Indira Gandhi 3,000 members of India’s Sikh community were massacred after her assassination

Indira Gandhi’s death remembered

• Profile
• Massacres
• In pictures

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Survivors have had little justice. Only 20 people have been convicted for the killings (Photo: Soutik Biswas)

 

Nearly 3,000 members of India’s Sikh community were massacred after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her two Sikh bodyguards on 31 October 1984. Rahul Bedi, one of the first journalists to reach the affected areas in the capital, Delhi, recalls events.

The 25th anniversary of Indira Gandhi’s assassination revives stark memories of some 3,000 Sikhs killed brutally in the orderly pogrom that followed her killing.

The wave of ethnic cleansing which raged unhindered across the country, especially in Delhi, after Mrs Gandhi was shot dead ended only with her cremation on 2 November.

During these three days droves of Sikhs were determinedly hunted down by Hindu mobs from their homes, corralled and slaughtered like animals.

The trigger for Mrs Gandhi’s killing was the storming of the Golden Temple in Sikhism’s holy city Amritsar four months earlier to flush out Sikh militants fighting for an independent homeland of Khalistan or Land of the Pure.

Sikh shops and establishments were targeted and burnt

The heavily-armed militants – many of them former soldiers – had barricaded themselves inside the temple and were dislodged only after three days of bitter fighting. Some 1,000 people, including women and children pilgrims and about 157 soldiers, died.

Tanks too were employed to end the siege, leaving Sikhs highly aggrieved.

The eventual and possibly avoidable storming of the Golden Temple generated a wave of violence leading to Mrs Gandhi’s assassination, the anti-Sikh riots and a vicious insurgency across Punjab that was eventually stamped out by the military around 1993, although not without widespread human rights abuses.

But the 1984 Delhi riots rocked the world, more so for the state’s direct involvement and public justification of the blood-letting.

‘Earth shakes’

Reacting to the continuing Sikh killings in Delhi and other places, newly appointed Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi declared at a massive rally in the capital that “once a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the earth around it shakes”.

One of the worst massacres took place in two narrow alleys in the city’s poor Trilokpuri colony where some 350 Sikhs, including women and children, were casually butchered over 72 hours.

Nearly 3,000 Sikhs were killed in the massacres (Photo: Soutik Biswas)

 

The charred and hacked remains of the hundreds that perished in Trilokpuri’s Block 32 on the smoky and dank evening of 2 November 1984 were stark testimony to the unimpeded and seemingly endless massacre.

Soon after news of Mrs Gandhi’s killing by her Sikh bodyguards spread, Hindu mobs swung into action – like they did elsewhere in the city armed with voters’ lists – in Trilokpuri against the low caste Sikhs inhabiting one-roomed tenements on either side of two narrow alleyways barely 150 yards long.

With local police connivance they blocked entry to the neighbourhood with massive concrete water pipes and stationed guards armed with sticks atop them.

For the next three days marauding groups armed with cleavers, scythes, kitchen knives and scissors took breaks to eat and regroup in between executing their bloodthirsty mission.

Sikhs were killed in the main railway station (Photo: Ashok Vahie)

When as a reporter then with the Indian Express newspaper I along with two other colleagues visited the area on the eve of Mrs Gandhi’ funeral, both lanes were littered with bodies, body parts and hair brutally hacked off, forcing us to walk precariously on tip-toe.

It was impossible to place one’s foot flat on the ground for fear of stepping on either a severed limb or a body.

Earlier in the day two policemen on a motorcycle had emerged from Block 32 and reassured us that shanti or calm prevailed inside it and no untoward incident had occurred.

A few hours later on returning to the spot we saw that the entire area was awash with blood, a large proportion of it black coagulated mounds over which flies buzzed lazily.

Abject terror

It was also piled high in the open drains on either side of the tenements, never efficient at the best of times, alongside other human remains.

As we walked through this implausible slaughter in the light of hurricane lamps provided by some residents, the complete silence despite the large mob surrounding us was eerie.

No one spoke and nothing, except the bizarre, dancing shadows moved during this surrealistic interlude.

Even one of the only survivors – a young polio-afflicted mother – holding her new born in her arms gazed sightlessly upon us.

Her blank look momentarily changed into one of abject terror as we bent down to take her child to whom she fiercely clung.

She probably took us to be the butchers who had massacred her entire family piled up high in the room behind her.

A whimper led us to a barely conscious young Sikh, hiding under a heap of bodies, his slashed stomach wrapped crudely around with a turban.

Riot victims have been waiting for justice for 25 years (Photo: Soutik Biswas)

 

All he wanted was water, parched after over 36 hours of concealing himself under the mound of corpses and bleeding steadily. He died soon after in hospital.

Some doors down a two-year-old girl, unmindful of the bodies, walked lazily over to us holding out her arms asking to be taken home.

Unfortunately, she was home; but one littered with the bloated bodies of her parents and siblings killed two nights earlier.

Police arrived in Trilokpuri 24 hours later when the Indian Express revealed the horrific massacre.

Sadly, there were no Sikhs left to protect.

Two inquiry commissions and seven investigative committees into the 1984 Sikh riots later no one has been held guilty for the Trilokpuri killings.

Of the 2,733 officially admitted murders, only nine cases have so far led to the conviction of 20 people in 25 years; a conviction rate of less than 1%.

But Manmohan Singh’s elevation to India’s prime minister in 2004 was looked upon by the flamboyant Sikh community as the vindication of its destiny of being born to rule.

Previous transgressions by his Congress party were forgiven but not forgotten and his casually tied trademark blue turban represented a collective crown for the enterprising but persecuted Sikh community.

Mr Singh, they said, was king.

Rahul Bedi is based in Delhi and works as the India correspondent for Jane’s Defence Weekly and the Irish Times. During the 1984 riots he was with the Indian Express.

bbc.co.uk

Oil rush

Left behind by Iraq’s oil rush

Some villagers have not seen any benefit from the neighbouring oil installation

By Andrew North BBC News, al-Ahdab oil field, southern Iraq

Critics of the US invasion six years ago often said its ultimate aim was to control Iraq’s vast deposits of oil.

So it is ironic, perhaps, that the first foreign oil company to sign a production agreement with the Iraqi government since 2003 should be from America’s growing rival, China.

A year since it signed a 23-year, $3bn (£1.84bn) deal to exploit the small al-Ahdab field, in Wasit province, south of Baghdad, China’s National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has already struck oil.

But in the next door village of al-Mazzagh, there is rising discontent among residents who say their interests are being forgotten.

The deal with the Chinese is the first test of Iraq’s readiness to host foreign oil concerns – with BP, Shell and many other Western giants also jostling for access to what its oil minister Dr Hussein Sharistani calls “the last frontier” for big oil discoveries.

We are sorry, but they don’t have skills and they can’t speak English Site manager China National Petroleum Corporation

With its budget almost entirely dependent on oil revenues, the government is desperate to boost output – which still barely matches pre-invasion levels – so it has turned to foreign companies for help.

For these companies, there’s been no opportunity like this in decades.

Iraq boasts the world’s third largest reserves of oil, with many potential fields not even tapped.

With many oil enterprises used to working in difficult places, few will be deterred by the still fragile security situation.

The regional government in Iraqi Kurdistan has signed a few deals of its own with foreign oil companies. But the central government in Baghdad is so far refusing to recognise them and is threatening to bar the companies involved from bidding on other contracts.

Complaints

But the biggest challenge may come from Iraqis living in the oil-producing areas – as the Chinese are finding.

Their drilling operation at the Ahdab field is right next to al-Mazzagh village.

And, complains one resident, Abu Abed, right on top of his land.

Iraq’s oil sources have attracted international interest

From his front door, he looks straight onto the blast walls and concrete gun towers protecting one of the Chinese drilling platforms.

“When I protested, they said they would pay compensation,” he says, “but I have received nothing.”

There were hopes too, when the Chinese company first arrived, of an employment bonanza.

“We thought everyone will find a job,” said Zahi, a village elder.

So far, they have taken on just a handful of al-Mazzagh’s residents as guards.

But the CNPC says there is little more they can do for local people.

“We are sorry, but they don’t have skills and they can’t speak English,” says a site manager who agreed to come out to talk to the BBC.

He said he wasn’t allowed to bring reporters or anyone else inside.

People who don’t find jobs could become thieves and looters Zahi Village elder

Although some people said the Chinese were still welcome, the mood has hardened.

There have been several reported acts of sabotage, including power lines to the drilling compounds being severed.

The Iraqi government has increased security at the site. American helicopters from a nearby base occasionally keep watch.

And with the project due to expand once full production gets underway, Zahi warned of trouble if al-Mazzagh does not start to see more tangible benefits.

“People who don’t find jobs could become thieves and looters.”

Despite the billions it is preparing to commit, this is just a small project for the Chinese company – a pump-primer to build relations with the Iraqi government.

It is actually based on an old deal first signed with the government of Saddam Hussein in the late 1990s, but which never went any further.

Most of the projected 100,000 barrels a day output will go to a local power station, rather than for export, and CNPC is unlikely to make much profit.

Community development

This strategy appears to be working, as it is finalising terms for a joint contract with British oil giant BP to work on one of Iraq’s so-called super giant fields at Rumailah, near Basra.

Dr Sharistani says local people in places like al-Mazzagh will have to be more patient, but insists their interests will not be forgotten.

“We are instructing the oil companies,” he says, “to help build roads, bridges and other infrastructure, as part of the deals the government is signing.

“So people feel these companies are there to develop their region and not just to produce the oil and take it away.”

A new oil rush could be underway in Iraq.

But getting the oil out is likely to be the easy part for the Chinese and other foreign companies scrambling to come here.

There is just one tarmac-sealed road to the single-storey, mud-walled houses of a-Mazzagh.

Few people have any kind of steady job. There is hardly ever any electricity and no running water in their homes.

“Life is just the same as in Saddam’s time,” says one man.

Q+A: Could Israel strike Iran over nuclear concerns?

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(Reuters) – Israel has not given up the option of a military response to Tehran’s nuclear programme, Israel’s deputy foreign minister said on Monday, after Russia had said Israel’s president gave an assurance Israel would not attack.

Many analysts believe the risks of a strike by Israel, even one not endorsed by its ally the United States, are significant.

Here’s where matters stand:

COULD ISRAEL LAUNCH A STRIKE AGAINST IRAN?

It’s a poker game with high stakes and a degree of bluff. Israeli leaders refuse to rule out any option [ID:nLD462373]. They do not believe Iran’s assurances it wants only nuclear energy. Noting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repeated assertions that Israel has no future, Israel has said an Iranian bomb would be a threat to its very existence that it simply would not tolerate.

Last year, however, it emerged officials were making plans for how Israel might live with a nuclear Iran in a state of mutual deterrence. And a June poll showed Israelis would not expect a nuclear Iran to attack. Last week, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said even a nuclear Iran could not destroy Israel, stating: “Israel can lay waste to Iran.”

Since becoming prime minister in March, Benjamin Netanyahu has, aides say, made ending threats from Iran a defining element of what he sees as his personal role in Jewish history. A 1981 Israeli air strike that destroyed Iraq’s only nuclear reactor, as well as a strike in Syria in 2007 that is cloaked in mystery, set precedents. Despite a policy of silence, few doubt Israel has nuclear weapons and missiles that can hit Iran.

WHAT MIGHT HOLD ISRAEL BACK?

It is not clear how Israel would define achieving its goal of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But a pledge from Iran to forswear such arms, backed by some form of supervision and intelligence data, might be a minimum. Much will depend on Iran’s actions and on U.S. President Barack Obama and others, who are pressing Iran through sanctions and diplomacy.

While many analysts doubt Iran’s denials of military intent, some say Iran may be content with showing it has the potential to go nuclear quickly, without actually arming itself. Israel, however, might not accept that level of potential threat.

In the meantime, were Israel to consider a unilateral strike on it Iran it would have to weigh several major risks:

– of retaliation, not just from Iran but its allied guerrilla groups, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas

– of economic and diplomatic backlash from U.S. and allies

– of a failed attack still triggering the above reactions

WHAT ARE THE KEY ELEMENTS IN TIMETABLE?

First, Iran’s technology: Israel’s national security adviser said in July it had passed a “red line” in terms of being able to make its own nuclear explosive but could not make significant amounts nor yet put viable nuclear warheads on its missiles.  Continued…

reuters.com

Al-Qaeda connection

By Daniel Sandford
BBC News home affairs correspondent

Rauf’s arrest in Pakistan forced UK police to seize the airline bomb plotters

In the summer of 2006, as they were making final preparations for the plot to bring down multiple airliners over the Atlantic, both Abdulla Ahmed Ali and Assad Sarwar took time out to send e-mails to Pakistan.

They were communicating with Rashid Rauf, a British man from Birmingham who had been living in Pakistan for six years.

Their e-mails, written in code, were essentially updates on their progress.

“I set up my music shop now. I only need to sort out an opening time. I need stock … Ali wrote on 3 August 2006.

The prosecution said he was telling Rauf that the bomb factory was ready, that he just needed to choose a day for the attacks and to get hydrogen peroxide, a key ingredient, from Sarwar.

‘Facilitator’

So who is Rashid Rauf? Why were the plotters communicating with him about their plans?

Intelligence on Rauf has suggested possible links to the London bombings

British officials believe he was their link with al-Qaeda, possibly involved in their training.

Recent intelligence assessments suggest his involvement in plans to attack Britain go back several years.

At the end of 2008, MI5 and MI6 wrote to Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee to say that “in the light of recent analysis of intelligence received” Rauf may have been involved in the 7 July London bombings.

They said their assessment was that he was a “facilitator” of the attacks, and that the bombers were “directed some way by elements of al-Qaeda based overseas”.

Rauf also has links to Muktar Ibrahim, the leader of the failed 21 July London bombings.

When Rauf’s house was raided in 2006, Pakistan police found the belongings of two British men who had travelled with Ibrahim to Pakistan in 2004 – and then disappeared.

Information about Rauf has continued to come in, most notably from men detained in the United States and Belgium.

There were even arrests in Britain this year because of intelligence about Rauf’s future plans, though in the end nobody was charged.

Fled UK

Rauf first came to the attention of police in the late 1990s when he was accused of obtaining a satellite phone by deception.

CODED EMAILS How is the skin infection you were telling me about? Has it got worse? Message from Pakistan to Abdulla Ahmed Ali, fearing police surveillance Airlines bomb plot: The e-mails

In 2002 he fled Britain after his uncle was savagely stabbed to death in Birmingham, and intelligence suggests he spent the subsequent years in Pakistan, plotting attacks on the West.

He was eventually arrested in 2006, but at exactly the wrong moment.

On 9 August Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command had what they say was “good coverage” of the suspects in the airline plot.

They were following the leaders and keeping track of the movements of the others. They just wanted more definitive evidence before they moved in.

Then came news that Rauf had been detained in Pakistan and, to their intense annoyance, British detectives had to bring the whole operation forward in a hurry.

A senior police officer has told the BBC that Rauf’s arrest followed a meeting at the White House, chaired by President George W Bush himself.

Body missing

The president and his advisers were so concerned about the risk to America that they encouraged the Pakistanis to take Rauf into custody. This has been denied by former advisers to President Bush.

Drone attack: Rauf reported killed by US strike

When asked about it, a British official said: “We know that when we share intelligence with our partners, they will sometimes make different decisions on grounds of their own national security.”

The story does not end there. Rauf’s lawyers claim he was tortured in Pakistan and the next year he made an extraordinary escape.

Two police officers were accompanying him back from court when, bizarrely, they let him enter a mosque unguarded to pray, and he simply disappeared.

Last November came news that he had been killed in Pakistan by a missile fired by a US drone. But his body has never been recovered.

The British intelligence assessment is that Rauf – a key figure in the 7 July attacks and the airline liquid bomb plot and possibly many others – is more likely dead than not.

bbc.co.uk

Tough challanges faces Iran

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faces daunting challenges as he begins his second term

By Jon Leyne BBC Tehran correspondent

After the turmoil of the last two months, it was a moment when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could attempt to restore his dignity.

This time the drama was neatly choreographed as the oath was administered.

The hugs, handshakes and kisses all in proper order, unlike the awkward moment on Monday when he was officially endorsed by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.

But in front of the president were a number of empty seats, as some MPs and other senior figures boycotted the ceremony.

The British and European ambassadors did attend, but Western governments declined to send messages of congratulations.

And, as his second term begins, Mr Ahmadinejad faces an increasing series of problems.

Deep split

There are the demonstrations on the streets.

For the moment they do not look big enough to unseat him, but by their sheer persistence, the protesters are rattling the government, keeping it off balance.

After the election I demonstrated in support of the government. This is because I see the protesters as a minority group who are trying to impose their view on the majority Amir, 28-year-old architect, Tehran Iranian views: Divided country In pictures: Election crisis

And there is always the possibility of a much bigger explosion of protests if the government tried to arrest the opposition leaders, or perhaps when students return to university in October.

The split at the heart of the Iranian political establishment was confirmed by the boycott of the ceremony by all three opposition presidential candidates, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, Mohsen Rezai, as well as two former presidents.

But Mr Ahmadinejad will be equally worried about the growing number of conservative former allies he has antagonised, before and after the election.

He has two weeks to present a new cabinet to parliament for approval and, even though parliament is made up almost entirely of fellow conservatives, if past form is a guide it could be a tough battle.

Daunting challenges

Then there is the economy. It has been almost forgotten in recent weeks, but the disastrous state of Iran’s economy is one of the big reasons for Mr Ahmadinejad’s unpopularity in the country.

Many lawmakers – as well as foreign envoys – did not attend the ceremony

The government staved off problems before the election, but now they could be compounded by a collapse in confidence as the administration struggles to stay in control.

And this is about the time the recent collapse in oil prices will start working its way through to government finances.

Then, of course, there is foreign policy – Iran is under growing pressure from the West to answer President Barack Obama’s offer of new talks on the nuclear issue.

Mr Ahmadinejad’s natural response is one of defiance.

But that might risk alienating China and Russia, and that could mean new sanctions to add to Iran’s current economic woes.

So Mr Ahmadinejad faces a daunting series of challenges as he tries to resume business as normal.

Above all, he faces a crisis of legitimacy. The doubts concern not just his election victory but increasingly the whole Islamic system under which Iran is governed.

For the president it will be an interesting four years ahead – if he survives that long.

bbc.co.uk

Cold War spies

How vital were Cold War spies?

By Gordon Corera BBC Security Correspondent

British spy Kim Philby handed over secrets to the Soviets

The world of espionage lies at the heart of the mythology of the Cold War.

Along with nuclear weapons, spies were the emblems of the conflict.

But while the tales of adventure, betrayal and mole hunts have proved a source of rich inspiration for thriller writers, did they actually make a difference to the outcome?

Did intelligence make the Cold War hotter or colder?

It is difficult to know the answer.

“There were secrets that were important to keep secret and there was intelligence which it would be very helpful to have known,” argues former British Foreign Secretary David Owen.

“But my own instinct is that we didn’t really – with a few exceptions and a few important exceptions – really know exactly what was going on.”

One reason it is hard to make a judgement is that much of the intelligence collected was military or tactical in nature, and would only have proven useful if the Cold War had gone hot.

Much effort was expended in stealing secrets like the Soviet order of battle or the design of new Soviet tanks which would have been invaluable in case of war.

Intelligence during the Cold War had a very big impact on the shape and size of the British defence programme Sir David Omand Former UK Intelligence and Security Coordinator

This type of intelligence was collected by electronic means and satellite reconnaissance, as well as by human spies. It was used to work out how to best equip and prepare the military.

Sir David Omand, the former UK Intelligence and Security Coordinator, says: “Intelligence during the Cold War had a very big impact on the shape and size of the British defence programme, on the kinds of equipment we bought and very specifically the actual capabilities that were built into that equipment to be able to encounter whatever intelligence showed was the capability of Warsaw Pact forces.”

During times of “hot war”, intelligence plays an important but ultimately secondary role in supporting military operations.

But, during periods of tension short of full-scale military action like the Cold War, intelligence takes on a more central position.

In the absence of traditional warfare, intelligence becomes itself the primary battleground as each side tries to understand the enemy’s capabilities and intentions, as it seeks to undermine their position using covert action, psychological operations and forms of subversion.

Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) had a troubled beginning to the Cold War, not least because it was penetrated by its Soviet counterpart, with men like Kim Philby and George Blake handing over secrets.

But slowly it became more professional, recruiting and running agents who could provide information on the activities of the Soviet bloc.

Intelligence sceptic

Some former diplomats query the record of intelligence in providing insight into political trends.

Rodric Braithwaite, a former ambassador to Russia at the end of the Cold War and later Chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, is something of an intelligence sceptic.

A Soviet spy’s insights changed Thatcher and Reagan’s approach

“I was always rather encouraged by the Joint Intelligence Committee, who used to send us drafts of their assessments on Soviet affairs with the secret bits cut out because they didn’t want to have them sloshing about in Moscow.

“With the secret bits out, the conclusions they were coming to were exactly the same ones that we were coming to in Moscow because the information that mattered was available at both ends and it was mostly either conversations with people, which were not particularly secret, or what was in the newspapers.”

But Sir Gerry Warner, a former deputy chief of MI6, believes intelligence helped ensure politicians had a realistic understanding of what the Soviet Union was up to.

“It is always a temptation if somebody is saying ‘I am a friend of yours and I don’t mean any harm’ to accept that.

“But if you are being told all the time by a microphone in your ear that it is totally untrue and that he’s holding a knife behind his back, he’s about to kick you where it hurts, the temptation is less to trust him.”

Running agents behind the Iron Curtain involved risk – risk to the life of an agent but also politically in terms of raising the temperature.

“The main concern was always balancing the value of possible intelligence against the risk,” explains Sir Gerry Warner.

“If an espionage operation was uncovered it was always an important public event – the media got into it, the other side would play it up – and therefore there was a political risk clearly.”

Understanding intentions

Spy rows flared periodically. In the early 1970s, the UK expelled more than 100 Soviet diplomats from its embassy in London.

So did these kind of operations and activities fuel distrust and paranoia?

The identity of most agents remains secret but a few have become public and one or two of those can be claimed to have made a real impact.

One was Oleg Penkovsky, a colonel in Soviet military intelligence.

Knowing your enemy is very important indeed Baroness Daphne Park Former MI6 controller

His information – passed to MI6 and the CIA in the early 1960s – helped President Kennedy manage the Cuban missile crisis successfully by identifying the extent of Soviet missile capability and how far the Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev was likely to push events.

The most useful strategic intelligence comes from penetrating the leadership of your enemy so that you understand not just their military capability but their intentions.

That was something MI6 only managed late in the Cold War largely thanks to KGB Colonel Oleg Gordievsky, who spent a decade towards the end of the Cold War supplying intelligence to MI6 which revealed how paranoid the Soviet leadership was of a first nuclear strike by Nato.

“The British service could not believe it but because I proved it very well they eventually believed it,” he said.

“Knowing your enemy is very important indeed,” argues Baroness Daphne Park, a former MI6 controller.

“It was very important that we should know that they were as paranoid as that. I don’t see how we would have known it any other way.”

Col Gordievsky’s insights had a profound effect on both Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in rethinking how they approached the Soviet Union, which in turn helped them manage the end of the Cold War.

“What nobody wanted was to be surprised,” Sir John Scarlett, the chief of MI6, told me in his office.

“And that intelligence knowledge, intelligence base if you like, gave knowledge which greatly reduced that fear of a surprise attack.

“And, as the Cold War developed, more confidence developed that the other side was understood, and that helped manage the situation and was a key reason why we got to the end without a blowout.”

The one thing the spies failed to predict, along with everyone else, was of course the end of the Cold War itself.

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MI6: A Century in the Shadows is a three part series for Radio 4.

You can listen again to the second episode Heroes and Villains via the BBC iPlayer.

The final epsiode, New Enemies , will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Monday 10 August at 900 BST and 2130 BST.

bbc.co.uk

struggle for power in Iran

By Roger Hardy
BBC Middle East Analyst

The role of the Supreme Leader is at the heart of the political crisis

How are we to understand the tumultuous events in Iran over the last few weeks?

In the 30 years since the Islamic revolution which overthrew the Shah, there have been no shortage of rows, crises and factional squabbles.

But this time is different. This time the disputes are out in the open – and the stakes could not be higher.

There is a sense that Iran is at a crossroads.

At the heart of the current crisis is the role of the Supreme Leader. This is the office created by the revolution’s founding father, Ayatollah Khomeini.

It put him at the top of the pyramid of political power, giving him the final say in all important decisions.

The office has been de-legitimised because the Leader has chosen to take sides Farideh Farhi, University of Hawaii

But since Khomeini’s death in 1989, the office has been held by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who lacks the charisma and religious authority of his revered predecessor.

It was Ayatollah Khamenei’s intervention in June’s presidential elections that plunged the country into turmoil.

By endorsing the conservative candidate, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as the winner, he abandoned the Supreme Leader’s traditional neutrality as a figure above the political fray.

“The office has been de-legitimised,” says Iranian political scientist Farideh Farhi of the University of Hawaii, “because the Leader has chosen to take sides – and has come out in support of a violent approach to demonstrators.”

So, given that the stakes were so high, why did the Leader act as he did?

Barbara Slavin of the Washington Times is the author of a book on US-Iranian relations.

Although there are plenty of conspiracy theories, she says, it is possible that the answer is hubris.

After 20 years in the office, power went to the Leader’s head – and he overreached.

Besides, she points out, Ayatollah Khamenei – like many other Iranians – genuinely believed that, at a time of tension between Iran and the West, the country needed a strong president rather than some “lily-livered reformist”.

Enough is enough

Thousands protested against what they said was a rigged election

But whatever the Leader’s calculations, it was a costly mistake.

Endorsing Mr Ahmadinejad as president for a second term, after what many saw as a fraudulent election, provoked protest on an unprecedented scale.

It also left the regime more dependent than ever on two paramilitary forces – the Revolutionary Guard and the volunteer militia known as the Basij.

Many clerics are appalled.

In their eyes, says Jon Alterman of the Washington think-tank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, the point of Islamic government is to lead the public – not to beat the public.

He thinks some clerics may now be inclined to say, “Enough with one man being Leader. We’ll have three, we’ll have a committee. The Leader will advise, the Leader won’t rule.”

That would pitch the Islamic Republic into uncharted waters.

But it is an option that seems to be favoured by one of the key figures in the power struggle – the former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Salvaging the system?

Mr Ahmadinejad is due to be sworn into office again in August

During the elections, Mr Rafsanjani supported the main reformist candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi – and was clearly shocked when Mr Ahmadinejad was declared the winner.

Speaking at Friday prayers at Tehran University on 12 July, he presented himself as a loyal supporter of the system whose duty was to rescue it from crisis and division.

It must have been a difficult decision, says political scientist Farideh Farhi, but he decided to say openly that the leadership had taken the wrong path.

“What he’s trying to do,” says journalist Barbara Slavin, “is somehow salvage the system in a way that retains some figment of legitimacy – and that’s not going to be easy.”

Mr Rafsanjani has had a chequered career. He has come under fire because of his great wealth and because of the human rights abuses which tarnished his presidency in the 1990s.

It would be ironic, says Ms Slavin, if this was his legacy – to preserve the legitimacy of the regime and at the same time rehabilitate his own rather tattered reputation.

Whether that is possible must be an open question.

With Mr Ahmadinejad due to be sworn in for a second term on 5 August, the government has a tough choice.

If it makes concessions in the face of continuing demonstrations, that would be a humiliating climb down.

If, as seems more likely, it clings to power, it will do so as a wounded regime whose credibility is ebbing away.

bbc.co.uk

Moldova: Divided as ever

By Tom Esslemont
BBC News, Chisinau, Moldova

The last time Moldovans went to the polls – less than four months ago – the result was disputed and the subsequent opposition protests descended into violence.

Igor Strechi says he came onto the streets to demand democracy

Political stalemate over the selection of a new president has forced the dissolution of parliament and fresh elections.

As they head to the polls again, voters are concerned that the real issues facing the country are not being addressed.

Opposition supporter Igor Strechi says he was one of those who protested at the result of the 5 April poll.

“I wanted to take part in a peaceful protest, like thousands of others. We disputed the result of the election. We wanted democracy, freedom of speech and press liberalisation,” he says, pointing to parliament.

“Then it turned violent.”

Crowds poured into the parliament building. They looted it and then set fire to it. it was only the next day that police took back control.

More than three months later it is still being repaired and the government and opposition are arguing about who was responsible for the violence.

‘Propaganda’

“Definitely we are not interested in destroying the parliament because we won the elections,” says Grigore Petrenco, a member of the ruling Communist Party.

“We got 60 seats of 101. What was our interest in dividing society?”

The deputy leader of the Liberal Party, Dorin Chirtoaca, has been singled out by the authorities for alleged involvement.

His party performed best out of the three principal opposition parties during April’s election. But he says he is the victim of government propaganda.

“They see me as Hitler, they see me as a Nazi,” he says.

“They need to create an image of an enemy. They need arguments to convince the citizens because they don’t have anything to offer for them.”

Mr Chirtoaca’s party strongly favours integration into the European Union. His supporters have been out on the streets in the build up to the vote, wearing blue and yellow T-shirts and handing out flyers emblazoned with the EU logo.

“People will vote to prevent the situation from getting worse than it is now after eight years of Communist Party rule,” says Mr Chirtoaca, referring to the fact that Moldova, Europe’s poorest country, is heavily reliant on handouts from the IMF and, recently, from Russia.

To get a sense of what people really think about Moldova’s economy I travelled to a food market on the edge of Chisinau.

The Communist Party’s support base is concentrated in rural areas

“Everyone will vote for Mr Chirtoaca’s party,” says Maria, 48, who runs a stall.

“I have to sell vegetables. I have no choice. People do not have money to buy the things I sell. It would be better if we could join the European Union, then at least we could travel more easily.”

The Communist Party support base is generally located in the rural areas. But in Chisinau, too, its younger supporters have been out in force.

Teenagers wearing red T-shirts and waving hammer-and-sickle flags gathered outside the government buildings this week.

“Lenin! Lenin!” they chanted.

But their T-shirts, too, carried the EU logo and their party vocally supports a path to EU membership.

Luke-warm relationship

However, analysts say the route to the EU would be faster under one of the more Western-leaning opposition parties because the Communists are also supported by Russia.

The Communists also have a lukewarm relationship with EU-member Romania, Moldova’s neighbour.

Outgoing President Voronin had backed Prime Minister Greceanii’s candidacy

Igor Botan, from the Association for Participatory Democracy in Chisinau, says: “There is an understanding that for Moldova to modernise quickly there is no other way than to join the European Union. Also the EU will help Moldova because it does not want to have an unstable country at its borders.”

But Moldovans go to the polls amid a great deal of uncertainty.

It is far from clear whether the opposition parties can muster enough support to gain power.

Some pollsters have suggested they would need to enter a coalition with the Communists to do so.

“The main hurdle to political stability is that the two opposing sides may have to enter a coalition. But the relationship between the Communists and the rest is so poisoned by what happened in April that it is hard to see how that can happen,” says Mr Botan.

It is also unclear whether or not the opposition would accept the results were they to hand power to the Communist Party – just as they did on 5 April.

bbc.co.uk

America’s most trusted voice -Leland Cronkite

Obituary: Walter Cronkite

Cronkite was a distinguished news reporter and anchorman

He became known as America’s most trusted voice – the man who brought so many big news stories into millions of homes across the United States.

His no-holds-barred reports on the Vietnam war were said to have been instrumental in persuading President Lyndon Johnson not to seek re-election.

Walter Leland Cronkite was born in St Joseph, Missouri on 4 November 1916, the son of a dentist.

His family moved to Houston when he was 10 where he attended a local high school before going on to the University of Texas where he worked on a student newspaper, The Daily Texan.

He failed to complete his studies, dropping out in 1935 to start a series of reporting jobs with local newspapers before beginning his broadcasting career at the radio station WKY in Oklahoma City.

In 1937, he joined the agency, United Press, and, with the outbreak of World War II, found himself reporting from battle zones across the world.

Accredited to the US forces, he flew on the first Flying Fortress bombing raids on Germany, covered the D-Day landings, and parachuted into the Netherlands with the invasion forces.

When the war ended, Cronkite stayed in Europe, reported on the Nuremberg trials, and served as UP bureau chief in Moscow where he covered the start of the Cold War and the increasing tensions between East and West.

Unflappable

After returning to the US in 1948, he worked as a radio reporter in Washington before being recruited by the distinguished journalist Edward R Murrow, who was setting up the first TV news operation for the broadcaster CBS.

He broke down on air after announcing Kennedy’s assassination

In 1952, Cronkite fronted the first television coverage of both the Republican and Democratic party conventions, with the term “TV anchor” being used to describe his role.

He went on to cover the party conventions and presidential elections until 1964 when CBS decided to replace him with two other anchors.

The move backfired badly and Cronkite soon returned to the chair as the face of major political events in America.

In 1962, Cronkite took over as the host of the CBS Evening News – a job that made him the best known face on American television.

He quickly became a celebrity with his easy, unflappable style of presenting carefully-written, objective news reports.

In September 1963, he had an exclusive interview with President John F Kennedy, and two months later broke the news of his assassination – an occasion on which Cronkite came close to breaking down on air.

Influenced the president

Over the following two decades his authority stamped itself on every major news story around the world – presidential elections, the moon landings and the Vietnam war.

When he broadcast his belief that America could not win that war, President Johnson was heard to say: “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle-America.” He decided then not to seek re-election.

Cronkite’s experience as a war correspondent helped CBS news gain a reputation for accurate and impartial journalism and, by the end of the 1960s, Cronkite’s evening programme finally gained more viewers than rival NBC’s offering.

“Our job is only to hold up the mirror – to tell and show the public what has happened.”

His reports from Vietnam persuaded Johnson not to seek re-election

His coverage of the Apollo 11 landing in 1969 made CBS the favourite among Americans watching the drama unfold on the surface of the moon.

He also trained himself to speak at a slower rate than was traditional among American news journalists so that no-one would be in any doubt about what was actually being reported.

In 1981, he retired from the evening news programme handing over his chair to Dan Rather, but it was not the end of his broadcasting career.

Cronkite continued to produce special reports for the network and, in 1983, worked for ITV on the coverage of the general election, including an interview with a victorious Margaret Thatcher.

He was also vocal in demanding free airtime on American TV for political parties, pointing out that the US was one of just seven countries in the world which did not offer this facility – to the detriment of minority candidates.

But he badly missed his prime time news slot. “I want to say that probably 24 hours after I told CBS that I was stepping down at my 65th birthday, I was already regretting it. And I regretted it every day since.”

Walter Cronkite was consistently voted “the most trusted man in America” in opinion polls. Every broadcast ended with his words: “That’s the way it is.”

bbc.co.uk

Breaking silence on Gaza abuses

Soldiers are quoted saying they opened fire at any “suspect places”

A human rights group founded by Israeli veterans has collected what it says are damning testimonies from soldiers who took part in the offensive in January against Hamas fighters in Gaza. BBC correspondent Paul Wood looks at the anonymous claims presented by Breaking the Silence.

Standing by the ruins of his home in Gaza, Majdi Abed Rabbo explained how Israeli troops had used him as a human shield.

“The Israeli soldiers handcuffed me and pointed the gun at my neck,” he said. “They controlled every step.”

In this manner, Mr Abed Rabbo said, he was forced to go in ahead of Israeli soldiers as they cleared houses containing Palestinian gunmen.

This same incident was described by one of the Israeli soldiers who spoke to Breaking the Silence.

Israel’s military is now looking into Majdi Abed Rabbo’s claims

“A Palestinian neighbour is brought in,” he says. “It was procedure. The soldier places his gun barrel on the civilian’s shoulder.”

If true, that was a clear breach of the international laws of war – which say soldiers have a duty of care to non-combatants – and of Israeli law.

The Israeli Supreme Court outlawed the so-called “neighbour policy”, of using Palestinians to shield advancing troops, in 2005.

Until now, the Israeli army always had a ready answer to allegations that war crimes were committed during its offensive in Gaza.

Such claims were, they said, Palestinian propaganda.

Now, though, the accusations of abuse are being made by Israeli soldiers.

Testimonies collected

The common thread in the almost 30 testimonies collected by Breaking the Silence is that orders were given to prevent Israeli casualties, whatever the cost in Palestinian lives.

Writing the report’s introduction, the Israeli lawyer Michael Sfard says: “All the witnesses agreed that they received a particular order repeatedly, in a way that did not leave much room for doubt, to do everything, everything, so that they – the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) soldiers – would not be harmed.

“The soldiers tell in their testimonies how this unwritten message, which came from brigade, battalion, and company commanders in morale-building conversations before entering Gaza, translated into zero patience for the life of enemy civilians.”

Israel denies its soldiers broke the laws of war

The lawyer adds: “Violations of the laws of war are liable to be war crimes.”

Here are just a few quotes which give a flavour of the soldiers’ testimony. The accumulation of detail is convincing and, in the eyes of Israel’s critics, damning.

“Things are happening in his battalion of which he (the commander) has no idea. There are people who deserve to go to jail…

“When your company commander and battalion commander tell you, ‘Go on, fire!’ the soldiers will not hold back. They are waiting for this day, the fun of shooting and feeling all that power in your hands…

“Fire power was insane. We went in and the booms were just mad. The minute we got to our starting line, we simply began to fire at suspect places. You see a house, a window, shoot at the window. You don’t see a terrorist there? Fire at the window. In urban warfare, anyone is your enemy. No innocents.”

Israeli military spokeswoman Lt Col Avital Leibovich dismissed the testimonies as anonymous hearsay, designed to embarrass the army rather than lead to serious investigations.

She questioned why Breaking the Silence had not handed over its findings earlier, before the media were informed.

“We are investigating many of the requests from NGOs and other groups,” she said. “But when you have a report that is based on hearsay, with no facts whatsoever, we can’t do anything with it.”

In the past, says the Israeli military, some allegations of wrong-doing in Gaza have turned out to be second or third-hand accounts, the result of soldiers recycling rumours in the battalion rather than describing what they themselves witnessed.

Credible record

But Breaking the Silence has a long – and to many, credible – record of getting soldiers to talk about experiences which might not reflect well on the Army.

The group is funded by the British, Dutch and Spanish governments, as well as the EU.

It says the testimony is anonymous because of orders to Israeli soldiers not to speak out publicly.

Some of the collected testimony is highly specific.

In the case of Majdi Abed Rabbo, the Israeli military police have now opened an investigation, lending at least some credibility to the soldier who said the “neighbour policy” was in widespread use.

The military maintains it went to extraordinary lengths to ensure civilians were not harmed in Gaza.

The soldiers’ testimony does describe in detail how leaflets were distributed in areas they were about to enter – warning people to leave.

But it is what happened after that, says Breaking the Silence, which calls into question the morality of the Israeli army’s actions.

bbc.co.uk