Iran-South Africa: A nuclear connection

Soon, a new article regarding Iran's nuclear program and it's similarities to that of South Africa in the late 1970s

The Iranian precedent

By Raul Colon

“I can’t imagine how a genocide like Rwanda can happen in the age of Twitter”, exclaimed former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown early in 2009. “Outlets such as Twitter and Facebook had opened the door for the information to run freely, without much government or on-site censorship. Now, thanks to this new technology, we have an open window into any event on the globe. We can have instant information of whatever is happening on the ground”. Five months later, Mr. Brown and the world got the first taste of the what many has called the ‘Instant Revolution’.

Who does not remember the gripping posts made on Twitter and Facebook during Iran’s disputed 2009 election? Thanks to an unprecedented live-feed provided by two those two unlikely outlets the world saw provocative photos, shell shocking videos and up-to-the-minute accounts of what was happening inside one of the most reclusive countries on earth.

Western media and the public in general gravitated to their TV sets or computers to watch the Iranian people expressing anger and desperation for the first time and in front of millions, on what they believe to be a ridged election result. The seeds of a new revolution could have been planted last summer and thanks to those two social networks, the world was able to see it!

Twitting don’t commence radical chance, people do. But platforms such as Facebook can be a high value asset to activists operating inside an authoritarian regime. Of course, more is needed if a revolution is actually going to happen as the case in Iran clearly demonstrated. Nevertheless, such was the magnitude of unfetter information getting outside the Iranian borders that Tehran tried to shut down the all internet access in an effort to curb what was a rapid growing movement.

A case could be made that if had not been for the death of Michael Jackson, which took the air out of all the news for more than a month, the frenetic pace in which Iranians were expressing themselves through the social networks would have continue even with Tehran’s new and tougher censorship attempts. Accordingly to several internet watch groups, the number of ‘Tweets’ a minute attached to the election of June 12 was 40 a minute. That’s forty messages of 140 or less character each 60 seconds. Facebook reported a 25 per minute, Iran-related post rate. Both were all time numbers for each of the networks. That average lasted, more or less, until the 24th.

As impressive as those figures were, they became obsolete just a few days later. On June 26th, the day the world got word of the passing of Jackson, Twitter informed that their servers registered 73 Tweets a minute relating to the King of Pop. Data for Facebook is not available. But is a good bet they also saw a ten-fold increase in their posting. Despite the amazing figures related to Jackson, they did not last. On day three, the 29th, average Tweets per minutes dropped to 25. That’s only one more than Iran-based posting (24) seventeen days after the ballots were cast.

The death of an iconic figure such as Jackson may have suffocated the news and in the process, downplayed the amount of coverage the Iranian opposition generated but it did not ‘kill’ the movement as many pundits have stipulated. In fact, Twitter and Facebook has become more than a quasi-news service. They have transformed themselves into a communication tool. Demonstrators and sympathizers routinely use both social platforms to relate critical information. In authoritarian Iran, opposition meetings are set. Speeches are crafted and even flyers are printed all thanks to Facebook or Twitter posts.

There is where the real revolution began, with the flow of information. Not only it alerted the world of what was happening, but it established a communication ‘back channel’ which has the opportunity to outlast the State’s censorship.

United State Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, ushered theses words just three days after Iran’s election. “It is increasingly difficult for an authoritarian government to maintain control of all the means of communication that are available to its citizens, and especially when -- I mean, you either have economic stagnation and backwardness, or you allow modern communications. And it makes the control of communications, by a government, extremely difficult. And frankly I think it's -- you know, it's a huge win for freedom, around the world, because this monopoly of information is no longer in the hands of the government”.
This is the real Iranian precedent.

Russian and German give 'go ahead' to sanctions

Germany and Russia declared Saturday that the five world powers negotiating with Iran support a fresh set of international sanctions, and Chancellor Angela Merkel said they could pass soon.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said at a news conference with Merkel that "agreement on the sanctions exists," despite the fact that "nobody wants sanctions."

"We hope the voice of the international community will be heard by the Iranian leadership," Medvedev said through the official German translator.

Merkel said sanctions could be passed by the United Nations Security Council "in the near future."

Russia has been traditionally opposed to sanctions for Iran, a longtime trade partner, but in recent months officials have shown less patience with Iran's refusal to stop enriching uranium and heed other council demands meant to reduce suspicions over its nuclear aims .

"I am very happy, that we can stand here jointly today and say that this is a joint position not only of the European Union, the United States of America and Russia, but also of China," Merkel said. "That is an important step the international community has made here."

Moscow has recently joined the other four U.N. Security Council members — the United States, China, Britain and France — to tentatively back a draft fourth set of U.N. sanctions against Iran.

"We have always taken a two-way approach, making offers, on the one hand, but, as there are no qualitative changes, on the other hand now the time has come that such sanctions must be adopted," Merkel said.

Medvedev said it is unacceptable "that one continues to act irresponsibly. One has to move toward the partners of the international community and it is only in this way that complicated issues can be solved."

Russia's president arrived Friday for a two-day visit to Germany to discuss a range of issues with Merkel.

The West is against an expansion of nuclear nations and suspects Iran is enriching uranium to build a nuclear warhead. Tehran denies this and insists on its right to a peaceful nuclear power program, but has frustrated the West over its failure to prove it.

Ahmadinejad warns opposition

The Iranian president on Friday warned the country's opposition against straying from the path of the founder of the Islamic Revolution and slammed Israel for a deadly raid this week on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke before hundreds of thousands gathered at the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the surrounding grounds in southern Tehran for a ceremony marking his death 21 years ago. The Khomeini-led Islamic revolution toppled the U.S.-backed shah and brought hard-line Islamists to power in 1979.

"Those who deviate from the Imam's path will be banished by the people," Ahmadinejad said.

The stark warning came just days ahead of the opposition's mass rally planned on the anniversary of last June's disputed presidential election. The rally is to be the first opposition gathering in months and authorities have warned they will confront any unauthorized demonstrations.

The Iranian opposition claims Ahmadinejad won the June 12 election through massive vote fraud. It had rallied for months against the election results but was met by a heavy government crackdown, which the opposition says killed 80 people during street protests so far.

More than 100 opposition figures and activists were put on a mass trial, and 80 of them were sentenced to death or given prison terms ranging from six months to 15 years.

But Ahmadinejad reiterated Friday that the election was "100 percent free" and added he is "bound by duty to protect the people's vote."

The annual commemoration of Khomeini's death is part mournful ceremony, part political rally for the base that sustains Iran's hard-liners amid rising dissatisfaction with inflation, unemployment, social constraints — and an opposition movement that has persisted despite the crackdown.

Ahmadinejad, known for his anti-Israeli rhetoric, used the podium at the shrine grounds Friday to blast Israel's commando raid on the international flotilla off Gaza's shores, calling it "barbaric" and urging the dismantling of the "Zionist regime."

"They have lost their self-control and ability to think," he said of the Israeli raid that killed nine activists on the Turkish flagship in the flotilla Monday.

"Thousands such freedom flotillas across the world will sail out with freedom fighters, to scrap the Zionist rule and bring peace and freedom to all mankind," added Ahmadinejad.

Iran's supreme leader and Khomeini's successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also criticized the raid as a "mistake" that "showed how barbaric the Zionists are."

Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters in Iran, also indirectly criticized opposition leaders, saying that some who revered the late Khomeini now "speak differently" than before. He also warned the opposition to carefully examine what he said was support that comes from "foreign enemies of Iran, enemies of the Imam."

Khomeini's grandson took the stage as he does every year on the anniversary, but this time his speech was repeatedly interrupted by anti-opposition chants from Ahmadinejad supporters. The chanting was apparently a jab at Hassan Khomeini's perceived support for opposition leaders.

Khomeini left the podium before finishing. "The dignity of the anniversary does not deserve what this small group is doing," he said.

The semiofficial Ilna news agency said other Khomeini relatives who attended the ceremony left in protest over the incident.

State TV carried the ceremony live, saying it was attended by 2 million people, including more than 700,000 Iranians who were bused in from various provinces.

Khomeini is still deeply popular and respected among Iranians, including veterans of the eight-year war that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein launched against Iran in the 1980s.

The TV reported that after the Tehran ceremony, there were anti-Israeli demonstrations in several Iranian cities and towns following Friday prayers.

'Mis-communication' between Iran and the U.N.

Iran's atomic energy chief claimed on Thursday that the U.N. nuclear watchdog misunderstood the nature of the experiments at a Tehran laboratory mentioned in the agency's latest report.

The report underscored the West's concerns about Iranian nuclear ambitions and came as the U.N. Security Council inches toward imposing a new round of sanctions on Tehran for refusing to suspend its nuclear enrichment.

Ali Akbar Salehi said the International Atomic Energy Agency's report earlier this week made a "misinterpretation" in a reference about pyroprocessing — a procedure that can be used to purify uranium metal used in nuclear warheads.

Salehi, according to the semiofficial Isna news agency, said the Tehran lab experiments deal with uranium production, not pyroprocessing.

"The experiments have no relation to pyroprocessing," he said. "We believe the agency used this false report about a process that has not yet taken place, with the purpose of influencing public opinion."

Salehi stressed such "mistakes" would backfire and only damage IAEA's reputation.

He added that the Tehran lab experiments sought to produce uranium metal from depleted uranium, which is an effective shield against harmful radiation. Salehi said Iran has plentiful stocks of depleted uranium but didn't elaborate on the source of the material.

In January, Iran told the IAEA it had carried out pyroprocessing experiments, prompting a request from the agency for more information — but then backtracked in March and denied conducting such activities.

IAEA experts last month revisited the site — the Jabr Ibn Jayan Multipurpose Research Laboratory in Tehran — only to establish "that the electrochemical cell had been removed" from the unit used in the experiments, according to the report.

Salehi said this was "not correct" and that Iran did not remove any equipment from the lab. He didn't elaborate but Isna quoted him as saying Iran would provide the IAEA with evidence at an unspecified later date.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iranian's envoy to the IAEA headquarters in Vienna already criticized the report in comments made Wednesday in the Austrian capital.

The U.S. and its allies are concerned Iran's program strives to make nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies and says uranium enrichment is for peaceful purposes only, such as energy production.