Asia News Digest
China Pressures Howard To Postpone North Korea Blockade Plans
Plans to rehearse a sea blockade against North Korea in the Coral Sea in September, which were to include the U.S., Australia, and any other countries they could drag along, were put on hold by Australian Prime Minister John Howard during his visit to Beijing on Aug. 19. Howard, desperate to hang on to the increasingly important Chinese investment and trade relations, was clearly pressured by the Chinese to cancel the provocative exercises. Howard said that the exercises were "now rather in the background, on the back burner, because of the very helpful trends which have emerged," in China's dealing with the North Korean crisis.
Howard claimed that Australia and China had virtually identical goals for North Korea, in seeking a peaceful outcome that guaranteed Pyongyang had no nuclear capacity. He said Beijing was the "ideal location" for the peace talks.
High-Powered U.S. Diplomatic Team Announced for Philippines Talks
The United States has asked five of its former ambassadors to the Philippines, and other high-profile diplomats, to mediate in an "unofficial capacity," in the talks between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the U.S. embassy in Manila announced Aug. 19. The open conflict between State and Defense Departments in recent months has extended to the issue of the role of the U.S. military in the Philippines. Such "big guns" from State may indicate an effort to circumvent the neo-cons at DOD, who want to re-establish a permanent U.S. military presence in the Philippines, using the "war on terrorism" in the southern provinces as an excuse.
The envoys invited to participate are Richard Solomon, Nicholas Platt, Stephen Bosworth, Richard W. Murphy, and Frank Wisner, all of whom are participating under the auspices of the U.S. Institute for Peace, with the talks to be conducted in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Also invited to participate are Chester A Crocker, Marine Corps Gen. (ret.) Anthony Zinni, and former Deputy Chief of Mission in Manila Eugene Martin. Murphy, Zinni, USIP president Dr. Harriet Hentges, and Martin were in Manila last week to meet President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the government's negotiating team, Moro leaders, senior police and military, House and Senate members, religious leaders, and civil society. Philippines Foreign Minster Ople said talks would start before the end of August.
Rebel Philippines Officers Testify on Mutiny
Testifying before a government-appointed commission of inquiry, the head of the recent abortive coup attempt against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Lt. Antonio Trillanes, said that he had met directly with President Arroyo just two weeks before the July 27 action, and told her that Defense Minister Reyes and Army Intelligence chief Corpus were selling arms to the terrorists and separatists, and were complicit in terrorist bombings, but that Arroyo had refused to listen. "Instead of opening her mind to the serious allegations," he said, "she went on berating me and paraded me through the media. I cannot find the words to describe how arrogant our President was."
He denied allegations that he and his associates were attempting a coup. He also urged the firing of all the generals: "You can count on one hand the morally upright generals in the Armed Forces."
Another of the mutineers reported that he had been ordered to organize an operation to throw grenades into mosques, which he had refused to do. The Commission told him they were only interested in hearing about the mutiny.
Philippines Asked To Allow U.S. Military Base There
U.S. bases in the Philippines were closed down 12 years ago, when the Philippines Senate refused to extend a treaty. Foreign bases on Philippine soil were subsequently banned in the country's Constitution. On Aug. 18, however, Pentagon officials, led by U.S. Army Gen. (ret.) Robert Sennewald, raised the issue with the Presidential Commission on the Visiting Forces Agreement during a closed-door briefing at the Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs. EIR's Lyndon LaRouche has warned for some time, that this was the intent all along in the U.S. military involvement in "terrorist hunting" in the Philippines, whose ultimate aim is a confrontation with China.
"They said the Philippines might miss important opportunities in the relocation of U.S. military facilities in East Asia. They wanted to know if the Philippines is taking advantage of some of these relocations," said Hermes Dorado, deputy executive director of the commission. Foreign affairs undersecretary Amado Valdez, executive director of the commission, said Filipinos have reservations toward the idea of re-basing, and instead proposed the establishment of an international facility in Clark and Subic that may be used by other countries, such as Singapore and Australia.
Dorado said, "I told them that we have a love-hate relationship. We support the U.S. and all its activities worldwide, but when it comes to returning the bases here, it will be difficult. The answer to that question is difficult to predict, considering that there is a need for recognition of sovereignty."
Australia's Howard Imposes His Man on Pacific Islands Forum
Overturning the standing policy of the 16 member nations of the Pacific Islands Forum for choosing their secretary general by consensus, Australian Prime Minister John Howard demanded, when there was no consensus, that the members vote by secret ballot for Greg Urwin, Howard's choice as "pro-consul" to the mini-states of the South Pacific. Howard said Urwin will lead the group in scrapping the policy of respect for sovereignty, endorsing the recent Australian military intervention in the Solomon Islands, and setting up a "regional police training initiative," run by the Aussies, as a step toward a regional intervention force. Similar interventions for economic and "governance" misdeeds (in the eyes of Howard) are being prepared, in what the Australian Financial Review called "a further erosion of the Forum's traditional unwillingness to interfere in members' internal political affairs."
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark gave her endorsement to the "reforms."
Afghanistan Continues Descent into Chaos
As violence erupts all over eastern and southeastern Afghanistan (there is evidence that the Afghan rebelssome of whom are Taliban, while others definitely are notare behind it) a vehicle belonging to the British charity Save the Children-U.K. came under gunfire in the northern province of Badakshan on Aug. 19. This is the first time such an incident has been reported from Badakhshan in recent days.
On the same day, a bomb ripped through the home of Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of Afghan interim President Hamid Karzai, in Kandahar. There was no comment from President Karzai, who was the target of an attempted assassination in southern Kandahar on Sept. 5, 2002.
Attacks by anti-government insurgents have become increasingly bold and deadly in recent days, despite the presence of about 11,000 U.S.-UK coalition forces and 5,000 international troops, now under NATO. Hundreds of rebels are attacking the police stations each day, in eastern Afghanistan, particularly in the provinces of Paktika, Kunar, Paktia, and Nangarhar. Reports indicate that the eastern province attacks were coordinated by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a former Mujahideen and former Taliban Minister of frontier affairs, and the former Governor of Nangarhar province, Mullah Abdul Kabir.
Pakistani Cleric Declares Fatwa Against Iraq Deployments
Maulana Samiul Haq, leader of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), the six-party opposition Islamic group, and the main opposition party in the National Assembly of Pakistan, read out a fatwa (edict) on the occasion of Pakistan's Independence Day Aug. 14. It said: "Sending Pakistani troops [to Iraq], whose basic duties include jihad, and whose country's Constitution vows loyalty to Muslims of the entire Islamic world, is not only against the orders of the Holy Koran, and against the collective conscience of the Islamic community, but is also against the Pakistan Constitution and against the manifesto of the armed forces."
Maulana Samiul Haq said any Muslim who goes to Iraq to fight on behalf of the United States would run the risk of losing his right to remain a Muslim. "If any Muslim dies in the hands of the Iraqis, he won't deserve to be called a Muslim, but will be considered guilty of committing the cardinal sin of trying to kill fellow Muslims." He even threatened these "sinners" that for them, even the funeral prayers may not be said. "I say his body can be then sent to America, so Bush can perform his burial rites," Maulana Samiul Haq added.
South Korean Crisis Deepens
After driving Hyundai Asan chairman Chung Mong-hun to suicide Aug. 4, the Seoul prosecutors (involved in investigating charges that Hyundai paid huge sums of money to North Korea to facilitate the meeting between the North's Kim Jong-il and South Korea's then-President Kim Dae-jung) on Aug. 11 expanded their witch-hunt, arresting Kwon Roh-kap, adviser to the ruling Millennium Democratic Party and key confidante to former President Kim Dae-jung, for accepting "several million dollars" in bribes from Hyundai in 2000. Investigators raided Kwon's house and dragged him in for questioning, saying that "crucial evidence was obtained during a round of questioning of the late Hyundai Asan chairman Chung Mong-hun last month."
"Chung Mong Hun's death puts a huge question mark over the future of investment in North Korea," said author Michael Breen to the New York Times Aug. 7. Chung won permission for tour buses to start crossing the demilitarized zone this Septemberthe first over-land crossing of the DMZ in over 50 years. But this was only weeks after Seoul's right-wing-controlled National Assembly voted to cut the project off from further government subsidies, which totalled $18 million last year. Without the government subsidies, Hyundai Asan, Chung's flagship company, has to operate deeply in the red in the North.
And now, thanks to the IMF's free-market "reforms," Hyundai's old business methods can't help them avoid bankruptcy. "When he [Chung] looked at North Korea, he thought of the old way the Koreans made business: nation-building, and not primarily looking at profit," Breen points out, quite accurately. "You bribe where you have to, you borrow where you have to, you go into debtbut in the end, the result is worth it. Well, most companies here [in Seoul] can't operate like that anymore," he points out.
Hyundai Asan is now going broke, but Chung's five brothers, who each run another Hyundai company, have all declined to bail out Hyundai Asan. "Officers at the Hyundai Motor Group have said they must make investment decisions based on profit potential, pointedly noting that 46% of their shareholders are foreigners," as the New York Times put it.
U.S. Blocks SE Asian Governments' Access to Terrorist Hambali
The U.S. appears not to be sharing whatever it may have gleaned from the interrogation of alleged al-Qaeda/Jemaah Islamiya suspect Hambali. In fact, the U.S. is not revealing even where Hambali is being held, although he was taken into custody by a Thai/CIA team, in Thailand, sometime in early August.
Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, whose nation has been the hardest hit by terror bombings, had to call President George W. Bush on Aug. 16 to ask for access to Hambali, an Indonesian citizen. Repeated requests have thus far gained no results. ASEAN sources have expressed concern that Hambali may be shipped to Guantanamo, and thus out of their reach.
Hambali is a product of the U.S.-backed anti-Soviet movement in Afghanistan, where he was a graduate of Mujahideen training. His wife, Noralwizah Lee Abdullah, from Malaysia's Sabah province, was turned over to Malaysia, where she is being held under the country's Internal Security Act.
China Rejects Isolation of Myanmar
Unlike the United States and the European Union, China is playing a critical role in seeking a way out of the political deadlock in Myanmar (Burma). In late August, Beijing hosted 32 top leaders of Burma's State Peace and Development Council in a visit to China.
China agreed on Aug. 16 to advance a U.S.$200-million loan for a power project near Myanmar's second-largest city Mandalay, amid reports that China is discussing further military cooperation. China has rejected the resort to sanctions, and has clearly indicated it will not back efforts to isolate the junta.
In a statement issued in Beijing, Guo Boxiong, Vice Chairman of the Chinese Central Military Commission, said: "The people of China are keen to develop the long-standing friendly, neighborly, and cooperative ties with Myanmar in the new century." The economic importance of the talks can be seen in the presence of Gen. Maung Aye, No. 2 in the Myanmar government, and deputy head of the armed forces. Maung Aye is also chairman of the key National Industrial Development Committee, the National Agricultural and Economic Development Committee, and the National Trade Committee. He is joined by two other senior government leaders with important economic posts, Lt. Gen. Thura Shwe Mann and Lt.-Gen. Soe Win.
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