Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 8. Oktober 2004 / Time Line October 8, 2004
Version 3.5
10/08/2004
Modtageren af årets,
Nobelfredspris,
offentliggøres.
Wangari Mathai of Kenya has won the Nobel Peace Prize for
the year 2004!
Professor Mathai, the outspoken environmentalist from Kenya, is the
first African woman to receive this prestigious award.
"History has many records of crimes against humanity, which were
also justified by dominant commercial interests and governments of
the day ... Today, the patenting of life forms and the genetic
engineering which it stimulates, is being justified on the grounds
that it will benefit society. But in fact, by monopolizing the
'raw' biological materials, the development of other options is
deliberately blocked. Farmers, therefore, become totally dependent
upon the corporations for seeds".
-- Professor Wangari Mathai of the Green Belt Movement, Kenya. Read
news stories on Prof. Wangari Mathai at:
http://www.ogiek.org
Litteratur: Nielsen, Jørgen Steen: For stærk
til magtens mænd. I: Information, 10/09/2004.
10/08/2004
Tomgram: Michael Klare on Oil Wars and the American
Military
by Tom Engelhardt
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=1888
Commentary is © 2004 by TomDispatch.com
So here we are. The price of a barrel of crude oil leapt to $52.02
on the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday, having breached the
$51 level only the day before, and today it briefly cracked $53 on
its way to ... well, who knows where? At just this moment, the
Energy Department is predicting that consumers in the Northeast
will be paying $1,223 for heating-oil this winter, a leap of 28%
over last year.
Meanwhile in Iraq, the administration's great oil adventure is
aflame. According to Youssef Ibrahim, formerly of the New York
Times and the Wall Street Journal, despite official administration
dreams of drastically raising Iraq's oil output and then using it
to float our occupation, we've essentially "lost" Iraqi oil -- as
has the rest of the planet. "The reason oil prices have been
hovering around $50 a barrel now," he writes, "is that most of
these Iraqi exports disappeared just as oil consumption began to
skyrocket around the world."
The Iraqis themselves, situated on one of the globe's great oil
reservoirs, are at present forced to import gasoline and other
petroleum products from elsewhere over ever more dangerous supply
lines. The sabotaging of the Iraqi oil infrastructure by insurgents
is now widespread. According to Ibrahim, "At last count, the
northern pipeline that carries oil to the Turkish Mediterranean
port of Ceyhan has been blown up 37 times in 12 months."
Worse yet, neocon black-gold dreams of geopolitical domination, now
translated into nightmarish reality, are fueling oil vulnerability
elsewhere, especially in Saudi Arabia. As the Washington Post's
Justin Blum recently reported (Terrorists Have Oil Industry in
Cross Hairs):
"Terrorists and insurgents are stepping up attacks on oil and gas
operations overseas in an effort to disrupt jittery energy markets,
destabilize governments and scare off foreign workers, analysts
said. The attacks have been most intense in Iraq, but also have
occurred in recent months in Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Russia and
Nigeria."
Oil Wars -- Transforming the American Military into a Global
Oil-Protection Service
by Michael T. Klare
© 2004 Michael T. Klare
In the first U.S. combat operation of the war in Iraq, Navy
commandos stormed an offshore oil-loading platform. "Swooping
silently out of the Persian Gulf night," an overexcited reporter
for the New York Times wrote on March 22, "Navy Seals seized two
Iraqi oil terminals in bold raids that ended early this morning,
overwhelming lightly-armed Iraqi guards and claiming a bloodless
victory in the battle for Iraq's vast oil empire."
A year and a half later, American soldiers are still struggling to
maintain control over these vital petroleum facilities -- and the
fighting is no longer bloodless. On April 24, two American sailors
and a coastguardsman were killed when a boat they sought to
intercept, presumably carrying suicide bombers, exploded near the
Khor al-Amaya loading platform. Other Americans have come under
fire while protecting some of the many installations in Iraq's "oil
empire."
Indeed, Iraq has developed into a two-front war: the battles for
control over Iraq's cities, and the constant struggle to protect
its far-flung petroleum infrastructure against sabotage and attack.
The first contest has been widely reported in the American press;
the second has received far less attention. Yet the fate of Iraq's
oil infrastructure could prove no less significant than that of its
embattled cities. A failure to prevail in this contest would
eliminate the economic basis upon which a stable Iraqi government
could someday emerge. "In the grand scheme of things," a senior
officer told the New York Times, "there may be no other place where
our armed forces are deployed that has a greater strategic
importance." In recognition of this, significant numbers of U.S.
soldiers have been assigned to oil-security functions.
Top officials insist that these duties will eventually be taken
over by Iraqi forces, but day by day this glorious moment seems to
recede ever further into the distance. So long as American forces
remain in Iraq, a significant number of them will undoubtedly spend
their time guarding highly vulnerable pipelines, refineries,
loading facilities, and other petroleum installations. With
thousands of miles of pipeline and hundreds of major facilities at
risk, this task will prove endlessly demanding - and unrelievedly
hazardous. At the moment, the guerrillas seem capable of striking
the country's oil lines at times and places of their choosing,
their attacks often sparking massive explosions and fires.
Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies
at Hampshire College. This article is based on his new book, 'Blood
and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing
Petroleum Dependency' (Metropolitan / Henry Holt).
10/08/2004
Peacekeeping In Africa: Challenges And
Opportunities 
http://www.house.gov/international_relations/108/96360.pdf
Hearing Before The Subcommittee On Africa Of The Committee On
International Relations House Of Representatives
One Hundred Eighth Congress
Second Session
October 8, 2004
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