Street-Fighting Boys
17 September 2005
The Telegraph Magazine
Overshadowing the glamour of Copacabana beach, the favelas represent
the dark side of Rio – ramshackle shanty towns where the
rule of law has been replaced by armed bandits and cocaine barons
barely out of their teens. Lutz Kleveman meets the gang members
of Rocinha, a place of danger, drugs and golden guns.
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article
Oil and the New Great Game
16 February, 2004
The Nation magazine
Since September 11, 2001, the Bush Administration has undertaken
a massive buildup in Central Asia, deploying thousands of US troops
not only in Afghanistan but also in the newly independent republics
of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia. These first US combat troops
on former Soviet territory have dramatically altered the geostrategic
power equations in the region, with Washington trying to seal
the cold war victory against Russia, contain Chinese influence
and tighten the noose around Iran.
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whole article
The Devil's Tears
The Politics of Oil and Human Rights in Central Asia
Spring 2004
Amnesty Now
Washington has joined cause with some of the world's worst human
rights abusers in Central Asia to protect oil interests and fight
its war on terrorism. The policy may backfire and sacrifice not
only human rights but U.S. national security as well.
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the whole article
What Georgia Taught Us
Washington must stop aiding Central Asia's dictators.
Wednesday 3 December 2003
MSN Slate Magazine
The recent "velvet revolution" in Georgia, when tens
of thousands of protesters forced out the Caucasian country's
longtime strongman Eduard Shevardnadze, contains an important
lesson for the Bush administration: Democratic regime change can
work. What it takes is some civil society on the ground and American
willingness to support it. Sadly, that willingness is missing
from Washington's dealings with the other autocratic post-Soviet
regimes in the Caucasus and Central Asia. If Bush is serious about
spreading democracy in the region to root out terrorism, this
needs to change.
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the whole article
The 'war on terror' is being used as an excuse to further
US energy interests in the Caspian
Monday 20 October 2003
The Guardian
Nearly two years ago, I travelled to Kyrgyzstan, the mountainous
ex-Soviet republic in Central Asia, to witness a historical event:
the deployment of the first American combat troops on former Soviet
soil.
As part of the Afghan campaign, the US air force set up a base
near the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. Brawny pioneers in desert camouflages
were erecting hundreds of tents for nearly 3,000 soldiers. I asked
their commander, a wiry brigadier general, if and when the troops
would leave Kyrgyzstan (and its neighbour Uzbekistan, where Washington
set up a second airbase). "There is no time limit,"
he replied. "We will pull out only when all al-Qaeda cells
have been eradicated."
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the whole article
How America makes terrorists of its allies
Monday 13th October 2003
The New Statesman
Kudair Abbass was happy to see the US army keeping the peace
in Iraq - until troops killed his brother for violating the curfew.
Now, like so many in the region, he wants revenge. By Lutz Kleveman
The day after US army soldiers in Iraq shot Yaass Abbass dead
I realised why America was losing the war on terror. The 28-year-old
truck driver from Fallujah, a centre of Iraqi guerrilla resistance
west of Baghdad, had been innocent, but that was not the point.
Nor was the sobbing of his five orphaned sons during the family's
mourning ceremony in a hastily set-up tent. Nor even the outrage
of the tribal representatives who arrived to offer condolences,
shrouded in white dishdasha robes and turbans. What struck me
was the US air force Apache combat helicopter, which kept hovering
above the tent, the engines' roaring noise drowning out the men's
recital of verses from the Koran.
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whole article
Oil wars: from Central Asia to Iraq
October 2003
Open Democracy
About a year ago, I visited the United States airbase in Bagram,
some fifty kilometres north of the Afghan capital Kabul. Soon
after my arrival a US army public affairs officer, a friendly
Texan, gave me a tour of the sprawling camp, set up after the
overthrow of the Taliban in December 2001. As we walked past the
endless rows of tents and troops in desert camouflage uniforms,
I spotted a wooden pole carrying two makeshift street signs. They
read Exxon Street and Petro Boulevard. Perplexed, the officer
explained, “This is the fuel handlers’ workplace.
The signs are obviously a joke, a sort of irony.”
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the whole article
