Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 21. november 2005 / Timeline November 21, 2005
Version 3.520. November 2005, 22. November 2005
11/21/2005
THE SECRET HISTORY OF DAYTON
U.S. Diplomacy and the Bosnia Peace Process 1995
National Security Archive Update, November 21, 2005
http://www.nsarchive.org
Washington D.C., November 21, 2005 - Marking the tenth anniversary
of the Dayton Accords that ended Bosnia's bloody ethnic conflict,
the National Security Archive today published the 1997 U.S. State
Department study chronicling the American effort to bring peace to
the region.
On November 21, 1995, the world witnessed an event that for years
many believed impossible: on a secluded, wind-swept U.S. Air Force
Base in Dayton, Ohio, the leaders of Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia
agreed to end a war. The signing of the Dayton Peace Accords
concluded one of the most challenging diplomatic undertakings the
United States had pursued since the end of the Cold War -- eighteen
weeks of whirlwind shuttle diplomacy, followed by twenty-one
intensive days of negotiations in Dayton. The agreement brought
peace to a troubled corner of Europe, and established an ambitious
blueprint to build a new Bosnia -- an effort that the international
community remains deeply engaged in today.
The study is the result of a unique historical effort led by Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Bennett Freeman in 1996 to
capture the record of this achievement. In his capacity overseeing
the State Department's Office of the Historian as well as serving
as Chief Speechwriter for Secretary of State Warren Christopher,
Freeman worked with that office and the Bureau of European Affairs
to assemble a team to begin collecting documents and conduct
interviews with all the key American participants in the Dayton
process. After the initial research effort was underway and an
archive of these materials had been created, Freeman then asked
Derek Chollet to draft the study based on this research, which he
completed in the spring of 1997. Please follow the link below to
read the 278-page State Department study:
11/21/2005
Feds ramp up spying on journalists, other Americans
By: Doug Thompson
Capitol Hill Bleu
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7678.shtml
Using powers granted under the USA Patriot Act, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation has stepped up surveillance of journalists
in an effort to plug leaks from a scandal-weary Bush administration.
Wiretaps, intercepts of electronic communications and daily monitoring of
reporters' activities are part of a program authorized by Attorney General
Alberto Gonzalesm, Justice Department sources say.
Increased surveillance of journalists is only part of a stepped-up federal
efforts to monitor day-to-day activities of Americans. Last week, the
Federal Communications Commission set an 18-month deadline for broadband
Internet Service Providers to make their systems "wiretap-ready."
"This is like saying, `Everybody has to keep their doors unlocked because
the FBI might need to get in,'" says Mark Rasch, a former Justice
Department attorney who handled computer crime cases and now senior vice
president and chief security counsel of Solutionary Inc., a computer
security consulting company in Omaha. "The harm of everybody keeping their
doors unlocked all the time is much greater than the benefit."
In addition, the FBI is turning to outside "contract agencies" to not only
supplement agency resources but also to provide less of a trail back to the
White House. This includes exchanging information with U.S. "data brokers"
which then sell that information to others. One such broker, Locatecell,
was recently cited by Canadian authorities for selling cell phone numbers
of public officials.
Security consultant A.J. Howell says he was contacted by the FBI about
aiding their spying on Americans but turned the agency down.
"I don't spy on my fellow Americans," he says. Among the things he was
asked to do was keep tabs on Washington-based reporters.
The government has contracts with private companies like Blackwater,
staffed with former military special operations soldiers, to work inside
American borders. Blackwater operatives were deployed in New Orleans
following Hurricane Katrinia to provide domestic security but also has
contracts for "information gathering" activities within the U.S.
This is not the first time the federal government has sought to bring in
outside agencies to watch Americans. Last year, the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency DARPA tried to retain information mapping software
company Groxis as part of the agencies project to monitor the day-to-habits
of Americans but Paul Hawken, the company's chairman, says he turned the
agency down for "ethical reasons." Hawken also says he also knows people
with the National Security Agency who refused spy on Americans for Uncle
Sam because of ethical concerns.
Some see strong parallels between what is happening now and what has
happened in the past.
"During World War I, concerns about German saboteurs led to unrestrained
domestic spying by U.S. Army intelligence operatives," says Gene Healy,
senior editor of the CATO institute in Washington. "Army spies were given
free rein to gather information on potential subversives, and were often
empowered to make arrests as special police officers. Occasionally, they
carried false identification as employees of public utilities to allow
them, as the chief intelligence officer for the Western Department put it,
'to enter offices or residences of suspects gracefully, and thereby obtain
data.'"
In her book Army Surveillance in America, historian Joan M. Jensen notes,
"What began as a system to protect the government from enemy agents became
a vast surveillance system to watch civilians who violated no law but who
objected to wartime policies or to the war itself."
"Over the last several years the FBI has been granted significantly
expanded authority to undertake intelligence investigations in the United
States," says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy
Information Center in Washington, DC. EPIC recently won a federal court
case seeking release of records of FBI abuse under the Patriot Act.
EPIC is joined by the American Bar Association which has its own concerns
about abuses under the Patriot Act.
"The ABA is concerned that there is inadequate Congressional oversight of
government investigations undertaken pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence
Act to assure that such investigations do not violate the First, Fourth,
and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution," says Michael S. Greco, President
of ABA.
The White House and Justice Department declined to comment on the issues
raised in this article.
11/21/2005
EU Governments Agree Voluntary Code for Crossborder Competition
in Defence Equipment Market
(Brussels, 21 November 2005) -- European Union Defence Ministers
today agreed a voluntary code of conduct for defence procurement in
order to encourage competition in the European defence equipment
market, where contracts are currently exempt from normal EU
internal market rules.
At a meeting of the Steering Board of the European Defence Agency,
Ministers decided that the new regime would cover contracts worth
more than one million Euros and would take effect from 1 July,
2006.
“This is a landmark decision” said Javier Solana, the
Head of the Agency, who chaired the meeting. “It will mean a
better deal for European taxpayers, and for their armed forces. And
it is a vital step for ensuring that our defence industries remain
globally competitive.”
“The need for this breakthrough has been recognised for years
– decades, even. I am delighted that we have got there in the
EDA’s first year of operation,” he added.
An EDA study earlier this year established that the majority of
defence procurement by EU governments was done outside the
framework of internal market rules on public procurement because of
the exemption allowed under Article 296 of the Treaty establishing
the European Community.
Member States who subscribe to the new voluntary,
inter-governmental regime will commit to maximising fair and equal
opportunities for all suppliers based in other subscribing Member
States by publicising procurement opportunities through a single
online portal and setting transparent and objective criteria for
selecting bidders and awarding contracts.
The key principles underlying the code are transparency and mutual
accountability: regular EDA data-collecting and reporting will
allow all participants to satisfy themselves that the regime is
working as intended and that all are moving forward together.
Special attention will be given to small and medium sized
enterprises.
Assessing the first year of the Agency’s operations,
Ministers expressed satisfaction to see it up and running so
quickly and starting to make a real difference. They noted that
important advances have been achieved, such as today’s
decision on defence procurement -- one of the EDA’s flagship
projects for 2005 -- and an initiative to address Europe’s
capability shortfall in air-to-air refuelling.
“As I reported to the Council of Ministers, the Agency has
become an effective and credible instrument,” Solana said.
“The challenge is now to exploit its full potential and meet
growing expectations, in particular to generate new collaborative
investment projects.”
On another flagship – Command, Control and Communications
(C3) – an important step forward was taken when Ministers
agreed that the Agency should test the viability of a collective
European approach to developing a next-generation Software Defined
Radio (SDR) as a joint civil/military endeavour.
SDR brings together computing and communications technologies and
could eventually allow military radio systems that can securely
deliver voice, data and video in a variety of different formats. It
could enable forces to communicate at all levels and between all
levels, the key to interoperability which is a crucial requirement
for multi-national ESDP operations.
Ministers also approved the EDA budget and the Work Programme for
2006. Work will continue on the 2005 flagship programmes, but much
of the Agency’s further work will flow organically from the
systematic capability development processes now established by EDA.
Some new areas will certainly be addressed, such as strategic lift,
space-related capabilities and combat equipment for dismounted
soldiers.
In 2006 the Agency will also tackle some big strategic issues:
developing a Long-Term Vision for European Capability and Capacity
Needs; developing thinking on the Defence Technological and
Industrial Base in Europe as one entity; and tackling the issue of
defence R&T spending.
Javier Solana, in his role as Secretary General of the Council of
Ministers and High Representative, has been invited by EU Heads of
State and Government to report to their December summit his first
thoughts on a number of specific issues bearing on the European
Security and Defence Policy, including how to raise levels of
spending and collaborative spending on defence R&T, and ways of
tackling key capability gaps.
The following additional material is available on the EDA
website:
http://www.eda.eu.int
1. EDA Steering Board Decision of 21November 2005 on an
Intergovernmental Regime to Encourage Competition in the European
Defence Equipment Market and the Code of Conduct
2. Questions and Answers on the European Defence Equipment
Market
3. Report by the Head of the European Defence Agency to the Council
of Ministers
4. EDA Work Programme for 2006
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