Kerry rally in Miami, Friday, October 29

The international media were there en masse. Among just those I chatted with were TV crews from India and Italy, print journalists from Slovakia and Italy (those Italians run in packs), and a bunch of other unrecognizable accents and acronyms. The whole world really is watching.

Bette Midler and Bruce Springsteen opened for Kerry. Although Kerry is no Henny Youngman, he had a cute one-liner in his speech: "When the President heard I was going to be appearing with the Boss, he thought we were talking about Dick Cheney." (For non-Springsteen fans, "the Boss" is his nickname.)

Kerry also said something semi-sensible on terrorism, to the effect that: To fight the war on terror, we need the best intelligence in the world, which means we need the best cooperation with other countries that we've ever had.

Just recently Spain busted a suspected Al Qaeda operative. It was buried in a world news summary on page A7 in the New York Times.

For a good summary of the last week's developments, check out Jim Lobe's October 29 piece on the Inter Press Service web site:

Halloween Tidings from the 'War on Terror'
http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=26073

The Economist endorses Kerry

Endorses might be a little strong. The Economist, that bastion of lively British neo-liberalism, said in effect that, if forced to vote in the U.S. elections, it would vote for Kerry as the lesser of two mediocrities -- or should that be the greater of two mediocrities? And "with a heavy heart" to boot.

I suppose at this point Kerry will take any kind of endorsement he can get.

America's Next President
The incompetent or the incoherent?
Oct. 28, 2004
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3329802

Looting of Iraqi nuclear site in April 2003

As the firestorm rages around the lost high explosives in Iraq and Bush and Kerry trade salvos, I'm surprised someone hasn't brought up the looting of the well-known Iraqi nuclear research center at Al Tuwaitha.

Patrick Tyler of the New York Times reported in June 2003 on the loss of the materials and poisoning of local villagers. This center was no secret -- The Times called it "the most conspicuous element of Iraq's nuclear research program since its inception in the 1970's" and it was bombed by the Israelis in 1981. But it wasn't secured.

I was amazed last year after I read the piece that it wasn't causing more of a stir. And it seems even more ominous now. Hmm, let's see ... looted high explosives, looted low-grade nuclear materials, what could somebody make with that?

New York Times. "Barrels Looted at Nuclear Site Raise Fears for Iraqi Villagers." June 8, 2003
http://query.nytimes.com/search/abstract?res=F30B11F93F5D0C7B8CDDAF0894DB404482&incamp=archive:search

You have to pay to download it now. It's too long to post in its entirety, but here's how it begins:

TUWAITHA, Iraq, June 7 — For Iptisam Nuri, a mother of five who was sick with typhoid, the arrival of the barrels in her home at first seemed a godsend.

When the electricity went out during the war, the water-pumping station that serves this area 30 miles southeast of Baghdad shut down, and people were thirsty. Then men from a village near here broke through the fence guarding "Location C" at Saddam Hussein's nuclear complex.

"We had to find something to bring water," said one of the men, Idris Saddoun, 23.

They say they broke into the warehouse, emptied hundreds of barrels of their yellow and brown mud, took them to the wells and canals and filled them with water for cooking, bathing and drinking.

For nearly three weeks, hundreds of villagers who live in the shadow of the high earthen berm and barbed wire fences that surrounded the labyrinth of the Iraqi nuclear program here bathed in and ingested water laced with radioactive contaminants from the barrels.

The barrels, Iraqi and foreign experts say, had held uranium ores, low-enriched uranium "yellowcake," nuclear sludge and other byproducts of Mr. Hussein's nuclear research.

...

Interview with Mexican human rights leader on U.S. elections

Entrevista con lider en derechos humanos sobre elecciones en EEUU

My friend Arturo Santa Cruz, a professor at the University of Guadalajara, sent me this interview from Murál, the Guadalajara edition of Reforma, a major Mexican paper. The subject, Óscar González, is former president of the Mexican Academy of Human Rights. He will be observing the U.S. elections with a delegation of foreign dignitaries organized by Global Exchange, a non-governmental organization based in California.

The title is: "Good faith is not enough in U.S. voting," by Maribel González.
It begins: "On November 2, the U.S. will find itself with a series of problems accumulated over 200 years of democracy, asserted the ex-president of the Mexican Academy of Human Rights."

When I get a few spare moments, I'll translate it, but for now I have to post it only in Spanish.

'No basta la buena fe en comicios de EU'

Por Maribel GonzálezMural (22 10 2004).-

Óscar González / Observador mexicano. El 2 de noviembre, EU se encontrará con una serie de problemas acumulados a lo largo de 200 años de democracia, asegura el ex presidente de la Academia Mexicana de Derechos Humanos
MURAL / Estados Unidos

WASHINGTON.- Durante 200 años el proceso democrático estadounidense ha funcionado bajo el supuesto de una honestidad fundamental y buena fe debido a que nunca se ha llevado a cabo un ejercicio de autocrítica sobre sus procedimientos electorales, sostuvo Óscar González, uno de los expertos internacionales que participará como observador de las elecciones presidenciales el 2 de noviembre en Estados Unidos, que junto con Sergio Aguayo, participaron en un proyecto de la ONG Global Exchange.

Sin embargo, González cuestionó "hasta dónde todos los manejadores del proceso en sus distintas fases están respondiendo a esa confianza".

En entrevista con MURAL, el ex presidente de la Academia Mexicana de Derechos Humanos agregó que Estados Unidos se encontrará con una serie de inercias y problemas acumulados a lo largo de más de 200 años de democracia sin que realmente se hayan regulado los procesos.

El pasado mes de septiembre, el observador mexicano participó con otros 19 expertos de 14 países de un trabajo de investigación sobre el proceso electoral en Estados Unidos. De ahí surgió un reporte que revela que lo que se pensó era un caso excepcional en el estado de Florida en el año 2000 es un problema mucho más generalizado al que nadie había puesto atención antes.

"En Florida fue donde se destapó la cloaca", dijo González, "pero los problemas son a nivel nacional".

"Nosotros recién hemos rasguñado el problema. El problema es enorme", anticipó González, reconociendo que como mexicano asesorando a Estados Unidos en asuntos de democracia se siente muy honrado, poniendo en práctica lo aprendido como observador de procesos electorales en México y de la larga experiencia "con 70 años de trampas" hasta que llegó la alternancia.

Recordó que hace pocos años en México no existía la figura del observador electoral, y ahora sí. "Quizás algo equivalente puede ocurrir en Estados Unidos, que se acepte que haya varios cuerpos que sean realmente universalmente aceptables y no partidarios", consignó. "Este es un primer intento de ver cómo se vota, cómo se cuentan los votos, y asegurar que se cuenten", estableció.

González afirmó que ya es tiempo de que se registre "una ola de reformas" en Estados Unidos, "con un estudio más a fondo promovido por los ciudadanos más organizados que tendrán que pasar a una etapa de propuestas específicas para reformas en parte a nivel federal y en parte a niveles estatales... pero en qué van a desembocar, está por verse".

A partir del próximo 29 de octubre el mexicano se encontrará en Florida, donde teme que uno de los riesgos a surgir sea en relación a los padrones electorales, "si fueron hechos correctamente o no", tema que motivó grandes protestas hace cuatro años.

Su rol será observar "si hay o no una administración y un recuento y un manejo final de las votaciones no partidario y universalmente aceptable".

Una de las principales recomendaciones del grupo de observadores internacionales formado por Global Exchange y del que González forma parte, apunta a la necesidad de eliminar la administración partidista del aparato electoral y pasar a un manejo no partidista del proceso. En Estados Unidos la mayoría de los administradores de las elecciones son miembros de partidos y funcionarios electos. "Esta práctica no es consistente con estándares internacionales", advirtió el observador.

Como ejemplo el entrevistado señaló que en Florida la persona a cargo de las elecciones fue nombrada por el Gobernador Jeb Bush, republicano y hermano del Presidente George W. Bush, creando un conflicto de intereses.
El martes 2 de noviembre el rol a desempeñar por Óscar González y otros observadores será el de supervisar "si los sistemas fueron probados, si se hizo una verificación independiente, si queda un registro documental de los votos electrónicos, si los centros de votación se abren a tiempo, si no hay presión sobre los votantes, si hay observadores domésticos o internacionales y si se siguen adecuadamente los procesos".

Explicó que se trata de una tarea gigantesca para un grupo demasiado pequeño de observadores. También estarán operando en la observación una serie de organizaciones civiles domésticas, pero "recién están desarrollando sus procesos de observación".

Voting well is the best revenge.

"I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before."
- Stephen Wright

For those who were on another planet in 2000, chads are the little bits of paper that fall out when a punch-card ballot is punched. They are like a negative of a vote, what was removed to make the vote readable. And in the Florida presidential balloting, they took on a personality of their own: hanging, pregnant, always feisty and controversial.

The 2004 elections in Florida may be different. Fifteen counties now have direct recording electronic voting machines, which have created controversies of their own. So chads may have had their fifteen minutes in the spotlight, but we shall see.

There are plenty of other issues that may come to a boil in the Florida voting this year. I'll be flying to Fort Lauderdale on Thursday, October 28, and prowling around South Florida. I hope particularly to spend some time talking to people in immigrant communities, African-American communities, farmworker communities, ex-felons who can't vote, people whose name sounds like an ex-felon's who can't vote, preachers, hucksters, con artists, demagogues and holy rollers of all political persuasions.

I'm stringing for Inter Press Service, a newswire based in Rome that focuses on the global South and development issues. The rest of the world is watching our elections intently, and there is at least as much at stake for them as there is for us.

My first story, "Electronic Voting No Quick Fix," was posted on the IPS web site yesterday at:
http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=26016