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Aide to arafat accuses us of blackmail { February 5 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12810-2004Feb4.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12810-2004Feb4.html
Aide to Arafat Accuses U.S. of Blackmail
Assistance Withheld Because Case of Slain Americans Unsolved, Official Says
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 5, 2004; Page A17
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Feb. 4 -- A senior Palestinian security official and top aide to leader Yasser Arafat accused the United States on Wednesday of blackmailing the Palestinian Authority over its failure to arrest and prosecute those responsible for the October killing of three American security guards in the Gaza Strip.
Brig. Gen. Jibril Rajoub, Arafat's national security adviser, complained in a news conference with foreign reporters that the U.S. Embassy had stopped sending diplomats and other personnel into the Gaza Strip and West Bank because the Palestinians had not solved the case.
Afterward, he said his remarks also referred to a U.S. threat to cut off funding to the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority -- amounting to roughly $200 million a year for health, education, water and other programs run by the U.S. Agency for International Development -- because so little progress was being made in the investigation.
A U.S. official confirmed that the threat had been made on several occasions.
"The Americans stopped their involvement, waiting for the results of the investigation. I think that's blackmailing," Rajoub told reporters. "Americans are using this isolated case in order either to not be involved [in efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict] or to blackmail the Palestinian people."
In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said comments such as Rajoub's were "ridiculous."
"Our position is that there needs to be a resolution of the security situation in Gaza, including apprehension of those who were responsible for the killing of U.S. officials there," Boucher said. "We have seen some cooperation, but we think that cooperation needs to be further increased. And that's something we do talk to the Palestinians about on a regular basis."
In addition, Boucher said, "as far as our assistance programs, whether it's through the U.N. or in terms of our assistance to Palestinians through other nongovernmental and other organizations, that kind of assistance continues. USAID programs with the Palestinians continue."
A U.S. official in Tel Aviv said embassy workers have been prohibited from traveling in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since October "because we have security concerns."
The killing, which took place on Oct. 15, occurred when a buried roadside bomb was detonated underneath a Chevrolet Suburban carrying American security guards who were escorting a U.S. diplomat traveling in another vehicle. Three of the guards were killed and one was seriously injured.
After the attack, U.S., Israeli and Palestinian officials concluded that the attackers knew the convoy was carrying Americans and had deliberately targeted them. It was the first time in the current Palestinian uprising, which began in September 2000, that workers from the U.S. Embassy were singled out for attack.
Immediately after the incident, Palestinian security officers arrested several members of the Popular Resistance Committees, a loose-knit group of disaffected members of larger Palestinian militant groups, principally the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of Arafat's Fatah political movement.
In interviews with The Washington Post, leaders of the group have denied that their members were involved in the attack. At least three members of the organization remain in the custody of Palestinian security forces.
Briefing reporters recently, a senior U.S. official said that "we are continuing to get cooperation" from Palestinian security officials in the investigation. But, he added, "we are not happy" that the probe failed to produce "reliable suspects."
Rajoub told reporters it was unwise for the United States to change its policies toward the Palestinian Authority because of the lack of progress in the case.
"Many Americans are being killed everywhere, even in Iraq, even in Afghanistan, and the Americans are trying, and the Americans are investigating, and still they haven't arrested those people," he said. "I don't think they should blame the Palestinian Authority. But you should know, we have the commitment, we have the interest to solve, to arrest, to send those guys to the court. But we should not be blackmailed on this issue."
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
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