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8:00-8:01 Billboard:
Cheney Facing Prosecution In France For Halliburton Gas
Deal In Nigeria
Presidential Candidate Moseley Braun Denies Support For Past
Nigerian Dictatorship; Brother of Slain Nigerian Activist
Disagrees
Las Vegas Hotels, Airlines Ordered By FBI To Turn Over Guest
Info
8:01-8:06 Headlines
8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break
8:07-8:20 Cheney Facing Prosecution In France For
Halliburton Gas Deal In Nigeria
INTRO: A French prosecutor is examining whether to prosecute
Vice President Dick Cheney over suspected complicity in the
abuse of corporate assets when he was head of Halliburton.
At the time, Halliburton was supplying a gas complex in Nigeria.
A French prosecutor is examining whether to prosecute Vice
President Dick Cheney over suspected complicity in the abuse
of corporate assets dating from the time he was head of the
services company Halliburton. The case stems from a contract
by a consortium including the American company Kellogg, Brown
& Root (KBR), a Halliburton subsidiary, and a French company,
Technip, to supply a gas complex to Nigeria.
Since October, a Paris magistrate has been investigating
complaints that $180 million was paid in secret commissions
from the late 1990s to 2002 from funds established by the
consortium. Cheney was Halliburton's chief executive from
1995 to 2000.
In a letter to the attorney general's department, magistrate
Reynaud van Ruymbeke ruled out directly prosecuting Cheney
on a charge of bribing foreign officials but he did not exclude
prosecution on the grounds of complicity in the misuse of
corporate assets.
- Doug Ireland, is a longtime contributor to The Nation
magazine. His latest Nation piece is "Will the French
Indict Cheney?" He has been a columnist for the Village
Voice, the New York Observer and the Paris daily Libération.
He is also a contributing editor of POZ, the monthly for
the HIV-positive community.
8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break
8:21-8:50 Presidential Candidate Moseley Braun Denies
Support For Past Nigerian Dictatorship; Brother of Slain Nigerian
Activist Disagrees
INTRO: When asked in a recent Democratic Presidential debate
to describe a mistake in her career, candidate Carol Moseley
Braun described a politically “devastating” trip
she took to Nigeria in 1996 under the dictatorship of Sani
Abacha. Moseley Braun came under criticism for supporting
the regime. Abacha had executed activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and
8 others months before. In the first extensive interview she
has done on this in years, we speak with Amb. Moseley Braun
as well as the late Ken Saro-Wiwa’s brother Dr. Owens
Wiwa and Africa researcher Mike Fleshman.
Unfortunately, shoring up dictators has been a bi-partisan
affair for years. Certainly in the case of Nigeria. The internationally
renowned playwright and Ogoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged
by the Nigerian junta in 1995, when Bill Clinton was president.
Saro-Wiwa’s crime was organizing an international campaign
against the Shell oil corporation for the environmental devastation
it was causing in the Niger Delta and its close relationship
with the military junta. The Clinton administration did not
intervene to prevent the execution of Saro-Wiwa and 8 other
Ogoni leaders, instead opting to aggressively pursue its advocacy
of US corporate involvement in the country. The current National
Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice was on the board of the
Chevron corporation for more than a decade, including in May
1998 when Chevron was involved in the killing of indigenous
villagers in the Niger Delta. Rice’s involvement with
Chevron was so valued by the corporation that she had a Chevron
oil tanker named after her.
Today, we take a look at the role of former U.S. Senator
and Democratic presidential candidate Carol Moseley Braun.
It was the issue of Nigeria that many believe caused Moseley
Braun to lose her reelection bid.
In August 1996, Moseley Braun traveled to Nigeria and attended
the funeral of Ibrahim Abacha, the son of then-dictator Sani
Abacha. She said at the time "I was on a holiday and
I wanted to see [Sani Abacha’s wife.] I have a personal
relationship with her. I wanted to express my sympathy because
her son was killed." During the trip, she also met with
the dictator Abacha.
In Sunday’s Iowa Democratic Presidential debate, when
all of the candidates were asked to describe a mistake in
their careers, she responded:
“I went to the funeral of a friend who had been assassinated,
and the right wing was able to convert that into dancing with
dictators and overturned a 25-year record of fighting for
human rights.
“Having worked on every human rights issue from the
time I got into public life, to see that one funeral visit,
memorial service visit, turned into the kind of political
issue that it was for me was really devastating.
“What did I learn? I learned: have press conferences
before you go on any kind of trip outside of Illinois.”
We caught up with Moseley Braun a few weeks ago and spoke
with her about her trips to Nigeria.
- Mike Fleshman, journalist and researcher. In 1999, Fleshman,
then the Human Rights Coordinator for The Africa Fund in
New York, traveled to the River Niger Delta oil fields in
southern Nigeria to witness, at first hand, the impact of
the petroleum industry on local communities and the environment.
- Dr. Owens Wiwa, executive director of African Environmental
and Human Development Agency (AFRIDA). Owens Wiwa is the
brother of the late Nigerian writer and environmentalist
Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was the president of the Movement for
the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). Ken Saro-Wiwa
was executed by the Nigerian military government on November
10, 1995. Owens Wiwa escaped Nigeria just days after his
brother's execution.
Link: www.afrida.org
8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break
8:41-8:58 Las Vegas Hotels, Airlines Ordered By FBI
To Turn Over Guest Info
INTRO: We speak with the ACLU about the FBI’s demand
for guest and passenger information in Las Vegas over the
New Year’s holiday period using the Patriot Act and
subsequent rounds of anti-terrorism legislation passed to
give the FBI an expansion of its information-gathering powers
without judicial oversight.
The U.S. was thrown into high alert in December when the
Department of Homeland Security upped the nation’s warning
level to Code Orange days before Christmas.
Officials across the country have been taking what they call
“security measures” in response to the elevated
threat level.
Although you may think these measures have not affected you,
if you spent this New Year’s in Las Vegas – think
again.
The FBI ordered Las Vegas hotels and airlines serving McCarran
International Airport to give them information on guests and
travelers. The hotel operators and airlines are being required
to turn over the information for everyone at least during
the New Year’s holiday period.
Newsweek, which broke the story, reported that when one hotel
refused to turn over the information, the government subpoenaed
the records.
- Gary Peck is executive director of the Nevada chapter
of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Link: www.aclunv.org
8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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