Messages In This Digest (10 Messages)

8.: Paul Kagame: "Our Kind Of Guy" From: Rick Rozoff

9.: Analysis: Kyrgyzstan And The Great Game For Central Asia From: Rick Rozoff

10.: China-Russia Relations Reach Unprecedented Level: Chinese FM From: Rick Rozoff

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1.: U.S. Envoy: NATO Chief's Georgia Visit Step Forward To Integration

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Sat Sep 25, 2010 7:58 am (PDT)

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-09/24/c_13527905.htm

Xinhua News Agency
September 24, 2010

NATO chief to visit Georgia next week: U.S. ambassador

TBILISI: NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen is expected to visit the South Caucasus country of Georgia next week, the Tbilisi-based ambassador from the United States said Friday.

Ambassador John Bass told local media that the visit would be a show of support for the alliance.

"It is support to Georgia and one step forward on the route of Georgia's integration to NATO," Bass said.

The Georgian parliament last week ratified the country's agreement with NATO to open a NATO liaison office in Tbilisi.

Georgia officially started its relations with NATO in 1994 after the country's 1991-1994 civil war by joining the NATO-run Partnership for Peace program (PfP).

The South Caucasus country's effort to join NATO began in 2005 when the two sides signed an agreement on the appointment of a PfP liaison officer to Georgia.

Russia opposes its southern neighbor's planned accession to the cross-Atlantic military alliance....
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2.: NATO Transfers Czech Troops From Kosovo To Afghanistan

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Sat Sep 25, 2010 8:04 am (PDT)

http://www.sananews.net/english/2010/09/24/czechs-to-send-more-troops-to-afghanistan/

South Asian News Agency
September 25, 2010

Czechs to send more troops to Afghanistan

PRAGUE: The Czech Defense Ministry says it's planning to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan by 200 next year.

Spokesman Jiri Grund says the ministry wants to deploy to Afghanistan some of the 400 troops it will withdraw from Kosovo later this year.

Grund said Thursday that "a worsened security situation" in Afghanistan has prompted the move, which still needs approval by the government and Parliament.

The 200 would join as many as 535 Czech soldiers whose deployment as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan had been approved by Parliament.

Earlier this year, Czech Republic agreed to contribute 55 more instructors to train the expanding Afghan security forces following a NATO request.
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3.: U.S. Drone Attack Kills Four In Northwest Pakistan

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Sat Sep 25, 2010 8:04 am (PDT)

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/7150151.html

Xinhua News Agency
September 25, 2010

U.S. drone attack kills 4 in NW Pakistan

At least four persons were killed Saturday in a drone attack in North Waziristan tribal area, northwest Pakistan, local TV channels reported.

Three missiles were fired at a vehicle in Dattakhel area, near Miranshah, the center town of North Waziristan, the private TV Express reported.

U.S. drones regularly strike what it calls hideouts of the al-Qaida and Taliban militants in the region.
....
Since a suicide attack killed seven CIA employees in Afghanistan in December, covert U.S. drone attacks have tremendously increased in the volatile Waziristan tribal region.

A number of high-profile militant leaders, including Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud were killed in the drone attack in August last year.
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4.: AFRICOM: U.S. Special Forces Train 750 Congolese Troops

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Sat Sep 25, 2010 8:04 am (PDT)

http://www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=5256&lang=0

U.S. Africa Command
September 20, 2010

750 Congolese Soldiers Graduate from U.S.-led Military Training, Form Light Infantry Battalion
By Eric Elliott

KISANGANI, Democratic Republic of Congo: Dignitaries from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the United States, the United Nations and the international community, recently gathered at Camp Base, a military base near Kisangani in north-central DRC, to participate in a ceremony marking the graduation of about 750 DRC soldiers trained by the U.S. and the activation of a light infantry battalion that is intended to be a model for future reforms within the Congolese armed forces.

Those trained included members of the newly designated 391st Commando Battalion, supporting medical and engineering personnel and trainers who can bring similar training to other units within the Armed Forces of the DRC (Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo, widely known as FARDC).

The train-and-equip mission, part of a long-term, multi-lateral U.S.-DRC partnership to promote security sector reform in the country, will assist the DRC government in its ongoing efforts to transform the FRDC.

"The U.S. considers the light infantry battalion as an important part of our support for defense sector reform in the DRC," said Samuel C. Laeuchli, U.S. Chargé d'Affaires to the DRC. "As partners, we have supported this training as well as other programs and we will continue to support other efforts in pursuit of our common goals."

During the ceremony, DRC Minister of Defense Charles Mwando Nsimba explained the significance of the training for his country.

"The training of this first battalion has been a source of great pride for the Democratic Republic of Congo," he said. "Our country is exiting a decade of war that seriously challenged our territorial integrity. Thus few can better understand the necessity of a country to have a well-trained and a well-equipped military."

The training is intended to increase the ability of the Congolese army to conduct effective internal security operations as part of the FARDC's rapid reaction plan...explained DRC Brigadier General Jean-Claude Kifwa, commander of FARDC's 9th Region....

Major John Peter Molengo, commander of the training center at Camp Base shared his perspective on the training program.

"In 2006 our president promised a transformation of the armed forces. I see this as an important step in this transformation."

For him, it was more than just the training of a single battalion though.

"In my mind, the most significant achievement was the training of about 200 trainers who will form the core of our future training initiative. This will ensure that the DRC can continue this program on its own and train other, similarly capable battalions in the years to come," he said.

This training was completed as part of Operation Olympic Chase, a program managed and executed by U.S. Special Operations Command Africa, a sub-unified command of U.S. Africa Command (U.S. AFRICOM).

The operation began in December 2009 with a 12-week course to prepare commanders, officers, non-commissioned officers and a core group of instructors in the skills necessary to train, manage and lead a light infantry battalion.
....
This initiative is also indicative of the strong U.S. support for security sector development in the DRC according to Cynthia H. Akuetteh, director of the U.S. State Department's Office of Central African Affairs.

"This training represents a very strong cooperation between the DRC and the United States. There still rests a lot of work to be done but a professional military is very important towards stability in the region," she said....

In addition to senior DRC officials, and U.S. representatives from the State Department, Department of Defense, U.S. AFRICOM and U.S. SOCAF, guests at the ceremony included representatives from the United Nations Observer Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC), the European Communications Security and Evaluation Agency (EUSEC), and civil society leaders, including members of the religious communities, human rights groups, University of Kisangani authorities, and local and national press.
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5.: As Afghan War Nears Tenth Year, NATO's 2010 Death Toll At 535

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Sat Sep 25, 2010 8:16 am (PDT)

http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/foreign-soldier-killed-afghan-bomb-attack-0

Radio Netherlands
September 25, 2010

Foreign soldier killed in Afghan bomb attack

A foreign soldier was killed by an improvised bomb in southern Afghanistan
Saturday, according to a statement from NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

ISAF's brief statement - following one earlier Saturday reporting the deaths of two soldiers in eastern Afghanistan in a similar attack on Friday - did not disclose the soldier's nationality, in keeping with NATO policy.

The latest deaths bring to 535 the number of international troops killed in the Afghan war so far this year, according to an AFP count based on a running tally kept by the icasualties.org website.

Improvised explosive devices (IEDs), a favoured weapon of Taliban-linked
insurgents across Afghanistan, account for most of the deaths among foreign
forces in the country.

This year's foreign military toll is the highest since the war began in 2001....

Last year, 521 foreign soldiers were killed in the Afghan war.

About 150,000 NATO and US troops are operating in Afghanistan, tasked with
implementing a counter-insurgency strategy designed to reverse Taliban momentum and allow American forces to start drawing down in 2011.

© ANP/AFP
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6.: NATO Tanker With 44,000 Liters Of Oil Destroyed In Pakistan

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Sat Sep 25, 2010 3:51 pm (PDT)

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010%5C09%5C26%5Cstory_26-9-2010_pg7_7

Daily Times
September 26, 2010

Blast destroys NATO oil tanker near Torkham

LANDIKOTAL: A NATO oil tanker was destroyed in a bomb blast at Torkham on the Pak-Afghan border on Saturday. The tanker was carrying 44,000 litres of oil for NATO forces in Kandahar, a Khasadar said.

Independent sources believed it was a fresh blast that set the oil tanker ablaze. No casualties were reported in the blast.
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7.: U.S. War Games In Asia Target China, Russia, North Korea

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Sat Sep 25, 2010 3:51 pm (PDT)

http://china.globaltimes.cn/chinanews/2010-09/577093.html

Global Times
September 26, 2010

Drills around China raise temp
By Fu Wen

-"The purpose of these military drills launched by the US is to target multiple countries including China, Russia and North Korea and to build up strategic ties with its allied countries like Japan and South Korea."

China and other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) wrapped up their largest ever anti-terrorism military drill Monday in Kazakhstan, the China News Service (CNS) reported.

More than 5,000 air force and army soldiers from five SCO member states, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, participated in the 16-day military drill dubbed "Peace Mission 2010."

The most advanced aircraft manufactured in China, the J-10 fighter jets, flew directly to a foreign country to engage in a military mission for the first time and some of China's top military equipment were also included in the exercise.

"The strategy behind the SCO anti-terror military drill is to unite countries in Central Asia and help them crack down on extremists who conduct terrorist activities through international organizations that may pose a threat to the safety of a legitimate government," Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo, a senior researcher at the Chinese Navy's Equipment Research Center, told the Global Times Monday.

The "Peace Mission 2010" was just one of several military drills that China participated in this year.

The East China Sea Fleet of the Chinese People's Liberation Army carried out military exercises with live ammunition in the East China Sea late June and air defense forces in East China's Shandong Province conducted firing practices in early August, reports said.

The US and some of China's neighboring countries are also conducting joint military exercises this year.

Soon after the US and South Korea staged a joint military drill in the Yellow Sea in July, the US and India are expected to hold an exercise this week at a US military base in Okinawa, Japan. The two countries are also discussing a transport aircraft deal worth $3.5 billion, Indian media reports said.

"A series of military drills initiated by the US and China's neighboring countries showed that the US wants to increase its military presence in Asia," said Yin.

"The purpose of these military drills launched by the US is to target multiple countries including China, Russia and North Korea and to build up strategic ties with its allied countries like Japan and South Korea," Yin added.

Song Xiaojun, a Beijing-based military expert, told the Global Times Monday that the US is trying to build a disturbing circle around China's coastal areas through military and diplomatic measures.

"China and the US are gaming over the security environment in Asia Pacific region and it is still unknown if the disturbing circle will be built in the end or China will turn the circle into a cooperative one by developing economic ties with neighboring countries," said Song.

Despite concentrated disputes over territorial sovereignty in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, China is also taking steps to improve bilateral trust with neighboring and western countries.

An Australian escort vessel and a Chinese frigate held a search and rescue exercise Thursday in the Yellow Sea. The drill, which includes the firing of weapons, was described as China's first live exercise with a Western country, Singapore-based Lianhe Zaobao said.
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8.: Paul Kagame: "Our Kind Of Guy"

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" r_rozoff@yahoo.com r_rozoff

Sat Sep 25, 2010 3:51 pm (PDT)

Z Magazine
October, 2010

Paul Kagame: "Our Kind of Guy"
Edward S. Herman and David Peterson

Back in 1995, a senior Clinton administration official, commenting on Indonesian President Suharto, then on a state visit to Washington, referred to him as "our kind of guy."[1] He was speaking about a brutal and thieving dictator and double-genocidist (first in Indonesia itself, then East Timor), but one whose genocide in Indonesia terminated any left threat in that country, aligned Indonesia militarily as a Western ally and client state, and opened the door to foreign investment, even if with a heavy bribery charge. The first segment of the double-genocide (1965-1966) was therefore serviceable to U.S. interests and was so recognized by the political and media establishment. Indeed, following the mass murders in Indonesia proper, Robert McNamara referred to the transformation as a "dividend" paid by the U.S. military investment there,[2] and in the New York Times, James Reston called Suharto's rise a "gleam of light in Asia."[3]

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame clearly is another "our kind of guy": Like Suharto, Kagame is a double-genocidist, and one who ended any social democratic threat in Rwanda, firmly aligned Rwanda with the West as a U.S. client, and opened the door to foreign investment. Later, and far more lucratively, Kagame helped carve out resource-extraction and investment opportunities for his own associates and the U.S. and other Western investors in neighboring Zaire, the massive, resource-rich Central African country renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 1997 during the First Congo War (ca. July 1996 - July 1998).

For many years Kagame has been portrayed in the Western mainstream media as the savior of Rwanda, having allegedly terminated the genocide committed against his own minority ethnic group, the Tutsi, by the Hutu majority (April - July 1994).[4] He and his supporters have long justified the Rwanda Patriotic Front's military invasions of Zaire - the DRC as a simple pursuit of the Hutu genocidaires who had fled Rwanda during the war within, and Kagame's conquest of, the country. This apologetic, long considered fraudulent by many marginalized dissidents, has finally come into question even within the establishment with the leak[5] and then wide circulation of a draft UN report prepared for the High Commissioner for Human Rights (i.e., "Report of the Mapping Exercise documenting the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between March 1993 and June
2003," June, 2010). Not only does this report catalogue the massive atrocities committed in the DRC over a ten-year period, it attributes the responsibility for the most serious of these atrocities to the RPF. "There is no denying that ethnic massacres were committed and that the victims were mostly Hutus from Burundi, Rwanda, and Zaire," the draft report quotes the findings of a 1997 UN inquiry (para. 510). Factoring-in the "scale of the crimes and the large number of victims" as well as the "systematic nature of the attacks listed against the Hutu…[p]articularly in North Kivu and South Kivu…suggests premeditation and a precise methodology" (para. 514). The draft report's section on the "Crime of genocide" concludes: "The systematic and widespread attacks…which targeted very large numbers of Rwanda Hutu refugees and members of the Hutu civilian population, resulting in their death, reveal a number of damning elements that, if they were
proven before a competent court, could be classified crimes of genocide" (para. 517).[6] As Luc Cote, a former investigator and head of the legal office at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), observed: "For me it was amazing. I saw a pattern in the Congo that I'd seen in Rwanda. It was the same thing. There are dozens and dozens of incidents, where you have the same pattern. It was systematically done."[7]

Actually, this was not the first time the UN had pointed to Kagame's genocidal operations in Rwanda and the DRC. Even before the 1997 inquiry (quoted above), the surviving written summary of Robert Gersony's oral presentation at the UN in October 1994 reports "systematic and sustained killing and persecution of the Hutu civilian populations by the [RPF]" in southern Rwanda from April through August of that year, and "Large-scale indiscriminate killings of men, women, [and] children, including the sick and the elderly…."   The Gersony report estimated between 5,000 and 10,000 Hutu deaths each month from April on. "It appeared that the vast majority of men, women, and children killed in those actions were targeted through the pure chance of being caught by the [RPF]." ("Summary of UNHCR Presentation Before Commission of Experts," October 11, 1994.) Importantly, the members of this UN Commission agreed at this time to treat Gersony's testimony
and evidence as "confidential," and ordered that it should "only be made available to members of the Commission"—who promptly suppressed its findings.[8] (See the letter written on UN High Commissioner for Refugees stationary by Francois Fouinat, addressed to Ms. B. Molina-Abram of the Commission of Experts on Rwanda, October 11, 1994.)

Among the many other UN reports on the DRC, the second in the series by the UN Panel of Experts on the "Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo" (S/2002/1146, October, 2002) also stands out. The UN Panel estimated that by September 2002, some 3.5 million excess deaths had occurred in the five eastern provinces as "a direct result of the occupation of the DRC by Rwanda and Uganda" (para. 96). This report also rejected the Kagame regime's rationale that its armed forces' continued presence in the eastern DRC was needed to defend Rwanda against hostile Hutu forces terrorizing the border region and threatening to invade it; instead, the "real long-term purpose is…to 'secure property'," the UN countered (para. 66).[9] But though this 2002 report was not ordered suppressed the way the 1994 Gersony report was, it was nevertheless ignored in the Western media, despite the fact that
3.5 million deaths greatly exceeds the highest toll attributed to the "Rwanda genocide" of 1994.

This suppression was surely a result of the fact that Kagame is a U.S. client, whose deadly efforts in the DRC were actually in line with the U.S. policy of opening up the country to U.S. and other Western mining and business interests. In fact, in answering questions on this leaked report, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Philip Crowley admitted that "We do have a relationship with Rwanda apart from the tragic history of genocide and other issues in the 1990s. Rwanda has played a constructive role in the region recently. It has played an important role in a variety of UN missions. It is in our interest to help to professionalize military forces. And we work hard on that in various parts of the world. So we have engaged Rwanda."[10] Crowley and company hadn't gotten around to studying that draft UN report at the time. But then, on the other hand, there were those earlier UN reports of Kagame's mass killings of civilians in both
Rwanda and the DRC, which led to no discernible U.S. or UN response (except, as noted, suppression). Could it be that these were the acceptable responses of those "professionalized military forces," as they have been to the performance of the professionalized forces of Suharto and the U.S.-trained Latin American troops fresh out of the School of the Americas?   Could it be that these horrors were also "dividends" and a new "gleam of light"—in Africa?

It is interesting to note that the first New York Times article on the draft UN report, by Howard French, refers to the difficulty encountered in getting this new report out—it was in fact leaked first to Le Monde in France by insiders who were concerned that its really critical parts might be excised before its release. The UN had already felt it necessary to show the draft to the Kagame government for comments,[11] and that government's denunciation of this "outrageous" document was spelled out in a full paragraph in the NYT article. As French explained it, there were "difficulties over seven months" in getting the report released over the objections of a government "which has long enjoyed the strong diplomatic support from the United States and Britain."[12]

Perhaps the UN insiders and media were emboldened to act by the remarkable 93 percent vote total obtained by Kagame in the August 9, 2010 presidential election, where he seems to have gotten massive support from the Hutus whose relatives and ethnic compatriots he was busily slaughtering on such a large scale in the DRC. This election got enough publicity to put Rwanda back on the media stage, if only briefly, with even the U.S. administration expressing mild "concerns" over "what appear to be attempts by the government of Rwanda to limit freedom of expression" (Philip Crowley, August 9),[13] and urging voluntary reforms. Suppose credible evidence was found by the UN that Venezuela's Hugo Chavez had massacred thousands of refugee women, children, elderly, and wounded in a neighboring country. Can you imagine the UN asking Chavez to comment on a draft report on his activities, and granting him seven months before someone leaked it to a major
newspaper?

We may note also that this possible DRC genocide is discussed by Howard French and the rest of the mainstream media within the partially exonerating context of "The Genocide" of 1994, where Kagame was allegedly the savior who ended a Hutu-engineered mass killing. As French writes, following the established Western party-line, "In 1994, more than 800,000 people, predominantly members of the ethnic Tutsi group in Rwanda,, were slaughtered by the Hutu."[14] In this and other current mainstream reports there was, first, the primary genocide of the Tutsi by the Hutu, which it now appears may have been followed by a secondary genocide in response by the Tutsi against the Hutu.

But this context is based on a monumental establishment lie about the first genocide, and in fact the great difficulty in publicizing the mass murder in the DRC has an obvious common source with that lie: namely, as Kagame is a servant of the U.S. and other Western imperial powers, reports of his crimes are ignored by Western officials and avoided in the mainstream media. The truth, which Howard French and his associates cannot admit, is that the real 1994 genocide was also mainly the work of Paul Kagame, with the assistance of Bill Clinton, the British and Belgians, the UN, and the mainstream media.[15]

Paul Kagame relies on the myth of his savior role to maintain his domination of Rwanda,[16] although this merely supplements his primary dependence on force. But he has made "genocide denial" a crime, with the standard model of the "Rwandan genocide" taken as the truth, so that those contesting his power can be treated as "genocide deniers" or "divisionists" and prosecuted for crimes against the Rwandan state. On this basis, Peter Erlinder, a U.S. lawyer and lead defense counsel at the ICTR, was arrested when he arrived in Rwanda in late May to represent Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, a Hutu opposition political candidate, who had also been arrested and barred from running for political office. Although Erlinder was released on bail in mid-June, his arrest and the systematic crackdown on opposition parties and candidates prior to the August election has been awkward for defenders of the savior and standard model.[17]

As to the mythical character of that model, consider the following:

* The "triggering event" in the first genocide is generally accepted to have been the April 6, 1994 shooting down of the jet carrying Juvenal Habyarimana, the Hutu president of Rwanda, and Cyprien Ntaryamira, the Hutu president of Burundi. There is overwhelming evidence that this shootdown was organized by Paul Kagame. This was the conclusion of Michael Hourigan, an investigator who researched the subject for the ICTR in 1996.[18] But his report on this to ICTR prosecutor Louise Arbour was set aside, after consultation with U.S. officials, and the ICTR failed to engage in any further investigation of the "triggering event" over the next 13 years. Why would the ICTR, a creature of the U.S.-dominated Security Council, drop this subject unless credible evidence pointed to the U.S.-supported Kagame and the RPF?

* An even more extensive investigation of the "triggering event" by French Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière concluded that Kagame needed the "physical elimination" of Habyarimana in order to seize state-power within Rwanda before the national elections called for by the 1993 Arusha Accords, elections that Kagame almost certainly would have lost, given that his minority Tutsi were greatly outnumbered by the majority Hutu.[19] Bruguière also noted that the RPF alone in Rwanda in 1994 were a well-organized military force, and ready to strike. And the politically weak but militarily strong Kagame-led RPF did strike, resuming its assault on the government of Rwanda within two hours of the Habyarimana assassination. This suggests advance knowledge as well as planning and an organization ready to act, whereas the Hutu planners in the establishment's mythical version of these events seem to have been disorganized, overmatched, and quickly
overpowered. In less than 100 days, Kagame and the RPF controlled Rwanda. On the assumption that the shoot-down was central to the larger plan of Hutu Power and genocide, this would have required a miracle of Hutu incompetence; but it would be entirely understandable if it was carried out by Kagame's force as part of their plan to seize state-power.

* Kagame was trained at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and has received steady U.S. material and diplomatic support from the time he assumed command of the RPF shortly after the RPF's invasion of Rwanda from Uganda in October 1990,[20] a serious act of aggression that was somehow not taken seriously in the Security Council, up to and beyond the RPF's final assault on the Rwandan state that began on April 6, 1994. During that April assault, when the "genocide" was presumably well underway, the remnants of the Rwandan government urged the UN to provide more troops to contain the violence, but Paul Kagame didn't want more UN troops as he was sure of a military victory, and—surprise!—the United States was also against such a troop addition. In consequence, the Security Council greatly reduced the number of UN troops in Rwanda—a bit hard to reconcile with the standard account that the locus of primary responsibility for the 100 days of killings
resides with "Hutu Power" (and killers) and their genocidal plan. The apology in 1998 by Bill Clinton on behalf of the "international community" for "not act[ing] quickly enough after the killing began"[21] was unconscionable hypocrisy. Rather than failing at some non-existent humanitarian objective, the Clinton administration facilitated Kagame's conquest of Rwanda in 1994, so Clinton shares Kagame's criminality for the violence in Rwanda and for the violence that the RPF extended so ferociously into the DRC for so many years.

* As regards evidence on the killings, there is no doubt that many Tutsi were killed, although mostly in sporadic bursts and localized vengeance killings, not as the result of a systematically planned operation of Hutu commanders. Only the Kagame forces seem to have killed on a systematic and planned basis. And their killings were played down by the UN and United States. Not only was the 1994 Gersony report on Hutu killings by the RPF suppressed by the UN, an internal memorandum to the U.S. Secretary of State in September 1994 that reported the killing of "10,000 or more Hutu civilians per month" by Tutsi forces also never saw the light of day, except for its unearthing by Peter Erlinder and its use as evidence at the ICTR.[22] When the U.S. academics Christian Davenport and Allan Stam, who were initially employed by the ICTR to document all deaths in Rwanda during 1994, concluded that the "majority of victims are likely Hutu and not Tutsi," they
were promptly fired. "The killings in the zone controlled by the FAR [i.e., the Armed Forces of Rwanda] seemed to escalate as the [RPF] moved into the country and acquired more territory," they write, summarizing what they consider the "most shocking result" of their research. "When the [RPF] advanced, large-scale killings escalated. When the [RPF] stopped, large-scale killings largely decreased."[23]

Would it not have been incredible for Kagame's Tutsi forces, the only well-organized killing force within Rwanda in 1994, whose surges on the battlefield were systematically accompanied by spikes in deaths, and who were able to conquer Rwanda in 100 days, to have been unable to prevent Tutsi deaths from exceeding the Hutu deaths by a large margin, as the standard model of the "Rwandan genocide" holds? Indeed, it is incredible, and should be considered a propaganda myth.

* This myth is also incompatible with basic population numbers. As we first reported elsewhere,[24] and will now repeat here (see Table 1, below), the official 1991 census of Rwanda determined the country's ethnic breakdown to be 91.1% Hutu, 8.4% Tutsi, 0.4% Twa, and 0.1% "other." Thus out of Rwanda's 1991 population of 7,099,844 persons, Rwanda's minority Tutsi population was 596,387, compared to a majority Hutu population of 6,467,958. Additionally, as Davenport and Stam point out in their Miller-McCune article, the Tutsi survivors organization IBUKA claimed that "about 300,000 Tutsi survived the 1994 slaughter"—a number which means that "out of the 800,000 to 1 million believed to have been killed then, more than half were Hutu."[25] In fact, it is highly likely that far more than half of those killed in Rwanda during the April-July 1994 period were Hutu; and of course after the RPF seized state power in July, Hutu deaths inside both Rwanda
and later the DRC continued unabated for another decade-and-a-half.

Concluding Note

There is great continuity in U.S. policy in the Third World, and it is not pleasant. Thus a Bill Clinton official could find the mass killer Suharto "our kind of guy" in 1995, and Suharto received steady U.S. support for 33 years, through the administrations of Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton, until his downfall during the Asian currency crisis in 1998. In a more recent time frame, extending from 1990 to today, Paul Kagame, an even more ferocious mass killer, has gotten support from the first George Bush, Bill Clinton, the second George Bush, and now Barack Obama (whose Deputy Secretary of State hadn't gotten around to looking at the draft UN Report on Kagame's mass killings in the DRC). It is interesting, also, to see the media treat this latest "our kind of guy" so kindly, with the liberal New Yorker's Philip Gourevitch even comparing Kagame to Abe Lincoln (in his 1998 book We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be
killed with our families), and Stephen Kinzer publishing a hagiography of this deadly agent of U.S. power (A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It [2008]).

This leaked UN report and the negative publicity generated by Kagame's sham election in August 2010 may open up the mainstream a bit to a more honest examination of this U.S.-supported mass killer. But that is no sure thing, given the value of his service to U.S. power in Africa, and given the U.S. establishment's deep commitment to a narrative that for many years has protected and even sanctified the "man who dreamed."

[ Edward S. Herman and David Peterson are co-authors of The Politics of Genocide, published in 2010 by Monthly Review Press. ]

---- APPENDIX ----

Table 1. Rwanda's national population as of 1991,
               broken-down by its two largest ethnic groups [a]

Prefecture

      Hutu

     Tutsi

   Totals [b]

Butare

   618,172 (82.0%)

130,419 (17.3%)

      753,868

Byumba

   761,966 (98.2%)

11,639 (1.5%)

      775,933

Cyangugu

   489,238 (88.7%)

   57,914 (10.5%)

      551,565

Gikongoro

   401,997 (86.3%)

   59,624 (12.8%)

      465,814

Gisenyi

   708,572 (96.8%)

   21,228 (2.9%)

      731,996

Gitara

   764,920 (90.2%)

   78,018 (9.2%)

      848,027

Kibungo

   596,999 (92.0%)

   49,966 (7.7%)

      648,912

Kibuye

   398,131 (84.8%)

   69,485 (14.8%)

      469,494

Kigali

   822,314 (90.8%)

   79,696 (8.8%)

      905,632

Kigali City [c]

   180,550 (81.4%)

   39,703 (17.9%)

      221,806

Ruhengeri

   760,661 (99.2%)

     3,834 (0.5%)

      766,795

TOTALS

6,467,958 (91.1%)

596,387 (8.4%)

   7,099,844

Urban

   313,586 (83.9%)

    57,186 (15.3%)

      373,762

Rural

6,154,365 (91.5%)

558,265 (8.3%)

   6,726,082

[a] Adapted from Table 4.2, "Répartition (en %) de la population de nationalité rwandaise selon l'ethnie, la préfecture ou le milieu de résidence," in Recensement general de la population et de l'habitat au 15 aout 1991, Service National de Recensement, Republique Rwandaise, p. 124. Table 4.2 reported the national population of Rwanda, ca. 1991, by ethnicity and expressed as percentages (i.e., here the percentages inside the parentheses). Based on Rwanda's total population (7,099,844) at the time, we've simply calculated the related approximate totals in the second and third columns for Hutu and Tutsi (e.g., 7,099,844 x 8.4% = 596,387 for the total Tutsi population of Rwanda at the time of the 1991 census). Note that these numbers are to be regarded as approximate totals.
[b] Note that although we've omitted separate columns for the Twa and Other ethnic groups that were listed in Table 4.2 (1991), our Totals column here includes the totals for Twa and Other.
[c] Note that Kigali City's total is separate from the total for Kigali Prefecture.

---- Endnotes ----

[1] David E. Sanger, "Real Politics: Why Suharto Is In and Castro Is Out," New York Times, October 31, 1995. As Sanger described the Clinton administration's embrace of Suharto: "When [Suharto] arrived at the White House on Friday [October 27] for a 'private' visit with the President, the Cabinet room was jammed with top officials ready to welcome him. Vice President Gore was there, along with Secretary of State Warren Christopher; the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. John Shalikashvili; Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown; the United States trade representative, Mickey Kantor; the national security adviser, Anthony Lake, and many others. 'There wasn't an empty chair in the room', one participant said. 'No one used to treat the Indonesians like this, and it said a lot about how our priorities in the world have changed'….[Indonesia is] the ultimate emerging market: some 13,000 islands, a population of 193 million and an economy growing at
more than 7 percent a year. The country remains wildly corrupt and Mr. Suharto's family controls leading businesses that competitors in Jakarta would be unwise to challenge. But Mr. Suharto, unlike the Chinese, has been savvy in keeping Washington happy. He has deregulated the economy, opened Indonesia to foreign investors and kept the Japanese, Indonesia's largest supplier of foreign aid, from grabbing more than a quarter of the market for goods imported into the country….'He's our kind of guy', a senior Administration official who deals often on Asian policy, said…."
[2] On Robert McNamara, see Noam Chomsky, Year 501: The Conquest Continues (Boston: South End Press, 1993), p. 126. "Particularly valuable," Chomsky notes, with direct relevance to the story of Paul Kagame's rise, "was the program bringing Indonesian military personnel to the United States for training at universities, where they learned the lessons they put so use so well. These were 'very significant factors in determining the favorable orientation of the new Indonesian political elite' (the army), McNamara argued" (p. 126).
[3] James Reston, "A Gleam of Light in Asia," New York Times, June 19, 1966.
[4] The most widely cited account of what we regard as the standard model of the "Rwandan genocide" is Allison Des Forges et al., "Leave None to Tell the Story": Genocide in Rwanda (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999).
[5] The existence of this draft UN document was first reported in France by Christophe Châtelot, "L'acte d'accusation de dix ans de crimes au Congo RDC," Le Monde, August 26, 2010.
[6] See "Report of the Mapping Exercise documenting the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between March 1993 and June 2003," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, June, 2010. Here we emphasize that although this report was leaked to the media and then circulated widely, we do not know whether it will be revised before its eventual official publication (scheduled for October 1, 2010), and how dramatic the revisions will be.
[7] Judi Rever, "Congo butchery resembled Rwandan genocide: UN lawyer," Agence France Presse, August 27, 2010.
[8] See the treatment of Robert Gersony's oral presentation before the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, as well as the written order by the Commission of Experts on Rwanda to suppress Gersony's findings, in Christopher Black, "The Rwandan Patriotic Front's Bloody Record and the History of UN Cover-Ups", MRZine, September 12, 2010.
[9] Mahmoud Kassem et al., Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo (S/2002/1146), UN Security Council, October, 2002.
[10] U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Philip J. Crowley, "Daily Press Briefing," U.S. Department of State, August 30, 2010.
[11] See Philip Gourevitch, "Rwanda Pushes Back Against UN Genocide Charges," New Yorker Blog, August 27, 2010.
[12] Howard French, "U.N. Report on Congo Offers New View of Genocide Era," New York Times, August 28, 2010.
[13] U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Philip J. Crowley, "Daily Press Briefing," U.S. Department of State, August 9, 2010.
[14] French, "U.N. Report on Congo Offers New View of Genocide Era."
[15] See Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, The Politics of Genocide (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010), pp. 51-68. For an electronic copy of this section of our book, see "Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the Propaganda System," Monthly Review 62, no. 1, May, 2010.
[16] The myth of the Paul Kagame-led Rwandan Patriotic Front ending rather than triggering and participating in—and even perpetrating—the mass atrocities of 1994 known as the "Rwandan genocide" was propagated by Alison Des Forges et al. in "Leave None to Tell the Story": Genocide in Rwanda.   "The Rwandan Patriotic Front ended the 1994 genocide by defeating the civilian and military authorities responsible for the killing campaign," we read in the chapter devoted to the RPF. "Its troops encountered little opposition, except around Kigali, and they router government forces that began in early April and ended in July" (p. 692). The entire chapter that Des Forges et al. devoted specifically to "The Rwandan Patriotic Front" (pp. 692-735) must be understood as an attempt to propagate this myth by which the Kagame dictatorship has justified its rule by violence since 1994 and the pillage that followed.
[17] See Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, , "Peter Erlinder Jailed by One of the Major Genocidaires of Our Era—Update," MRZine, June 17, 2010.
[18] See Affidavit of Michael Andrew Hourigan, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, November 27, 2006. For other sources that discuss the suppression of the Hourigan memorandum, see Robin Philpot, Rwanda 1994: Colonialism Dies Hard (E-Text as posted to the Taylor Report Website, 2004), esp. Chap. 6, "It shall be called a plan crash"; Steven Edwards, "'Explosive' Leak on Rwanda Genocide," National Post, March 1, 2000; Mark Colvin, "Questions unanswered 10 years after Rwandan genocide," PM, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, March 30, 2004; Mark Doyle, "Rwanda 'plane crash probe halted'," BBC News, February 9, 2007; Nick McKenzie, "UN 'shut down' Rwanda probe," The Age, February 10, 2007; and Tiphaine Dickson, "Rwanda's Deadliest Secret: Who Shot Down President Habyarimana's Plane?" Global Research.com, November 24, 2008.
[19] Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, Request for the Issuance of International Arrest Warrants, Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris, November 17, 2006, p. 12 (as archived by the Taylor Report website).
[20] Two early reports on the Paul Kagame-led Rwandan Patriotic Front's 1994 overthrow of the remnants of the Habyarimana government are worth referencing here: Steve Vogel, "Student of War Graduates on Battlefields of Rwanda," Washington Post, August 25, 1994; and Raymond Bonner, "How Minority Tutsi Won the War," New York Times, September 6, 1994.
[21] "Clinton's Painful Words Of Sorrow and Chagrin," New York Times, March 26, 1998.
[22] See George E. Moose, "Human Rights Abuses in Rwanda," Information Memorandum to The Secretary, U.S. Department of State, undated though clearly drafted between September 17 and 20, 1994. This document was called to our attention by Peter Erlinder, the director of the Rwanda Documents Project at William Mitchell College of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, ICTR Military-1 Exhibit, DNT 264.
[23] Christian Davenport and Allan C. Stam, "What Really Happened in Rwanda?" Miller-McCune, October 6, 2009.
[24] See Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, "Adam Jones on Rwanda and Genocide: A Reply," MRZine, August 14, 2010, specifically Table 1, "Rwanda's national population as of 1991, broken-down by its two largest ethnic groups."
[25] Davenport and Stam, "What Really Happened in Rwanda?"
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9.: Analysis: Kyrgyzstan And The Great Game For Central Asia

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Sat Sep 25, 2010 8:14 pm (PDT)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/LI25Ag01.html

Asia Times
September 25, 2010

Kyrgyzstan's Rosa at the heart of the matter
By M K Bhadrakumar

For those who held a perennial grievance that the United States paid scant attention to the Central Asian region, Friday presents an extraordinary sight. President Barack Obama has scheduled a meeting with Kyrgyz leader Rosa Otunbayeva in New York.

Not a "walk-in" or a "pull-aside" or a chance encounter, but a "stand-alone" event, structured well in advance, with the customary media briefing by the concerned assistant secretary of state, et al.

Make no mistake about the meaning of Obama's personal intervention in US diplomacy with an unelected leader of a small, remote country of 5 million people in the middle of nowhere. Obama will be signaling how central Kyrgyzstan has become for US foreign policy.

There has been a paradigm shift in Central Asia this past week. A visit by the Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov to the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek on Friday has been abruptly canceled and the signing of a major Russian-Kyrgyz military agreement by him on Friday has been inexplicably put off to March next year.

A question mark looms large on the Kremlin's choices ahead. It has to do with Otunbayeva plus Obama from now on. Anything involving Obama even remotely makes the business highly sensitive for the Kremlin, which pins such high hopes on the reset with the US.

But the Kremlin also has its job cut out in the post-Soviet space, no matter what Obama may think of it. A major terrorist strike on Tajikistan last Sunday raises the specter of the flame of the brutal five-year civil war that ended in 1997 rekindling. A convoy of Tajik troops was ambushed in the remote Rasht Valley, some 180 kilometers from the capital, Dushanbe. The valley had had been a traditional stronghold of Islamist guerillas during the civil war.

All eyes are on Russia's role as the protector of the Tajik nation when danger lies ahead. But if Russia is unready to perform its role, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) could be waiting in the wings. The alliance's Central Asia envoy, Robert Simmons, is on record after recent talks in Dushanbe with President Emomali Rahmon that NATO hoped to establish a military base in Tajikistan. The French already have an air base in Tajikistan.

Ironically, the terrorist strike in Tajikistan coincided with the Peace Mission-2010 anti-terror exercises of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) currently underway in Kazakhstan. It becomes yet another strategic challenge to Moscow to demonstrate the relevance of the two security organizations of SCO and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) for regional security in Central Asia.

US snubs Moscow

Thus, the Obama-Otunbayeva meeting will be held against a backdrop of big shifts in the power dynamics in Central Asia. Despite the Russian rebuff to the US's plan to introduce the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as the principal provider of security in Kyrgyzstan, Washington is not only not backing off but on the contrary is pressing ahead.

The great beauty of the US diplomatic thrust is that Washington is staging an assault on Russia's traditional dominance in Kyrgyzstan while insisting all the time that it is working in tandem with Moscow.

This is a first-rate vignette of the Great Game harking back to the 19th century when Czarist Russia and Imperial Britain constantly strove to project an impression of kinship in Central Asia while bitterly undercutting each other. Moscow is maintaining a stony silence, and neither confirms nor disputes Washington's claims of camaraderie and coordination over the issues of Central Asian security and stability.

During a briefing in New York on Wednesday ahead of the Obama-Otunbayeva meeting, US Assistant Secretary of State for Central Asia Robert Blake insisted that the US policy was significantly predicated on the "improved cooperation with Russia ... And from our standpoint, we've been very pleased with the recent progress and cooperation that we've had with the government of Russia, particularly on Kyrgyzstan, which has been a very high priority for both our governments."

Blake recalled that Russian cooperation had been "at all levels of our government", it has been "quite extraordinary", and "we [the US] want to not only build on that progress with respect to our relations in Kyrgyzstan, but also to look at other ways that the US and Russia can cooperate in the region."

Even as Blake spoke, Moscow found itself abruptly stranded at the penultimate stage of signing a major military agreement with Kyrgyzstan. What emerges is that Bishkek changed its mind under US pressure and Moscow has suffered an embarrassing rebuff.

It has been an open secret for the past few weeks that the Kremlin was on the verge of staging a major coup by following up on its military pacts with Ukraine and Armenia in recent months with a similar long-term agreement with Kyrgyzstan that would put the Russian military presence on a virtually long-term footing and might allow Moscow to open another brand new military base in the south of the country.

Reporting from Moscow only 10 days ago, Britain's Daily Telegraph described the impending development as a "significant geopolitical breakthrough that would allow it [Russia] to consolidate and expand its military presence in the former Soviet Union as a bulwark against encroaching US and Chinese influence."

Quoting Defense Ministry sources in Moscow, Russian daily Kommersant gave details of the military pact - that Bishkek was ready to give Russia a lease of 49 years "with the possibility of extension", and in exchange Kyrgyzstan "expects to get Russian arms - as rent payment". The report further mentioned that the proposed pact would "integrate" Russia's existing military facilities in Kyrgyzstan into one military command - Kant airbase, the Russian navy's telecommunications center No 338 in the village of Kara-Balta, Koisary anti-submarine equipment test base No 954 in Karakol on Lake Issyk Kul, and a military seismic station in Maily-Suu.

A Russian Defense Ministry delegation headed by the deputy chief of staff of the Russian Armed Forces, General Valery Gerasimov, arrived in Bishkek on Monday as the advance party ahead of Defense Minister Serdyukov to give the final touches to the proposed military pact, which was discussed in Moscow by Kyrgyz Defense Minister Abibulla Kudaiberdiev on September 13.

From all accounts, Bishkek seemed anxious to strengthen its Russian security cover, as the Kyrgyz situation remains fragile. Evidently, the US prompted the Kyrgyz to do a rethink when it came to be known that the Kremlin was wrapping up a historic military pact in Central Asia.

It appears the Kyrgyz began insisting at the last minute that Moscow should make a decent payment for leasing its military facilities. The US media have been ridiculing Moscow publicly that it pays a paltry amount of US$4.5 million to Bishkek as leasing charges whereas for the US transit center in Manas, the Pentagon has been footing a $60 million bill annually as rent alone.

In effect, the score is now 1-1. Moscow recently scotched Washington's attempt to get an OSCE police force deployed in Kyrgyzstan and now in turn has been halted in its tracks as it aspired to sign a long-term military pact with Bishkek.

Power game in Bishkek

What lies ahead? Everything seems to hang by a thin thread - the outcome of the parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan in October. Behind the scenes, both the US and Russia are hoping that their respective favorite Kyrgyz parties will lead the next government, which is bound to be a coalition.

Russia's ruling party, United Russia, openly signed an "agreement of cooperation" on Wednesday with the Party of Dignity, headed by the former Kyrgyz prime minister (and Soviet-era KGB general) Felix Kulov. In a demonstrative gesture, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev received Kulov and said, "We watch closely the life in your country and the political processes there."

But Washington is not to be outdone. Blake virtually followed up on Medvedev's sentiment when he said in New York, "Obama wants to meet with President Otunbayeva first to show support to the Kyrgyz people and to the Kyrgyz government ... to reaffirm the important opportunity that now exists for the Kyrgyz people to establish the first parliamentary democracy in Central Asia. ... President [Obama] looks forward to a very full discussion on all of those issues when he sees the [Kyrgyz] president. ... I think the [US] president is going to focus mostly on, again, the democratic possibilities that are now before us in Kyrgyzstan. And that's certainly our highest priority there."

Blake stressed that the US expected the elections to be free and fair and that it was going to be the "most important" template of US diplomacy in the weeks ahead. Washington seems confident that it is going to get a democratically elected government in Bishkek that is positive towards strategic ties with the US. Washington's estimation is that a parliamentary system is easy to influence, especially a coalition government, whereas Moscow would have preferred a strong man at the apex of the presidential system in Bishkek who would invariably have a Soviet past.

Moscow seems somewhat less sure about the shape of things to come in Bishkek. As things stand, Washington is comfortable with Otunbayeva's leadership, and Obama's decision to receive her underscores the US comfort level with the prevailing political dispensation in Bishkek. As Blake put it, Otunbayeva is "supportive" of the US base in Manas and "we're very pleased with the cooperation that we have" - so much so that Manas is not even going to be a "significant part of the conversation" between the two presidents on Friday.

The US diplomacy seems confident of having effectively quarantined the growing Russian discomfort with the American presence in Manas. The US's upper hand in the lively strategic rivalry over military bases in Kyrgyzstan in a way shows that its Central Asian policy is becoming sufficiently resilient to absorb setbacks and to move forward. Russia and China cannot easily match this nimbleness.

But a big issue still remains: all said, democracy is a dicey game full of unpredictability and booby traps. What happens if the Kyrgyz elections produce another Viktor Yanukovich as in Ukraine? Kulov, in fact, can foot the bill, and he is slated to perform well in the October elections. One can never quite underestimate the depth and extent of Russian influence in Kyrgyzstan - not only among the elites but also at the popular level. Most adults in Kyrgyzstan speak Russian. The Russian media, especially television, provide their window to life, politics and the world at large. One-fifth of the Kyrgyz workforce are gainfully employed in Russia and their remittances are a lifeline for the Kyrgyz economy.

This is what makes the US-Russian struggle for dominance in Kyrgyzstan so absorbing to watch. Quite clearly, the US cannot do without Kyrgyzstan in its overall Central Asia strategy. To quote the US commander in Manas, Dwight Sones, recently, "Kyrgyzstan in itself is really the crown jewel of Central Asia, in terms of its location, its sphere of influence with the surrounding countries."

Enter China

Russia and China are feeling the pressure of the US thrust into Kyrgyzstan, and both seem intensely aware that the US is digging in for a long-term military presence in Afghanistan, as in Iraq.

Moscow might have given a mild warning to Washington to go easy when it was revealed on Wednesday that "joint training flights" by Russian and Chinese (and Kazakh) pilots were held at the Russian air base at Kant in Kyrgyzstan this week. The report by the Voice of Russia claimed that "the joint training is part of Peace Mission 2010" of the SCO.

This is an extremely significant development since the Kant base is also part of the CSTO for ensuring the security of air space in Central Asia. Actually, reflecting on the ongoing SCO exercises in Kazakhstan, a Moscow commentator on military affairs recently affirmed that the SCO and CSTO were destined to be two sides of the same coin. He wrote:

[The] SCO has no intention of turning into a military bloc. However, the military aspects of intra-SCO cooperation are crucial given the context of ongoing developments in Afghanistan and recent civil unrest in Kyrgyzstan. Current developments ... pose a serious test for both the SCO and the CSTO. In effect, they also present a test for Russia, which considers the creation of these organizations and their operation to be its achievement, and with good reason.

Should the SCO and the CSTO manage to prevent the spread of conflicts and to stabilize the regional situation, it would be possible to draw optimistic conclusions about the prospects for cooperation between their member-states. However, much depends on the readiness to act promptly and resolutely, using all available means, including military force, to put an end to violence. Otherwise all these troop exercises will remain purely theoretical, designed to create a particular image, but devoid of any real content.

A degree of frustration is beginning to surface in Russian comments regarding China's perceived reluctance to get its toes wet in Central Asia despite the US's strategic challenge to its core interests in Kyrgyzstan and elsewhere in the region.

Evidently, Russia cannot much longer take the heat of US pressure in Central Asia by itself. However, it is not that China isn't aware of the quintessence of the Afghan game. On Monday, in a rare commentary titled "Why are US forces bent on expanding military bases in Afghanistan?", the People's Daily took stock of the emerging trends.

The commentary assessed that the beefing up of the massive American airbases in Bagram, Kandahar and Mazar-i-Sharif revealed the US intention to maintain a permanent presence so as to "consolidate its global military network". It estimated that the US consistently kept this objective in view when it intervened in Afghanistan in 2001 and Obama was keeping up the course.

The commentary visualized that the US military presence was intended to "control" Afghanistan and to act as the "springboard to cope with the volatile situation in Iran". It could foresee that the US would find various excuses for somehow or other perpetuating its military presence in Afghanistan and it was conceivable that Washington and Kabul might soon enter into an agreement for this purpose.

Significantly, the commentary drew a comparison with the permanent US military bases in Japan and South Korea. It concluded, "Central Asia has much weight or bearing in the US global geopolitical and strategic interests and hence the maintenance of a long-term military presence in Afghanistan is a crucial component part of the vital US military chain around the world."

Unsurprisingly, the US will attempt to scuttle the prospect of any Russia-China security axis crystallizing in Central Asia. US spokesmen and officials effusively speak about US-Russian cooperation in Kyrgyzstan, but they studiously ignore China's role, if any, as a key player in Central Asia. In the seminar circuits, American experts constantly drill into the minds of their Russian interlocutors that the real challenge comes from China and it is a common challenge, which they will be prudent to counter together.

Recently, well-known American geostrategist and former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski (who expounded famously on the "Eurasian chessboard") touched on China's role in the region. Interestingly, he said in the course of an interview with the Russian media:

"We [US and Russia] also now have a very important participant in this distribution of power across Eurasia. And that is China. So the future of, so to speak, the competition, the rivalry, or the game has changed. It's much more now a question of maneuver, political accommodation, equilibrium, balancing to make certain that no one dominates this continent and particularly no one who is imbued with a global missionary zeal as the Soviet Union was.

"So I think the nature of relationships now on the Eurasian continent is fundamentally different. And it provides for much greater opportunity of some accommodation. We see this accommodation developing - still timidly, of course, between Russia and the United States, and that's an important development. We have a significant relationship with China."

Was the grandmaster encouraging Moscow to come away from involvements with China and move closer to the US? Arguably, it is possible to interpret Obama's reset with Russia, too, from such a perspective in the medium term.

Without doubt, the summits of NATO (in Lisbon in November) and the CSTO (the following month in Moscow) are going to be watershed events for trans-Atlantic and Eurasian security. There is, clearly, a great deal of intellectual churning going on in Moscow, too. The Moscow think-tank associated with Medvedev has just come up with a stunning report counseling the Kremlin to seek NATO membership.

But before anything further happens on the fundamental alignments of great powers, Russia and China are blessed with an opportunity to have an in-depth exchange at the highest level of leadership regarding the impact of the US's regional strategies in Central Asia on their vital interests.

At the invitation of Chinese President Hu Jintao, Medvedev arrives in Beijing on Sunday for a three-day visit. All indications are that both Moscow and Beijing are preparing to take a great leap forward in their cooperation.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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10.: China-Russia Relations Reach Unprecedented Level: Chinese FM

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Sat Sep 25, 2010 8:22 pm (PDT)

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=15529655&PageNum=0

Itar-Tass
September 25, 2010

Chinese-RF relations reach unprecedented level – Chinese FM

BEIJING: Relations between China and Russia reached an unprecedented level, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said.

In an exclusive interview with Itar-Tass ahead of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's visit to Beijing, the Chinese minister said, "Russia and China established a strategic partnership more than 10 years ago. During the whole period relations between the two countries have remained healthy and stable."

"Relations between our states reached an unprecedented level. Both parties created a complex mechanism of exchanges and cooperation, including regular meetings between the heads of state, government and parliament. Heads of ministries and agencies hold regular consultations. This allowed both parties to lay a good foundation for bilateral cooperation," Yang said.

Political trust strengthened. China and Russia expand trade, economic, energy, scientific, technical, investment, military-technical and humanitarian contacts, the Chinese minister noted. He stressed that interaction on key international and regional problems "is becoming closer every day".

"Both parties solved the border problems and signed the Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness, Friendship and Cooperation. They formulated the ideology of their relations and expressed resoluteness to develop friendship from generation to generation and never to be enemies," Yang said.

China and Russia consider strategic partnership and cooperation "most important and most reliable", the Chinese minister said.

"Chinese-Russian strategic partnership and interaction are vital and intensive. We express satisfaction with the development of Chinese-Russian relations," Yang pointed out.
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