THE ANC WILL NOT DISAPPOINT THE PEOPLE

The people of South Africa recently voted overwhelmingly for national unity and reconciliation by renewing the mandate of the African National Congress, writes Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa. In this article, Mbeki writes that South Africans rejected the ANC\'s opponents\' assertion that the country\'s challenges could only be met if the people separated into antagonistic camps, defined by race, colour, and ethnicity. They also rejected the claim that the same movement that has led and leads them in the struggle to eradicate poverty and underdevelopment is the cause of the poverty and underdevelopment they continue to experience. Today we must work together in a people\'s contract to take our country further forward towards the eradication of the legacy of colonialism and apartheid. This will include the creation of more jobs and the reduction of poverty, the building of a non-racial and non-sexist South Africa with sustained reduction of the racial and gender disparities that continue to disfigure our country, and the reinforcement of national unity and reconciliation.

SOUTH AFRICANS FACE CHOICE BETWEEN MOVING FORWARDS OR BACKWARDS

On the eve of South Africa\'s third general election and the celebration of our second decade of liberation, one of the major contestants at the polls is a right-wing coalition that would have opposed much of the progress our country has made since 1994, including ending apartheid, writes Thabo Mbeki, president of South Africa. The Coalition for Change is a right-wing group comprised of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) of Dr. Mangosuthu Buthelezi, and the Democratic Alliance (DA), a merger of three right-wing parties. It is opposed to many of the initiatives we have taken since 1994, especially to address the interests of the poor at home and abroad, Mbeki writes in this article. The ANC will continue to put forward its own policies, focused, among other things, on the vigorous intervention of the democratic state to ensure a better life for all our people, both black and white. We will continue to encourage the formation of a people\'s contract among all those, including the overwhelming majority of our population, who are committed to the building of a non-racial and non-sexist people-centred society.

THE REAL LESSON OF MARCH 11TH: EVERYONE TO IRAQ

With all due respect to the Spanish electorate and those citizens mourning their dead, I believe that socialist leader Jose Luis Zapatero\'s position on withdrawing his country\'s troops from Iraq constitutes a victory for Al Qaeda, writes Emma Bonino, deputy in the European Parliament and leader of the Transnational Radical Party. In this article Bonino writes that March 11th provided irrefutable proof that Al Qaeda represents a real threat to us all. Certain leaders of the European left have stated -- involuntarily, I am sure-- that they share the position of Zapatero. Perhaps they haven\'t grasped how this announcement might be read and acted upon by the terrorists themselves. In sharp contrast to Zapatero\'s position, the correct response to March 11th should be, \'\'We will all go to Baghdad,\'\' with the determination to assume a concrete role in the fight against terrorism. Only in this manner can the calls for UN and/or NATO involvement have real meaning and effect, as expressions of shared responsibility.

THE WHITE CURSE

On the first day of this year, freedom in this world turned 200. But no one noticed, or almost no one. A few days later the country where this birth occurred, Haiti, found itself in the media spotlight, but not for the anniversary of universal freedom but because there had been a bloodbath that culminated in the ouster of President Aristide, writes Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and novelist and author of \'\'The Open Veins of Latin America\'\' and \'\'Memories of Fire\'\'. But the international experts are far more destructive than invading troops, Galeano writes in this column. Placed under strict orders from the World Bank and IMF, Haiti obeyed every instruction. The government paid what it was told to even if it meant there would be neither bread nor salt. Their credit was frozen despite the fact the state had been dismantled and the subsidies and tariffs that had protected national production had been eliminated. Rice farmers, once the majority, soon became beggars or boat people. Many have ended in the depths of the Caribbean, and more are following them to the bottom, only these shipwreck victims aren\'t Cuban so their plight never makes the papers. Today Haiti imports all of its rice from the US, where international experts, who are rather distracted people, forgot to prohibit tariffs and subsidies to protect national production.

SPAIN, NOT IRAQ, PROVIDES MODEL FOR FIGHTING TERRORISM

President elect Zapatero\'s intention to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq unless the UN takes over is both logical and coherent, writes Mario Soares, President of Portugal from 1986-1996. In this article, Soares writes that brute force alone cannot defeat terrorism. We must study its causes and understand the reasons for its influence over desperate and humiliated populations. The March 11th attacks demonstrate that global terrorism still has resources and can broaden its scope of action. Those who believed that \'\'the war on terror\'\', to use Bush\'s phrase, could be won by defeating and occupying Iraq and, later, by capturing Saddam Hussein are unable of explaining what just happened. The fact that today\'s world is interdependent means that we are all responsible. Solidarity and social justice cannot remain mere words. As ever, everything depends on whether we decide to improve the troubled world in which we have to live. Zapatero\'s victory reinforces those who are working for peace, social justice, dialogue, human rights, and international law. This is the way to fight terrorism.

NEVER NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS?

Global terrorism represents an absolute horror which must be fought with the greatest determination, courage, and force, but it must also be fought with intelligence, information, and knowledge, writes Mario Soares, president of Portugal between 1986-1996. In this analysis, the author argues that military force is necessary but not sufficient. To deal with this new and complex phenomenon born of Islamic fanaticism, we must consider other components, including the profound humiliation by the West felt by the populations that have been permeated by terrorism, and the socio-economic conditions they live under. Regarding the Bush strategy, it is worth asking whether it is true, as is often repeated, that democracies don\'t negotiate with terrorists? History is full of examples to the contrary, including two from the past year involving Bush and the UK and Libya and North Korea. Soares calls for a dialogue with Islamic scientists, theologians, intellectuals, and political scientists as the correct way to begin negotiations -- though from a position of strength, noting that negotiation does not mean capitulation, much less abdication.

AGRIBUSINESS, THE PATENT SYSTEM, AND BIOPIRACY

India is being swept by an epidemic of biopiracy -- the patenting of indigenous biodiversity and traditional knowledge by global corporations, writes Vandana Shiva, author and international campaigner for women and the environment who received the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1993. First it was the neem plant, then basmati rice. Now our wheat has been patented, Shiva writes in this article for IPS. Biopiracy is both legally and morally wrong. By allowing indigenous innovations to be treated as \'\'inventions\'\' of the patent \'\'owner\'\', biopiracy patents amount to the outright theft of India\'s scientific, intellectual, and creative achievements and must be challenged. The economic consequences are serious. In the short run, a biopiracy patent robs us of markets overseas for our unique products. In the long run, if these trends are not challenged and intellectual property rights systems changed to prevent biopiracy, we will end up paying royalties for what belongs to us and is necessary for everyday survival.

IRAQ: ONLY THE UN CAN END THE CATASTROPHE

The current debate about the UN\'s ability to rectify the disasters left by the war in Iraq, rebuild the country, and lead it to democracy omits a fundamental fact: that the strength or weakness of the UN depends solely on the will of and resources provided by its member states, writes Flavio Lotti, secretary general of the Round Table for Peace. Only intervention by the UN in Iraq, with the appropriate powers and resources, is capable of ending the rampant violence, preventing civil war, depriving terrorism of space and support, and protecting the human rights of the Iraqis. In this article, the author writes that the US plan for reconstruction was very efficient in its destruction of existing institutions and the armed forces and in privatising state industries, but it has been a complete failure in building a new democratic state. Similarly, the security concept of the occupation troops and its implementation --in part delegated to private and mercenary companies-- simply does not address the needs of the civilian population. A radical change in policy is urgently needed that gives the UN intervention in Iraq centrality, credibility, and support.

BLAMING AL QAEDA FOR SPANISH ELECTION NOT IN US INTEREST

The right\'s diagnosis of the defeat of Spain\'s Popular Party as capitulation of Spanish voters to terrorism may console the outgoing prime minister and Mariano Rajoy but it badly serves the true interests of the United States, writes Joaquin Roy, Jean Monnet Professor and Director of the European Union Centre of the University of Miami. In this analysis, the author writes that the US government, before and after November, can be reassured by what the new Spanish administration will offer: unlimited cooperation, on equal footing, in the fight against terrorism, domestic and international, in coordination with Spain\'s natural partners in the European Union. Spain\'s place in the world will continue to be the same it has occupied since the 80s: it is a member of NATO, contributed to UN peacekeeping operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Central America, and participated in the Gulf War. Spain will stay (why not?) in Iraq, but only under a UN mandate, which will be implemented with the requisite backing of a stronger and more integrated European Union, anchored in a \'\'new\'\' Old Europe.

AN ATTACK ON THE HEART OF MADRID, AND FREE SOCIETY

The commuter trains that pass through eastern Madrid on their way to Atocha station are one of the primary routes for the daily influx of thousands of students and workers into the city, writes Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon, mayor of Madrid. In this article, the author cites Madrid as a historic bastion of freedom that now defends freedom for all Spaniards with the same determination to not give in to the oppressor that has always given us courage. We must denounce not only those who were materially responsible for this collective assassination, which has already been recognised as a crime against humanity, but also those who are intellectually complicit, who with their silence or indifference contribute equally to make such acts possible. The best way to not give in to the ferocious attack inflicted on us yesterday as members of a free society consists in not losing sight of these people who yesterday, as on any day, made their way to Madrid to give the best of themselves, not to be remembered as victims but as what they were: passengers on trains that carried the life of the city.

AN INTERVIEW WITH SAVATER: AS EUROPE BROADENS, IS SPAIN DIVIDING?

Fernando Savater is thrilled to be back in Rome, where he has the luxury of anonymity. The philosopher- activist director of the Basta Ya movement, which represents the victims of terrorism in the Basque Country, can\'t take a step in Spain without a security escort. A professor of history and the author of numerous books, he is in Rome to participate in the colloquium \'\'Europe: A Nation of States or a State of Nations\'\'. He agreed to speak with IPS about the prospects for the upcoming elections in Spain, which will be held 14 March, and the future of the Basque Country.

H2O BUSINESS TURNS PUBLIC WATER INTO PRIVATE WINDFALL

In a seemingly unquenchable thirst for new wellsprings of profit, multinational food and drink industry giants are rapidly draining public water supplies worldwide into a billion-dollar bottled water industry, writes Mark Sommer, director of the US-based Mainstream Media Project and host of award-winning internationally-syndicated radio program \'\'A World of Possibilities\'\' The issue, Sommer writes in this analysis, is whether industry giants are drowning in profits at public expense. When there are effectively no rules and no enforcement, when the profit margin puts drug dealers to shame, and an inalienable common resource is privatized at public expense, then we must reconsider the very basis of the enterprise. Pure fresh water is growing ever more scarce as population and pollution accelerate. But the most effective response is not to sell the last liters like fine wines to the fortunate few but to upgrade public water systems worldwide, at far lower individual and aggregate cost, so no one needs to resort to \'\'private\'\' water.

A FAIR GLOBALISATION FOR ALL: IT CAN BE DONE

The world stands at a historic moment of decision, write President of Tanzania Benjamin William Mkapa and President of Finland Tarja Halonen, Co-Chairs of the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation. In this analysis, the authors write that it is in our power to take a correct turn, which would make the world safer, fair, ethical, inclusive, and prosperous for the majority, not just for a few, both within countries and between countries. But it is also in our power to prevaricate, to ignore the road signs, and let the world slide into further political turbulence, conflict, and war. The authors propose a process by which the benefits of globalisation can be enjoyed at all levels, beginning with empowered local communities and improved national governance. Unfairness currently characterises the system. Equal rules for unequal players ensure unequal outcomes. Some rules, such as on farm and textile and trade, specifically disadvantage developing countries. The lack of a level international playing field is deepening mistrust and perpetuating social divisions. The real question is not whether globalisation can work, but how. The positive must be enhanced, the negative minimised. Only when everyone has a stake can the prosperity we expect from globalisation be sustainable. Only then will our collective peaceful future be founded on solid ground.

THE CHURCH, VIOLENCE, AND BASQUE SEPARATISM

ETA, the Basque separatist group, has killed more than a thousand people, from businessmen, functionaries, and professionals to children, but not a single priest. Does ETA perhaps have some debt to the church, or fear it? writes Jose Bono, president of the autonomous community of Castilla-La Mancha. In this article, Bono notes the predominance of nationalism in sectors of the church hierarchy and the Basque clergy, which raises new questions about the relation between power and religion, not only for the church prelates but the parishioners as well. In the Basque Country, many citizens have lost the freedoms that they had won. Though it is difficult to state with precision when this happened, the cause is clear: the terrorism of the ETA. The loss was gradual and progressive, as an unobserved sowing of hatred and destruction brought an ever greater harvest of fear. What the Basque region needs is to end ETA violence and guarantee democracy, which requires not only politics but the ethics necessary to a pluralist society, which Basque society is and must remain. If the church (the whole church, not just the Spanish or the Basque, the clergy or the lay) wants to play a role in this transition, based on an ethic of democratic coexistence --which does not exist today-- it must broaden its thinking and historical perspective on its own relation to higher powers and on violence.

US: DEBT RELIEF FOR IRAQ BUT NOT DESTITUTE ETHIOPIA.

The US has been quick to call for cancellation of the odious debts of Iraq largely because it will cost the US very little and free up resources for US projects. Yet at the same time the US is blocking debt cancellation for one of the poorest country in the world, Ethiopia, writes Ann Pettifor, director of Jubilee Research at the New Economics Foundation (nef) and editor of Real World Economic Outlook. This is a glaring double standard, writes Pettifor in this article. Additional relief for Ethiopia is being delayed and blocked by the US with the tacit support of Germany and Japan as US and German creditors have gone to great lengths to obtain international legitimacy for the cancellation of Iraq\'s debt. The international community must honour commitments made to the millions of Jubilee 2000 supporters worldwide, in Cologne in June 1999. Led by Chancellor Schroder, world leaders promised to deepen and broaden debt relief for countries like Ethiopia. Above all the hypocrisy of their diverging approaches to Iraq and Ethiopia must be thwarted.

LIQUID GOLD RUSH: PRIVATISING GLOBAL WATER RESOURCES

The issue of water and who controls it has suddenly taken centre stage in world affairs, writes Mark Sommer, director of the US-based Mainstream Media Project and hosts of \'\'A World of Possibilities\'\', a syndicated radio programme. Nearly a billion of the world\'s six billion people lack dependable access to affordable drinking water, and this figure is expected to triple within the next 25 years. Several trends are contributing to this growing scarcity: increasing use by water- intensive industries, inefficient irrigation, desertification, global warming, and chemical and organic pollution. At the heart of the debate over the future of fresh water is whether it is a commodity like oil or gas, to be bought or sold on the open market to the highest bidder, or a human right, a resource so essential that a minimum allowance should be provided to every person as an acceptance of his or her right of survival. But there is no substitute for water. To deprive up to a third of the planet\'s population access to safe and affordable water is to sentence that portion of humanity to slow death by deprivation and disease.

A WORLD OF DISORDER

The international crisis generated by the US invasion of Iraq captures the tension in world politics between the \'\'international community\'\' as represented in the UN, and the role of power and its attendant interests, writes Kingsley Moghalu, an international lawyer and head of resource mobilisation and global partnerships at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Geneva, Switzerland. In this analysis, the author argues that the problem with a unipolar world is that international law --a significant component in the maintenance of order in world politics-- can become a major casualty. In such a world, international law can be violated with little direct consequence to the hegemonic power. Far from consolidating order, such use of power, even in the name of freedom, human rights, and liberal democracy, will rather increase disorder. A certain degree of anarchy will always exist in an international society based on sovereign states and mobile non-state actors that pursue frequently divergent interests. We must manage that anarchy by addressing the fundamental issues that exacerbate it. The way forward is not the balance of power of bye-gone years but a balance of approach in which the world\'s hegemon has not only special circumstances but special responsibilities of global leadership.

TOWARDS A BROTHERHOOD OF ALL CREATURES

Walking down my street, where almost nothing even happens, I counted 58 dead beetles in just fifty meters. As we don\'t see ourselves in these our smaller brothers and sisters, we step on them and run them over with our cars. Were Saint Francis still alive he would weep with compassion, writes Leonardo Boff, a writer and theologian. In this article, Boff tells a myth of the Maue indians of Brazil. When the world was created there was no night. There was only day and light penetrated every space. The Maue, as much as they wanted to, couldn\'t sleep. They were always tired and their eyes hurt from too much light. One day, one of them got up his courage and went to talk to the Great Cobra, the sururiju, completely dark, which was considered the high master of the night. The Cobra agreed to make a deal: you give me poison and let me distribute it to my defenceless little relatives. This way you will watch where you\'re going and not step on the little creatures. They will be able to defend themselves. And in exchange I will give you a coconut full of night.\'\' In the end they lived peacefully together and in mutual respect. Why is it that we big creatures don\'t look out for the small creatures?

WHAT THE UN CAN DO TO FIGHT TERRORISM

UN Resolution 1373 required UN member states to pass laws banning every type of terrorist action and to ratify various international treaties: the question is whether governments will enforce them, writes Inocencio F. Arias, Spanish Ambassador to the UN Security Council and president of the UN Committee Against Terrorism. In this article for IPS, Arias argues that the Committee against Terrorism created by 1373 must have the means to verify enforcement and denounce cases of voluntary failure to the Council and the international community. Globalisation, technological progress, and the proliferation of suicide strategies has made terrorism potentially devastating. The possibility of terrorists gaining access to weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, chemical, or biological, is neither science fiction nor a movie plot. Sooner or later, science fiction will become reality. The UN must use the instruments available to it to minimise this possibility. The efficiency of the organisation\'s efforts in this area will reduce the unilateralist temptations of the powerful to impose their own solutions and will alleviate human suffering.

NEOLIBERALISM HAS FAILED

Neoliberalism, the economic dogma that has been the rage for the last few years, has clearly failed to solve the world\'s problems, writes Mario Soares, president of Portugal from 1986-1996. Whether in the US, Europe, or Japan, or particularly in emerging economies, the sanctification of the market, particularly as practised in the 1990s, gave what it had to give and sank the world into what Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz described as \'\' the first major planetary crisis of globalisation\'\' , Soares writes in this analysis. Especially in the Third World, the free market, when untempered by any governmental regulation, leads to the creation of deep social injustices, systematically refuses to respond to the undeniable ecological needs of our day, and in the current phase of speculative capitalism has led to grave vices, as seen today in the scandals of Enron, Vivendi, etc. Bush has crowed that since the invasion of Iraq \'\'the world is much safer\'. All we need now is for him to abandon Iraq to its sad chaos and the world to an unprecedented economic crisis. Speculator-philanthropist George Soros was right to commit a large sum to the fight against Bush\'s re-election.

THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

Few seem willing to question what seems unobjectionable, namely that the US, victor of the Cold War, is now the single global superpower, writes Augusto Zamora, professor of international public law and international relations at the UAM. However, is the US in fact the only pole of power, or does its hegemony rest on an array of circumstantial facts that will disappear in the years to come? the author asks in this article. The danger of today\'s militaristic whirlpool is that to hold onto power the right-wing that rules the US will have to keep the country and the world in a continuous state of war, in the purest Orwellian sense. Europe (and the world) should understand that guaranteeing any more of Washington\'s military imperialism could generate an interminable conflict combining religious fanaticism, 19th century geopolitics, and lite fascism. As Henry Kamen said, \'\'The preservation of the Spanish Empire was due to the general passivity of all other powers.\'\' The same holds true for the hyperpower of the US. But as with Spain its hegemony will be ephemeral. Questioning the heretofore unquestionable power of the US is the price humanity will pay for a safer, multi-polar world.