NightWatch

For the Night of 2 August 2009

North Korea-South Korea: Yonhap reported that North Korean authorities decided to ease restriction on South Koreans traveling to the Kaesong joint industrial park by car beginning Monday, 3 August. According to Seoul's Kaesong Industrial Complex Management Committee, the North will no longer require South Koreans driving to the complex to carry photos and detailed travel plans of every passenger. The North agreed late last month that the documents can be handed in by the committee instead, committee officials said.

This is the third change in two weeks that indicates less stress in the North’s external relationships. All steps are small, but the trend is cautiously positive.

Bangladesh-China: According to the Bangladesh New Age Chinese authorities requested Dhaka to expedite the process for approval of the development projects to be funded by China in order to encourage “higher inflow” of Chinese investment and assistance.

The Chinese made the request on 28 July during the12th meeting of the joint economic commission between the two countries in Beijing. Dhaka sought more than $3 billion in financial assistance for more than two dozen projects.

The Chinese officials showed interest in financing the $560 million Shahjalal fertilizer factory project, a $267 million water treatment plant, a sewerage treatment plant at a cost of $121 and some telecommunications-related projects.

China is surging its investment and assistance programs to Burma, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka while it continues aiding Pakistan. It is engaging in economic warfare against India, whom it is trying to encircle.

Malaysia: A senior Malaysian opposition lawmaker was among the 600 people arrested on 1 August during a protest demonstration in Kuala Lumpur. Sivarasa Rasiah, an opposition member of the Malaysian parliament and the defense attorney for opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, is still in police custody, along with 31 other demonstrators arrested during the protest.

The Opposition parties, which organized the rally, were calling for the repeal of a law that allows the government to jail its critics indefinitely without charge. The opposition is also pressing the government to expand an inquiry into the recent death under mysterious circumstances of a political aide after a late-night interrogation by anticorruption officials.

Prime Minister Najib is not threatened by this action which appears calculated to stress the limits of his policy of respecting civil rights. He offered the protestors a public sports arena for holding their protests. Of course, that defeats the purpose and negates the impact of the exercise of free speech.

Nevertheless, according to one poll, his approval rating remains at 65% since taking office in April.
This is a study in freedom of speech.

Qatar: For the record. According to unidentified political sources in Qatar, Qatari authorities foiled on Thursday, 30 July, an attempted coup against the country's Amir, Shaykh Hamad Bin-Khalifah Al Thani. The sources reported authorities arrested 30 army officers, among them five from the Amiri Guard.

The Al-Bawabah website said its sources reported that since the foiled coup, the Qatari Amir has convened with the Al Thani shaykhs (Sheikhs) to brief them on the attempted coup. He also warned against divisions within the royal family.

Some rumors relate that some of the Al Thani shaykhs have been placed under house arrest. The Amir assigned his personal secretary, Sa'd al-Rumayhi, to follow up on the affairs of the Ministries of Interior and Defense, and to coordinate between them and the Amiri Court.

Ammun News reported that Major General Hamad Bin-Ali al-Atiyah, Chief of Staff of the Qatari Army, is involved in the coup. According to this news service the senior commanders of the Qatari military establishment were suddenly dismissed by the Amir on Saturday night. The officers reportedly are under house arrest.

The sources used in the above report show that they have borrowed from each other, circular reporting. The information is reported for its impact on US policy, if it is accurate. No international news services have reported this development, the purpose of a coup or increased security in Qatar, during this Watch.

Iran: Update. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will certify the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadi-nejad on 3 August, Fars News Agency reported today. Top Iranian officials, army officers and foreign guests are expected to attend the ceremony at the Imam Khomeini Hosseinieh religious center in Tehran.

Ahmadi-nejad will be sworn into office for a second term in front of the Iranian parliament on 5 August.

Opposition activity. Today former Presidential candidate Mousavi and former President Khatami denounced the government trial of more than 100 detainees and reformist figures at Tehran Revolutionary Court ,describing it as a "show."

Mousavi said the detainees were subjected to medieval torture and would have confessed to anything. Khatami called the trials and insult to Iran and Islam.

The charges against the detainees are:

· Attacking military facilities using firearms and firebombs

· Attacking government facilities and setting fire to them

· Destruction of public property

· Creating panic in public

· Beating up members of the security forces

An Arab news service reported that Khatami had been arrested while trying to flee Iran. No other service has reported this development.

Saudi Arabia: For the record. Press TV reported today that Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former ambassador to the United States, is under house arrest for mounting a conspiracy against the King Abdallah.

Saad al-Faqih, head of the opposition group Islamic Reform Movement, told Arab-language TV al-Alam that Prince Bandar has disappeared. The media has published no word of the ex-diplomat's whereabouts for nearly three months ago.

The British newspaper, The Independent, first reported the latest episode of a power struggle within the ruling family. According to one interpretation Bandar recruited 200 agents from the Saudi security service to remove the King in order to arrange the succession before the death of his father -- Crown Prince Sultan Bin-Abd-al-Aziz. Saudi opposition sources claim Bandar’s plot was aborted because of a leak.

Prince Sultan suffers from cancer, but in the past month has been reported to be recovering after treatment in Morocco. Sultan is half-brother to the King who visited him last week.

Plotting is a cottage industry in the Saudi royal family, encouraged by every King’s practice of taking multiple wives and having litters of children and grandchildren. A successor is thereby assured but succession is a Darwinian struggle of survival of the fittest, beneath a veneer of somewhat civilized behavior.

This plot does not appear to be particularly serious for either the target or the perpetrator. There are no unusual restrictions reported in Saudi Arabia, anywhere. Analysts should note that the King flew to Morocco to visit the Crow Prince on the 28^th and the plot was rolled during his absence. Coups are attempted most often when the leader is out of the country.

As for this coup, if it is genuine, it meets most of the criteria for a genuine coup but has two shortcomings.

1. Group- Bandar and his 200 security men

2. Gripe- Bandar thinks he deserves to succeed his father as crown prince which will not occur if his father dies because of the many sons of King Abdul Aziz, some of whom are only in their 60’s.

3. Guns- the security men

4. Successor – Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz

5. Timing -- Location of the King in Morocco

6. Vehicles – unknown

7. Security -- lousy

8. Opposition – more than 150 princes and 7,000-10,000 members of the royal family plus the Saudi National Guard

The enormity of the opposition and lack of security indicate this was not a serious challenge to the King.

Note: The number of indicators of a praetorian coup has grown to eight, from six.

Russia-Georgia: South Ossetia accused Georgian forces of firing mortars. Russia has warned Georgia it's ready to use force to defend civilians.

On Saturday Georgia denied firing mortars at South Ossetia, whose leaders claimed two mortar rounds were fired at a military observation post from the village of Ditsi on the Georgian side of the de facto border.

Also on Saturday, Moscow warned Georgia that its military reserved the right to use force if necessary if the former Soviet state continues "provocations" in the Caucasas.

Multiple international news services reported a rise in tension that somehow makes sense to their reporters because the first anniversary of the South Ossetian and Abkhazian secession occurs next week. Amateurish. Two mortar rounds do not make a crisis. No sources, including Georgian President Saakashvili, report Russian preparations to attack Georgia.

What appears to have driven the situation out of somnolence is the visit by the US Vice President. The US made its points during the Vice President’s visit and now it is the turn of the Russians. Georgia is too far away for NATO, much less the US, to protect it from Russia. High sounding
American rhetoric invites a Russian response.

The Georgian national security interest and future survival encourage tension between the US and Russia and they conveniently oblige by firing mortar rounds at pointless targets. Georgia is in danger of putting US friendship to the test too far and too often. Russia will attack it if provoked but not annex it.

No news sources indicate Russia has the slightest interest in taking responsibility for another intractable ethnic problem, namely Georgia. Moscow authorities have sent clear signals to South Ossetia and Abkhazia that they are not eligible to join the Russian federation at this time. On the other hand, Russia, de facto, has guaranteed their independence from Georgia.

Honduras: La Tribuna in Tegucigalpa reported the detailed and well reasoned rejection by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal of a Costa Rican proposal to accelerate the Honduran national elections.

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) issued a resolution in which it warns that bringing forward the elections is unconstitutional and that the existing electoral timetable that must be respected for civil rights, administrative, financial, logistical and political reasons.

The Tribunal’s reply is long but cogent in each part. Its well reasoned arguments are summarized.

- Disenfranchisement means people will not get voting materials and ballots on time, in an accelerated scenario. Their vote will not take place.

- Administration means that voting places, supervisors, international observers have already set their calendars to the 29 November date.

- Finances mean that the election budget was prepared for a staggered distribution of funds for a 29 November voting date.

- Logistics means that most of the armed forces logistics and administrative assets are always essential to a successful election. Those assets cannot be rescheduled at a time when an external threat -- Zelaya by implication not name – requires their full attention at this time.

- Politics – other parties that plan to contest the election have based their plans, fund raising and rallies on a November date. Acceleration of the date is certain to result in challenges by disadvantaged political groups.

Note to analysts: Seldom will analysts encounter such a competent elaboration of the consequences and ripple effects of a diplomatic suggestion that seems to make eminent sense. Costa Rican President Arias, obviously unwittingly, urged the Honduran election tribunal to violate the Honduran constitution. The reply is a model of how a government operates under rule of law.

Zelaya’s attempt to disregard the Honduran constitution and change it after the fact are the reasons for his ouster. US and other outside support for restoring Zelaya to office is the reason he has not faded into oblivion as a failed, anti-US, leftist, would-be despot.

In Nicaragua. Zelaya told a group of his supporters today that a group of Honduran soldiers and officers are not happy with the military leadership who led the coup d'état and assured him they are prepared to support his return to Honduras. Among the grievances of the group that Zelaya cited are that this group of soldiers judged they wrongly had been passed over for promotion and that their senior officers were incompetent … of course!

End of NightWatch for 2 August.