SEPTEMBER 2004
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Wednesday, 29th September,2004
EASTER ISLAND - SAVING THE RAPANUI
Two of the world’s most remote islands have both come into the international spotlight in recent months. Tiny Pitcairn is in the midst of a sex scandal which Pitcairners fear may threaten their very existence. Now, just a few hundred kilometres away, the equally miniscule Easter Island faces its own crisis of survival. The Easter Islanders, descendents of the Polynesian tribespeople who constructed the famous statues there, say they are now under threat of extinction. For more than 100 years, the Rapanui people have been governed by Chile but they’re now petitioning the UN to intervene to ensure their survival. Nick Lazaredes has more.
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Wednesday, 29th September,2004
CANADA’S DEADLY EXPORT
On Friday, trade union leaders will begin talks with James Hardie in a bid to ensure compensation for the company’s asbestos victims. As the asbestos scandal continues to grow here, so does the momentum for a global ban on the deadly fibre. Australia signed on to the ban at the end of last year, following the lead of many European nations. But, surprisingly, Canada continues to dig asbestos up at a furious rate and is exporting thousands of tonnes of it to the developing world. As Ginny Stein reports, Canada is now being accused of global trafficking in a lethal commodity.
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Wednesday, 22nd September,2004
INTERVIEW WITH BAMBANG HARYMURTI
With more than two-thirds of the vote counted in Indonesia’s presidential election, former general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is heading for a comfortable victory. For an analysis of what kind of president he will make, we spoke with one of Indonesia’s most respected journalists and editors, Bambang Harymurti. Harymurti has a particular interest in how democracy unfolds in Indonesia. Last week he was sentenced to a year in prison after the government charged him with "criminal defamation" - the third such prosecution of a journalist in the last 12 months, a disturbing trend in press freedom there. I spoke to Bambang Harymurti this afternoon after he returned from court to lodge his appeal.
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Wednesday, 22nd September,2004
HOME SWEET HOME
Depending on whose view you listen to, there seems to be two Iraqs on the planet at the moment. One Iraq is descending into hell, as the Arab League maintains, the other heading into a brighter future, according to President Bush. One of the optimists is Australian Hassan Janabi, who returned to Iraq to take up a key role in the bureaucracy there. Last year, Olivia Rousset went with him as he set foot in Iraq for the first time in more than 20 years. He returned to Sydney recently to spend some time with his family, and Olivia caught up with him again.
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Wednesday, 22nd September,2004
INTERVIEW WITH SEYMOUR HERSH
Seymour Hersh is one of the world’s most accomplished investigative reporters. He was the first to expose the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1969 - a story that is believed to have helped end the war. Earlier this year he broke the story of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Now in a new book, ’Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib’, Hersh goes even deeper into the darker side of the Bush Administration’s war on terror. This is his first Australian interview on the eve of the book’s release. I spoke to Seymour Hersh from London.
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Wednesday, 22nd September,2004
OUTFOXED: RUPERT MURDOCH’S WAR ON JOURNALISM
In the US, the presidential election campaign is now entering the home straight. And there’s one man who may well determine the result - Rupert Murdoch, who owns what has become one of the most influential news outlets in the country. Fox News is now the highest rating cable news network in the States. But it’s winning enemies as well, with critics claiming it’s taking journalism to new lows with its outrageous bias in favour of the Republican Party. Peter Martin has more.
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Wednesday, 15th September,2004
THINLY VEILED HUMOUR
Since the US has been on a war footing for the past couple of years, critics there have claimed that America’s tradition of free speech has become increasingly shaky, but apparently not on the stand-up comedy circuit. As Bronwyn Adcock reports, one comedian is scratching at the raw nerves exposed by terrorist attacks and receiving rave reviews.
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Wednesday, 15th September,2004
AMERICA’S FAVOURITE PHAROAH
In Cairo last week, a photograph of President Hosni Mubarak’s son, Gamal, was erected on a 4-storey-high billboard in the city’s busiest square, raising concerns that Mubarak is grooming his son to succeed him. On Thursday, a coalition of opposition figures issued a statement denouncing the possible "inheritance of a presidency". But as the United States calls for democracy in the Middle East, Egypt’s 76-year-old strongman is busy cracking down on dissent, as Matthew Carney reports.
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Wednesday, 15th September,2004
MICHAEL WARE INTERVIEW
It has been a tough week in Iraq, with bombings and street fighting sweeping central Baghdad. Against this backdrop came reports of Australians being kidnapped. There’s still no confirmation of claims that two Australians have been taken hostage. But if they have, God help them, because in the middle of an election campaign, both Mr Howard and Mr Latham are resolute that there’ll be no negotiations with the kidnappers. I spoke earlier with ’Time Magazine’s Michael Ware from Baghdad about this crisis and the 100 other kidnappings of foreigners that have occurred in recent months.
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Wednesday, 15th September,2004
EMBASSY BLAST
Last week’s bombing in Jakarta came in the middle of two election campaigns - the Australian one, of course, as well as next Monday’s Indonesian presidential election. The contenders in the Indonesian election all talk tough on terror in a general sense, but none of them want to be too specific. Unlike Australia, which views Jemaah Islamiah as the principal source of terror in Indonesia, none of that country’s leading politicians will even mention ’JI’ for fear of alienating their Muslim supporters. David O’Shea reports.
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Wednesday, 8th September,2004
THE NEW BATTLEGROUND-MARITIME TERROR
As the world comes to grips with the atrocity in Russia, security planners are busy devising strategies to counter yet another threat - maritime terror. The Malacca Strait, running between Malaysia and Indonesia, is one of the world’s busiest shipping channels and has long been a haven for pirates. Now, there’s growing concern that the big ships that ply the straits could become a target, with devastating results. Thom Cookes has more.
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Wednesday, 8th September,2004
KAGARLITSKY-MOISEEV INTERVIEW
Boris Kagarlitsky, a columnist with the ’Moscow Times’, has been highly critical of the Russian Government through this crisis. Mark Davis spoke with him from Moscow and from our Canberra studio, with the Russian Ambassador to Australia, Leonid Moiseev.
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Wednesday, 8th September,2004
BESLAN SIEGE
As the days pass since the horrific end of the hostage crisis in Beslan, there’s a growing chorus of anger - not only towards the hostage-takers but also towards Russian President Vladimir Putin and his security services. In a moment Dateline will be discussing what went wrong and where Russia may be heading next. But first, Nick Lazaredes with this report.
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Wednesday, 8th September,2004
ABILIO SOARES-THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE
Last week was the fifth anniversary of the independence vote in East Timor and the Indonesian atrocities that followed. At the time of the killings there was an international uproar and some confidence that the perpetrators would be prosecuted. That confidence has now turned to dust. As promised, Indonesia put its own military on trial. But one by one, they have all walked free, except for one man, Abilio Soares, the former governor of East Timor. His imprisonment just a few weeks ago marks a miserable end to the quest for justice. Mark Davis met with him in Jakarta’s Cipinang prison.
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Wednesday, 8th September,2004
THE NEW BATTLEGROUND - MARITIME TERRRORISM
On DATELINE on Wednesday, September 8 at 8.30pm reporter Thom Cookes looks at a new battlefront in the ‘war on terror” – terrorist attacks on maritime shipping.
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An example of the damage which can be wrought when terrorists take to the sea is the bombing of the Limburg in 2001. A supertanker anchored off the coat of Yemen, the Limburg was carrying close to 400,000 barrels of crude oil when it was hit by a suicide boat carrying only about 35 kilograms of explosives. The tanker burned for three days and was written off as a wreck. Yemen initially denied a terrorist attack was responsible, an understandable reaction given that as a result of the bombing insurance premiums rose 300% and ships stopped visiting Yemen’s port .
The Limburg was heading to the Malacca Straits – one of the busiest channels in the world. With 500 nautical miles of coastline the Straits are the perfect place for attackers to hide before hitting maritime targets which are the floating equivalents of skyscrapers in terms of their size and vulnerability.
Earlier this year the commander of the US Pacific Fleet outlined to an American government committee his plan to police the Malacca Straits with Marines in high speed vessels. Malaysia and Indonesia were deeply disturbed by the implications of this suggestion. Terrorism analyst Brian Jenkins says their concern was that this activity would come, as did American military activity in Iraq, with an accompanying political agenda:
“Now move all that to South East Asia and you have South East Asian leaders saying here come American vessels in the Straits of Malacca, here come the Marines, what’s the rest of this agenda?”
The prospect of American Marines in the Straits galvanized the Indonesian, Malay and Singaporean navies into action and they are now running their own joint patrols of the Malacca Straits. At the same time Malaysia is in the process of upgrading its patrols in the Straits and merging its marine services into a new coastguard.
Indonesia believes that Jemaah Islamiyah has considered a maritime attack in the Malacca Straits and it is also quick to blame the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) for a spate of attacks off Northern Sumatra. Cookes speaks to a member of GAM who says the attacks were more likely to have been by rogue members of the Indonesian military.
Meanwhile the risk of maritime terror has spawned a growth industry with security consultants reinventing themselves as marine terror experts. Amongst the newer companies is Aegis Defence Services whose founder, Tim Spicer, is best known as the mercenary thrown out of Papua New Guinea at the height of the Sandline affair (when foreign mercenaries became in embroiled in PNG domestic politics). -
Wednesday, 1st September,2004
JUSTICE AT THE CROSSROADS
Yesterday in The Hague, former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic began his defence on war crimes charges, saying he intends to call 1,600 witnesses, including Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. Critics of the trial say it’s already taking far too long and that the tribunal is soaking up funds better spent elsewhere. Tonight Graham Blewitt, who has just resigned as deputy prosecutor, airs his concerns about the future of the tribunal and warns that war criminals may go free because of bad decisions being made at the top. Irene Ulman has more.
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Wednesday, 1st September,2004
DR BRUNO TERTRAIS INTERVIEW
As Dateline goes to air tonight, two French journalists held hostage in Iraq may be facing execution. Their captors claim the journalists will be killed unless the French Government repeals its ban on the wearing of Islamic headscarves at schools and colleges. The ban will be tested, and perhaps the journalists’ fate decided, tomorrow - the first day of the French school year. Dr Bruno Tertrais from the Foundation of Strategic Research joins us from Paris to discuss how these events have affected the mood in France.
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Wednesday, 1st September,2004
MAHER ARAR - HIS ROAD TO DAMASCUS
As Dateline alleged last month, Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib was severely tortured in Egypt, where he’d been sent by the United States as part of its policy of ’rendition’ - the outsourcing of interrogation and torture to countries known for their human rights abuses. Canada is now dealing with a case that is eerily similar to Mamdouh Habib’s. Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen passing through the US, was seized by the Americans and sent to Syria, where he was allegedly tortured to extract information for the Americans. But it seems there was nothing to extract. Bronwyn Adcock reports.
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Wednesday, 1st September,2004
MAHER ARAR - HIS ROAD TO DAMASCUS
On SBS Television’s DATELINE this Wednesday, September 1 at 8.30pm, Bronwyn Adcock reports on how the United States government sent a Canadian citizen to Syria to be tortured. This story follows Adcock’s groundbreaking report on how Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib was similarly “rendered’ to another country, in his case Egypt, to be interrogated using torture.
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This report looks at how –
*Canadian citizen Maher Arar was arrested on the way home from a holiday in Tunisia, while on a stopover at JFK airport. What he thought was going to be a routine inquiry became a ten month long nightmare. Arar was suspected of being a member of Al Qaeda. During 12 days of interrogation Arar was told he would be sent to Syria, a country he left when he was aged 17.
*Despite his protests Arar, without any extradition hearing, was flown to Syria by an American “Special Removal Unit”. Once there he was locked in an underground cellar. He was beaten and psychologically tortured including being forced to listen to the cries of other torture victims. He says to try to stop the torture he finally gave a false confession that he had attended an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan.
*When Maher Arar was released he called for a public inquiry into why the Canadian government did not better protect his rights as a Canadian citizen. An inquiry with wide-ranging powers is now underway. Arar’s American lawyer, who also represents Mamdouh Habib, has called for Australia to also hold an inquiry into what the government knew.
*Washington Post journalist Dana Priest has investigated the American government’s practice of rendering terror suspects to third countries. She has spoken with serving and former administration staff involved in the practice which can be summed up by the comment, “We don’t kick the shit out of them. We have someone else do that.”
