NEW LIBYA, OLD ABUSES

New York     Dr. Cesar Chelala

I was returning by taxi to the hotel I was staying in Tripoli with an Argentine friend when, unexpectedly, I understood the characteristics of the regime of former Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi. We had started talking to the driver who, in perfect English, answered our questions. When he heard we were Argentines his face lit up and he started talking excitedly about the Argentine former soccer player Diego Maradona. Undoubtedly, the soccer star's name, with its tinsel achieved as a player and despite his personal chiaroscuro, remains a magnet around the world.

At one point, as we passed by a military barracks, my friend asked the driver if Khadafy lived there. Immediately our driver had a marked change of mood: his apparent friendliness transmuted into an awkward nervousness and he became almost hostile to us. Stunned, we tried to return to the conversation about Maradona, but were unsuccessful.

More effective than a lesson in politics, this incident highlighted the unpredictable terror the Libyan dictator was able to cause in the population and explains that under a calm exterior, a climate of oppression and terror was reigning then in Tripoli.

With the fall of the Libyan dictator and his replacement by a National Transitional Council (NTC) headed by Mustafa Abu Jalil, there were expectations that the terror and abuses of the Qaddafi era had finally ended. Not so, say Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, whose statements are corroborated by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), an organization which has decided to stop its operations in Misrata, due to the torture of detainees being carried out there.

This organization claims that several of the patients that had been treated for torture were sent again to interrogation centers where they were tortured again. MSF general director stated, “Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions.” MSF claims of torture in Misrata have been confirmed by Human Rights Watch, which has been monitoring prison conditions in Misrata since last April.

In a 25 January presentation to the UN Security Council Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that the human rights situation in Libya “…remains of concern and requires increased vigilance and sustained assistance from the international community.” According to Mrs. Pillay, the fact that the Interim Government doesn’t have effective control over the revolutionary brigades has human rights effects in several areas.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been most active in overseeing the conditions of detainees in Libya. Between March and December of 2011 the ICRC visited over 8,500 detainees in approximately 60 detention centers. Although the majority of detainees were Qaddafi loyalists, the ICRC found that there were also large numbers of detainees from Sub-Saharan countries who acted as mercenaries for the Qaddafi regime during the revolution.

According to Amnesty International, torture is carried out by official military and security units and by numerous armed militias operating outside of any legal framework. Many detainees died while in custody, after being subjected to different kinds of torture including beatings, use of electro-shocks with live wires and being hit with metal chains and bars. As Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International Senior Crisis Adviser in Libya recently stated, “After all the promises to get detention centres under control, it is horrifying to find that there has been no progress to stop the use of torture.”

Amnesty International states that both the police and the judiciary remain dysfunctional in the country, with several unofficial groups carrying out interrogations in detention centres outside the control of the judiciary, a situation that needs to be urgently addressed.

Although Libya’s new government is facing considerable challenges on all fronts, unless it ensures that rule of the law and respect for human rights, it runs the risk of descending into chaos. And a possible return to the dire conditions that Libyans thought they had already overcome.

Dr. Cesar Chelala, a winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award, is the foreign correspondent for The Middle East Times International (Australia).

AVOIDABLE, TRAGIC CUBAN DEATHS

New York          Dr. Cesar Chelala

The recent death in Cuba of 31-year-old Wilman Villar Mendoza - who was on a hunger strike as a protest for having been sentenced to four years in prison - is a severe indictment of the Cuban regime and of its avowed respect for human rights. Villar Mendoza’s death follows that of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, another Cuban dissident, who died in 2009 following an 80-day hunger strike.

Villar was arrested last November for disrespecting authority and resisting arrest. He protested the sentence going on a hunger strike. His wife, Maritza Pellegrino, said that initially Cuba’s state security hadn’t allowed her to see the body of her husband. Villar’s death was mourned by all freedom loving Cubans. Berta Soler, a spokeswoman for the Ladies in White stated, “We lost a young man of 31-years because the Cuban government is not interested in the lives of its citizens or those men who protest inhumane conditions.”

Villar’s death shows that, in spite of freeing several political prisoners as a result of an agreement brokered by the Catholic Church and the Spanish government, the Cuban government is not willing to allow new and peaceful protests against the regime.

I became aware of the omnipresent pressure of the Cuban state during my first trip to Cuba in 1982, to attend a health-related meeting. As I walked with a friend into Bodeguita del Medio – a traditional restaurant known by the number of famous visitors who had dined there over the years (Hemingway was a frequent patron) – a young Cuban man was discreetly asked to leave.

When the man saw us and realized that we weren’t Cubans, he began ranting against the government restrictions on Cubans. “I have money to spend here,” he told us. “But they prefer that foreigners eat and spend their money here. I am just fed up with this regime.”

He then asked us, “Do you see something in that corner?” “Yes,” we said. “there is a man standing there.” “You are wrong,” he said. “He is not a man. That’s a gigantic ear listening to everything I say to you. But I don’t care any longer. I am sick and tired of this situation.”

Instantly, I got a first-hand sense of the problem besieging Cuban society: the need for foreign money, the oppressive nature of the regime and the dissatisfaction of the country’s youth. These impressions were later confirmed during other visits to the island. Highlighting those shortcomings, though, is in no way to deny the Cuban government’s achievements, particularly in health and education.

Cuba, for all its faults and drawbacks, is in the forefront of both fields when compared not only to other Latin American countries but also to the United States. This progress, however, has been hindered by an unnecessary and ineffective embargo that has exacted a tremendous cost not only to Cuba but also to the U.S.

Paradoxically, the Castro regime remains in power and is allowed to abuse its citizens precisely by an embargo that most Cubans feel is an attack on their country’s sovereignty. The limited isolation provoked by the embargo enables the regime to act with total impunity in the abuse of dissident Cubans.

Although political pressure from the powerful Cuban exile community in Florida has been a key factor in maintaining the embargo, the descendants of that immigrant generation have a more nuanced view of the Cuban regime. They have seen the damage caused by decades of antagonism between both countries – and are eager for better relations between them.

President Barak Obama has eased some restrictions on travel to the island by Cubans and their descendants. However, scientists, doctors, artists and ordinary citizens from both countries still face constraints. Easing those restrictions could have a dramatic effect in neutralizing the atmosphere of antagonism and should lead to a lifting of the embargo and the normalization of relations between both countries.

An important condition for lifting the embargo, however, should be the release of all political prisoners in Cuba and an agreement with the Cuban government to open to the free exchange of ideas both inside and outside the country. No government should be allowed to let its own citizens die of hunger because they are protesting their arbitrary detention.

Dr. Cesar Chelala, a winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award, is the foreign correspondent for The Middle East Times International (Australia).

What drives Barak Obama?

New York         César Chelala

Perhaps one of the most important questions in the United States now is who the real Barack Obama is, and what can we expect from him from now on, as we move towards next year presidential elections facing unrelenting opposition of the Republicans in Congress.

Many people, disillusioned with the Obama administration, insist on the little enforcement of his campaign promises and on his lack of principles. No one can speak of the achievements or failures of President Obama, however, without mentioning the factors and groups that brought him to power and which continue to influence his actions.

Perhaps the most notorious among those groups is the so-called military-industrial complex, about which General Dwight D. Eisenhower had already warned in his farewell address as president of the Unites States. Today, more than before, the military-industrial complex has a marked influence on the decisions of the U.S. president.

Similar to the nightmare that Iran was for Carter, Obama had to face the tremendous challenge posed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although theoretically the Iraq war has ended its aftermath remains, including sectarian violence that costs the lives of tens of people weekly and has left a country still in chaos. In Afghanistan, only the total withdrawal of U.S. troops could eventually lead to a state, if not of peace, at least of less chaos and bloodshed.

Other factors, however, influence the actions of the U.S. president. To the enormous power of the military-industrial complex one must be add the power of Wall Street and that of the international financial institutions.

Among the groups of influence there is also the exclusive and secretive Bilderberg Club, whose members are politicians, government ministers, international financiers, bankers, and leaders of the most powerful media in the United States and Western Europe. This group helps define the international economic agenda and has considerable political influence.

Thus, although theoretically U.S. power is in the hands of the President, he is under the influence of the real factors of power that can be called the military-industrial-financial complex (MIFC).

These factors can, in turn, act directly and indirectly on the three branches of U.S. government. Different "lobbies" such as the pharmaceutical industry, farmers, national and multinational corporations, and groups that respond to foreign interests exert their pressure on these branches of government. This represents, therefore, a veritable "spaghetti bowl" of influences that partly explains the difficulties that President Obama faces in carrying out the government agenda that he originally proposed.

One can see how difficult it is for President Obama to eliminate government subsidies to oil companies, whose current earnings are skyrocketing, or his inability, particularly when the House of Representatives is in Republican hands, to increase taxes on the richest people in the country. As he tries to do so, Republicans in Congress threaten to eliminate or lower the most basic social benefits to the most vulnerable sectors of the population.

Despite the difficult situation he inherited and the stark opposition not only from Republicans, but also from some Democratic lawmakers, President Obama has had significant achievements. These include increasing health care coverage for the majority of the population; overcoming, at least partially and temporarily, the economic crisis; signing a nuclear arms treaty with Russia, and withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. Taking into account the difficult circumstances that he has to face, these results show Obama to be a pragmatic and realistic individual who prefers the incremental achievement of his policies and wants to avoid unnecessary confrontations.

Dr. Cesar Chelala, a winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award, is the foreign correspondent for The Middle East Times International (Australia).