MGG Pillai Commentary View

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Can we believe the US did not pay to free reporter?

It is money that makes the world go around. No where is this clear publicly than in the United States, and now Iraq. It is so in other parts of the world, but the world is told it is more important in these two countries. The publicity surrounding the release of Jill Caroll, a Christian Science Monitor reporter, from a Iraqi group, was a piece of good news for the United States in an otherwise bleak Iraq. Both the US government and the Christian Science Monitor was emphatic that no ranson was paid. We are told to believe it, when we know any problem they have is solved by money. Journalists, especially American, are prime candidates for kidnap in Iraq, as it is in Afghanistan, even Pakistan. This is why they stay in their hotel rooms in Iraq, or in the so-called Green Zone, where the US and its allies are coccooned in apparent safety. To show that Iraq is in control, people like the US secretary of state Condileeza Rice and British foreign secretary Jack Straw visit Iraq often to show that all is well.

It is not, of course. Iraq under Saddam Hussein kept the religious divide between the Sunnis and Shia out, and ran a secular state. The Americans dismantle that, gave the Shias power, and believed it could have a state in which the majority ruled. It has resulted in chaos, and the old enmity between Iran and the Middle East, part of this conflict, is that one is Shia and the other Sunni, both of the Muslim religion, one is Arab and the other not. The British is their long presence in the region understood this, and behaved accordingly. Iraq could only be ruled by the Sunni, it decided more than four decades ago, but it lost out in the end by ordering the Middle East in its image. The last British-controlled prime minister of Iraq was flayed alive when he has caught in the late 1950s, trying to escape in a woman's clothes, which included the chador. The king was overthrown and killed. But the group that took over was Sunni. As was all leaders until the Americans decided that should change. But it is against the Shia leadership now.

The Americans brought in its image into Iraq. That included money. They did not finish what they said they would do, because no money was available. The contractors it brought from the United States did not finish what they contracted to do because they were shot of money. One the reason why was that they had to pay high wages for Americans and Europeans to come to Iraq. And the so-called insurgency. The trial of Saddam Hussein, under American control, has spawned its own insurgency. Today, the insurgency is formed by the Shias, Muslims and the Kurds. There are so many groups, all in need of money, and one of them kidnapped Jill Caroll. She knew Arabic, could converse with her kidnappers and, on her release, she did not say anything to support her kidnappers. All that has been said since the kidnap is true, but I would not be surprised if a ransom was paid for her release.

I have been told to believe she is alive today because of 'shrewd' leg work by the British and American troops. But she is worth money, by selling to other insurgent groups. Citizens of the United States, Canada and Europe, not prominent, have been killed in the past, because the kidnap gang had sold the victims for a profit before asking for a ransom. Technically, the US government or the Christian Science Monitor did not pay the ransom. They could have paid others to pay it. The Americans insist no bribes are paid in Africa and Asia, but they get contracts all the same. This is possible because they appoint local agents, who work with companies they establish and control but keep a wide distance from them. It is impossible to believe the Americans have not paid to get contracts in Asia when we know that millions of dollars change hands. Otherwise, how could the political party and its members close to its leadership get so much money?

The Americans, and now the British, accept as their credo that they do not pay bribes, nor ransoms. They find other means to do so. When I was working for the Malay Mail 35 years ago, I asked an Australian business man how much bribe he was prepared to pay. He said on the surface none, since that was paid by his local agent. He said: "Nothing can be got without a bribe, in Australia or South East Asia." When I lived in the United States in 1976, a town council official, who I knew, accepted a bribe in my presence. He said he accepted the bribe not to lower the standards, but so that he would go early than late to the man's residence. That, I suppose, is all right. That is, in the American credo, not corruption. Hmm!

By insisting that the Americans and British authorities did the right thing in rescuing Jill Caroll, they have made it difficult for other journalists to be free of kidnappings, and the likelihood of their being killed by their kidnappers. The Christian Science Monitor is after all a corporation, and will pay if one of their officers are kidnapped. Almost all Western newspapers in Iraq belong to corporations, who will pay to get their men free. The talk of ranson being asked for is probably true, as it is of paying it. Other countries pay it. Others are free because ranson was paid. Why not the United States and Europe. Especially when there is a shortage of money in the insurgent groups. The Americans do not know how many of these groups there are. Some are Sunni, some are Shia, some support Saddam Hussein, some are independent, some are for the money. No one has any control over them. If one group which is independent kidnap a Westerner, and threaten to sell them to a murderous group if it does not receive money from the United States, would Washington go on the high horse then?

[This appeared in my column in the PAS magazine, Harakah, on Tuesday, 04 April 2006]

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com