of Afghan-based
Osama bin Laden were responsible for bombing US embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania. One day after the attack, Unocal put Centgas on hold. Two
months later it abandoned all plans for a trans-Afghan pipeline. The
oil interests began to look towards a post-Taliban Afghanistan, and so
did their representatives in the US national security establishment. Liasion
to Islamic guerrillas Born
in Mazar-e Sharif in 1951, Khalilzad hails from the old ruling elite
of Afghanistan. His father was an aide to King Zahir Shah, who ruled
the country until 1973. Khalilzad was a graduate student at the
University of Chicago, an intellectual centre for the American right-wing,
when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Khalilzad
became an American citizen, while serving as a key link between US
imperialism and the Islamic fundamentalist mujahedin fighting the
Soviet-backed regime in Kabul—the milieu out of which both the
Taliban and bin Laden’s Al Qaeda group arose. He was a special
adviser to the State Department during the Reagan administration,
lobbying successfully for accelerated US military aid to the mujahidin,
including hand-held Stinger anti-aircraft missiles which played a key
role in the war. He later became undersecretary of defense in the
administration of Bush’s father, during the US war against Iraq,
then went to the Rand Corporation, a top US military think tank. After
Bush was installed as president by a 5-4 vote of the US Supreme Court,
Khalilzad headed the Bush-Cheney transition team for the Defense
Department and advised incoming Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Significantly, however, he was not named to a subcabinet position,
which would have required Senate confirmation and might have provoked
uncomfortable questions about his role as an oil company adviser in
Central Asia and intermediary with the Taliban. Instead, he was named
to the National Security Council, where no confirmation vote was
needed. At
the NSC Khalilzad reports to Condoleeza Rice, the national security
adviser, who also served as an oil company consultant on Central Asia.
After serving in the first Bush administration from 1989 to 1992, Rice
was placed on the board of directors of Chevron Corporation and served
as its principal expert on Kazakhstan, where Chevron holds the largest
concession of any of the international oil companies. The oil industry
connections of Bush and Cheney are well known, but little has been
said in the media about the prominent role being played in Afghan
policy by officials who advised the oil industry on Central Asia. One
of the few commentaries in the America media about this aspect of the
US military campaign appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle
last September 26. Staff writer Frank Viviano observed: “The hidden
stakes in the war against terrorism can be summed up in a single word:
oil. The map of terrorist sanctuaries and targets in the Middle East
and Central Asia is also, to an extraordinary degree, a map of the
world’s principal energy sources in the 21st century.... It is
inevitable that the war against terrorism will be seen by many as a
war on behalf of America’s Chevron, Exxon, and Arco; France’s
TotalFinaElf; British Petroleum; Royal Dutch Shell and other
multinational giants, which have hundreds of billions of dollars of
investment in the region.” Silence
in the media This
reality is well understood in official Washington, but the most
important corporate-controlled media outlets—the television networks
and major national daily newspapers—have maintained silence that
amounts to deliberate, politically motivated self-censorship. The
sole recent exception is an article which appeared December 15 in the New
York Times business section, headlined, “As the War Shifts
Alliances, Oil Deals Follow.” The Times reported, “The
State Department is exploring the potential for post-Taliban energy
projects in the region, which has more than 6 percent of the world’s
proven oil reserves and almost 40 percent of its gas reserves.” The
Times noted that during a visit in early December to Kazakhstan,
“Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said he was ‘particularly
impressed’ with the money that American oil companies were investing
there. He estimated that $200 billion could flow into Kazakhstan
during the next 5 to 10 years.” Secretary
of Energy Spencer Abraham also pushed US oil investments in the region
during a November visit to Russia, on which he was accompanied by
David J. O’Reilly, chairman of ChevronTexaco. Defense
Secretary Rumsfeld has also played a role in the ongoing oil pipeline
maneuvers. During a December 14 visit to Baku, capital of Azerbaijan,
he assured officials of the oil-rich Caspian state that the
administration would lift sanctions imposed in 1992 in the wake of the
conflict with Armenia over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabak. Both
Azerbaijan and Armenia have aligned themselves with the US military
thrust into Central Asia, offering the Pentagon transit rights and use
of airfields. Rumsfeld’s visit and his conciliatory remarks were the
reward. Rumsfeld told President Haydar Aliyev that the administration
had reached agreement with congressional leaders to waive the
sanctions. On
November 28 the White House released a statement hailing the official
opening of the first new pipeline by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium,
a joint venture of Russia, Kazakhstan, Oman, ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobil
and several other oil companies. The pipeline connects the huge Tengiz
oilfield in northwestern Kazakhstan to the Russian Black Sea port of
Novorossiysk, where tankers are loaded for the world market. US
companies put up $1 billion of the $2.65 billion construction cost. The
Bush statement declared, “The CPC project also advances my
Administration’s National Energy Policy by developing a network of
multiple Caspian pipelines that also includes the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan,
Baku-Supsa, and Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipelines and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum
gas pipeline.” There
was little US press coverage of this announcement. Nor did the media
refer to the fact that the pipeline consortium involved in the Baku-Ceyhan
plan, led by the British oil company BP, is represented by the law
firm of Baker & Botts. The principal attorney at this firm is
James Baker III, secretary of state under Bush’s father and chief
spokesman for the 2000 Bush campaign during its successful effort to
shut down the Florida vote recount. ********
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Tehran
– Evening with BUBU (Black
on Black, by Ana M. Briongos,chapter V,
fragment) I
don’t know if it was the caviar, the home-made vodka or the water up
north, but the fact is I’ve got a case of the runs that’s going to
give me plenty of opportunities to check out the state of the
country’s toilets over the next few days. Report to follow. Down
on Ferdowsi Avenue, the dollar is now worth 2460 rials.
I changed a hundred-dollar bill, and was given four bundles that
won’t fit into my pocket. In
the afternoon we go to Rave’s house for tea; she greets us with open
arms, and serves the tea with little pistachio cakes, flat like tarts,
round and green. They’re delicious. Irene has brought a present for
Bubu from Barcelona: a beauty kit full of cosmetics, creams, powders,
red lipsticks, pearl-coloured nail-polish and glass-bead necklaces.
Bubu is thrilled, but her cousins start teasing her and she gets cross
and goes red; something they said about a boy has embarrassed her and
made her blush. Although she is basically good-natured, she goes sulky,
then gets fed up and with a very serious air says four words I can’t
catch. When people are gently making fun of her, she can stop them in
their tracks. I realise that she is, in fact, very proud. In
the kitchen, the meal is being prepared; we’re staying for dinner.
Rave is coming and going, listening without speaking, but the look on
her face betrays a certain worry, borne with Eastern patience and
resignation. She gives me the family photo albums and finds me a place
on the sofa at the edge of the conversation. Bubu is sitting in front
of me, in an armchair, painting her nails rose-pearl: quiet, busy and
pensive, from time to time she says a few words I can’t understand
and laughs to herself. The family is talking about her, what she might
do in the future, and about far-off countries. I watch her and wonder
what she is feeling: anxiety, probably, but I don’t know how to
communicate with her, and she hasn’t even looked at me since we
arrived. For her, I don’t even exist. The only thing I can do is
smile at her when she looks up, but I can tell she’s looking
straight through me as if were transparent. There’s no sign of
recognition. A
bit later on, while I’m busy looking at the photos of Nuri in
Hamburg, I feel somebody sit down very close beside me. It’s Bubu,
come to look at the photos with me. I don’t move, or say anything,
or even look at her, so as not to break the spell. I let the warmth of
our bodies touching take care of the communication. After a few long,
precarious minutes, Bubu starts showing me the photos, pointing out
Nuri each time she appears and laughing happily. In spite of my shaky
F€rsƒ and her opaque speech, we understand each other perfectly. In
these moments shared with Bubu, life is sweet. The
group around the table on the other side of the room is in a constant
state of flux. Relatives keep arriving and sitting down, while the
others squash up to make room. They are talking about Nuri, Bubu,
visas, Hamburg, Australia and Sweden. I can tell it’s an important
conversation, and that the family is planning its future in a faraway
country. The
news is that Rave’s children and grandchildren, the ones left in
Iran with whom she and Bubu live, have just obtained visas to emigrate
to Australia, and must leave within two months. In this short space of
time they have to organise their departure and sell their apartment,
because they need the money for the trip. The problem is working out
what will happen to Rave and Bubu. Rave is old, her sight is very weak,
and she needs medical attention. She suffers from intense pain (she
points to her cheek as she explains) caused by a herpes zoster
infection, and she uses opium to make it bearable. Apparently there is
a very good specialist in Barcelona . . . Ideally, she would end up
living in Hamburg with Nuri, or in Sweden with the family of one of
her other children. But even if Rave could get a visa, Bubu wouldn’t
have a chance, they say. No developed country is going to take in a
mongoloid girl, especially not from Iran. What a world, I think, as I
sit listening to the conversation and feeling clammy. The warmth of
Bubu’s body close beside me gives me comfort. My heart is telling me
that Bubu shouldn’t leave Iran: she’s at ease here, knows the
language and manages well in this environment; she’s safe and happy.
I don’t know why this problem, which is really none of my business,
has begun to bother me. The
couple who have managed to obtain visas are happy, and can’t pass up
the opportunity to leave the country and start a new life. They have
two children – a boy of fifteen and a girl of seventeen – who are
stifled by the contradictions of life in Tehran. They want them to go
to a good school and get a good education, rather than spending all
day in front of the television zapping from channel to foreign channel
and dreaming of another world. All their close relatives have already
left and now their big chance has come. It has taken them years, and
cost them all their savings: many tomans
have had to change hands discreetly to clear all sorts of bureaucratic
obstacles from their path. And now, at last, the moment has come to
make the break. They chose Australia because they have friends there
who emigrated a few years ago and already have a shop. Their friends
have told them that they could set up a shop too and that the
Australian government will help them, especially with the children. Hand
in hand on the sofa, Bubu and I eat a delicious stew with lentils and
dried lemon, while watching the video of Now Ruz in Hamburg last year,
with Nuri surrounded by Iranians of all ages, proposing toasts, eating,
dancing, laughing and kidding around, like people anywhere in the
world when they celebrate with family and friends. While
we’re eating, a racket drowns out the conversation. The kids have
put a Michael Jackson video on, and there he is on the screen,
contorting himself and yelling, at full volume. On
the way home in the car, Irene and Bahram talk about the problem with
Rave and the girl. Almost everyone is saying they can’t stay in
Tehran, because they won’t have an apartment, and since none of Rave’s
children will be left in the country, some other relative would have
to take them in and look after them. Although Bahram is not convinced,
Irene thinks that the first thing to do is to get Rave to see Dr
Barraquer in Barcelona before she goes blind. She’s determined to
help, and prepared to do whatever it takes to make this consultation
happen. And where Rave goes, Bubu has to go as well. Irene can be like
a steamroller; when she gets a project into her head, she’ll move
heaven and earth to carry it out. I am beginning to realise that the
aim of her current crusade is to take Rave and Bubu to Barcelona, and
see about the rest later . . . Before bed, Bahram and his mother recite poetry for us, hand in hand. Quite amazing. Some relatives and neighbours drop by, as they do each day, and join in the recital. All Iranians know lots of poems, by Hafez, Saadi, Ferdowsi . . . and they like to recite them when they get together. One starts off, then another takes over, and it’s a moving experience for everybody. Bahram’s mother brings over the thick volume of Hafez’s poems and gives it to me to open at any page. The poem will reveal my destiny. They read it aloud. The poem says I will share the aroma of wine and the scent of Golestani roses with the poor and the footloose, and that my heart’s thirst for foreign lands will never be quenched. For me it’s a moment of glory. Then the book changes hands, and the ceremony continues. Wherever in the world two Iranians meet, chances are they will end up hand in hand reciting poetry. Bricklayers at work don’t sing, they recite poems by Omar Khayyam. In Iran, poetry has always been the way to resist oppression; its coded language fosters wordplay, and helps lovers, members of the underground and everyone, in the end, to sublimate aspirations that can’t be realised in this wretched world. *****
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Interview in French Pierre
Centlivres, professeur honoraire de l’Université de Neuchâtel,
est quelque peu agacé de voir que l’affaire des bouddhas de
Bamiyan tient en
haleine les médias du monde entier et qu’elle suscite mille démarches
de hautes personnalités internationales à Kaboul, alors même que
des organisations comme le HCR ou le CICR n’arrivent pas
à recueillir auprès des gouvernements occidentaux le minimum nécessaire
à la survie de la population afghane.
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Robert Fisk: Gangsters, murderers and
stooges used to endorse Bush's vision of 'democracy' The Independent-UK Washington wants the loya jirga to succeed. True, far too many of its pliant warlords – the Pashtun and Tajik gangsters whom the Americans paid in thousands of dollars for their sometimes loyal alliance against Osama bin Laden – have been trying to bribe and bamboozle their own candidates into power once they realised that the "grand assembly" of Afghans would actually be held today. And true, there has been intimidation and delegates murdered. But a successful interim government – whatever its chances of producing fair parliamentary elections – is vital for the United States. Firstly, it will allow President Bush, despite his failure to capture either Mr bin Laden or the Pimpernel-like Mullah Omar, to claim that America has fulfilled its promise to bring "democracy" to Afghanistan. Secondly – and more importantly – because it is America's ticket out of the country. As an article in the Wall Street Journal, the President's best friend in his "war on terror", put it last week, nation-building "certainly beats keeping crack [sic] US troops on the Afghan-Pakistan border for the next 10 to 15 years". But even if the democrats and the killers and murderers of Afghanistan – let us not be squeamish about some of the "delegates" – bring off their tribal rites today, it's by no means certain that Afghanistan's central authority will be able to do any more than they have already: rule the streets of Kabul while regional warlords – including one of their own vice-ministers – battle with rival mafiosi in the rest of the country. Hamid Karzai, the head of the present interim government, has only one popular mandate in Afghanistan. It doesn't come from the thugs of the Northern Alliance who "liberated" Kabul from the Taliban last November. Nor does it come from his own Pashtun people, with whom his prestige has rested only upon his personal integrity. It comes from his friends in the West, those who advised him, dressed him in his stunning green robes and paid for his advancement. It comes from those Western nations – stand up, all of us – who have promised to fund, through him, the regeneration of Afghanistan. The gang leaders of Afghanistan have agreed to let Mr Karzai remain leader of the next interim government. But at present, those same mafia bosses are running many of the major cities of Afghanistan. Humanitarian organisations and charities are, in many cases, still forced to funnel their aid through these ruthless men, in Mazar-i-Sharif, in Nangahar province, in Khost. Voters in the forthcoming elections know that their humanitarian aid comes via the warlords. So who will they vote for in parliamentary elections? Mr Karzai is trying to form the country's first non-sectarian political group – allegedly with the brother of Ahmed Shah Masood, the Tajik leader murdered two days before the 11 September atrocities in the United States. And loya jirgas have their uses. While by no means pliant, the British used them to maintain their control of Afghanistan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The wretched President Nadjibullah – he who was emasculated and then strangled by the Taliban in 1996 – persuaded two loya jirgas to keep him in power. So with American money behind him, Mr Karzai may have a good chance to go on leading Afghanistan – at least for the moment.
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