Looking back

Clinton ethics and year of peace

By Louis Benedict and Ameen Izzadeen

The need for a new world order and global security arrangements were hammered home as the world entered the last year of the millennium.

The sudden, shocking and shameful bombardment of Baghdad by US and British forces on the eve of the solemn Ramazan season, raised fundamental questions regarding political morality and international codes of conduct.

If doubts still exist about the validity of impeaching President Bill Clinton on the Monica Lewinsky sex orgies in the White House, then the timing of his unilateral decision to attack Iraq provides solid basis for his conviction by the court of the international community.

After months of sensational sex shows involving the president, the US House of Representatives was scheduled to vote on the impeachment on December 17. On the eve of the vote, we suddenly heard of the UN weapons inspectors being pulled out of Baghdad again. Inspection chief Richard Butler was acting very much like a yankee butler, provoking an angry Russia to demand that he be sacked.

Just hours before the vote was to be taken, Operation Desert Fox was launched, with US and British planes hammering Baghdad in operations that were at times more intense than the Gulf War attacks. Ironically, an anonymous US soldier had scrolled the words 'Happy Ramazan' on an Iraq-bound missile.

For most independent analysts, the question was as to who was the greater fox — President Clinton or Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Newspaper headlines asked who would fall first — and on the night of Saturday December 19, Mr. Clinton fell to more disgraceful levels than any previous US presidents had fallen.

With the vote lost and from the sex pits or cesspits of history, Mr. Clinton had little option but to call off the bombing amidst intense worldwide condemnation.

The ailing Borris Yeltsin's Russia, though financially and politically bankrupt, plucked up enough courage to withdraw its ambassador from Washington for the first time since the cold war ended.

China was equally tough in its denunciation of what it saw as arbitrary and arrogant action. The Arab League came out with all guns firing though Egypt was somewhat muted in its reaction. Almost the entire third world also spoke against the US-British bombing and tacit support came only from some NATO states and Japan.

Days before the House of Representative voted by a majority of more than 20 to impeach Mr. Clinton on two of the four charges against him, the White House had virtually conceded defeat after months of intense lobbying to woo or win over Congress members.

Hillary Clinton — putting up a brave face though many saw how she appeared to be unwilling to hold his hand at West Bank functions — went to Congress on the eve of the vote to plead for her husband. But a dramatic move by Speaker-elect Bob Livingston just hours before the vote, made it curtains for Mr. Clinton.

The Speaker-elect resigned after he also was accused of having extra-marital affairs. He said he hoped his resignation would challenge Mr. Clinton into doing what was decent and best for the country and for the world.

For almost two years, Mr. Clinton has been haunted by what is apparently a serious though common personal sex problem. Many names were mentioned, prominent among them being Paula Jones. It appeared that most Americans were more interested in Dow Jones than Paula Jones, till January this year when Linda Tripp produced the Monica Lewinsky tapes and Bill Clinton began to trip. At first, the President was arrogant in his denial both in public and before the Grand Jury. "I did not have sexual relations with that woman," he told millions of people on TV in what will now go down as one of the greatest and costliest lies of the century. With more disclosures, the pressure built up till last August when President Clinton admitted he had sordid oral sex with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval office.

The arrogance was gone and he appeared to be repentant but it was too little and too late. Mr. Clinton is morally and politically finished though he may survive as the lamest of ducks till, as he says the last hours of his last day in office.

While the issues of perjury and obstruction of justice which came out of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal were important, the events themselves were as significant as what is normally found in porn magazine hit newspaper headlines all over the world for months and made prosecutor Kenneth Starr one of Time Magazine's Men of the Year.

Indo-Pak nukes

In terms of importance both for Asia and for the world, was a crisis or potentially cataclysmic event closer home — the Indo-Pakistan nuclear tests. The shaky Indian coalition led by Hindu fundamentalist Atal Behari Vajpayee shook the world while carrying out a series of powerful underground nuclear tests in May.

India also challenged the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, saying it allowed the established nuclear powers to continue their dominance while preventing others from developing their nuclear capabilities. India called for a complete ban and nuclear non-proliferation by all, saying if that happens it would agree not to conduct any more tests. While India's claims had some validity, and even Sri Lanka expressed a note of understanding, most analysts asked whether a country founded on the hallowed principles of Mahathma Gandhi needed a nuclear bomb to prove its greatness.

Human beings are generally better at taking the bad example. Thus India's neighbour and old rival Pakistan was justifiably agitated and pondered for days on how to respond. Allies such as the United States offered massive incentives along with stern warnings. But Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif eventually succumbed to domestic pressure, especially from the powerful military and fell into the folly of meeting bombs with bombs.

As the year ended the two South Asian giants were however sending more hopeful signals. Both are saying they are now ready to sign the CTBT though a few problems yet remain.

An Irish peace

On that hopeful note, the world needs to take all the lessons it could from what must be by far the most positive development of the year — the Good Friday peace accord among the warring parties in Northern Ireland, with Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair playing a powerful role as mediator. Unfortunately, the charismatic Blair's image was severely blasted by the year's end when he went along like a lackey of his transatlantic cousin in the Ramazan bombing of Iraq.

Fittingly Northern Ireland's now moderate Protestant leader David Trimble and the middle path Catholic leader John Hume were jointly awarded the coveted Nobel Peace Prize for their spirit of accommodation and compromise in coming to an agreement where all parties won and nobody lost.

It is easier to make war than to make peace and Northern Ireland is going through this reality. The forces of war and evil, small but violently powerful, exploded the Omagh bomb and threw other obstacles in the path of peace.

But the crises and the setbacks only made the peacemakers more determined to carry on in their courageous course.

Catholic militant Gerry Adams was moving more towards the moderate path but fundamentalists like the firebreathing Protestant pastor Ian Paisley were still playing hell. Yet by year's end even complex issues such as the decommissioning of arms and the release of prisoners were being sorted out.

The greatest lesson from the Good Friday peace accord in Northern Ireland is that if there is a commitment to peace, indeed peace there will be. For Sri Lanka especially, Northern Ireland stands out as an example of the possibility of achieving deep unity in diversity. If people of different religions, cultures and traditions — while fostering their own values — learn to respect the differences and different values of others, unity will be rebuilt at a deeper level than uniformity could ever provide.

This spirit of mutual respect for each other's religion, race and culture appears to be what is mainly lacking to bridge the gap between Benjmain Netanyahu's Israel and the Palestinian people. US special envoy Dennis Ross conducted several shuttle peace missions during the year and so did Secretary of State Marylene Albright. But again and tragically it was probably Monica Lewinsky who contributed more towards propelling President Clinton into doing something dynamic and dramatic to revive his image after he was publicly stripped of his pants. Similarly, it was a battered pants down Clinton who fired missiles into Sudan and Afghanistan, allegedly in search of the elusive billionaire terrorist Osama bin Laden. A huge pharmaceutical factory in Sudan was smashed by US missiles on the charge it was producing nerve gas.

Like the Ramazan attacks on Iraq, the assault on Sudan and Afghanistan was clearly an arbitrary act of an arrogant international policeman, though they came in the aftermath of the bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

After pitfalls and postponements, President Clinton finally brought together Mr. Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat with top level delegations for an intense dialogue at the now famous Wye plantations in Maryland.

But the atmosphere was nowhere near the warmth achieved when Israel's then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Mr. Arafat came together for their history-making 'Shalom, Salam, peace' in the happier days of the Clinton White House some years ago.

The basic problem at Wye appeared to be a matter of trust between Mr., Netanyahu and Mr. Arafat.

President Clinton and Secretary Albright tried everything from arm twisting to massive incentives but several times, the talks came to breaking point with one or both parties threatening to walk out.

Then when the agreement seemed to be in shape, Mr. Netanyahu again sank to the level of individual interest when he asked for the release of convicted Jewish spy Jonathan Pollard.

Finally, Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Arafat signed the peace deal on October 23 and shook hands but the Israeli leader especially showed nothing like the commitment that David Trimble and John Hume are showing in Northern Ireland.

With the latest bombing of Baghdad, provoking widespread riots by Palestinians, the Wye accord is again on a shaky footing but it is still better than nothing. In Asia the other significant event was the fall of Indonesian dictator General Suharto and the financial collapse of the so-called East Asian tigers.

For almost 30 years, Suharto with his family and henchmen allegedly plundered the country and stripped the people of their basic rights. The higher one rises the greater the fall and today as the saviour of Indonesia finds himself in the same garbage dumps as a Marcos or Mobutu. In Cambodia, the death of Asia's Hitler, Pol Pot marked the end of the horrible era known as the 'Killing Fields'. The fall and death of Pol Pot in April, however, did not bring peace to Cambodia, with the rival Hun Sen and Norodom Ranariddh fighting for office though by year's end they had reached a power-sharing accord.

Asian crisis

As the financial crisis gripped country after county in South East Asia, the once powerful Malaysia appeared to be in the deepest turmoil with political issues compounding the crisis.

The sacking and arrest of Malaysia deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim on charges of corruption and sexual misconduct has led to the most serious division in the county since its independence.

Anwar was the one-time heir apparent of prime minister Mahathir Mohamed. His case has given the western propaganda machine a chance to hit back at Dr. Mahathir, the man who for the past decade has challenged most western concepts and values.

The end of the Helmut Kohl era in Germany and the emergence of Gerhard Schroeder, the arrest in London and possible trial of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinnochet, the worst ever floods in China and Bangladesh and the conflict in Kosovo were among the other events that dominated world headlines in 1998.

Viagra explosion

In science and technology, the year offers little news of any major breakthrough, except for the ground-breaking medical discovery of potency pill Viagra. Many funny and not so funny stories hit the world headlines as a result of Viagra with 80 year-old men leaving their wives for young girls and some even facing death after such stressful actionx.Every year at this time the world is reminded of a biblical promise enshrined as the motto of the United Nations — "they shall turn their swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not rise against nations and no one will train for war."

The United Nations, weak and helpless as it often finds itself, still the main symbol of hope for equality, justice and unity in diversity among the international community. If the UN lives upto its principles rather than being a pawn or a foot stool of the superpower America, then the world will be more balanced and more blessed as we prepare next year to enter a new millennium.

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