Associates articles archive

, Washington approved the visit of a Taliban delegation to the Texas headquarters of Unical, the big oil company, to discuss the construction of a trans-Afghan gas pipeline. The Taliban emerged in the south of Afghanistan as recently as late 1994. It was in reaction to the chaos that followed the retreat of the invading Soviet army when for five years the mujahideen – who were made up of many separate elements – vied for supremacy, killing over a hundred thousand in the process. The Taliban had three main aims- the stop the violence, to stabilize the country, to restore the practice of Islamic law, albeit at the less tolerant end of the spectrum, and to wipe out the trade in opium. They had no trouble in welcoming both domestic and foreign NGOs. But the Taliban’s leader, Mullah Omar, made a dreadful mistake- he gave sanctuary to bin Laden when he fled Sudan....

LONDON – I walk up Sonia Gandhi’s drive way, past  guards with Uzi machine guns, and can’t help thinking that when I came to interview Mrs. Indira Gandhi (Sonia’s mother-in-law) on the eve of her great comeback and massive electoral win, I walked up to her front door and knocked. There were no guards and only one servant to let me in. I am ushered into Sonia G’s office. She barely acknowledges my presence. “Buon giorno”, I say. There is no reply. I have been warned that she’s cold and she doesn’t offer me a hand. She walks over to me and asks me to sit down. I look her in the eye and ask my first question to the Italian widow of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who was cruelly blown to smithereens by a female Tamil terrorist, a member of the now defeated Tamil independence struggle in neighbouring Sri...

Jan Øberg I was among a handful of people worldwide who criticised the Nobel Committee’s choice of former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari as Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and characterized it as a scandal I had two main reasons. I consider his work as “peace mediator” – a term used repeatedly – in Kosovo incompatible with peace and with Alfred Nobel’s three criteria, but I deliberately did not mention his work in Aceh or Namibia of which I have no knowledge myself. Kosovo and other parts of former Yugoslav have been something I have tried to understand since my first visit there 34 years ago. Independent Kosovo is the result of a military-based conflict management or, rather, mismanagement. It militates against two of Nobel’s criteria in that it has not lead to fraternity between peoples and it has not reduced armaments in the world. Kosovo declared itself independent in February this year (probably...

Operation Think Freely About Iraq # 1 Comments about Operation Iraqi Freedomand about the media By TFF’s Iraq Conflict-Mitigation team & Associates “It is enough that a lie is believed for three days – it has then served its purpose.”Marie de Medici, 1573-1642, queen consort and queen regent of France # 1 March 27 – April 8. Start at bottom # 2 April 9 – April 27 # 3 April 28 till now  25. Perhaps history will repeat itself? JAN OBERG Day 20 – April 8, 2003 – Yesterday, R. W. Apple, writing in the IHT, points out that it won’t be easy for the American and British troops to portray themselves and convince the Iraqis that they are liberators: “But they are walking old and treacherous ground. The British commander who seized Baghdad from the Ottoman Turks in March 1917, General Frederick Stanley Maude, told the local citizenry, “Our armies do not come...