Africa


On Sunday, Oct. 7, 2001, Nairobi's The Daily Nation (independent) ran a column by Magesha Ngwiri. "Apparently," he wrote, "The United States is not going to pulverise Afghanistan any time soon." Ngwiri could not have known that as his column appeared on Nairobi's newsstands, U.S. warplanes were closing in on Afghanistan. What he, and indeed, what nobody knew, is that the U.S.-led offensive would drive the Taliban out of two-thirds of Afghanistan in a few short weeks.

African commentators originally reacted to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States with horror and condemnation. In the initial aftermath, many seemed increasingly worried by Washington's bellicose rhetoric, and urged a considered, moderate response to the attacks. Many also blamed the United States for "bringing the attack on itself."

As the weeks wore on, and the anticipated U.S. strikes against Afghanistan did not happen, most African newspapers—with the notable exception of South Africa's—dropped the story in favor of pressing local issues. Mohammed Haruna, a columnist for Abuja, Nigeria's The Daily Trust, led the retreat with an Oct. 3 column titled "Season of Hyperbole." "For the citizens of much of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America," Haruna argued, "Sept. 11 represented pretty little change in their lives: [They remain] nasty, brutish and short—thanks in no small measure to... the U.S. government's record of commitment and support to military and economic terrorism, insurgency, military dictatorship, religious bigotry, and unimaginable genocide."

The air strikes against Afghanistan revived the issue in the African press. Johannesburg's liberal Mail and Guardian—which had argued that the United States should "revolutionize its relations with much of the world" in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks—focused on the "Rage [and] protests from Kabul to Indonesia" in its top headline for Oct. 8. Meanwhile, Tanzania's The Express scoffed at attempts by U.S. President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to insist that this was not a war against the Muslim world. ("Not a War Against Muslims? Empty Words!").

Over the following weeks, most African papers that continued to cover the war in Afghanistan were critical of the U.S. strikes. Weekly protests against the war dominated headlines in Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, and Nigeria.

But as the cliché goes, "Nothing succeeds like success." Following the overnight rout of the Taliban in mid-November, even the most vociferous critics of the U.S. campaign—Johannesburg's Daily Mail and Guardian perhaps first among them—soon began taking a more positive view of the war. By Nov. 21, The Daily Mail and Guardian was celebrating the "liberation" of Afghan women. The advent of Ramadan on Nov. 18 did not revive the anti-U.S. demonstrations seen in African capitals during the early weeks of the U.S.-led bombing campaign.

As the war in Afghanistan concludes, the African press is increasingly looking to what may happen next, as the emphasis on the next front in the war on terrorism focuses alternately on Iraq and Somalia.

Others see the problem with Somalia as one rooted in economic disparity. An editorial in independent Kenyan newspaper The Nation (Dec. 16) pointed out that Somalia, like Afghnaistan, is a failed state and “poverty is a fodder for terrorism.” It goes on to say that “[t]he real concern here is that the gap between the rich and poor has...widened and we must close it. Otherwise, no one is safe.”

Nigeria's The Comet (Dec. 13) says that Africa will be the ultimate loser in the war on terrorism: “What would have come to Africa in terms of technical and economic assistance would now be directed to rebuild Afghanistan.”

Special Report: Allied Forces Strike Back | The Independent Online (conservative), Capetown, South Africa, Feb. 15, 2002.
Relief Bodies as Fronts for Terror | The Nation (independent), Nairobi, Kenya, Dec. 16, 2001 (via allAfrica.com).
Africa and the War in Afghanistan | Jide Osuntokun, The Comet (independent), Lagos, Nigeria, Dec. 13, 2001.

More reaction from the African press...


Latin America and Canada

The Canadian press has given the U.S. and British air strikes against Afghanistan its full support. Even the editorial page of The Toronto Star (liberal), which is normally critical of U.S. policy, has lined-up in support of the U.S. position. In an Oct. 8 editorial, The Toronto Star hailed the Bush administration for delivering food aid to Afghans while striking at the Taliban. And though the details of a proposed Canadian anti-terrorism bill proved immensely unpopular when—to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's chagrin—they were leaked to the press, concern over civil liberties has not yet shaken the Canadian press' support for the war against terrorism. On Oct. 20, as Chrétien met with Asian leaders for the Asian Pacific (APEC) summit in Shanghai, The Toronto Star urged the participating leaders to "show global solidarity" and to "discard the pre-cooked communiqués drafted by their bureaucrats."

Latin American newspapers have greeted news of the war in Afghanistan with grim resignation. Early in the conflict, Mexico City's centrist Excélsior, though it lent its support to the war on terrorism, hoped that the next news would not be of more civilian deaths. Buenos Aires' conservative La Nación wrote that this war is completely different from those of the 20th Century and must not be allowed to turn into a "clash of civilizations." Likewise, Bolivia's conservative La Razón, in an Oct. 8 editorial, expressed worries that the conflict might still be perceived as a religious war.

Even Latin America's leftist press tempered its usual criticism of U.S. policy immediately following the attacks. Buenos Aires' Página 12, normally an acid critic of U.S. policy, on Oct. 8 could only fault the United States for its avowed efforts to contact more "unsavory characters" in the covert battle against terrorism. A few weeks later, however, Página 12 was suggesting that the U.S. campaign was motivated by designs on Central Asia's petrochemical reserves.

Special Report: War on Terrorism | The Globe and Mail (centrist), Toronto, Canada, Feb. 15, 2002.
Taliban Say they Have No Contact with Bin Laden | El Comercio (financial), Lima, Peru, Nov. 21, 2001.
Now the Battle is Between Afghans and Arabs | Luke Harding, Página 12 (left-wing), Buenos Aires, Argentina, Nov. 21, 2001.
US$25 Million for Bin Laden | El Universal (centrist), Caracas, Venezuela, Nov. 21, 2001.

More reaction from the Latin American and Canadian press...

Asia

The war against terrorism has dispersed since the U.S.-led assault on Al-Qaeda and the Taliban dropped from the front pages of world headlines. East Asia is among the places it has spread to. "The island of the Basilan in the Philippines has become the so-called 'second front' against terrorism," writes Inter Press Service's Walden Bello in the Philippine online daily Cyberdyaryo (April 11), questioning the involvement of almost 500 U.S. troops who are working with 6,000 Filipino troops in their search for 60-80 Abu Sayyaf bandits holding three hostages, including two Americans. According to WPR's correspondent in Manila, the deployment of U.S. troops to the island has stirred controversy in the Philippine press.

While Washington cites Abu Sayyaf ties to Al-Qaeda as the justification for U.S. involvement, officials from the Philippine government and intelligence agencies have admitted to Philippine journalists that they have no evidence linking Abu Sayyaf to Al-Qaeda. Indeed, Bello suspected that the failure to "quell a mere handful of bandits indicated that the problem is political in character, not military, [and that] the bandits seem to enjoy support in high places."

According to Bello, an international peace mission of parliamentarians, academics, and civil society activists from nine countries exploring what "added value" the U.S. presence brought to the fight against Abu Sayyaf found that the presence of U.S. troops had produced few results. The mission instead expressed their suspicions that "chasing Abu Sayyaf merely provides an excuse for a 'strategic intent,' which is to establish a military presence in the Southern Philippines for a long-term U.S. war against insurgents... with all the destabilizing consequences for the whole region of such an endless war." But Mello also notes that in the predominantly Christian island of Basilan, there is strong support for U.S. military presence.

But the presence of U.S. troops in the Philippines is getting less coverage even in the Philippine press with each week. Outside the Philippines, the focus has shifted entirely to the Middle East. Bangladesh's Daily Star (April 18) published an outspoken editorial attacking the leadership of U.S. president George Bush in his handling of the war of attrition between the State of Israel and the Palestinian people. "Instead of helping to shape a fair and just world order, the Bush administration is openly supporting the idea of an unfair and unjust world order where the weak are killed and the strong can be bullies without any fear of justice of any type," opined Habibul Islam. He also disputed reports citing Bangladesh as a haven for terrorists, saying they were politically motivated. Although the opposition Awami League is behind many of these charges, it is no secret that the Jamaat-e-Islami fundamentalist group has formed an alliance with the ruling Bangladeshi National Party.

The conflict in the Middle East dominated headlines throughout Asia, and, indeed, the world, throughout the first weeks of April, as Israel's assault on the West Bank sparked alarming reports of devestation, particularly in Ramallah, Bethlehem, and the Jenin refugee camp. Newspapers across the region had little sympathy for Israel or for the Bush administration's support for the small nuclear power in its battle with suicide bombers, guerrillas, and children.

The overnight collapse of Taliban rule in approximately two-thirds of Afghanistan has quelled tensions in the Pakistani press somewhat. By Nov. 21, the combined effect of military successes in Afghanistan and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech outlining a new U.S. Middle East peace initiative had succeeded in rallying support for the United States in the editorial pages of Pakistan's mass-circulation Dawn. In an editorial titled "Powell's Plain Talk," Dawn's editors banished any doubts outside observers may have had about the connection between the conflict in the Middle East and popular opinion among the United States' predominantly-Muslim allies. "One wishes American leaders were always as candid with Israel as Colin Powell was on Monday when he asked Tel Aviv to pull out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and accept a viable Palestinian state," Dawn's editors wrote.

But before U.S. policy makers congratulate themselves too hardily on their successes in the propaganda war, they would do well to consider the jaundiced view The News, a left-wing newspaper in the predominantly-Pashtun Pakistani city of Peshawar, took of U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlain's Ramadan fast.

And a week after Kabul fell to the Northern Alliance, Indian independent newsmagazine Outlook eschewed stories of Afghan women tearing off their burqas in favor of an analysis of U.S. energy interests in Afghanistan, though it allowed that "oil and gas are not the reason the US has attacked Afghanistan."

Meanwhile, East Asian newspapers were preoccupied with their own countries' battles with radical Islamism. In the Philippines quiet U.S. military and intelligence assistance has led to a series of significant victories against the vicious Abu Sayyaf rebel movement. During a productive visit to the United States, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo earned promises of increased development aid. She returned home to news of open rebellion in the predominantly-Muslim Philippine island Jolo, which has been at peace for five years.

And though "the waves of anti-American mass demonstrations seem to have decreased significantly" in Indonesia, warned Azyumardi Azra, Rector of the State Islamic Studies Institute in the independent Jakarta Post, "This does not mean that 'political Islam' will also diminish."

Bush on a Rampage | The Frontier Post (left-wing), Peshawar, Pakistan, Jan. 12, 2002.
Editorial: Fighting Terrorism | The Kathmandu Post (independent), Kathmandu, Nepal, Nov. 29, 2001.
"The Term 'Fundamentalism' Is Misused" | Outlook India (independent newsmagazine), New Delhi, India, Nov. 29, 2001.
Editorial: Misuari's New War | The Philippine Inquirer (independent), Manila, Philippines, Nov. 21, 2001.
Pipeline Politics: Oil, Gas and the U.S. Interest in Afghanistan | Richard Tanter, Outlook India (independent newsmagazine), New Delhi, Nov. 21, 2001.
Editorial: Fasting Wendy | The News (left-wing), Peshawar, Pakistan, Nov. 21, 2001.
Editorial: Powell's Plain Talk | Dawn (centrist), Lahore, Pakistan, Nov. 21, 2001.
Political Islam's Threat to Megawati | Azyumardi Azra, The Jakarta Post (independent), Jakarta, Indonesia, Nov. 21, 2001.

More reaction from the Asian press...


Europe

From the outset it was expected that the war in Afghanistan would be long and uncertain. Activity over the past couple of months seems to confirm that the apparent rout of Al-Queda forces at the end of 2001 was not as definitive as it may have seemed. A leading editorial in London’s liberal Guardian (April 10) reports that “the war [in Afghanistan] goes on and is intensifying...it is clear that many, if not most [Al-Queda fighters] survived the U.S. onslaught” and are “plotting an insidious return to the fray.”

But events in Afghanistan have been overshadowed by the escalation in Israeli-Palestinian violence. That the situation should erupt as phase two of the war on terrorism focuses on a strike against Iraq has turned the plan “on its head” Marion Mc Keone wrote in Ireland’s liberal Sunday Tribune (April 7). Moderate Arab states insist that a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict is a precondition to support United States action against Iraq. “Bush decided to focus on getting rid of Sadaam Hussein before attempting to defuse the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The effect of this was to ensure that...toppling Hussein now looks less attainable than ever,” opined McKeone.

Meanwhile, Maurizio Molinari, writing in centrist Italian daily La Stampa (April 5), heaped praise on President George Bush for his speech a day earlier urging Israel to withdraw from the territories and the Palestinians to stop turning out suicide bombers. “Bush took everyone by surprise: the warring parties, his doubting allies, the inflamed Arab street protestors, and his most merciless critics,” wrote Molinari. In a reference to the growing divisions between the EU and the U.S. administration, Molinari opined that EU leaders “must...make their contribution to peace by merging their efforts with those of Washington in a concrete manner, as happened over the war in Afghanistan.”

We Are the War Crimminals Now | Robert Fisk, The Independent (liberal), London, England, Nov. 29, 2001.
Abolition of Ancient Rights Proves Hard to Swallow | Simon Haggart, The Guardian (liberal), London, England, Nov. 20, 2001.
Backdrop | Wolfgang Günter Lerch, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (conservative), Frankfurt, Germany, Nov. 19, 2001.
Germany: The Reticent Great Power | Daniel Vernet, Le Monde (liberal), Paris, France, Nov. 21, 2001.
Where America's Leaders Fear to Tread | Simon Jenkins, The Times (conservative), London, England, Nov. 21, 2001.

More reaction from the European press...


Middle East/North Africa

Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States and the subsequent U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan, the world has turned with renewed attention to the increasingly explosive situation in the Middle East. The U.S. and British governments and their allies compete with Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban for the sympathies of the Arab world on the airwaves of Qatari satellite network Al-Jazeera, while Israeli and Arab pundits have turned the volume of their invectives up a few notches.

Over the weekend of Nov. 30-Dec.2, a series of suicide attacks left at least 25 Israelis dead. Palestinian police immediately arrested 100 suspected militants. Israel's response was swift, dramatic, and controversial. Israeli helicopters first attacked Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's headquarters in Gaza and the West Bank, destroying Arafat's helicopters and leveling a Palestinian Authority jail in the Gaza strip before expanding the bombardment over the following two days. On Dec. 3, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon effectively declared war on the Palestinian Authority. Soon after, U.S. President George Bush declared his support for Israel and froze the assets of U.S. charities alleged to have connections with the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The next day, the Israeli cabinet formally branded the Palestinian Authority an organization which supports terror. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres made no attempt to conceal his anger, and hinted that he and Israel's Labor Party might quit the ruling coalition which would effectively dismantle the government. Israel, Peres said, had decided "to destroy the Palestinian Authority, in effect to lean only on power without political hope."

Unsurprisingly, the Arab press reacted to the escalation of the conflict by heaping blame on the Israelis and the United States for supporting Israel. More striking was the response of the Israeli press to the domestic dispute over Sharon's new line. The conservative Jerusalem Post supported Sharon and warned the Labor Party that if they did not toe the line, they would become irrelevant. The editorial page of Tel Aviv newspaper Ha'aretz—which is traditionally more dovish—urged Peres and the leaders of the Labor party to leave the coalition for good.

Editorial: Labor's Day of Reckoning | The Jerusalem Post (conservative), Jerusalem, Israel, Dec. 5, 2001.
Editorial: On the Verge of Disaster | Ha'aretz (liberal), Tel Aviv, Dec. 5, 2001.
Op-Ed: Time to Break Apart this Unity | Gideon Samet, Ha'aretz (liberal), Tel Aviv, Dec. 5, 2001.

Op-Ed: Galal Duweidar, Al-Akhbar (government-owned), Dec. 5, 2001
Excerpt: "It's a joke to hear the White House describe the recent Israeli attacks on the Palestinians as acts of self-defense. It's also a joke to hear Israeli Prime Minister Sharon announcing that Palestinian President Arafat is the major obstacle to peace. The butcher Sharon seems to have forgotten that his country, Israel, is occupying Palestinian and Arab territories, and that Israeli practices violate all international conventions and resolutions. It's Sharon, not Arafat, who is the obstacle to peace. According to Sharon's reasoning, Israel is entitled to commit any act of violence, to kill and destroy, and the Palestinians should do nothing but surrender and give in to please Washington and receive its blessings."

Op-Ed: Mursi Attallah, Al-Ahram al-Messai (government-owned), Dec. 5, 2001
Excerpt: "The Jerusalem and Haifa explosions would never have taken place had the Palestinians seen a glimmer of hope at the end of the dark tunnel that is the peace process. If Israel had any concern for realizing peace, it would have condemned the blasts, but would have declared that its belief in peace was still strong. Israel should have pushed for confidence-building measures with the Palestinian Authority, its co-partner in the peace process, as a message to the enemies of peace who mounted the attacks. But Sharon has declared an all-out war on the Palestinians and the peace process as a whole."

Editorial: What Arafat Has to Lose | The Jerusalem Post (conservative), Jerusalem, Israel, Dec. 4, 2001.
Full Text of Sharon's Address to Israel | Israeli Foreign Ministry, Jerusalem, Israel, Dec. 3, 2001.
Israel's Morning Class | Khaled Amayreh, Al-Ahram Weekly (semi-official), Cairo, Egypt, Dec. 5, 2001.
Jihad for Whom? | Uthman Mirghani, Al-Sharq al-Awsat (Saudi-owned), London, England, Oct. 24, 2001. Translated and posted to Worldpress.org, Nov. 19, 2001.
Between the Ballot and the Bullet: Egypt's War Against Terrorism | Andrew Hammond, World Press Review correspondent, Cairo, Egypt, Nov. 15, 2001.
Critical in Cairo | Andrew Hammond, World Press Review correspondent, Cairo, Egypt, Nov. 13, 2001.
Afula Attack Embarrasses Arafat on Eve of Zinni Visit, and Underlines His Fading Control | Peter Hirschberg, Ha'aretz (liberal), Tel Aviv, Israel, Nov. 27, 2001.

Op-Ed: Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (Saudi-owned), London, England, Nov. 27, 2001.
Excerpt: "Here is Kabul: Finally, after 60 months, we finally see Afghan women out and about in the streets of Kabul. They had been living as prisoners, captive to tribal custom, captive to repressive clothes and their homes. We also see Afghan men coming out. The society we view seems so strange, almost Medieval, as years under the Taliban have enforced their radical and ignorant interpretations of Islamic law. It is obvious that the kind of social slavery that the Taliban imposed is so against the spirit and actual contents of Islamic guidance. The rights given to women and enshrined in the Quran were denied at the most fundamental level, as the Taliban equated women to some beastly status. The equality of women, as sisters of men, is something that should never be denied."

Column: Getting Uneven | Saul Singer, The Jerusalem Post (conservative), Jerusalem, Israel, Nov. 26, 2001.

Op-Ed: Ahmed al-Gindi, Al-Akhbar (government-owned), Cairo, Egypt, Nov. 26, 2001.
Excerpt: "American peace envoys to the Middle East William Burns and Anthony Zinni arrive today for talks with the Palestinians and the Israelis on means of stopping the violence and resuming peace negotiations based on the Mitchell recommendations and on relevant UN resolutions. But will they ever accomplish their mission? Or will they fail as others before them have? The Burns-Zinni mission has already failed, for how could it succeed when Israel's missiles have already destroyed every hope it has? Still, who knows? For it could be that the Israeli attacks against the Palestinians are part the greater mission?"

Column: Salama Ahmed Salama, Al-Ahram (government-owned), Nov. 26, 2001.
Excerpt: "All political and strategic analysis aside,the only plausible explanation to give for America's speedy victory over the Taliban is the successful global mobilization against the movement and Bin Laden as symbols of terrorism. Allies in Europe, friends in the Middle East, and the White Bear in Russia have joined in the campaign. Even Pakistan has extricated itself from a long-lived strong alliance with Taliban and has turned into a military base to serve U.S. goals. Assets, bank accounts and communications worldwide have been brought under control. It should also be noted that both the United States and Britain, mighty and powerful as they are, have unleashed their firepower not against a regular army, but against guerrilla elements equipped very simply, with no command, no intelligence, and no special forces."

Op-Ed: Al-Dustour (government-owned), Amman, Jordan, Nov. 19, 2001.
Excerpt: "As Powell himself said in his long-awaited speech regarding the U.S. position on the situation in Israel, he had no new plan. It essentially boiled down to a reaffirmation of the Mitchell Plan...which is ludicrous because Sharon has proven that he does not plan to acquiesce to it. While it is clear that the United States has become all too aware of Sharon's obstinancy, they have not been bold enough to break the impasse. What is needed is some kind of diplomatic threat on Israel to prompt some action; an immediate implementation of Mitchell concurrent with Israeli withdrawals from re-occupied territories and return to the negotiating table. To do anything else will resolve nothing. And the fact that the United States, preceeded by the EU, has failed to convince or coerce Sharon into taking positive steps only reinforces the view that Israel has been above international law. Despite international standards of human rights or any other resolutions of the UN, Israel has been able to maintain its freedom from any outside influence."

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