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... GLOBAL NEWS . ... NEWS KEY WITNESS IN WAR CRIMES CASE AGAINST ARIEL SHARON KILLED BY CAR BOMB IN BEIRUT n the day after he reaffirmed his intention to testify in court to first-hand knowledge of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's war crimes, Elie Hobeika was blown to bits. A huge, remotely detonated bomb killed Hobeika and his three bodyguards and started fires in the Hazmiyeh district of Beirut, Lebanon. A statement from a previously unknown group, "Lebanese for a Free and Independent Lebanon", took responsibility for the January 24 bombing. No one believed it for a minute. What made Hobeika, who shared with Sharon a virulent hatred of the Palestinians, such a danger to his former patron and boss? Elie Hobeika was the Commander of the Lebanese Forces during Lebanon's civil war and at the time of Israel's massive invasion of that country in 1982. The Lebanese Forces (LF) were a fascist militia, directly armed and supported by Israel—and the USA. In June 1982, the Israeli military (IDF), with total backing from the USA, launched a massive invasion of Lebanon. The objectives of the invasion were to destroy the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), then mainly based in Lebanon, and install a puppet government in Beirut. For the entire summer of that year, the IDF mercilessly bombed the Lebanese capital, killing more than 20,000 people, the vast majority civilians. In September 1982, a ceasefire agreement was forced upon the Lebanese and Palestinians resisting the assault. Palestinian refugees made up more than 10 per cent of Lebanon's population of three million at the time. Under the agreement, PLO military forces would be evacuated to Tunisia. In return, the safety and security of the Palestinian refugee camps would be guaranteed. The security guarantee was critical, because it was well known to all parties that the Lebanese Forces and other fascist militias would butcher the now-unprotected camps if given half a chance. By September 16, with the PLO fighters gone, the IDF had completely surrounded the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in west Beirut. The remaining inhabitants of the camps were nearly all women, children and elderly men. However, Israel's then Defence Minister Ariel Sharon, along with the Israeli commanders on the ground, declared that they believed there were still PLO fighters hiding in the camps. Using this pretext, the Israelis allowed the Hobeika-commanded LF to enter the Palestinian refugee camps to "clean up". A weekend of unimaginable horror ensued. The LF first went door to door, forcing the terrified inhabitants out into the streets and dividing them into groups. For the next 36 hours, the LF raped, tortured and slaughtered, wiping out nearly the entire population of more than 2,000 Palestinians and Lebanese living in Sabra and Shatila. Israeli offi- cers and cabinet ministers, including Ariel Sharon—who, as Defence Minister, bore overall responsibility for the occupation of Lebanon—were repeatedly informed of what was going on. When the Israelis finally instructed Hobeika to pull the LF forces out late on September 17, the LF asked for, and received, a one-day extension to "finish their work". Once the hideous images of the Sabra and Shatila massacre were flashed around the world, the sense of anger and revulsion was so great that even Israel had to set up an official commission of inquiry the following year. The Kahan Commission found Sharon "indirectly responsible" for the massacre. He was forced to resign as Defence Minister, although not from the Israeli cabinet. Sharon wants the world to forget his bloodstained history. And the United States government, which was more than complicit in Lebanon (after all, the US supplied the planes, tanks and guns for the 1982 invasion), has developed total amnesia on the subject. The US is only interested in prosecuting leaders of other countries as "war criminals" when they don't follow Washington's script. But the world, and particularly the survivors of the massacre, have not forgotten Sabra and Shatila. Several Palestinian survivors and family members of victims have brought a criminal case against Sharon in Belgium. Last year, Belgium passed a law allowing its courts to hear cases of alleged crimes against humanity, wherever they are or were committed. On January 23, Hobeika, who was directly in touch with Sharon and other Israeli offi- cers throughout the 1982 massacre, affirmed that he would go to Brussels to testify in the case. The next day, he was dead. (Source: Richard Becker, Workers World Service, February 7, 2002, website hitp:/www.workers.org) Unlike American and British forces, the French used bottled water and did not use organophosphorous pesticides, now known to be very dangerous to humans. Fourteen inoculations were given to British troops. In addition, their immune systems were tested with the first-ever issue of nerve agent pre-treatment tablets as an antidote against chemical weapons, and with the use of pesticides including organophosphates to prevent fly-borne dis- eases. US and British forces were exposed to 33 toxins in total. (Sources: The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, February 13, 2002) STORM OVER GHOSTWRITERS PAID BY DRUG COMPANIES cientists are accepting large sums of money from drug companies to put their names to articles they have not writ- ten, endorsing new medicines—a growing practice which some fear is putting scien- tific integrity in jeopardy. Ghostwriting has become widespread in such areas of medicine as cardiology and psychiatry, where drugs play a major role in treatment. Senior doctors, inevitably very busy, have become willing to "author" papers written for them by ghostwriters paid by drug companies. Originally, ghostwriting was confined to medical journal supplements sponsored by the industry, but it can now be found in all the major journals in relevant fields. In some cases, it is alleged, the scientists named as authors will not even have seen the raw data they are writing about—only tables compiled by company employees. The doctors, who might give a talk based on the paper to an audience of other doc- tors at a drug company-sponsored sympo- sium, receive substantial sums of money. Fuller Torrey of the Stanley Foundation Research Programs in Bethesda, Maryland, USA, found in a survey that British psychi- atrists were paid around US$2,000 a time for symposium talks, plus airfares and hotel accommodation. Dr David Healy, a psychopharmacologist from north Wales who had unprecedented access to the data that the companies keep in their archives, said: "It may well be that 50 per cent of the articles on drugs in the major journals across all areas of medicine are not written in a way that the average person in the street expects them to be authored." (Source: The Guardian, February 7, 2002) APRIL — MAY 2002 NEXUS ¢ 9 www.nexusmagazine.com