2004-05-03
TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB
TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go?
Issue of 2004-05-10
Posted 2004-04-30
In the era of Saddam Hussein, Abu Ghraib, twenty miles west of Baghdad, was one of the world’s most notorious prisons, with torture, weekly executions, and vile living conditions. As many as fifty thousand men and women—no accurate count is possible—were jammed into Abu Ghraib at one time, in twelve-by-twelve-foot cells that were little more than human holding pits.
In the looting that followed the regime’s collapse, last April, the huge prison complex, by then deserted, was stripped of everything that could be removed, including doors, windows, and bricks. The coalition authorities had the floors tiled, cells cleaned and repaired, and toilets, showers, and a new medical center added. Abu Ghraib was now a U.S. military prison. Most of the prisoners, however—by the fall there were several thousand, including women and teen-agers—were civilians, many of whom had been picked up in random military sweeps and at highway checkpoints. They fell into three loosely defined categories: common criminals; security detainees suspected of “crimes against the coalition”; and a small number of suspected “high-value” leaders of the insurgency against the coalition forces.
Last June, Janis Karpinski, an Army reserve brigadier general, was named commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade and put in charge of military prisons in Iraq. General Karpinski, the only female commander in the war zone, was an experienced operations and intelligence officer who had served with the Special Forces and in the 1991 Gulf War, but she had never run a prison system. Now she was in charge of three large jails, eight battalions, and thirty-four hundred Army reservists, most of whom, like her, had no training in handling prisoners.
General Karpinski, who had wanted to be a soldier since she was five, is a business consultant in civilian life, and was enthusiastic about her new job. In an interview last December with the St. Petersburg Times, she said that, for many of the Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib, “living conditions now are better in prison than at home. At one point we were concerned that they wouldn’t want to leave.”
A month later, General Karpinski was formally admonished and quietly suspended, and a major investigation into the Army’s prison system, authorized by Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior commander in Iraq, was under way. A fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release, was completed in late February. Its conclusions about the institutional failures of the Army prison system were devastating. Specifically, Taguba found that between October and December of 2003 there were numerous instances of “sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” at Abu Ghraib. This systematic and illegal abuse of detainees, Taguba reported, was perpetrated by soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company, and also by members of the American intelligence community. (The 372nd was attached to the 320th M.P. Battalion, which reported to Karpinski’s brigade headquarters.) Taguba’s report listed some of the wrongdoing:
Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.
There was stunning evidence to support the allegations, Taguba added—“detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence.” Photographs and videos taken by the soldiers as the abuses were happening were not included in his report, Taguba said, because of their “extremely sensitive nature.”
The photographs—several of which were broadcast on CBS’s “60 Minutes 2” last week—show leering G.I.s taunting naked Iraqi prisoners who are forced to assume humiliating poses. Six suspects—Staff Sergeant Ivan L. Frederick II, known as Chip, who was the senior enlisted man; Specialist Charles A. Graner; Sergeant Javal Davis; Specialist Megan Ambuhl; Specialist Sabrina Harman; and Private Jeremy Sivits—are now facing prosecution in Iraq, on charges that include conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty toward prisoners, maltreatment, assault, and indecent acts. A seventh suspect, Private Lynndie England, was reassigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, after becoming pregnant.
The photographs tell it all. In one, Private England, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, is giving a jaunty thumbs-up sign and pointing at the genitals of a young Iraqi, who is naked except for a sandbag over his head, as he masturbates. Three other hooded and naked Iraqi prisoners are shown, hands reflexively crossed over their genitals. A fifth prisoner has his hands at his sides. In another, England stands arm in arm with Specialist Graner; both are grinning and giving the thumbs-up behind a cluster of perhaps seven naked Iraqis, knees bent, piled clumsily on top of each other in a pyramid. There is another photograph of a cluster of naked prisoners, again piled in a pyramid. Near them stands Graner, smiling, his arms crossed; a woman soldier stands in front of him, bending over, and she, too, is smiling. Then, there is another cluster of hooded bodies, with a female soldier standing in front, taking photographs. Yet another photograph shows a kneeling, naked, unhooded male prisoner, head momentarily turned away from the camera, posed to make it appear that he is performing oral sex on another male prisoner, who is naked and hooded.
Such dehumanization is unacceptable in any culture, but it is especially so in the Arab world. Homosexual acts are against Islamic law and it is humiliating for men to be naked in front of other men, Bernard Haykel, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at New York University, explained. “Being put on top of each other and forced to masturbate, being naked in front of each other—it’s all a form of torture,” Haykel said.
Two Iraqi faces that do appear in the photographs are those of dead men. There is the battered face of prisoner No. 153399, and the bloodied body of another prisoner, wrapped in cellophane and packed in ice. There is a photograph of an empty room, splattered with blood.
The 372nd’s abuse of prisoners seemed almost routine—a fact of Army life that the soldiers felt no need to hide. On April 9th, at an Article 32 hearing (the military equivalent of a grand jury) in the case against Sergeant Frederick, at Camp Victory, near Baghdad, one of the witnesses, Specialist Matthew Wisdom, an M.P., told the courtroom what happened when he and other soldiers delivered seven prisoners, hooded and bound, to the so-called “hard site” at Abu Ghraib—seven tiers of cells where the inmates who were considered the most dangerous were housed. The men had been accused of starting a riot in another section of the prison. Wisdom said:
SFC Snider grabbed my prisoner and threw him into a pile. . . . I do not think it was right to put them in a pile. I saw SSG Frederic, SGT Davis and CPL Graner walking around the pile hitting the prisoners. I remember SSG Frederick hitting one prisoner in the side of its [sic] ribcage. The prisoner was no danger to SSG Frederick. . . . I left after that.
When he returned later, Wisdom testified:
I saw two naked detainees, one masturbating to another kneeling with its mouth open. I thought I should just get out of there. I didn’t think it was right . . . I saw SSG Frederick walking towards me, and he said, “Look what these animals do when you leave them alone for two seconds.” I heard PFC England shout out, “He’s getting hard.”
Wisdom testified that he told his superiors what had happened, and assumed that “the issue was taken care of.” He said, “I just didn’t want to be part of anything that looked criminal.”
The abuses became public because of the outrage of Specialist Joseph M. Darby, an M.P. whose role emerged during the Article 32 hearing against Chip Frederick. A government witness, Special Agent Scott Bobeck, who is a member of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, or C.I.D., told the court, according to an abridged transcript made available to me, “The investigation started after SPC Darby . . . got a CD from CPL Graner. . . . He came across pictures of naked detainees.” Bobeck said that Darby had “initially put an anonymous letter under our door, then he later came forward and gave a sworn statement. He felt very bad about it and thought it was very wrong.”
Questioned further, the Army investigator said that Frederick and his colleagues had not been given any “training guidelines” that he was aware of. The M.P.s in the 372nd had been assigned to routine traffic and police duties upon their arrival in Iraq, in the spring of 2003. In October of 2003, the 372nd was ordered to prison-guard duty at Abu Ghraib. Frederick, at thirty-seven, was far older than his colleagues, and was a natural leader; he had also worked for six years as a guard for the Virginia Department of Corrections. Bobeck explained:
What I got is that SSG Frederick and CPL Graner were road M.P.s and were put in charge because they were civilian prison guards and had knowledge of how things were supposed to be run.
Bobeck also testified that witnesses had said that Frederick, on one occasion, “had punched a detainee in the chest so hard that the detainee almost went into cardiac arrest.”
At the Article 32 hearing, the Army informed Frederick and his attorneys, Captain Robert Shuck, an Army lawyer, and Gary Myers, a civilian, that two dozen witnesses they had sought, including General Karpinski and all of Frederick’s co-defendants, would not appear. Some had been excused after exercising their Fifth Amendment right; others were deemed to be too far away from the courtroom. “The purpose of an Article 32 hearing is for us to engage witnesses and discover facts,” Gary Myers told me. “We ended up with a c.i.d. agent and no alleged victims to examine.” After the hearing, the presiding investigative officer ruled that there was sufficient evidence to convene a court-martial against Frederick.
Myers, who was one of the military defense attorneys in the My Lai prosecutions of the nineteen-seventies, told me that his client’s defense will be that he was carrying out the orders of his superiors and, in particular, the directions of military intelligence. He said, “Do you really think a group of kids from rural Virginia decided to do this on their own? Decided that the best way to embarrass Arabs and make them talk was to have them walk around nude?”
In letters and e-mails to family members, Frederick repeatedly noted that the military-intelligence teams, which included C.I.A. officers and linguists and interrogation specialists from private defense contractors, were the dominant force inside Abu Ghraib. In a letter written in January, he said:
I questioned some of the things that I saw . . . such things as leaving inmates in their cell with no clothes or in female underpants, handcuffing them to the door of their cell—and the answer I got was, “This is how military intelligence (MI) wants it done.” . . . . MI has also instructed us to place a prisoner in an isolation cell with little or no clothes, no toilet or running water, no ventilation or window, for as much as three days.
The military-intelligence officers have “encouraged and told us, ‘Great job,’ they were now getting positive results and information,” Frederick wrote. “CID has been present when the military working dogs were used to intimidate prisoners at MI’s request.” At one point, Frederick told his family, he pulled aside his superior officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Phillabaum, the commander of the 320th M.P. Battalion, and asked about the mistreatment of prisoners. “His reply was ‘Don’t worry about it.’”
In November, Frederick wrote, an Iraqi prisoner under the control of what the Abu Ghraib guards called “O.G.A.,” or other government agencies—that is, the C.I.A. and its paramilitary employees—was brought to his unit for questioning. “They stressed him out so bad that the man passed away. They put his body in a body bag and packed him in ice for approximately twenty-four hours in the shower. . . . The next day the medics came and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake IV in his arm and took him away.” The dead Iraqi was never entered into the prison’s inmate-control system, Frederick recounted, “and therefore never had a number.”
Frederick’s defense is, of course, highly self-serving. But the complaints in his letters and e-mails home were reinforced by two internal Army reports—Taguba’s and one by the Army’s chief law-enforcement officer, Provost Marshal Donald Ryder, a major general.
Last fall, General Sanchez ordered Ryder to review the prison system in Iraq and recommend ways to improve it. Ryder’s report, filed on November 5th, concluded that there were potential human-rights, training, and manpower issues, system-wide, that needed immediate attention. It also discussed serious concerns about the tension between the missions of the military police assigned to guard the prisoners and the intelligence teams who wanted to interrogate them. Army regulations limit intelligence activity by the M.P.s to passive collection. But something had gone wrong at Abu Ghraib.
There was evidence dating back to the Afghanistan war, the Ryder report said, that M.P.s had worked with intelligence operatives to “set favorable conditions for subsequent interviews”—a euphemism for breaking the will of prisoners. “Such actions generally run counter to the smooth operation of a detention facility, attempting to maintain its population in a compliant and docile state.” General Karpinski’s brigade, Ryder reported, “has not been directed to change its facility procedures to set the conditions for MI interrogations, nor participate in those interrogations.” Ryder called for the establishment of procedures to “define the role of military police soldiers . . .clearly separating the actions of the guards from those of the military intelligence personnel.” The officers running the war in Iraq were put on notice.
Ryder undercut his warning, however, by concluding that the situation had not yet reached a crisis point. Though some procedures were flawed, he said, he found “no military police units purposely applying inappropriate confinement practices.” His investigation was at best a failure and at worst a coverup.
Taguba, in his report, was polite but direct in refuting his fellow-general. “Unfortunately, many of the systemic problems that surfaced during [Ryder’s] assessment are the very same issues that are the subject of this investigation,” he wrote. “In fact, many of the abuses suffered by detainees occurred during, or near to, the time of that assessment.” The report continued, “Contrary to the findings of MG Ryder’s report, I find that personnel assigned to the 372nd MP Company, 800th MP Brigade were directed to change facility procedures to ‘set the conditions’ for MI interrogations.” Army intelligence officers, C.I.A. agents, and private contractors “actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses.”
Taguba backed up his assertion by citing evidence from sworn statements to Army C.I.D. investigators. Specialist Sabrina Harman, one of the accused M.P.s, testified that it was her job to keep detainees awake, including one hooded prisoner who was placed on a box with wires attached to his fingers, toes, and penis. She stated, “MI wanted to get them to talk. It is Graner and Frederick’s job to do things for MI and OGA to get these people to talk.”
Another witness, Sergeant Javal Davis, who is also one of the accused, told C.I.D. investigators, “I witnessed prisoners in the MI hold section . . . being made to do various things that I would question morally. . . . We were told that they had different rules.” Taguba wrote, “Davis also stated that he had heard MI insinuate to the guards to abuse the inmates. When asked what MI said he stated: ‘Loosen this guy up for us.’‘Make sure he has a bad night.’‘Make sure he gets the treatment.’” Military intelligence made these comments to Graner and Frederick, Davis said. “The MI staffs to my understanding have been giving Graner compliments . . . statements like, ‘Good job, they’re breaking down real fast. They answer every question. They’re giving out good information.’”
When asked why he did not inform his chain of command about the abuse, Sergeant Davis answered, “Because I assumed that if they were doing things out of the ordinary or outside the guidelines, someone would have said something. Also the wing”—where the abuse took place—“belongs to MI and it appeared MI personnel approved of the abuse.”
Another witness, Specialist Jason Kennel, who was not accused of wrongdoing, said, “I saw them nude, but MI would tell us to take away their mattresses, sheets, and clothes.” (It was his view, he added, that if M.I. wanted him to do this “they needed to give me paperwork.”) Taguba also cited an interview with Adel L. Nakhla, a translator who was an employee of Titan, a civilian contractor. He told of one night when a “bunch of people from MI” watched as a group of handcuffed and shackled inmates were subjected to abuse by Graner and Frederick.
General Taguba saved his harshest words for the military-intelligence officers and private contractors. He recommended that Colonel Thomas Pappas, the commander of one of the M.I. brigades, be reprimanded and receive non-judicial punishment, and that Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, the former director of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center, be relieved of duty and reprimanded. He further urged that a civilian contractor, Steven Stephanowicz, of CACI International, be fired from his Army job, reprimanded, and denied his security clearances for lying to the investigating team and allowing or ordering military policemen “who were not trained in interrogation techniques to facilitate interrogations by ‘setting conditions’ which were neither authorized” nor in accordance with Army regulations. “He clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse,” Taguba wrote. He also recommended disciplinary action against a second CACI employee, John Israel. (A spokeswoman for CACI said that the company had “received no formal communication” from the Army about the matter.)
“I suspect,” Taguba concluded, that Pappas, Jordan, Stephanowicz, and Israel “were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuse at Abu Ghraib,” and strongly recommended immediate disciplinary action.
The problems inside the Army prison system in Iraq were not hidden from senior commanders. During Karpinski’s seven-month tour of duty, Taguba noted, there were at least a dozen officially reported incidents involving escapes, attempted escapes, and other serious security issues that were investigated by officers of the 800th M.P. Brigade. Some of the incidents had led to the killing or wounding of inmates and M.P.s, and resulted in a series of “lessons learned” inquiries within the brigade. Karpinski invariably approved the reports and signed orders calling for changes in day-to-day procedures. But Taguba found that she did not follow up, doing nothing to insure that the orders were carried out. Had she done so, he added, “cases of abuse may have been prevented.”
General Taguba further found that Abu Ghraib was filled beyond capacity, and that the M.P. guard force was significantly undermanned and short of resources. “This imbalance has contributed to the poor living conditions, escapes, and accountability lapses,” he wrote. There were gross differences, Taguba said, between the actual number of prisoners on hand and the number officially recorded. A lack of proper screening also meant that many innocent Iraqis were wrongly being detained—indefinitely, it seemed, in some cases. The Taguba study noted that more than sixty per cent of the civilian inmates at Abu Ghraib were deemed not to be a threat to society, which should have enabled them to be released. Karpinski’s defense, Taguba said, was that her superior officers “routinely” rejected her recommendations regarding the release of such prisoners.
Karpinski was rarely seen at the prisons she was supposed to be running, Taguba wrote. He also found a wide range of administrative problems, including some that he considered “without precedent in my military career.” The soldiers, he added, were “poorly prepared and untrained . . . prior to deployment, at the mobilization site, upon arrival in theater, and throughout the mission.”
General Taguba spent more than four hours interviewing Karpinski, whom he described as extremely emotional: “What I found particularly disturbing in her testimony was her complete unwillingness to either understand or accept that many of the problems inherent in the 800th MP Brigade were caused or exacerbated by poor leadership and the refusal of her command to both establish and enforce basic standards and principles among its soldiers.”
Taguba recommended that Karpinski and seven brigade military-police officers and enlisted men be relieved of command and formally reprimanded. No criminal proceedings were suggested for Karpinski; apparently, the loss of promotion and the indignity of a public rebuke were seen as enough punishment.
After the story broke on CBS last week, the Pentagon announced that Major General Geoffrey Miller, the new head of the Iraqi prison system, had arrived in Baghdad and was on the job. He had been the commander of the Guantánamo Bay detention center. General Sanchez also authorized an investigation into possible wrongdoing by military and civilian interrogators.
As the international furor grew, senior military officers, and President Bush, insisted that the actions of a few did not reflect the conduct of the military as a whole. Taguba’s report, however, amounts to an unsparing study of collective wrongdoing and the failure of Army leadership at the highest levels. The picture he draws of Abu Ghraib is one in which Army regulations and the Geneva conventions were routinely violated, and in which much of the day-to-day management of the prisoners was abdicated to Army military-intelligence units and civilian contract employees. Interrogating prisoners and getting intelligence, including by intimidation and torture, was the priority.
The mistreatment at Abu Ghraib may have done little to further American intelligence, however. Willie J. Rowell, who served for thirty-six years as a C.I.D. agent, told me that the use of force or humiliation with prisoners is invariably counterproductive. “They’ll tell you what you want to hear, truth or no truth,” Rowell said. “‘You can flog me until I tell you what I know you want me to say.’ You don’t get righteous information.”
Under the fourth Geneva convention, an occupying power can jail civilians who pose an “imperative” security threat, but it must establish a regular procedure for insuring that only civilians who remain a genuine security threat be kept imprisoned. Prisoners have the right to appeal any internment decision and have their cases reviewed. Human Rights Watch complained to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that civilians in Iraq remained in custody month after month with no charges brought against them. Abu Ghraib had become, in effect, another Guantánamo.
As the photographs from Abu Ghraib make clear, these detentions have had enormous consequences: for the imprisoned civilian Iraqis, many of whom had nothing to do with the growing insurgency; for the integrity of the Army; and for the United States’ reputation in the world.
Captain Robert Shuck, Frederick’s military attorney, closed his defense at the Article 32 hearing last month by saying that the Army was “attempting to have these six soldiers atone for its sins.” Similarly, Gary Myers, Frederick’s civilian attorney, told me that he would argue at the court-martial that culpability in the case extended far beyond his client. “I’m going to drag every involved intelligence officer and civilian contractor I can find into court,” he said. “Do you really believe the Army relieved a general officer because of six soldiers? Not a chance.”
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go?
Issue of 2004-05-10
Posted 2004-04-30
In the era of Saddam Hussein, Abu Ghraib, twenty miles west of Baghdad, was one of the world’s most notorious prisons, with torture, weekly executions, and vile living conditions. As many as fifty thousand men and women—no accurate count is possible—were jammed into Abu Ghraib at one time, in twelve-by-twelve-foot cells that were little more than human holding pits.
In the looting that followed the regime’s collapse, last April, the huge prison complex, by then deserted, was stripped of everything that could be removed, including doors, windows, and bricks. The coalition authorities had the floors tiled, cells cleaned and repaired, and toilets, showers, and a new medical center added. Abu Ghraib was now a U.S. military prison. Most of the prisoners, however—by the fall there were several thousand, including women and teen-agers—were civilians, many of whom had been picked up in random military sweeps and at highway checkpoints. They fell into three loosely defined categories: common criminals; security detainees suspected of “crimes against the coalition”; and a small number of suspected “high-value” leaders of the insurgency against the coalition forces.
Last June, Janis Karpinski, an Army reserve brigadier general, was named commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade and put in charge of military prisons in Iraq. General Karpinski, the only female commander in the war zone, was an experienced operations and intelligence officer who had served with the Special Forces and in the 1991 Gulf War, but she had never run a prison system. Now she was in charge of three large jails, eight battalions, and thirty-four hundred Army reservists, most of whom, like her, had no training in handling prisoners.
General Karpinski, who had wanted to be a soldier since she was five, is a business consultant in civilian life, and was enthusiastic about her new job. In an interview last December with the St. Petersburg Times, she said that, for many of the Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib, “living conditions now are better in prison than at home. At one point we were concerned that they wouldn’t want to leave.”
A month later, General Karpinski was formally admonished and quietly suspended, and a major investigation into the Army’s prison system, authorized by Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior commander in Iraq, was under way. A fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release, was completed in late February. Its conclusions about the institutional failures of the Army prison system were devastating. Specifically, Taguba found that between October and December of 2003 there were numerous instances of “sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” at Abu Ghraib. This systematic and illegal abuse of detainees, Taguba reported, was perpetrated by soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company, and also by members of the American intelligence community. (The 372nd was attached to the 320th M.P. Battalion, which reported to Karpinski’s brigade headquarters.) Taguba’s report listed some of the wrongdoing:
Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.
There was stunning evidence to support the allegations, Taguba added—“detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence.” Photographs and videos taken by the soldiers as the abuses were happening were not included in his report, Taguba said, because of their “extremely sensitive nature.”
The photographs—several of which were broadcast on CBS’s “60 Minutes 2” last week—show leering G.I.s taunting naked Iraqi prisoners who are forced to assume humiliating poses. Six suspects—Staff Sergeant Ivan L. Frederick II, known as Chip, who was the senior enlisted man; Specialist Charles A. Graner; Sergeant Javal Davis; Specialist Megan Ambuhl; Specialist Sabrina Harman; and Private Jeremy Sivits—are now facing prosecution in Iraq, on charges that include conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty toward prisoners, maltreatment, assault, and indecent acts. A seventh suspect, Private Lynndie England, was reassigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, after becoming pregnant.
The photographs tell it all. In one, Private England, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, is giving a jaunty thumbs-up sign and pointing at the genitals of a young Iraqi, who is naked except for a sandbag over his head, as he masturbates. Three other hooded and naked Iraqi prisoners are shown, hands reflexively crossed over their genitals. A fifth prisoner has his hands at his sides. In another, England stands arm in arm with Specialist Graner; both are grinning and giving the thumbs-up behind a cluster of perhaps seven naked Iraqis, knees bent, piled clumsily on top of each other in a pyramid. There is another photograph of a cluster of naked prisoners, again piled in a pyramid. Near them stands Graner, smiling, his arms crossed; a woman soldier stands in front of him, bending over, and she, too, is smiling. Then, there is another cluster of hooded bodies, with a female soldier standing in front, taking photographs. Yet another photograph shows a kneeling, naked, unhooded male prisoner, head momentarily turned away from the camera, posed to make it appear that he is performing oral sex on another male prisoner, who is naked and hooded.
Such dehumanization is unacceptable in any culture, but it is especially so in the Arab world. Homosexual acts are against Islamic law and it is humiliating for men to be naked in front of other men, Bernard Haykel, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at New York University, explained. “Being put on top of each other and forced to masturbate, being naked in front of each other—it’s all a form of torture,” Haykel said.
Two Iraqi faces that do appear in the photographs are those of dead men. There is the battered face of prisoner No. 153399, and the bloodied body of another prisoner, wrapped in cellophane and packed in ice. There is a photograph of an empty room, splattered with blood.
The 372nd’s abuse of prisoners seemed almost routine—a fact of Army life that the soldiers felt no need to hide. On April 9th, at an Article 32 hearing (the military equivalent of a grand jury) in the case against Sergeant Frederick, at Camp Victory, near Baghdad, one of the witnesses, Specialist Matthew Wisdom, an M.P., told the courtroom what happened when he and other soldiers delivered seven prisoners, hooded and bound, to the so-called “hard site” at Abu Ghraib—seven tiers of cells where the inmates who were considered the most dangerous were housed. The men had been accused of starting a riot in another section of the prison. Wisdom said:
SFC Snider grabbed my prisoner and threw him into a pile. . . . I do not think it was right to put them in a pile. I saw SSG Frederic, SGT Davis and CPL Graner walking around the pile hitting the prisoners. I remember SSG Frederick hitting one prisoner in the side of its [sic] ribcage. The prisoner was no danger to SSG Frederick. . . . I left after that.
When he returned later, Wisdom testified:
I saw two naked detainees, one masturbating to another kneeling with its mouth open. I thought I should just get out of there. I didn’t think it was right . . . I saw SSG Frederick walking towards me, and he said, “Look what these animals do when you leave them alone for two seconds.” I heard PFC England shout out, “He’s getting hard.”
Wisdom testified that he told his superiors what had happened, and assumed that “the issue was taken care of.” He said, “I just didn’t want to be part of anything that looked criminal.”
The abuses became public because of the outrage of Specialist Joseph M. Darby, an M.P. whose role emerged during the Article 32 hearing against Chip Frederick. A government witness, Special Agent Scott Bobeck, who is a member of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, or C.I.D., told the court, according to an abridged transcript made available to me, “The investigation started after SPC Darby . . . got a CD from CPL Graner. . . . He came across pictures of naked detainees.” Bobeck said that Darby had “initially put an anonymous letter under our door, then he later came forward and gave a sworn statement. He felt very bad about it and thought it was very wrong.”
Questioned further, the Army investigator said that Frederick and his colleagues had not been given any “training guidelines” that he was aware of. The M.P.s in the 372nd had been assigned to routine traffic and police duties upon their arrival in Iraq, in the spring of 2003. In October of 2003, the 372nd was ordered to prison-guard duty at Abu Ghraib. Frederick, at thirty-seven, was far older than his colleagues, and was a natural leader; he had also worked for six years as a guard for the Virginia Department of Corrections. Bobeck explained:
What I got is that SSG Frederick and CPL Graner were road M.P.s and were put in charge because they were civilian prison guards and had knowledge of how things were supposed to be run.
Bobeck also testified that witnesses had said that Frederick, on one occasion, “had punched a detainee in the chest so hard that the detainee almost went into cardiac arrest.”
At the Article 32 hearing, the Army informed Frederick and his attorneys, Captain Robert Shuck, an Army lawyer, and Gary Myers, a civilian, that two dozen witnesses they had sought, including General Karpinski and all of Frederick’s co-defendants, would not appear. Some had been excused after exercising their Fifth Amendment right; others were deemed to be too far away from the courtroom. “The purpose of an Article 32 hearing is for us to engage witnesses and discover facts,” Gary Myers told me. “We ended up with a c.i.d. agent and no alleged victims to examine.” After the hearing, the presiding investigative officer ruled that there was sufficient evidence to convene a court-martial against Frederick.
Myers, who was one of the military defense attorneys in the My Lai prosecutions of the nineteen-seventies, told me that his client’s defense will be that he was carrying out the orders of his superiors and, in particular, the directions of military intelligence. He said, “Do you really think a group of kids from rural Virginia decided to do this on their own? Decided that the best way to embarrass Arabs and make them talk was to have them walk around nude?”
In letters and e-mails to family members, Frederick repeatedly noted that the military-intelligence teams, which included C.I.A. officers and linguists and interrogation specialists from private defense contractors, were the dominant force inside Abu Ghraib. In a letter written in January, he said:
I questioned some of the things that I saw . . . such things as leaving inmates in their cell with no clothes or in female underpants, handcuffing them to the door of their cell—and the answer I got was, “This is how military intelligence (MI) wants it done.” . . . . MI has also instructed us to place a prisoner in an isolation cell with little or no clothes, no toilet or running water, no ventilation or window, for as much as three days.
The military-intelligence officers have “encouraged and told us, ‘Great job,’ they were now getting positive results and information,” Frederick wrote. “CID has been present when the military working dogs were used to intimidate prisoners at MI’s request.” At one point, Frederick told his family, he pulled aside his superior officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Phillabaum, the commander of the 320th M.P. Battalion, and asked about the mistreatment of prisoners. “His reply was ‘Don’t worry about it.’”
In November, Frederick wrote, an Iraqi prisoner under the control of what the Abu Ghraib guards called “O.G.A.,” or other government agencies—that is, the C.I.A. and its paramilitary employees—was brought to his unit for questioning. “They stressed him out so bad that the man passed away. They put his body in a body bag and packed him in ice for approximately twenty-four hours in the shower. . . . The next day the medics came and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake IV in his arm and took him away.” The dead Iraqi was never entered into the prison’s inmate-control system, Frederick recounted, “and therefore never had a number.”
Frederick’s defense is, of course, highly self-serving. But the complaints in his letters and e-mails home were reinforced by two internal Army reports—Taguba’s and one by the Army’s chief law-enforcement officer, Provost Marshal Donald Ryder, a major general.
Last fall, General Sanchez ordered Ryder to review the prison system in Iraq and recommend ways to improve it. Ryder’s report, filed on November 5th, concluded that there were potential human-rights, training, and manpower issues, system-wide, that needed immediate attention. It also discussed serious concerns about the tension between the missions of the military police assigned to guard the prisoners and the intelligence teams who wanted to interrogate them. Army regulations limit intelligence activity by the M.P.s to passive collection. But something had gone wrong at Abu Ghraib.
There was evidence dating back to the Afghanistan war, the Ryder report said, that M.P.s had worked with intelligence operatives to “set favorable conditions for subsequent interviews”—a euphemism for breaking the will of prisoners. “Such actions generally run counter to the smooth operation of a detention facility, attempting to maintain its population in a compliant and docile state.” General Karpinski’s brigade, Ryder reported, “has not been directed to change its facility procedures to set the conditions for MI interrogations, nor participate in those interrogations.” Ryder called for the establishment of procedures to “define the role of military police soldiers . . .clearly separating the actions of the guards from those of the military intelligence personnel.” The officers running the war in Iraq were put on notice.
Ryder undercut his warning, however, by concluding that the situation had not yet reached a crisis point. Though some procedures were flawed, he said, he found “no military police units purposely applying inappropriate confinement practices.” His investigation was at best a failure and at worst a coverup.
Taguba, in his report, was polite but direct in refuting his fellow-general. “Unfortunately, many of the systemic problems that surfaced during [Ryder’s] assessment are the very same issues that are the subject of this investigation,” he wrote. “In fact, many of the abuses suffered by detainees occurred during, or near to, the time of that assessment.” The report continued, “Contrary to the findings of MG Ryder’s report, I find that personnel assigned to the 372nd MP Company, 800th MP Brigade were directed to change facility procedures to ‘set the conditions’ for MI interrogations.” Army intelligence officers, C.I.A. agents, and private contractors “actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses.”
Taguba backed up his assertion by citing evidence from sworn statements to Army C.I.D. investigators. Specialist Sabrina Harman, one of the accused M.P.s, testified that it was her job to keep detainees awake, including one hooded prisoner who was placed on a box with wires attached to his fingers, toes, and penis. She stated, “MI wanted to get them to talk. It is Graner and Frederick’s job to do things for MI and OGA to get these people to talk.”
Another witness, Sergeant Javal Davis, who is also one of the accused, told C.I.D. investigators, “I witnessed prisoners in the MI hold section . . . being made to do various things that I would question morally. . . . We were told that they had different rules.” Taguba wrote, “Davis also stated that he had heard MI insinuate to the guards to abuse the inmates. When asked what MI said he stated: ‘Loosen this guy up for us.’‘Make sure he has a bad night.’‘Make sure he gets the treatment.’” Military intelligence made these comments to Graner and Frederick, Davis said. “The MI staffs to my understanding have been giving Graner compliments . . . statements like, ‘Good job, they’re breaking down real fast. They answer every question. They’re giving out good information.’”
When asked why he did not inform his chain of command about the abuse, Sergeant Davis answered, “Because I assumed that if they were doing things out of the ordinary or outside the guidelines, someone would have said something. Also the wing”—where the abuse took place—“belongs to MI and it appeared MI personnel approved of the abuse.”
Another witness, Specialist Jason Kennel, who was not accused of wrongdoing, said, “I saw them nude, but MI would tell us to take away their mattresses, sheets, and clothes.” (It was his view, he added, that if M.I. wanted him to do this “they needed to give me paperwork.”) Taguba also cited an interview with Adel L. Nakhla, a translator who was an employee of Titan, a civilian contractor. He told of one night when a “bunch of people from MI” watched as a group of handcuffed and shackled inmates were subjected to abuse by Graner and Frederick.
General Taguba saved his harshest words for the military-intelligence officers and private contractors. He recommended that Colonel Thomas Pappas, the commander of one of the M.I. brigades, be reprimanded and receive non-judicial punishment, and that Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, the former director of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center, be relieved of duty and reprimanded. He further urged that a civilian contractor, Steven Stephanowicz, of CACI International, be fired from his Army job, reprimanded, and denied his security clearances for lying to the investigating team and allowing or ordering military policemen “who were not trained in interrogation techniques to facilitate interrogations by ‘setting conditions’ which were neither authorized” nor in accordance with Army regulations. “He clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse,” Taguba wrote. He also recommended disciplinary action against a second CACI employee, John Israel. (A spokeswoman for CACI said that the company had “received no formal communication” from the Army about the matter.)
“I suspect,” Taguba concluded, that Pappas, Jordan, Stephanowicz, and Israel “were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuse at Abu Ghraib,” and strongly recommended immediate disciplinary action.
The problems inside the Army prison system in Iraq were not hidden from senior commanders. During Karpinski’s seven-month tour of duty, Taguba noted, there were at least a dozen officially reported incidents involving escapes, attempted escapes, and other serious security issues that were investigated by officers of the 800th M.P. Brigade. Some of the incidents had led to the killing or wounding of inmates and M.P.s, and resulted in a series of “lessons learned” inquiries within the brigade. Karpinski invariably approved the reports and signed orders calling for changes in day-to-day procedures. But Taguba found that she did not follow up, doing nothing to insure that the orders were carried out. Had she done so, he added, “cases of abuse may have been prevented.”
General Taguba further found that Abu Ghraib was filled beyond capacity, and that the M.P. guard force was significantly undermanned and short of resources. “This imbalance has contributed to the poor living conditions, escapes, and accountability lapses,” he wrote. There were gross differences, Taguba said, between the actual number of prisoners on hand and the number officially recorded. A lack of proper screening also meant that many innocent Iraqis were wrongly being detained—indefinitely, it seemed, in some cases. The Taguba study noted that more than sixty per cent of the civilian inmates at Abu Ghraib were deemed not to be a threat to society, which should have enabled them to be released. Karpinski’s defense, Taguba said, was that her superior officers “routinely” rejected her recommendations regarding the release of such prisoners.
Karpinski was rarely seen at the prisons she was supposed to be running, Taguba wrote. He also found a wide range of administrative problems, including some that he considered “without precedent in my military career.” The soldiers, he added, were “poorly prepared and untrained . . . prior to deployment, at the mobilization site, upon arrival in theater, and throughout the mission.”
General Taguba spent more than four hours interviewing Karpinski, whom he described as extremely emotional: “What I found particularly disturbing in her testimony was her complete unwillingness to either understand or accept that many of the problems inherent in the 800th MP Brigade were caused or exacerbated by poor leadership and the refusal of her command to both establish and enforce basic standards and principles among its soldiers.”
Taguba recommended that Karpinski and seven brigade military-police officers and enlisted men be relieved of command and formally reprimanded. No criminal proceedings were suggested for Karpinski; apparently, the loss of promotion and the indignity of a public rebuke were seen as enough punishment.
After the story broke on CBS last week, the Pentagon announced that Major General Geoffrey Miller, the new head of the Iraqi prison system, had arrived in Baghdad and was on the job. He had been the commander of the Guantánamo Bay detention center. General Sanchez also authorized an investigation into possible wrongdoing by military and civilian interrogators.
As the international furor grew, senior military officers, and President Bush, insisted that the actions of a few did not reflect the conduct of the military as a whole. Taguba’s report, however, amounts to an unsparing study of collective wrongdoing and the failure of Army leadership at the highest levels. The picture he draws of Abu Ghraib is one in which Army regulations and the Geneva conventions were routinely violated, and in which much of the day-to-day management of the prisoners was abdicated to Army military-intelligence units and civilian contract employees. Interrogating prisoners and getting intelligence, including by intimidation and torture, was the priority.
The mistreatment at Abu Ghraib may have done little to further American intelligence, however. Willie J. Rowell, who served for thirty-six years as a C.I.D. agent, told me that the use of force or humiliation with prisoners is invariably counterproductive. “They’ll tell you what you want to hear, truth or no truth,” Rowell said. “‘You can flog me until I tell you what I know you want me to say.’ You don’t get righteous information.”
Under the fourth Geneva convention, an occupying power can jail civilians who pose an “imperative” security threat, but it must establish a regular procedure for insuring that only civilians who remain a genuine security threat be kept imprisoned. Prisoners have the right to appeal any internment decision and have their cases reviewed. Human Rights Watch complained to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that civilians in Iraq remained in custody month after month with no charges brought against them. Abu Ghraib had become, in effect, another Guantánamo.
As the photographs from Abu Ghraib make clear, these detentions have had enormous consequences: for the imprisoned civilian Iraqis, many of whom had nothing to do with the growing insurgency; for the integrity of the Army; and for the United States’ reputation in the world.
Captain Robert Shuck, Frederick’s military attorney, closed his defense at the Article 32 hearing last month by saying that the Army was “attempting to have these six soldiers atone for its sins.” Similarly, Gary Myers, Frederick’s civilian attorney, told me that he would argue at the court-martial that culpability in the case extended far beyond his client. “I’m going to drag every involved intelligence officer and civilian contractor I can find into court,” he said. “Do you really believe the Army relieved a general officer because of six soldiers? Not a chance.”
2004-04-19
Today's news
bad milk powder in AnHui. enforcement officials are going to anhui to deal with this issue.
They can't find the producers. that's a funny thing.
They can't find the producers. that's a funny thing.
2004-04-13
It's a long time
It has been a long time since I find something interesting to blog. Just can't get my lazy ass off because I just don't feel like
wanting to write something meaningful. I have been trying to post to Wenfu's forum with no success. it seems that
they have made it a private forum. That's stupid because I could be a great contributor. btw I am intending to write something about cross-trait relation on the new vision forum. There are some penetrating posts there concerning this important issue. All those provacations by the Taiwan government have to be dealth with otherwise Mainland would risk
being perceived as a paper tiger. The lone TIer over there is quite funning. He even dares to post some article containing
the insulting word for the mainlander. All people seems to be quite civil toward him though which is the way it should be.
No harm done. just state your opinion.
wanting to write something meaningful. I have been trying to post to Wenfu's forum with no success. it seems that
they have made it a private forum. That's stupid because I could be a great contributor. btw I am intending to write something about cross-trait relation on the new vision forum. There are some penetrating posts there concerning this important issue. All those provacations by the Taiwan government have to be dealth with otherwise Mainland would risk
being perceived as a paper tiger. The lone TIer over there is quite funning. He even dares to post some article containing
the insulting word for the mainlander. All people seems to be quite civil toward him though which is the way it should be.
No harm done. just state your opinion.
2004-02-22
Sick lifestyle
Just read a blog by an aussie living in Hongkong who marries a Hongkong Chinese . His sexual adventure in Shenzhen made me puke. I guess that is the ordinary lifestyle of a businessman in Hongkong.
2003-12-18
国资委负责人详细阐述国企改制三大焦点问题
国资委负责人详细阐述国企改制三大焦点问题
焦点一:管理层收购可能适合于中小企业
作为改革的探索可以允许管理层参与国有企业改制中国有产权的转让；向本企业经营管理者转让国有产权,必须经过国有资产管理机构的批准；管理层受让国有产权还要看他的投资能力；管理层收购可能适合于中小企业
昨日,国资委负责人就《关于规范国有企业改制工作意见》中涉及的焦点问题接受了记者的采访。
这位负责人称,现在社会上很关注管理层收购。针对管理层收购存在的问题,《意见》提出,除执行国家有关规定和《意见》的各项要求外,管理层不得参与转让国有产权的决策、财务审计、离任审计、清产核资、资产评估、底价确定等重大事项；管理层筹集收购国有产权的资金,不得向包括本企业在内的国有及国有控股企业借款,不得以这些企业国有产权或实物资产作标的物为融资提供保证、抵押、质押、贴现等；经营管理者对企业经营业绩下降负有责任的,不得参与收购本企业国有产权。一句话,不能"自卖自买"。这些限制性规定对于规范行为、减少争议是十分必要的。
国资委负责人同时指出,对管理层收购首先需要明确概念。国资委所说的管理层收购是指企业管理层通过自有资金或社会融资等规范的方式收购企业的全部或部分国有产权,实现对企业的控股或参股。这与国外通常所指的管理层收购(即MBO)有一定区别,对管理层收购,国资委有这样几个看法:
一是国有企业改制要对各类投资者一视同仁,作为改革的探索可以允许管理层参与国有企业改制中国有产权的转让。作为改革薪酬制度的一种形式,在管理层不控股的前提下,其规范地持有企业部分股权,有利于把其自身利益与企业的长远利益结合起来,充分调动其经营管理的积极性、主动性、创造性。在这方面我国还没有成熟的经验和完善的制度,国资委主张具备条件的企业可以积极探索。
二是向本企业经营管理者转让国有产权,必须经过国有资产管理机构的批准。不允许参加收购的本企业的管理层参与转让国有产权的各个环节,严禁"自卖自买",这个道理是显而易见的。也不应为管理层收购"搞专场",排除其他投资者参与国有企业改制的机会。国资委强调各类投资者要执行同样的规则,平等参与,竞价受让国有产权。
三是管理层受让国有产权还要看他的投资能力。如果他的投资数额较大且全部或大部分是靠借贷形成的,向他转让国有产权就应十分慎重。据反映,有的管理层向银行借款甚至是用本企业资产作抵押的,实际上他们并没有承担风险。因为他的借债要靠分红来偿还,一旦企业经营发生波动分红较少或难以分红,要么造成银行等债权人的风险,要么则有可能出现拍卖产权用以偿债的情况,从而会严重影响企业的稳定。
四是管理层收购可能适合于中小企业,但对大企业来说,改制的方向应该是通过规范上市或吸引战略投资者实现投资主体多元化,促进所有权与经营权分离,推进经营层的市场化配置。如控股权与管理层合一,不利于对管理层的监督,也不利于管理层吐故纳新、优胜劣汰,从长远发展看可能会影响企业的竞争力。值得一提的是,就是在国外,大公司的管理层收购全部股权或控股股权也是很少见的,而搞了MBO后公司能长期站得住的就更少见了。
国资委负责人还对《意见》内容作了介绍。《意见》分为三部分。第一部分的内容是规范改制工作的程序。完整、严密的工作程序,是规范改制工作的最重要的前提。《意见》第二部分的内容是关于改制工作的监督检查和对违纪违法案件的查处。《意见》第三部分的内容是关于改制工作的组织领导。《意见》要求全面准确理解和贯彻中央关于国有经济布局和结构战略性调整的部署,完善国有资本有进有退、合理流动机制,做到进而有为、退而有序,确保国有经济在关系国家安全和国民经济命脉的重要行业和关键领域占支配地位。
焦点二:国有产权转让对各类投资者一视同仁
进入产权交易市场是非上市企业国有产权转让的主要实现形式；转让上市公司国有股权的审批暂按现行规定办理,并由国资委会同证监会研究提出完善意见
国资委负责人还就对各类投资者要一视同仁、竞价受让国有产权等问题进行了具体的阐述。
这位负责人指出,非上市企业国有产权转让进入产权交易市场是主要实现形式。进入产权交易市场公开信息,各投资者之间形成竞争,竞争则能发现价格,从而真正体现国有产权的市场价值。据国资委对全国产权交易市场建设及非上市企业国有产权进入市场交易情况的抽样调查,进入产权市场交易的非上市企业国有产权成交价格平均高出评估值的l0%,而不进入的普遍低于评估值30%左右。当前全国的产权交易市场建设还不能适应非上市企业国有产权全面进入交易市场的需要,为加快建设和完善产权交易市场体系,《意见》已经明确由国务院法制办会同国资委、财政部等有关部门研究有关产权交易市场的法规和监管制度,各地依照法律法规及有关规定,根据实际情况制订具体实施细则。至于转让上市公司国有股权的审批暂按现行规定办理,《意见》要求由国资委会同证监会研究提出完善意见。
这位负责人还表示,非上市企业国有产权转让进入产权交易市场,有利于维护出资人的利益。除此之外,国有企业改制还应维护职工和债权人的合法权益。
维护职工的合法权益,要坚持全心全意依靠职工群众,把依法维护出资人的所有权、经营者的管理权与充分尊重职工群众的民主管理权结合起来,改制方案必须提交企业职工代表大会或职工大会审议,充分听取职工意见。其中职工安置方案需经企业职工代表大会或职工大会审议通过后方可实施改制。
企业改制还要依法保护债权人的利益。企业改制要征得债权金融机构的同意,依法落实金融债务,否则不得进行改制。
焦点三:从严查处违法违规行为
国有企业改制工作中存在的问题主要在于两个方面:一是改制的过程不够规范；二是改革的推进方式有欠缺
在国有企业改制中,少数人利用不法手段,转移、侵占、侵吞国有资产,损害了国家和职工的利益
国资委负责人表示,指导面上的国有企业改革是国务院国资委的一项重要任务。国资委成立以来,陆续对24个省、区、市的国有企业以及中央企业的改革情况进行了调研。调研中看到国有企业改革和企业改制工作取得了实实在在的进展；但同时,调研中也发现在企业改制的具体工作中存在一些问题,也有国有资产流失的现象。应该说,国有企业改制是一项非常复杂的工作,出现一些问题是正常的、是不可避免的。但从工作指导的角度,出现了问题就需要及时解决。因此,坚持正确的改革方向,总结改革的成功经验,解决改革中出现的问题,进一步推进国有企业规范改制,促进国有产权有序流转,就是国资委制订出台《意见》的主要意图。
国资委负责人指出,国有企业改制工作中存在的问题主要在于两个方面。一是改制的过程不够规范。例如,有些企业改制过程中财务审计不严、资产评估不实,出现了国有资产被低估贱卖的问题；有些企业改制过程的透明度不高,产权没有进场交易,存在暗箱操作的弊端；有些企业的改制行为损害了债权人的利益和职工的合法权益,造成债务悬空；也有些企业在改制过程中发生了内外勾结、隐匿转移、侵占私吞国有资产的违纪违法行为。二是改革的推进方式有欠缺。有的改制方案没有采取多方案比较,缺乏周密考虑；改制方式单一；有些地方推动改革的积极性很高,但采用了下指标、限时间、赶进度的行政办法。他们希望尽早把改革推到位的出发点是好的,但这种简单的推进方式会人为地制造出一个供过于求的国有资产的买方市场,容易造成国有资产的贬值和损失。
国有企业改制工作中出现的这些问题。属于探索中的问题、前进中的问题。究其原因,一是国有资产出资人还没有完全到位,改革还不配套；二是有关国有企业改制的相关政策还不完善,规则还不够健全。国务院国资委是在今年五月份组建完毕、开始工作,期间大多数省市的国资委还没有建立,机构到位、工作到位还需要一个过程。另一方面,这几年第一线的改革推进很快,政策指导和规范显得滞后了。目前,全国还没有一个统一、完整的指导国有企业改制的政策文件,这显然难以适应改制工作规范推进的要求。所以,要保证国有企业改制工作健康、有序推进需要在两个方面采取措施。一是加快地方国有资产监督管理机构组建的进程,使各个层面国有资产监管的责任主体尽快到位。二是抓紧制订有关的规范性文件,使具体工作有法可依、有章可循,《意见》就是这样一个文件。
这位负责人称,从一些群众来信反映的问题和查处的案件来看,在国有企业改制中,少数人利用不法手段,转移、侵占、侵吞国有资产,损害了国家和职工的利益,引起了职工的不满和社会的关注。对于这些违法违纪行为,国资委将与监察部等有关部门密切配合,依据国家有关法律法规,从严查处,绝不姑息。其中涉嫌犯罪的,依法移交司法机关处理。对于中介机构有提供虚假审计报告、故意压低国有资产评估价格等违法违规行为的,国有资产监督管理机构和国有及国有控股企业不得再聘请该机构及其责任人从事涉及国有及国有控股企业的中介活动。国资委将设立并公布举报电话和信箱以便及时发现和查处改制中的违纪违法案件。国资委所监管的中央企业改制中出现了违法违纪行为,国资委负责严肃查处；地方国资机构所监管企业改制中出现的违法违纪行为,由地方国资委负责查处。(卢晓平)
焦点一:管理层收购可能适合于中小企业
作为改革的探索可以允许管理层参与国有企业改制中国有产权的转让；向本企业经营管理者转让国有产权,必须经过国有资产管理机构的批准；管理层受让国有产权还要看他的投资能力；管理层收购可能适合于中小企业
昨日,国资委负责人就《关于规范国有企业改制工作意见》中涉及的焦点问题接受了记者的采访。
这位负责人称,现在社会上很关注管理层收购。针对管理层收购存在的问题,《意见》提出,除执行国家有关规定和《意见》的各项要求外,管理层不得参与转让国有产权的决策、财务审计、离任审计、清产核资、资产评估、底价确定等重大事项；管理层筹集收购国有产权的资金,不得向包括本企业在内的国有及国有控股企业借款,不得以这些企业国有产权或实物资产作标的物为融资提供保证、抵押、质押、贴现等；经营管理者对企业经营业绩下降负有责任的,不得参与收购本企业国有产权。一句话,不能"自卖自买"。这些限制性规定对于规范行为、减少争议是十分必要的。
国资委负责人同时指出,对管理层收购首先需要明确概念。国资委所说的管理层收购是指企业管理层通过自有资金或社会融资等规范的方式收购企业的全部或部分国有产权,实现对企业的控股或参股。这与国外通常所指的管理层收购(即MBO)有一定区别,对管理层收购,国资委有这样几个看法:
一是国有企业改制要对各类投资者一视同仁,作为改革的探索可以允许管理层参与国有企业改制中国有产权的转让。作为改革薪酬制度的一种形式,在管理层不控股的前提下,其规范地持有企业部分股权,有利于把其自身利益与企业的长远利益结合起来,充分调动其经营管理的积极性、主动性、创造性。在这方面我国还没有成熟的经验和完善的制度,国资委主张具备条件的企业可以积极探索。
二是向本企业经营管理者转让国有产权,必须经过国有资产管理机构的批准。不允许参加收购的本企业的管理层参与转让国有产权的各个环节,严禁"自卖自买",这个道理是显而易见的。也不应为管理层收购"搞专场",排除其他投资者参与国有企业改制的机会。国资委强调各类投资者要执行同样的规则,平等参与,竞价受让国有产权。
三是管理层受让国有产权还要看他的投资能力。如果他的投资数额较大且全部或大部分是靠借贷形成的,向他转让国有产权就应十分慎重。据反映,有的管理层向银行借款甚至是用本企业资产作抵押的,实际上他们并没有承担风险。因为他的借债要靠分红来偿还,一旦企业经营发生波动分红较少或难以分红,要么造成银行等债权人的风险,要么则有可能出现拍卖产权用以偿债的情况,从而会严重影响企业的稳定。
四是管理层收购可能适合于中小企业,但对大企业来说,改制的方向应该是通过规范上市或吸引战略投资者实现投资主体多元化,促进所有权与经营权分离,推进经营层的市场化配置。如控股权与管理层合一,不利于对管理层的监督,也不利于管理层吐故纳新、优胜劣汰,从长远发展看可能会影响企业的竞争力。值得一提的是,就是在国外,大公司的管理层收购全部股权或控股股权也是很少见的,而搞了MBO后公司能长期站得住的就更少见了。
国资委负责人还对《意见》内容作了介绍。《意见》分为三部分。第一部分的内容是规范改制工作的程序。完整、严密的工作程序,是规范改制工作的最重要的前提。《意见》第二部分的内容是关于改制工作的监督检查和对违纪违法案件的查处。《意见》第三部分的内容是关于改制工作的组织领导。《意见》要求全面准确理解和贯彻中央关于国有经济布局和结构战略性调整的部署,完善国有资本有进有退、合理流动机制,做到进而有为、退而有序,确保国有经济在关系国家安全和国民经济命脉的重要行业和关键领域占支配地位。
焦点二:国有产权转让对各类投资者一视同仁
进入产权交易市场是非上市企业国有产权转让的主要实现形式；转让上市公司国有股权的审批暂按现行规定办理,并由国资委会同证监会研究提出完善意见
国资委负责人还就对各类投资者要一视同仁、竞价受让国有产权等问题进行了具体的阐述。
这位负责人指出,非上市企业国有产权转让进入产权交易市场是主要实现形式。进入产权交易市场公开信息,各投资者之间形成竞争,竞争则能发现价格,从而真正体现国有产权的市场价值。据国资委对全国产权交易市场建设及非上市企业国有产权进入市场交易情况的抽样调查,进入产权市场交易的非上市企业国有产权成交价格平均高出评估值的l0%,而不进入的普遍低于评估值30%左右。当前全国的产权交易市场建设还不能适应非上市企业国有产权全面进入交易市场的需要,为加快建设和完善产权交易市场体系,《意见》已经明确由国务院法制办会同国资委、财政部等有关部门研究有关产权交易市场的法规和监管制度,各地依照法律法规及有关规定,根据实际情况制订具体实施细则。至于转让上市公司国有股权的审批暂按现行规定办理,《意见》要求由国资委会同证监会研究提出完善意见。
这位负责人还表示,非上市企业国有产权转让进入产权交易市场,有利于维护出资人的利益。除此之外,国有企业改制还应维护职工和债权人的合法权益。
维护职工的合法权益,要坚持全心全意依靠职工群众,把依法维护出资人的所有权、经营者的管理权与充分尊重职工群众的民主管理权结合起来,改制方案必须提交企业职工代表大会或职工大会审议,充分听取职工意见。其中职工安置方案需经企业职工代表大会或职工大会审议通过后方可实施改制。
企业改制还要依法保护债权人的利益。企业改制要征得债权金融机构的同意,依法落实金融债务,否则不得进行改制。
焦点三:从严查处违法违规行为
国有企业改制工作中存在的问题主要在于两个方面:一是改制的过程不够规范；二是改革的推进方式有欠缺
在国有企业改制中,少数人利用不法手段,转移、侵占、侵吞国有资产,损害了国家和职工的利益
国资委负责人表示,指导面上的国有企业改革是国务院国资委的一项重要任务。国资委成立以来,陆续对24个省、区、市的国有企业以及中央企业的改革情况进行了调研。调研中看到国有企业改革和企业改制工作取得了实实在在的进展；但同时,调研中也发现在企业改制的具体工作中存在一些问题,也有国有资产流失的现象。应该说,国有企业改制是一项非常复杂的工作,出现一些问题是正常的、是不可避免的。但从工作指导的角度,出现了问题就需要及时解决。因此,坚持正确的改革方向,总结改革的成功经验,解决改革中出现的问题,进一步推进国有企业规范改制,促进国有产权有序流转,就是国资委制订出台《意见》的主要意图。
国资委负责人指出,国有企业改制工作中存在的问题主要在于两个方面。一是改制的过程不够规范。例如,有些企业改制过程中财务审计不严、资产评估不实,出现了国有资产被低估贱卖的问题；有些企业改制过程的透明度不高,产权没有进场交易,存在暗箱操作的弊端；有些企业的改制行为损害了债权人的利益和职工的合法权益,造成债务悬空；也有些企业在改制过程中发生了内外勾结、隐匿转移、侵占私吞国有资产的违纪违法行为。二是改革的推进方式有欠缺。有的改制方案没有采取多方案比较,缺乏周密考虑；改制方式单一；有些地方推动改革的积极性很高,但采用了下指标、限时间、赶进度的行政办法。他们希望尽早把改革推到位的出发点是好的,但这种简单的推进方式会人为地制造出一个供过于求的国有资产的买方市场,容易造成国有资产的贬值和损失。
国有企业改制工作中出现的这些问题。属于探索中的问题、前进中的问题。究其原因,一是国有资产出资人还没有完全到位,改革还不配套；二是有关国有企业改制的相关政策还不完善,规则还不够健全。国务院国资委是在今年五月份组建完毕、开始工作,期间大多数省市的国资委还没有建立,机构到位、工作到位还需要一个过程。另一方面,这几年第一线的改革推进很快,政策指导和规范显得滞后了。目前,全国还没有一个统一、完整的指导国有企业改制的政策文件,这显然难以适应改制工作规范推进的要求。所以,要保证国有企业改制工作健康、有序推进需要在两个方面采取措施。一是加快地方国有资产监督管理机构组建的进程,使各个层面国有资产监管的责任主体尽快到位。二是抓紧制订有关的规范性文件,使具体工作有法可依、有章可循,《意见》就是这样一个文件。
这位负责人称,从一些群众来信反映的问题和查处的案件来看,在国有企业改制中,少数人利用不法手段,转移、侵占、侵吞国有资产,损害了国家和职工的利益,引起了职工的不满和社会的关注。对于这些违法违纪行为,国资委将与监察部等有关部门密切配合,依据国家有关法律法规,从严查处,绝不姑息。其中涉嫌犯罪的,依法移交司法机关处理。对于中介机构有提供虚假审计报告、故意压低国有资产评估价格等违法违规行为的,国有资产监督管理机构和国有及国有控股企业不得再聘请该机构及其责任人从事涉及国有及国有控股企业的中介活动。国资委将设立并公布举报电话和信箱以便及时发现和查处改制中的违纪违法案件。国资委所监管的中央企业改制中出现了违法违纪行为,国资委负责严肃查处；地方国资机构所监管企业改制中出现的违法违纪行为,由地方国资委负责查处。(卢晓平)
国资委负责人就《意见》答记者问（全文）
国资委负责人就《意见》答记者问（全文）
管理层收购不应搞专场
国有产权售让需开放竞价
改制方案需经企业职工审议
12月17日电国务院办公厅近日转发了国务院国有资产监督管理委员会《关于规范国有企业改制工作意见》(以下简称《意见》)。国资委负责人就此回答了新华社记者的提问。
国资委负责人透露，近几年国有企业改革推进的力度确实很大，从1998年到2002年，国有及国有控股工业企业从6.5万户减少到4.3万户，减少了34%；但实现利润从743亿元提高到2636亿元，增长了2.5倍。今年1━10月国有及国有控股工业企业实现利润已经达到3174亿元。
国企改制现存两方面问题
国资委负责人认为，国有企业改制工作中存在的问题主要在于两个方面。一是改制的过程不够规范。例如，有些企业改制过程中财务审计不严、资产评估不实，出现了国有资产被低估贱卖的问题；有些企业改制过程的透明度不高，产权没有进场交易，存在暗箱操作的弊端；有些企业的改制行为损害了债权人的利益和职工的合法权益，造成债务悬空；也有些企业在改制过程中发生了内外勾结、隐匿转移、侵占私吞国有资产的违纪违法行为。二是改革的推进方式有欠缺。有的改制方案没有采取多方案比较，缺乏周密考虑；改制方式单一；有些地方推动改革的积极性很高，但采用了下指标、限时间、赶进度的行政办法。他们希望尽早把改革推到位的出发点是好的，但这种简单的推进方式会人为地制造出一个供过于求的国有资产的买方市场，容易造成国有资产的贬值和损失。
究其原因，一是国有资产出资人还没有完全到位，改革还不配套；二是有关国有企业改制的相关政策还不完善，规则还不够健全。另一方面，这几年第一线的改革推进很快，政策指导和规范显得滞后了。目前，全国还没有一个统一、完整的指导国有企业改制的政策文件，这显然难以适应改制工作规范推进的要求。
不应为管理层收购搞专场
国资委负责人指出，《意见》所说管理层收购是指企业管理层通过自有资金或社会融资等规范的方式收购企业的全部或部分国有产权，实现对企业的控股或参股。这与国外通常所指的管理层收购(即MBO)有一定区别。
对管理层收购，国资委负责人认为：一是国有企业改制要对各类投资者一视同仁，作为改革的探索可以允许管理层参与国有企业改制中国有产权的转让。作为改革薪酬制度的一种形式，在管理层不控股的前提下，其规范地持有企业部分股权，充分调动其经营管理的积极性、主动性、创造性。在这方面我们还没有成熟的经验和完善的制度，我们主张具备条件的企业可以积极探索。
二是向本企业经营管理者转让国有产权，必须经过国有资产管理机构的批准。不允许参加收购的本企业的管理层参与转让国有产权的各个环节，严禁“自卖自买”，也不应为管理层收购“搞专场”，排除其他投资者参与国有企业改制的机会。我们强调各类投资者要执行同样的规则，平等参与，竞价受让国有产权。
三是管理层受让国有产权还要看他的投资能力。如果他的投资数额较大且全部或大部分是靠借贷形成的，向他转让国有产权就应十分慎重。据反映，有的管理层向银行借款甚至是用本企业资产作抵押的，实际上他们并没有承担风险。因为他的借债要靠分红来偿还，一旦企业经营发生波动分红较少或难以分红，要么造成银行等债权人的风险，要么则有可能出现拍卖产权用以偿债的情况，从而会严重影响企业的稳定。
四是管理层收购可能适合于中小企业，但对大企业来说，改制的方向应该是通过规范上市或吸引战略投资者实现投资主体多元化，促进所有权与经营权分离，推进经营层的市场化配置。如控股权与管理层合一，不利于对管理层的监督，也不利于管理层吐故纳新、优胜劣汰，从长远发展看可能会影响企业的竞争力。值得一提的是，就是在国外，大公司的管理层收购全部股权或控股股权也是很少见的，而搞了MBO后公司能长期站得住的就更少见了。
各类投资者竞价受让国有产权
国资委负责人强调，非上市企业国有产权转让进入产权交易市场是主要实现形式。进入产权交易市场公开信息，各投资者之间形成竞争，竞争则能发现价格，从而真正体现国有产权的市场价值。对全国产权交易市场建设及非上市企业国有产权进入市场交易情况的抽样调查显示，进入产权市场交易的非上市企业国有产权成交价格平均高出评估值的l0%，而不进入的普遍低于评估值30%左右。
对于国有企业改制中如何维护职工合法权益，国资委负责人指出，改制方案必须提交企业职工代表大会或职工大会审议，充分听取职工意见。其中职工安置方案需经企业职工代表大会或职工大会审议通过后方可实施改制。《意见》提出，转让国有产权的价款优先用于支付解除劳动合同职工的经济补偿金和移交社会保障机构管理职工的社会保险费，以及偿还拖欠职工的债务等。
企业改制还要依法保护债权人的利益。过去曾发生过利用改制逃废金融债务的现象，违背了市场经济关于法制和诚信的基本要求，损害了金融机构的利益，增加了金融风险，要采取有效措施加以防范。所以，企业改制要征得债权金融机构的同意，依法落实金融债务，否则不得进行改制。
管理层收购不应搞专场
国有产权售让需开放竞价
改制方案需经企业职工审议
12月17日电国务院办公厅近日转发了国务院国有资产监督管理委员会《关于规范国有企业改制工作意见》(以下简称《意见》)。国资委负责人就此回答了新华社记者的提问。
国资委负责人透露，近几年国有企业改革推进的力度确实很大，从1998年到2002年，国有及国有控股工业企业从6.5万户减少到4.3万户，减少了34%；但实现利润从743亿元提高到2636亿元，增长了2.5倍。今年1━10月国有及国有控股工业企业实现利润已经达到3174亿元。
国企改制现存两方面问题
国资委负责人认为，国有企业改制工作中存在的问题主要在于两个方面。一是改制的过程不够规范。例如，有些企业改制过程中财务审计不严、资产评估不实，出现了国有资产被低估贱卖的问题；有些企业改制过程的透明度不高，产权没有进场交易，存在暗箱操作的弊端；有些企业的改制行为损害了债权人的利益和职工的合法权益，造成债务悬空；也有些企业在改制过程中发生了内外勾结、隐匿转移、侵占私吞国有资产的违纪违法行为。二是改革的推进方式有欠缺。有的改制方案没有采取多方案比较，缺乏周密考虑；改制方式单一；有些地方推动改革的积极性很高，但采用了下指标、限时间、赶进度的行政办法。他们希望尽早把改革推到位的出发点是好的，但这种简单的推进方式会人为地制造出一个供过于求的国有资产的买方市场，容易造成国有资产的贬值和损失。
究其原因，一是国有资产出资人还没有完全到位，改革还不配套；二是有关国有企业改制的相关政策还不完善，规则还不够健全。另一方面，这几年第一线的改革推进很快，政策指导和规范显得滞后了。目前，全国还没有一个统一、完整的指导国有企业改制的政策文件，这显然难以适应改制工作规范推进的要求。
不应为管理层收购搞专场
国资委负责人指出，《意见》所说管理层收购是指企业管理层通过自有资金或社会融资等规范的方式收购企业的全部或部分国有产权，实现对企业的控股或参股。这与国外通常所指的管理层收购(即MBO)有一定区别。
对管理层收购，国资委负责人认为：一是国有企业改制要对各类投资者一视同仁，作为改革的探索可以允许管理层参与国有企业改制中国有产权的转让。作为改革薪酬制度的一种形式，在管理层不控股的前提下，其规范地持有企业部分股权，充分调动其经营管理的积极性、主动性、创造性。在这方面我们还没有成熟的经验和完善的制度，我们主张具备条件的企业可以积极探索。
二是向本企业经营管理者转让国有产权，必须经过国有资产管理机构的批准。不允许参加收购的本企业的管理层参与转让国有产权的各个环节，严禁“自卖自买”，也不应为管理层收购“搞专场”，排除其他投资者参与国有企业改制的机会。我们强调各类投资者要执行同样的规则，平等参与，竞价受让国有产权。
三是管理层受让国有产权还要看他的投资能力。如果他的投资数额较大且全部或大部分是靠借贷形成的，向他转让国有产权就应十分慎重。据反映，有的管理层向银行借款甚至是用本企业资产作抵押的，实际上他们并没有承担风险。因为他的借债要靠分红来偿还，一旦企业经营发生波动分红较少或难以分红，要么造成银行等债权人的风险，要么则有可能出现拍卖产权用以偿债的情况，从而会严重影响企业的稳定。
四是管理层收购可能适合于中小企业，但对大企业来说，改制的方向应该是通过规范上市或吸引战略投资者实现投资主体多元化，促进所有权与经营权分离，推进经营层的市场化配置。如控股权与管理层合一，不利于对管理层的监督，也不利于管理层吐故纳新、优胜劣汰，从长远发展看可能会影响企业的竞争力。值得一提的是，就是在国外，大公司的管理层收购全部股权或控股股权也是很少见的，而搞了MBO后公司能长期站得住的就更少见了。
各类投资者竞价受让国有产权
国资委负责人强调，非上市企业国有产权转让进入产权交易市场是主要实现形式。进入产权交易市场公开信息，各投资者之间形成竞争，竞争则能发现价格，从而真正体现国有产权的市场价值。对全国产权交易市场建设及非上市企业国有产权进入市场交易情况的抽样调查显示，进入产权市场交易的非上市企业国有产权成交价格平均高出评估值的l0%，而不进入的普遍低于评估值30%左右。
对于国有企业改制中如何维护职工合法权益，国资委负责人指出，改制方案必须提交企业职工代表大会或职工大会审议，充分听取职工意见。其中职工安置方案需经企业职工代表大会或职工大会审议通过后方可实施改制。《意见》提出，转让国有产权的价款优先用于支付解除劳动合同职工的经济补偿金和移交社会保障机构管理职工的社会保险费，以及偿还拖欠职工的债务等。
企业改制还要依法保护债权人的利益。过去曾发生过利用改制逃废金融债务的现象，违背了市场经济关于法制和诚信的基本要求，损害了金融机构的利益，增加了金融风险，要采取有效措施加以防范。所以，企业改制要征得债权金融机构的同意，依法落实金融债务，否则不得进行改制。
2003-12-05
boring
Nobody wants to play me today. It's so boring. All the strong players decline my offers.
Yesterday got a good game and some hard-earned pts from a 1900+ player.
You have lost so much. Need to play some weak players to get some points.
Yesterday got a good game and some hard-earned pts from a 1900+ player.
You have lost so much. Need to play some weak players to get some points.
2003-12-04
My political compass
Economic Left/Right: -1.62
Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.03
You are a slight-leaning liberal and economic leftist.
Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.03
You are a slight-leaning liberal and economic leftist.
Private blog
Being a extremely private person myself I find it disturbing that my thoughts could be shared by the general public.
I just find it baffling that so many people are so willing to share their pictures , their whereabout for all the world to see.
Good marketing tool for finding a job prospect, perhaps, but sometimes it could look too much ,too show-0ff.
I am glad nobody has visited my blog yet. I am so ashamed of myself.
I just find it baffling that so many people are so willing to share their pictures , their whereabout for all the world to see.
Good marketing tool for finding a job prospect, perhaps, but sometimes it could look too much ,too show-0ff.
I am glad nobody has visited my blog yet. I am so ashamed of myself.
Why can't I write any more?
Nowadays I find it hard to write Chinese in a elegant way like I used to. My vocabulary is poor and most importantly my
thought is no longer so organised. Why? I am asking myself and begin to suspect aging has got a lot to do with it.
But I guess not. It's the stupid chinese inputing software not being installed or there is time constrainst for using the computers especially in the library. Microsoft ime some times could be so fucked up that I can't find my characters.
When are you going to have your own computer?
thought is no longer so organised. Why? I am asking myself and begin to suspect aging has got a lot to do with it.
But I guess not. It's the stupid chinese inputing software not being installed or there is time constrainst for using the computers especially in the library. Microsoft ime some times could be so fucked up that I can't find my characters.
When are you going to have your own computer?
2003-12-03
Addiction
I am kind of addicted to the fellow bloggers in China. Their china experiences are so fascinating and unique.
It open a window to my motherland. Their perspective could be very refreshing.
They are currently trying to vote for the best blog. I will choose sinosplice. It is so resourceful.
It open a window to my motherland. Their perspective could be very refreshing.
They are currently trying to vote for the best blog. I will choose sinosplice. It is so resourceful.
Human right - the most abused concept
It's been a long time since I wrote something meaningful in my blog.
My thought is so sporadic that I find it hard to put into some complete sentences.
Now I want to write some response to the piece in the op-ed page of the Washington post by
the president of the Human right China. It got some reaction from the china blogsphere. Some, as usual accepted
it at face value. a pretty broadside accusation- so-called "slave camps" number in around 800 scattered around various cities.
It is a human right issue, I agree. It is about the right of the migrant workers who are often abused at the hands of the police. Sometimes it needs to do some dramatic actions to highlight the problems otherwise nobody would pay any attention. It took the death of a college graduate to make the leaderships realize that this detention policy is inhuman and should be abolished altogether.
Next up would be the right of the homeowners who often get evicted by greedy developers.
My thought is so sporadic that I find it hard to put into some complete sentences.
Now I want to write some response to the piece in the op-ed page of the Washington post by
the president of the Human right China. It got some reaction from the china blogsphere. Some, as usual accepted
it at face value. a pretty broadside accusation- so-called "slave camps" number in around 800 scattered around various cities.
It is a human right issue, I agree. It is about the right of the migrant workers who are often abused at the hands of the police. Sometimes it needs to do some dramatic actions to highlight the problems otherwise nobody would pay any attention. It took the death of a college graduate to make the leaderships realize that this detention policy is inhuman and should be abolished altogether.
Next up would be the right of the homeowners who often get evicted by greedy developers.
2003-11-17
Bill Gertz
True Father Reverend Sun Myung Moon
December 10, 2000 East Garden, New York
Sunday Morning Sermon
America is the most powerful country in the world. But its powerful leaders listen to the Washington Times. A statement from the Times can affect them dramatically. The government of other nations also listen to the Washington Times. Who at the Washington Times is having the biggest impact? [Bill Gertz.] Bill Gertz. How old is he? He is young. He only graduated from high school, joined the Washington Times and became famous. If you are a high school teacher, you should raise such students. If you are a college professor, you should become the most famous one in history.
picture
http://www.gertzfile.com/gertzfile/biophoto.jpg bill gertz
Bo Hi Pak
http://www.panda.net.cn/about%20panda/jiang%20zemin-1.jpg
http://www.panda.net.cn/about%20panda/Dr%20pak-1.jpg
Bo Hi Pak
http://www.panda.net.cn/about%20panda/jiang%20zemin-1.jpg
http://www.panda.net.cn/about%20panda/Dr%20pak-1.jpg
2003-11-05
How the panda motors failed?
The Economist had to say about Moon's car-making ventures in
Asia. In an article titled "The eclipse of Moon Inc." (which primarily
dealt with the collapse of Tong Il Heavy Industries, Hankook Titanium,
Il Sung Construction and Il Shin Stone), they wrote on December 5th,
1998:
"Despite these setbacks, the church still plans to build a huge church
in Pyongyang and a car factory in Nampo, to join the (money-losing) car
plant it already runs in Vietnam. Given Mr. Moon's track record, these
car-making ambitions are puzzling. One of his biggest recent business
failures was Panda Motors (China), which, when it was announced in 1989,
was thought to be the largest foreign investment so far in China.
Panda's planned sales of 300,000 cars a year were meant to bankroll a
far bigger dream: an "International Highway of Peace", running (with a
few allowances for oceans) from Tokyo to London, via North Korea and
China.
"Mr. Moon's representatives initially hawked the idea around Beijing and
Shanghai, where officials were sceptical about the ability of a church
with no car-making experience to pioneer a foreign car industry in
China. But the church eventually found less sophisticated officials in
Huizhou, near Hong Kong, and sold them the idea (one local dignitary at
the time was under the impression that Panda was one of America's Big
Four car makers, according to Eric Harwit, an expert on China's car
industry at the University of Hawaii).
"The Tong Il group promised to invest $1 billion, and was in return
given a 50-year lease on a huge plot at just over $1 a square metre, a
small fraction of what the land is worth. Panda then bought some old
metal-stamping equipment from a plant that General Motors was shutting
down in Ohio. Somehow this led to widespread (but unfounded) media
reports that it was going to make a Chinese version of the Chevy
Chevette. Panda never came up with a design of its own; and in 1996,
after spending an estimated $100m on the factory and related ventures
without producing a single car, it officially closed the plant. Today,
the company is called Panda Property Development, the 50-year lease
having turned out to be its most valuable asset."
Asia. In an article titled "The eclipse of Moon Inc." (which primarily
dealt with the collapse of Tong Il Heavy Industries, Hankook Titanium,
Il Sung Construction and Il Shin Stone), they wrote on December 5th,
1998:
"Despite these setbacks, the church still plans to build a huge church
in Pyongyang and a car factory in Nampo, to join the (money-losing) car
plant it already runs in Vietnam. Given Mr. Moon's track record, these
car-making ambitions are puzzling. One of his biggest recent business
failures was Panda Motors (China), which, when it was announced in 1989,
was thought to be the largest foreign investment so far in China.
Panda's planned sales of 300,000 cars a year were meant to bankroll a
far bigger dream: an "International Highway of Peace", running (with a
few allowances for oceans) from Tokyo to London, via North Korea and
China.
"Mr. Moon's representatives initially hawked the idea around Beijing and
Shanghai, where officials were sceptical about the ability of a church
with no car-making experience to pioneer a foreign car industry in
China. But the church eventually found less sophisticated officials in
Huizhou, near Hong Kong, and sold them the idea (one local dignitary at
the time was under the impression that Panda was one of America's Big
Four car makers, according to Eric Harwit, an expert on China's car
industry at the University of Hawaii).
"The Tong Il group promised to invest $1 billion, and was in return
given a 50-year lease on a huge plot at just over $1 a square metre, a
small fraction of what the land is worth. Panda then bought some old
metal-stamping equipment from a plant that General Motors was shutting
down in Ohio. Somehow this led to widespread (but unfounded) media
reports that it was going to make a Chinese version of the Chevy
Chevette. Panda never came up with a design of its own; and in 1996,
after spending an estimated $100m on the factory and related ventures
without producing a single car, it officially closed the plant. Today,
the company is called Panda Property Development, the 50-year lease
having turned out to be its most valuable asset."
一、在太平洋時代中我對中國的盼望
一、在太平洋時代中我對中國的盼望
文鮮明總裁 一九八九年十月十二日／韓國漢城(摘要)
美蘇之間冷戰的時代已經結束，如今已來到一個新的太平洋時代。今天，在蘇聯境內的改革運動、在中國境內的民主運動，以及在波蘭、匈牙利和其他東歐國家的改革風潮，已如同革命般蓬勃地展開。這證明了共產體制已來到其極限，而東─西意識型態之爭即將結束。在經濟領域方面，即將來到的一九九二年西歐共同經濟體制，亦標示著趨向於統一的改變正在發生。
而在這樣世局的變動中，韓國將如何自處？韓國將採取怎樣的方向，接受怎樣的指引呢？由於韓國特殊而重要的戰略地位，有史以來，韓國受到無數次列強入侵而受盡了苦難。今天，南北分裂的韓國，亦在我們自己的國境內經歷了全球性意識型態對峙的局面。但現在這世界上有了趨向於多元化與和諧統一的趨勢。這並不是說韓國問題會自己自動解決。有四強─美國、日本、蘇聯與中國，在關注著他們在朝鮮半島上的互動關係與利益。
因為這歷史性的關係與全球性的問題，都直接或間接地與這半島相關聯，所以，韓國成了世界問題的縮影。意即，全球問題的解決與韓國問題的解決，具有密不可分的關係。我相信，使南北分裂的韓國形成一個統一的國家的努力，將直接有助於世界和平理想的實現。
共產主義的沒落
現在共產體制與理念已來到了日薄西山的時分，但此刻我們能說自由世界持有能夠提供一項哲學代案的立場嗎？西方國家如何才能超越其本身牽繫於自由民主體制上的一些混淆與矛盾？我本身於韓國獨立期間，切身經歷過一個民族遭受可怕之分裂的命運，以及韓戰的痛苦。我在天的面前，發誓要奉獻我的一生，建立一個能夠使南北統一的哲學基礎以及世界性的基台。歷經四十年的努力，如今我已即將實現那誓言了。
要影響朝鮮半島四周的國家，使他們在一個強而有力的自由民主的哲學基礎上，支持韓國的統一，並締造一個永久的和平是相當不容易的。但是，如果我們有個計劃足以改變蘇聯和中國對北韓一面倒的支持局勢，則或許還尚有可為。
今天，這項聚會並不僅是宣佈有個公司要在中國大陸設廠。這並不是一個為了要在中國大陸牟利的投資計劃。
……為了實現一個以神的和平為中心的理想，我已為中國禱告了數十年之久……
第一步首先要協助他們開放，然後，通過技術協助，幫助他們現代化，使我們之間能夠建立良好之敦親睦鄰的關係。一九八一年，於第十屆「國際科學統一會議」上，我提出了「國際高速公路」的計劃，並將這個構想知會了全世界一百二十個國家的領袖。
即使在與中國交往非常困難的時期，我仍然鼓勵許多人到中國去協助他們現代化。我在中國東北(滿洲)創辦了延邊(Yonbyon)技術學院，每年得以輸入相當份量的科技設施。同時，我也在協助其教授交流與中國留學生出國進修的計劃。
在一方面，我已通過我所創立的「國際救難友誼基金會(IRFF)」協助中國。在另一方面，我正支助美國的運動教練去協助發展中國的體育。同時，我也提供中國的教授、學者們研究統一思想(Unification Thought)的機會，以協助他們突破意識型態的困境。
中國目前仍然頑固地堅持共產主義。今年六月天安門事件以後，大部分自由世界的投資者都撤退了，但我仍然鼓勵繼續推動興建汽車廠的努力。結果，在六月廿七日，於廣東省舉行了熊貓(PANDA)汽車廠的破土儀式。在中國的困難時刻支持他，使我們之間建立了良好的關係，這將有助於太平洋時代的開放。
共享科技的成果
我一向鼓吹科技的平均共享。科技發展是神賜給全人類共享的福祉；但如果先進國家獨佔他們的科技成就，並利用那些較未開發國家，那就是大惡。──這種趨勢將演變為造成威脅世界和平之分裂與不和的種子。所以，長久以來，我一直投入相當可觀的人力、物力來發展科技資源，以協助這個世界。
在只是單純地經營這個汽車公司之上，熊貓計劃有意開創與北京領導階層之間一個建設性的關係，使我們能夠成為未來新太平洋時代的伙伴，並終將影響北韓的金日成。我從未將此中國計劃看作是與促成朝鮮半島和平統一無關的舉動。
一九七六年在華盛頓的一場大會上，我宣佈未來將到莫斯科召開大會。現在，通過國際階層的學者、宗教人士，新聞領導人士以及藝術家們，那基台已經建立好了。此刻，正有一位蘇聯Novosti新聞局的高級編輯，以及另外四位新聞界的領導人士接受我的邀請，在韓國此地訪問，以實地瞭解我國進步發展的現況。
下個月二十六日，蘇聯Novosti新聞局局長和蘇聯國家電視臺，以及另外四位記者將應我之邀訪問美國。本月上旬，世界有名的蘇聯基洛夫(Kirov)芭蕾舞蹈團團長來訪，並答應將負責指導我於華府創辦的環球芭蕾藝術學院。
同時，在莫斯科本月七至廿七日正有一個由蘇聯正教與我們「國際宗教基金會(IRF)」聯合舉辦的超教派研討會，討論有關基督教合一的議題。我贊助了二十位西方的宗教學者前往與會。
四個汽車工業城計劃
在中國創建的熊貓汽車廠，是為了迎接亞洲太平洋時代來臨作準備基台的四個汽車工業城計劃中的第一個。另外，有一個將設在中國的丹東地區；再有一個設在中國的哈爾演與蘇聯的伯力之間；還有一個則將設在蘇聯境內的海參崴地區。丹東廠將通過北韓的新義州而造福北韓。海參崴廠位近北韓與中國的邊境，故也能夠同時造福這兩個國家。
十年後，我們即將進入一個新的世紀。我們必須將那充滿分裂與衝突的二十世紀拋在腦後，並堂堂邁入一個尊重道德與價值，充滿和諧與瞭解的新世紀。由西方與美、蘇兩強主管的時代已經結束，亞洲時代已經開啟。有鑑於朝鮮半島和亞洲整體對於建立世界和平的重要性，全球領袖再也不能忽視這個地區，且或多或少將參與這個地區的發展，基於此種歷史性的共識，我發起這締造太平洋時代的計劃，並且通過我在美國、中國與蘇聯所奠立的基台，也已經幾乎可以籌劃召開一個東亞的高峰會議了。
今天，全人類正面臨著一個如何超越意識型態歧異，與如何在復歸道德的基礎上，通過國際合作實現天下一家(世界大同)理想的共同課題，全世界人人都應當超越只為自身利益打算的想法。讓我們胸懷這種對於國際關係莊嚴的認知，一起獻上韓國，來成就一個和平的亞洲太平洋時代吧！
文鮮明總裁 一九八九年十月十二日／韓國漢城(摘要)
美蘇之間冷戰的時代已經結束，如今已來到一個新的太平洋時代。今天，在蘇聯境內的改革運動、在中國境內的民主運動，以及在波蘭、匈牙利和其他東歐國家的改革風潮，已如同革命般蓬勃地展開。這證明了共產體制已來到其極限，而東─西意識型態之爭即將結束。在經濟領域方面，即將來到的一九九二年西歐共同經濟體制，亦標示著趨向於統一的改變正在發生。
而在這樣世局的變動中，韓國將如何自處？韓國將採取怎樣的方向，接受怎樣的指引呢？由於韓國特殊而重要的戰略地位，有史以來，韓國受到無數次列強入侵而受盡了苦難。今天，南北分裂的韓國，亦在我們自己的國境內經歷了全球性意識型態對峙的局面。但現在這世界上有了趨向於多元化與和諧統一的趨勢。這並不是說韓國問題會自己自動解決。有四強─美國、日本、蘇聯與中國，在關注著他們在朝鮮半島上的互動關係與利益。
因為這歷史性的關係與全球性的問題，都直接或間接地與這半島相關聯，所以，韓國成了世界問題的縮影。意即，全球問題的解決與韓國問題的解決，具有密不可分的關係。我相信，使南北分裂的韓國形成一個統一的國家的努力，將直接有助於世界和平理想的實現。
共產主義的沒落
現在共產體制與理念已來到了日薄西山的時分，但此刻我們能說自由世界持有能夠提供一項哲學代案的立場嗎？西方國家如何才能超越其本身牽繫於自由民主體制上的一些混淆與矛盾？我本身於韓國獨立期間，切身經歷過一個民族遭受可怕之分裂的命運，以及韓戰的痛苦。我在天的面前，發誓要奉獻我的一生，建立一個能夠使南北統一的哲學基礎以及世界性的基台。歷經四十年的努力，如今我已即將實現那誓言了。
要影響朝鮮半島四周的國家，使他們在一個強而有力的自由民主的哲學基礎上，支持韓國的統一，並締造一個永久的和平是相當不容易的。但是，如果我們有個計劃足以改變蘇聯和中國對北韓一面倒的支持局勢，則或許還尚有可為。
今天，這項聚會並不僅是宣佈有個公司要在中國大陸設廠。這並不是一個為了要在中國大陸牟利的投資計劃。
……為了實現一個以神的和平為中心的理想，我已為中國禱告了數十年之久……
第一步首先要協助他們開放，然後，通過技術協助，幫助他們現代化，使我們之間能夠建立良好之敦親睦鄰的關係。一九八一年，於第十屆「國際科學統一會議」上，我提出了「國際高速公路」的計劃，並將這個構想知會了全世界一百二十個國家的領袖。
即使在與中國交往非常困難的時期，我仍然鼓勵許多人到中國去協助他們現代化。我在中國東北(滿洲)創辦了延邊(Yonbyon)技術學院，每年得以輸入相當份量的科技設施。同時，我也在協助其教授交流與中國留學生出國進修的計劃。
在一方面，我已通過我所創立的「國際救難友誼基金會(IRFF)」協助中國。在另一方面，我正支助美國的運動教練去協助發展中國的體育。同時，我也提供中國的教授、學者們研究統一思想(Unification Thought)的機會，以協助他們突破意識型態的困境。
中國目前仍然頑固地堅持共產主義。今年六月天安門事件以後，大部分自由世界的投資者都撤退了，但我仍然鼓勵繼續推動興建汽車廠的努力。結果，在六月廿七日，於廣東省舉行了熊貓(PANDA)汽車廠的破土儀式。在中國的困難時刻支持他，使我們之間建立了良好的關係，這將有助於太平洋時代的開放。
共享科技的成果
我一向鼓吹科技的平均共享。科技發展是神賜給全人類共享的福祉；但如果先進國家獨佔他們的科技成就，並利用那些較未開發國家，那就是大惡。──這種趨勢將演變為造成威脅世界和平之分裂與不和的種子。所以，長久以來，我一直投入相當可觀的人力、物力來發展科技資源，以協助這個世界。
在只是單純地經營這個汽車公司之上，熊貓計劃有意開創與北京領導階層之間一個建設性的關係，使我們能夠成為未來新太平洋時代的伙伴，並終將影響北韓的金日成。我從未將此中國計劃看作是與促成朝鮮半島和平統一無關的舉動。
一九七六年在華盛頓的一場大會上，我宣佈未來將到莫斯科召開大會。現在，通過國際階層的學者、宗教人士，新聞領導人士以及藝術家們，那基台已經建立好了。此刻，正有一位蘇聯Novosti新聞局的高級編輯，以及另外四位新聞界的領導人士接受我的邀請，在韓國此地訪問，以實地瞭解我國進步發展的現況。
下個月二十六日，蘇聯Novosti新聞局局長和蘇聯國家電視臺，以及另外四位記者將應我之邀訪問美國。本月上旬，世界有名的蘇聯基洛夫(Kirov)芭蕾舞蹈團團長來訪，並答應將負責指導我於華府創辦的環球芭蕾藝術學院。
同時，在莫斯科本月七至廿七日正有一個由蘇聯正教與我們「國際宗教基金會(IRF)」聯合舉辦的超教派研討會，討論有關基督教合一的議題。我贊助了二十位西方的宗教學者前往與會。
四個汽車工業城計劃
在中國創建的熊貓汽車廠，是為了迎接亞洲太平洋時代來臨作準備基台的四個汽車工業城計劃中的第一個。另外，有一個將設在中國的丹東地區；再有一個設在中國的哈爾演與蘇聯的伯力之間；還有一個則將設在蘇聯境內的海參崴地區。丹東廠將通過北韓的新義州而造福北韓。海參崴廠位近北韓與中國的邊境，故也能夠同時造福這兩個國家。
十年後，我們即將進入一個新的世紀。我們必須將那充滿分裂與衝突的二十世紀拋在腦後，並堂堂邁入一個尊重道德與價值，充滿和諧與瞭解的新世紀。由西方與美、蘇兩強主管的時代已經結束，亞洲時代已經開啟。有鑑於朝鮮半島和亞洲整體對於建立世界和平的重要性，全球領袖再也不能忽視這個地區，且或多或少將參與這個地區的發展，基於此種歷史性的共識，我發起這締造太平洋時代的計劃，並且通過我在美國、中國與蘇聯所奠立的基台，也已經幾乎可以籌劃召開一個東亞的高峰會議了。
今天，全人類正面臨著一個如何超越意識型態歧異，與如何在復歸道德的基礎上，通過國際合作實現天下一家(世界大同)理想的共同課題，全世界人人都應當超越只為自身利益打算的想法。讓我們胸懷這種對於國際關係莊嚴的認知，一起獻上韓國，來成就一個和平的亞洲太平洋時代吧！
。“熊猫汽车城”已经放弃原定计划，转而投资的一批地产项目又正在面临现金流难题；
熊猫汽车背景
背景：熊猫汽车胎死腹中
１９８８年９月，在美国特拉华州，一家名曰“熊猫汽车公司”（ＲＭＣ）的企业登记注册，宣告成立。隶属于弗吉尼亚商业企业集团的这家公司的最大投资者、总裁为美籍韩国人金昌源。
公司成立后不久，金昌源就来到中国寻求合作生产汽车事宜，但北京、上海、长春、湖北十堰的汽车企业对此未表示出多大兴趣。原因是熊猫公司除有限的资金外，没有任何生产汽车的技术与经验。
１９８８年１２月１８日，失意的金昌源来到广东惠州，很快与惠州方面“热恋”，签署了一份独资年产３０万辆轿车的备忘录，并保证生产的轿车百分之百出口。
之所以提出这样的条款，是因为金昌源在中国考察汽车工业时了解到，中国政府当时已完成轿车生产的布局，除“三大三小”外，不再新建轿车中外合资、合作企业，不得引进轿车生产技术，不得进口散件组装轿车。为绕过政策界限，他“聪明地”提出了“独资”和“百分之百出口”的保证。
１９８９年１月２６日，熊猫公司与惠州方面达成建厂意向。
２月份，广东省计委、经贸委根据国务院扩大广东利用外资审批权限的规定，批准了这个项目。
３月２３日，熊猫汽车获得营业执照。
６月２７日，熊猫汽车在惠州市淡水镇举行奠基仪式。
当时，熊猫公司为新公司设计了宏伟的目标：购买全套最先进的汽车装机工厂，零部件在全球范围内采购，用ＣＫＤ方式组装生产，１９８９年出样车，１９９０年底产量达到１万辆，１９９１年底达到１０万辆，１９９２年达到２５万辆，从１９９３年开始持续年产３０万辆，１５年内建成７家总装厂，年产量达到２００万辆。
然而这一蓝图在实施中遇到巨大障碍。首先，跨国汽车公司对这个平地崛起的竞争对手进行抵制：不合作，不卖产品，不出让技术；其次，世界汽车出口大国在大量出口汽车前，都先由政府开放本国汽车市场，熊猫公司显然不具备将汽车出口到别国市场的先决条件。
遭遇阻力的熊猫公司不得不向中国政府提出，将产品的３０％在中国境内销售。由于中国汽车生产能力已经形成，中国政府要求其信守承诺，没有答应其要求。
１９９１年，熊猫公司再次提出给“熊猫汽车”让出国内市场两年，而且两年中“产品主要在国内销售”，但仍遭到中国政府委婉的拒绝。
由此，熊猫汽车开始处于停滞状态，虽经努力，仍一蹶不振。如今，项目已基本停滞，只有矗立在广东惠州淡水镇的１６万平方米厂房告诉过往的行人，这里曾上演过世界汽车工业史一个少有的传奇故事。
１９８８年９月，在美国特拉华州，一家名曰“熊猫汽车公司”（ＲＭＣ）的企业登记注册，宣告成立。隶属于弗吉尼亚商业企业集团的这家公司的最大投资者、总裁为美籍韩国人金昌源。
公司成立后不久，金昌源就来到中国寻求合作生产汽车事宜，但北京、上海、长春、湖北十堰的汽车企业对此未表示出多大兴趣。原因是熊猫公司除有限的资金外，没有任何生产汽车的技术与经验。
１９８８年１２月１８日，失意的金昌源来到广东惠州，很快与惠州方面“热恋”，签署了一份独资年产３０万辆轿车的备忘录，并保证生产的轿车百分之百出口。
之所以提出这样的条款，是因为金昌源在中国考察汽车工业时了解到，中国政府当时已完成轿车生产的布局，除“三大三小”外，不再新建轿车中外合资、合作企业，不得引进轿车生产技术，不得进口散件组装轿车。为绕过政策界限，他“聪明地”提出了“独资”和“百分之百出口”的保证。
１９８９年１月２６日，熊猫公司与惠州方面达成建厂意向。
２月份，广东省计委、经贸委根据国务院扩大广东利用外资审批权限的规定，批准了这个项目。
３月２３日，熊猫汽车获得营业执照。
６月２７日，熊猫汽车在惠州市淡水镇举行奠基仪式。
当时，熊猫公司为新公司设计了宏伟的目标：购买全套最先进的汽车装机工厂，零部件在全球范围内采购，用ＣＫＤ方式组装生产，１９８９年出样车，１９９０年底产量达到１万辆，１９９１年底达到１０万辆，１９９２年达到２５万辆，从１９９３年开始持续年产３０万辆，１５年内建成７家总装厂，年产量达到２００万辆。
然而这一蓝图在实施中遇到巨大障碍。首先，跨国汽车公司对这个平地崛起的竞争对手进行抵制：不合作，不卖产品，不出让技术；其次，世界汽车出口大国在大量出口汽车前，都先由政府开放本国汽车市场，熊猫公司显然不具备将汽车出口到别国市场的先决条件。
遭遇阻力的熊猫公司不得不向中国政府提出，将产品的３０％在中国境内销售。由于中国汽车生产能力已经形成，中国政府要求其信守承诺，没有答应其要求。
１９９１年，熊猫公司再次提出给“熊猫汽车”让出国内市场两年，而且两年中“产品主要在国内销售”，但仍遭到中国政府委婉的拒绝。
由此，熊猫汽车开始处于停滞状态，虽经努力，仍一蹶不振。如今，项目已基本停滞，只有矗立在广东惠州淡水镇的１６万平方米厂房告诉过往的行人，这里曾上演过世界汽车工业史一个少有的传奇故事。
2003-10-19
认识重大突破：股份制成为公有制主要实现形式
[天若有情天亦老] 于 2003-10-19 20:00:00上贴
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://finance.sina.com.cn 2003年10月19日 16:27 新华网
新华社记者张旭东
党的十六届三中全会提出，积极推行公有制的多种有效实现形式，大力发展国有资本、集体资本和非公有资本等参股的混合所有制经济，实现投资主体多元化，使股份制成为公有制的主要实现形式。这是我国公有制实现形式认识的重大突破，为公有制经济的实现形式开辟了新的道路，必将极大解放和发展我国社会生产力。
股份制作为现代企业的一种资本组织形式，有利于所有权和经营权的分离，有利于提高企业和资本的运作效率。党的十五大报告提出，对于股份制，资本主义可以用，社会主义也可以用。不能笼统地说股份制是公有还是私有，关键看控股权掌握在谁手中。
纵观这十多年改革实践，人们对巩固和发展公有制经济和其实现形式有一个逐渐深入的认识过程，形成了较为清晰的脉络。过去人们常认为，股份制和公有制格格不入，但在不断实践探索中，国有企业实行股份制后，确实具有其他经营形式无法替代的优点，有效地促进企业对内部机制进行改革，鼓舞了企业和职工的干劲。从1984年至1991年底，全国试点股份制转制的3200个企业，每年产值和税利都有较大幅度的增长，高于其他国有企业。
到1992年，我国准备扩大股份制试点。党的十四大报告指出，股份制有利于政企分开、转换企业经营机制和积聚社会资金，要积极试点，总结经验，抓紧制定和落实有关法规，使之有秩序地健康发展。鼓励有条件的企业联合、兼并，合理组建企业集团。国有小型企业，有些可以出租或出售给集体或个人经营。
随着以建立社会主义市场经济体制为目标的经济体制改革的深入和对所有制实现形式认识的深化，1997年党的十五大提出，公有制实现形式可以而且应当多样化，一切反映社会化生产规律的经营方式和组织形式都可以大胆利用。十五大报告还同时对股份制这一现代企业的资本组织形式，给予了明确肯定，作出了重大的理论突破，表明了所有制和所有制实现形式是两个不同的概念，股份制可以是所有制的实现形式，其本身不姓“社”也不姓“资”。在这样的精神指导下，公有制的实现形式开始寻找更多的新路子。
经过5年的发展，股份制逐渐成为我国公司所有制的主要形式。股份制企业发展速度很快，1997年至2001年间，我国股份制企业从7.2万家发展到近30万家；从业人员从643.7万人增加到2746.6万人；全年实现营业收入从8311亿元增加到56733亿元。
党的十六大指出，进一步探索公有制特别是国有制的多种有效实现形式，大力推进企业的体制、技术和管理创新。除极少数必须由国家独资经营的企业外，积极推行股份制，发展混合所有制经济。
在这次召开的对完善我国社会主义市场经济体制具有重要意义的十六届三中全会上，又令人瞩目地首次提出了大力发展混合所有制经济，实现投资主体多元化，使股份制成为公有制的主要实现形式。这是一个很大的突破。以前的提法主要表明股份制是公有制的一种实现形式，而如今则明确提出了“使股份制成为公有制的主要实现形式”的方针。这意味着，我国在如何全面理解公有制方面有了新的思路，已完全摆脱了计划经济条件下对公有制的理解，国有企业多元化的速度会大大加快。
改革开放以来，随着经济市场化的不断发展，我国每一次经济理论的突破和创新，都会给国民经济发展带来巨大的活力。这次我们也完全有理由相信，伴随着股份制成为我国公有制的主要实现形式，股份制将在社会主义发展新阶段中起重要的作用，我国公有制中蕴藏的巨大生产力将会得到进一步解放和发展，为全面建设小康社会再添新力。(完)
[天若有情天亦老] 于 2003-10-19 20:00:00上贴
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://finance.sina.com.cn 2003年10月19日 16:27 新华网
新华社记者张旭东
党的十六届三中全会提出，积极推行公有制的多种有效实现形式，大力发展国有资本、集体资本和非公有资本等参股的混合所有制经济，实现投资主体多元化，使股份制成为公有制的主要实现形式。这是我国公有制实现形式认识的重大突破，为公有制经济的实现形式开辟了新的道路，必将极大解放和发展我国社会生产力。
股份制作为现代企业的一种资本组织形式，有利于所有权和经营权的分离，有利于提高企业和资本的运作效率。党的十五大报告提出，对于股份制，资本主义可以用，社会主义也可以用。不能笼统地说股份制是公有还是私有，关键看控股权掌握在谁手中。
纵观这十多年改革实践，人们对巩固和发展公有制经济和其实现形式有一个逐渐深入的认识过程，形成了较为清晰的脉络。过去人们常认为，股份制和公有制格格不入，但在不断实践探索中，国有企业实行股份制后，确实具有其他经营形式无法替代的优点，有效地促进企业对内部机制进行改革，鼓舞了企业和职工的干劲。从1984年至1991年底，全国试点股份制转制的3200个企业，每年产值和税利都有较大幅度的增长，高于其他国有企业。
到1992年，我国准备扩大股份制试点。党的十四大报告指出，股份制有利于政企分开、转换企业经营机制和积聚社会资金，要积极试点，总结经验，抓紧制定和落实有关法规，使之有秩序地健康发展。鼓励有条件的企业联合、兼并，合理组建企业集团。国有小型企业，有些可以出租或出售给集体或个人经营。
随着以建立社会主义市场经济体制为目标的经济体制改革的深入和对所有制实现形式认识的深化，1997年党的十五大提出，公有制实现形式可以而且应当多样化，一切反映社会化生产规律的经营方式和组织形式都可以大胆利用。十五大报告还同时对股份制这一现代企业的资本组织形式，给予了明确肯定，作出了重大的理论突破，表明了所有制和所有制实现形式是两个不同的概念，股份制可以是所有制的实现形式，其本身不姓“社”也不姓“资”。在这样的精神指导下，公有制的实现形式开始寻找更多的新路子。
经过5年的发展，股份制逐渐成为我国公司所有制的主要形式。股份制企业发展速度很快，1997年至2001年间，我国股份制企业从7.2万家发展到近30万家；从业人员从643.7万人增加到2746.6万人；全年实现营业收入从8311亿元增加到56733亿元。
党的十六大指出，进一步探索公有制特别是国有制的多种有效实现形式，大力推进企业的体制、技术和管理创新。除极少数必须由国家独资经营的企业外，积极推行股份制，发展混合所有制经济。
在这次召开的对完善我国社会主义市场经济体制具有重要意义的十六届三中全会上，又令人瞩目地首次提出了大力发展混合所有制经济，实现投资主体多元化，使股份制成为公有制的主要实现形式。这是一个很大的突破。以前的提法主要表明股份制是公有制的一种实现形式，而如今则明确提出了“使股份制成为公有制的主要实现形式”的方针。这意味着，我国在如何全面理解公有制方面有了新的思路，已完全摆脱了计划经济条件下对公有制的理解，国有企业多元化的速度会大大加快。
改革开放以来，随着经济市场化的不断发展，我国每一次经济理论的突破和创新，都会给国民经济发展带来巨大的活力。这次我们也完全有理由相信，伴随着股份制成为我国公有制的主要实现形式，股份制将在社会主义发展新阶段中起重要的作用，我国公有制中蕴藏的巨大生产力将会得到进一步解放和发展，为全面建设小康社会再添新力。(完)
2003-10-14
Breakthrough:1,允许非公有资本进入法律法规未禁入的基础设施、公用事业及其他行业和领域。非公有制企业在投融资、税收、土地使用和对外贸易等方面，与其他企业享受同等待遇。
2,形成城乡劳动者平等就业的制度
Lip Service:要坚持公有制的主体地位，发挥国有经济的主导作用
Essence:使股份制成为公有制的主要实现形式
2,形成城乡劳动者平等就业的制度
Lip Service:要坚持公有制的主体地位，发挥国有经济的主导作用
Essence:使股份制成为公有制的主要实现形式
