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MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2011
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Rocket fired from Gaza Troops kill 2 Palestinians
AL-WAYFIYAH: A Libyan rebel waves the rebellion flag at the site of wrecked military vehicles belonging to Muammar Gaddafi forces hit by French warplanes yesterday.— AP
‘Enough!’ the Arabs say, but will it be enough? AMMAN: The cry first rang out from the fed-up people of Lisbon and Madrid: “Basta!” It echoed across South America, to the banging of pots and pans. It resounded in the old capitals of a new Asia, was taken up in a Polish shipyard, awakened a slumbering Africa. And now, a generation later, it’s heard in the city squares of the Arab world: “Kifaya!” Enough. From Morocco in the west to Yemen in the east, the sudden rising up of ordinary Arabs against their autocratic rulers looks like a belated postscript to the changes that swept the globe in the final decades of the last century - a period scholars dubbed the “third wave of democracy.” “Now we’re witnessing the fourth wave of democracy,” a smiling Oraib al-Rantawi, Jordanian political activist, assured a visitor to Amman. “We’re lucky to live to see it.” You could see it one brilliant afternoon on Talal Street in this cream-colored city of minarets and hills, where more than 2,000 Jordanians marched along in a river of flags and protest signs, adding their voices to those in almost a dozen other Arab lands demanding greater freedoms, a bigger say in running their societies. “The people across the region have risen and our leaders are still asleep,” protest leader Sufian Tal told these unhappy subjects of Jordan’s King Abdullah II. “Enough is enough!” In Amman and Cairo, in Sanaa and Benghazi, it’s clear: They’ve had enough. But is the Arab world truly on the threshold of democracy? Why did it take so long? And why in our lifetimes did this idea of “one person, one vote” spread so swiftly over the globe? Twenty-six floors up in a Wall Street office tower, near the spot where George Washington took the oath to lead a newborn American democracy, Arch Puddington and his Freedom House staff meticulously track the idea’s planetary progress. For almost 40 years, this think tank’s New York researchers have annually assessed the state of democracy and associated freedoms, classifying nations in three categories - free, partly free or not free. The numbers tell a striking story: Almost half the world’s nations were rated not free in 1972, but by last year that proportion had dropped below one-quarter. “What impresses me is how it’s exploded when you had centuries when democracies didn’t exist at all, and for quite a few years were restricted to a few places,” Puddington said. Political scientists identify democracy’s “first wave” as the revolutionary period of the 18th and 19th centuries, and the second as the post-World War II restoration of traditional democracies. The third wave, they now see, began in the mid-1970s, when people in Portugal and Spain threw off decades of military dictatorship. That upheaval helped inspire their former Latin American colonies to topple their own authoritarians-in-uniform in the 1980s, when the rhythmic banging of cookware in the Santiago night signaled that Chileans, for one, were fed up. The wave rolled on to east Asia, to the Philippines’ “People Power” revolution, South Korea’s embrace of civilian democracy, Taiwan’s ending of one-party rule. Then, in 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. Eastern Europe’s postcommunist transition, foreshadowed by Solidarity’s rise in a Gdansk shipyard, delivered a dozen nations to Puddington’s democratic column. The wave then reached sub-Saharan Africa, where the number of countries with multiparty electoral systems soared from a mere three in 1989 to 18 by 1995. From about 40 democracies worldwide late in Spain’s Franco dictatorship, the number stood at 123 by 2005. Despots by the dozen - the Duvaliers and Marcoses, Stroessners and Ceausescus - were abruptly consigned to a grim past. Elections in some transformed states proved not
always free and fair. Some failed to protect minorities against the “tyranny of the majority,” the bane of mass rule. Some did little to better their impoverished people’s everyday lives. But, seemingly overnight, the world’s political landscape had unmistakably shifted, to power for the people. What had happened? A complex of factors is usually cited: the failed economic policies and military misadventures of the generals and strongmen; rising education, expanding middle classes, improved communications widening people’s horizons; a liberalizing Catholic Church in Latin America; a well-financed push by the US and the European Union to nurture more democracies through aid and political training programs. Puddington sees another big driver: the fading of what many once viewed as a non-democratic alternative, the communist promise of economic development with social equality in a one-party state. “In the ‘70s, looking back, the communist idea had exhausted itself as an economic force,” he said. When the third wave finally ebbed a decade ago, only Arab societies were left untouched, noted alRantawi, director of Amman’s Al-Quds Center for Political Studies. “Sometimes we believed we were another kind of human,” he said with a laugh. “Practically all the world had become democratic, except us.” Why? Again, a list of reasons is cited: poverty and illiteracy; a postcolonial period, including wars with Israel, that empowered local militaries; oil wealth enriching traditional sheiks and other authoritarians; the US and other oil-importing powers favoring the predictability of friendly autocrats. Now the shock of Tunis and Cairo, the removal of two seemingly immovable presidents, accompanied by explosions of protest elsewhere, seems to be leapfrogging those obstacles, propelled by the Internet and instant communication. But where the fed-up Arab millions are headed in Egypt and Tunisia, and possibly soon in other lands, is the unanswered question of the moment. “Democracy is not the certain outcome,” said Vidar Helgesen, head of the Sweden-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, a 27-nation consortium that aids political transitions. “Mass protests can overthrow a dictatorship but cannot build democracy,” Helgesen said. That requires overhauling constitutions, establishing free, fair elections, adopting laws guaranteeing political rights, freedom of expression, independent judiciaries. The biggest uncertainties hang over the biggest Arab nation, the 80 million people of Egypt. Will its military commanders, “interim” leaders now that President Hosni Mubarak is gone, fully surrender the control they have exercised directly or indirectly for almost 60 years? Can strong political parties emerge soon enough? Will the wellorganized Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood dominate a new Egypt? This prospect of Islamist ascendancy has long been another obstacle to Arab democracy. Arab leaders, US politicians, Israeli voices spoke nervously of “one man, one vote, one time” - imposition of undemocratic, puritanical rule if open elections put religious parties in power. It’s a fear that led Algeria’s military to suppress an incipient democracy there as Islamists neared election victory in 1992. But other voices today insist political Islam doesn’t endanger democracy. They point to the “Turkish model,” where an elected Islamist party governs without remaking the secular, multiparty state. “The majority of Muslims in the Middle East today believe there is no incompatibility between Islam and democracy,” said Radwan Masmoudi, founder of the USbased Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy. — AP
JERUSALEM: Palestinian militants fired a rocket into southern Israel yesterday, while Israeli troops killed two Palestinians in a new outburst of violence along the volatile border with Gaza. The violence came a day after Palestinian militants fired some 50 mortar shells into Israel - the heaviest Palestinian assault since a bruising Israeli military offensive two years ago. Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers have largely honored an informal cease-fire since the 2009 war, in which the Islamic militant group suffered heavy losses. Israel says the Iranian-backed Hamas has recovered, and a pattern of rocket attacks and Israeli reprisals has gained steam in recent weeks. The Hamas-allied Popular Resistance Committees claimed responsibility for yesterday ’s rocket attack, which caused no injuries or damage. Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Adham Abu Salmia said a 22-year-old man in Gaza suffered moderate shrapnel wounds from Israeli tank fire after the rocket attack. The Israeli military said militants fired upon troops patrolling the Gaza-Israel border, and troops returned fire, identifying one hit. Abu Salmia said rescue teams also recovered the bodies of two Palestinian men who were killed overnight along the border. There were no details on their identities, and the military had no comment. Hamas has signaled it is not interested in renewing major violence with Israel since the 2009 offensive. Some 1,400 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians, were
NUSSEIRAT: A Palestinian woman reacts during the funeral of slain Palestinian Salah Abu Attwa and Imad Faraj, both 17-year-olds yesterday.— AP
killed in the fighting, in addition to 13 Israelis. Most violence emanating out of Gaza since then has been carried out by smaller rivals to Hamas. But the Islamic group claimed responsibility for some of Saturday’s mortar fire, which slightly wounded two Israelis. Israel’s UN ambassador, Meron Reuben, sent a letter of complaint Saturday about the mortar fire to Secretary-General Ban Kimoon and to the UN Security Council, demanding that they condemn continued attacks on Israel. “Such attacks constitute a clear violation of international
law and must be addressed with the utmost seriousness,” Reuben wrote. Hamas has ruled Gaza since seizing power in a five-day civil war against the rival Fatah movement in 2007. As a wave of pro-democracy unrest reverberates through the region, both sides have faced growing calls to reconcile. Fatah, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, controls only the West Bank. On Saturday, Hamas assaulted protesters and journalists at a demonstration calling for reconciliation. New York-based Human Rights Watch criticized Hamas for Saturday’s crackdown, as well
as a similar attack at another demonstration last Tuesday. “It is a dismal reflection on Hamas that it is violently cracking down on peaceful demonstrators calling for political reconciliation,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director of Human Rights Watch. “ This is just the latest instance of Hamas assaulting Palestinians’ fundamental freedoms.” Last week, Abbas pledged he would travel to Gaza to meet with Hamas leaders there in a renewed bid for reconciliation. Previous attempts to reconcile the two dueling factions have failed. — AP
Kurds celebrate spring festival ANKARA: Tens of thousands of Kurds celebrated a spring festival across Turkey yesterday with many chanting support for a Kurdish rebel group and its imprisoned leader, as clashes resur faced between Kurdish guerrillas and Turkish troops. About 30 Kurds, wearing khaki guerrilla uniforms and flashing victory signs, marched in unison amid tens of thousands of Kurds gathered in Istanbul to celebrate the Nowruz festival, which also drew large crowds in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the country’s Kurdish-dominated southeast. Some demonstrators waved images of imprisoned rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan, which is illegal. Kurdish activists used the festival, which has ended in violence in the past, to highlight demands for autonomy and other rights such as education in the Kurdish language. Meanwhile, the autonomy-seeking Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, threatened to “retaliate” against the military’s antirebel operations, pro-Kurdish Firat news agency reported. This year’s celebrations come after the rebels ended a unilateral ceasefire, accusing the government of not responding to their demands for an end to the prosecution of elected Kurdish mayors and for improvement of prison conditions for Ocalan. Turkish troops killed four Kurdish rebels in a clash near the city of Bingol on Friday, increasing the number of rebels killed since the truce ended on Feb. 28 to seven, the military said. An offi-
ANKARA: A man jumps over a bonfire as Kurds gather to celebrate the start of their New Year, Nowruz, yesterday. — AFP
cer and a pro-government village guard were wounded, it said. “We are calling on the prime minister to stop these operations,” the Anatolia news agency quoted Gultan Kisanak, deputy chairperson of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, as saying in an address to crowds in Diyarbakir. “The Kurdish people want freedom, peace and brotherhood. Give an ear to the sound of this arena.
Enough, enough, enough.” Mevlude Tanrikulu, a Kurdish mother whose son, Zubeyir, joined the rebel group a decade ago, echoed a similar call in an inter view with AP Television News in Diyarbakir on Friday. “We don’t want blood to be shed. Death is a cold feeling, we don’t want death,” Tanrikulu said. “We don’t want young people to die, it does not matter if the person is a rebel or a soldier.” Turkey cate-
Iraqis call for boycott of Saudi goods over Bahrain BAGHDAD: An Iraqi Shiite newspaper called yesterday for a boycott of goods from Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Gulf countries that have supported the government of Bahrain in a crackdown against a mainly Shi’ite opposition. Buying Saudi and Gulf goods contributes to the “slaughter of the Bahraini people” and boycotting them is a religious duty, the Al-Bayyna daily newspaper said in a front page headline that demonstrated the escalating regional rhetoric over Bahrain. Thousands of Iraqi Shiites have taken to the streets this week to protest against intervention by Saudi and other Gulf militaries in Bahrain, an issue which has cast a spotlight on Iraq’s own sectarian divisions after years of war. Bahrain invited Gulf troops in, and its security forces cleared protesters from a central square. Its main opposition groups, led by the largest Shi’ite opposition party Wefaq, have since eased their conditions on talks with the Sunni ruling family to try to end the crisis. Iraq, like Bahrain, has a Shiite majority that complained for decades of oppression under a Sunni ruling class that dominates throughout the Arab world. Prime Minister Nuri Al-
Maliki has said the intervention by Saudi and other Gulf troops in Bahrain risks igniting sectarian tensions. Shi’ite Iran has complained to the United Nations about the Gulf states’ intervention in Bahrain, and in another sign yesterday of rising tensions between the Sunni Muslim-ruled island kingdom and Iran, a diplomatic source told Reuters Bahrain had expelled the Iranian charge d’affaires. Protests have also been held in Lebanon, which along with Bahrain and Iraq is one of the rare Arab states where Shiites outnumber Sunnis. Baghdad has had uneasy relations with its overwhelmingly Sunni Arab neighbors since US troops toppled Iraq’s Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003 allowing a Shi’ite-led government to come to power. “We, in the name of the oppressed Iraqi and Bahraini people, ask our top clerics especially (Grand Ayatollah) Ali Al-Sistani to release a Fatwa (religious order) to fight those arrogant regimes economically and boycott their goods,” Al-Bayyna wrote. Sistani, who rarely intervenes publicly in politics, has called on the authorities in Bahrain to stop using force against peaceful demonstrators. — Reuters
gorically refuses any cease-fire, vowing to fight the rebels, who are branded as terrorists by the West, until they lay down arms or are killed. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul denied discrimination against the Kurdish minority. “Whatever their ethnic roots, language, beliefs and political views, everyone is an integral and equal citizen of this countr y,” Gul said.— AP
2 die in botched bombing in Nigeria JOS: A botched bombing near a church yesterday morning killed two people in a Nigerian city beset by religious and ethnic violence where hundreds have died in the last few months alone, authorities said. The explosion comes after soldiers recently discovered a truck loaded with explosives, detonators and more than 33,000 pounds of ammunition in the troubled city of Jos. It also comes ahead of crucial April elections in Nigeria, which is Africa’s most populous nation. The bomb detonated as two people rode a motorcycle in the city of Jos, an epicenter of massacres and targeted killings between Christians and Muslims, Plateau state police commissioner Abdurrahman Akanu said. The blast destroyed shops around a nearby church, but didn’t kill or injure any passers-by, he said. “The two of them died and burned down beyond recognition,” Akanu said. The commissioner said police would continue to investigate the failed bombing. He did not offer any possible target for the attack. Paramilitary police officers blocked journalists from the scene, though smoke could be seen rising from the neighborhood. Residents began taking all the possessions they could carry and fleeing the area. Jos sits in Nigeria’s “middle belt,” where dozens of ethnic groups vie for control of fertile lands. Politics, jobs and land often motivate violence that falls along religious lines that has left thousands dead in recent years. Human Rights Watch says 200 people have died since December. —AP