Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu of Cape Town, the Anglican Primate of Southern Africa, urged Israelis today to pray for and forgive those responsible for the Nazi genocide.

''Our Lord would say that in the end the positive thing that can come is the spirit of forgiving, not forgetting, but the spirit of saying: God, this happened to us,'' the South African cleric said after visiting Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

''We pray for those who made it happen, help us to forgive them and help us so that we in our turn will not make others suffer,'' he said in what he described as the message he would offer to the descendants of those who suffered the Nazi crime that took six million Jewish lives.

The comments were the latest in a series of statements that Israelis have found irksome on a four-day Christmas pilgrimage to the Holy Land by the South African cleric. He has condemned what he called Israeli oppression and compared Israel's handling of the Palestinians to South Africa's treatment of blacks.

Shortly before the Archbishop met today with the Israeli Religious Affairs Minister, Zevulun Hammer, protesters scrawled the words ''Tutu is a Nazi'' on the ministry wall.

Earlier, others had written: ''Black Nazi pig'' on the walls of St. George's Cathedral in Arab East Jerusalem, where the Archbishop was staying.

Other Israelis have said he has displayed bias by failing to meet with other Israeli leaders. But he remained undeterred by the criticism. ''If I met your Prime Minister, I would make exactly the same point,'' he told reporters. ''I would say to him that I cannot myself understand people who have suffered as the Jews have suffered inflicting the suffering of the kind I have seen on the Palestinians.''

''The land that gave birth to the Prince of Peace is wracked by violence, hatred and hostility,'' he said.

Mr. Hammer, the Religious Affairs Minister, said there was ''some kind of misunderstanding in his statements about Israel.'' One Government official, however, seemed heartened by the furor. ''We thought he might have made trouble for us,'' the official said. ''But he has damaged himself.'' But church officials said the Archbishop's comments were consistent with Christian doctrine of forgiveness of adversaries. One official, who asked not to be identified, said the comments would nevertheless anger Israelis living with the memory of the Nazi crime.

In an interview earlier, Archbishop Tutu urged that economic sanctions against his country be applied ''rigorously and intensively'' and said President F. W. de Klerk had not yet offered sufficient concessions to the black majority to merit easing of the measures.

Since anti-Government protest erupted in the mid-1980's in South Africa, the United States, Western European nations and the Commonwealth, the association of former British colonies, have all ordered an array of economic restrictions supposed to limit South African access to credit and overseas markets.

Israel has a close strategic relationship with South Africa's white leaders and is thus branded by some South African blacks as an implicit supporter of apartheid rule.

The South African cleric has been at the forefront of the long-running campaign by his country's black majority to end rule by the white minority. ''Mr de Klerk is a more personable individual,'' he replied when asked to compare the two white leaders. ''He is someone who appears to me to listen. He does smile more. He doesn't wave his finger.'' Moreover, he said, the South African President, who assumed power earlier this year, ''has done certain things that has given some space.''

''These are things that we want to acknowledge,'' he said, listing the release of some prominent political prisoners, the desgregation of beaches and a decision not to block some anti-apartheid demonstrations.

Archbishop Tutu continued: ''He does not seem in my view to have a coherent, precise program of how he intends to dismantle apartheid. We are still sitting with a state of emergency. We are still sitting with severe restrictions on the media.''

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama is expected to take the first steps to undo Bush-era detention policies on Thursday, signing executive orders directing the Central Intelligence Agency to shut what remains of its network of secret prisons and ordering the closing of the Guantánamo detention camp within a year, government officials said.

The orders would rewrite American rules for the detention of terrorism suspects. They would require an immediate review of the 245 detainees still held at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to determine if they should be transferred, released or prosecuted.

And the orders would bring to an end a Central Intelligence Agency program that kept terrorism suspects in secret custody for months or years, a practice that has brought fierce criticism from foreign governments and human rights activists. They will also prohibit the CIA from using coercive interrogation methods, requiring the agency to follow the same rules used by the military in interrogating terrorism suspects, government officials said.

But the orders would leave unresolved complex questions surrounding the closing of the Guantánamo prison, including whether, where and how any of the detainees are to be prosecuted. They could also allow Obama to reinstate the CIAs detention and interrogation operations in the future, by presidential order, as some have argued would be appropriate if Osama bin Laden or another top-level leader of Al Qaeda were captured.

The new White House counsel, Gregory Craig, briefed lawmakers about some elements of the orders on Wednesday evening. A congressional official who attended the session said Craig acknowledged concerns from intelligence officials that new restrictions on CIA methods might be unwise and indicated that the White House might be open to allowing the use of methods other the 19 techniques allowed for the military.

Details of the directive involving the CIA were described by government officials who insisted on anonymity so that they could not be blamed for pre-empting a White House announcement. Copies of the draft order on Guantánamo were provided by people who have consulted with Obama's transition team and requested anonymity for the same reason.

The executive order on interrogations is certain to be received with some skepticism at the CIA, which for years has maintained that the military's interrogation rules are insufficient to get information from senior Qaeda figures like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The Bush administration asserted that the harsh interrogation methods were instrumental in gaining valuable intelligence on Qaeda operations.

The intelligence agency built a network of secret prisons in 2002 to house and interrogate senior Qaeda figures captured overseas. The exact number of suspects to have moved through the prisons is unknown, although Michael Hayden, the departing director of the agency, has in the past put the number at "fewer than 100."

The secret detentions brought international condemnation, and in September 2006, President George W. Bush ordered that the remaining 14 detainees in CIA custody be transferred to Guantánamo Bay and tried by military tribunals.

But Bush made clear at the time that he was not shutting down the CIA detention system, and in the last two years, two Qaeda operatives are believed to have been detained in agency prisons for several months each before being transferred to Guantánamo Bay.

A government official said Obama's order on the CIA would still allow its officers abroad to temporarily detain terrorism suspects and transfer them to other agencies, but would no longer allow the agency to carry out long-term detentions.

Since the early days after the 2001 attacks, the intelligence agency's role in detaining terrorism suspects has been significantly scaled back, as has the severity of interrogation methods the agency is permitted to use. The most controversial practice, the simulated drowning technique known as water-boarding, was used on three suspects but has not been used since 2004, C.IA. officials said.

But at the urging of the Bush administration, Congress in 2006 authorized the agency to continue using harsher interrogation methods than those permitted for use by other agencies, including the military. Those exact methods remain classified. The order on Guantánamo says that the camp, which received its first hooded and chained detainees seven years ago this month, "shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order."

The order calls for a cabinet-level panel to grapple with issues including where in the United States prisoners might be moved and what courts they could be tried in. It also provides for a new diplomatic effort to transfer some of the remaining men, including more than 60 that the Bush administration had cleared for release.

The order also directs an immediate assessment of the prison itself to ensure that the men are held in conditions that meet the humanitarian requirements of the Geneva Convention. That provision appeared to be a pointed embrace of the international treaties that the Bush administration often argued did not apply to detainees captured in the war against terrorism.

The seven years of the detention camp have included four suicides, hunger strikes by scores of detainees, and accusations of extensive use of solitary confinement and abusive interrogations, which the Department of Defense has long denied. Last week a senior Pentagon official said she had concluded that interrogators at Guantánamo had tortured one detainee, who officials have said was a would-be "20th hijacker" in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The report of Thursday's expected announcement came after the new administration late Tuesday night ordered an immediate halt to the military commission proceedings for prosecuting detainees at Guantánamo and filed a request in Federal District Court in Washington to stay habeas corpus proceedings there. Government lawyers described both delays as necessary for the administration to make a broad assessment of detention policy.

The cases immediately affected include those of five detainees charged as the coordinators of the 2001 attacks, including the case against Mohammed, the self-described mastermind.

The decision to stop the commissions was described by the military prosecutors as a pause in the war-crimes system "to permit the newly inaugurated president and his administration time to review the military commission process generally and the cases currently pending before the military commissions, specifically."

More than 200 detainees' habeas corpus cases have been filed in federal court, and lawyers said they expected that all of the cases would be stayed.

Obama had suggested in the campaign that, in place of military commissions, he would prefer prosecutions in federal courts or, perhaps, in the existing military justice system, which provides legal guarantees similar to those of American civilian courts.

Some human rights groups and lawyers for detainees said they were concerned about the one-year timetable. "It only took days to put these men in Guantánamo, it shouldn't take a year to get them out," said Vincent Warren, the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, which has coordinated detainees' lawyers.

But several groups that had criticized the Bush administration's policies applauded the rapid moves by the new administration. Obama's actions "reaffirmed American values and are a ray of light after eight long, dark years," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

CHICAGO: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says he will reach out to the Pakistani people to build a lasting relationship, rather than look for temporary alliances with their government.

In an exclusive interview with IANS, Obama acknowledged that the US and Pakistan must continue fighting terrorism together, but said working for the peopleís social and economic welfare is important.

“While the US and Pakistan must continue to work together to combat terrorism that has claimed innocent lives in both countries and to destroy the terrorist sanctuaries along the Afghan-Pakistan border, I will make helping Pakistan tackle critical challenges like illiteracy, poverty, and lack of healthcare a key priority, by increasing aid in these areas,” Obama said.

In what could be seen as a contrast to the Bush administrationís Pakistan policy that appeared to stress relations with the Musharrafís military regime, Obama said: “I will stand up for democratic institutions, civil society and judicial independence in Pakistan.”

Underlining the orientation that an Obama administration will take if he is elected, he said: “I want to build a broad-based and lasting relationship with the people of Pakistan - not just temporary alliances with their government.”

He added: “I co-sponsored legislation with Senator Lugar to triple non-military assistance to Pakistan and sustain it for the next decade.” “If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf does not act, we will,” Obama said. But now with Pervez Musharraf gone, he emphasised in this interview: “Working together with Pakistan to destroy the terrorist sanctuaries along the Afghan-Pakistan border.”

http://www.opfblog.com/5248/obama-wants-to-reach-out-to-pakistanis/#more-5248

The News, 24/10/2008