FIFA Ethics committee question Blazer after complaint

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 FIFA's Ethics Committee has questioned CONCACAF general secretary Chuck Blazer, the whistle-blower in the cash-for-votes scandal, after complaints about his behaviour from Caribbean federations.

The official complaint to FIFA was made in a letter to the committee signed by 11 Caribbean federations.

The complaint is related to Blazer's behaviour at a CONCACAF meeting before the FIFA Congress last month in Zurich, Switzerland and does not refer in any way to the bribery issues currently under investigation by the world soccer body.

The letter said that Blazer made "statements of contempt and slander that served to impugn the integrity, discriminate against and infringe upon the personal rights" of CONCACAF members.

In an email to Reuters, Blazer confirmed he had heard from the Ethics Committee regarding the issue.

"I have received an inquiry from the secretary of the Ethics Committee to respond to a complaint filed by the Jamaica Football Federation," Blazer said.

"I will respond to the committee fully and I am confident of a positive resolution," he added.

The meeting came after Blazer had filed a dossier to the Ethics Committee containing allegations of bribery relating to a meeting in Port of Spain, Trinidad, between Caribbean federations and Asian soccer chief Mohammed Bin Hammam.

A Caribbean soccer source told ,the meeting was heated and involved a row over who should take over as acting president after Warner was suspended, during which Blazer told some Caribbean officials they faced investigation.

Bin Hammam and then CONCACAF president Jack Warner were subsequently suspended by the Ethics Committee pending a full investigation.

That probe gets under way in earnest on Wednesday with Caribbean representatives being interviewed by FIFA investigators in the Bahamas.

Read More

Pakistan Leaders Must Make Choice After Clinton’s Warning: View

Illustration by Bloomberg View

By the Editors Jun 2, 2011 6:29 AM GMT+0600 0 Comments

• 
  

When U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Pakistan last week, she noted that U.S.- Pakistani relations were at a turning point after the killing of Osama bin Laden. It was up to the Pakistanis, she said, to decide “what kind of country they wish to live in.”
The brutalized body of investigative journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad, which turned up outside of Islamabad on May 31, may provide a clue to the answer.
Shahzad disappeared after publishing the first of two promised articles linking elements of the Pakistan navy to al- Qaeda following a deadly May 22 attack on a Karachi naval station. Last fall, after being questioned about a different story by Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Shahzad wrote that he was threatened by the spy agency.
Alternatively, it could be that foul play like Shahzad’s murder will become a thing of the past in Pakistan. While in Islamabad May 27, Clinton and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen demanded authorities take “decisive steps” to crush the violent extremists the government has long supported, which would end the need to intimidate journalists who expose that support. Whichever way the Pakistan government goes, the May warnings by the U.S. ought to be the last.
The U.S. administration has continued to insist, as President Barack Obama did in a May 22 interview with the BBC, that the Pakistanis have “generally been significant and serious partners against the terrorist threat to the West.” This simply isn’t the case.

Victim, Sponsor

For much of the past decade, Pakistan has been both a victim and a sponsor of Islamic militants. Its soldiers are fighting bravely against homegrown terrorists seeking to install an Islamic government. In 20 attacks in May, these radicals killed some 150 people.
At the same time, the Pakistani army, led by General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, is a longstanding patron of violent groups targeting Afghanistan and India. Guided by excessive fear bordering on paranoia about India, Pakistan’s military and intelligence services believe that nurturing those extremists is an effective way to frustrate India’s regional ambitions. The ISI largely created and continues to support the Taliban and the Haqqani Network, the principal groups battling U.S. forces in Afghanistan and the fledgling government in Kabul. It also backs Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group responsible for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai that killed more than 160 people.

Double-Dealing

President George W. Bush’s administration tried to end this double-dealing by giving Pakistan billions in economic and military assistance. Yet Bush didn’t make the aid contingent on a crackdown on extremists. The Pakistanis cooperated somewhat with U.S. efforts to dismantle al-Qaeda but refused to act against other groups, including the Afghan Taliban, which was given refuge inside Pakistan’s borders.
The Obama administration accelerated the failed Bush policy, substantially increasing military and economic assistance, again without imposing rigorous conditions. And Pakistan continued to ignore administration warnings about continued support for extremists.
In one incident reported by the Washington Post, Obama’s first national security adviser, James Jones, warned officials in Islamabad that there would be “consequences” if a terrorist attack directed at the U.S. was traced to Pakistan. Yet when a man who had trained at a terrorist camp in that country attempted to detonate a car bomb in Times Square in May 2010, the U.S. administration did nothing. Shortly thereafter, Obama watered down Jones’s words, telling Kayani that a “successful” attack would have consequences.

Meaning Business

So when U.S. authorities learned that Osama bin Laden might be housed in a villa in a Pakistani garrison town, they dispatched Navy Seals to capture or kill him without so much as notifying the Pakistanis in advance. The raid provoked great outrage from officials in Pakistan. Since then, emotions have cooled. Clinton and Mullen have delivered their warnings, public and private. And this time, the Americans may mean business.
Will the Pakistanis respond?
Shahzad’s murder is a bad sign. On the other hand, reports from Pakistani tribal leaders suggest that the Pakistani army may be preparing a serious campaign in North Waziristan, where the leaders of the Haqqani Network and other extremist groups live.
It will soon be clear whether Clinton’s latest message got through. If not, the administration must consider new ways to persuade Pakistan to change course, recognizing that the country is behaving more like an adversary than a partner

Advertisement

Ads by google

Read More