History, Poetry, Security

Bhambatha

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I recently watched a movie about South Africa called Tsotsi. One thing in particular, out of many, that caught my attention was the music by Bonginkosi Dlamini (Zola). A quick search revealed that he has since released an album called Bhambatha. A little further research uncovered that this name is a reference to a legendary Zulu chief.

Also known as Bambata, or Mbata, Bhambatha was a chief of the Zondi tribe in Kwazulu-Natal. He is famous for his role in an armed rebellion in 1906 when the poll tax was raised from a tax per hut to per head (£1 tax on all native men older than 18) increasing hardship during a severe economic depression following the Anglo-Boer War. The Natal Police believed Bhambatha was going to resist the tax with force and so about 150 men were sent to subdue or arrest him. Instead the police were ambushed and four policemen killed. Thousands of colonial troops were then sent after him, including calvary and heavy artillery, leading to 3,500 dead. Bhambatha himself reportedly was killed in the Battle of Mome Gorge. Thus, today he is often credited as an inspiration to native resistance.

The greater political and economic context to the rebellion, in relation to the Anglo-Boer War, is also interesting. For example, guns and ammunition Bhambatha and other Zulu chiefs used were apparently awarded to King Dinuzulu in 1901. The British formally recognized him as a king and provided weapons in order for him to assemble a large army that would speed the demise of the Boers. In addition, 250 of his men were put directly under the command of General Bruce Hamilton. After the Boer capitulation in May, 1902, however, the Natal government banned blacks from possessing firearms. The government also prohibited them from drinking alcohol, refused to replace their lost homes, forced them to work for the Boer farmers, and then increased the poll tax to have them pay for the war.

During this transition, the Zulu king was given 100 head of cattle as a reward and “demoted” back to local government status with his travel restricted. His guns and ammunition were seized. Although he complied, local whites reported that not all the guns were returned. This could have been a rumor spread by the settlers in order to motivate colonial armies to enforce control of the area, or the Zulus may really have been planning an organized armed resistance to the Natal government. It is both hard to imagine the latter, given the harsh treatment of the Boers by the British during the war, as well as understandable given the oppressive treatment after fighting on behalf of the British. In either case, tension was already high by the time Bhambatha engaged the armed policemen who had come to arrest him and started what he called a “War with the Europeans“. Instead, it seems to me, his rebellion marked the final chapter to the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879 and the beginning of the Freedom Struggle.

Portions of this were posted to Wikipedia, to help give context to the music/poetry of Zola.

Security

Amnesty International opposes Bush pot shots

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The Amnesty International site offers some background to their opposition and criticism of the Bush administration’s detainee program:

On June 29, 2006, the Supreme Court issued a sweeping decision that found the commissions as currently constructed to be invalid. The Court held that the President did not have the authority to convene military commissions that deviated so far from established procedures without specific Congressional authorization. In addition, the Court ruled that the commissions must be in line with the due process protections found in the Uniform Code of Military Justice and Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits “the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.�

Recently, President Bush announced that 14 “high value detainees� who had been in secret CIA prisons, including the purported masterminds of the September 11 attacks, had been transferred to Guantanamo and were awaiting trial by military commission. President Bush has also sent Congress draft legislation to authorize military commissions very similar to those already struck down by the Supreme Court. In addition, he is asking that Congress to retroactively strip habeas corpus and to provide immunity from prosecution for civilians, CIA agents and administration officials who may have violated the War Crimes Act. Amnesty International will continue to insist that any legislation meets the basic fair trials protections and standards for treatment required by the Supreme Court and US and International law.

I am shocked (no pun intended) that anyone would really consider military tribunals without fair representation as a valid system. We have the means and the opportunity to try terrorists successfully in a court of law, with International backing. Instead, by attacking the system of justice and working in a partisan manner to undermine Constitutional and International human rights provisions, the American president has his aim pointed in the wrong direction. Like Cheney shooting his friends in the back in pursuit of some other objective, Bush will do more damage than good to the US and actually foment more opposition at home and abroad through his proposed detainee program.

Just as disturbing is the political foundation of the system implemented to try Saddam Hussein himself. Again, the Bush administration has shown that its aim is to toss aside concepts of justice in search of political expediency. The Case School of Law’s blog explains:

The US managers of Iraqi post-conflict justice who were at the NSC, Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Justice (DoJ) failed to see that “special� tribunals have the connotation of exceptional tribunals, which are in violation of international human rights law and thus smack of illegitimacy. Not only the name, but other aspects of the IST’s statute which remained unchanged in the modification brought about in the IHCC in 2005, are in violation of international principles of legality, which Iraqi law also embodies. This applies to the definition of the crimes within the jurisdiction of the tribunal and also to several other provisions of the statute. The statute that US drafters developed was so influenced by American thinking that it had the fingerprints of the foreign occupying power all over it. It also had glaring violations of Iraqi law. This was followed by a decision to establish the IST through the Governing Council, a politically-appointed body by the US – a foreign occupying power in Iraq. Moreover, the selection of judges, investigating judges, and prosecutors by the GC was in violation of Iraqi laws on judicial appointments. All of this cast a dark shadow on the tribunal’s legitimacy and legality, which continued even though a name change and minor modifications occurred in 2005.

Since Iraq was subject to the exclusive control of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) run by US Ambassador Paul Bremer, the [Iraq Special Tribunal] statute was promulgated by Bremer on December 10, 2003, by CPA Order No. 48, thus confirming the “made in America� label of the institution. Moreover, the IST judges, investigating judges and prosecutors were formally approved by Bremer. The US, acting through the Department of Justice and its Regime Crimes Liaison Office (RCLO), controlled the Tribunal, conducted and directed its investigative activities, collected and stored the evidence, directed its operations, funded it, and had the seat of the Tribunal within the “Green Zone.� In time, the judges, investigating judges, and prosecutors whose salaries were paid by the RCLO moved into the Green Zone where everything was concentrated under US protection. There was little doubt about who owned the IST. Some things changed after 2005, particularly, the Iraqis taking ownership of the process, but the rest remained as it was.

The choice of this post-conflict justice modality was dictated by US political considerations, supported by Iraqi expatriates. It is the right choice, though by no means should it have been limited to a tribunal, and certainly not to one whose statute had so many infirmities. The Administration and its Iraqi expatriate collaborators approached the tribunal’s drafting of the statute without enough knowledge or respect for the Iraqi legal system, and without much experience in international criminal justice precedents. More importantly, they ignored the first lesson of post-conflict justice, namely, to keep politics at a minimum and make sure the legalities are at a maximum. In the IST’s case, it was the reverse.

As we often say in security, it is very dangerous to adopt a “Fire. Ready, Aim.” approach to governance and management. This is even more the case when considering the effects of friendly fire (e.g. taking pot shots at an Internationally recognized system of rights and laws).

pot shot
noun

    a careless shot taken without regard for hunting law or rules, often at a close-range or defenseless object, in order to fill a prize or cooking pot
History, Security

Iran strengthens ties with the Comoros

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I recently mentioned the influence of China in developing parts of Africa and Asia. Now Iran is said to be providing humanitarian support to countries such as the Comoros. Here is an Iran News report from August:

four agreements were concluded this week as the islands’ new president, Iranian-trained Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, known as the “ayatollah” for his Iranian education, seeks to improve ties with Islamic nations, officials said.

In the first visit to the overwhelmingly Muslim Comoros by a high-level foreign delegation since Sambi’s election in May, a senior Iranian team inked pacts in the agriculture, education, health and defense, they said.

Meanwhile, the US again threatened to invade Pakistan. I remember a similar situation in 2004 when a US diplomat made the news, but now the warnings are from President Bush himself. The latest exchange of words could have something to do with news that Al Qaeda recently signed an actual agreement with Pakistan to operate out of their northern territory. Other reports suggest that senior US officials have been playing hardball with Pakistan since 2001:

President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan says the United States threatened to bomb his country back to the Stone Age after the 9/11 attacks if he did not help America’s war on terror.

[…]

Musharraf told 60 Minutes that Armitage’s message was delivered with demands that he turn over Pakistan’s border posts and bases for the U.S. military to use in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Some were “ludicrous,” such as a demand he suppress domestic expression of support for terrorism against the United States.

“If somebody is expressing views, we cannot curb the expression of views,” Musharraf said.

At first glance this suggests that Iran and China are getting news for humanitarian assistance and development of third world countries, while the US is demanding that foreign nations restrict freedoms or face military attack. At a time when the US needs the most diplomacy and support from allies to build support for its war on terror, it appears to be accomplishing the exact opposite. Colin Powell’s warning seems right on target, unfortunately.

In a letter released last week, he joined Senator John McCain and other prominent Republicans in opposing the White House demand that Congress redefine the convention. “The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism,” he said.

Three fishing boats. That’s what Iran apparently gave the Comoros. It seems so incredibly minor, but the impact is undoubtedly huge compared to French or even US actions and words in the current theatre of international relations.

I will never forget how people literally honored Americans and talked about a great land of freedom and liberty in the 1980s and 1990s. In Eastern Europe I was always greeted with scowls and suspicion if I spoke German but as soon as I said I was American I was honored with open arms and warm smiles. One man, in a little town in rural Hungary, was so excited he started to cry as he told me he had waited forty years for me (the Americans) to arrive in his neighborhood.

All that global goodwill is now undoubtedly shifting, if not evaporating altogether, as the Bush administration appears to fail to understand how and why it existed in the first place.

Energy, Sailing, Security

Financial impact of ethanol for boaters

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The Press of Atlantic City has some good first-person accounts in their story on the ethanol problem for motorboats. The citations are a little suspicious because they say things like “Thomas estimates” without ever identifying who Thomas might be…. Anyway, they make a good attempt at trying to quantify the per-boat damage and costs from the sudden introduction of ethanol in New Jersey:

“It’s been a nightmare,â€? said Michael Advena, owner of Newport Marine Inc. in Ventnor. “During the first week this summer, we had 11 boats towed in. Out of those 11 boats, nine of them were fuel-related (problems).â€?

[…]

Thomas estimates that a carburetor ruined by fuel residue can cost about $700, plus a few hours of labor, to replace.

“You also get into towing fees,� Thomas said. “If it actually breaks down offshore.�

Fuel tanks can be even more costly. Boaters unwilling to wait for the ethanol to wash all the residue out of the tanks may choose to remove the fuel tank completely and have it power washed. Add on the expense of tearing up the boat deck to get to the fuel tank and the price tag can add up to several thousand dollars.

It is funny how biofuels are said to “clean out” the engines. Bio-diesel in an car or truck with high mileage often scrubs out all the old dirty petroleum waste, which obviously clogs filters. It is not unusual for a biofuel distributer to recommend that users change their filters more often. This seems like a minor inconvenience to me since a cleaner-running engine is a good thing both for health and maintenance. But the problem on boats is significantly greater.

My guess is that most pleasure boats do not have very clean filters to begin with (most people change their commuting/work vehicle oil regularly, but neglect motors for hobbies and toys) and their tanks are also not kept clean so the first blend of ethanol is more likely to cause problems than in automobiles. And that is not to mention that vehicles are far less susceptible to water than boats, as discussed earlier.