3 NOVEMBER 2002

Turkey, Politics

Parliamentary elections were held; the result was a decisive overthrow of the current government.

All 550 seats in the National Assembly were at stake. The new Justice and Development Party (AKP) won 361 seats. The Republican People's Party (CHP) won 179 seats. No other party reached the 10% popular vote threshhold to enter the Assembly. All of the parties that entered the Assembly in the last elections in 1999 were swept out, including Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit's Democratic Left Party (DSP), which lost all 136 of its seats. Economic problems and political instability contributed to the rout of the existing political leadership.

The AKP has roots in a party banned in the previous year for Islamic militancy, but ran its campaign on a pro-Western, market-friendly platform. It said Turkey would continue to pursue EU membership (Reuters, IFES).

Yemen

Qaed Senyan al-Harthi, also known as Abu Ali, and five other suspected al Qaeda operatives were killed in eastern Marib province when their car was hit by a missile apparently fired by a US drone (Reuters).

4 NOVEMBER 2002

Israel, Politics

The Knesset rejected three no-confidence motions against Prime Minister Sharon's minority government. Sharon survived the motions with the help of the opposition nationalist National Union-Yisrael Beitenu party, which abstained from the voting. This deprived Sharon's opponents of the 61 votes necessary to force early elections. The next elections are due by October 2003 (Reuters).

Israel

The Al-Quds Brigade of Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Kfar Saba that killed two Israelis (Reuters).

Venezuela

There were violent clashes in Caracas between police and supporters of President Chavez who attacked an anti-Chavez rally (Reuters).

5 NOVEMBER 2002

Israel, Politics

Prime Minister Sharon called early elections. He had been attempting to bring nationalist parties into his government, but finally gave up this effort. Sharon apparently was unhappy with the concessions on policy being demanded by these parties, saying he wanted to preserve a "special relationship" with the US (Reuters).

6 NOVEMBER 2002

Israel, Politics

Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was sworn in as foreign minister (Reuters).

7 NOVEMBER 2002

Gibraltar

The British colony overwhelmingly rejected the idea of partial Spanish sovereignty in a referendum. Almost 99% voted 'no'; turnout was almost 88%.

Spain ceded Gibraltar to Britain under the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht and has been trying to recover it ever since. The dispute over Gibraltar continues to be an irritant in what are now generally good relations between Britain and Spain, and has held up agreement on some EU initiatives. The previous year, Britain began talks with Spain on Gibraltar's future. In July, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw announced that Britain was, in principle, in favor of sharing sovereignty over Gibraltar with Spain. But the referendum called by Gibraltar expressed "The Rock's" opposition to such an arrangement.

Britain and Spain said Gibraltar's referendum carries no legal weight. But European Minister Denis MacShane said, "We have always made clear that there will be no change to Gibraltar's sovereignty without the consent of the people of Gibraltar in a referendum. There are no such proposals on the table" (Reuters).

8 NOVEMBER 2002

Diplomatic affairs

The UN Security Council unanimously approved resolution 1441, co-sponsored by the US and Britain, calling on Iraq to disarm itself of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or face "serious consequences".

UNSC 1441 stated that Iraq was still in violation of UNSC 678 – which had authorized coalition military action for the First Gulf War – and all subsequent resolutions affecting its regime.1 The resolution called for UN weapons inspectors to have "immediate, unimpeded and unconditional" rights to search anywhere for banned weapons and generally stipulated a tougher inspection regime than had existed before, with a United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) taking the place of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM). France and others managed to get a draft provision for troops to accompany inspectors removed from the final version. Iraq was given a week to accept the resolution and 30 days to submit a detailed declaration of WMD and dual-use items.

The measure did not require the US to return to the Security Council for another resolution approving an attack on Iraq if Iraq violated 1441. But such an attack would happen only after the UN inspectors had reported or verified the violation by Iraq and the Security Council had evaluated the complaint. US Ambassador John Negroponte said, "Any member of the council has the right to report whatever it wishes to the council. That happens every day." But China, France and Russia issued a joint statement that said any failure by Iraq to comply "will be reported to the Security Council" by the chief inspectors. "It will then be for the council to take a position on the basis of that report." British Ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock attempted to reconcile the views, saying any member could bring any complaint to the Security Council. "But it is going to be a fact of life, a reality, that if the question of a breach arises, the Security Council will wish to hear a report on that from the inspectors", he said (Reuters).

It appeared that the effect of the resolution would be to delay a US attack on Iraq until such time as Iraq failed to cooperate with the new, tougher inspection regime. The US was unlikely to be satisfied with anything less than material verification that all Iraqi WMD had been destroyed. But, as John Keegan has pointed out, this was something UNMOVIC could never have provided.2 The Iraqis had in fact destroyed their chemical and biological weapon stocks years ago, but the way in which this was done, along with other factors, would have made persuading the US difficult in any case (see October 2004). Something the Iraqis perhaps could have done, and never did, was provide what might be called 'proactive cooperation' of the type later provided by Libya (see 19 December 2003).

8-15 NOVEMBER 2002

China, Politics

The 16th Communist Party Congress was held from the 8th to the 14th. Vice-President Hu Jintao was the only member of the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) to be reelected to the Central Committee, ensuring that only he would succeed to the new nine-member PSC. The other members, including President Jiang Zemin, stepped down.

The new Central Committee held its first session on the 15th, and the new PSC was announced. Hu became the new party general secretary and is expected to take over the presidency from Jiang in March. Vice-Premier Wen Jiabao is expected to become premier next March. The other new members of the PSC are Zeng Qinghong, Wu Bangguo, Huang Ju, Luo Gan, Jia Qinglin, Wu Guanzheng and Li Changchun. Most of them have close ties to Jiang. This allows Jiang to retain considerable influence, as does the fact that he remains head of the party's Central Military Commission (CMC), an important foreign and military policy-making body (CNN.com, Reuters).

9 NOVEMBER 2002

Italy

Over half a million people demonstrated in Florence against the prospect of a US attack on Iraq. The protest, planned months before, was the climax of the 'European Social Forum', a four-day meeting of anti-globalization campaigners from across Europe (Reuters).

Israel

Israeli forces killed Iyad Sawalha in Jenin. Sawalha was head of Islamic Jihad's military wing in the northern West Bank (Reuters).

10 NOVEMBER 2002

Jordan

There were some gun battles in Maan as security forces conducted a major sweep there to round up Islamist activists (Reuters).

13 NOVEMBER 2002

Diplomatic Affairs

Iraq accepted the demands of the UN Security Council contained in resolution 1441 (Reuters).

14 NOVEMBER 2002

Diplomatic Affairs

The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) announced a halt of fuel oil shipments to North Korea from December in response to its nuclear weapons program (see 4 October). KEDO, an international consortium consisting of the US, EU, South Korea and Japan, was established to administer the 1994 Agreed Framework. Under the agreement, North Korea promised to freeze its nuclear program, and KEDO undertook to build two light-water nuclear power reactors for North Korea and give it 500,000 tons of fuel oil per year (Reuters).

16 NOVEMBER 2002

Turkey, Politics

Abdullah Gul was named Prime Minister. Ali Babacan, a 35-year-old with a background in business, was named economy minister. Yasar Yakis was to be foreign minister, and Vecdi Gonul was named defense minister (Reuters).

16-18 NOVEMBER 2002

Venezuela

There were violent clashes between government troops and anti-Chavez protesters following a government takeover of the Caracas police (Reuters).

18 NOVEMBER 2002

Argentina, Politics

The government announced that the presidential election scheduled for March 2003 would be delayed a month to 27 April (Reuters).

21 NOVEMBER 2002

Diplomatic Affairs

NATO, at its summit in Prague, the Czech Republic, invited seven states -- Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia -- to join the alliance in 2004 (Reuters).

Al Qaeda

US officials said they had Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, whom they described as al Qaeda's chief in the Arabian Peninsula, in their custody. Arrested by the UAE in October and handed over to the US, he was reportedly among the dozen most-senior al Qaeda leaders and of similar rank to Abu Zubaydah, caught in Pakistan earlier this year (Reuters).

About half of the top two-dozen al Qaeda leaders have been killed or captured since 11 September last year. But Osama bin Laden has not been found and apparently survived the US-led campaign in Afghanistan late last year. US officials believe an audio tape broadcast recently on the Qatar-based al-Jazeera television channel is of bin Laden.3

Israel

Hamas claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing of a bus in Jerusalem that killed 11 people (Reuters).

22 NOVEMBER 2002

Diplomatic Affairs

US President Bush met Russian President Vladimir Putin near St. Petersburg. They discussed Iraq and NATO's expansion (Reuters).

24 NOVEMBER 2002

Ecuador, Politics

In the second round of the presidential election, Lucio Gutierrez defeated Alvaro Noboa 58.7% to 41.3% (IFES).

Austria, Politics

Elections were held for the 183-seat National Council (Nationalrat). The Austrian People's Party (OVP), led by Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, won 79 seats, up from 52. The Austrian Social Democratic Party (SPO) won 69 seats, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) won 19, down from 52, and The Greens won 16 (IFES).

25 NOVEMBER 2002

United States

President Bush signed legislation creating a new Department of Homeland Security. The House of Representatives had passed the legislation on the 13th by a vote of 299-121, and the Senate passed it on the 19th, 90-9. The measure involves a major reorganization of the federal government, as it will roll into the new department all or parts of 22 agencies, including the Coast Guard, Border Patrol and Secret Service. There is also the intention to improve intelligence analysis by, and communications between, the FBI and the CIA, though neither will be part of the new department (Reuters).

27 NOVEMBER 2002

Iraq

The first formal inspections to verify the disarmament of Iraq of NBC weapons as called for in UNSC 1441 (see 8 November) began. UN chief arms inspector Hans Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director Mohamed ElBaradei are in charge. The effort began with 30 inspectors; this was expected to grow to 100 by the end of the year. In the following days the Iraqis appeared to be fully cooperating with the inspections (Reuters).

28 NOVEMBER 2002

Ivory Coast

A previously unknown rebel group called the Movement for Justice and Peace took over Danane and Man, near the border with Liberia and Guinea. The group consists of two allied Yacouba factions joined by hundreds of fighters from Liberia. It seeks to avenge the death of Robert Guei on 20 September (Reuters).

Kenya

Missiles were fired at, but missed, a Boeing 757-300 airliner taking off from Mombassa and bound for Israel. Minutes later, a vehicle was used to suicide-bomb a nearby Israeli-owned hotel, killing three Israelis and nine Kenyans. Al Qaeda later claimed responsibility for the attacks (Reuters).

Israel

Two Palestinian gunmen attacked a Likud party polling station in Beit Shean, killing six. The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility; the Palestinian Authority (PA) condemned the attack (Reuters).

30 NOVEMBER 2002

Colombia

At 2400 hours, the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) anti-Marxist guerillas declared a unilateral cease-fire (Reuters).

Notes

1. John Keegan, The Iraq War, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2004, p. 106.

2. Keegan, The Iraq War, p. 111.

3. Tabassum Zakaria, "U.S. Captures Senior Al Qaeda Leader", Reuters (www.reuters.com), 15 November 2002.