Trouble & Attitude 1/Trouble and Attitude - Issue 01.iso/pc/mactext/ewrepa3.txt

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(Beginning of Part 3)

Soysal clashed with Prime Minister Çiller over
the issue of amending the current anti-terrorism
law and personally opposed her new privatization
program.  But Soysal╒s disruptive stances also
affected his performance as foreign minister.  His
intense nationalism informed his official state-
ments and exacerbated frictions with Greece over
Athens╒ territorial claims in the Aegean, regarding
Cyprus and with other European governments.
Many in Ankara╒s Foreign Ministry thought him a
serious impediment to Turkey╒s efforts to gain
admittance to the European Union.

                      The Green Machine

Environmental audits are becoming the tool of
convenience for national environmental managers
seeking to enforce uniformity and transparency in
developing or meeting national environmental
strategies.  For a long time, environmental audits
were regarded as an additional element of the
public relations or advertising budget - especially
useful outside the United States.  Since the
mid-1970s, the European Union (EU) has passed
more than 200 environmental laws binding on
member countries as minimum environmental
standards and requirements.

It is likely that the environmental audit will
become as common as the financial audit expected
from each company annually.  Companies soon
may be required to submit correctly audited envi-
ronmental accounts; and failure to meet require-
ments and standards may have consequences for
company executives.  Those European executives
who fall short on meeting minimum environmen-
tal requirements will likely be faced with jail
terms rather than corporate fines.

As a result, environmental accounting is mov-
ing away from the old concept of national envi-
ronmental accounts that include environmental
losses, expenditures and gains in the national
product accounting cycle, to a straightforward and
auditable annual environmental accounting system.
Similar to tax requirements, environmental
requirements will include auditable documentation
to be presented annually, showing compliance and
acceptable accountability.

Fines imposed on corporations for environmen-
tal misdemeanors rarely deterred industries from
continuing to pollute perhaps at another location.
Making executives liable personally with convic-
tions probable and leading to servable prison time
brings a new dimension to acceptable business
practices.  Recently, a Glasgow court sentenced an
executive to six months in jail for storing hazar-
dous materials at an unlicensed site.  A correctly
verified environmental audit would have been the
only acceptable line of defense - but he lacked it.

July 1994 was the deadline for national desig-
nation of official bodies to accredit organizations
capable of verifying environmental audits.  These
can include government entities, chartered
accounting firms such as Coopers and Lybrand or
Wollert-Elmendorff Deloitte International Tomi-
hatsu (WEDIT), environmental companies and
individuals best categorized as corporate all-
rounders with some knowledge of industry and its
impact on the environment, as well as a grounding
in auditing procedures.

Beginning in 1995, auditors must be qualified
to conduct tri-annual external audits of European
companies╒ production systems, with a particular
focus on environmental compliance.  In tandem
with the increasingly essential ISO 9000 quality
control system, the environmental audit will be

based on overall management controls rather than
on arbitrary standards.  The EU is drafting an
Eco-Management and Audit scheme to require
companies to show they have sought to introduce
a thorough environmental management system and
that they are capable of effectively answering
charges of negligence or of connivance.

Environmental auditors must be certified by
the EU.  Eventually the audit information will be
made accessible to investors, corporate clients,
customers and environmental interest groups.
This will likely lead to information data bases on
releases of pollutants and other materials to the
environment, as well as on general information
regarding each company╒s environmental com-
pliance.  Now there is a fine line between preser-
vation of sensitive corporate information - partic-
ularly any client-sensitive data - and the trans-
parency required by any open auditing system.

The resulting explosion in available informa-
tion also could make countries more accountable
for their contribution to international pollution
and better assign accountability nationally for
ongoing pollution.  Such data may give interna-
tional environmental groups ammunition to cam-
paign more stringent compliance.  Yet, the
requirements for relative transparency also could
press multinationals to seek alternate venues for
industrialization.  Environmental compliance
among the EU nations, not reciprocated in East-
ern Europe or the former Soviet Union, could
eventually lead to trade problems and acrimony.

Finally, there is always the room to maneuver
in any formalized audit situation - once the sys-
tem is stratified and made routine.  Interest
groups may attack it if not applied even-handedly
between industries.  Within the EU, enforcement
issues will arise.  Some countries will be perceived
as having more stringent requirements than others.
This could skew trade and industrial development.
However, by creating and emphasizing a uniform
and standard approach to audits, conducted by
licensed auditors, it should also be possible for the
EU to further emphasize the concept of a fortress
Europe, to reduce the ability of external firms to
compete, and to avoid the legal bonanza exper-
ienced through the U.S. approach to similar issues.

However, a standardized environmental audit-
ing industry could provide the mechanism for
ensuring compliance and good environmental
posture between and among companies nationally
and internationally.  If audits allow for trade
secrecy and competition, the European Union may
have found a way to marginalize green empower-
ment and mainline environmental health while
maximizing financial growth.  If accountability
via audit is for all activities - limited to within
the EU, or on a transnational basis - a redefini-
tion of competitive growth may be required.
Europe could find a cleaner environment and a
new competitive industrial growth market.

                          Tehran╒s Long Arm

Even before last month╒s Casablanca Economic
Conference for the Middle East and North Africa,
an event hosted by the government of Morocco,
attended by more than 1,500 businessmen and 900
political officials from most of the region╒s gov-
ernments, Iran was denouncing in harsh terms the
Mideast peace process.  Iran especially condemns
all regional Muslim countries participating in the
peace process.  Information developed from Arab
sources indicates Iran may be in process of pre-
paring some violent object lesson through which
to make evident its determination to oppose a
peace settlement.

The Casablanca meeting, which was keynoted
by Morocco╒s King Hassan II, served to establish
economic parameters for the ongoing Mideast
peace process.

As the various governments of the Mideast and
North Africa proceed towards bilateral peace
treaties and trade with Israel, it becomes of
extreme importance to demonstrate to their citi-
zens that peace will bring concrete economic
improvements in their lives.  As Crown Prince
Hassan of Jordan noted, the region has a com-
bined population of 250 million people and a
gross domestic product of $580 billion.  Many
Mideastern economies are under heavy state con-
trol and military expenditures are disproportion-
ately high.  Prince Hassan expressed firm support
for privatization, trade and profit, noting that ╥It
is from profit of companies that society can rea-
sonably levy taxes to finance its wider needs.╙
Yasir Arafat emphasized the precarious economy
of the Palestinian autonomous area, where unem-
ployment is above 50 percent.

During the Casablanca conference, Qatari
Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad Bin-Jasim Bin-
Jabr al-Thani met with his Israeli counterpart,
Shimon Peres, to discuss Israeli imports of Qatari
natural gas and details official recognition, said to
be imminent.  Oman too was reported ready to
recognize Israel.  Bahrain and the United Arab
Emirates used the conference to establish open
contacts with Israel.

Muslim regional sources subsequently have
maintained that Iran has mobilized terrorist assets
intending to assert its interests by ╥sending a
message╙ to the countries involved in the peace
process that there will be no peace unless Tehran
is mollified.  The message, according to these
sources, will be delivered first to Morocco and



Qatar in a spectacular fashion, with bombing
attacks on a telecommunications facility and on an
oil pipeline.

The sources of the report regarding the
planned new round of attacks firmly believe that
Iran has called on its terrorist assets among the
Afghan mujaheddin fighting against the Soviet
Union to attack the leaders and the infrastructure
of Morocco and Qatar.  According to this report a
small group of potential terrorists have been
selected and have received updated training in the
Sudan for operations against specific targets.

It is possible that Iran may be making credible
threats in a subtle manner using indirect means in
order to disrupt the economic and diplomatic
aspects of the peace process without attracting the
concerted opposition that an open threat would
provoke.  Within this context it must be consid-
ered that the English-language Tehran Times
specifically warned Jordan╒s King Hussein to
╥beware the fate╙ of assassinated Egyptian Presi-
dent Anwar Sadat and that the King of Morocco,
whose family traces its descent to the Prophet
Mohammed, is anathema to the region╒s extremists
for his successful - and lucrative - peacemaking
effort.  However, while the most recent threats
involve Qatar and Morocco, it cannot be ruled out
that other regional governments in the Gulf or
North Africa may become priority targets or tar-
gets of opportunity.

There is no mistaking that Tehran╒s revolution-
aries see the Mideast╒s secular Muslim govern-
ments as impediments.  Iranian-controlled groups
have a track record of deadly attacks on the key
infrastructure and leaders of targeted states.
During the 1980s, an Iranian-controlled motley
organization of Shi╒ite terrorists including
Kuwait╒s Islamic Jihad, the Iraqi Dawa [Call]
party, and Lebanon╒s Hezbollah  [Party of God]
carried out car bombings targeting Kuwait╒s royal
family, key infrastructure and the French and
U.S. embassies.  Kuwait was targeted because, at
the insistence of Baghdad, it opened its foreign
exchange holdings to Iraq and purchased arms and
ammunition for the war with Iran.  In May 1985,
for example, the Emir of Kuwait was injured and
six people were killed when a Dawa car-bomb
exploded near his motorcade. Iran additionally has
sponsored coup plots in Bahrain and other Gulf
states.  Now Iranian agents are said to be checking
out airport security in Europe to see if unaccom-
panied bags on connecting flights get through.

Published by TMI Print.
P.O. Box 1651, Washington, DC 20013. [phone]. Fax: [phone].
Editor: John Rees. Managing Editor: Martha Powers. Foreign Editor: Karen Damha.  Senior Editor: Robert Vollmer.
Staff Writer: David Rhodes. Researcher: Erna Wollert. Editorial Assistant: Bonnie Ebling.
ISSN 1049-9784  Copyright 1994.

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