Democracy Now! February 25, 2002

9:01-9:06 HEADLINES STORY: COLOMBIAN BLACK HAWKS HIT FARC REBEL ZONE Ten US-supplied Black Hawk helicopters dropped 200 heavily-armed lite Colombian paratroopers into the capital of a former rebel stronghold yesterday, as the government poured in ground troops to recapture the zone. One day after President Andres Pastrana launched a bombing campaign against the haven ceded to FARC--the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- in 1998 as a peace gesture, soldiers met little resistance from FARC. The president abruptly declared the end to the ceasefire after FARC hijacked a civilian airliner to kidnap a senator on board last week. Pastrana flew into the former haven under heavy security today, and told about 1,000 people gathered in the town square that the rebels had ruined peace talks and would now be treated as terrorists. Three civilians, including a child, were killed in bombing raids of rebel drug laboratories and airstrips. The United Nations has asked for access to the zone to monitor the effect on the civilian population, but the Colombian government denied the request. GUEST: Martin Eder, professor of Sociology at MiraCosta College in Southern California 9:06-9:07 ONE-MINUTE MUSIC BREAK 9:07-9:20 BIN LADEN: THE FORBIDDEN TRUTH ABOUT BUSH, OIL AND WASHINGTON'S SECRET NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE TALIBAN At Democracy Now! we have often called the Bush administration the Oiligarchy. Vice-President Dick Cheney of course was the president of Halliburton, a company that provides services for the oil industry. For nearly a decade, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice worked with Chevron, while secretaries of commerce and energy, Donald Evans and Spencer Abraham, worked for another oil giant. Many of the US officials now working on the administration's Afghanistan policy also have extensive backgrounds in the world of multinational oil giants. An explosive new book published originally in France is revealing some extraordinary details of the extent to which US oil corporations influenced the Bush administration's policies toward the Taliban regime prior to September 11th. The book is called Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth. And it paints a detailed picture of the Bush administration's secret negotiations with the Taliban government in the months and weeks before the attacks on the World Trade Center. It charges that under the influence of US oil companies the Bush administration blocked U.S. secret service investigations on terrorism. It tells the story of how the administration conducted secret negotiations with the Taliban to hand-over Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid. The book says that Washington's main aim in Afghanistan prior to September 11th was consolidating the Taliban regime, in order to obtain access to the oil and gas reserves in Central Asia. The authors claim that before the September 11th attacks, Christina Rocca, the head of Asian Affairs in the US State Department, met the Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef in Islamabad on August 2. Rocca is a veteran of US involvement in Afghanistan. She was previously in charge of contacts with Islamist guerrilla groups at the CIA, where she oversaw the delivery of Stinger missiles to Afghan mujahideen fighting the Soviet occupation forces in the 1980s. The book also reveals that the Taliban actually hired an American public relations' expert for an image-making campaign in the US. What's amazing is that the PR officer was a woman named Laila Helms, who is the niece of former CIA director Richard Helms. Helms is described as the Mata Hari of US-Taliban negotiations. The authors claim that she brought Sayed Rahmatullah Hashimi, an advisor to Mullah Omar, to Washington for five days in March 2001 - after the Taliban had destroyed the ancient Buddhas of Bamiyan. Hashimi met the Directorate of Central Intelligence at the CIA, and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department. The book also says that the Deputy Director of the FBI, John O'Neill, resigned in July in protest of the Bush administration's obstruction of an investigation into alleged Taliban terrorist activities. O'Neill then became head of security at the World Trade Center. He died in the September 11th attacks. I spoke recently with the authors of Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth: Guillaume Dasquie who is an investigative journalist and publisher of Intelligence Online. And Jean Charles Brissard who previously worked for the French Secret Services. I began by asking Brissard what former FBI deputy director John ONeill told him during their meetings. GUEST: Jean-Charles Brisard, co-author of Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth. He has worked for the French Secret Services and wrote a report for them in 1997 on Bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. GUEST: Guillaume Dasquie, co-author of Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth. He is an investigative journalist and publisher of Intelligence Online.ON TAPE 9:20-9:21 ONE-MINUTE MUSIC BREAK 9:21-9:40 BIN LADEN: THE FORBIDDEN TRUTH ABOUT BUSH, OIL AND WASHINGTON'S SECRET NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE TALIBAN, contd GUEST: Jean-Charles Brisard, co-author of Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth. He has worked for the French Secret Services and wrote a report for them in 1997 on Bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. GUEST: Guillaume Dasquie, co-author of Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth. He is an investigative journalist and publisher of Intelligence Online.ON TAPE 9:40-9:41 ONE-MINUTE MUSIC BREAK 9:41-9:58 CIA-BACKED REBEL JONAS SAVIMBI KILLED IN ANGOLA The Angolan government has displayed the dead body of CIA sponsored rebel leader Jonas Savimbi. Government officials say he was killed in a commando raid in the far eastern region of the country on Friday. Savimbi was head of the Washington-backed UNITA movement. He was touted as a key ally against communism by the US and was received as a head of state by President Reagan at the White House in 1986. In addition to the millions of dollars he received from Washington in covert aid, Savimbi and UNITA also had substantial backing from the white apartheid government in South Africa as well as the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. Over the weekend, people throughout the Angolan capital celebrated his death. Film of Savimbis bloodied body was shown on state TV. The body was surrounded by soldiers and swarms of flies. He was still clad in his olive fatigues and had an apparent bullet hole in his neck. GUEST: ELOMBE BRATH, is the chair of the Patrice Lamumba Coalition and a producer at WBAI in New York. MUSIC: 6 WAR / by Edwin Starr from The Very Best of Edwin Starr (Motown CD) 40 TODAY / by the Red Guard from Shame The Devil (Hip-Hop tells the truth about the prison industrial complex) compilation CD www.boksnotbars.org / www.freedomfighters.ws End OVER THE RAINBOW by Sarah Vaughn / by Israel Kanakanolde 9:58-9:59 OUTRO AND CREDITS