People's Democracy

on file

NDA ministers in "poor" Bihar will soon get luxurious cars. Not one, but two. Just a few months after the ruling alliance brought out a white paper to drill into people’s heads the fact that Bihar was neck deep in debt, the government has decided to cough up Rs 9 crore to get SUVs for its ministers.

In Bihar, regarded as the country's poorest state, the ministers will get two air-conditioned vehicles, a Mahindra Scorpio and a Tata Indigo.

There are 26 ministers in the Bihar government who, so far, had Ambassador cars.......

Officials sources revealed to this newspaper that chief minister Nitish Kumar has approved the plan to buy 60 luxurious cars. Besides 26 ministers (each will get two cars), senior government officials will also enjoy such "comforts".

Mr Nitish Kumar himself would get four bullet-proof Mahindra Scorpios.

--- The Asian Age, May 27

MORE than 60 children, some 14 years old, have been held at the US detention camp for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, a human rights group here (London) claimed in a report on Sunday (May 28).

The detainees were boys under 18 when they were captured, rights group Reprieve said in the report published in the Independent. “They include at least 10 detainess still held at the US base in Cuba who were 14 or 15 when they were seized --- including child soldiers who were held in solidarity confinement, repeatedly interrogated and allegedly tortured,” it said……

Clive Stafford Smith, a legal director of Reprieve and lawyer for a number of detainees, said it broke every widely accepted legal convention on human rights to put children in the same prison as adults --- including US law.

One detainee, an Al-Jazeera journalist called Sami el Hajj, has identified 36 juveniles in Guantanamo.

--- The Times of India, May 29

MORE than a half-century after hostilities ended in Korea, a document from the war’s chaotic early days has come to light --- a letter from the US ambassador to Seoul, informing the State Department that American soldiers would shoot refugees approaching their lines.

The letter --- dated the day of the mass killing of South Korean refugees at No Gum Ri in 1950 – is the strongest indication yet that such a policy existed for all US forces in Korea, and the first evidence that that policy was known to the upper ranks.

“If refugees do appear from north of US lines they will receive warning shots, and if they then persist in advancing they will be shot,” wrote Ambassador John J Muccio, in his message to assistant secretary of state Dean Rusk.

The letter reported on decisions made at a high level meeting in South Korea on July 25, 1950, the night before the 7th US Cavalry Regiment shot the refugees at No Gun Ri.    

Estimates vary on the number of dead at No Gun Ri. American soldiers’ estimates ranged from under 100 to “hundreds” dead; Korean survivors say about 400, mostly women and children, were killed at the village 160 km from Seoul. Hundreds more refugees were killed in later, similar episodes, survivors say.

The No Gun Ri killings were documented in a Pulitzer Prize winning story in 1999 that prompted a 16-month Pentagon inquiry.

The Pentagon concluded that the No Gun Ri shootings, which lasted three days, were “an unfortunate tragedy” --- “not a deliberate killing.” It suggested panicky soldiers, acting without orders, opened fire because they feared that an approaching line of families, baggage and farm animals concealed enemy troops.

But Muccio’s letter indicates the actions of the 7th Cavalry were consistent with policy, adopted because of concern that North Koreans would infiltrate via refugees columns.

--- Associated Press, May 29