| |
|
29. mars 2005
|
|
Norwegian politicians are typically the first to raise alarms about issues related to human rights and international law, but what happens when an asylum seeker comes to Norway, and actually informs immigration authorities that he has committed assassinations, torture and rape? Quite typically, nothing. The local police blames lack of resources for not investigating the crimes, in some cases not even interviewing the suspects.
"These are serious crimes," police inspector Terje Kristiansen told newspaper VG on Tuesday. He blames a lack of funding and staffing for the failure by local police to follow up on the would-be refugees' admissions.
"When an alleged crime from 10 years ago is competing against a fresh murder in Oslo for attention, we have to set some priorities," Kristiansen said.
Information gathered during interviews with asylum seekers arriving in Norway is automatically sent to the immigration authorities. Local police, however, must try to verify the information, including admissions of alleged war crimes. That can be a time-consuming and difficult process, Kristiansen said.
He said there have been few if any formal probes launched during the past year. He said he thinks many would-be refugees admit to crimes from their war-torn homelands in the hope of being able to stay in Norway.
If people actually admit to hidious crimes to gain asylum in Norway, what does that tell us about the perception of Norwegian justice in the world?
11:47:47 PM 
|
|
The Telegraph says, contrary to the Times, that Kofi Annan will not resign as UN Secretary General over new allegations. Instead, Kofi will essentially sacrifice his relationship with his son and insist they were never very close.
Mr Annan has said that he was "disappointed and surprised" when he learned that Kojo continued to be paid by Cotecna after 1998 when the firm was awarded a contract to monitor the oil-for-food programme.
But in his response to the report he is expected to go much further in distancing himself from his son. UN officials are privately briefing that he has never had a close relationship with his son and that he is exasperated by his behaviour.
The UN set up the oil-for-food programme to allow Saddam Hussein's Iraq, then under strict sanctions, to sell oil for food and medicine. It subsequently emerged that Saddam manipulated it to receive billions of dollars in bribes for lucrative contracts.
Cotecna and both Annans deny any connection between the firm's contract and its employment of Kojo. Cotecna says that Kojo was paid his fee for agreeing not to work for a rival firm in west Africa.
But the report will criticise him for appearing to trade on his family name and will claim that he misled his father over the extent of his involvement with Cotecna, which employed him from 1995 to 1998, as it won the key contract. The report will say that Cotecna paid the $400,000 between 1996 and 2004.
How much can a top diplomat mess up and still expect to stay on in his job?
PS: The NYT has more on the upcoming Volcker report.
Iqbal Riza, the former head of Secretary General Kofi Annan's staff, will be criticized Tuesday in a report of the commission investigating the oil-for-food program for having thrown away documents on the program, according to a person who has seen the report and a former United Nations diplomat.
The former diplomat, John G. Ruggie, assistant secretary general for strategic planning from 1997 to 2001, asked to confirm the report about Mr. Riza, said the missing papers covered the period from January 1997 to the end of 1998. Mr. Ruggie said that Mr. Riza had told him that he had been questioned about the episode by investigators from the commission, which is headed by Paul A. Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman. That coincides with the early stages of the oil-for-food program and the hiring of a major contractor in the program that employed Mr. Annan's son.
The shredding of emberrassing documents. Shades of Enron!
The actual report will supposedly be posted at IIC's website today.
PS 2: Maybe the UN will not pay Benon Sevan's legal expenses after all.
4:31:07 PM
|
|
Slate's Jack Shafer is today's favourite mainstream media pundit in the blogosphere. His chiding of LA Times' David Shaw is a pleasure to read, and oh-so-well-deserved.
Speaking of Slate, I got a link (see the word "many") to my earthquake coverage by David Wallace-Wells, as one of several bloggers mentioning the astonishing coincidence concerning the timing of the post-xmas and then post-easter quakes.
3:25:04 PM
|
|
For what it's worth, an article in the New York Sun blames former US ambassador to Pakistan for the failure to capture Osama Bin Laden:
Ambassador Nancy Powell, America’s representative in Pakistan, refused to allow the distribution in Pakistan of wanted posters, matchbooks, and other items advertising America’s $25 million reward for information leading to the capture of Mr. bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders.
Instead, thousands of matchbooks, posters, and other material — printed at taxpayer expense and translated into Urdu, Pashto, and other local languages — remained “impounded” on American Embassy grounds from 2002 to 2004, according to Rep. Mark Kirk, Republican of Illinois.
While the American government was engaged in a number of “black” or covert intelligence activities to locate Al Qaeda leaders, Mr. Kirk said, the “white” or public efforts — which have succeeded in the past in leading to the capture of wanted terrorists — were effectively shut down in the months following the September 11 attacks.
Mr. Kirk discovered Ms. Powell’s unusual order in January 2004 and, over the past year, launched a series of behind-the-scenes moves that culminated in a blunt conversation with President Bush aboard Air Force One, the removal of the ambassador, and congressional approval for reinvigorating the hunt for Mr. bin Laden.
If you read the rest of the article, there are some dissenting voices to this record of events. Naturally, this criticism, if we accept it, also strikes at the Bush administration itself, for failing to give clear instructions.
I am not particularly convinced that the wanted-posters would have had much of an effect in this case. That doesn't mean it should not have been tried, of course.
2:02:08 AM
|
|
Leftist defenders of Hugo Chavez' revolution has been quick to point out that unlike Cuba, Venezuela has a free press that is often highly critical of Chavez' rule. That has been true until now, but if Chavez and his propaganda minister Andres Izarra have their way, it will not last long, as WaPo's Jackson Diehl writes:
The first step was a new media content law, adopted by the Chavez-controlled legislature last December, that subjects broadcast media to heavy fines or the loss of their licenses for disseminating information deemed "contrary to national security." Its impact was soon felt: Two of the most prominent anti-government journalists lost their jobs as anchors on morning television shows, and Venezuelans quickly noticed the appearance of self-censorship among those who remained.
Ten days ago Chavez handed Izarra a still-bigger stick: a new penal code that criminalizes virtually any expression to which the government objects -- not only in public but also in private.
Start with Article 147: "Anyone who offends with his words or in writing or in any other way disrespects the President of the Republic or whomever is fulfilling his duties will be punished with prison of 6 to 30 months if the offense is serious and half of that if it is light." That sanction, the code implies, applies to those who "disrespect" the president or his functionaries in private; "the term will be increased by a third if the offense is made publicly."
There's more: Article 444 says that comments that "expose another person to contempt or public hatred" can bring a prison sentence of one to three years; Article 297a says that someone who "causes public panic or anxiety" with inaccurate reports can receive five years. Prosecutors are authorized to track down allegedly criminal inaccuracies not only in newspapers and electronic media, but also in e-mail and telephone communications.
Foreign journalists, and media that "receive foreign funding" are in for even more draconian measures, facing 10 to 15 year sentences for "prejudicing" or "destablizing" the country. This is the language of despotism. Venezuela appears to be heading towards becoming a real marxist thugocracy.
12:35:52 AM
|
|
|
© Copyright 2005 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.04.2005; 01:59:51.
|
|
|
