Al-Ahram Weekly | Region

		Al-Ahram Weekly Online 7 - 13 June 2001 Issue No.537
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Iraq halts oil exports
UNITED Nations Security Council diplomats are racing against the clock to overhaul sanctions against Iraq despite Baghdad's stoppage of oil sales. Bangladeshi Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury, this month's council president, told a news conference that experts would meet three times a week and sessions with ambassadors of all 15 member-countries would take place at least once a week. "As president of the council it will be my intention to push it hard," Chowdhury said. The council's self-imposed deadline is 3 July, the end of a one-month extension of the current UN oil-for-food humanitarian plan for Iraq, a stopgap to allow members to negotiate a new plan.
At issue is a draft resolution submitted several weeks ago by Britain and the United States which would lift restrictions on civilian goods imported by Iraq, but tighten controls on military-related supplies and smuggling.
Iraq, in protest at the 30-day instead of the usual six-month extension, halted oil exports on Monday. While erratic Iraqi oil deliveries have been common since the UN programme began in December 1996, oil experts say this stoppage could last for more than a few weeks. "We will be ready to resume exporting oil if they (the Security Council) accept the memorandum of understanding for six months," Iraqi deputy oil minister Taha Mussa said.
However, Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Nuaimi downplayed fears that the Iraqi move, which sent prices up slightly after it was imposed, would have any long-term effect. "I can assure you there will be no shortage in the market," Al-Nuaimi said before the ministerial meeting of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was clouded by the Iraqi decision later in the day. Saudi Arabia is OPEC's biggest oil producer, and one of the few with any significant spare capacity to plug the Iraqi shortfall if necessary.
World crude prices moved upwards on Monday after the Iraqi move, although they appeared tempered by assurances from the OPEC that it would meet any shortfall.
Baghdad wants the sanctions lifted and objects to any system, even if it eases imports on some goods, that would perpetuate them.
Violence continues to rock Algeria
THOUSANDS of Berber women demonstrated on Monday to protest against a government crackdown on rioters in the Berber-speaking region of Kabylie in Algeria.
The street demonstration in Bejaia, the second largest Berber city in Kabylie, was the latest in almost daily protests and clashes which have convulsed Kabylie since the death of a teenager in custody at a gendarmerie barracks on 18 April.
Witnesses said up to 30,000 women marched in downtown Bejaia, 180 km (112 miles) east of Algiers, shouting: "Pouvoir assassin! (murderous power)" and "Gendarmes terrorists!"
Police kept a low profile as the demonstrators flowed through the city's main streets. Later, they dispersed peacefully and no arrests or clashes were reported.
The government has admitted that security forces have killed 52 Berber rioters and wounded 280 others since the protests began. Independent newspapers say up to 80 rioters have died.
Hundreds of thousands of Berbers marched through Algiers last Thursday to denounce the killings. The Front For Socialist Forces (FFS) a pro-berber party, called the protest to show its opposition to the government's handling of the riots and underscore the "political and national dimension of the revolt of citizens in Kabylie." According to FFS officials about half a million took part in the demonstration.
On the same say, President Abdel-Aziz Bouteflika, who acknowledged that social and economic frustrations had fanned the riots, reshuffled his government, vowing to fight poverty and other social woes and to curb paramilitary gendarme abuses.
Moreover, Algerian leaders replaced 636 gendarmes in Kabylie last week and called on people to report abuses by the elite paramilitary force.
Meanwhile, seven Algerian paramilitary police, including an officer, appeared in court on Saturday for using guns during recent disturbances in Tadmait in Algeria's northeast Kabylie region, police said. But the government has dismissed the rioters' main demand towithdraw all the gendarmes. Gendarmerie chiefs said the force would stay there to enforce the law.
Israeli planes fly over Lebanon again
ISRAELI warplanes again flew over Lebanon on Monday, breaking the sound barrier over Beirut, one day after the Lebanese army opened fire on intruding Israeli planes. Two planes flew at medium altitude over southern Lebanon before going over Beirut.
The Lebanese army fired anti-aircraft batteries on intruding Israeli aircraft on Sunday, the first time since May 2000 when Israel ended its 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon. Israel had all but stopped flights over Lebanon following its pullout, but resumed them in October after the militant Shi'ite movement Hizbullah snatched three Israeli soldiers from the disputed Shebaa Farms.
Syrians rally in support of the Intifada
SYRIANS rallied in downtown Damascus on Tuesday to call for the Palestinian Intifada to continue as international pressure mounted on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to halt the uprising.
The Damascus demonstration was called by the Syrian Permanent Popular Committee for Supporting the Intifada, which has organised a campaign to raise money for Palestinians who have suffered financially since the uprising began last September. A committee statement stressed the right of the Palestinian people to be supported politically, financially and morally. Demonstrators marched through Damascus carrying banners condemning the Israeli government. One read: "With the uprising until triumph ... Jerusalem before the Golan Heights." Representatives of Damascus-based radical Palestinian groups and senior Syrian officials and figures took part in the demonstration.
Compiled by Rasha Saad

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