Wednesday, April 25, 2012
MILITARY FLARE MAKER PAYS NEARLY $37 MILLION TO SETTLE FALSE CLAIMS ACT
FROM: U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Monday, April 23, 2012
Atk Launch Systems Inc. Settles False Claims Product Substitution Case for Nearly $37 Million Allegedly Delivered Unsafe Illuminating Para-flares Under Department of Defense Contracts
ATK Launch Systems Inc. has agreed to a $36,967,160 settlement with the United States to resolve allegations that ATK sold dangerous and defective illumination flares to the Army and the Air Force. According to the government’s allegations, from 2000 to 2006, ATK delivered LUU-2 and LUU-19 illuminating para-flares to the Defense Department. These flares, which burn in excess of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit for over five minutes, are used for nighttime combat, covert and search and rescue operations and have been used extensively by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan in the global war on terror. The government alleged that the flares delivered by ATK were incapable of withstanding a 10-foot drop test without exploding or igniting, as required by specifications, and that ATK was aware of this when it submitted claims for payment.
ATK has agreed to pay the United States $21 million in cash and provide necessary in-kind services worth $15,967,160 to fix the 76,000 unsafe para-flares remaining in the government’s inventory. The settlement resolves a False Claims Act suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah.
The lawsuit was initially filed by an ATK employee under the qui tam, or whistleblower, provisions of the False Claims Act, which permit private individuals, called “relators” to bring lawsuits on behalf of the United States and receiv e a portion of the proceeds of a settlement or judgment awarded against a defendant.
“Our men and women in combat deserve equipment that meets critical safety and performance requirements,” said Stuart F. Delery, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division. “This case demonstrates that the Department of Justice will pursue cases where contractors knowingly provide defective equipment that puts the safety of American military service members at risk.”
“This settlement demonstrates our commitment to aggressively go after contractors who recklessly disregard and deliberately ignore critical safety defects in munitions used by America’s uniformed fighting men and women on the front lines of the war on terror,” said David B. Barlow, U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah. “This office fully supported the federal investigators in their efforts to uncover these fraudulent claims and recover the ill-gotten gains for the American taxpayers.”
The investigation team, which was led by the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, included the Air Force Office of Special Investigation, the Navy Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the Army Criminal Investigative Command and auditors from the Defense Contract Audit Agency and the Defense Contract Management Agency. Additional technical support was provided by the Army Research Laboratory in Aberdeen, Md., the Army Aviation and Missile Command in Huntsville, Ala., the Naval Sea Systems Command at Crane, Ind. and Portsmouth, R.I., the Defense Standardization Program Office at Fort Belvoir, Va., the Air Force Materiel Command at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio and Hill Air Force Base, Utah, and the Army Materiel Command at Rock Island Arsenal, Ill.
U.S. NAVY AND COAST GUARD RESCUE TAIWANESE FISHERMEN
FROM: U.S. NAVYPACIFIC OCEAN (April 21, 2012) A fire burns aboard the Taiwanese fishing vessel Shin Maan Chun in the Pacific Ocean. The fire forced the crew of nine to abandon ship and through a coordinated effort between the U.S. 7th Fleet and U.S. Coast Guard Sector Guam, all of the fishermen were safely rescued and brought aboard the Marshallese-flagged bulk carrier Semirio. (U.S. Navy photo/Released)
VP-1 Assists in Taiwanese Fishing Vessel Rescue
From Commander, U.S. 7th Fleet Public Affairs
USS BLUE RIDGE, At Sea (NNS) -- A P-3 Orion from Patrol Squadron (VP) 1, in conjunction with the U.S. Coast Guard's District 14, assisted in the rescue of 10 Taiwanese fishermen April 21, 700 miles off the west coast of Guam.
At approximately 4:30 p.m., local time, Coast Guard Sector Guam received an initial alert from an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon from the Hsin Man Chun, the 70-foot Taiwanese fishing vessel. After a request for assistance from the Coast Guard, VP-1's P-3 located 10 crew members from the fishing vessel that was reported to be on fire.
VP-1 spotted eight crew members in a life raft with two crew members still on the burning vessel's bridge. The P-3 deployed two life rafts to assist crew members in distress.
At the time of the request for assistance, the Semirio was only 40 miles away from the distressed vessel. Once on scene, the 980-foot bulk carrier launched a small boat and successfully rescued all 10 crew members.
The Semirio is one of many foreign flagged vessels operating in the Pacific that voluntarily participate in the Automated Mutual-Assistance Vessel Rescue System (AMVER).
AMVER, sponsored by the U.S. Coast Guard, is a unique, computer-based, and voluntary global ship reporting system used worldwide by search and rescue authorities to arrange for assistance to persons in distress at sea. With AMVER, rescue coordinators can identify participating ships in the area of distress and divert the best-suited ship or ships to respond.
JUSTICE LAWSUIT OVER RESERVIST'S RIGHTS SETTLED WITH PITTSFIELD, MASS
FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Monday, April 23, 2012
Justice Department Settles Lawsuit Against City of Pittsfield, Mass., to Enforce the Employment Rights of a U.S. Navy Reservist
The Justice Department announced today that it has reached a settlement with the city of Pittsfield, Mass., to resolve allegations that the city violated the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA) by failing to promote a navy reservist and Pittsfield firefighter, and by retaliating against him after he invoked his rights.
The Justice Department’s complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, alleges that the city violated Pittsfield firefighter Jeffrey Rawson’s rights by passing him over for promotion to lieutenant in the Pittsfield Fire Department because of his military service obligations. In 2009, Rawson took a promotional exam for lieutenant. Based on the results of the examination, Rawson was ranked second on the promotional list. In July 2010, the city informed Rawson that he was being skipped for promotion and that a firefighter ranked lower on the promotional list was instead being promoted to lieutenant. The lower ranked firefighter was promoted in September 2010.
The lawsuit further alleges that, after Rawson filed a USERRA complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service, the city retaliated against him by refusing to reinstate him to the list of firefighters eligible to serve as an acting lieutenant.
Under the terms of the settlement, embodied in a consent decree that has been submitted for approval to the federal district court, the city will promote Rawson to lieutenant retroactive to September 2010. The settlement also requires the city to provide Rawson with over $22,000 in back pay, pension contributions and interest. The settlement further mandates the city to provide USERRA training to city department heads and supervisors on the rights and obligations of covered employees and their employers.
“Our military servicemembers sacrifice tremendously to serve our country,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “This settlement demonstrates our vigilant protection of the employment opportunities of our servicemembers, and our commitment to vigorous enforcement of the laws that protect them.”
“Employers face incredible challenges when an employee leaves his position temporarily to serve our country. However, our servicemembers endure much greater challenges to protect our precious freedom,” said U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz for the District of Massachusetts. “We are pleased that the city of Pittsfield agreed to restore Mr. Rawson’s rights and provide him with the promotion to which he was entitled.”
This case was litigated by the Employment Litigation Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Justice Department Settles Lawsuit Against City of Pittsfield, Mass., to Enforce the Employment Rights of a U.S. Navy Reservist
The Justice Department announced today that it has reached a settlement with the city of Pittsfield, Mass., to resolve allegations that the city violated the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA) by failing to promote a navy reservist and Pittsfield firefighter, and by retaliating against him after he invoked his rights.
The Justice Department’s complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, alleges that the city violated Pittsfield firefighter Jeffrey Rawson’s rights by passing him over for promotion to lieutenant in the Pittsfield Fire Department because of his military service obligations. In 2009, Rawson took a promotional exam for lieutenant. Based on the results of the examination, Rawson was ranked second on the promotional list. In July 2010, the city informed Rawson that he was being skipped for promotion and that a firefighter ranked lower on the promotional list was instead being promoted to lieutenant. The lower ranked firefighter was promoted in September 2010.
The lawsuit further alleges that, after Rawson filed a USERRA complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service, the city retaliated against him by refusing to reinstate him to the list of firefighters eligible to serve as an acting lieutenant.
Under the terms of the settlement, embodied in a consent decree that has been submitted for approval to the federal district court, the city will promote Rawson to lieutenant retroactive to September 2010. The settlement also requires the city to provide Rawson with over $22,000 in back pay, pension contributions and interest. The settlement further mandates the city to provide USERRA training to city department heads and supervisors on the rights and obligations of covered employees and their employers.
“Our military servicemembers sacrifice tremendously to serve our country,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “This settlement demonstrates our vigilant protection of the employment opportunities of our servicemembers, and our commitment to vigorous enforcement of the laws that protect them.”
“Employers face incredible challenges when an employee leaves his position temporarily to serve our country. However, our servicemembers endure much greater challenges to protect our precious freedom,” said U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz for the District of Massachusetts. “We are pleased that the city of Pittsfield agreed to restore Mr. Rawson’s rights and provide him with the promotion to which he was entitled.”
This case was litigated by the Employment Litigation Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.
UN COMMISSION ON CRIME PREVENTION AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
21st UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice
Remarks Brian A. Nichols
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement AffairsOpening Statement
Vienna, Austria
April 23, 2012
Madam Chairperson, thank you for the floor. We are pleased to see you leading our work today and during the coming week, and pledge our assistance as you help make this Crime Commission a productive one.
Since the genesis of this Commission, we – its member states – have collectively identified new and emerging crime trends in order to develop appropriate tools, harness resources and work collaboratively to target, penetrate, and dismantle the threats they represent to security and development. During this time, we have also witnessed the impressive adaptability of criminal organizations to both law enforcement actions and to new opportunities for profit. Today, most criminal organizations bear no resemblance to the hierarchical organized crime family groups of the past. Instead, they consist of loose and informal networks that often converge when it is convenient and engage in a diverse array of criminal activities, including the smuggling of counterfeit goods, firearms, drugs, humans, and even wildlife to amass their illicit profits.
At the same time, largely due to pressure from committed countries, terrorist organizations in some cases are turning to crime and criminal networks for both resources and facilitation in order to sustain their networks and fund their operations. We have seen that terrorist organizations can overcome differences in motivation and ideology to use criminal organizations to launder their money, acquire funds, and move people and materials across borders. There are even instances where terrorists are evolving into criminal entrepreneurs in their own right, engaging in illicit activities to finance their operations.
In order to explore these evolving partnerships of convenience further, the United States will host a side-event tomorrow at 9:00 am. This side-event will serve as an opportunity to analyze crime-terror interaction and explain why it is expanding. We welcome participation and attendance from all interested Crime Commission delegates.
Madam Chairperson, I would now like to turn my remarks to this year’s thematic debate topic. The United States believes that violence against migrants, migrant workers and their families, including violence perpetrated by organized criminal groups, poses a serious challenge to states and requires multilateral cooperation among all countries towards its eradication. Migrants, especially women and children, who attempt to cross international borders in an irregular fashion, are highly vulnerable to abuse and crime, including human trafficking, and the United States recognizes that states have an obligation to treat them humanely with full protection of their rights.
To this end, the thematic debate should serve as an opportunity to explore the range of measures within the context of the crime prevention and criminal justice system to prevent, to investigate and to prosecute crimes against migrants and their families, including violations of their legal rights. In particular, some of these measures can be found in the application of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its Protocols on Migrant Smuggling and on Trafficking in Persons. These legally binding instruments contain the agreed upon tools to facilitate international cooperation and to afford protections to migrant witnesses who testify in criminal proceedings or become victims of trafficking. In addition, the Migrant Smuggling Protocol includes provisions aimed at deterring the endangerment of migrants and the infliction of inhuman or degrading treatment upon migrants. The Migrant Smuggling Protocol also requires states parties to take appropriate measures to prevent the infliction of violence against smuggled migrants.
In support of the thematic debate, the United States has submitted a draft resolution on promoting cooperation in preventing violent crime against migrants, migrant workers and their families. We are very pleased and honored to be working in close collaboration with Turkey in this regard. In the coming days, we welcome further discussions on this draft resolution with all Crime Commission partners.
In closing, I would like also to give special mention to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the technical assistance and capacity building that it undertakes on a global basis. The United States provided a record $41 million toward UNODC’s assistance efforts in 2011, including in support of the anti-crime legal framework. We continue to view the organization as an important force multiplier for bilateral assistance efforts and look forward to continuing our partnership in 2012 and beyond.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak, and we look forward to a productive week.
MAJOR GENERAL JOHN A. TOOLAN RATES AFGHAN FORCES
FROM: AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE
Commander Rates Afghan Army, Police Progress
By Jim Garamone
WASHINGTON, April 24, 2012 - The Afghan national security forces have made tremendous progress, but still require U.S. aid, instruction and capabilities, said Marine Corps Maj. Gen. John A. Toolan, the commander of the 2nd Marine Division and former commander in Afghanistan's Regional Command—South West.
Toolan told the Defense Writers' Group here today that by the end of his command the Afghan security forces were shouldering more of the security burden.
The Afghan army did well in the province, but there weren't enough of them at the beginning of the year. That changed when the Afghan 215th Corps arrived. But even that was problematic. The 215th Corps did not have many Pashtus -- the largest ethnic group in Regional Command—South West. Part of this was because the people didn't trust the national army. Another part of it was Taliban intimidation.
Today, more than 15 percent of the 215th Corps is native Pashtu and local men are enlisting.
A scarcity of uniformed police presented another issue for the general. "We weren't able to bring in a whole lot of police officers at the beginning of the year," Toolan said. "We relied heavily on the Afghan local police."
The local police, he said, were the key to success in Marja and Sangin.
"What we don't want to have is to continue to work through ALP for the next couple of years," Toolan said. "We want the ALP to morph into the uniformed police." Working against this is that Afghans in the local police want to stay local. They have no desire even to move to the next town.
The capacity of the uniformed police is picking up, the general said, but while the Afghan army has good credibility among the public, the police do not. "We need to understand the Afghans have a design for the future," Toolan said. "They have a force lay-down in their minds. Early on, we were trying to use them in places based on our ideas of what was an important district to seize, clear, hold and rebuild."
But the Afghan army wants to be on the borders protecting the nation as armies are supposed to do. "But we have to be careful because I don't think the police are entirely ready yet to take full responsibility for the population centers along the Helmand River Valley," the general said. "The police are the key to success in the province, but they haven't gotten past being a paramilitary [organization] yet."
The police need to become beat cops and not military units, Toolan said. They need time to become police who investigate crimes, collect evidence, interview witnesses -- do all the things that police do to establish the rule of law for the benefit of the citizens they protect.
"The challenge for us is to put the training programs into place for the police," the general said. "From a military perspective, we have taken it pretty far. But we need to start handing it off to the law enforcement professional. Very similar to what we did in Bosnia in 1997, 1998. That's a model that people are looking at as we head into the Chicago Summit."
The Afghan security forces "are moving along fine," Toolan said.
"From a capability perspective," he added, "we're good with the army, ... and the police need the most work."
PRESIDENT GIVES PRAISE FOR DEFENSE DEPARTMENTS SEXUAL ASSAULT POLICIES
FROM: AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE
President Praises Defense Leaders for Department's New Sexual Assault Policies
By John Valceanu
WASHINGTON, April 23, 2012 - President Barack Obama released a statement today praising the Defense Department's senior leaders for issuing new policies designed to combat sexual assault in the military.
"I applaud the initiatives that Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta and [Army] Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have announced to further combat sexual assault in the military," Obama said in the statement.
Under new policy guidance issued by Panetta on April 20, unit commanders at the company or squadron level no longer have authority to decide whether to take further action in reported cases of attempted rape, forcible sodomy or sexual assault.
Defense officials said the new policy will allow more experienced and less partial officers to make the initial decision on whether a sexual assault case goes to trial, and it will add consistency to how such cases are handled.
"Elevating these cases to a higher level of command review is a very important step," Obama said.
The president said he believes sexual assault has no place and in the military, and service members "deserve an environment that is free from the threat of sexual assault, and in which allegations of sexual assault are thoroughly investigated, offenders are held appropriately accountable, and victims are given the care and support they need."
Obama expressed his appreciation for the senior leaders' attention to the issue.
"I thank Secretary Panetta and Chairman Dempsey and look forward to seeing continued progress on this important issue," the president said.
"I applaud the initiatives that Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta and [Army] Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have announced to further combat sexual assault in the military," Obama said in the statement.
Under new policy guidance issued by Panetta on April 20, unit commanders at the company or squadron level no longer have authority to decide whether to take further action in reported cases of attempted rape, forcible sodomy or sexual assault.
Defense officials said the new policy will allow more experienced and less partial officers to make the initial decision on whether a sexual assault case goes to trial, and it will add consistency to how such cases are handled.
"Elevating these cases to a higher level of command review is a very important step," Obama said.
The president said he believes sexual assault has no place and in the military, and service members "deserve an environment that is free from the threat of sexual assault, and in which allegations of sexual assault are thoroughly investigated, offenders are held appropriately accountable, and victims are given the care and support they need."
Obama expressed his appreciation for the senior leaders' attention to the issue.
"I thank Secretary Panetta and Chairman Dempsey and look forward to seeing continued progress on this important issue," the president said.
REMARKS BY AMBASSADOR SUSAN E. RICE ON SYRIA, DARFUR, SUDAN AND SOUTH SUDAN
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Remarks by Ambassador Susan E. Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, at the Security Council Stakeout, April 24, 2012
Susan E. Rice
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
U.S. Mission to the United Nations New York, NY April 24, 2012
AS DELIVERED
What a full day. I have a press statement to read and then I will provide a readout of our discussions on Sudan and South Sudan, as well as on Syria, and take a few questions, obviously this morning we had a full discussion in the Council with Under-Secretary-General Bachelet and Under-Secretary-General Ladsous on women peace and security, our semi-annual discussion of that topic, and I won’t dwell on that since you heard their briefings in the open chamber. Let me begin with the press statement.
The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the attack on an African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) patrol in West Darfur on 20 April, in which four peacekeepers were wounded, one of whom subsequently died as a result of injuries sustained in the attack.
The members of the Security Council expressed their condolences to the family of the peacekeeper killed in the attack, as well as to the Government of Togo. They called on the Government of Sudan to bring the perpetrators to justice and stressed that there must be an end to impunity for those who attack peacekeepers.
The members of the Security Council reiterated their full support for UNAMID and called on all parties in Darfur to co-operate with the mission.
Turning now to Sudan and South Sudan. We heard a briefing from Under-Secretary-General Ladsous, Special Envoy Menkerios, and SRSG Hilde Johnson on the deteriorating situation on the border between Sudan and South Sudan.
They noted that the withdrawal of the SPLA from Heglig was initially encouraging but has since resulted in increased bombing by Sudanese Armed Forces into South Sudanese territory.
UNMISS confirmed that at least 16 civilians have been killed and 34 injured in Unity State from aerial bombardments, in addition to significant damage to infrastructure. We were told there have also been SAF incursions into Unity State.
Council members welcomed the withdrawal from Heglig by the SPLA, demanded an immediate halt to aerial bombardments by the Sudanese Armed Forces, and urged an immediate ceasefire and a return to the negotiating table. This is a general characterization of the national comments that were made.
Many delegations expressed concern about reports of extensive damage to oil infrastructure in Heglig. They also acknowledged the constructive contribution of the African Union Peace and Security Council and its communiqué adopted earlier today, which will of course inform our consultations on further action.
Finally, several members of the Council mentioned the importance of Sudan and the SPLM-North engaging in a political solution to the problem in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile and the need for urgent humanitarian assistance there.
In my national capacity, let me just reiterate that the United States welcomes the withdrawal of the SPLA from Heglig. We strongly condemn Sudan’s incursion into South Sudan and in particular its heavy aerial bombardments of civilian areas and infrastructure and we call for the immediate cessation of hostilities. We recognize the right of South Sudan to defend itself and urge South Sudan to exercise maximal restraint in its reaction to Sudan’s attacks.
Turning now finally to Syria. The Security Council received a briefing, as you know, via video teleconference, from Joint Special Envoy Annan and an in-person briefing by Under-Secretary-General Ladsous earlier this afternoon. Mr. Annan stated that the situation in Syria, and I quote, “continues to be unacceptable.”
Mr. Annan expressed his concerns at reports that attacks have resumed in locations directly following the departure of members of the observer team, calling them, and I quote, “unacceptable and reprehensible, if true.” Mr. Annan emphasized that, and I quote again, “the only promises that count are the promises that are kept.”
Under-Secretary-General Ladsous confirmed that to date there are 11 military observers in Syria, two of whom are stationed in Homs and two at present in Hama. Under-Secretary-General Ladsous relayed that the chief military observer will be deployed by the end of the week at which time UNSMIS will be operational and the Advance Team will have concluded its work. Thirty observers, he predicted, will be in country by April 30th, and 100 total observers within a month.
Mr. Ladsous reported that the Syrian Government has refused at least one observer based on his nationality, and that Syrian authorities have stated they will not accept UNSMIS staff members from any nations that are members of the Friends of Democratic Syria. He underscored that from the UN’s point of view this is entirely unacceptable.
Several Council members expressed their skepticism of the Syrian Government’s intentions and the veracity of statements contained in the Syrian Foreign Minister’s recent letter to the Joint Special Envoy. All Council members underscored the need for more rapid deployment of observers and stressed the importance of full and immediate implementation of all aspects of the Six-Point Plan.
I’m happy to take a few questions.
Reporter: Madame President, in the words of Mr. Kofi Annan, the situation continues to be “unacceptable.” Yet the Security Council is going ahead with the deployment, as we understand, of the observers. If it’s unacceptable, I mean, how – how can you – my words fail me here. If the situation is unacceptable, why is the Security Council going ahead with the deployment?
Ambassador Rice: I believe – the Security Council voted on Saturday to give the Secretary General the authority to dispatch the full complement of monitors. On the basis of his recommendation and that of Joint Special Envoy Annan. I believe the underlying logic of that recommendation was that the presence of monitors as sought and desired to a substantial extent by the Syrian people themselves; even though they are not in a position to prevent violence, can by their presence not only provide better information and reporting on what’s happening on the ground, but have, at least in the time that they’re present in a place, the salutary impact of a diminution of violence. And we have in fact seen that in Homs and Hama and elsewhere. The problem is, and this is what Joint Special Envoy in part was referring to, is that, once they have left, their violence and number of instances has resumed. Now, the way they have tried to deal with that is to leave observers in Homs now and again now in Hama. The problem is, obviously there’re not sufficient observers deployed at present to leave in everyplace that the observer team might visit after which there may be, if the pattern holds, an intensification of violence. Hence, the Council’s very unanimous and strong view, that having made the decision to deploy these monitors, let’s get them out as swiftly as possible.
Reporter: According to one of your colleagues on Council, he said that it appears that the Syrians are playing a cat-and-mouse game with the Council on this. And he also thought it was an unacceptable situation, in your national capacity, how long do you think this can go on? Because you can have, like, a hundred observers for the next two, three months—at what point will the Council decide to say, you know, this is really unacceptable and it’s sort of is going against what you voted for.
Ambassador Rice: Well, I will speak for the United States, as I have been saying over the course of the last several days—our patience is exhausted. The fact that the violence continues despite the so-called ceasefire of April 12, is in our view, not only unacceptable, but reprehensible. And we’ve been very clear in supporting the dispatch of the balance of the monitoring mission, that the onus remains on the Syrian government to halt the violence. And then subsequently on both sides to maintain a cessation of violence and allow the observers to move freely and do their work without any obstruction. If that does not occur, we have said that we’re prepared to work towards consequences for the Syrian government, and further action out of the Security Council. I’ve said that repeatedly. You heard Secretary Clinton’s statements in Paris. So there’s no ambiguity or secret about that. But obviously, we need to get the beginnings of a critical mass of observers on the ground to be able to test the proposition as to whether they can in fact have, if not a perfect impact, then a beneficial impact that we decide is worth maintaining.
Reporter: On Sudan, this PSC Communiqué seems to ask the Security Council to endorse at least parts of it under Chapter VII. I wonder, I mean, I guess as the U.S.—what do you think of the Communiqué? Is that something that you support? And it’s—some are wondering whether, even though it’s Chapter VII, this would require the prior approval of Khartoum and Juba or could be—you know—could be endorsed by the Council without their approval—and some, one member at least was talking about some either reparations or in some way compensation to Sudan for the damage to Heglig—what does the U.S. think of that?
Ambassador Rice: Well first of all, we think that the African Union statement, speaking for the United States, is a positive and constructive contribution. We are obviously going to study it carefully in Washington. I think most members of the Council saw it for the first time as we were sitting there in consultations, and have not had the opportunity to get reactions from their capital. But I can say from the U.S. point of view, that we view it as a constructive contribution, and we’ll be consulting with Council members about their readiness and willingness to contemplate next steps that reflect the thrust of the AU Communiqué. I can’t prejudge what other Council members will come back with.
With respect to whether the Council could act under Chapter VII without the agreement of either of both capitals, of course the answer to that is yes, at least in theory, whether—if Council members choose to do so. There’s nothing from a legal point of view that prevents that. And with respect to Heglig, I think most Council members expressed, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, concern about the damage that has occurred in the Heglig oil area. We asked this question of the UN’s personnel, and while some people are quick to say reparations, it’s hardly clear how that damage occurred. It’s not clear whether it was a result of the fighting on the ground, aerial bombardment, sabotage by the SPLA or retreating forces as some in Khartoum have alleged—we just don’t know. And obviously, there are many who will be interested in the answer to that question—but until there’s an independent assessment of what actually happened, its premature to talk about compensation or responsibility.
Reporter: One on Syria, I saw that General Mood seemed to at least, go into the—at the beginning of the meeting, Major General Robert Mood, is he the Chief Military Observer or did he stay for the meeting, and if so, in what capacity?
Ambassador Rice: He was in the room. He didn’t speak. And I can’t get ahead of what the Secretary-General is going to decide. Nothing has been announced to my knowledge.
Reporter: Madame President, given that Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Chief of Al-Qaeda, has given order to his men go and fight in Syria, how concerned are you that Syria will not develop into another Iraq in the region especially if you are curbing the authority of the Syrian government?
Ambassador Rice: Well, I’m not aware of the statement you’re referring to, but obviously, the thrust of what is happening in Syria is that a popular uprising that began very peacefully has been met with brutal force by the Assad government and the aspirations, the legitimate aspirations, of the Syrian people to determine their own future, had been thwarted with massive bloodshed. And now, many on the opposition side have taken up arms in self-defense. And we have what is a widening conflict. Obviously, in that region, anytime you have a conflict situation, one has reason to be concerned that it may provide some fertile ground for extremists to take advantage of. But, I’m not prepared to predict that that will be the fate of Syria. I think what we’re dealing with, first and foremost, are a people who have been repressed, who need and deserve to choose their own future, and that’s what this is about. Thank you.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
STATE DEPARTMENT ARTICLE ON WOMEN'S GLOBAL ISSUES
FROM: E-MAIL U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Why Women Are a Foreign Policy Issue
Article Melanne Verveer
Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues Foreign Policy Magazine
Washington, DC
April 23, 2012
May/June Issue 2012
The most pressing global problems simply won't be solved without the participation of women. Seriously, guys.
On a trip to Afghanistan in the summer of 2009, not long after my appointment as the U.S. State Department's ambassador at large for global women's issues, I stopped for dinner with a group of Afghan women activists in Kabul. One woman opened our conversation with a plea: "Please don't see us as victims, but look to us as the leaders we are."
Those words have stuck with me as President Barack Obama's administration has endeavored to put women at the heart of its foreign policy. For generations, the United States too often viewed the world's women as victims of poverty and illiteracy, of violence and seemingly unbreakable cultural traditions -- essentially, as beneficiaries of aid. Women's issues existed on the margins, segregated from the more "strategic" issues of war, peace, and economic stability. Now, in a time of transformative change -- from the rise of new economic powers to a growing chorus of voices against repressive regimes in the Arab world -- promoting the status of women is not just a moral imperative but a strategic one; it's essential to economic prosperity and to global peace and security. It is, in other words, a strategy for a smarter foreign policy.
In the past, U.S. diplomacy and development efforts were conducted in a manner that was gender neutral at best. The United States regularly supported peace talks that left women out of negotiating rooms and treaty documents, an omission that weakened the chances of forging durable peace agreements. The country designed development programs without consulting women or considering the crucial role they played, whether it was agricultural training initiatives that targeted men even though women often represented the majority of small farmers, or building wells in areas where women could not go, never mind that women were the ones responsible for fetching water.
As a growing body of research shows, however, the world's most pressing economic and political problems simply cannot be solved without the participation of women. That's why Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is working to ensure that advancing the status of women and girls around the world is fully integrated into every aspect of U.S. foreign policy. As of this spring, with the release of a first-ever secretarial policy directive on gender, advancing the status of women and girls worldwide is officially a requirement in every U.S. diplomat's job description. As Clinton said in March, the United States will use "every tool at our disposal" to support this crucial cause.
Why? This is, as Clinton has called it, a "Full Participation Age," an era when information transcends borders, opinions and ideas scale firewalls, and the world can no longer afford to leave millions of women out of the global community. It's no coincidence that those countries that deny women basic human rights are some of the poorest and least stable. According to the World Economic Forum, countries where men and women are closer to enjoying equal rights are far more economically competitive than those where the gender gap has left women and girls with limited or no access to medical care, education, elected office, and the marketplace.
As much of the world struggles to climb out of recession, the economic participation of women and their enhanced efficiency and productivity are essential to recovery and growth. Goldman Sachs researchers, for example, found that closing the gender gap between male and female employment would be a powerful engine for global growth, even in the United States and the eurozone, where it could boost GDP by billions of dollars. In fact, the Economist has reported that the increase in employment among women in developed countries contributed more to global GDP growth than China as a whole in recent years. Yet many women still lack access to capital, credit, and training. Laws prevent them from inheriting or owning land. Cultural traditions inhibit women's participation in the formal economy. In the agriculture industry, to take one example, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that if women farmers were provided the same access to seeds, fertilizer, and technology as men, they could improve their yields by 20 to 30 percent and reduce the number of undernourished people in the world by 100 million to 150 million.
This is not just about the economy, though; it's also about global security. In the 1990s, nearly half of all peace agreements failed within the first five years, according to the Human Security Report Project. These deals are generally struck by a small number of male military and political leaders shielded from war's impact on daily life. Women, meanwhile, endure much of the residual violence and poverty caused by armed conflicts, and they bear much of the burden of rebuilding families and communities. They are often excluded, however, from both the negotiating table and the governments charged with sustaining peace. Less than 8 percent of the hundreds of peace treaties signed in the last 20 years were negotiated by delegations that included women, and according to the World Economic Forum, women hold less than 20 percent of all national decision-making positions.
Excluding women from these negotiations exacts a measurable cost. In 1994, for instance, women were far from the minds of the men who, with U.S. support, signed the Lusaka Protocol that ended two decades of civil war in Angola. The commission established to implement the protocol consisted of 40 men -- and not one woman. Women were also left out of demobilization programs for ex-combatants because the definition of "combatant" did not consider the thousands of women who had been kidnapped and forced to work as military cooks, messengers, or sex slaves. Demining efforts focused on roads and failed to target the fields, wells, and forests where women grew crops, fetched water, and gathered firewood. And following a conflict in which rape was used as a weapon of war, the male negotiators granted each other amnesty for the crimes they had committed against women. Just four years later, war began anew.
We do not want to see history repeating itself. Last December, the administration launched a national action plan on women, peace, and security, which expands U.S. efforts to include women in conflict prevention, peace negotations, and reconstruction. Still, the exclusion of half the world's population continues to threaten many countries. In Egypt last year, women marched on the front lines of the protests, often leading their fathers, brothers, and husbands into Tahrir Square. A year later, the courageous women of the Arab Spring fear not just that progress on women's rights will halt, but that the rights they currently enjoy will be rolled back.
Or consider Afghanistan. Although the number of women attending school and serving in parliament and on local peace councils has increased dramatically over the past decade, the country remains the world's most dangerous for women in terms of health, violence, and lack of economic resources. The United States must continue to insist that insurgents who want to reconcile must commit to protecting the rights embedded in the Afghan constitution -- including those for women. There may be some who, in the interests of getting a deal done, consider women's rights negotiable. But this is a red line that cannot be crossed; any peace that is made by excluding more than half the population is no peace at all and will not last.
In all circumstances, and especially in the most challenging ones like those in Afghanistan, the United States must remain a vital voice for women and girls not just because it is the right thing to do but because it is the smart thing to do. Give a small-businesswoman access to capital and training, and she can become a powerful contributor to GDP growth. Include women in governments and peace talks, and they can help ensure that ministries are better run and peace agreements are sustained. Educate a girl, and she will be more likely to raise healthier and more educated children -- and end the cycle of poverty.
Secretary Clinton has championed the use of "smart power": deploying all the tools at America's disposal to advance national interests -- not just military might, but also diplomacy, development, and America's enduring values. Advocating for women's full economic, social, and political participation around the world is one of the most potent weapons in America's smart-power arsenal. And it's one we shouldn't even hesitate to unleash.
AMBASSADOR DONALD YAMAMOTO STATEMENT ON THE LORD'S RESISTANCE ARMY
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Testimony for Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs
“Countering the Lord’s Resistance Army”
Ambassador Donald Yamamoto,
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs
Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to update the committee about
our ongoing efforts to help end the threat posed by the Lord’s Resistance Army
(LRA). Over the last several years, the governments of the region have made
progress dispersing the LRA and reducing its numbers. However, despite this
progress, the LRA continues to abduct, terrorize, and uproot communities across
three countries – the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of
the Congo (DRC), and South Sudan. The LRA is a weakened force, but its
humanitarian impact remains disproportionate. The UN Office of Coordination for
Humanitarian Affairs estimated that more than 465,000 people were displaced or
living as refugees during 2011 as a result of the LRA threat.
Mr. Chairman, we believe that the LRA’s actions are an affront to human
dignity and a threat to regional stability. Joseph Kony and the LRA’s top leaders
should be brought to justice.
We appreciate Congress’ strong interest and longstanding concern about the
LRA, especially the attention given by this Committee over the years. We view
Congress as a critical partner in our ongoing efforts. The United States has worked
for many years to help address the suffering caused by the LRA. Consistent with
the legislation passed in 2010, we continue to pursue a multi-faceted strategy to
help the governments and people of this region in their efforts to end the threat
posed by the LRA and address the human consequences of the LRA’s atrocities.
Let me stress that the governments of Uganda, CAR, DRC, and South Sudan
are in the lead. Their troops are making the most important sacrifices, and their
people are confronting the LRA’s terror. These governments are the ones that are
ultimately responsible for ending this threat and protecting local communities. The
United States is trying to help them fulfill that responsibility. We have a strong
interest in enhancing the capacity and cooperation of our partners in Africa to
address threats to peace and security, such as the LRA, and to better protect their
citizens.
Continued leadership and cooperation by these governments is essential to
keep the pressure on the LRA. As we have seen in the past, the LRA can exploit
any reduction in military or diplomatic pressure to regroup and rebuild its forces.
Over recent years, the State Department has provided support to enable counterLRA operations by our regional partners. Since 2008, we have obligated
approximately $50 million in logistical support to help the Ugandan military
sustain its operations and increase its mobility. We continue to provide this
support.
In the DRC, the State Department funded training and equipment for a light
infantry battalion of the Congolese army that is now operating in LRA-affected
areas of the DRC. This battalion is engaged in targeted military operations against
the LRA in coordination with the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the
DRC (MONUSCO). The State Department continues to fund two mentors who are
working with this battalion. We are also engaging with the militaries of CAR and
South Sudan as they increase their efforts to counter the LRA and protect their
populations.
Mr. Chairman, we continue to look at ways that we can improve our security
assistance and enhance the capacity of these militaries to succeed in their mission.
Last October, President Obama authorized the deployment of a small number of
U.S. military forces to serve as advisors to the national military forces pursuing the
LRA and seeking to protect local populations. The President announced yesterday
that the United States will continue the deployment. My colleague from the
Department of Defense will go into more detail on the work of these advisors. We
believe they are helping the partner forces to enhance their cooperation,
intelligence-sharing and fusion, and operational planning.
The U.S. military advisors are coordinating closely with the UN
peacekeeping missions in the region, especially to promote civilian protection.
MONUSCO, in particular, has stepped up its efforts to address the LRA in the
DRC. MONUSCO conducts targeted military operations unilaterally as well as
jointly with the Congolese military to help protect civilians. We have encouraged
the UN to scale up its efforts, when possible, to help address the LRA threat in
CAR and South Sudan. The new UN Regional Office for Central Africa is
overseeing the developing of a regional UN strategy for addressing the LRA,
which will be presented to the UN Security Council next month. We have been
working with the UN to develop this strategy and look forward to helping the UN
implement it.
We are also working closely with the African Union as it increases its efforts
to address the LRA. Last month, the AU officially launched its Regional 3
Cooperation Initiative for the Elimination of the LRA. Although many operational
details are still being worked out, we believe the AU’s involvement can strengthen
coordination, information-sharing, and trust among the four militaries pursuing the
LRA. We also believe the AU can help the governments in the region to develop a
common approach to encouraging LRA defections and ensuring effective
repatriation and reintegration of those who defect. Our military advisors in the
field are coordinating with the AU staff as they stand up this initiative on the
ground, and our embassies are working closely with the AU’s Special Envoy on
the LRA issue, Francisco Madeira.
These new initiatives, united together, offer real promise. However, as
Chairman Kerry wrote in The Huffington Post earlier this month, we have to level
with the American public that ending the LRA threat is not an easy mission. The
LRA operates in very small groups across vast territory roughly the size of
California, much of it densely-forested. Regional forces have had success in
tracking down LRA groups, but the LRA’s leaders are savvy. They exploit
communal conflicts and attack remote communities, which lack basic road,
telecommunications and governance infrastructure. Moreover, the governments in
this region have limited capabilities and numerous security challenges.
Mr. Chairman, effectively ending the LRA threat requires simultaneously
removing the top leadership from the battlefield and addressing the conditions that
leave communities so vulnerable to predatory groups such as the LRA. This is
precisely why the United States is seeking to pursue a multi-faceted strategy to
enhance both military and civilian capacity in the region. In partnership with
USAID, the State Department is supporting projects to increase civilian protection,
enhance early warning capabilities, deliver humanitarian relief, and strengthen the
overall resiliency of communities. We also continue to encourage other
international donors to increase their efforts in these areas. As we have seen in
northern Uganda and parts of South Sudan, development can play a critical role in
pushing out the LRA and keeping it from returning.
We also believe that targeted efforts, in coordination with increased military
pressure, to encourage LRA fighters to peacefully surrender can have a great effect
on reducing the LRA’s numbers. Since 2000, more than 12,000 fighters and
abductees have left the group and been reintegrated and reunited with their families
through Uganda’s Amnesty Commission. The successful rehabilitation and
reintegration of those who leave the LRA creates a positive feedback cycle that
encourages others to defect.
MONUSCO is undertaking critical efforts in the DRC to encourage LRA
defections, including by setting up assembly points where LRA fighters and
associated persons can safely surrender. The Mission is publicizing the locations
of these assembly points through targeted radio broadcasts and leaflets. We
strongly support these efforts and have encouraged the UN to initiate similar,
coordinated activities in CAR and South Sudan. We are also looking at ways that
we can augment these activities through our programs and presence on the ground.
The State Department has deployed a civilian officer to the region who is working
with our military advisors and embassies to identify critical gaps and opportunities
for further U.S. support. We plan to deploy a second officer soon.
Mr. Chairman, we believe there is an opportunity for further U.S. support to
the counter-LRA effort using the State Department’s War Crimes Rewards
Program. This program allows the Secretary of State to publicize and pay rewards
for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of targeted war criminals.
This program has been very effective in bringing fugitives to justice, but the
present statutory authority is limited to fugitives indicted by the International
Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and the Special Court
for Sierra Leone.
We welcome legislation that would expand the authority for the War Crimes
Reward Program so it could be used to target foreign nationals accused of war
crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide by any international criminal
tribunal, including hybrid or mixed courts. This would shift the program from
being court-specific to crime-specific. Fugitives would only be added to the
program after careful review and approval by an interagency committee, and
ultimately the Secretary of State.
Under this expanded authority, we could use the program to target Joseph
Kony and other top LRA commanders. We could publicize rewards for
information about LRA leaders using leaflets, radio broadcasts, and other
communications mechanisms. We believe, and our colleagues at the Defense
Department agree, that this would provide an important tool to generate
information about the whereabouts of top LRA leaders, especially to encourage
non-indicted LRA fighters to defect and provide such information.
In closing, let me reiterate that it is our partners in the region – governments and
civil society organizations – who are in the lead in countering the LRA threat and
its impacts. But the United States can provide critical capabilities and support to help them succeed in their efforts. We believe doing so puts us on the right side of
history, on the right side of our values, and on the right side of our strategic
interests. We appreciate Congress’ strong commitment to countering the LRA,
and we look forward to working with you in the months ahead.
FOUR ALLEGED MEMBERS OF INTERNET GROUP "IMAGINE" INDITICTED
FROM: U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Four Alleged Members of the Internet Piracy Group “IMAGiNE” Indicted in Virginia
WASHINGTON – Four individuals have been charged in the Eastern District of Virginia for their alleged roles in an Internet piracy group that distributed via the Internet copies of movies showing only in theaters, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Neil H. MacBride and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton announced today.
An indictment returned on April 18, 2012, and unsealed yesterday charges Jeramiah Perkins, 39, of Portsmouth, Va.; Gregory Cherwonik, 53, of New York; Willie Lambert, 57, of Pennsylvania; and Sean Lovelady, 27, of California; with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and two counts of criminal copyright infringement. Perkins, Cherwonik and Lambert are charged with two additional counts of criminal copyright infringement, and Perkins and Cherwonik are charged with a sixth count of criminal copyright infringement of a work being prepared for commercial distribution.
Perkins, Cherwonik and Lambert were arrested yesterday and Lovelady reported to authorities today. The defendants are scheduled to be arraigned on May 9, 2012.
“These four defendants are charged with serious intellectual property crimes,” said Assistant Attorney General Breuer. “Through IMAGiNE, they allegedly sought to become the leading source of pirated movies on the Internet. This Justice Department, working with our partners at ICE, has made fighting intellectual property crime a top priority, and we will continue to bring cases against individuals and entities devoted to cheating consumers and undermining artistic pursuits.”
“Piracy is outright theft, regardless of the technology or business model used,” said U.S. Attorney MacBride. “Large-scale copyright infringement is a serious crime that hurts not only those in the entertainment industry but also those who legally pay for that entertainment.”
“The indictment in this case demonstrates ICE Homeland Security Investigations’ commitment to identifying and dismantling pirates that are weakening our economy through their illegal acts,” said ICE Director Morton. “Criminals engaged in piracy are stealing from the 2.4 million Americans employed by the entertainment industry. ICE, along with our partners at the Justice Department, will continue to vigorously investigate and prosecute cases involving piracy and counterfeiting.”
According to the indictment, the defendants and their co-conspirators identified themselves as the IMAGiNE Group and sought to become the premier group to first release Internet copies of new movies only showing in theaters. From September 2009 until September 2011, they allegedly reproduced and distributed over the Internet tens of thousands of illegal copies of copyrighted works. The indictment charges that the group regularly and illicitly obtained copies of the video and audio components of motion pictures showing in theaters and then edited and combined them into one infringing movie file, which thousands of members of the group shared with one another by use of BitTorrent file sharing technology and then released to the Internet.
The indictment alleges that the IMAGiNE Group rented computer servers to host websites that included member profiles, a server called a torrent tracker that assists in communications among members using BitTorrent file sharing technology, discussion forums, a message board and news, rules and other information about making donations to and using the website.
The maximum prison sentence for the charge of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and for each count of criminal copyright infringement is five years in prison.
Charges contained in an indictment are merely allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
The investigation of the case and the arrests were conducted by agents with ICE Homeland Security Investigations. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert J. Krask of the Eastern District of Virginia and Senior Counsel John H. Zacharia of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section are prosecuting the case on behalf of the United States.
This case is part of efforts being undertaken by the Department of Justice Task Force on Intellectual Property (IP Task Force) to stop the theft of intellectual property. Attorney General Eric Holder created the IP Task Force to combat the growing number of domestic and international intellectual property crimes, protect the health and safety of American consumers, and safeguard the nation’s economic security against those who seek to profit illegally from American creativity, innovation and hard work. The IP Task Force seeks to strengthen intellectual property rights protection through heightened criminal and civil enforcement, greater coordination among federal, state and local law enforcement partners, and increased focus on international enforcement efforts, including reinforcing relationships with key foreign partners and U.S. industry leaders
U.S. SENDS BEST WISHES TO AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND ON ANZAC DAY
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
ANZAC Day
Press Statement Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State Washington, DC
April 24, 2012
On behalf of President Obama and the people of the United States, I am delighted to send best wishes to the people of Australia and New Zealand on ANZAC Day this April 25th.
Today we pay tribute to all the men and women in the armed forces of Australia and New Zealand who have served with dedication, courage, and sacrifice. We remember those who have given their lives and the families and friends who mourn them -- they are the heroes who we honor every day by working to make our world safer and more secure.
This year, as we commemorate ANZAC Day, we also remember those brave soldiers who were working for peace seventy years ago. At that time, the Pacific faced an uncertain future, but American, Australian, and New Zealand troops joined together and stood up for the tenets of democracy. Because of their sacrifices and dedication, today we enjoy countless freedoms. As we commemorate ANZAC Day, we must recommit ourselves to their mission: the pursuit of freedom, prosperity, and democracy throughout the world.
U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT DAILY BRIEFING APRIL 24, 2012
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Victoria Nuland
Spokesperson
Daily Press Briefing
Washington, DC
April 24, 2012
TRANSCRIPT:
12:59 p.m. EDT
MS. NULAND: All right. Happy Tuesday, everybody. Further to our Free the Press daily highlight as we walk up to World Press Freedom Day, today’s highlighted journalist is Dilmurod Sayid, an independent Uzbek journalist. He wrote for opposition websites including The Voice of Freedom and was a member of the Ezgulik Human Rights Society. He was a particularly staunch critic of corruption in Uzbekistan, and he was convicted in a closed trial that did not meet international standards. So we take this opportunity to again call on the Government of Uzbekistan to release him, and we call your attention to his case on HUMANRIGHTS.GOV.
Let’s go to what’s on your minds.
QUESTION: Can I just ask one thing about this, the human rights?
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: Was there a call that was sent out to embassies to kind of come up with people that you’re going to highlight, or how do these – how were these people chosen?
MS. NULAND: Our Human Rights Bureau, working with embassies and working with our Annual Human Rights Report, came up with the list of journalists that we’re particularly highlighting. Do you have somebody in particular you want to add to the list?
QUESTION: Well, I was going to add me. (Laughter.) No --
MS. NULAND: We all have concerns about your human rights – (laughter) – and about our human rights at your hand. (Laughter.)
QUESTION: I’m sure that’s the case. No, I was just curious as to – I mean, how many are there going to be total?
MS. NULAND: We started this about a week ago and we’re doing it up through May 3rd, which is International Press Freedom Day.
QUESTION: Have you seen any kind of – has there been any response to this that you’re aware of yet?
MS. NULAND: Well, we’re seeing quite a bit of coverage in the various regions that these individuals are from.
QUESTION: But any actual action from the governments who are involved?
MS. NULAND: I’m going to take that one. I don’t think that we’ve had any formal responses to these, but sometimes these things take time. And sometimes when we shout out these cases, it emboldens folks in the region or in the host country to do more on their behalf.
QUESTION: Okay. Moving on to the issue of the day, or at least one of them, the situation in Sudan seems to be really deteriorating, even though there was a hopeful – possibly hopeful sign earlier in the week. It’s gotten worse. I’m wondering what your take on that is. What have the contacts been with both North and South? Where is Princeton Lyman now? Is he back? Is he still out there?
QUESTION: He was in the cafeteria about 20 minutes ago.
QUESTION: Thank you. Well, then I don’t need to – you don’t have to answer the last one.
MS. NULAND: Excellent. Well, as we said yesterday, we had the good news of South Sudan withdrawing from Heglig; but rather than responding in kind, we’ve had Sudan increase its aerial bombardment over the last 24 hours. And so these reprehensible bombings are targeting civilians. They are causing casualties all over the place. And they are obviously gross violations of international law, and we continue to call for an immediate cessation.
As the Secretary has been saying over the last week in particular, these countries have to work together if they are each going to succeed. They have got to come back to the table and settle these issues. So I think the concern that we had was, after the trip that Princeton Lyman made where he was in both Juba and Khartoum, where he worked with the parties, where the – we – working with the AU and others, we convinced the South to pull out of Heglig. Rather than that pulling both sides back to the table, the Sudanese seem to have taken negative advantage of it. So it’s very, very concerning. You saw the President’s statement of a week ago.
Ambassador Lyman is here, but he remains in contact with the parties and he remains in contact with a variety of international partners on a daily basis.
QUESTION: And what is the Administration doing, if anything, at the moment, directly with the two sides? Is there – other than Ambassador Lyman’s, I guess now, phone calls, is there anything else?
MS. NULAND: Well, in addition to the presidential statement of the weekend and his direct appeal to the sides, we’re also working with the AU on a package of increased pressure if we can’t get these --
QUESTION: And the UN?
MS. NULAND: And the UN, of course. Yeah.
QUESTION: Can we go to Israel?
QUESTION: And the West Bank?
QUESTION: Please.
QUESTION: Sure.
QUESTION: Hold on. Sudan, just for a second?
MS. NULAND: Why don’t we stay with Shaun and then come to you.
QUESTION: Sure. Just President Kiir was in Beijing.
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: I just wanted to see if you had an assessment of China’s role. China traditionally has been quite close to Khartoum, has received some criticism for that. How do you perceive China’s role in this?
MS. NULAND: Well, China has played a role in both Sudan and South Sudan. We actually have been in very close touch with the Chinese. The Secretary has raised the issue of Sudan with Foreign Minister Yang. Princeton Lyman has been in contact with Ambassador Zhang here. He’s traveled to Beijing. So our hope is that Beijing will play a constructive role. They have in the past in trying to encourage the sides to come back to the negotiating table. China has investments throughout the area and also benefits from stability, so we have been working to enlist Beijing and to work together on a common message.
QUESTION: Victoria, just a quick follow-up. Would you say that the withdrawal of the Southern forces is a direct result of the involvement of Ambassador Lyman? And if so, what did he get in return from the North? I mean, he went to both Juba and Khartoum.
MS. NULAND: Well, again, this is a process of trying to work with both sides and get them back to the table. He works, as you know, in extremely close partnership with the African Union, with the UN peacekeeping forces on the ground. But his own personal relationships and his own diplomacy have been very important to this process.
So I think this is the issue of concern, that Sudan wanted to see the withdrawals from Heglig. Those happened. And the response was – instead of being a response in kind, was a violent response. So that’s extremely concerning.
QUESTION: But the rhetoric today from al-Bashir, the president, is quite belligerent. Is anyone in contact with him from this Administration at the present time?
MS. NULAND: No, of course. And Ambassador Lyman is in regular contact with him, but so are others. And we will continue to be.
QUESTION: Hold on a second. Really? With President Bashir himself? I thought there was a kind of de facto ban on direct contacts between U.S. officials and President Bashir because of his status with the ICC.
MS. NULAND: I think that Princeton has been in contact with him directly. But if that’s not the case, I’ll get back to you.[1]
Yeah. Please.
QUESTION: Change of topic?
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Just one more on that?
MS. NULAND: Yeah. Jill.
QUESTION: This is the immediate problem, the fighting.
MS. NULAND: Right.
QUESTION: But there are underlying issues that are fueling this, such as borders. Is there any attempt at this point to even begin to sort that out?
MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, as part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that created the two states that led to the velvet divorce creating South Sudan, there were unresolved issues of borders and resources and other things that had to be settled. There is a process that is internationally managed that the AU supervises for their negotiators to come to the table and work on these things. But every time we have serious flare-ups of violence, those talks break down, stall, get off the rail. So this is the problem, that they can’t move past the immediate difficulties to get to the underlying settlement of the remaining underlying issues.
And as the Secretary has said again and again, as the President said over the weekend, unless they can settle these issues, neither one of them is going to benefit from the potential to be reintegrated with the international community, to benefit from the resources, and to really invest in their people who are so long-suffering.
QUESTION: Is there a feeling that the AU is not putting enough pressure on either side, or specifically Sudan?
MS. NULAND: I think we’re all looking once again, as we have so many times in this process, at what pressure we can bring to bear – economic pressure, political pressure – but frankly, the AU has done a superb job speaking for the region on these issues. And we continue to work very closely with them on a daily basis.
QUESTION: Just one more on this. And I have to admit that I am not a Sudan expert, but – and this phrase “velvet divorce” is new to me. Is this – but given this – the incidents or the developments, is this --
MS. NULAND: No, of course, of course. I mean there was so much violence.
QUESTION: -- doesn’t really seem to be so much velvet --
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: -- left to it.
MS. NULAND: Well, suffice to say that it was the result of a negotiated settlement, so it was not – the violence, obviously, was the backdrop, but ultimately they came to the table and decided how they were going to divide themselves. So --
QUESTION: (Off-mike.)
QUESTION: Sorry.
MS. NULAND: Please.
QUESTION: Yeah, please, please, please.
QUESTION: Are you coordinating with the Arab League on the issue of Sudan?
MS. NULAND: We are.
QUESTION: I know you have coordinated on Syria, but are you --
MS. NULAND: We are, and we have Arab League meeting, I think, later this week, where we expect that Sudan will be on the agenda as well.
QUESTION: Thank you.
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: So there are reports out of Israel that the Israeli Government has legalized three so-called settlement outposts. I think it’s the U.S. Government position that such outposts are illegal, but what is your – A, what is your view on Israel’s decision to, quote, “legalize these three outposts,” close quote? And B, how does that affect your efforts to bring the parties back into a direct negotiation?
MS. NULAND: Well, I think you’re talking about the reports that there has been a request for a stay of court decisions with regard to the settlements. Is that what you’re referring to?
QUESTION: I – and I’m sorry I don’t have – although I tried to email it to myself --
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: -- I don’t have it in front of me.
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: My understanding was that it was not just a request for a stay, but rather a determination that had been made. But maybe I misunderstood.
MS. NULAND: No, I think it’s a request for a court decision. We are, obviously, concerned by the reports that we’ve seen. We have raised this with the Israeli Government and we are seeking clarification. You know where we are on settlements. We don’t think this is helpful to the process and we don’t accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity.
QUESTION: And when you say we have raised this, you’ve raised this with them since these reports emerged? In other words --
MS. NULAND: My understanding is we raised it in Tel Aviv today. That’s my understanding.
QUESTION: Okay. Thank you.
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Just a quick follow-up, three settlements – Bruchin, Rechelim, and Sansana, and they are on privately owned Palestinian land, they have for 15 years or 16 years – have been declared illegal. And a lot of people are interpreting it as a response to Abbas’s letter. Do you see it that way?
MS. NULAND: Again, we’re seeking clarification from the Israeli Government as to their intentions and making our own views very clear about this.
QUESTION: Yeah, but the office of the prime minister issued a statement that they are legal, that they have been deemed from this point on forward as legal settlements.
MS. NULAND: Well, again, you know where we stand on this. And as I said, we are raising it.
QUESTION: Okay. Well, I know where you stand, but what measures are you willing to take in case that the Israeli Government goes forward with this?
MS. NULAND: Again, Said, you know where we are on these things. We make this case every time we have an incident like this that it is not helpful to the process; it doesn’t get us where we need to go. We will continue to raise it, as we have.
QUESTION: Well, beside raising the issue with the Israeli Government, what measures is the United States Government willing to take?
MS. NULAND: Well --
QUESTION: You have constantly taken measures when similar activities are taken by other governments. What measures are you willing to take in this particular case?
MS. NULAND: Again, my understanding is that we have a government statement with regard to its intentions. We are seeking to clarify that. So I’m not going to predict what further response there might be on our side.
QUESTION: Do you know --
QUESTION: Do you feel that the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is trying to sabotage efforts by David Hale?
MS. NULAND: David Hale has been in the region all week trying to work on the issues involved here and bring the parties back to the table. I don’t think that we would characterize that at all – the situation at all the way you just have.
QUESTION: And finally, do you see this as boding really ill to Palestinian landowners whose land is shrinking from underneath them?
MS. NULAND: I missed the beginning of your sentence, Said.
QUESTION: I mean, this new decision by the Israeli Government bodes very ill for Israeli landowners, how – for Palestinian landowners, however, that land is shrinking, so to speak.
MS. NULAND: Well, again, this is the backdrop for the statements that we always make about this kind of activity, but we want to get some more clarification from the Israelis.
QUESTION: So in this case, why wouldn’t the United States Government support an initiative by the United Nations to term the settlements, or these at least illegal outposts, as illegal?
MS. NULAND: Said, you know where we are on these things, and we are going to continue to talk to the Israelis about these issues.
Jill.
QUESTION: Can you just update – you mentioned David Hale. Can you update us on some of his --
MS. NULAND: Yeah. Yeah. So he was in Jerusalem yesterday. He met with his Israeli counterpart, the Israeli negotiator Mr. Molho. Today he met with Palestinian negotiator Erekat and with Jordanian Foreign Minister Judeh. He also now plans to go on to Qatar and Egypt. And thereafter, his travel plans are up in the air.
QUESTION: Did he meet them separately, with Erekat and Foreign Minister Judeh?
MS. NULAND: Yeah. Yeah. I think he went to Amman to see Foreign Minister Judeh.
QUESTION: And so do you know if – was this an issue? Had it happened yet by the – had this government announcement happened by the time he had had his meetings? Do you know if he raised it, or when you say it was raised in Tel Aviv, was it raised by someone else?
MS. NULAND: He was in Jerusalem yesterday. He was with the Palestinians today. So my understanding is this announcement was sometime today, was this morning. So my – what I had was that the Embassy had raised it with the Israelis. If that is not --
QUESTION: Do you know if it was the ambassador or someone else?
MS. NULAND: I don’t have that.
QUESTION: And hadn’t he originally planned to go to Saudi, too? Is that now off the itinerary?
MS. NULAND: I think – no, he was in Riyadh at the beginning of the – oh, sorry. I’ve got it here at the very beginning. Yeah, he’s also in Riyadh today, currently in Riyadh for meetings with the senior Saudi officials. Jerusalem yesterday. Something’s not right here. Riyadh’s on this agenda; I don’t know when, though, because I also have that he is today with the Jordanians and with the Palestinians, but Riyadh is still on the agenda.
QUESTION: Okay. And his – and post – his post-Gulf – you had mentioned earlier that after the Gulf, he was probably going to go back to Israel and the PA. Is that – you said that’s now up in the air. It is because – is that because of this announcement?
MS. NULAND: No, I don’t think it has anything to do with that. I think he just wants to see where he is and whether there’s a need for him to come back to Washington and report first.
Please, Goyal.
QUESTION: Another subject?
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: India.
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: A number of education ministers from different Indian states were or are in the U.S. studying the U.S. community colleges system and the U.S. education system, and planning to open maybe hundreds of community colleges in India with the U.S. education system help, which Prime Minister Singh and President Obama and knowledge initiative was signed between the two leaders. What role do you think State Department playing in this role?
MS. NULAND: Well, obviously, we support this initiative. We have been working with the Indian side to flesh out the initiative that was agreed between the President and the prime minister through our Education Bureau here. And obviously, we are responsible for the visa issuance for the various folks studying in the United States.
QUESTION: And as far as Indian students now, over 125,000, I believe, in the U.S. What will be their status when these community college will be open in India? Because right now, when they graduate from an Indian university or colleges and their degrees are not really accepted or agreed to here in the U.S.
MS. NULAND: I guess I don’t understand the question, Goyal. You’re asking if they had graduate from Indian college, are those degrees accepted in the United States?
QUESTION: Right.
MS. NULAND: I think it’s a case-by-case issue depending upon where they graduate from and where they’re looking to get accredited from, and et cetera. So obviously, if there’s a sister university relationship, sometimes those accreditations can be recognized, but it just depends on what they want to do. I don’t think there’s a blanket way of looking at that.
QUESTION: And finally --
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: I’m sorry. As far as the U.S. visa for the Indian students coming to higher study in the U.S., is there a change now? Because some feel that the requirements are more or higher than after this incident took place at the various (inaudible) universities, so-called, in the California area.
MS. NULAND: I don’t think we’ve changed our policy with regard to the way we interview applicants. I think what we are doing is making sure that the sponsoring organizations truly are what they say they are in the United States; that if they say that they are bringing students over to educate them, that they intend to educate them, not put them to work, et cetera, so – yeah.
QUESTION: New topic?
MS. NULAND: Yeah, please, Ros.
QUESTION: In the WikiLeaks case, the judge in the Bradley Manning case this morning ordered the State Department, among other agencies, to turn over some of their documents to the defense in order to help the Manning team better prepare its case. Is the State Department going to turn over those documents? And my follow-up is: Does the U.S. still see a negative impact on its relations with other countries in diplomacy because of what happened in the alleged leaking of these documents?
MS. NULAND: Let me take the last part first. I think our view of the entire WikiLeaks incident has not changed at all in terms of the negative effects. With regard to what the court has ordered, Ros, I haven’t seen it, so let me take it and see what we know about what’s been requested of us and what our response is.
Jill.
QUESTION: Russia?
MS. NULAND: Mm-hmm.
QUESTION: The Russian ambassador here in Washington is concerned about legislation that is moving forward, the Magnitsky legislation. And he’s saying essentially that this is just a way of – if you get rid of Jackson-Vanik, this is just another way of punishing Russia. He’s quite concerned about it. I know the State Department has been talking with Congress. Do we know what the status of Magnitsky is? Is the State Department encouraging, discouraging this legislation? What’s the view?
MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, we do support the goals of the legislation. We have programs already in place to ensure that we are sanctioning those who are responsible for human rights abuses, and we are continuing our dialogue with the Congress about how we can appropriately make the views of the Congress and the American people known; at the same time, that we strongly favor the repeal of the Jackson-Vanik legislation, as really being a relic of the past that doesn’t apply to today’s situation. So this is an ongoing conversation that we’re having with the Hill.
QUESTION: Why is Magnitsky needed if the State Department really does have the ability right now legally to refuse visas to people who have been involved in crime, or at least, I guess, maybe alleged – I’m not quite sure how we can define that. But don’t you have the tools already to exclude people and not give them a visa?
MS. NULAND: We do have many of the tools in this legislation. I think it’s a matter of – from the Congress’s point of view, obviously, I would refer you to them. But our understanding in the conversations that we’ve had is that there’s a desire and an interest to make this a matter of law; and particularly, if we are going to make the point with members of Congress that the days are over for the kinds of sanctions that we had under Jackson-Vanik, but that we still have other human rights concerns that need to be taken into account.
So I think there are – there’s a feeling on the Hill that putting this in legislation will create a systemic, routine way of dealing with it and a clear set of guidelines that the Congress and the Administration agree to and understand and that are clear on the Russian side. So let’s see where this legislation goes as it goes through the Congress.
Please.
QUESTION: Thank you. On North Korea, they reported that North Korea is almost ready for the nuclear test. And so I would like to know, what’s the assessment from the U.S. Government?
MS. NULAND: Well, I don’t think our position on any of this has changed: No launching, no testing, no nothing if you want to have a better relationship with the international community. All of these are provocations, all of them take the DPRK in the wrong direction, so our message on all of this hasn’t changed.
QUESTION: But they say if the U.S. agree in a peace treaty with them, they may abandon the nuclear test. What’s your reaction to that?
MS. NULAND: Starting with the Leap Day deal that the North Koreans have abrogated, we were beginning a conversation again about a step-by-step process that could convince the Six Parties, could convince the international community that this new North Korean leadership was interested in coming back into compliance with its international obligations. Those – was a small first step, and unfortunately now we’re going backwards. So it’s really up to the DPRK to demonstrate that it wants a better relationship with all of us and that it wants to put its energy into peace and stability and taking care of its people rather than expensive weapons.
QUESTION: And last question --
QUESTION: Haven’t they already done that? Haven’t they demonstrated their interest already?
MS. NULAND: Demonstrated their interest?
QUESTION: Or lack of interest?
MS. NULAND: Unfortunately, they are demonstrating a lack of interest, yes.
QUESTION: Okay. And then can you just (inaudible), you said no launching, no testing no nothing. I mean, what is that – no nothing? They can’t do anything? (Laughter.) I mean, what if they decide they’re going to free all political prisoners and have democratic elections tomorrow? I mean, is that – that’s bad, too?
MS. NULAND: What they can and should do is take care of their people, open their country, begin to reform the system, and demonstrate to the international community that they’re prepared to meet their international obligations. And they haven’t done any of those things. So what I meant by “no nothing” was no provocative nuclear actions of any kind.
QUESTION: Just a follow-up.
MS. NULAND: Keeping me on my toes.
QUESTION: On this – at the coming U.S.-China S and ED, what’s the U.S. expectation from China on North Korea issue, specifically?
MS. NULAND: Well, I think we said very clearly that we have encouraged China to continue to use all of its influence with the DPRK and particularly with the new young leader to encourage a positive course and to discourage the negative course. So I’m sure that we will be exchanging views on North Korea and getting a better sense of how the Chinese side analyzes the situation, what messages they’ve been willing to send, able to send, and what pressure they think they can bring to bear, because it’s absolutely essential we all work together here.
Please, Michel.
QUESTION: On Iran? Iran has warned today that the new U.S. sanctions targeting its access to surveillance technology were negative and could affect its crucial talks next month with the P-5+1 in Baghdad. Do you have any reaction to that?
MS. NULAND: Well, let me start by saying that the sanctions that the President announced yesterday were designed to address a different set of concerns that we have with regard to Iran’s behavior, and that’s Iran’s behavior with regard to their own citizens, with regard to the dignity, human rights, standard of living for their own citizens. So frankly, putting sanctions on companies that help Iran spy on their own citizens and having complaints about that begs the question as to why the Government of Iran thinks it needs to spy on its own citizens and block their access to the internet in the first place. So these – this is a set of sanctions that are designed to support the humans rights, freedoms, dignity of the Iranian people.
QUESTION: But do you expect these sanctions to affect the upcoming negotiations in Baghdad – or talks?
MS. NULAND: Well, our hope is that we will have a productive round in Baghdad. We discussed very clearly in Istanbul what it’s going to take to continue to move forward. So it’s really up to Iran. But frankly, what we have done with the President – the sanctions that the President announced yesterday, don’t even have anything to do with the nuclear file. They have to do with our separate concerns about the human rights situation.
QUESTION: Can I just ask a question on these sanctions? The net effect – I mean, one could argue about the effect of these sanctions, whether they actual do anything, whether these companies or institutions actually have any assets that can be blocked, or whether any Americans were doing business in the first place, but that’s not – well, my question is: With the exception of one, the internet provider in Iran, all of these entities and the one individual in Iran and Syria were already under numerous layers of other sanctions that did exactly the same thing. So I’m just wondering, there was no net effect on the IRGC, on the intelligence ministries, on the head of the Syrian intelligence directorate, was there?
MS. NULAND: Well, I think --
QUESTION: I mean, it didn’t do anything new to them. They were already under sanctions that did exactly what these sanctions do.
MS. NULAND: Frankly, I’m not sure that your premise is right, Matt, that there was no – nothing new, that this was an additional layer and all of these same folks and entities had already been sanctioned. I think the larger point here, though, is to express our concern about the circumvention, the importing of foreign technology to be used against your own citizens to deny them access to the internet, to deny them the ability communicate freely.
So regardless of whether it’s an additional layer on top of the same people and entities, the political point here is to express our concern about what these governments, whether they’re Syrian – the Syrian Government or the Iranian Government, are doing to block access to the internet, to block the ability of their people to communicate, to chill the environment for civil discourse and for civil society.
QUESTION: Doesn’t that happen in quite a few countries? In Equatorial Guinea, in Zimbabwe, in --
MS. NULAND: It happens in a number of countries and the Secretary --
QUESTION: Saudi Arabia.
MS. NULAND: -- there are number of countries that as we – as the Secretary has spoken out on many, many times, that seek to limit the right of their citizens to free speech, to free association, to the internet, and we will continue to speak out. But there are particular governments who are now in the business of acquiring the most sophisticated Western technology they can find and targeting it back on their own citizens and squeezing them, in human rights terms, with it. So this is an area of increasing concern.
QUESTION: So that would be the standard then for which countries would in the future those sanctions would apply to, whether they’re acquiring (inaudible)?
MS. NULAND: Again, I think we’re going to take this on a case-by-case basis. But in this case, the President was making the point, and we were making the point more broadly that these two governments are particularly egregious in this area as, if you will, state-sponsors of censorship.
QUESTION: Victoria, could you explain something regarding the board – the atrocity prevention board that the President announced on the sanctions?
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Now, is it -- how is the State Department involved? I mean, since we know that Samantha Power is going to lead that effort. Who’s from the State Department? Who will sit on that board?
MS. NULAND: The State Department representative on the board is Under Secretary of State Maria Otero.
QUESTION: Maria Otero. Okay.
MS. NULAND: And the first meeting of the board was yesterday.
QUESTION: Right.
MS. NULAND: And the board is designed to get together this group of very experienced people to look at how we can, as a government, do more to support accountability and to stop atrocities.
QUESTION: Okay. And one related issue: Last week it was announced – the Open Government Initiative?
MS. NULAND: Right.
QUESTION: Is that in any way connected to this – there’s going to be a center of – a connection with this board?
MS. NULAND: Well, some of the people who work on the Open Government Partnership are the same people who work on this atrocities board – as you said, Samantha Power, Under Secretary Otero. But the initiatives are not linked.
What I would say is that when we announced at the Friends of the Syrian People meeting in Istanbul that we were standing up this atrocities clearinghouse for Syria, that’s an example of the kind of initiative that this group of people on the atrocities board brought to bear. They were the sort of idea factory for that idea, and it’s the kind of thing that, assuming that it works well in a Syrian context, we can replicate in other contexts.
Yeah.
QUESTION: New topic?
MS. NULAND: Yeah, please.
QUESTION: Do you have – does the State Department have any additional information on the two Cuban actors who were granted temporary visas and have since disappeared?
MS. NULAND: To my knowledge – and frankly, this is yesterday information and I didn’t have an update from today, so if it’s not right, we’ll get back to you – but neither we nor the film festival has any further information about where the two actors are.
QUESTION: So that hasn’t changed, then, --
MS. NULAND: I do not believe that has changed since yesterday. Okay.
QUESTION: Another subject?
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Pakistan. As far as Secretary Grossman’s visit to Pakistan is concerned, and also last week Secretary Panetta told the Pentagon press that the Haqqani Network is the most dangerous, and is also now going back and forth from Pakistan to Afghanistan, Afghanistan to Pakistan. Is that going to be a topic? Because this is the main concern or main issue between the two countries and the security in Afghanistan is concerned.
MS. NULAND: Well, I don’t have any travel to announce today, Goyal, but I think you know that we’ve been pretty clear. Secretary was clear, Secretary Panetta was clear last week, that we have concerns about the Haqqani Network in – with regard to the most recent incident in Afghanistan. And as the Secretary said in Brussels, we will continue to try to work with Pakistan because this is a threat to both of us.
QUESTION: And finally, are you planning to include Haqqani Network in the Reward for Justice or any other sanctions against this network?
MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, we have sanctions on individual members of the Haqqani Network, and we’re continuing to look at what more we can do there.
QUESTION: Thank you.
MS. NULAND: Please.
QUESTION: A follow-up on Pakistan?
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Yesterday, State Department announced Grossman – Marc Grossman visit to three different countries, but Pakistan is not included. And there are some media reports in Pakistan that Pakistani official are getting ready to meet with him, and talk about all issues, including reopening of a NATO supply line. And they also talk about the trilateral core group meeting, including Afghanistan. So do you have any update of his visit? Is he going to Islamabad? Do you confirm that?
MS. NULAND: I think I just said that I don’t have any travel to announce today, but as you know, both Afghanistan and Pakistan fall within his purview. But I don’t have anything to announce today.
Okay?
QUESTION: No. I just want --
MS. NULAND: Sorry.
QUESTION: -- to go back to the WikiLeaks question. When you said that your position had not changed as to whether this – whether the release of these documents have done damage to the national security, what – can you be more – what does that mean? You say that it did damage?
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: Can you be more explicit about how it did damage?
MS. NULAND: I think we were quite explicit at the time, and I’m not going to come back to it today.
QUESTION: Well, no, at – well, at the time, you said that it had the potential – well, not you personally; it was your predecessor – but had the potential to do damage and that there was the concern in the – in this building in particular that ambassadors or embassies would be less than forthcoming about what they wrote in cables coming back, knowing that they had been – that it had been compromised.
Has there been any evidence? Is this building concerned or is there evidence that shows that this building is not getting full accounting, full reporting, honest, candid reporting from its embassies abroad in the wake of WikiLeaks?
MS. NULAND: Our embassies abroad continue to do a superb job of working with governments and societies where they are accredited and giving us a good, strong picture of what’s going on. That doesn’t change the fact that there was enormous turbulence in many of our bilateral relationships when this happened, and that there have been impacts on individuals. As you know, we’ve talked about that at the time.
QUESTION: Right. But when you say enormous turbulence in bilateral relationships, has – what has – what can you – what is there that --
MS. NULAND: I don’t think I’m going to go any further than we went at the time. We had concerns from many of our interlocutors.
QUESTION: Well, I know you had concerns --
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: -- but that – but concern is – that does not that mean that there’s – that something has been damaged?
MS. NULAND: I think we’ve got an ongoing lawsuit, and I’m not going to go any further right now.
QUESTION: Well, I’m just curious, though. If the – do you see – has the U.S. ability to conduct its foreign relations been compromised or damaged because of WikiLeaks? Can you point to one or two examples of how that – of how this has done harm to the U.S. national security or U.S. --
MS. NULAND: Matt --
QUESTION: -- ability to conduct diplomacy?
MS. NULAND: -- given the fact that we have an ongoing legal case, I don’t think I’m going to comment any further on this set of issues today.
QUESTION: Well, fair enough, but --
MS. NULAND: Michel, did you have something else?
QUESTION: -- you do understand this is exactly what you’re being asked to produce in court.
MS. NULAND: I understand. And --
QUESTION: And if you’re saying that, “Yes, it did damage, but I’m sorry, I can’t tell you what the damage is because it’s a secret,” that’s what – is that what you’re saying?
MS. NULAND: What I’m saying is there’s ongoing legal work now, and if there are legal responsibilities of this building, we’ll do it in a court of law, not here.
QUESTION: Well, but in terms of the one thing that you did answer, you – there isn’t any evidence that this has affected embassies’ ability or – to report back honestly and accurately about what’s going on in their host countries. Is that correct?
MS. NULAND: I’m not going to give a grade to our embassies. We expressed our concern at the time. Those concerns were very clearly stated. I’m not going to get into evaluating, from this podium, what’s come back, what hasn’t come back. We’ve got an ongoing legal case.
Michel.
QUESTION: One clarification still on this, please.
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: I thought the concern was less that embassies would not report stuff back in cables but that their interlocutors would not tell them stuff in the first place because they no longer had faith that the U.S. Government could keep their conversations or communications private, given the vast leak of cables. So I think the question might be better posed as: Has the State Department discerned a diminution in the candor of its foreign interlocutors as a result of this gross breach of confidentiality?
MS. NULAND: Again, we said what we wanted to say at the time on this case. We now have this case in the courts, and I just don’t think it’s appropriate for me to be commenting any further.
Michael, did you have something else? Yeah.
QUESTION: Yeah. Any new assessment about the UN observers’ work in Syria?
MS. NULAND: As I said yesterday, we’re continuing to watch this day by day. I think the concern remains that we only have a small number of monitors in, which means that they can stay in some of these towns for only a short time. They were in Zabadani; they were in parts of Hama and Homs in the last couple of days, but we don’t have enough yet to be able to leave them there. And there are concerns that no sooner do they leave when violence restarts. So this is something we’re just going to have to watch going forward.
Please.
QUESTION: There was a bomb that exploded today in Marjeh, which is a densely populated area within Damascus. Do you have any comment on that?
MS. NULAND: Well, we were just getting reporting on this as I was coming down. Obviously, any acts of violence of that kind are reprehensible.
Please.
QUESTION: Does the State Department have any comment on Egypt’s decision not to register, I think it’s eight NGOs, pro-democracy NGOs, including the Carter Foundation?
MS. NULAND: I have to say that we are – we don’t have a full picture of what has happened and what hasn’t happened with regard to these NGOs. So we are in the process of trying to figure it out, and we’re seeking clarification from the Egyptian side.
QUESTION: Okay.
MS. NULAND: Okay. Thanks, everybody.
Victoria Nuland
Spokesperson
Daily Press Briefing
Washington, DC
April 24, 2012
TRANSCRIPT:
12:59 p.m. EDT
MS. NULAND: All right. Happy Tuesday, everybody. Further to our Free the Press daily highlight as we walk up to World Press Freedom Day, today’s highlighted journalist is Dilmurod Sayid, an independent Uzbek journalist. He wrote for opposition websites including The Voice of Freedom and was a member of the Ezgulik Human Rights Society. He was a particularly staunch critic of corruption in Uzbekistan, and he was convicted in a closed trial that did not meet international standards. So we take this opportunity to again call on the Government of Uzbekistan to release him, and we call your attention to his case on HUMANRIGHTS.GOV.
Let’s go to what’s on your minds.
QUESTION: Can I just ask one thing about this, the human rights?
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: Was there a call that was sent out to embassies to kind of come up with people that you’re going to highlight, or how do these – how were these people chosen?
MS. NULAND: Our Human Rights Bureau, working with embassies and working with our Annual Human Rights Report, came up with the list of journalists that we’re particularly highlighting. Do you have somebody in particular you want to add to the list?
QUESTION: Well, I was going to add me. (Laughter.) No --
MS. NULAND: We all have concerns about your human rights – (laughter) – and about our human rights at your hand. (Laughter.)
QUESTION: I’m sure that’s the case. No, I was just curious as to – I mean, how many are there going to be total?
MS. NULAND: We started this about a week ago and we’re doing it up through May 3rd, which is International Press Freedom Day.
QUESTION: Have you seen any kind of – has there been any response to this that you’re aware of yet?
MS. NULAND: Well, we’re seeing quite a bit of coverage in the various regions that these individuals are from.
QUESTION: But any actual action from the governments who are involved?
MS. NULAND: I’m going to take that one. I don’t think that we’ve had any formal responses to these, but sometimes these things take time. And sometimes when we shout out these cases, it emboldens folks in the region or in the host country to do more on their behalf.
QUESTION: Okay. Moving on to the issue of the day, or at least one of them, the situation in Sudan seems to be really deteriorating, even though there was a hopeful – possibly hopeful sign earlier in the week. It’s gotten worse. I’m wondering what your take on that is. What have the contacts been with both North and South? Where is Princeton Lyman now? Is he back? Is he still out there?
QUESTION: He was in the cafeteria about 20 minutes ago.
QUESTION: Thank you. Well, then I don’t need to – you don’t have to answer the last one.
MS. NULAND: Excellent. Well, as we said yesterday, we had the good news of South Sudan withdrawing from Heglig; but rather than responding in kind, we’ve had Sudan increase its aerial bombardment over the last 24 hours. And so these reprehensible bombings are targeting civilians. They are causing casualties all over the place. And they are obviously gross violations of international law, and we continue to call for an immediate cessation.
As the Secretary has been saying over the last week in particular, these countries have to work together if they are each going to succeed. They have got to come back to the table and settle these issues. So I think the concern that we had was, after the trip that Princeton Lyman made where he was in both Juba and Khartoum, where he worked with the parties, where the – we – working with the AU and others, we convinced the South to pull out of Heglig. Rather than that pulling both sides back to the table, the Sudanese seem to have taken negative advantage of it. So it’s very, very concerning. You saw the President’s statement of a week ago.
Ambassador Lyman is here, but he remains in contact with the parties and he remains in contact with a variety of international partners on a daily basis.
QUESTION: And what is the Administration doing, if anything, at the moment, directly with the two sides? Is there – other than Ambassador Lyman’s, I guess now, phone calls, is there anything else?
MS. NULAND: Well, in addition to the presidential statement of the weekend and his direct appeal to the sides, we’re also working with the AU on a package of increased pressure if we can’t get these --
QUESTION: And the UN?
MS. NULAND: And the UN, of course. Yeah.
QUESTION: Can we go to Israel?
QUESTION: And the West Bank?
QUESTION: Please.
QUESTION: Sure.
QUESTION: Hold on. Sudan, just for a second?
MS. NULAND: Why don’t we stay with Shaun and then come to you.
QUESTION: Sure. Just President Kiir was in Beijing.
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: I just wanted to see if you had an assessment of China’s role. China traditionally has been quite close to Khartoum, has received some criticism for that. How do you perceive China’s role in this?
MS. NULAND: Well, China has played a role in both Sudan and South Sudan. We actually have been in very close touch with the Chinese. The Secretary has raised the issue of Sudan with Foreign Minister Yang. Princeton Lyman has been in contact with Ambassador Zhang here. He’s traveled to Beijing. So our hope is that Beijing will play a constructive role. They have in the past in trying to encourage the sides to come back to the negotiating table. China has investments throughout the area and also benefits from stability, so we have been working to enlist Beijing and to work together on a common message.
QUESTION: Victoria, just a quick follow-up. Would you say that the withdrawal of the Southern forces is a direct result of the involvement of Ambassador Lyman? And if so, what did he get in return from the North? I mean, he went to both Juba and Khartoum.
MS. NULAND: Well, again, this is a process of trying to work with both sides and get them back to the table. He works, as you know, in extremely close partnership with the African Union, with the UN peacekeeping forces on the ground. But his own personal relationships and his own diplomacy have been very important to this process.
So I think this is the issue of concern, that Sudan wanted to see the withdrawals from Heglig. Those happened. And the response was – instead of being a response in kind, was a violent response. So that’s extremely concerning.
QUESTION: But the rhetoric today from al-Bashir, the president, is quite belligerent. Is anyone in contact with him from this Administration at the present time?
MS. NULAND: No, of course. And Ambassador Lyman is in regular contact with him, but so are others. And we will continue to be.
QUESTION: Hold on a second. Really? With President Bashir himself? I thought there was a kind of de facto ban on direct contacts between U.S. officials and President Bashir because of his status with the ICC.
MS. NULAND: I think that Princeton has been in contact with him directly. But if that’s not the case, I’ll get back to you.[1]
Yeah. Please.
QUESTION: Change of topic?
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Just one more on that?
MS. NULAND: Yeah. Jill.
QUESTION: This is the immediate problem, the fighting.
MS. NULAND: Right.
QUESTION: But there are underlying issues that are fueling this, such as borders. Is there any attempt at this point to even begin to sort that out?
MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, as part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that created the two states that led to the velvet divorce creating South Sudan, there were unresolved issues of borders and resources and other things that had to be settled. There is a process that is internationally managed that the AU supervises for their negotiators to come to the table and work on these things. But every time we have serious flare-ups of violence, those talks break down, stall, get off the rail. So this is the problem, that they can’t move past the immediate difficulties to get to the underlying settlement of the remaining underlying issues.
And as the Secretary has said again and again, as the President said over the weekend, unless they can settle these issues, neither one of them is going to benefit from the potential to be reintegrated with the international community, to benefit from the resources, and to really invest in their people who are so long-suffering.
QUESTION: Is there a feeling that the AU is not putting enough pressure on either side, or specifically Sudan?
MS. NULAND: I think we’re all looking once again, as we have so many times in this process, at what pressure we can bring to bear – economic pressure, political pressure – but frankly, the AU has done a superb job speaking for the region on these issues. And we continue to work very closely with them on a daily basis.
QUESTION: Just one more on this. And I have to admit that I am not a Sudan expert, but – and this phrase “velvet divorce” is new to me. Is this – but given this – the incidents or the developments, is this --
MS. NULAND: No, of course, of course. I mean there was so much violence.
QUESTION: -- doesn’t really seem to be so much velvet --
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: -- left to it.
MS. NULAND: Well, suffice to say that it was the result of a negotiated settlement, so it was not – the violence, obviously, was the backdrop, but ultimately they came to the table and decided how they were going to divide themselves. So --
QUESTION: (Off-mike.)
QUESTION: Sorry.
MS. NULAND: Please.
QUESTION: Yeah, please, please, please.
QUESTION: Are you coordinating with the Arab League on the issue of Sudan?
MS. NULAND: We are.
QUESTION: I know you have coordinated on Syria, but are you --
MS. NULAND: We are, and we have Arab League meeting, I think, later this week, where we expect that Sudan will be on the agenda as well.
QUESTION: Thank you.
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: So there are reports out of Israel that the Israeli Government has legalized three so-called settlement outposts. I think it’s the U.S. Government position that such outposts are illegal, but what is your – A, what is your view on Israel’s decision to, quote, “legalize these three outposts,” close quote? And B, how does that affect your efforts to bring the parties back into a direct negotiation?
MS. NULAND: Well, I think you’re talking about the reports that there has been a request for a stay of court decisions with regard to the settlements. Is that what you’re referring to?
QUESTION: I – and I’m sorry I don’t have – although I tried to email it to myself --
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: -- I don’t have it in front of me.
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: My understanding was that it was not just a request for a stay, but rather a determination that had been made. But maybe I misunderstood.
MS. NULAND: No, I think it’s a request for a court decision. We are, obviously, concerned by the reports that we’ve seen. We have raised this with the Israeli Government and we are seeking clarification. You know where we are on settlements. We don’t think this is helpful to the process and we don’t accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity.
QUESTION: And when you say we have raised this, you’ve raised this with them since these reports emerged? In other words --
MS. NULAND: My understanding is we raised it in Tel Aviv today. That’s my understanding.
QUESTION: Okay. Thank you.
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Just a quick follow-up, three settlements – Bruchin, Rechelim, and Sansana, and they are on privately owned Palestinian land, they have for 15 years or 16 years – have been declared illegal. And a lot of people are interpreting it as a response to Abbas’s letter. Do you see it that way?
MS. NULAND: Again, we’re seeking clarification from the Israeli Government as to their intentions and making our own views very clear about this.
QUESTION: Yeah, but the office of the prime minister issued a statement that they are legal, that they have been deemed from this point on forward as legal settlements.
MS. NULAND: Well, again, you know where we stand on this. And as I said, we are raising it.
QUESTION: Okay. Well, I know where you stand, but what measures are you willing to take in case that the Israeli Government goes forward with this?
MS. NULAND: Again, Said, you know where we are on these things. We make this case every time we have an incident like this that it is not helpful to the process; it doesn’t get us where we need to go. We will continue to raise it, as we have.
QUESTION: Well, beside raising the issue with the Israeli Government, what measures is the United States Government willing to take?
MS. NULAND: Well --
QUESTION: You have constantly taken measures when similar activities are taken by other governments. What measures are you willing to take in this particular case?
MS. NULAND: Again, my understanding is that we have a government statement with regard to its intentions. We are seeking to clarify that. So I’m not going to predict what further response there might be on our side.
QUESTION: Do you know --
QUESTION: Do you feel that the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is trying to sabotage efforts by David Hale?
MS. NULAND: David Hale has been in the region all week trying to work on the issues involved here and bring the parties back to the table. I don’t think that we would characterize that at all – the situation at all the way you just have.
QUESTION: And finally, do you see this as boding really ill to Palestinian landowners whose land is shrinking from underneath them?
MS. NULAND: I missed the beginning of your sentence, Said.
QUESTION: I mean, this new decision by the Israeli Government bodes very ill for Israeli landowners, how – for Palestinian landowners, however, that land is shrinking, so to speak.
MS. NULAND: Well, again, this is the backdrop for the statements that we always make about this kind of activity, but we want to get some more clarification from the Israelis.
QUESTION: So in this case, why wouldn’t the United States Government support an initiative by the United Nations to term the settlements, or these at least illegal outposts, as illegal?
MS. NULAND: Said, you know where we are on these things, and we are going to continue to talk to the Israelis about these issues.
Jill.
QUESTION: Can you just update – you mentioned David Hale. Can you update us on some of his --
MS. NULAND: Yeah. Yeah. So he was in Jerusalem yesterday. He met with his Israeli counterpart, the Israeli negotiator Mr. Molho. Today he met with Palestinian negotiator Erekat and with Jordanian Foreign Minister Judeh. He also now plans to go on to Qatar and Egypt. And thereafter, his travel plans are up in the air.
QUESTION: Did he meet them separately, with Erekat and Foreign Minister Judeh?
MS. NULAND: Yeah. Yeah. I think he went to Amman to see Foreign Minister Judeh.
QUESTION: And so do you know if – was this an issue? Had it happened yet by the – had this government announcement happened by the time he had had his meetings? Do you know if he raised it, or when you say it was raised in Tel Aviv, was it raised by someone else?
MS. NULAND: He was in Jerusalem yesterday. He was with the Palestinians today. So my understanding is this announcement was sometime today, was this morning. So my – what I had was that the Embassy had raised it with the Israelis. If that is not --
QUESTION: Do you know if it was the ambassador or someone else?
MS. NULAND: I don’t have that.
QUESTION: And hadn’t he originally planned to go to Saudi, too? Is that now off the itinerary?
MS. NULAND: I think – no, he was in Riyadh at the beginning of the – oh, sorry. I’ve got it here at the very beginning. Yeah, he’s also in Riyadh today, currently in Riyadh for meetings with the senior Saudi officials. Jerusalem yesterday. Something’s not right here. Riyadh’s on this agenda; I don’t know when, though, because I also have that he is today with the Jordanians and with the Palestinians, but Riyadh is still on the agenda.
QUESTION: Okay. And his – and post – his post-Gulf – you had mentioned earlier that after the Gulf, he was probably going to go back to Israel and the PA. Is that – you said that’s now up in the air. It is because – is that because of this announcement?
MS. NULAND: No, I don’t think it has anything to do with that. I think he just wants to see where he is and whether there’s a need for him to come back to Washington and report first.
Please, Goyal.
QUESTION: Another subject?
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: India.
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: A number of education ministers from different Indian states were or are in the U.S. studying the U.S. community colleges system and the U.S. education system, and planning to open maybe hundreds of community colleges in India with the U.S. education system help, which Prime Minister Singh and President Obama and knowledge initiative was signed between the two leaders. What role do you think State Department playing in this role?
MS. NULAND: Well, obviously, we support this initiative. We have been working with the Indian side to flesh out the initiative that was agreed between the President and the prime minister through our Education Bureau here. And obviously, we are responsible for the visa issuance for the various folks studying in the United States.
QUESTION: And as far as Indian students now, over 125,000, I believe, in the U.S. What will be their status when these community college will be open in India? Because right now, when they graduate from an Indian university or colleges and their degrees are not really accepted or agreed to here in the U.S.
MS. NULAND: I guess I don’t understand the question, Goyal. You’re asking if they had graduate from Indian college, are those degrees accepted in the United States?
QUESTION: Right.
MS. NULAND: I think it’s a case-by-case issue depending upon where they graduate from and where they’re looking to get accredited from, and et cetera. So obviously, if there’s a sister university relationship, sometimes those accreditations can be recognized, but it just depends on what they want to do. I don’t think there’s a blanket way of looking at that.
QUESTION: And finally --
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: I’m sorry. As far as the U.S. visa for the Indian students coming to higher study in the U.S., is there a change now? Because some feel that the requirements are more or higher than after this incident took place at the various (inaudible) universities, so-called, in the California area.
MS. NULAND: I don’t think we’ve changed our policy with regard to the way we interview applicants. I think what we are doing is making sure that the sponsoring organizations truly are what they say they are in the United States; that if they say that they are bringing students over to educate them, that they intend to educate them, not put them to work, et cetera, so – yeah.
QUESTION: New topic?
MS. NULAND: Yeah, please, Ros.
QUESTION: In the WikiLeaks case, the judge in the Bradley Manning case this morning ordered the State Department, among other agencies, to turn over some of their documents to the defense in order to help the Manning team better prepare its case. Is the State Department going to turn over those documents? And my follow-up is: Does the U.S. still see a negative impact on its relations with other countries in diplomacy because of what happened in the alleged leaking of these documents?
MS. NULAND: Let me take the last part first. I think our view of the entire WikiLeaks incident has not changed at all in terms of the negative effects. With regard to what the court has ordered, Ros, I haven’t seen it, so let me take it and see what we know about what’s been requested of us and what our response is.
Jill.
QUESTION: Russia?
MS. NULAND: Mm-hmm.
QUESTION: The Russian ambassador here in Washington is concerned about legislation that is moving forward, the Magnitsky legislation. And he’s saying essentially that this is just a way of – if you get rid of Jackson-Vanik, this is just another way of punishing Russia. He’s quite concerned about it. I know the State Department has been talking with Congress. Do we know what the status of Magnitsky is? Is the State Department encouraging, discouraging this legislation? What’s the view?
MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, we do support the goals of the legislation. We have programs already in place to ensure that we are sanctioning those who are responsible for human rights abuses, and we are continuing our dialogue with the Congress about how we can appropriately make the views of the Congress and the American people known; at the same time, that we strongly favor the repeal of the Jackson-Vanik legislation, as really being a relic of the past that doesn’t apply to today’s situation. So this is an ongoing conversation that we’re having with the Hill.
QUESTION: Why is Magnitsky needed if the State Department really does have the ability right now legally to refuse visas to people who have been involved in crime, or at least, I guess, maybe alleged – I’m not quite sure how we can define that. But don’t you have the tools already to exclude people and not give them a visa?
MS. NULAND: We do have many of the tools in this legislation. I think it’s a matter of – from the Congress’s point of view, obviously, I would refer you to them. But our understanding in the conversations that we’ve had is that there’s a desire and an interest to make this a matter of law; and particularly, if we are going to make the point with members of Congress that the days are over for the kinds of sanctions that we had under Jackson-Vanik, but that we still have other human rights concerns that need to be taken into account.
So I think there are – there’s a feeling on the Hill that putting this in legislation will create a systemic, routine way of dealing with it and a clear set of guidelines that the Congress and the Administration agree to and understand and that are clear on the Russian side. So let’s see where this legislation goes as it goes through the Congress.
Please.
QUESTION: Thank you. On North Korea, they reported that North Korea is almost ready for the nuclear test. And so I would like to know, what’s the assessment from the U.S. Government?
MS. NULAND: Well, I don’t think our position on any of this has changed: No launching, no testing, no nothing if you want to have a better relationship with the international community. All of these are provocations, all of them take the DPRK in the wrong direction, so our message on all of this hasn’t changed.
QUESTION: But they say if the U.S. agree in a peace treaty with them, they may abandon the nuclear test. What’s your reaction to that?
MS. NULAND: Starting with the Leap Day deal that the North Koreans have abrogated, we were beginning a conversation again about a step-by-step process that could convince the Six Parties, could convince the international community that this new North Korean leadership was interested in coming back into compliance with its international obligations. Those – was a small first step, and unfortunately now we’re going backwards. So it’s really up to the DPRK to demonstrate that it wants a better relationship with all of us and that it wants to put its energy into peace and stability and taking care of its people rather than expensive weapons.
QUESTION: And last question --
QUESTION: Haven’t they already done that? Haven’t they demonstrated their interest already?
MS. NULAND: Demonstrated their interest?
QUESTION: Or lack of interest?
MS. NULAND: Unfortunately, they are demonstrating a lack of interest, yes.
QUESTION: Okay. And then can you just (inaudible), you said no launching, no testing no nothing. I mean, what is that – no nothing? They can’t do anything? (Laughter.) I mean, what if they decide they’re going to free all political prisoners and have democratic elections tomorrow? I mean, is that – that’s bad, too?
MS. NULAND: What they can and should do is take care of their people, open their country, begin to reform the system, and demonstrate to the international community that they’re prepared to meet their international obligations. And they haven’t done any of those things. So what I meant by “no nothing” was no provocative nuclear actions of any kind.
QUESTION: Just a follow-up.
MS. NULAND: Keeping me on my toes.
QUESTION: On this – at the coming U.S.-China S and ED, what’s the U.S. expectation from China on North Korea issue, specifically?
MS. NULAND: Well, I think we said very clearly that we have encouraged China to continue to use all of its influence with the DPRK and particularly with the new young leader to encourage a positive course and to discourage the negative course. So I’m sure that we will be exchanging views on North Korea and getting a better sense of how the Chinese side analyzes the situation, what messages they’ve been willing to send, able to send, and what pressure they think they can bring to bear, because it’s absolutely essential we all work together here.
Please, Michel.
QUESTION: On Iran? Iran has warned today that the new U.S. sanctions targeting its access to surveillance technology were negative and could affect its crucial talks next month with the P-5+1 in Baghdad. Do you have any reaction to that?
MS. NULAND: Well, let me start by saying that the sanctions that the President announced yesterday were designed to address a different set of concerns that we have with regard to Iran’s behavior, and that’s Iran’s behavior with regard to their own citizens, with regard to the dignity, human rights, standard of living for their own citizens. So frankly, putting sanctions on companies that help Iran spy on their own citizens and having complaints about that begs the question as to why the Government of Iran thinks it needs to spy on its own citizens and block their access to the internet in the first place. So these – this is a set of sanctions that are designed to support the humans rights, freedoms, dignity of the Iranian people.
QUESTION: But do you expect these sanctions to affect the upcoming negotiations in Baghdad – or talks?
MS. NULAND: Well, our hope is that we will have a productive round in Baghdad. We discussed very clearly in Istanbul what it’s going to take to continue to move forward. So it’s really up to Iran. But frankly, what we have done with the President – the sanctions that the President announced yesterday, don’t even have anything to do with the nuclear file. They have to do with our separate concerns about the human rights situation.
QUESTION: Can I just ask a question on these sanctions? The net effect – I mean, one could argue about the effect of these sanctions, whether they actual do anything, whether these companies or institutions actually have any assets that can be blocked, or whether any Americans were doing business in the first place, but that’s not – well, my question is: With the exception of one, the internet provider in Iran, all of these entities and the one individual in Iran and Syria were already under numerous layers of other sanctions that did exactly the same thing. So I’m just wondering, there was no net effect on the IRGC, on the intelligence ministries, on the head of the Syrian intelligence directorate, was there?
MS. NULAND: Well, I think --
QUESTION: I mean, it didn’t do anything new to them. They were already under sanctions that did exactly what these sanctions do.
MS. NULAND: Frankly, I’m not sure that your premise is right, Matt, that there was no – nothing new, that this was an additional layer and all of these same folks and entities had already been sanctioned. I think the larger point here, though, is to express our concern about the circumvention, the importing of foreign technology to be used against your own citizens to deny them access to the internet, to deny them the ability communicate freely.
So regardless of whether it’s an additional layer on top of the same people and entities, the political point here is to express our concern about what these governments, whether they’re Syrian – the Syrian Government or the Iranian Government, are doing to block access to the internet, to block the ability of their people to communicate, to chill the environment for civil discourse and for civil society.
QUESTION: Doesn’t that happen in quite a few countries? In Equatorial Guinea, in Zimbabwe, in --
MS. NULAND: It happens in a number of countries and the Secretary --
QUESTION: Saudi Arabia.
MS. NULAND: -- there are number of countries that as we – as the Secretary has spoken out on many, many times, that seek to limit the right of their citizens to free speech, to free association, to the internet, and we will continue to speak out. But there are particular governments who are now in the business of acquiring the most sophisticated Western technology they can find and targeting it back on their own citizens and squeezing them, in human rights terms, with it. So this is an area of increasing concern.
QUESTION: So that would be the standard then for which countries would in the future those sanctions would apply to, whether they’re acquiring (inaudible)?
MS. NULAND: Again, I think we’re going to take this on a case-by-case basis. But in this case, the President was making the point, and we were making the point more broadly that these two governments are particularly egregious in this area as, if you will, state-sponsors of censorship.
QUESTION: Victoria, could you explain something regarding the board – the atrocity prevention board that the President announced on the sanctions?
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Now, is it -- how is the State Department involved? I mean, since we know that Samantha Power is going to lead that effort. Who’s from the State Department? Who will sit on that board?
MS. NULAND: The State Department representative on the board is Under Secretary of State Maria Otero.
QUESTION: Maria Otero. Okay.
MS. NULAND: And the first meeting of the board was yesterday.
QUESTION: Right.
MS. NULAND: And the board is designed to get together this group of very experienced people to look at how we can, as a government, do more to support accountability and to stop atrocities.
QUESTION: Okay. And one related issue: Last week it was announced – the Open Government Initiative?
MS. NULAND: Right.
QUESTION: Is that in any way connected to this – there’s going to be a center of – a connection with this board?
MS. NULAND: Well, some of the people who work on the Open Government Partnership are the same people who work on this atrocities board – as you said, Samantha Power, Under Secretary Otero. But the initiatives are not linked.
What I would say is that when we announced at the Friends of the Syrian People meeting in Istanbul that we were standing up this atrocities clearinghouse for Syria, that’s an example of the kind of initiative that this group of people on the atrocities board brought to bear. They were the sort of idea factory for that idea, and it’s the kind of thing that, assuming that it works well in a Syrian context, we can replicate in other contexts.
Yeah.
QUESTION: New topic?
MS. NULAND: Yeah, please.
QUESTION: Do you have – does the State Department have any additional information on the two Cuban actors who were granted temporary visas and have since disappeared?
MS. NULAND: To my knowledge – and frankly, this is yesterday information and I didn’t have an update from today, so if it’s not right, we’ll get back to you – but neither we nor the film festival has any further information about where the two actors are.
QUESTION: So that hasn’t changed, then, --
MS. NULAND: I do not believe that has changed since yesterday. Okay.
QUESTION: Another subject?
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Pakistan. As far as Secretary Grossman’s visit to Pakistan is concerned, and also last week Secretary Panetta told the Pentagon press that the Haqqani Network is the most dangerous, and is also now going back and forth from Pakistan to Afghanistan, Afghanistan to Pakistan. Is that going to be a topic? Because this is the main concern or main issue between the two countries and the security in Afghanistan is concerned.
MS. NULAND: Well, I don’t have any travel to announce today, Goyal, but I think you know that we’ve been pretty clear. Secretary was clear, Secretary Panetta was clear last week, that we have concerns about the Haqqani Network in – with regard to the most recent incident in Afghanistan. And as the Secretary said in Brussels, we will continue to try to work with Pakistan because this is a threat to both of us.
QUESTION: And finally, are you planning to include Haqqani Network in the Reward for Justice or any other sanctions against this network?
MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, we have sanctions on individual members of the Haqqani Network, and we’re continuing to look at what more we can do there.
QUESTION: Thank you.
MS. NULAND: Please.
QUESTION: A follow-up on Pakistan?
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Yesterday, State Department announced Grossman – Marc Grossman visit to three different countries, but Pakistan is not included. And there are some media reports in Pakistan that Pakistani official are getting ready to meet with him, and talk about all issues, including reopening of a NATO supply line. And they also talk about the trilateral core group meeting, including Afghanistan. So do you have any update of his visit? Is he going to Islamabad? Do you confirm that?
MS. NULAND: I think I just said that I don’t have any travel to announce today, but as you know, both Afghanistan and Pakistan fall within his purview. But I don’t have anything to announce today.
Okay?
QUESTION: No. I just want --
MS. NULAND: Sorry.
QUESTION: -- to go back to the WikiLeaks question. When you said that your position had not changed as to whether this – whether the release of these documents have done damage to the national security, what – can you be more – what does that mean? You say that it did damage?
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: Can you be more explicit about how it did damage?
MS. NULAND: I think we were quite explicit at the time, and I’m not going to come back to it today.
QUESTION: Well, no, at – well, at the time, you said that it had the potential – well, not you personally; it was your predecessor – but had the potential to do damage and that there was the concern in the – in this building in particular that ambassadors or embassies would be less than forthcoming about what they wrote in cables coming back, knowing that they had been – that it had been compromised.
Has there been any evidence? Is this building concerned or is there evidence that shows that this building is not getting full accounting, full reporting, honest, candid reporting from its embassies abroad in the wake of WikiLeaks?
MS. NULAND: Our embassies abroad continue to do a superb job of working with governments and societies where they are accredited and giving us a good, strong picture of what’s going on. That doesn’t change the fact that there was enormous turbulence in many of our bilateral relationships when this happened, and that there have been impacts on individuals. As you know, we’ve talked about that at the time.
QUESTION: Right. But when you say enormous turbulence in bilateral relationships, has – what has – what can you – what is there that --
MS. NULAND: I don’t think I’m going to go any further than we went at the time. We had concerns from many of our interlocutors.
QUESTION: Well, I know you had concerns --
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: -- but that – but concern is – that does not that mean that there’s – that something has been damaged?
MS. NULAND: I think we’ve got an ongoing lawsuit, and I’m not going to go any further right now.
QUESTION: Well, I’m just curious, though. If the – do you see – has the U.S. ability to conduct its foreign relations been compromised or damaged because of WikiLeaks? Can you point to one or two examples of how that – of how this has done harm to the U.S. national security or U.S. --
MS. NULAND: Matt --
QUESTION: -- ability to conduct diplomacy?
MS. NULAND: -- given the fact that we have an ongoing legal case, I don’t think I’m going to comment any further on this set of issues today.
QUESTION: Well, fair enough, but --
MS. NULAND: Michel, did you have something else?
QUESTION: -- you do understand this is exactly what you’re being asked to produce in court.
MS. NULAND: I understand. And --
QUESTION: And if you’re saying that, “Yes, it did damage, but I’m sorry, I can’t tell you what the damage is because it’s a secret,” that’s what – is that what you’re saying?
MS. NULAND: What I’m saying is there’s ongoing legal work now, and if there are legal responsibilities of this building, we’ll do it in a court of law, not here.
QUESTION: Well, but in terms of the one thing that you did answer, you – there isn’t any evidence that this has affected embassies’ ability or – to report back honestly and accurately about what’s going on in their host countries. Is that correct?
MS. NULAND: I’m not going to give a grade to our embassies. We expressed our concern at the time. Those concerns were very clearly stated. I’m not going to get into evaluating, from this podium, what’s come back, what hasn’t come back. We’ve got an ongoing legal case.
Michel.
QUESTION: One clarification still on this, please.
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: I thought the concern was less that embassies would not report stuff back in cables but that their interlocutors would not tell them stuff in the first place because they no longer had faith that the U.S. Government could keep their conversations or communications private, given the vast leak of cables. So I think the question might be better posed as: Has the State Department discerned a diminution in the candor of its foreign interlocutors as a result of this gross breach of confidentiality?
MS. NULAND: Again, we said what we wanted to say at the time on this case. We now have this case in the courts, and I just don’t think it’s appropriate for me to be commenting any further.
Michael, did you have something else? Yeah.
QUESTION: Yeah. Any new assessment about the UN observers’ work in Syria?
MS. NULAND: As I said yesterday, we’re continuing to watch this day by day. I think the concern remains that we only have a small number of monitors in, which means that they can stay in some of these towns for only a short time. They were in Zabadani; they were in parts of Hama and Homs in the last couple of days, but we don’t have enough yet to be able to leave them there. And there are concerns that no sooner do they leave when violence restarts. So this is something we’re just going to have to watch going forward.
Please.
QUESTION: There was a bomb that exploded today in Marjeh, which is a densely populated area within Damascus. Do you have any comment on that?
MS. NULAND: Well, we were just getting reporting on this as I was coming down. Obviously, any acts of violence of that kind are reprehensible.
Please.
QUESTION: Does the State Department have any comment on Egypt’s decision not to register, I think it’s eight NGOs, pro-democracy NGOs, including the Carter Foundation?
MS. NULAND: I have to say that we are – we don’t have a full picture of what has happened and what hasn’t happened with regard to these NGOs. So we are in the process of trying to figure it out, and we’re seeking clarification from the Egyptian side.
QUESTION: Okay.
MS. NULAND: Okay. Thanks, everybody.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)