Human Rights's topics - tribe.net

Conspiracy Collage

marvindublin — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 06:26:11 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmaOXPWesFo - Conspiracy Collage - 1 - By Mr. M

This is a slideshow video I made earlier this evening. It's not a movie. But maybe one day I will make one. I'd love to tread a similar path as Michael Moore, Aaron Russo, Alex Jones, David Icke, Etc..... Say what you will. I'm ready for the heaping of the coals upon my head. lol

Cheers

M

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SERIAL KILLERS tribe

marvindublin — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 22:53:48 GMT

http://tribes.tribe.net/serialkillerstribe

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Human Rights Watch

marvindublin — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 03:57:56 GMT

http://www.hrw.org/

I just finished watching http://thedocumentary.tribe.net/thread/8f173f24-7521-49f8-b834-eb034b249436 This is a really good movie and at the end HRW information is provided. There are lots of other movies presented as well. Not all gay oriented. All different kinds of movies about human rights. On www.firstrunfeatures.com .

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New tribe against the occupation of Afghanistan

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 06:48:12 GMT

New tribe against the occupation of Afghanistan
http://tribes.tribe.net/outnow#

Massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan began in 1978 and continues to this day. The ongoing war in Afghanistan continues to kill thousands of Afghan civilians and cause extreme suffering due to horrendous injuries, the displacement of people from their homes and livelihoods, home invasions, sexual abuse, arbitrary arrests and torture, and the general humiliation of the Afghani people.

As this author stated for Liberation News on September 12, 2001:

“Americans watched in horror as the World Trade Center collapsed. Yet it was a horror no different from what the U.S. government has done with it's bombing of civilian populations in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Korea. The U.S. bombings of just these countries, not to mention many other U.S. acts of war, murdered millions of civilians. Terror against civilians is never justified…

“Today the clerical fascists of the Taliban rule Afghanistan. The CIA put them in power with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid. This massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was in opposition to the revolutionary PDPA government that came to power in 1978 on issues of promoting women’s rights and land reform. Literacy campaigns began teaching the poor and women how to read and write.

“Foreign religious fanatics and wealthy defenders of the old feudal system came together in a terrorist organization called the Mujahideen. With billions of dollars in assistance from the U.S. [starting under the Jimmy Carter presidency] these fanatical cutthroats waged a holy war that included killing women for teaching little girls how to read and write and throwing acid into the faces of women who had become liberated from the veil. The Taliban came to power as a result of this U.S. intervention.

“Will a U.S. war now against the Taliban and former CIA aid recipient Osama Bin Laden set things straight? No. It will be the people of Afghanistan who suffer death and destruction from war as the U.S. attempts to install a puppet government friendly to U.S. corporate [oil pipeline] interests.” Steven Argue, Liberation News, September 12, 2001

The Taliban was put in power by U.S. intervention. U.S. occupation today is a cause for war and continues to keep an extremely reactionary religious government in power. Afghanistan had secular governments with much wider women's rights before the U.S. began its massive intervention in Afghanistan in the 1970's. All U.S. imposed governments have been religious and anti-women. In Afghanistan, the Afghanis are better qualified to solve the problems caused by U.S. imperialism than U.S. imperialism is.

Yet rather than get out of Afghanistan Obama and McCain are proposing more troops, more helicopters, and more war.

NO TO THE BIPARTISAN OCCUPATION OF AFGHANISTAN!!!!

NO TO OBAMA and MCCAIN'S PROPOSED SURGE IN AFGHANISTAN!

U.S. OUT OF AFGHANISTAN NOW!

http://tribes.tribe.net/outnow#

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1950: 100,000 Executed by Imperialism's Korean Dictatorship

Mon, 19 May 2008 17:57:37 GMT

[The US war of aggression in Korea murdered 5 million Koreans. Part of that murder was the cold blooded executions of over 100,000 leftists and suspected leftists by the South Korean government in 1950. Over 54,000 U.S. soldiers died in the U.S. war to defend that murderous U.S. imposed regime. The following AP article exposes what many on the left have known about for decades, but has been hidden from the general public in the United States by the government and corporate media. -Steven Argue]

AP Probes 'Cold-Blooded Slaughter' in South Korea
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003805038

By CHARLES J. HANLEY and JAE-SOON CHANG, The Associated Press

Published: May 18, 2008 4:15 PM ET

DAEJEON Grave by mass grave, South Korea is unearthing the skeletons and buried truths of a cold-blooded slaughter from early in the Korean War, when this nation's U.S.-backed regime killed untold thousands of leftists and hapless peasants in a summer of terror in 1950.

With U.S. military officers sometimes present, and as North Korean invaders pushed down the peninsula, the southern army and police emptied South Korean prisons, lined up detainees and shot them in the head, dumping the bodies into hastily dug trenches. Others were thrown into abandoned mines or into the sea. Women and children were among those killed. Many victims never faced charges or trial.

The mass executions - intended to keep possible southern leftists from reinforcing the northerners - were carried out over mere weeks and were largely hidden from history for a half-century. They were ``the most tragic and brutal chapter of the Korean War,'' said historian Kim Dong-choon, a member of a 2-year-old government commission investigating the killings.

Hundreds of sets of remains have been uncovered so far, but researchers say they are only a tiny fraction of the deaths. The commission estimates at least 100,000 people were executed, in a South Korean population of 20 million.

That estimate is based on projections from local surveys and is ``very conservative,'' said Kim. The true toll may be twice that or more, he told The Associated Press.

In addition, thousands of South Koreans who allegedly collaborated with the communist occupation were slain by southern forces later in 1950, and the invaders staged their own executions of rightists.

Through the postwar decades of South Korean right-wing dictatorships, victims' fearful families kept silent about that blood-soaked summer. American military reports of the South Korean slaughter were stamped ``secret'' and filed away in Washington. Communist accounts were dismissed as lies.

Only since the 1990s, and South Korea's democratization, has the truth begun to seep out.

In 2002, a typhoon's fury uncovered one mass grave. Another was found by a television news team that broke into a sealed mine. Further corroboration comes from a trickle of declassified U.S. military documents, including U.S. Army photographs of a mass killing outside this central South Korean city.

Now Kim's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has added government authority to the work of scattered researchers, family members and journalists trying to peel away the long-running cover-up. The commissioners have the help of a handful of remorseful old men.

``Even now, I feel guilty that I pulled the trigger,'' said Lee Joon-young, 83, one of the executioners in a secluded valley near Daejeon in early July 1950.

The retired prison guard told the AP he knew that many of those shot and buried en masse were ordinary convicts or illiterate peasants wrongly ensnared in roundups of supposed communist sympathizers. They didn't deserve to die, he said. They ``knew nothing about communism.''

The 17 investigators of the commission's subcommittee on ``mass civilian sacrifice,'' led by Kim, have been dealing with petitions from more than 7,000 South Koreans, involving some 1,200 alleged incidents - not just mass planned executions, but also 215 cases in which the U.S. military is accused of the indiscriminate killing of South Korean civilians in 1950-51, usually in air attacks.

The commission last year excavated sites at four of an estimated 150 mass graves around the country, recovering remains of more than 400 people. Working deliberately, matching documents to eyewitness and survivor testimony, it has officially confirmed two large-scale executions - at a warehouse in the central South Korean county of Cheongwon, and at Ulsan on the southeast coast.

In January, then-President Roh Moo-hyun, under whose liberal leadership the commission was established, formally apologized for the more than 870 deaths confirmed at Ulsan, calling them ``illegal acts the then-state authority committed.''

The commission, with no power to compel testimony or prosecute, faces daunting tasks both in verifying events and identifying victims, and in tracing a chain of responsibility. Under Roh's conservative successor, Lee Myung-bak, whose party is seen as democratic heir to the old autocratic right wing, the commission may find less budgetary and political support.

The roots of the summer 1950 bloodbath lie in the U.S.-Soviet division of Japan's former Korea colony in 1945, which precipitated north-south turmoil and eventual war.

In the late 1940s, President Syngman Rhee's U.S.-installed rightist regime crushed leftist political activity in South Korea, including a guerrilla uprising inspired by the communists ruling the north. By 1950, southern jails were packed with up to 30,000 political prisoners.

The southern government, meanwhile, also created the National Guidance League, a ``re-education'' organization for recanting leftists and others suspected of communist leanings. Historians say officials met membership quotas by pressuring peasants into signing up with promises of rice rations or other benefits. By 1950, more than 300,000 people were on the league's rolls, organizers said.

North Korean invaders seized Seoul, the southern capital, in late June 1950 and freed thousands of prisoners, who rallied to the northern cause. Southern authorities, in full retreat with their U.S. military advisers, ordered National Guidance League members in areas they controlled to report to the police, who detained them. Soon after, commission researchers say, the organized mass executions of people regarded as potential collaborators began - ``bad security risks,'' as a police official described the detainees at the time.

The declassified record of U.S. documents shows an ambivalent American attitude toward the killings. American diplomats that summer urged restraint on southern officials - to no obvious effect - but a State Department cable that fall said overall commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur viewed the executions as a Korean ``internal matter,'' even though he controlled South Korea's military.

Ninety miles south of Seoul, here in the narrow, peaceful valley of Sannae, truckloads of prisoners were brought in from Daejeon Prison and elsewhere day after day in July 1950, as the North Koreans bore down on the city.

The American photos, taken by an Army major and kept classified for a half-century, show the macabre sequence of events.

White-clad detainees - bent, submissive, with hands bound - were thrown down prone, jammed side by side, on the edge of a long trench. South Korean military and national policemen then stepped up behind, pointed their rifles at the backs of their heads and fired. The bodies were tipped into the trench.

Trembling policemen - ``they hadn't shot anyone before'' - were sometimes off-target, leaving men wounded but alive, Lee said. He and others were ordered to check for wounded and finish them off.

Evidence indicates South Korean executioners killed between 3,000 and 7,000 here, said commissioner Kim. A half-dozen trenches, each up to 150 yards long and full of bodies, extended over an area almost a mile long, said Kim Chong-hyun, 70, chairman of a group of bereaved families campaigning for disclosure and compensation for the Daejeon killings. His father, accused but never convicted of militant leftist activity, was one victim.

Another was Yeo Tae-ku's father, whose wife and mother searched for him afterward.

``Bodies were just piled upon each other,'' said Yeo, 59, remembering his mother's description. ``Arms would come off when they turned them over.'' The desperate women never found him, and the mass graves were quickly covered over, as were others in isolated spots up and down this mountainous peninsula, to be officially ``forgotten.''

When British communist journalist Alan Winnington entered Daejeon that summer with North Korean troops and visited the site, writing of ``waxy dead hands and feet (that) stick through the soil,'' his reports in the Daily Worker were denounced as ``fabrication'' by the U.S. Embassy in London. American military accounts focused instead on North Korean reprisal killings that followed in Daejeon.

But CIA and U.S. military intelligence documents circulating even before the Winnington report, classified ``secret'' and since declassified, told of the executions by the South Koreans. Lt. Col. Bob Edwards, U.S. Embassy military attache in South Korea, wrote in conveying the Daejeon photos to Army intelligence in Washington that he believed nationwide ``thousands of political prisoners were executed within (a) few weeks'' by the South Koreans.

Another glimpse of the carnage appeared in an unofficial U.S. source, an obscure memoir self-published in 1981 by the late Donald Nichols, a U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, who told of witnessing ``the unforgettable massacre of approximately 1,800 at Suwon,'' 20 miles south of Seoul.

Such reports lend credibility to a captured North Korean document from Aug. 2, 1950, eventually declassified by Washington, which spoke of mass executions in 12 South Korean cities, including 1,000 killed in Suwon and 4,000 in Daejeon.

That early, incomplete North Korean report couldn't include those executed in territory still held by the southerners. Up to 10,000 were killed in the city of Busan alone, a South Korean lawmaker, Park Chan-hyun, estimated in 1960.

His investigation came during a 12-month democratic interlude between the overthrow of Rhee and a government takeover by Maj. Gen. Park Chung-hee's authoritarian military, which quickly arrested many then probing for the hidden story of 1950.

Kim said his projection of at least 100,000 dead is based in part on extrapolating from a survey by non-governmental organizations in one province, Busan's South Gyeongsang, which estimated 25,000 killed there. And initial evidence suggests most of the National Guidance League's 300,000 members were killed, he said.

Commission investigators agree with the late Lt. Col. Edwards' note to Washington in 1950, that ``orders for execution undoubtedly came from the top,'' that is, President Rhee, who died in 1965.

But any documentary proof of that may have been destroyed, just as the facts of the mass killings themselves were buried. In 1953, after the war ended in stalemate, after the deaths of at least 2 million people, half or more of them civilians, a U.S. Army war crimes report attributed all summary executions here in Daejeon to the ``murderous barbarism'' of North Koreans.

Such myths survived a half-century, in part because those who knew the truth were cowed into silence.

``My mother destroyed all pictures of my father, for fear the family would get an image as leftists,'' said Koh Chung-ryol, 57, who is convinced her 29-year-old father was innocent of wrongdoing when picked up in a broad police sweep here, to die in Sannae valley.

``My mother tried hard to get rid of anything about her husband,'' she said. ``She suffered unspeakable pain.''

Even educated South Koreans remained ignorant of their country's past. As a young researcher in the late 1980s, Yonsei University's Park Myung-lim, today a leading Korean War historian, was deeply shaken as he sought out confidential accounts of those days from ordinary Koreans.

``I cried,'' he said. ``I felt, 'Oh, my goodness. Oh, Jesus. This was my country? It was true?'''

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission can recommend but not award compensation for lost and ruined lives, nor can it bring surviving perpetrators to justice. ``Our investigative power is so meager,'' commission President Ahn Byung-ook told the AP.

His immediate concern is resources. ``The current government isn't friendly toward us, and so we're concerned that the budget may be cut next year,'' he said.

South Korean conservatives complain the ``truth'' campaign will only reopen old wounds from a time when, even at the village level, leftists and rightists carried out bloody reprisals against each other.

The life of the commission - with a staff of 240 and annual budget of $19 million - is guaranteed by law until at least 2010, when it will issue a final, comprehensive report.

Later this spring and summer its teams will resume digging at mass grave sites. Thus far, it has verified 16 incidents of 1950-51 - not just large-scale detainee killings, but also such events as a South Korean battalion's cold-blooded killing of 187 men, women and children at Kochang village, supposed sympathizers with leftist guerrillas.

By exposing the truth of such episodes, ``we hope to heal the trauma and pain of the bereaved families,'' the commission says. It also wants to educate people, ``not just in Korea, but throughout the international community,'' to the reality of that long-ago conflict, to ``prevent such a tragic war from reoccurring in the future.''

CHARLES J. HANLEY and JAE-SOON CHANG, The Associated Press
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Israel and the Ongoing Holocaust in Congo

Fri, 16 May 2008 18:18:50 GMT

[See link for citations. My answer to those who say the U.S. isn't doing enough in the Congo other parts of southern Africa: it is already doing too much –Steven Argue]

Gertler’s Bling Bang Torah Gang
Israel and the Ongoing Holocaust in Congo (Part 1)

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/02/gertlers-bling-bang-torah-gang/

by Keith Harmon Snow / February 9th, 2008

Maurice Tempelsman is one of the top funders of the Democratic Party who has funded Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Templesman was the unofficial ambassador to the Congo (Zaire) for years, but a new Israeli-American tycoon has replaced him. In the world of bling bling and bling bang, some things change, some stay the same. The CIA, the MOSSAD, the big mining companies, the offshore accounts and weapons deals—all hidden by the Western media. The holocaust in Central Africa has claimed some six to ten million people in Congo since 1996, with 1500 people dying daily.1 But while the Africans are the victims of perpetual Holocaust, the persecutors hide behind history, complaining that they are the persecuted, or pretending they are the saviors. Who is responsible?

For Israeli-American Dan Gertler, business in blood drenched Congo is not merely business, it is a quest for the Holy Grail. Young Dan Gertler goes nowhere—does nothing—without the spiritual guidance of Brooklyn-born Rabbi Chaim Yaakov Leibovitch, a personal friend of Condoleeza Rice.2 Gertler and Leibovitch are two of the principals behind a diamond mining company, Emaxon Finance Corporation, involved in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Gertler and gang won the majority rights to the diamonds from the state mining company, Société Minière de Bakwange, MIBA, found near the government-controlled town of Mbuji-Mayi, the rough diamond capital of the world.

Emaxon Finance Corp. has apparently out-maneuvered diamond competitors, especially the big rivals Energem and De Beers. Energem is one of the many shady mining companies connected to Anthony Teixeira, a Portuguese born businessman now residing in South Africa whose daughter married Congolese warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba. The warlord’s deadly battle in Congo in March 2007 was a bid between rival agents—Jean-Pierre Bemba and Joseph Kabila—to be the black gatekeeper for the mining cartels run by dynastic families like Templesman, Oppenheimer, Mendell, Forrest, Blattner, Hertzov, Gertler and Steinmetz, and for companies like NIKANOR, whose stock prices rose early in July 2006 in expectation of a July 30th “win” for Joseph Kabila.3 Africa Confidential called President Kabila’s 2003 visit to the Bush White House a “coup” for the Israeli diamond magnates Dan Gertler and Beny Steinmetz.

Canadian-based Energem, formerly DiamondWorks, is owned by British mercenary Tony Buckingham and its director/shareholders include Mario and Tony Teixeira, J.P. Morgan, and Gertler’s partner Israeli-American Beny Steinmetz (50%).4 Through subsidiary Branch Energy, the Energem-DiamondWorks gang has perpetuated war in 11 African countries.5 In December 2007, Energem re-launched itself on the London Stock Market with the newly laundered image of a renewable energy company. Regarding diamonds, it said only it “had decided to give up exploration rights in the Central African Republic.”6 The Energem spokesman explained that Tony Teixeira “had a clean bill of health” etc., etc. Of course, Energem “quit” the C.A.R. because Jean-Pierre Bemba marched his troops into C.A.R., where they raped and pillaged widely.7 Energem is still operating in Congo, but Dan Gertler is the new, unofficial ambassador to the Congo for the George W. Bush gang.

Gertler and partners like Beny and Danny Steinmetz, Nir Livnat, Chaim Leibovitz and Yaakov Neeman run a hornet’s nest of companies involved in African hotspots, including: Dan Gertler International (DGI), Steinmetz Global Resources, International Diamond Industries, NIKANOR and Global Enterprises Corporate.

“Dan Gertler is ‘the new kid on the block,’” writes Yossi Melman in Israel’s Haaretz news. “Bold, sophisticated, brutal, he is an adventurer with a short fuse.” Haaratz confirmed that Dan Gertler owns a complex network of interconnected companies, often registered in offshore tax havens and involved in India, Russia, Belgium and the United States, and that Dan Gertler is looking to God for guidance.8

THOU SHALT NOT STEAL

“In the diamond industry,” Melman wrote, “Gertler is considered something of an odd bird. He maintains few ties with the other merchants and is not very sociable… Alongside his business affairs, most of his energy is channeled into matters of faith. He is a donor to religious institutions and from time to time makes a pilgrimage to the rabbi he most admires, Rabbi David Abuhatzeira, from Nahariya, in order to consult with him and receive his blessing. Gertler is surrounded mostly by religious people and laces his speech liberally with praise to God.”8

In 2003, Condoleeza Rice, then Assistant to President Bush for National Security Affairs, introduced Dan Gertler and Chaim Leibovitch to U.S. official Jendayi Frazer, a Harvard Kennedy School affiliate and former National Security Council agent focused on Africa. On December 6, 2006, Frazer, then Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, was one of seven special Bush delegates sent to the inauguration of Congo’s newly installed President Joseph Kabila in Kinshasa.9

When Dan Gertler and Chaim Leibovitch and their friends visit the luxury Gertler villa in Lumumbashi, the capital of Katanga, Congo’s large southern province, their kosher meals arrive by private plane from Kinshasa. The special executive jet that flies their kosher meals a few hundred miles over the roadless Congo costs some $US 23,000 per trip.10

The average income for Congolese citizens each year—if they survive it—is about $95. Shootings at mining facilities and diamond mines are common, land is stolen from Congolese people, strikes are crushed by security forces that companies are partnered with, and black overseers of state terror routinely arrest and torture any vocal opposition—and sometimes disappear them—in support of white bosses. The Société Minière de Bakwange—MIBA— and the diamond fields of Mbuji-Mayi in Congo have a long history of bloodshed backed by Western powers, including Israel, from the beginning.11 Amnesty International points out that not a single state agent has ever been prosecuted for the extrajudicial executions of suspected “illegal” miners in Mbuji-Mayi.12

After a century of exploitation and slavery, we find MIBA consistently withholding payment of salaries to starving Congolese laborers and middle managers for months at a time. April and May 2007 saw strikes and protests leading to the Kabila government’s arbitrary arrest, detention and torture of trade union organizers like Leon Ngoy Bululu; police have also shot protestors.13 So-called ‘illegal’ diamond workers—disenfranchised local Congolese people forced into “criminal” activities to survive—were summarily executed on MIBA concessions in Mbuji-Mayi. MIBA security guards have also been sniping unemployed diamond miners.14

Meanwhile, Dan Gertler’s kosher meals depart Kinshasa, the capital of the big Congo, through the arrangements of Rabbi Chlomo Bentolila, high priest of the Chabad of Central Africa. Rabbi Chlomo Bentolila has been a Kinshasa Rabbi since 1991, and he was a spiritual force who survived the terrorism of the old dinosaur, Mobutu Sese Seko, the way most elites did: by working with him. Rabbi Bentolila is a member of the Chabad Lubavitch Global Emissary Network, headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, and his wife Miriam is the sister of Rabbi Mena’hem Hadad, a high priest in Brussels.15

“Kosher does not mean that a Rabbi blesses the food,” Rabbi Betolila corrected me, “but rather that the food was supervised by a Rabbinical Thora [sic] authority who sees that the ingredients were in accordance with the laws of Kashrut expressed in the Bible (Leviticus and Deuteronomy).”16

Dan Gertler often flies people into Congo, on his private jet, for sacred Jewish rituals. For the Bar Mitsvah of Rabbi Chlomo Bentolila’s son Binyamin Avrahim in June 2005, guests included eminent Rabbis, Hassidic singer Yoni Shlomo and special orchestra Yossef Brami, all arriving in “special flights” from Israel, New York and Brussels. The reception was held at the luxurious and exclusive Memling Hotel. Joseph Kabila sent a sizeable delegation but did not attend: his closest advisers provided a blessing on his behalf.17

The Gertler, Steinmetz and Templesman interests are advanced in part through the support of the Committee of the Jewish Community of Kinshasa—le Comité de la Communauté Israélite—that is tightly coordinated with the power structure in Kinshasa to exert influence and assure control of Israeli-Belgian-Anglo-American interests over the geopolitical arena.

From June 26-30, 2007, the Communaute Israelite de Kinshasa received a visit from the Israeli Ambassador Yaakov Revah, director of the Africa Department of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Revah also flew to Lumumbashi for meetings with Dan Gertler and his agents, including Moishe (Moses) Katumbi, the Governor of Katanga, and they most likely enjoyed a lovely, $23,000 kosher meal sent from the Chabad in Kinshasa.18 The Communaute Israelite de Kinshasa maintains very intimate political relations with President Joseph Kabila’s PPRD party, the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy. On March 1, 2006, in a formal ceremony, the President of the Communaute Israelite de Kinshasa, Ashlan Piha, was awarded the Congo’s Medal of Civil Merit.

THOU SHALT NOT COVET

Before his assassination on January 16, 2001, Laurent Desire Kabila—the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)—made a deal with the Gertler gang that would play out in favor of the current President Joseph Kabila and, it seems, be a central factor in relation to both Congo’s ongoing war and the bloody warlord’s battle in Kinshasa in March 2007.19

Back in 2000, former Congolese president Laurent Kabila offered a monopoly on Congolese diamonds, and 88% of the proceeds, to Gertler’s International Diamond Industries (IDI) in exchange for Israeli military assistance to his new government.20 Top Congolese military officials apparently flew to Israel in 2000 to negotiate the deal. Gertler pledged military assistance to President Laurent Kabila through top Israeli officials.21

The original Gertler-Kabila deal fell through after Laurent Kabila was assassinated for not cooperating with the Great White Fathers of industry (January 2001), but Gertler and Leibovitch and their disciples formed another company, Dan Gertler International, and advanced their Congo plan.22 By 2002 Gertler’s company was the leading exporter of Congolese gems, controlling a diamond mining franchise worth about $US 1 billion annually.23

In 2003, the mighty Congolese diamond parastatal Societe Miniere De Bakwanga (MIBA)—which has been forever controlled by the Great White Fathers in Belgium, Israel and America—signed an exclusive contract with Gertler’s startup company, Emaxon Finance International. The deal involved Israeli’s Foreign Defense Assistance and Defense Export Organization (SIBAT), and high-level Israeli defense and intelligence officials. Gertler and his buddies reportedly bribed Congolese officials and Angolan generals who, on and off, have commanded Angolan Army troops protecting Kinshasa, Congo’s capital.21,24

Security for mining operations in Congo is provided by exclusive security companies like Overseas Security Services (OSS) one of the many DRC interests of Belgian billionaire tycoon Philippe de Moerloose. A member of the Kinshasa elite, de Moerloose supplies jets and other presidential toys to DRC President Kabila. In 2006, President Joseph Kabila’s campaign helicopter was at the centre of a legal battle involving Philippe de Moerloose.25 De Moerloose’s companies operated in Mobutu’s Zaire from at least 1991, backing state terrorism and Western corporate plunder that was rendered invisible by the Western media. De Moerloose is also an adviser to European Union (EU) Commissioner—and diamantaire—Louis Michel.

Dan Gertler and Philippe de Moerloose were, reportedly, the only two white men who attended the wedding of Joseph Kabila and the two clearly share interests in “security” provided by OSS at MIBA and elsewhere in Congo. The April 2003 secret agreement signed between the Gertler/Steinmetz company Emaxon Finance and the Kabila government involved MIBA and two de Moerloose companies, OSS-Congo and Demimpex, and other firms.

Overseas Security Services (OSS) operations are apparently grounded in the experience of top expatriate security operatives formerly involved with the biggest security firm in Mobutu’s Zaire.26 According to OSS public relations materials, “these persons have a not unimportant experience in the safety of this country.”26 Providing mine security, body-guard and protection services, OSS operates in Burundi, Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Dubai, South Africa, Republic of Congo (Brazzavile) and Belgium, placing them in cahoots with all sides warring and plundering eastern Congo today.27

Emaxon Finance International is a real gem, one of these octopuses of mining tangled up with interlocking companies and subsidiaries based in specious geographical offshore “tax havens” that work to shield from prosecution people who are responsible for money laundering, weapons and drugs operations, assassinations and other terrorism.

NIKANOR is registered as an Isle of Man (UK) company, an offshore tax haven that helps to conceal criminal activities and maximize profits. NIKANOR directors include Dan Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Israel (2001-2005) and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research under Madeleine Albright. NIKANOR partners include Mende and Moshe Gertner [sic], Israeli property tycoons with vast holdings in London who control 22 percent of NIKANOR. Another partner is Israeli-born Nir Livnat, managing director of Johannesburg-based Ascot Diamonds, a member of the Steinmetz Group of Diamond Companies, and a principal involved in numerous U.S.-based businesses from Miami to New York.28

THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS

Back in 2001, when the Gertler enterprises surfaced in dirty diamond deals, public relations was handled by Lior Chorev, the “Special Strategic and Communications Consultant” to International Diamond Industries (IDI), and Chorev continued in this role to support Dan Gertler businesses.29 Today, Lior Chorev is partnered with the brothers Yuval and Eyal Arad as director-owners of the Israeli marketing and public relations firm, ARAD Communications.30

“We do work for Mr. Gertler on some of his business issues,” said Lior Chorev.31 ARAD’s many clients include Dan Gertler companies, Los Angeles-based Coral Diamonds and an Israeli aeronautics weaponry manufacturer producing Unmanned Aerospace Vehicles (UAVs)—robotic weapons and intelligence platforms like those being used against the people of Congo today.32 As a political strategist, Lior Chorev has worked for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.33 He has also participated in Israel-NATO defense planning conferences.34

Dan Gertler is close to Israeli politicians, especially Avigdor Lieberman, head of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party, and he is very close to diamantaire Beny Steinmetz, a good friend of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Gertler’s inseperable friend, Chaim Leibovitz, is also very close to Lieberman, and was “a regular fixture” in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s offices.35

Beny Steinmetz is considered to be one of the richest billionaires in Israel. The Steinmetz Group, controlled with his brother Daniel, is one of the biggest clients of the de Beers diamond syndicate. Steinmetz is also involved in an Israeli real estate group that purchased the assets of the British Haslemere real estate company for $1.46 billion. Steinmetz’s real estate partners include the billionaire Israeli investors David and Simon Reuben, and the Saudi Arabian Olayan Group, an investment company that is deeply connected with Bechtel Corporation.36 The Steinmetz web site map of operations hides their involvement in war-torn Congo.37

Seems Dan Gertler’s land grabs and exclusion in Congo have a lot in common with the current crimes against humanity being committed by Israel through its illegal partition in the Middle East. On January 3, 2008, the Jerusalem Post reported that Lior Chorev was an integral part of past Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s advisers, and he was recently quoted to say that even though Sharon did not get to finalize Israel’s final borders (he suffered a debilitating stroke in 2006), the route of the security fence—which he decided—would ultimately serve as the basis for the border and as Sharon’s lasting legacy.38

“He felt he needed to set the border because he didn’t trust the younger generations,” Chorev was quoted to say. “He knew the fence route by heart and the reason for every stretch of land being on one side or the other.”38

In 2003, the U.N. Panel of Experts on war in Congo revealed that Emaxon Finance International is controlled by Israeli diamond traders Chaim Leibovitz and Dan Gertler.39 Emaxon lists as its address an office in Montreal, Canada, but Emaxon’s majority shareholder is listed as FTS Worldwide, a nebulous global corporation whose business address is that of a firm of lawyers, Mossack Fonseca & Company, in Panama City. FTS Worldwide is registered with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission to lawyer Andre Zolty of Geneva Switzerland. A copy of the MIBA-Emaxon contract was signed on 13 April 2003 by Israeli-Americans Yaakov Neeman and Chaim Leibovitz.40

Yaakov Neeman is a founding partner of Herzog, Fox and Neeman, Tel Aviv, one of Israel’s top law firms, and he has held Israeli government cabinet and ministerial positions.41 Neeman is on the Advisory Board of Markstone Capital Group, a very influential group of investment bankers, with Eli Hurvitz. On the board of Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries with Eli Hurvitz is Northrup-Grumman director Philip Frost.42 Both Philip Frost and Maurice Templesman are top-level councilors for the American Stock Exchange. Eli Hurvitz sat on the International Advisory Counsel of Harvard University’s Belfer Center, 2002-2005, during the period when the Belfer Center and their intelligence operative Robert Rotberg formalized the “Kimberley Process” to officially whitewash blood diamonds.43 Yakov Neeman is also a governor of the World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency for Israel.

One of the main objectives of the Kimberley Process, and the Harvard Belfer Center’s role, was to protect the South African Oppenheimer and De Beers diamond cartels and their leading buyers and agents like Maurice Templesman and Beny Steinmetz.44 Added to those diamond industry firms whitewashed by the Kimberley Process are all the Zionist diamond dealers and cartels that have risen like a phoenix out of the ashes of the Holocaust.

The Israeli-American enterprises of the Gertler/Steinmetz gang have proliferated and today are major shareholders or owners of diamond concessions in Congo’s Kasai province and copperbelt concessions in Katanga. The copperbelt is the big money in Congo. Copper prices recently hit an all time high due to monopoly control by corporations and new applications in transportation, aerospace and weaponry. Cobalt is used in dye and paint processes for manufacturing. More importantly, it is elemental to superalloys used for tank armor, spacecraft, turbines, ship hulls, ship hulls, blast furnaces, refineries, petroleum drilling rigs, nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Like coltan, or columbium-tantalite, cobalt is also used in cell phone batteries. The Katanga copperbelt is also rich in germanium, a rare metal used in optical fibers, infrared lenses and telecommunication satellites.45

The entire military-industrial-prisons complex revolves around minerals like cobalt, niobium and heterogenite (cobalt oxide), yet the truth about what happens to African people in lands taken over by these mining companies is hidden by the corporate media. More and more land is being stolen, more and more atrocities committed, with less and less transparency, and less and less accountability, and fewer and fewer voices for the voiceless. And, as usual, there are always a lot of empty promises.

THOUGH SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS

Over the past fifty years, elite Israeli nationals have perpetrated conflict and injustice in Africa, fueled by and for minerals. Operatives associated with the Israeli military or intelligence services—the Mossad—maintain strategic criminal syndicates in competition and in partnership with other syndicates involving men like Philippe De Moerloose, Louis Michel, Viscount Etienne Davignon, John Bredenkamp and Tony Buckingham.

Israeli trained shock troops became Mobutu’s bodyguards, with Mossad advisers. According to a report by the American Jewish Committee: after 1980 “Mossad agents, military emissaries, and a small group of private businessmen… replaced diplomats as Israel’s main interlocutors with African leaders and political (mainly opposition) groups.” The report cites rising involvement of private defense and security interests, especially in Angola, DRC and Central Africa Republic, since 1992.46

Israeli operatives and “businessmen” appear everywhere there is egregious suffering and dispossession. Dan Gertler’s forays into the bloody world of diamonds involve Israeli arms dealers Yair Klein, who is reportedly wanted by the U.S. for training Medellin drug-cartel militias in Colombia, and Dov Katz.47 Klein was convicted by Israel (1991) for his involvement with groups that targeted and assassinated Colombian politicians, journalists, and police. Jailed in Sierra Leone in 1999, Klein was a field representative for Gertler in war-torn Sierra Leone and Liberia. Gertler also mingles with the Russian Military Brotherhood, a group of “retired Russian generals whom Gertler describes as good friends.”48,49

Retired Israeli Defense Forces Colonel Yair Klein reportedly organized arms for diamonds networks in Sierra Leone and Liberia after President Charles Taylor was deposed. In 1999, Klein was arrested in Sierra Leone on charges of smuggling arms to the rebel Revolutionary United Front.50 The U.N. also documented collaborations between Sierra Leone’ rebels and Lazare Kaplan agent Damian Gagnon; Lazare Kaplan International is one of the organized crime syndicates of Jewish American Maurice Templesman.51

The Steinmetz Group of companies are also involved in the bloody diamond fields of Sierra Leone, along with Energem (formerly DiamondWorks), the company described above that is connected to the white mercenaries depicted in Hollywood’s Blood Diamond propaganda film.52 In December 2007, local people in Sierra Leone struggling to gain the smallest livelihood from their own resources were shot by police during peaceful protests against the Steinmetz-controlled Koidu Holdings site. It’s the same old local people’s story happening everywhere. These were people from communities driven off their own land by mining companies that promised the world, cajoled the trusting people, and gave nothing after. The Steinmetz gang called in the local paramilitary, a curfew was imposed and people were shot; the police, as usual, falsely claimed that protesters were armed.53

Like most mining mafias in Africa, the Israeli octopus—organized crime syndicates, offshore subsidiaries, interlocking directorships and affiliated mercenaries—has gripped the very heart of Congo like an octopus grips and stuns its prey. Mining regulates the pulse of Congo, and foreign mining companies with their black sell-out agents are sucking the blood out of the people and the wealth out of the land.

THOU SHALT NOT KILL

Beyond the intriguing Jewish rivalry for diamonds in the heart of darkness, this tale takes a chilling turn with the involvement of certain German firms and New York City lawyers. NIKANOR, another Gertler/Steinmetz company of dubious origins operating in DRC, has a subcontract with the notorious ThyssenKrupp conglomerate, a company comprised of two former Nazi weapons manufacturers linked to the New York law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, to Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., Lehman Brothers, Chase Manhattan Bank, J.P. Morgan, DuPont and IBM, in the great Nazi-American money plot.54

These companies were all behind the Jewish Holocaust. The infamous German Krupp firm is the industrial corporation that collaborated with former CIA director Allen Dulles and former U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Clients of the Dulles brothers’ law firm Sullivan and Cromwell included Adolph Hitler.54 Ted Terry, one of the senior counselors of the law firm Sullivan and Cromwell today, is also a director of a philanthropy called the Harold K. Hochschild (HKH) Foundation, named for the mining magnate behind AMAX, a company operating in the copperbelt in Zambia, but whose parent company, Phelps Dodge, operates in Katanga, Congo. Harold K. Hochschild was close to the CIA, and he appears to have backed the Katanga succession in the 1960’s just as Dan Gertler in recent years backed the reorganization of power in Congo by force. Sullivan and Cromwell was also the law firm for AMAX. 55,56

Brown Brothers Harriman & Company (BBH) was the primary Wall Street connection for German companies and the U.S. financial interests of Fritz Thyssen, an early financial backer of the Nazi party. BBH bought and shipped millions of dollars of gold, steel, fuel, coal, and U.S. treasury bonds to Germany. These were used to build Hitler’s war machine, and the ties proliferated even after the Nazi concentration camps began churning out skeletons. The horrors of the concentration camps at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Buckenwald became public knowledge long before they became public outrage. It is the same story for Congo.

A PRAYER FOR THE DEAD

There are no records or statistics of the numbers of people brutalized or killed in the diamond or cobalt mining areas, like Kolwezi, Mbuji Mayi, Tshikapa, Banalia, or Kananga in DRC, or Ndola in Zambia, and many of the victims of security abuses will never be known.

When Gertler and Steinmetz and their buddies came to Congo it was soon clear that they had to challenge Zimbabwean tycoons John Bredenkamp and Billy Rautenbach—two cronies of dictator Robert Mugabe involved in pillaging Congo and Zimbabwe for decades. The United Nations Panel of Experts on DRC named both men for plundering copper and cobalt from Katanga, and both deal globally in weapons. Bredenkamp is one of the fifty richest men in England and he reportedly owns a mansion several doors down from Margaret Thatcher’s residence in London.

On November 7, 2007 it was reported that Dan Gertler was instrumental in putting together a deal in which Katanga Mining Ltd. would buy rival NIKANOR for $2.1 billion and merge their adjacent mine projects in Congo to form the world’s largest cobalt company. Also announced was a joint venture between the Central African Mining & Exploration Company (CAMEC) and another Gertler-controlled firm called Prairie International Limited.

The CAMEC/Prairie joint venture will exploit DRC’s Luita copper processing facility, develop the Mukondo Mountain cobalt mine—called the world’s richest cobalt mine—and work on “other” exploration properties. Prairie is majority owned by the family of Dan Gertler. CAMEC is connected to Zimbabwean/South African/British tycoon Billy Rautenbach.57 The DRC government effectively banned controversial Zimbabwean businessman Billy Rautenbach from the country by declaring him persona non grata in July 2007, but this doesn’t seem to stop him from getting what he wants. Rautenbach is also wanted in South Africa on 300 charges of fraud, corruption and theft.

Rautenbach is a former motor car rally driver who controls a business empire in Southern and Central Africa through a British Virgin Islands company called Ridgepoint Overseas Development Limited. In 1998, the short-lived President of Congo, Laurent Kabila, named Rautenbach the managing director of La Générale des Carrières et des Mines (Gécamines), one of Africa’s biggest cobalt mines, the Katanga properties of the Union Miniere de Haut Katanga formerly developed by the Belgian colonial government. Rautenbach today is one of the Africa’s largest exporters of heterogenite (cobalt ore) from the DRC through his Congo Cobalt Company (CoCoCo), but he also has shares in two other lucrative DRC mining firms—Boss and Mukondo—which reportedly earn over US$100 million a month.58

While there has been a lot of Western media fanfare over the Kabila governments’ supposed “independent” review of mining contracts, little substantive change can be expected.59 Structural factors exploit the Congolese people and lands and benefit white businessmen, arms dealers, bankers, and their embraceable black agents. Big business benefits from perception management articles well-placed in media to give the impression that the international system is just, that there are watchdogs, checks and balances.

However, while the DRC and the World Bank present a propaganda front about their ostensible attention to mining reform and the new mining code, NIKANOR—Mining Journal reports—“is in the advantageous position of having entered into a post mining-code contract, ‘which makes us [NIKANOR] relatively comfortable’”60 In other words, the mining review is a sham, it may force some changes, but it will be cosmetic at best.

Dan Gertler and the Steinmetz Group’s partner Jewish-American Nir Livnat is also a director of Anglovaal Mining with Rick and Brian Menell and Basil Hersov of the South African Menell and Hersov dynasties.61 Hersov has been named as a beneficiary of fraud and racketeering involving British BAE Systems weapons deals with shady offshore companies.62

The octopus of South African connections is a story in itself, with links to top officials from Britain to Canada, like Canadian Senator J. Trevor Eyton, and offshore mining companies involved in all the big money (diamonds, gold, petroleum, cobalt) and big corporations with interlocking directorships: Coca Cola, Nestlé, General Motors, and the Bush-connected Barrick Gold Corporation. Barrick, of course, is partnered up with the Oppenheimer/De Beers firm Anglo-American Corporation at six sites in Africa, including Congo.

Rick Menell is a director of Bateman Engineering—owned by Benny Steinmetz—the junior partner of the NIKANOR projects in Katanga. Britain’s Earl of Balfour is a director of both Bateman and NIKANOR. Menell is also the director of Teal Exploration and Mining, whose directors include Joaquim Chissano, former President of Mozambique; Murray Hitzman, a Clinton administration official with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (1994-1996); Hannes Meyer, who worked with Anglo-Gold Ashanti in Congo, 1999-2006, when militias in Ituri were funded to get the gold out. Teal Exploration also has ties to Anvil Mining and Anglo-American Corporation.63

Brian Menell, Nir Livnat’s associate on the board of Anglovaal, is on the board of Energem (formerly DiamondWorks) with Tony and Mario Teixeira. The Livnat connection ties Teixeira into networks that have supported both Joseph Kabila and Jean-Pierre Bemba in Congo’s bloody wars. Energem is also involved in the trans-Uganda-Kenya pipeline, along with Nexant, a subsidiary of the deep intelligence and defense insider Bechtel Corporation.64

Brian Menell is also on the board of First Africa Oil, which operates in seven African countries, and First Africa Oil director John Bentley is a director of Osprey Oil and Gas, whose directors include Carol Bell, a director of the Rockefeller’s Chase Manhattan Bank. Bentley is also on the board of Adastra Minerals—formerly America Mineral Fields (AMF, AMFI, AMX), a company based in 1995 in Hope, Arkansas—and set up by Robert Friedland and Max and Jean-Raymond Boulle, notable “friends of Bill” Clinton. Since 1995, American Mineral Fields has been involved in Brazil, Russia, Norway, Zambia, Angola and the DRC. A criminal backer of the war in DRC, Jean-Raymond Boulle, who holds 36.4 % of the company stock, was the former General Director of De Beers in Zaire, part of the Templesman alliance of terrorism under the Mobutu regime.65,66

The Gertler/Steinmetz interests apparently curry huge favors with Congo’s number two most powerful man, Augustine Katumba Mwanke, one of Joseph Kabila’s closest allies and financiers, former Governor of Katanga (1998-2001) and director of Australia’s Anvil Mining. The UN Panel of Experts (2002) cited Mwanke for illegal arms deals and plunder of Congo: Mwanke negotiated arms purchases through Belgian banks and the DRC mining company MIBA.67 Reportedly, Mwanke personally clears $US 1,000,000 a day through his interests in Katanga mining deals.68

Anvil Mining has been involved in massacres in DRC.69 Anvil directors include former U.S. Ambassador Kenneth L. Brown, who served at U.S. embassies in Brussels, Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville and South Africa. Brown was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Africa (1987-1989) under George Schultz and George H.W. Bush and Director of Central African Affairs (1980-1981). The former top internal intelligence and security chief of the United Nations Observer’s Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) has been worked for Anvil mining in Katanga since 2006.70

THOU SHALT NOT RAPE AND PLUNDER

Gertler/Steinmetz interests have also been jostling for copper and cobalt concessions with Kinross-Forrest Group. Gertler has bought up or invested heavily in companies just to close them down. George Forrest also made the UN hit list of Congo’s looters and Forrest and his three sons helped bankroll Joseph Kabila’s 2006 election “victory”.71 George Forrest’s daughter is reportedly married to the son of Louis Michel. Malta and George Forrest are controlling directors in Katanga Mining Limited.

Born as Entreprise Générale Malta Forrest, the Belgian Forrest interests have been pillars of exploitation in Congo since at least 1922, when they launched mining operations in Katanga. Forrest’s Katanga Mining directors include: three Canadians; Congo’s Jean-Claude Masangu Mulongo, a former Governor of DRC and high official at the IMF and World Bank; and the current Governor of the Central Bank of DRC. The Forrest dynasty has munitions factories in Belgium and Kenya, and has partnered with OM-Group, in Ohio [USA], dealing in Congo’s cobalt and coltan. Forrest International also operates in Europe, Burundi—involving him on both sides of Congo’s bloody war—and the Middle East.72 Forrest interests in DRC include aviation, foods, plantations, construction, logging, copper and cobalt mining. Forrest companies are enmeshed in the coltan plunder in eastern Congo.

Katanga is the world’s richest mining metropolis, part of the vast copper belt that stretches across northern Zambia and southern Congo—and the home to unprecedented human misery due to state orchestrated repression and communities overrun with toxic mining, tuberculosis, cancers, immune disorders, racial discrimination and slavery. The Zambian copperbelt concessions over the border involve many of the same companies and interests mentioned above, and others.73

Workers and communities in and around these mines suffer all the standard treatable maladies (typhoid, malaria, tetanus, polio, malnutrition) as well. However, such stories are off the agenda for the North American, European, Japanese, Australian and Israeli media corporations providing the mainstay of English language indoctrination meant to instill racial superiority and a vast ignorance and obliviousness that leaves westerns populations shaking their heads and wringing their hands and clicking their tongues, while all the while wondering “what is to be done?” It does not cross people’s minds that their own hands are dirty, that their own consciousness has been falsified, as all the raw materials from Congo enrich the lives of people in the United States, Canada, Europe and Israel.

The immediate capital investment required for just one Gertler project in Katanga—the Komoto Oliveira Virgule (KOV) project—is reportedly $US 1.8 billion dollars, income to kick start billions of dollars of unused equipment mothballed in the middle Mobutu era. There are rumors that Bechtel is involved, but the KOV project involves ThyssenKrupp AG as a minor player.74

The Krupp firm is one of several German firms involved in the plunder in eastern Congo, exploitation which involves the DeutscheGesellschaft für technische Zusammenarbeit—GTZ—a “German technological cooperation agency” whose Supervisory Board has representatives of four Federal [German] Ministries.75 Krupp industries use coltan and cobalt for superalloys.76 Dr.-Ing. Ekkehard D. Schultz, a ThyssenKrupp director, is also a director of Bayer AG, the Germany firm whose subsidiary H.C. Starck was named for its involvement in the ongoing illegal plunder of coltan and cassiterite (tin) in eastern Congo. NIKANOR director Jay Pomrenze is also a consultant for the Deutsche Bank.77 Certain German and U.S. firms benefit from the military occupation of Rwandan-backed warlord Laurent Nkunda in North Kivu, DRC, where Nkunda controls the Lueshe niobium mine “owned” by Gesellschaft fuer Elektrometallurgie GmbH, a subsidiary of New York-based Mettalurg Group.78,79

HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER

Dan Gertler’s grandfather, Moshe Schnitzer (d. November 2007), was known in Israel as “Mr. Diamond;” in youth he joined the pre-state underground organization Etzel (Irgoun), an Israeli military cell self-defined as an “untra-nationationalist Jewish militia,” but one that committed acts of terrorism in service to the Israeli cause.8 Moshe Schnitzer assumed a major role in the Africa-Israeli diamond trade in the 1950’s in a partnership business called Schnitzer-Greenstein. Schnitzer later founded the Israel Diamond Exchange in Tel Aviv in 1960, which today brings Israel $14 billion annually in blood business, and is the country’s second-largest industry, but Israel’s top export. King Leopold III of Belgium decorated Schnitzer in recognition of his activities favoring the close relationship of Belgium, Israel and the DeBeers diamond cartels, and Schnitzer was also President of the Harry Oppenheimer Diamond Museum in Israel.80

The diamond jewelry trade in the United States is more than $30 billion annually, and 99%—everything that is not synthetic or artificial diamonds—involves blood diamonds and the above organized crime syndicates. Israel buys more than 50% of the world’s rough diamonds, and the U.S. buys two-thirds of these. The diamond factories are located in Nethanya, Petach Tikvah, Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Jerusalem, and other cities around the country, but most of the offices were in Tel Aviv in the financial district on Ahad Ha’am Street.81 Dan Gertler’s father, Asher Gertler, and his uncle, Shmuel Schnitzer, manage the original family business, and Shmuel is Vice-Chairman of the Belgian-based World Diamond Council—the entity that spends more money promoting the false image of “conflict-free” diamonds than it does helping any of the people dispossessed or brutalized by the diamond industry.48

On August 16, 2007, Rabbi Bentolila in Kinshasa received a communication asking: “What does the Torah say about men exploiting other men for vast profits while other men are starving and dying all around them? Is there some hierarchy to the Torah that suggests, for example, that black people or Africans are lesser beings, and therefore not to be a concern where profound profits are being made?”

There was no reply from Rabbi Bentolila, he was apparently busy readying for another Bar Mitsvah in Belgium. Unfortunately for Dan Gertler and his spiritual advisers, the Torah says that a Jew can keep a slave, but a Jew kept as a slave must be redeemed, and that—an empty, foolish justification for exploiting innocent people—is how religion falsifies spirituality.

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posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Police Break 60 Year Old Homeless Woman's Arm

Sat, 10 May 2008 19:05:08 GMT

[Donna Deiss is a politically active homeless woman in Santa Cruz, who was also an advocate for tenants rights before she was unfairly evicted. The homeless in Santa Cruz, as well as activists who criticize the local government, are often victims of police harrassment, false arrests, and police violence. -Steven Argue]

60 Year Old Homeless Woman Says Police Broke Her Arm
by Robert Norse
Saturday May 10th, 2008
Donna Deiss called in last night to report that yesterday around 5 PM, Officer La Moss (Badge #114) assaulted her, broke her arm, and then put her in handcuffs when he attempted to question her at Three Tree Lot near Lighthouse Field. Deiss was taken to the Watsonville hospital, had to wait hours for x-rays, whichconfirmed her arm was broken.
Deiss reported the following to me in a phone message last night and an e-mail this morning:

She was talking with friends yesterday on Westcliffe Drive near her RV. An undercover police officer, whom she later identified as Officer LaMoss, arrived in a black unmarked car and said he wanted to talk to her and others in the group. She read La Moss a statement from the ACLU about the rights of community members vis a vis the police and walked to her RV.

The cop followed her. She got in and tried to close the door. Le Moss, not saying she was under arrest or detained, reached in and grabbed her right arm, pinching the skin as he twisted it behind her back, breaking it. She screamed her arm was broken, but his response was to call for backup. 4 more police cars arrived. She continued screaming for 911 and finally paramedics showed up.

The police said they were impounding her RV, which she lives in.

She was taken to Watsonville hospital, waited hours for x-rays and painpills. She is charged with battery and an additional charge. X-rays confirm her arm was broken. She needs an attorney and community support.

This is an account from Donna Deiss (with someadditions from her friend Shane). Donna has previously been harassed by rangers as part of the 'clear out the hippies' campaign at Three Tree Lot and the other lots around Lighthouse Fields. Recently the City's Parks and Recreation Department had its 'No RVs' signs painted over by state Rangers, for apparently violating state law and policy regarding parking (i.e. RVS are allowed to park).

See related stories: 'Harassment of Homeless in RVs, a Letter from Donna Deiss' at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/10/08/18452903.php ,

'Superintendant Hammack Stonewalls on RV Ban in Coastal Parking Lots' at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/09/12/18447267.php , and

'Coastal Access Denied to Motorhomes and Trailers in Santa Cruz' at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/08/30/18444952.php for related stories.

HOMELESSNESS AND POLITICAL REPRESSION, THE GREEN PARTY FAILS THE TEST IN SANTA CRUZ by Steven Argue
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2001/12/5085.shtml

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Country Reports On Human Rights Practices

marvindublin — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:27:53 GMT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_Reports_on_Human_Rights_Practices

Hmm. Interesting.

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Religious schools forcing children to beg

libbylule — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:05:01 GMT

I just read this article on CNN.com

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/04/21/begging.africa.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
Boy flees Islamic school that forces African children to beg

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) -- On the day he decided to run away, 9-year-old Coli awoke on a filthy mat.

Like a pup, he lay curled against the cold, pressed between dozens of other children sleeping head-to-toe on the concrete floor. His T-shirt was damp with the dew that seeped through the thin walls. The older boys had yanked away the square of cloth he used to protect himself from the draft. He shivered.

It was still dark as he set out for the mouth of a freeway with the other boys, a tribe of 7-, 8- and 9-year-old beggars.

Coli padded barefoot between the stopped cars, his head reaching only halfway up the windows. His scrawny body disappeared under a ragged T-shirt that grazed his knees. He held up an empty tomato paste can as his begging bowl.

There are 1.2 million Colis in the world today, children trafficked to work for the benefit of others. Those who lure them into servitude make $15 billion annually, according to the International Labor Organization.

It's big business in Senegal. In the capital of Dakar alone, at least 7,600 child beggars work the streets, according to a study released in February by the ILO, the United Nations Children's Fund and the World Bank. The children collect an average of 300 African francs a day, just 72 cents, reaping their keepers $2 million a year.

Most of the boys -- 90 percent, the study found -- are sent out to beg under the cover of Islam, placing the problem at the complicated intersection of greed and tradition. For among the cruelest facts of Coli's life is that he was not stolen from his family. He was brought to Dakar with their blessing to learn Islam's holy book.

In the name of religion, Coli spent two hours a day memorizing verses from the Quran and over nine hours begging to pad the pockets of the man he called his teacher.

It was getting dark. Coli had less than half the 72 cents he was told to bring back. He was afraid. He knew what happened to children who failed to meet their daily quotas.

They were stripped and doused in cold water. The older boys picked them up like hammocks by their ankles and wrists. Then the teacher whipped them with an electrical cord until the cord ate their skin.

Coli's head hurt with hunger. He could already feel the slice of the wire on his back.

He slipped away, losing himself in a tide of honking cars. He had 20 cents in his tomato can.

Three years ago, a man wearing a skullcap came to Coli's village in the neighboring country of Guinea-Bissau and asked for him.

Coli's parents immediately addressed the man as "Serigne," a term of respect for Muslim leaders on Africa's western coast. Many poor villagers believe that giving a Muslim holy man a child to educate will gain an entire family entrance to paradise.

Since the 11th century, families have sent their sons to study at the Quranic schools that flourished on Africa's western seaboard with the rise of Islam. It is forbidden to charge for an Islamic education, so the students, known as talibe, studied for free with their marabouts, or spiritual teachers. In return, the children worked in the marabout's fields.

The droughts of the late 1970s and '80s forced many schools to move to cities, where their income began to revolve around begging. Today, children continue to flock to the cities, as food and work in villages run short.

Not all Quranic boarding schools force their students to beg. But for the most part, what was once an esteemed form of education has degenerated into child trafficking. Nowadays, Quranic instructors net as many children as they can to increase their daily take.

"If you do the math, you'll find that these people are earning more than a government functionary," said Souleymane Bachir Diagne, an Islamic scholar at Columbia University. "It's why the phenomenon is so hard to eradicate."

Middle men trawl for children as far afield as the dunes of Mauritania and the grass-covered huts of Mali. It's become a booming, regional trade that ensnares children as young as 2, who don't know the name of their village or how to return home.

One of the largest clusters of Quranic schools lies in the poor, sand-enveloped neighborhoods on either side of the freeway leading into Dakar.

This is where Coli's marabout squats in a half-finished house whose floor stirs with flies. Amadu Buwaro sleeps on a mattress covered in white linens. The 30 children in his care sleep in another room with dirty blankets on the floor. It smells rotten and wet, like a soaked rag.

Buwaro is a thin man in his 30s who wears a pressed olive robe and digital watch. The children wear T-shirts black with filth. He expects them to beg to pay the rent, because there are no fields here to till.

But their earnings far exceed his rent of $50. If the boys meet their quotas, they bring in around $650 a month in a nation where the average person earns $150.

Buwaro expects the children to suffer to learn the Quran, just as he did at the hands of his teacher.

So when Coli failed to return, Buwaro was furious. He flipped open his flashy silver cell phone and called another marabout who kept a blue planner with names of runaway boys. The list stretched down the page. He added Coli's name.

His tomato can tucked under one arm, Coli jumped on the back of a bus, holding on to the swinging rear door. He was hundreds of miles from the village where he grew up speaking Peuhl, a language not commonly heard in Dakar.

He could not ask the Senegalese for help. So he got directions in Peuhl from other child beggars, who like him were trafficked here from the zone of green savannah just outside Senegal.

Coli made his way to a neighborhood where he had heard of a place that gave free food to children like him.

"Do you know where you come from?" asked the kind-faced woman at Empire des Enfants. The shelter's capacity is 30 children, but it usually houses at least 50.

Coli knew the name of his mother, but not how to reach her. He knew the name of the region where he was born, but not his village. "My mother is black," he said. "I'm sure I'll recognize her."

The shelter worker told Coli what to do if his marabout came. We will protect you, she said. If he tries to grab you, scream.

Days went by. Maybe weeks.

Then Coli's marabout arrived.

In 2005, Senegal made it a crime punishable by five years in prison to force a child to beg. But the same law makes an exception for children begging for religious reasons. Few dare to cross marabouts for fear of supernatural retaliation.

Coli's marabout entered the shelter flanked by a column of religious leaders in cascading robes that tumbled onto the ground. One of them stabbed his finger at the clouds and yelled out, "The sky will fall down on you if you don't hand over our children."

The shelter is used to such threats. But this time the marabouts had discovered the center's legal paperwork was not complete. They threatened to close the shelter if it did not hand over 11 boys.

To save more than 40 others, the shelter handed over the 11. Coli was on the list.

Back at the school, they beat the 9-year-old until he thought he was going to faint. At night, they dragged him off the floor, doused him in water and beat him again.

Three days later, he ran away again. When he arrived at the shelter, he said: "I want to go home to my mom."

To find Coli's mother, aid workers broadcast his name on the radio in Guinea-Bissau. The names of over a dozen children also from Guinea-Bissau played in a continuous loop, like sonic homing pigeons trying to find their target.

No response. Some boys worried their parents might be dead.

"I'm sure my mother is still alive," Coli reasoned. "When I left her she was well, so why wouldn't she be well now?" Underneath his bright eyes is another worry. Will she be angry that he disobeyed his teacher?

Over the past two years, the International Organization for Migration has returned over 600 child beggars to their homes. Several had been hit by cars. Some had scars on their backs. One 10-year-old was so hungry he ate out of the trash. Soon after he returned home, he vomited worms and died.

Almost all the boys had begged on behalf of Quranic instructors in Senegal.

"Cultural habits have been manipulated for the sake of exploitation," said the IOM's Laurent de Boeck, deputy regional representative for West and Central Africa.

Two months went by before a shelter worker pulled Coli aside. His parents were alive.

The 13 boys from Guinea-Bissau pile into a bus. Coli screams with glee as it takes off for the airport.

"Is this Guinea-Bissau?" one of them asks as they descend onto the cracked runway and enter the small airport of the nation's capital. "Senegal looks better," says another.

Though Senegal is among the world's poorest nations, it's visibly more developed than Guinea-Bissau, listed 160th out of 177 countries on the U.N.'s human development index. The capital they left had streets clogged with taxis and flashy 4-by-4s. The buildings were tall. The capital they returned to has squat, low buildings and crumbling colonial villas.

"I'm not sure I like it," Coli confides.

As the bus leaves the capital, they pass villages of cone-shaped huts and fields where boys herd bulls. They sing songs, clapping their hands. As they pull into the shelter where their parents were told to expect them, the boys fall silent.

Timidly, they file off the bus. A few of the 12- and 13-year-olds recognize their families. They approach them respectfully, shaking hands.

Coli's mother is not there.

A judge tells the parents they will be jailed if they send their children away to beg again. They have to sign a statement promising to protect their boys from traffickers. Most are illiterate, so they leave a thumbprint in blue ink next to their names.

"You sent your kids to hell," the judge says. "You can't say that because you are poor you're going to allow your kids to be abused."

His booming voice ricochets off the cracked walls of the building. The parents stare straight ahead.

But the conditions that made these families send their children to hell still persist.

Many of the villages do not have enough food. Few have schools. In one, the schoolhouse is a bamboo enclosure that doubles as an animal corral. "We haven't had classes here in over a year," an elderly man says as he ducks into the classroom and skirts a pile of bull manure.

The aid group pays for school fees and supplies. But the stipend cannot cover the economic worth of a child. Some of the children returned in previous months now work as bricklayers and goatherds. Others have already been sent back to the marabouts by their parents. The idea of child trafficking as a crime is so new in the region that no African language has a word for it, experts say.

With each passing day, more parents and relatives come, but not Coli's.

On the third day, the shelter pays for another radio address.

By the fourth, half the 13 children are gone.

The others become increasingly agitated. Maybe the radio is broken, Coli muses. His wet eyes fill with the invisible color of worry.

Early on the fifth morning, a woman in a pressed peach robe walks up to the shelter.

Coli rushes outside. He stands a few feet away as tears topple down his cheeks. She covers her face with her veil and weeps.

The two sit side-by-side in plastic chairs. Coli's mother looks at her feet. Her family is poor, she says, and she wanted Coli to get an education. It took her several days to reach the shelter because she didn't have $2 for the bus fare.

For more than an hour, Coli cries. Tears run down either side of his cheeks, forming two watery garlands. They meet at his chin and plop down on his collar bone, pooling above his shirt.

She stands up and wipes his chin. They leave, crossing the dusty boulevard.

Her arm reaches around his shoulder and the long sleeve of her robe falls around the little boy. It hides him from the remaining children, who silently watch Coli go home.

Soon after Coli left, his marabout traveled to Guinea-Bissau. He angrily demanded to know why Coli had run away.

Ashamed, Coli's father promised to make up for the boy's bad behavior.

He is sending the marabout two more sons.

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

The Ludlow Massacre Legacy, Part I: Colombia

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 01:25:01 GMT

The Ludlow Massacre Legacy, Part I: Colombia
by David Sirota

http://www.creators.com/opinion/david-sirota/the-ludlow-legacy-part-i-colombia.html

This is the first of two columns looking at the legacy of the Ludlow Massacre on its 94th anniversary.

Ninety-four years ago on April 20, America made international news when a government-sanctioned paramilitary unit murdered Colorado union organizers at a Rockefeller-owned coal mine. The Ludlow Massacre was "a story of horror unparalleled in the history of industrial warfare," wrote The New York Times in 1914 — and the abomination was not just the violence, but the way political and corporate leaders colluded on their homicidal plans to protect profits.

Sanitized history teaches that our government has since changed. Quite the contrary, as the Bush administration this week moves to legitimize the methods of Ludlow through its Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

Colombia resembles Colorado in the early 20th century, only with more frequent slaughters. In the last two decades, over 2,500 Colombian labor organizers have been assassinated, making Colombia the world's most dangerous place for unionists.

This violence is underwritten by companies like Chiquita, which has financed Colombian death squads that "destroyed unions, terrorized workers and killed thousands of civilians," according to Portfolio magazine. The brutality deliberately depresses labor costs in a country where business analysts cite exploitative conditions as reason to invest.

This situation, like Ludlow, developed not in spite of the governing elite, but thanks to it. As The Washington Post reports, Colombia's "most influential political, military and business figures helped build" the killing machine. Recently, prosecutors connected these paramilitaries to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's allies.

Colombian labor leaders have begged the White House to drop the deal, saying it will undermine their struggle for human rights by validating Uribe's thug-ocracy. Nonetheless, President Bush bolstered Uribe with a pact giving corporations incentives to leave America for the corpse-strewn pastures of Colombia — a union hater's paradise.

Bush justifies the deal as "urgent for our national security." The rationale asks us to believe that in backing tyrannical regimes, we will quell anti-Americanism among the oppressed, rather than sow it.

Congressional Democrats could vote down the agreement.
But they would need to overcome pernicious forces in their midst. Specifically, the Colombian government and corporate groups have hired former Clinton administration officials to champion the deal, paid off former President Bill Clinton with an $800,000 speaking contract, and employed Mark Penn — Hillary Clinton's chief presidential strategist — to push the pact.

Oh, how we've regressed from Ludlow, when mere Rockefellers owned everything. Today, Dubai princes purchase our stock exchanges, Chinese communists buy our banks, and now Colombian goons bid on our politicians — and the results are trickling in.

When Bush dropped the deal on Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi complained only that his tactics are "jeopardizing prospects" for the pact's passage. Instead of blocking the accord, she only pledged to postpone it — a maneuver that could ensure its approval. National Journal reports that Democrats are considering "delaying a vote until after the November elections." The scheme would let Democratic candidates campaign as aw-shucks populists promisin' to fight for the little fella, and then head to D.C. to do the bidding of lobbyists and ratify the deal in a lame-duck session.

Between equivocating press releases, Pelosi said she worries that if voted on now, the pact "would lose, and what message would that send?" For starters, it would say the Democratic Party joins most Americans in opposing job-killing trade policies. It would also declare the party against rewarding murderous regimes on behalf of Clintonites now living large off of Colombian blood money.

But, then, such principled stands are considered uncouth in this, the Ludlow renaissance.

Calendars may say it is 2008, but the Establishment mentality is 1914. On the anniversary of the butchery in Colorado, we see the hideous power of corruption in all its pathological glory. Our government is showing that it views the Ludlow Massacre not as an embarrassment, but as an ideal to be embraced and exported.

David Sirota is a bestselling author whose newest book, "The Uprising," will be released in June of 2008. He is a fellow at the Campaign for America's Future and a board member of the Progressive States Network — both nonpartisan organizations. His blog is at www.credoaction.com/sirota.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Join the new “Cool Earth Party” tribe

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:43:55 GMT

Join the new “Cool Earth Party” tribe

The Democrats and Republicans are the paid agents of the oil, armament, and insurance industries. Their continued rule of America will assure a future of more imperialist war, a healthcare system that doesn't work, and no meaningful action on global warming (the single biggest threat to the future of humanity and a healthy planet).

The Cool Earth Party is being established on the principles of revolutionary democratic socialism. We call for an end to the dictatorial power of the wealthy through the nationalization of major industries and for the establishment of a planned economy run to meet human and environmental needs. This socialist society must be established within the framework of full democratic freedoms and multi-party proportional democracy. To be truly Democratic all parties running in elections will be legally guaranteed equal time in the media, big campaign spending will be outlawed, and electronic voting machines (which are presently used to rig American elections) will be eliminated.

Upon taking power the Cool Earth Party will establish a system of socialized medicine for the United States, end all U.S. military occupations of other countries, end U.S. military aid to repressive governments, and nationalize the auto and energy industries to carry out immediate emergency measures to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Cool Earth Party
http://tribes.tribe.net/coolearth

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Assata Shakur: Letter From Exile on Her 60th Birthday

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 20:07:41 GMT

Assata Shakur: Letter From Exile on Her 60th Birthday

First of all, let me say thank you, to the many people who have helped me to celebrate my 60th birthday. Thank you for your beautiful birthday cards and for your warm and eloquent messages. Thank you for your activism, your radiant energy and most of all for your love. I am sincerely grateful for your support and for your commitment to social justice, truth and freedom.

It is somehow surprising for me to realize that I have lived on this planet for 60 years. I never imagined that I would live this long. Some of those years were very hard years, other years were happier, but I have never forgotten who I am or where I came from. For as long as I can remember, I was acutely aware of my oppression and of the oppression of my people. In some ways it was easier for my generation. Racism was blatant and obvious. The "Whites Only" signs let us know clearly, what we were up against. Not much has changed, but the system of lies and tricknology is much more sophisticated. Today young people have to be highly informed and acutely analytical, or they will be swept up into a whirlpool of lies and deception.

Freedom, justice and liberty are words that are thrown around a lot in
the United States, but for most of us, it is empty rhetoric. With each
and every passing day the country becomes more repressive, the police
more viciously aggressive and the so-called constitutional guarantees
obliterated by scare tactics. The so-called 'Conservatives' are only
interested in conserving their privileges and power and helping their
rich friends to become richer. Black 'Conservatives' serve their
"masters" and are basically interested in grinning, shuffling and
'Uncle Tomming' all the way to the bank. This is the most corrupt
administration that has ever existed. They have blatantly stolen not
millions, but billions of dollars. They are actively seeking to
preserve the old colonial order with a new face, where the oppressed
people of Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East are expected
to suffer happily, and sing praises to imperialism to the tune of the
star spangled banner.

It is extreme arrogance to attack and occupy a country and expect its
people to rejoice and lick your feet. Not even Roman Emperors were
involved in such misguided conceit. The U.S. government has no right
whatsoever, to force its undemocratic "democracy" on the rest of the
world. I am 60 years old and I cannot remember a time when my people
ever experienced true democracy. It is still the active policy of the
U.S. government to use a wide variety of tactics to prevent poor
people and people of color from voting. And when we do get to vote,
our votes usually do not count. For the most part, there are no decent
candidates to vote for, because the U.S, government is a
"dollarocracy" where candidates have to beg and pander to the
corporate rich in order to be elected.

I am 60 years old, and I have never in my life seen such widespread
violence and cruelty. The U.S. government has more people in prison
than any other country in the world, and it is now actively involved
in creating prisons all over the world. Abu Gharib is only the tip of
the iceberg. People all over the world are being imprisoned in secret
prisons, with no formal charges being made against them. They are
imprisoned under the most inhumane conditions, and detained for
indeterminate periods of time, with no rights, no trials, and no
justice whatsoever. In short, the leaders of this country are war
criminals. All the U.S. government has to do is call them terrorists
or extremists, enemy combatants or whatever and they can do anything
they want to these people. I live in Cuba, and the Cuban people watch
horrified, as the U.S. Army illegally occupies their land in
Guantanamo and commits unspeakable acts of torture on their soil, in
the name of "freedom." The U.S. government not only destroys the lives
of people around the world, many mothers have cried because many of
our young people have had their lives destroyed as well. I believe
that this earth was meant for tenderness and not terror. The
imperialist countries not only implement terrorist policies in the
Third World, their actions also provoke terrorist activities and
internal disputes between people. I believe that when Western
governments learn to respect the sovereignty of Third world
governments, and to offer solidarity and support rather that
imperialist policies and exploitation, most of the world's problems
will be close to being solved.

Inside the belly of the beast, conditions are also disastrous. Most of
the victims of Katrina are still waiting for decent housing and public
services. Schools and hospitals around the country are either
deteriorating or closing down. Around the country social programs to
help poor and working people are mostly a thing of the past. Our young
people are being marginalized, criminalized and brutalized. It is
often an act of courage to go to school, or simply drive down the
street. The U.S. government's occupation of Afghanistan has produced a
record increase of heroin production, and the "war on drugs" continues
to be a war on poor people and people of color. The police brutality
in our communities is not a simple matter of randomly "bad" cops. This
government is more repressive than ever and more and more of a police
state. When you have a trigger happy president, a trigger happy
vice-president, a trigger happy office of homeland security, you are
bound to have an increase of trigger happy police and many of our
young people are bound to end up dead or imprisoned. The social
policies of the United States have deteriorated from so-called benign
neglect to malignant hostility or indifference.

The role the press and the media have played in all this has been
increasingly malignant. There is no such thing as a free press in the
United States. Journalists receive big salaries for telling "official"
lies. The media both knowingly and naively became the vehicle for
misinforming the people of the United States and convincing the people
that it was "necessary" to go to war. Their "reporting" was based on
outright lies. Now they "embedded" in the military, continuing to
misinform the people, and distort the truth.

I am 60 years old and I am proud to be one of those people who stood
up against the ruthless, evil, imperialist policies of the U.S.
government. In my lifetime I have opposed the war against the
Vietnamese people, the illegal contras – war in Nicaragua, the illegal
coup in Chile, the invasion of Haiti and of Grenada, and every other
illegal, immoral and genocidal war the U.S. government has ever waged.
I have never been a criminal and I never will be one. I am 60 years
old and in spite of government repression, in spite of the media's
lies and distortions, in spite of the U.S, government's COINTELPRO
Program to criminalize and demonize political opponents, I feel proud
to count myself as someone who believes in peace and believes in
freedom. I am proud to have been a member of the Black Panther Party
although the U.S. government continues try to distort history and
continues to persecute ex-members of the Black Panther Party. Just
recently, the U.S. government has indicted and arrested 8 ex-Black
Panthers in a case that was dismissed 30 years ago. The case was
dismissed some 30 years ago when it became obvious that the most
vicious forms of extreme torture were used to extract false
confessions from some of the so-called defendants.

I am 60 years and it is doubtful that I will ever live to see my
people free of oppression and repression. But I am totally convinced
that our collective dream of freedom will some day be realized. I
sincerely implore young people to develop their minds, to develop
their skills, to expand their states of consciousness, and sharpen
their abilities to analyze reality. Those Africans who conspired with
the European slave trade to sell us into slavery were seduced by
trinkets. I hope and pray that our young people will not continue to
fall into the same traps. I have always loved my people and always
loved our culture. The culture of my people has always been rich and
always been filled with the seeds of resistance. I hope that young
people hold fast to that tradition. I sincerely hope that all young
people will have the courage and the wisdom to hold on tight to their
humanity and their historical mission. Most people in the Americas,
were either indigenous people whose ancestors were victims of
genocide, or brought to this hemisphere as slaves, or came to this
continent seeking freedom. I believe that it is our collective duty to
make freedom a reality. I truly believe that it is possible to end
oppression and repression on this planet. If we all see ourselves as
citizens of this planet, and citizens of the world, it will be easier
for us to save this planet and recognize the human rights of human
beings around the world.

Much love, Much Solidarity,
May we all make freedom a reality,
Assata Shakur
July 2007

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Conspiracy History compilation DVDs torrents

History — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:05:28 GMT

**************************************************

Greetings to all my relations.

This is the last step of our project History Watch. If History is
defined and known by the texts, we can now add to this definition the
recorded events of the filmed archives. Animated images are harder to
deny than printed words. Our objective is to spread out freely some of
the little broadcast, even hidden informations about our collective
History.

We put online a collection of 391 documentaries and other selected and
recut videos, to offer to a wide public the best of the infos
available on the net in english and in french. If you are interested,
you have the time, the right equipment and connection, all you have to
do is open the joint document and decompress it if needed (but normaly
your system should do it automaticaly). You'll find therein nine links
that will open the torrents for the nine DVDs we compiled (around 4.6
Gig each, for a total of a little over 41 G, being over 100 hours of
videos).

Otherwise, you can go directly to btjunkie.com and search for these titles.

11 Septembre 2001 - 9-11
Bush family & friends
Capitalist & Communist regimes
Capitalist conspiracy
Mind Kontrol - Secret Programs
New World Order - Secret Societies
Secret services - cover up - covert ops
Secret weapons - UFO
Terrorism Theories propaganda

Torrents are a system of peer to peer data transfer. The more people
download a torrent, the faster it spreads and the longer it stays on
the net. If you don't have a bittorrent software, we suggest that you
download uTorrent on utorrent.com. If you want to participate in
facilitating the diffusion of these infos about our collective
History, download these torrents on as many computers as possible,
whether it is in cybercafes. It takes one or two minutes to open up
the links and the downloading will keep proceeding on its own.

Please spread this out, take part in this action for social education
on a planetary scale. Thanks.

For more info: watch.history@gmail.com History Watch

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

"Tribe" Backs Anti-Palestinian Racists

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 16:11:47 GMT

Message from "Free Palestine End Zionism" moderator:

This is being sent to you because you were a member of my tribe, Free Palestine End Zionism. I would like you to know that I was notified today by a representative of tribe.net that my tribe was "anti-semitic" and that they removed it!

I am sending this so you will know why the tribe does not exist any more and so you will bear witness to the evident censorship and lack of the freedom of speech on tribe.net, plus the fabricated excuse to silence my tribe.

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

ya basta! Apaches fight Homeland Security for their land

rareworlds — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 06:32:10 GMT

Brenda Norrell: Apaches rise to defend homelands from Homeland Security

2008-01-08 | RIO GRANDE, Texas

Apache land owners on the Rio Grande told Homeland Security to halt the seizure of their lands for the US/Mexico border wall, during a national media conference call Monday. It was the same day that a 30-day notice from Homeland Security expired with the threat of land seizures by eminent domain to build the US/Mexico border wall.

"There are two kinds of people in this world, those who build walls and those who build bridges", said Enrique Madrid, Jumano Apache community member, land owner in Redford and archaeological steward for the Texas Historical Commission.

"The wall in South Texas is militarization", Madrid said of the planned escalation of militarization with Border Patrol and soldiers. "They will be armed and shoot to kill."

It was in Redford that a U.S. Marine shot and killed 18-year-old Esequiel Hernandez, herding his sheep near his home in 1997.

"We had hoped he would be the last United States citizen and the last Native American to be killed by troops", Madrid said.

Dr. Eloisa Garcia Tamez, Lipan Apache professor living in the Lower Rio Grande, described how US officials attempted to pressure her into allowing them onto her private land to survey for the US/Mexico border wall. When Tamez refused, she was told that she would be taken to court and her lands seized by eminent domain.

"I have told them that it is not for sale and they cannot come onto my land."

Tamez is among the land owners where the Department of Homeland Security plans to erect 70 miles of intermittent, double-layered fencing in the Rio Grande Valley.

Tamez said the United States government wants access to all of her land, which is on both sides of a levee. "Then they will decide where to build the wall. It could be over my house." Tamez said that she may only have three acres, but it is all she has.

Tamez' daughter Margo Tamez, poet and scholar, said, "We are not a people of walls. It is against our culture to have walls. The Earth and the River go together. We must be with the river. We must be with this land. We were born for this land."

Margo Tamez said the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples now guarantees the right of Indigenous Peoples to their traditional territories.

Rosie Molano Blount, Chiricahua Apache from Del Río said the Chiricahua Apache have proudly served in the United States military. "We are proud to be Americans", Blount said, adding that the Chiricahua have always supported the United States government. Now, with the increasing harassment of people in the border zone, Blount said the people have had enough.

"Ya Basta! Enough is enough!" Blount said, repeating the phrase that became the battle cry of the Zapatistas in Mexico struggling for Indigenous Peoples' rights.

Blount said there needs to be dialogue concerning the issues at the border, but not forced militarization or a border wall. She also directed a comment to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. "Don't come here and divide our families Chertoff. You believe this is the only way to do things."

Michael Paul Hill, San Carlos Apache from Arizona, described how US border agents violated and molested his sacred items, including a sacred stone, Eagle feather and drum, used in ceremonies while crossing the border.

"They called me a foreigner." Hill described how Border Agents told him that he might "get away" with crossing the border in Nogales, Arizona, with ceremonial items that were not manhandled, but not in Texas.

After participating in a an Apache ceremony in Mexico, when Hill and other Apaches re-entered the United States, a SWAT team in full riot gear was waiting for them and interrogated them.

"It was incredibly frightening", said Margo Tamez who was also there. She pointed out how the escalating militarization at the border is terrorizing people as they go about their lives, working, with their families and in their ceremonies.

Isabel Garcia, co chair of Derechos Humanos in Tucson, Arizona, said, “Arizona has been a laboratory for the criminalizing of the border."

Pointing out that the Arizona border is the ancestral homeland of the Tohono O'odham, she said, "These borders are where people have lived since time immemorial." Garcia described the climate of militarization and abuse by Border Patrol agents.

Garcia pointed out that "cowboy" Border Agents ran over and killed 18-year-old Tohono O'odham Bennett Patricio, Jr., while he was walking home in 2002. His mother, Angie Ramon, is still seeking justice for the death of her son.

Garcia also described the deaths from dehydration and heat in the Sonoran Desert in southern Arizona, where failed border policies have pushed migrants walking to a better life into treacherous desert lands.

"Two hundred and thirty-seven bodies were recovered in one year and most were on the tribal lands of the Tohono O'odham."

Further, Homeland Security recently waived 22 federal laws to build the border wall in the San Pedro wilderness area in Arizona, she said.

Attorney Peter Schey, director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law in Los Angeles, said America does not need a "Berlin
Wall".

Schey, renowned immigrant rights attorney, said Section 564 of the Homeland Security section of the Omnibus Appropriations Bill supersedes earlier legislation. Homeland Security is now required to have consultation with the communities. Schey said this means real consultation and real consideration of the community's input and data.

Schey took his first action on behalf of Texas property owner Dr. Tamez on Monday, the same day that a 30-day notice to Texas land owners expired with the threat of eminent domain land seizures looming. Schey informed Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to halt the impending seizures of private lands.

Schey said Section 564 strikes provisions of the earlier Secure Fence Act and requires Homeland Security to consult with property owners like Dr. Tamez in order "to minimize the impact on the environment, culture, commerce, and quality of life" in areas considered for construction of the border fence.

"Furthermore, we believe that the new statutory provisions invalidate the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for fence construction published on the Department's behalf on November 16, 2007, pending completion of the required local consultations and other requirements as outlined in the Omnibus Bill". Schey told Chertoff in the letter.

Meanwhile, Homeland Security declared that it will use the principle of eminent domain to take possession of land currently held by private ownership.

DHS has also presented waivers requesting that the landowners grant DHS personnel access to their property for a twelve-month period in order to conduct surveys for the intended construction project. The property owners were informed that if they do not voluntarily allow the federal agents on their property, the U.S. government will file a law suit so that DHS authorities can have unimpeded access to private land, despite the owners' opposition.

DHS has stated that it will seize property even without the consent of landowners if necessary to complete the construction of the border fence. Many landowners, as well as civic leaders and human rights activists, oppose the U.S. government's plans to allow federal law enforcement agents access to private property.

The government's demands and aggressive tactics are in conflict with settled rights of private property ownership and are particularly disconcerting to the
Indigenous peoples' communities impacted by this undertaking.

The Texas communities along the international boundary zone are largely made up of Native Americans and of land grant heirs who have resided on inherited properties for hundreds of years.

DHS plans to complete the Texas portions of the fence before the end of the 2008 calendar year.

DHS has already built walls along much of the California and Arizona international boundary zone with Mexico, despite opposition from the government of Mexico.

Also see: Austin Statesman: 'Attorney says Homeland Security must reconsider border wall in Valley'
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/01/08/0108fence.html

Brenda Norrell
Human Rights Editor
UN OBSERVER & International Report

Brenda Norrell
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

How Israel Promotes Anti-Semitism

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:29:50 GMT

How Israel Promotes Anti-Semitism
By STEVEN ARGUE
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/13/18472076.php

Today, in an attempt to smear me, posts have gone up all over the internet accusing me of being an anti-Semite. Pieces of the following essay are posted with other words inserted that are not my own. In addition, accusations have been made that I have attempted to delete the following essay from the public record. To contradict this smear tactic, and to prove that opposing Zionism is not anti-Semitic, I am reposting the entire essay in full.

I wrote the following essay early in 2001 as part of a discussion on the violence and repression taking place in Israel at the time. Yet, the essay is still entirely relevant, because it takes a historical look at the roots of the conflict, and discusses how the Zionist movement has been harmful to both Arabs and Jews alike.

How Israel Promotes Anti-Semitism (Part 1)

In this mailing: Pro-zionist Letter on Israel from Becky Johnson and Response by Steve Argue.

Letter to Editor,

You have to go back and read your history books. Palestine was the name the British gave to the mandate they took over (in typical British imperial fashion) from the crumbling Ottoman Empire. Palestinians at the time included everyone who lived there, including the Jews. Palestine ceased to exist when Israel was formed in 1948. The plan
from the UN was to have the state of Palestine right next to Israel. But all the Arab neighbors (and the Arab population within the borders of the new state of Israel) rejected this two state solution and responded by out and out war waged on the Israelis.

The Palestinians (Arabs who live or lived within the boundaries of Israel) didn't even start to call themselves that until 1968--- twenty years after the establishment of Israel. Basically the concept of Palestine is a manufactured one to drum up support for these Arabs and to decrease support for Israel by the claim that Israel is on THEIR land.

Remember, the Arabs and muslims [sic] who did not flee in 1948, but stayed in Israel have full citizenship, have freedom to practice their religion, own property, vote, have representation in the Knesset, and compose 18% of the population.

There is no Palestine. And there never was except as a British invention.

---Becky Johnson

Steven Argue responds:

Actually, history is one of my strong points. You state that I need to consult my history books, yet you make statements that are inarguably historically incorrect. Palestine was in existence as a recognized territory of the Ottoman Empire long before British control and even before the beginnings of Jewish colonization by the Zionist movement.

These inhabitants of the region also had Arab nationalist sentiments that opposed the control of the Ottoman Empire before the creation of the Zionist State and have since opposed many of the U.S., French, and British imposed kings, crown princes, emirs, sheiks, etc. that Zionists like to claim represent the aspirations of the Arab people.

Your attempt to deny a people of even the name of their homeland is consistent with an ideology that denies an entire people of the right to their homeland. The fact that bloody repression and horrible discrimination has driven the majority of Palestinians from large parts of their homeland without the right of return is not enough. The Zionist movement wants to wipe away the rightful name of the land they have conquered by re-writing history and denying there ever was a Palestine.

From its beginnings in the eighteen hundreds the Zionist movement had little concern for the Arab inhabitants of the Palestinian land they would settle. Instead, they appealed to imperialist powers as potential allies against the Arab people in setting up their Zionist state. For example, Zionist leader T. Herzl stated around 1897: "If his majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine, we could undertake to regulate Turkey's finances. For Europe, we would constitute a bulwark against Asia down there; we would be the advance post of civilization against barbarism. As a neutral state, we would remain in constant touch with all of Europe, which would guarantee our existence" (Rodinson, "Israel a Colonial Settler State?").

By being “neutral”, Herzl is obviously referring to the Zionist dealings with powers of Europe, and not to the colonial "barbarians" already in and around the land he would settle and conquer.

An Arab leader in Jerusalem named Nassif Bey al-Khalidi who tried unsuccessfully to work out an agreement between Arabs and the Zionist movement warned the Zionists with the following statement, "Be very careful, Messieurs Zionists, governments disappear, but peoples remain. The Jewish immigrants came to Palestine believing it to be a desolate, sparsely inhabited country. They were too busy with their own business and too ignorant of Arabic to notice what was going on around them. Since it was the Turks who ruled Palestine, they turned all their attention toward the Turks. This did not make them popular with the Arabs" (Neville Mandel, "Chapters of Arab-Jewish Diplomacy 1918-1922").

The Jewish immigrants never became integrated in any way with the native Arab population. This was true economically, politically, socially, and linguistically. These Jewish immigrants were so separate from the Palestinian people that they were only Palestinian to the extent that they were physically living in Palestine.

It took the weakening of the Sultan during the First World War for Europe (specifically England) to move in and grant the colonial framework for Jewish colonization that aimed itself at the goal of an exclusively Jewish state. This framework was set forth in a British political charter in November 1917 called the Balfour Declaration which stated, "His Majesty's government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."

Within this framework an exclusive Jewish state was the stated goal of all but a small minority in the Zionist movement, a goal that obviously would be at the expense of the Arab people already living in Palestine. In order to placate the Palestinians, however, the Balfour declaration stated, "It should be clearly understood that nothing should be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities in Palestine."

While Britain was trying to placate the Arabs, Zionist leader Jabotinsky was very clear on Zionist intentions, stating in 1923 in his Book the "Iron Wall", "There can be no discussion of voluntary reconciliation between us and the Arabs, not now, and not in the foreseeable future. All well meaning people, with the exception of those blind from birth, understood long ago the complete impossibility of arriving at a voluntary agreement with the Arabs of Palestine for the transformation of Palestine from an Arab country to a country with a Jewish majority. Each of you has some understanding of the history of colonization. Try to find even one example when the colonization took place with the agreement of the native population."

In understanding the existence of a Palestinian people and the struggles yet to come, Jabotinsky went on to state, "They have the precise psychology we have. They look upon Palestine with the same instinctive love and fervor that any Aztec looked upon his Mexico or any Sioux upon his prairie. Each people will struggle against colonizers until the last spark of hope that they can avoid the dangers of conquest and colonization is extinguished. The Palestinians will struggle in this way until there is hardly a spark of hope."

Jabotinsky's view, and the policy that would later be carried out against the Palestinians, could not be made any clearer than his following statement from the same writing: "We can not give any compensation for Palestine, neither to the Palestinians nor to the other Arabs. Therefore a voluntary agreement is inconceivable. All colonization, even the most restricted, must continue in defiance of the native population. Therefore it can continue and develop only under the shield of force which comprises an Iron Wall through which the Arab population can never break through. This is our Arab policy. To formulate it any other way would be hypocrisy."

In explaining the differences between Zionist factions in dealing with the Palestinians Jabotinsky stated, "Force must play its role - with strength and without indulgence. In this, in this there are no differences between our militarists and our vegetarians. One prefers an Iron Wall of Jewish bayonets; the other prefers an Iron Wall of English bayonets."

On these issues Rabbi Judas L. Magnes, President of the Hebrew University Jerusalem wrote, "by definition a Jewish state means that Jews will govern other people, other people who live in this Jewish state…Jabotinsky knew this long ago. He was the prophet of the Jewish state...In his early writings he said: 'Has a people ever been known to give up its territory of its own volition? Likewise, the Arabs of Palestine will not renounce their sovereignty without violence.'"

On the morals of Jabotinsky's plans and his desire to extinguish all hopes of the Palestinian people he is as clear in the "Iron Wall" as Hitler is of his intentions in "Mein Kampf" with Jabotinsky stating: "To the hackneyed reproach that this point of view is unethical, I answer 'absolutely untrue.' This is our ethic. There is no other ethic. As long as there is the faintest hope for the Arabs to impede us they will not sell these hopes - not for any sweet word nor for any tasty morsel, because this is not a rabble but a people, a living people. And no people makes such enormous concessions on such fateful questions, except when there is no hope left, until we have removed every opening visible in the Iron Wall."

In 1940 Jabotinsky states in "The Jewish War Front": "Since we have the moral authority for calmly envisaging the exodus of the Arabs, we need not regard the possible departure of 900,000 with dismay. Herr Hitler has recently been enhancing the popularity of population transfer."

While the Arabs of Palestine were extremely tolerant of the Zionists who were moving in to take their land and their hopes, the Zionist movement was never interested in forming any sort of alliance with the Arab people. Instead, the Zionist movement from its inception was openly anti-Arab and pro-imperialist, even though those same imperial powers were the same ones who were carrying out pogroms against the Jews in the ghettos across Europe. This pro-imperialist policy included close relations with the pogromist leaders of anti-Semitic Czarist Russia who murdered tens of thousands of Jews, and later Zionist support and deals that aided the fascist death camps of Nazi Germany.

Jews, in fact, are victims of Zionism along side Arabs. From the beginning of Hitler's seizure of power in 1933 the Zionist movement lent their support to the Nazis, support which lasted until at least 1944 when they aided Hitler's "final solution" in Hungary killing 800,000 Jews. On the surface, the idea of Zionist relations with the Nazis may sound illogical and seem made up. Those relations, however, are well documented.

Hitler seized power in 1933 with a clear fascistic program that called for the annihilation of all socialists, communists, labor leaders, and Jews. Despite this fact, the Zionist Federation of Germany sent the Nazi Party a memorandum on June 21, 1933 stating: "…a rebirth of national life such as is occurring in German life … must also take place in the Jewish national group. On the foundation of the new [Nazi] state, which has established itself on the principle of race, we wish to fit our community into the total structure so that for us, too, in the sphere assigned to us, fruitful activity for the Fatherland is possible…." (Brenner, Zionism, pg. 48)

The policy of supporting Hitler was later upheld at the World Zionist Organization Congress in 1933, where a motion to take action against Hitler was defeated 240 to 43. Thus, the Jewish boycott of the German economy at a time of economic weakness and vulnerability was broken with the World Zionist Organization's Anglo Palestine Bank resuming trade. In fact, the World Zionist Organization became the principal distributors of Nazi goods in Northern Europe and the Middle East.

Feivel Polkes was a member of Zionist leader Jabotinsky's Haganah militia. He was sent by Jabotinsky to Berlin to inform Nazi leader Adolf Eichman of his intention to spy for the S.S. in exchange for the release of the money of German Jews for use on the Zionist project. Zionist Feivel told Nazi Eichman, "Jewish Nationalist Circles are very pleased with the radical German policy, since the strength of the Jewish population in Palestine would be so far increased thereby that in the foreseeable future the Jews would reckon upon numerical superiority over the Arabs" (Brenner, "Zionism" pg. 99).

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda, felt so fond of the Zionist movement and their close working relations that he wrote a 12 part report in Der Angriff (The Assault) praising the Zionist movement, and ordered a medallion struck with a swastika on one side and the Zionist Star of David on the other.

Collaboration included an agreement in Hungary between Zionist agent Dr. Rudolph Kastner and Nazi leader Adolph Eichman. Under the 1944 agreement the Nazis would murder 800,000 Hungarian Jews without Zionist interference and with complete silence from the Zionist movement. In exchange, 600 prominent Jews would be freed from Hungary. The Nazis then opened up a Rescue Department in Hungary headed by Kastner. These facts were exposed by a survivor named Malchiel Greenwald who was subsequently sued by the Israeli government, sued by the same leaders that had fashioned the deal made by Kastner in the first place.

Kastner's collaboration with the Nazis was confirmed with the Israeli court stating, "The sacrifice of the majority of the Jews, in order to rescue the prominents was the basic element in the agreement between Kastner and the Nazis. This agreement fixed the division of the nation into two unequal camps, a small fragment of prominents, whom the Nazis promised Kastner to save, on the one hand, and the majority of Hungarian Jews whom the Nazis designated for death, on the other hand." (Judgment given on June 22, 1955, Protocol of Criminal Case
124/53 in District Court, Jerusalem; cited in Ralph Schoenman’s “Hidden History of Zionism”)

The Zionists subsequently ignored a plan drawn up by the resistance that could have saved many, if not most, of Hungary's Jews. The Zionist silence and lack of action against Nazi atrocities in fact characterizes their stance throughout the entire holocaust. A plan, complete with maps, was drawn up that would blow-up railroad tracks to the death camps and crematoria and airdropped ammunition to the 80,000 Jews in Auschwitz. Part of the plan also included the parachuting of saboteurs to blow up the Auschwitz facility that was murdering 13,000 people a day. Had the Zionist movement not been so intent on fighting the Arabs, rather than the real anti-Semite butchers of Europe, they could have gathered the resources to carry out such operations. Likewise, Great Britain and the United States could have carried out the proposed measures as well, but chose not to save the Jews, and felt no pressure from the silent Zionist movement to do so.

This caused Rabbi Weismandel, who had drawn up the plans against Auschwitz, to ask of the Zionists in July 1944, "this special message to inform you that yesterday the Germans began deportations of Jews from Hungary. … The deported ones go to Auschwitz to be put to death by cyanide gas. This is the schedule, of Auschwitz from yesterday to the end: Twelve thousand Jews - men, women and children, old men, infants, healthy and sick ones, are to be suffocated daily. And you, our brothers in Palestine, in all the countries of freedom, and you ministers of all the Kingdoms, how do you keep silent in the face of this great murder. Silent while thousands upon thousands, reaching now to six million Jews, are murdered? And silent now, while tens of thousands are still being murdered or waiting to be murdered? Their destroyed hearts cry out to you for help as they bewail your cruelty. Brutal, you are and murderers, too, you are, because of the cold bloodedness of the silence in which you watch, because you sit with folded arms and do nothing, although you could stop or delay the murder of Jews at this very hour. You, our brothers, sons of Israel, are you insane?" (Shoenman, "The Hidden History of Zionism?")

The Zionists also opposed the immigration of Jews to other countries where they could escape extermination. Explaining their policy of pressuring Great Britain and the United States not to adopt immigration policies that would have saved the lives of Jews, Zionist leader Ben Gurion stated in 1938, "If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Israel, then I would opt for the second option" (Brenner, "Zionism", pg. 149).

The ability of the Zionist movement to sacrifice the lives of millions of Jews for the settling of Palestine had a consistent inner logic. That logic speaks volumes. While some of the first victims of these Zionist madmen were the Jewish people, the Palestinians were next. And today, the continued Zionist mistreatment of the Palestinian people is one of the biggest threats to the lives of Jewish people because some of the Arab victims of Zionism now do not differentiate between the crimes of Zionism and the Jewish people. In addition, the Israeli government aided in the formation of the anti-Semitic organization Hamas, and today uses their suicide bombings against civilians as a way to gain sympathy and support in the Zionist war against the Palestinian people (more on this later). Objectively, the Zionist capitalist state is, in fact, the common enemy of both Jews and Arabs.

In the 1940s Jews were only one third of the population of Palestine. The Arab majority had not yet been driven from their land. The British, in considering their entire imperial interests in the Middle East and their need for good relations with Arabs had backtracked from their original support of a Jewish state in Palestine. Thus the Zionist minority carried out a war of independence against Britain in order to set up the Jewish state. The Palestinian people, the majority of the population, were not consulted by the Zionists on what kind of future they would like to have for their homeland and had little involvement in the war, although a few did side with British forces.

After independence from the Britain in 1948, the Zionist state began a massive expropriation of Palestinian land that has not ended. Becky Johnson's claim that, "the Arabs and Muslims who did not flee in 1948, but stayed in Israel have full citizenship, have freedom to practice their religion, own property, vote, have representation in the Knesset, and compose 18% of the population" is so utterly untrue as to defy common sense. Besides defying the facts, which we shall establish, I ask why most of an entire people would voluntarily flee the land in which they had built flourishing towns, a rich agriculture, and a vibrant cultural life with nowhere else to go? The short answer is that they did not flee voluntarily. They had met the "Jewish bayonets" of Zionist Jabotinsky's "Iron Wall". To deny this fact comes in on the same level as those who deny the Holocaust of Europe.

The humiliating conditions of the Palestinian people were recently observed by former anti-Apartheid fighter Archbishop Desmond Tutu who wrote:

"I have been very deeply distressed by my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young police officers prevented us from moving about.

"On my visit to the Holy Land I drove to a church with the Anglican bishop in Jerusalem. I could hear tears in his voice as he pointed to Jewish settlements. I thought of the desire of Israelis for security. But what of the Palestinians who have lost their land and homes?

"I have experienced Palestinians pointing to what were their homes, now occupied by Jewish Israelis. I was walking with Canon Naim Ateek (the head of the Sabeel Ecumenical Centre) in Jerusalem. He pointed and said: 'Our home was over there. We were driven out of our home; it is now occupied by Israeli Jews.'

"My heart aches. I say why are our memories so short. Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon?"

Although the Israeli government claims that Palestinians have the right to own property, this is a lie. Ever since 1948, Palestinians in Israel do not have the right to own land, because their land is often confiscated by force for Hebrew speaking settlement and agriculture. Water rights have been systematically cut off and diverted away from Palestinian lands and given to stolen Hebrew owned lands. Palestinian laborers are then denied by law the right to work the Hebrew owned agricultural lands, although they are sometimes illegally employed as cheap labor with no labor rights.

Palestinians do not have the right to freely travel. Reminiscent of chattel slavery, Palestinian families are often separated by Israeli officials who commonly do not grant necessary permits for Palestinians to enter neighborhoods or towns where wives, husbands, or children live. In contrast, the Hebrew speaking population has full rights to travel.

Palestinians often do not have the right to keep their own homes, which are often confiscated or bulldozed. The bulldozing of houses is a common punishment of families whose children are accused of throwing stones at Israeli soldiers. Recently, in Jenin, houses were bulldozed with people inside, an act that besides killing people, also made an estimated 4,000 people homeless.

Palestinians do not have the right to freedom of speech and regularly face arrest, torture, and even death for their political views. Even Hebrew speakers who support rights for Palestinians, or an end to Israeli wars, have, at times, had their press shut down by the Israeli government, or had their demonstrations attacked and beaten by Israeli soldiers.

Palestinians do not have the same right to an education as Hebrew speaking people, based on the fact that higher education is paid for through the forced military inscription of Hebrew speakers, while Palestinians are generally excluded from the military. While most Palestinians can’t serve, so-called “Israeli Arabs” have the choice of serving, but it would, in fact, make no sense for Palestinians to serve their military, since humiliation, brutality, and outright terror against Palestinians is a part of every day duty for an Israeli soldier. Likewise, few blacks served in the Apartheid military of South Africa. In Israel, this is used to deny Palestinians their right to education.

Those Palestinians who are then driven out of what was once Palestine usually are not allowed to return, while Jews who have never set foot in Israel are granted automatic citizenship, with the exception of two Jewish supporters of Palestinians named Ralph Shoenman and Mya Shone, who have the honor of not being allowed into Israel because of their excellent writings. Those Palestinians who are forced from Israel are often bombed by Israel in their refugee camps or massacred in other ways. In the 1982 case of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon, Palestinians were rounded up and systematically slaughtered in the thousands by Israeli troops and their Phalangist Militia allies.

As survivor Mrs. Sersawi testified in a Belgium appeals court on the Israeli governments war crimes:

"The Lebanese forces militia [Phalangists] had taken us from our homes and marched us up to the entrance of the camp where a large hole had been dug in the earth. The men were told to get into it. Then the militiamen shot a Palestinian. The women and children climbed over bodies to get to this spot, but we were truly shocked by seeing this man killed in front of us and there was a roar of shouting and screams from the women. That's when we heard the Israelis on a loudspeaker shouting, 'give us your men.' We thought, 'thank God, they will save us.'

"We were told to walk up the road to the Kuwaiti Embassy, the women and children in front, the men behind. We had been separated. There were Phalangist Militiamen and Israeli soldiers walking alongside us. I could still see Hassan (her husband with whom she was 3 months pregnant) and Faraj (her brother-in-law). It was like a parade. There were several hundred of us. When we got to Cite Sportif, the Israelis put us women in a big concrete room and the men were taken to another side of the stadium. There were a lot of men from the camp and I could no longer see my husband. The Israelis went around saying 'Sit, sit.' It was 11 AM. An hour later we were told to leave. But we stood outside amid the Israeli soldiers, waiting for our men.

"Some men came out, none of them younger than 40, and they told us to be patient, that hundreds of men were still inside. Then about 4 PM an Israeli officer came out. He was wearing dark glasses and said in Arabic: 'What are you waiting for?' He said there was nobody left, that everyone had gone. There were Israeli trucks moving out with tarpaulin over them. We couldn't see inside. And there were jeeps and tanks and a bulldozer making a lot of noise. We stayed there as it got dark and the Israelis appeared to be leaving and we were very nervous. But when the Israelis had moved away, we went inside. And there was no one there. Nobody. I had been only three years married. I never saw my husband again."

Sabra and Shatila are only one of the massacres of people done by the Israeli government in the past 54 years of Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Today, all of the Palestinian towns of historic Palestine are either occupied by Israeli troops who are killing people, or surrounded by Israeli troops and tanks who are poised to attack. While Israeli troops are claiming that they are only killing combatants, Human Rights Watch has documented the following crimes in Jenin alone: murders of civilians including children, the old, and the disabled; summary executions; the bulldozing of houses with people in them; and the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields.

The cities of Ramallah and Jenin have been laid to waste by the Zionists just as the Nazis smashed the towns of Guarnica and Lidice in the name of collective punishment. Likewise, the heroic resistance of Palestinian fighters in the face of superior military force is reminiscent of the Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto and Vilna.

The Israeli offensive will not stop those willing to do suicide missions against civilians, attacks that are futile attempts to combat the genocide Palestinians face. The Israeli offensive does the opposite, in deepening the conditions that created suicide bombers in the first place. The anger created is by escalated Israeli murder is actually more likely to increase the number of tragic attacks on Hebrew speaking civilians. At the same time, Israel has not targeted the main base of the suicide bombers, Gaza, where Hamas is heavily organized. In fact, the murderous Israeli repression really isn't meant to stop attacks on Hebrew speaking civilians because these bombings by Hamas actually play right into the Zionist government's aims and objectives in dividing Arab and Hebrew speaking peoples, diverting international sympathy for the Palestinian cause, and potentially pushing for a “final solution” against the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian Authority, who the Israeli government consistently blame for the attacks by Hamas.

Hamas is an anti-Semitic fundamentalist religious organization that killed 150 Israeli civilians through suicide bombings between 1994 and 1998 alone. From its beginnings as the Mujama in the 1970s to this day, Hamas does not face the same kind of repression as any other Palestinian group. In addition, Hamas reportedly receives $28 million dollars a year from another key U.S. ally in the region, Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. and the Saudi Arabian monarchy work together closely to systematically loot Saudi Arabia's oil resources for the profits of U.S. oil monopolies, while the vast majority of the Saudi people live in poverty. In addition, the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Hamas worked together closely in the U.S. war drive to destroy the left progressive PDPA government that held power in Afghanistan from 1978 to 1992. This was a war where the U.S. government and Saudi Arabia gave billions of dollars of military aid to Osama Bin Laden and the Islamic fundamentalists of the Mujahedin who were waging a holy war against the advances in women's rights, including women's literacy, that were occurring under the PDPA government. Tactics of the Mujahedin included throwing acid in the faces of women liberated from the veil and murdering women for teaching little girls how to read and write. Fearing a Mujahedin government right on its border, and defending the PDPA government from U.S. aggression, the Soviet Union sent troops into Afghanistan in 1979. Although these Soviet troops were invited by the Afghan PDPA, U.S. propaganda called this a “Soviet invasion”.

An estimated 100,000 of the Islamic fundamentalists who fought in Afghanistan were recruited by the CIA outside of Afghanistan. Hamas participated in this activity. As John Cooley from ABC news pointed out on March 13th, 1996 in the International Herald Tribune:

"A key Hamas organizer was Abdallah Azzam. He was a tough, brilliant and charismatic Palestinian from Jordan. He supervised training for the CIA's Afghan guerrillas in Peshawar, Pakistan, where a car bomb killed him in 1989. In the earlier 1980s he toured the United States, recruiting Arab-Americans for the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan."

Just as the United States used Hamas against the Afghani people and the leftist PDPA government, Israel has used the religious fundamentalists of Hamas as a club against the socialist and secular nationalist movements in Palestine that Hamas has violently opposed. It is those secular and socialist movements that Israel has seen as more of a threat in terms of winning the masses of people, including Hebrew speakers, over to positions of sympathy and solidarity with the Palestinians. Hamas's suicide bombers against civilians instead serve Zionist interests in driving a larger wedge between Palestinians and Hebrew speakers, people who will need to unite against their common oppressor and killer, the Israeli Zionist government.

Early Israeli support for Hamas included in 1978 the granting of Mujama charitable status in Gaza while other organizations, especially political organizations as Mujama was, could not get such status. In 1979, Israeli collusion with the Mujama movement set up the Islamic University of Gaza, whose anti-PLO and anti-socialist slogan was: "How can uncovered women and men with Beatle haircuts liberate our holy places?" Students who did not tow the Islamic line were disciplined through brutal beatings and sometimes had acid thrown in their faces. In addition, Mujama mobs were allowed to violently attack and burn down PLO controlled institutions at a time when other street demonstrations were not allowed or tightly controlled by the Israeli authorities.

In 1979 the Mujama movement burned the Palestinian Red Crescent Society's (PRC) building to the ground. In response, the PRC issued the following statement, "The tacit approval of the authorities, if not their actual connivance in what happened, was displayed in their attitude of non-interference. While they usually display great alertness to combating even peaceful demonstrations of young students within schools, here they stood indifferently watching a violently destructive demonstration march to its objectives."

In 1988 Hamas was formed out of Mujama. While PLO supporters were organizing mass demonstrations in the streets, Hamas was instead focusing on shooting Israeli soldiers. Despite this fact, Hamas had top-level meetings with the Israeli government while that same government would not even meet with the PLO. Milton Edwards in "Islamic Politics In Palestine" noted the relationship:

"The relationship between Hamas and the Israeli authorities was, however, at the strongest during the second year of the Intifada. The Israelis had been quick to extend legitimacy status to Hamas in an attempt to marginalize the PLO. Leaders of Hamas were regularly filmed at meetings with top-level Israeli officials and the message the Israelis were sending out was that they regarded Hamas as the type of people with whom they could work…

"In addition the Israelis continued turning a blind eye to large amounts of money coming into the country destined for Hamas coffers, while at the same time stopping the flow of PLO funds in support of the
Intifada."

In 1994, Hamas began its indiscriminate attacks on Hebrew speaking people through suicide bombings. Those suicide bombings had been stepped up by Hamas in the beginnings of the Intifada 2 uprising in September 2000, but then ended due to an agreement between Arafat's Palestinian Authority and Hamas. While this agreement was in effect world attention became focused on the gunning down of Palestinian children by Israeli sharp shooters on the West Bank. For the Zionist government this was becoming a public relations disaster.

Israeli Prime Minister Sharon needed a new provocation he could use as propaganda to escalate the war against the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority (P.A.). To create this provocation he took action to end the truce between the P.A. and Hamas on ending the suicide bombings of civilians. On November 23rd Israeli security forces assassinated Hamas leader Mahmud Abu Hunud. On November 25th, 2001 right-wing Israeli journalist Alex Fishman accurately observed in the "Yediot Achronot", "Whoever gave the green light to this act of liquidation knew full well that he is thereby shattering in one blow the gentleman's agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority; under that agreement, Hamas was to avoid in the near future suicide bombings inside the Green Line."

Of course no one but Sharon could have given the green light for such an important operation. Sharon's provocation against the Hamas anti-Semites had its intended affect. Within days Hamas resumed attacks against Israeli civilians. In March a Hamas bomber killed 25 civilians in the Passover attack that was then used by Sharon as his excuse to attack the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority while leaving the Hamas stronghold of Gaza untouched.

The U.S. government's massive military support to the Zionist State and, to a lesser extent to the repressive Saudi Arabian monarchy, is responsible for the bloodshed in Palestine. The racist state of Israel currently receives 300,000 dollars per hour in U.S. military and economic aid. The F-16 bombers and Apache and Cobra helicopters used in the latest attacks are just some of the weapons used to kill Palestinians that are made in the United States.

Socialists stand for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel and all of the crowned princes, sheiks, emirs, and Islamic fanatics of the Middle East. We understand that these U.S. policies are the policies of both the Democrat and Republican Parties. Imperialist policy isn't the result of some misunderstanding by these parties of the wealthy. Instead, the repressive and genocidal policies of U.S. imperialism flow from the drive for profits by the rapacious U.S. capitalists that rule America and much of the world. From this understanding, socialists know that the only way we will get a just foreign policy, fair treatment of workers and the poor, and sound ecological policies, is through a socialist revolution in the United States.

---Steve Argue, for Liberation News

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posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

No to Rightist Ron Paul, How We Can Really End the War

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 07:43:21 GMT

"I'd rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don't want, and get it." Socialist Anti-war Candidate Eugene Debs (who garnered nearly a million votes while he sat in prison for opposition to U.S. involvement in World War One).

"Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action" wrote Ron Paul, who voted against the renewal of the Voting Rights Act in Congress, the act that gave Blacks the right to vote, quote from his “Ron Paul Newsletter”.

No to NYC Indymedia Censorship, How We Can Really End the War

By STEVEN ARGUE

Claiming that only an alliance with Ron Paul conservatives can end the war, New York City Indymedia volunteers have allowed blatant slander against Liberation News and have censored attempts to respond to those lies. Among the slanders posted were accusations that Liberation News is opposed to Ron Paul because we support Hillary Clinton and her healthcare program. I tried posting the following response, but it was censored on the site:

Ron Paul supporter: “it's pointed out that yes Ron Paul is a racist but Stevies candidate Hillary is even worse.”

Steven Argue: “I don’t support Hillary Clinton. Never have, but you don’t listen. This is pure slander.”

They then repeat their slander that I support Hillary Clinton for her healthcare plan saying, “It's pointed out that Stevie is willing to sacrifice liberty for a bogus health care plan”

Steven Argue: “Hillary Clinton opposes both socialized medicine and single payer healthcare. She supports insurance company healthcare, the kind that is killing untold millions in the United States. This is one of many reasons I oppose her.”

“And no, I don't see Clinton as a first step towards socialized medicine. Her promise to force people to buy insurance has nothing in common with socialized medicine, nor partially socialized medicine (i.e. single payer). I’m clear about this in my article:

The Case for Socialized Medicine in the United States, and the Struggle to Achieve It, By STEVEN ARGUE
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/02/18469739.php

“As for Ron Paul, he wants to privatize everything, including public education, Social Security, and Medicare, eliminate the Voting Rights Act and Roe V Wade in the name of "states rights", signed on to the "Marriage Protection Act", would eliminate every environmental and labor protection, etc. etc. etc. This is a prescription for the slavery of the majority to protect the “liberty” of a tiny handful of capitalists to exploit.

“I oppose both Hillary Clinton and Ron Paul. But I’ve already made that clear as being my position. These accusations are slanderous.”

Ron Paul supporter: “Then Stevie moves the goal posts again. Waaa. He's being censored.”

Steven Argue: “I repeatedly posted a response to the slander that I support Hillary Clinton’s healthcare plan, and the response is censored every time. I have no motive to make that up. I mentioned it because I wanted people to see my response. Frankly, I’m quite surprised it is happening. Let’s see if this one goes up.”

That response, as I feared, was also censored. Revealing the reasons behind the Ron Paul censorship at the site, the Ron Paul backers posted the following:

“Get off your sectarianism.

“What you don’t get is that there are only two ways we're going to end the occupation of Iraq:

“1.) A recession, and a bad one.

“2.) Convincing the vast majority of conservative Americans it's wrong. Ron Paul reaches these people. The guy with the Free Mumia shirt selling the "Socialist Worker" doesn't.

“To get anything done in a democracy you're going to have to work with people you don't agree with and people you might not even like. People in grown up countries do this all the time. They're called "coalitions".

“The Labor Party in Israel, for example, makes alliances with the ultra orthodox. The Liberal Democrats have made common cause with the Tories in the UK. The left made common cause with Vicente Fox to get the PRI out of power in Mexico.

“It's only in the puritan USA where everybody thinks you have to like all your political allies and agree with them on everything.”

Besides the fact that the majority of Americans already oppose the war; and besides the fact that these points show a total lack of understanding of the bourgeois nature of the coalitions in the countries mentioned; and besides showing a total lack of understanding of what it will take to end the war (I discuss this at the end of the article); New York City Indymedia’s lack of confidence in the ability of people to change has caused them to build a coalition with a capitalist politician who is a racist, homophobic, anti-worker, anti-environmental, bible thumping, sexist, anti-labor, anti-poor, free-market privatization fanatic. On top of that, they censor the left in order to achieve that coalition.

While a Ron Paul presidency would likely end the war, at what price would this come?

Ron Paul uses the term liberty a lot, so let’s take a look at what he means by liberty.

The liberty Ron Paul demands is:

The liberty of the capitalists to exploit without labor laws and environmental protections;

The "state’s right” to prevent Blacks from voting without the interference of the Voting Rights Act (voted against its renewal in Congress);

The "states right" to ban abortions without the interference of Roe v Wade;

The freedom of the government to deny same-sex rights (was an original sponsor of the "Marriage Protection Act");

The freedom of children not to attend schools (would abolish public education);

The freedom of the elderly and disabled to starve (would abolish Social Security);

The freedom of the sick to die (would abolish Medicare);

The freedom of the U.S. to destroy the planet without even the most basic limits on carbon emissions (opposes signing on to Kyoto and all other carbon limitations);

This is, in short, the liberty of a wealthy minority to make their money from the exploitation of labor and the environment with zero interference from labor laws, environmental laws, and the IRS. While his program is liberty for a minority of rich white heterosexual males, it is slavery for the majority.

Simply put, Ron Paul’s promises to end the war are not enough when one looks at the fact that he would eliminate two centuries of hard fought social progress in the United States.

Some of the anti-war backers of Ron Paul argue that we don’t have to worry about these things because Ron Paul will never be elected. They think that backing his campaign is a way to win over his supporters. What is clear is that such arguments could only come from people who are utterly lost and rudderless, which leaves unclear the question of what they are winning Ron Paul supporters over to. They are supporting a candidate whose program is George Wallace on crack cocaine! Yet, the ultimate absurdity is the fact that they are backing a candidate whose most reassuring feature is that he won’t get elected! Is this point lost on these people? And is the chance that their support may help him get elected a chance they really want to take? Nobody thought that third party candidate Jesse (the body) Ventura would get elected in Minnesota either, but he was, and as soon as he was elected he discarded his libertarian values on drug legalization and prostitution and instead proceeded to carrying out attacks on labor and carrying out disastrous cuts in education and other social spending.

Others argue that if Ron Paul is elected, he will easily be able to pull the troops out of Iraq, but congress will block him on the other issues. There is no doubt that they would block parts of Ron Paul’s program in order to prevent the social unrest such measures would cause, but with the ruling class’s desire to step up the exploitation of labor and the environment through eliminating regulation and through privatization, there can be little doubt that if he is able to maintain his presidency without being shot, aspects of Ron Paul’s domestic program would be implemented.

Today, in the United States we have two rightwing capitalist parties that rule. The activists who run New York Indymedia are floating around utterly lost and rudderless. On the one hand, their anarchist philosophy prohibits them from putting forward their own leadership or supporting socialist candidates; and on the other hand, they are stuck in the “real politic” of supporting “lesser evil” capitalist politicians. It is these characteristics that made them susceptible to being swept up on the Ron Paul band wagon. Despite their “libertarian” values of “freedom”, they have now taken this to the point where they are even willing to censor critics of Ron Paul on their website.

While Ron Paul, the only Republican candidate opposed to the war, is not worth supporting, the front running Democrats are also very bad. Clinton, Obama, and Edwards, are all pro-war. Both Edwards and Clinton voted for the war. Obama supporters claim that Obama never supported the war. While Obama was not yet in the Senate at the time of the Iraq war vote, Obama, Edwards, and Clinton have all voted for war appropriations. This puts them all in the position of having supported the war. Over a million Iraqis are dead due to the U.S. invasion and occupation, and billions of dollars have been squandered. Obama, by helping pay for the war, has his hands in this mass murder just as Clinton and Edwards do.

Obama’s Iraq War De-escalation Act of 2007 supposedly would have begun troop withdrawal in May 2007. Yet, it didn't call for full nor immediate withdrawal. In addition, under the bill, the withdrawal could be halted if the Iraqi government met a number of criteria laid out by the Bush administration. These included a broad number of things such as changes in the use of oil revenue, government reforms, an end to sectarian violence, and other economic and reconstruction criteria. In Obama’s bill we have a crystal ball into the future. The excuses laid out in the bill will be heard once again as Obama, Clinton, or Edwards explain why they are keeping the troops in Iraq for their entire presidency; that is unless other actions are taken by the people to stop the war.

This brings us to the fundamental question of how to stop the war. If we are to listen to the Ron Paul censors / supporters at NYC Indymedia the only thing we can do to stop the war is support Ron Paul or hope for (pray for?) economic collapse. Yet, this ignores other less damaging possibilities. These include the troops refusing to fight, a general strike, strikes against the movement of war materials, or socialist revolution.

1. The troops refusing to fight. This worked in the struggle to end the U.S. aggression against Vietnam. It was the socialist movement who were the primary organizers of the anti-Vietnam War movement. That movement, immediately after the government’s murders at Kent State in May 1970 had 8 million students out on strike, and some Universities, such a Berkley, were taken over by students and faculty as anti-war universities. After May 1970, the majority of those drafted were already opposed to the war before they got to Vietnam. Refusal to fight was widespread, and the fragging of pro-war officers was common. Nixon could not continue to wage a war with soldiers who refused to fight. This, along with the heroic resistance of the Vietnamese, brought an end to the war in Vietnam.

Troops refusing to fight also helped bring an end to Russian involvement in the First World War, and helped bring down two pro-war governments in 1917.

2. A general strike or strikes against the movement of war materials. Strikes with such political demands have a long history of success. France has many good social programs because the workers there were willing to shut down their country to achieve them; and they are still willing to do the same to protect those hard fought gains.

3. Socialist revolution. The October Russian Revolution achieved an end to Russian involvement in the First World War. This was a good thing, despite the undemocratic nature of the revolution. Learning from those lessons, Liberation News opposes the dictatorial system of one party rule and raises the banner of revolutionary democratic socialism, while at the same time learning from many of the revolutionary strategies of Lenin and Trotsky.

Protests, pickets, information distribution, building a socialist movement, and answering pro-Ron Paul and pro-Obama-Clinton-Edwards propaganda all help towards building the momentum needed in achieving the kinds of actions that can end the war. Putting support behind Ron Paul only helps an extreme rightwing movement achieve the mantel of leadership for an anti-war sentiment that already represents majority public opinion. In addition, backing a guy like Ron Paul who just crossed a picket line to appear on Jay Lenno’s “Tonight Show” destroys the anti-war strategy of reaching out to the working class, as does backing a racist candidate like Ron Paul hurt the ability to reach out to the multi-racial working class.

No to the Democrats and Republicans!

U.S. Out of Iraq Now!

No to Insurance Company Healthcare, For Socialized Medicine!

Save the Planet, Curb Carbon Emissions Now!

Vote Socialist, Build the Labor Movement, Build the Anti-War Movement, Build the Socialist Movement.

[Note, small changes were made to the response that was censored at NYC Indymedia to make it more readable within the format of this article. Those wishing to see the original version will be given it upon request. Likewise, anyone wishing further sources will be provided them upon request]

This is an article of Liberation News, a low volume newsletter, Subscribe free!
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Final Nails in Racist-Sexist-Homophobic Ron Paul Campaign Coffin

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 00:05:20 GMT

Final Nails in Racist-Sexist-Homophobic Ron Paul Campaign Coffin

By STEVEN ARGUE

Since I wrote the article:

The Ron Paul “Revolution”, an Extreme Rightwing Threat
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/05/18470186.php

New information has surfaced regarding Ron Paul’s pro-fascist agenda.

That information is discussed in the following January 7, 2008 MSNBC interview conducted by Tucker Carlson with the New Republic’s Jamie Kirchick. In it he gives an inside look into his controversial piece on presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, due to hit newsstands on Friday.

http://antironpaul.com/

The following are newly released copies of Ron Paul’s extreme right newsletter to which Jamie Kirchick refers:

http://www.tnr.com/downloads/March1990.pdf
http://www.tnr.com/downloads/January91.pdf
http://www.tnr.com/downloads/October1990.pdf
http://www.tnr.com/downloads/June1990.pdf
http://www.tnr.com/downloads/August1990.pdf

In addition to these revelations, in New Hampshire Ron Paul also failed to repeat anything close to the 10% vote he achieved in Iowa.

Somewhat surprisingly, there are a large number of liberal minded anti-war people who have urged a vote for Ron Paul.

They are liberal "support the lesser viable evil" types that see Ron Paul as more viable than any anti-war Democrat (arguably Kucinich and Gravel).

Additional questions have always existed if Ron Paul really was viable, or if he really was a lesser evil. New Hampshire and the latest revelations ought to put both questions to rest.

But for me there are always more important questions than if a candidate is viable or a "lesser evil". I think that building a long-term movement for real change is much more important than backing a candidate of any degree of evil. For me that includes deflating illusions in the corporate politicians of the Democrat and Republican Parties, getting out information on candidates to the left of the Democrats (the real anti-war and anti-corporate candidates), and urging further actions such as protests, strikes etc.

Simply put, there is nobody worth supporting in the racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-worker, anti-poor, and capitalist Republican Party. Never has been, never will be. Get over it. In fact, there is nobody in the corporate Democrat and Republican Parties that are worth supporting. I discuss some of the candidates that may be worth supporting in the following article:

The Case for Socialized Medicine in the United States,
And the Struggle to Achieve It
By STEVEN ARGUE
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/02/18469739.php

And just for fun, here's the Ron Paul Time Machine!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7884Z6-FiMY

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

The Case for Socialized Medicine in the United States, and the Struggle to Achieve It

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 01:41:56 GMT

The Case for Socialized Medicine in the United States,
and the Struggle to Achieve It

By Steven Argue

As someone without healthcare, I support the idea of socialized medicine for the United States. Socialized medicine will bring healthcare to everyone. Besides legitimate self-interest, my personal position comes from being an advocate for social justice with a vision of an egalitarian society. As such, I not only see universal access to healthcare as a basic human right, I also see that socialized healthcare will mitigate some of the racial and class inequalities in our society. In addition, socialized medicine is cheaper than the costs of current system of for-profit capitalist healthcare. It also looses the profit motive of insurance companies to deny needed procedures. From this knowledge, and these personal convictions, I am strongly in favor of socialized healthcare in the United States like that established in Europe as well as established in Cuba with the 1959 revolution. Short of a fully socialized healthcare system I see that the single payer system (i.e. socialized health insurance run by the government), like in Canada, would be a significant step forward for the United States.

In the United States there’s a lot of confusion on terminology. With a system of socialized medicine hospitals are directly owned by the government and doctors are government employees. It’s a universal system where everyone is covered and all health care is paid for by the government. Under a single payer health care plan, health care is universal and paid for by the government, but it is a system still largely based on private hospitals and private physicians.

Two main arguments are encountered when discussing socialized medicine. One argument is that it will cost too much. The second argument is that socialized medicine doesn’t work to provide adequate healthcare. Neither argument stands up to scrutiny.
Socialized medicine and single payer medicine actually cost less than the United State’s current for profit capitalist health care system. Both statistics and common sense back this up.

According to statistics from 2003, the United States spends $5,711 per capita per year for health care while Canada spends about half of that, $2,998 per capita per year (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2007). In fact, the costs per capita are much cheaper in every other developed country with some form of socialized healthcare. In other examples Sweden spends $2,745, Germany $2,983, and the United Kingdom $2,317 (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2007). In addition, Cuba , with their well known socialized healthcare system, spent only $251 per capita on healthcare in 2006 (United Nations World Health Organization, 2006).

The reason socialized insurance is much cheaper and more efficient than private health insurance is because single payer eliminates the health insurance racket with all of its waste in capitalist profits, paperwork, and overpaid CEOs. In addition, such insurance practices as routinely denying needed medical procedures to keep profits up are eliminated, thus reducing capitalism as being the cause of death.

Socialized healthcare does work. It is working very well in Cuba. Cuban life expectancy in 2006 was 77.6 years, while the life expectancy of the United States for that same year was slightly less, 77.5 years (United Nations Development Program, 2006). It is interesting that poor Cuba with a history of poverty before their 1959 socialist revolution, and a devastating U.S. imposed economic blockade since, is able to provide good healthcare for everyone through socialized medicine. Cuba, unlike the United States, does not let people die in the emergency rooms without treatment, turn sick people away from receiving healthcare because they lack insurance, or allow insurance companies to decide, based on profit motive, whether the insured actually receive the care they paid for and need. The Cubans have done this by taking the profit out of illness and injury and providing healthcare as a basic human right.

Canada, like Cuba, has a higher life expectancy than the United States. In 2004 the life expectancy of Canada hit 80.2 years (Statistics Canada, 2004). With Canada’s socialized health insurance system, like Cuba’s socialized medical system, every single person is covered. In the United States 45.8 million Americans do not have health insurance (U.S. Department of Health and human Services, 2005).

On another key indicator of health, infant mortality, the United States is also nearly the worst in the developed world, only worse than the recently turned capitalist country of Latvia (Green, 2006). The infant mortality rate in the United States in 2002 was 7.0 deaths before the age of one per every 1,000 live births (Center for Disease Control, 2005). In comparison, other advanced countries with forms of socialized medicine and socialized health insurance have lower infant mortality. This includes rates per thousand births in Japan of 3.2, Germany with 4.4, Italy with 4.5, France with 4.6, and the United Kingdom with 5.6 (Treasury Board of Canada, 2003).

Cuba, with their system of socialized medicine has an infant mortality rate of 6.2 per thousand live births, a rate much lower the United States rate of 7.0 per every thousand live births (BBC News, 2002). This is also lower than every other Latin American country (BBC News, 2002).

The only other country in the Americas with an infant mortality lower than Cuba is Canada with their system of socialized health insurance. The Canadian infant mortality rate in the year 2000 was 5.3 (Treasury Board of Canada, 2003).

In addition, a United Nations report on the status of Native Americans in Canada has credited Canada’s relatively recently established socialized health insurance system with drastically reducing an extremely high infant mortality among Native Americans (United Nations, 1993). In 1979, that death rate for Canadian Native Americans was 27.6 per thousand live births, but by 1999 it had dropped to 8.0 deaths per thousand live births (Treasury Board of Canada, 2003). These improvements coincide with Canada’s passage of the Canada Health Act in 1984 that brought their socialized insurance system to the entire country at that time (Health Canada, 2002).

For Blacks in the United States between 1995 and 2002, the infant mortality rate was 13.9, more than double the rate of 5.9 for whites in the same time period (Center for Disease Control, 2005). Canadian statistics are a strong indication that a socialized insurance system in the United States could both decrease the infant mortality rate of the general population and dramatically decrease the infant mortality of oppressed and impoverished minorities such as Blacks, as it did for Canadian Native Americans.

The statistics show that socialized medicine is cheaper, saves lives, and helps alleviate class and racial inequalities in healthcare.

Prospects for Socialized and Single Payer Medicine

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has declared, "It's time to provide quality affordable health care for every American, and I intend to be the president who accomplishes that goal finally for our country" (CNN.com). This is the same promise that Bill Clinton made when he ran for office in 1992.

After being elected, in Bill Clinton’s first State of the Union address, he said, “And on any given day, over 37 million Americans -- most of them working people and their little children -- have no health insurance at all.” Yet, despite Bill Clinton’s campaign promise of universal health care, his defeated proposal to congress would not have provided health care to every American, nor did it address the other fundamental problems of private health insurance. After his health care proposal was defeated, Clinton dropped the issue. In fact, the Bill Clinton administration was opposed to a bill for single payer health care introduced by Wellstone, Conyers, and Mcdermott that actually would have provided universal health care. By the time Bill Clinton left office, an additional three million more Americans were uninsured.

Today Republican candidate Mitt Romney has declared of Hillary Clinton’s promised health care plan, “It’s a European-style socialized medicine plan, that’s where it leads–and that’s the wrong direction for America” (Shulte).

Yet, unfortunately, Clinton’s plan has nothing in common with socialized medicine, neither of the European variety, nor the Canadian single payer. Her plan is to keep the broken and expensive capitalist system of health care, a system that keeps the insurance industry in charge of life and death questions of whether or not we receive health care when we need it.

In addition, the Clinton plan would make the purchase of health insurance by America’s uninsured mandatory for those who do not get insurance from their employer and who do not qualify for government assistance. Yet, the problem for America’s nearly 50 million uninsured is not that we don’t want to have insurance, the problem is that we can’t afford it. Clinton’s plan of making us criminals for not purchasing health insurance will not resolve this fundamental problem.

By making the purchase of health insurance mandatory Clinton makes the false claim that hers is a plan for universal health insurance as compared to the plan of Obama. Neither would provide universal health care. John Edwards has taken the absurdity of forced insurance purchases one step further, detailing a plan that would include the necessity of showing proof of health insurance at the time of paying taxes, with penalties for those who do not provide that proof.

In a similar fashion as Mitt Romney, Republican contender Rudolph Giuliani has extended false accusations of socialized medicine to other Democratic hopefuls stating, “Whether it’s HillaryCare or ObamaCare or EdwardsCare, the idea that it’s not socialized medicine is a trick. It’s a massive growth of government control of medicine” (Rovner).

The truth, however, is that the only presidential candidates of the Democrat and Republican Party that are for single payer health care are Democrats Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, and none are for full socialized medicine. The other major candidates, who oppose single payer, enjoy massive contributions from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

In addition to being excluded from money, the Kucinich and Gravel campaigns have also been excluded from debates. Most recently, for the 2008 election, CNN and the Des Moines Register made the decision to exclude both Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel from a key debate in Iowa. Yet Biden and Dodd, who are behind Kucinich in the national polls, but who reject single payer health care, were allowed into the debate. This kind of undemocratic shenanigan is to be expected of CNN, a corporate media source that was forced to publicly apologize for a number of lies they told about Michael Moore’s pro-socialized medicine film “Sicko”.

While Kucinich has alienated the corporate power structure with his stand for single payer health care, he has also alienated much of his natural base by voting for Bush’s “War on Terror”, voting for the U.S. travel ban against Cuba, and by voting against Mumia Abu-Jamal.

In 2001 Kucinich voted in favor of the US travel ban against Cuba. The travel ban does not allow U.S. citizens to spend any money in Cuba, basically making travel to Cuba illegal. It is under the travel ban that Michael Moore has been harassed by the U.S. government for bringing sick 9/11 rescue workers, who were unable to receive medical treatment in the United States, for medical treatment in Cuba. The United States has had hostile relations with Cuba ever since the 1959 Cuban revolution overthrew the U.S. backed Batista dictatorship, nationalized the United Fruit Company owned by the Rockefeller family, ended Jim Crow style racist segregation, and began providing free socialized health care and education.

In contrast to Kucinich’s support for U.S. measures against Cuba, Mumia Abu-Jamal recognizes the gains Cuba has made in areas such as health care. Of the U.S. and Cuban health care systems, Mumia Abu-Jamal stated May 2nd, 2003:

“What about the human right to health care? In the US, you can obtain excellent health care if you can afford it. Cuba, meanwhile, boasts the largest number of doctors per capita on earth. They provide medical care to people all around the world. Indeed, there are more Cuban doctors working in other countries than the UN’s World Heath Organization. Millions of men, women and children in this country have no medical insurance and no real prospect for decent medical care.” (Abu-Jamal 5/2/03)

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner in the United States whose trial, according to Amnesty International, was not fair and “did not comply with international justice standards” (Amnesty International). Yet, in 2006 Kucinich voted to condemn the French City of St. Denis for naming a street after Mumia. The resolution boldly proclaimed Mumia’s guilt, despite international recognition of the injustice dished out to Mumia, and despite the fact that the courts are still reviewing the case. Despite the injustice represented by this resolution and despite 31 members of Congress voting against it, Kucinich voted for it.

Showing a similar lack of support for the needs of the people, Kucinich voted for Bush’s so-called “War on Terror”. This was a vote that effectively gave Bush the power to invade any country at any time. That vote could have been used for anything, and was used by Bush to invade Afghanistan. Likewise, despite pretending to be a peace candidate, Kucinich’s calls for a strong and efficient military do not address the fact that the United States is the most aggressive and dangerous nation in the world.

The tremendous lack of judgment on these three votes alone, along with Kucinich’s promotion of the pro-war, anti-single payer health care, and corporate controlled Democrat Party, have alienated the left from Kucinich’s campaign.

Presidential candidate Mike Gravel doesn’t have a recent voting record, but was actively opposed to the Vietnam War in Congress, voting to cut off funding for the war, and helping to release the Pentagon Papers that exposed many wrong doings by the U.S. government in Vietnam. On the issue of health care, Gravel states on his website that he proposes “a universal healthcare system that provides equal medical services to all citizens, paid for by a retail sales tax (a portion of the Progressive Fair tax)” (Gravel website). Yet, sales taxes are not fair taxes. They are regressive taxes that charge the poor a much higher percentage of their income than they charge the rich. While it is true that the rich are not paying their fair share under the current tax system, Gravel’s proposal is even worse.

Sadly for those who think solutions could come from the Democrat Party, Kucinich and Gravel are the best the Democrat Party could produce.

While the mainstream of the American political establishment rejects any form of socialized medicine, all political parties to the left of the Democrats and Republicans support some form of socialized medicine. This is true from the Green Party and Reconstruction Party to the various socialist parties who run candidates, including the Peace and Freedom Party, Socialist Action, Socialist Party, Workers World Party, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Freedom Socialist Party, Socialist Workers Party, and Socialist Equality Party.

Breaking from the pro-war anti-health care Democrat Party is former Georgia Democratic Congressperson Cynthia McKinney. In a video news release declaring her candidacy for president she says, “The Democrat is no different from their Republican counterparts, eat out of the hands of corrupt lobbyists and feed at the same corporate tough” (McKinney). McKinney is running for president on the Reconstruction Party ticket as well as in the Green Party primaries.

On health care McKinney states, "I've supported every universal single payer health care plan. She goes on to state, “People who rail against `socialized medicine' in Canada and the UK have to explain why life expectancy is longer in Canada and the UK, why infant mortality is lower in Canada and the UK" (Deeth). McKinney further denounces the war in Iraq stating that the money being squandered could be better used on social programs such as rebuilding New Orleans, child nutrition, and health care, stating in part, “one billion dollars a day can provide medical care for the 47 million Americans who don’t have health insurance” (McKinney).

Another Green Party candidate, Kent Mesplay, declares on his website:

“Medical attention is a human right not yet recognized by the United States government. Nearly every other industrialized country on the planet has National Health Care. We are tied with South Africa for last place. In the same manner that we have a socialized military that at best provides for some aspects of our physical security, single payer health insurance is necessary to ensure that all people within our borders receive at least a basic level of medical and dental care.” (Mesplay).

While this may be a good position on single payer health care, it ignores the fact that the U.S. military does not provide physical security to the people of the United States, but is instead used to kill and terrorize the people of the world for the security of the profits of American corporations.

Also supporting single payer health care, Green Party candidate Kat Swift states:

“Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, and other prominent Democrats are the greatest obstacle to universal health coverage. Except for a few mavericks like Rep. John Conyers [D-Mich.], who has regularly introduced single-payer bills, Democrats have joined Republicans in favoring HMO and insurance corporations over guaranteed publicly-financed quality health care for every American. It's a safe bet that the 2008 Democratic nominee will -- like Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry before them -- follow the same pattern.”

Likewise, Green Party candidate Jared Ball, a Black free-lance journalist and college professor who calls for freeing Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, and all political prisoners states, “Medicine for profit cannot be sustained as a model of managing health care for any progressive society” (Ball).

To the left of the Green Party is Elaine Brown, a former Black Panther Party member and activist for social programs for the poor and for prison reform. On health care she declares herself for, “Full and free health care for everyone, as exists in most civilized countries.”

Elaine Brown was a candidate for nomination as Green Party candidate for president until, on December 28, 2007, she broke with the Green Party, pointing out it was a capitalist Party and accusing the Green Party of racism. In her public statement Brown declared, "In effect, the present Green Party leadership promotes a kinder, gentler capitalism, a moderated racism, an environmentally-sustainable globalism, which I cannot support." On racism in the party she declared she intended to use her campaign “to bring large numbers of blacks and browns into the Party, particularly from the hood and the barrio” but that the Green Party “hierarchy seemed utterly fearful of the prospect of a massive influx of blacks and browns into the Green Party". Brown has given no indication that she now intends to continue her run as a candidate to the left of the Greens.

To the left of the Green Party are socialist candidates that call for full socialized medicine, like in Europe and Cuba, but who also see that single payer health care would be a step forward. These include likely Socialist Equality Party candidate Bill Van Auken, who calls for full socialized medicine, and says of the Canadian Single Payer system as an imperfect form of “socialized medicine”.

Likewise Peace and Freedom Party candidate and Socialist Party USA nominee for vice president, Stewart Alexander states,

“I favor a fully socialized medical care system, with as a first step a single-payer system similar to Medicare, but covering people of all ages. I favor eliminating the "co-pays" that are such a burden, and keep people from seeking needed care. We should take the profit out of the health-care system, and fully fund it. (The money now spent on health care in the USA is about twice as much per person as is spent in Western Europe, with less effective delivery of care. No additional money would actually be needed, but taxes on the wealthy few should be used initially to help fund improvements.) Eventually, I favor a fully-socialized system, funded from the surplus of the socialized economy, with an emphasis on prevention and public health.” (Alexander)

Also advocating full socialized medicine is Socialist Party USA nominee and Peace and Freedom Party candidate Brian Moore. In the California Voters Guide he states that he would, “establish guaranteed minimum income, housing and socialized healthcare for all”.

Not mentioning socialized medicine, but supporting single payer, Party for Socialism and Liberation nominee and Peace and Freedom Party candidate Gloria La Riva states, “The three main focuses of my campaign will be to oppose the racist attacks on immigrants; to propose a massive jobs program and increased social spending as an alternative to anti-crime hysteria and new prisons; and to give strong support for Single Payer Healthcare” (La Riva).

While generally being a good activist party, a strong concern among many on the left towards the Party for Socialism and Liberation is their uncritical support for undemocratic communist models, a problem that will cause many to instead vote for non-Stalinist candidates such as Stewart Alexander or Brian Moore in the Peace and Freedom Party primaries, or for other anti-Stalinist socialist parties that may run candidates such as the Socialist Equality Party, Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Action, or the Freedom Socialist Party.

In contrast to some of the anti-democratic positions of Gloria La Riva’s party, presidential candidate Stewart Alexander states,

“Socialism is the common ownership of the means of production, but I like to be more specific. There are, have been, and can be many forms of socialism, but I believe that the best, strongest and most beneficial form of socialism, the kind of socialism I personally work for, is common ownership of the economy coupled with its democratic control by working people.” (Alexander)

Obviously, there are clear alternatives to the capitalist Democrat and Republican Parties that are working hard to promote a workers agenda that includes either fully socialized medicine or single payer healthcare. Yet, almost all of the unions of the United States remain committed to endorsing and financing Democrats and only Democrats in elections. A good number of unions, such as the SEIU, even endorse Democrats that are opposed to single payer health care and help fund the same campaigns that are being funded by the big insurance companies. These endorsements of the anti-worker politicians of the Democrat Party are a blatant violation of the interests of the membership. Such endorsements hurt attempts at building alternative parties that represent workers interests, and hurt the ability of workers to protest and strike against such politicians that are not representing our interests. Some other unions, such as the California Nurses Association, take the stand of only endorsing candidates who support single payer health care. This is a step forward, but many on the left see that a full break by labor from the corporate controlled Democrat Party will be necessary.

Ultimately, what is needed is the building of a spirit of resistance among workers, the unemployed, and students, where we no longer passively agree to politicians and union leaders who pretend to be lesser evils, but are rarely even that. We must challenge and change the organizations we are part of, and when that fails, break away and build new ones. Most importantly, we must fully resurrect the use of political strikes and demonstrations to force the bosses and government to give us what we need, as is often done in countries with socialized medicine such as France. It is this kind of resistance that won socialized healthcare in Europe after the Second World War, and it will be this that will bring socialized medicine to the United States.

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References:

Abu-Jamal, Mumia. "Mumia 5/2/03 Taped Commentary on Cuba." Radio4all and Prisonradio.org. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.iacenter.org/polprisoners/maj_cuba03.htm. Internet.

Alexander, Stewart. “Presidential Candidate Questionnaire” Socialist National Committee, Socialist Party. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://vote-socialist.org/p08/questionnaires/alexander.html. Internet.

Ball, Jared. “Healthcare.” Jared Ball for President Website. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.jaredball.com/?cat=12. Internet.

“Clinton Unveils Mandatory Health Insurance Program” CNN.com. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/09/17/health.care/index.html. Internet.

“Concluding observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Canada”. 6 March, 1993. United Nations Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Accessed 26 September, 2007. Available from: http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:Jt9OTyVZWTYJ:www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/280a3783f5a26d09c12563e80058b47e%3FOpendocument+infant+mortality+ canada +%22united+nations%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=16&gl=us. Internet.

“Cuba Records Lowest Infant Mortality Rate”. BBC News. 3 January, 2002. Accessed 26 September, 2007. Available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1739773.stm. Internet.

Deeth, John. "Cynthia McKinney Brings Green Campaign to Iowa City." Iowa Independent. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.iowaindependent.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=3D80FCACF0E1EC162CC087F14BCF9BC5?diaryId=1610. Internet.

Green, Jeff. “U.S. has second worst newborn death rate in modern world, report says”. 10 May, 2006. CNN.Com. Accessed 26 September, 2007. Available from: http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/parenting/05/08/mothers.index/index.html. Internet.

Health Canada, Government of Canada. 25 November, 2002. Accessed 26 September, 2007. Available from: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/media/nr-cp/2002/2002_care-soinsbk4_e.html. Internet.

“How Mike Stands on the Issues.” Mike Gravel ’08 Website. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.gravel2008.us/issues. Internet.

“Human Development Report”. 2006. United Nations World Health Organization. Accessed 23 September, 2007. Available from: http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/indicators/52.html. Internet.

La Riva, Gloria. “Gloria La Riva for Governor”. California Online Voting Guide. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://calvoter.org/archive/94general/cand/governor/lari/larispeech3.html. Internet.

Mesplay, Kent. “Healthcare”. Kent Mesplay for President. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.mesplay.org/healthcare.html. Internet.

McKinney, Cynthia. “Cynthia McKinney Announces Campaign for Presidency” McKinney for President 2008 Website. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.runcynthiarun.org/node/25. Internet.

“Overview of the Uninsured in The United States, An Analysis of the 2005 Current Population Survey”. 22 September 2005. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Accessed 23 September, 2007. Available from: http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/05/uninsured-cps/index.htm. Internet.

“Presidents Report, Canada’s Performance 2003”. 2003. Treasury Board of Canada. Accessed 26 September, 2007. Available from: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/report/govrev/03/cp-rc-PR_e.asp?printable=True. Internet.

“Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Infant Mortality --- United States, 1995-2002”. 10 June 2005. MMWR Weekly. Center for Disease Control. Accessed 26 September, 2007. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5422a1.htm. Internet.

Rovner, Julie. “Socialized Medicine Belittled on Campaign Trail.” 6 December, 2007. NPR Morning Edition. Available from Physicians for a National Health Program: http://www.pnhp.org/news/2007/december/socialized_medicine_.php. Internet.

Shulte, Elizabeth. "Hillary Clinton’s First Health Care Non-Reform." 27 September, 2007. Dissident Voice. Available from: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/09/hillary-clintons-first-health-care-non-reform/. Internet.

“Snapshots: Healthcare Costs”. Kaiser Family Foundation. January 2007. Accessed 23 September, 2007. Available from: http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm. Internet.

“Statistics Canada”. 20 December, 2006. The Daily. Accessed 23 September, 2007. Available from: http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/061220/d061220b.htm. Internet.

“USA: Mumia Abu-Jamal -- Overturning of death sentence falls short of full justice” 19 December, 2001. Amnesty International. Available from: http://www.amnesty.org/en/alfresco_asset/9e6893af-a3f9-11dc-9d08-f145a8145d2b/amr511832001en.html. Internet.

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posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

U.S. Backed Turkish Government Bombing Iraqi Kurds

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:48:15 GMT

With the genocidal U.S. backed Turkish government now bombing Iraqi Kurds, I thought it would be a good idea to repost my following article. -Steven Argue

Kurdish Culture, Repression, Women’s Rights, and Resistance

By Steven Argue

The Kurdish people number at an estimated at 25-30 million people. They live in eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, northwest of the Zagros Mountains in Iran, and in Armenia. They also have a large émigré population in Western Europe. With 4-5 million people and 15-20% of the population the Kurds are the largest non-Arab minority in Iraq (CIA Iraq, 2007). They are also the largest non-Turkish minority in Turkey comprising 20% of the population (CIA Turkey, 2007). The Kurdish speaking people are 9% of the Iranian population (CIA Iran, 2007). In Syria, the Kurds are the largest minority with about 1.75 million people comprising about 10% of the population (Lowe 2006). The rise of nationalist xenophobia and war in Armenia after the fall of the Soviet Union has pushed most Kurds out of Armenia, but around 30,000 Yezidi Kurds remain comprising about 1% of the population (CIA Armenia, 2007).

The language of the Kurds, called Kurdish, is distinct from the Persian of Iran, the Arabic of Iraq and Syria, and the Turkish of Turkey. Thus the common language of the Kurds both separates them from the dominant cultures in the nation-states where they live and unites the Kurdish people as a nationality without a nation-state.

While being distinct the Kurdish language is most closely related to Persian, yet the origins of the varied Kurdish culture is partially influenced by the absorption of characteristics of the differing nationalities and cultures that have historically surrounded them.

In terms of religion the Kurdish people are mostly Muslim with both Shia (primarily of the Alevi sect), Sunni (primarily Shafi’i). There is also a large Sufi influence among many Kurdish Muslims, often cited as a moderating influence on Islamic fundamentalism. A small number of Kurds are also Yezidi Muslims and Christians. The Kurds also have a history that has included secular and atheist political leaderships.

The differing Kurdish religious identities have, at times, been a political factor both in divisions among the Kurdish people and in divisions, which distinguish them from the dominant nationalities. The strong Kurdish national identity is based on mutual language and a history of oppression. These factors hold the Kurds together as a people.

For the Kurdish people outrageous acts of oppression in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Armenia, and Syria have included mass murder, suppression of language rights, exploitation of Kurdish resources with nothing but poverty given in return, deprivations of national citizenships, and the brutal suppression of political representation.

Despite the oppression the Kurdish people have faced, they continue to speak their language and organize politically and, at times, militarily to fight back everywhere they continue to live as a native population.

The Kurdish people are, in fact, the largest national minority in the world that has no homeland. Yet, it is largely their mutual language as well as their mutual oppression and a large amount of mutual poverty (despite some class differences) that continues to unite the Kurdish people. They desire borders that would change the map of the Near East. A better understanding of the Kurdish people is a key to understanding the entire region.

Kurdish Language and Literature

While being most closely related to Persian; the language of the Kurds, called Kurdish, is distinct from the Persian of Iran, the Arabic of Iraq and Syria, and the Turkish of Turkey. Historically many Kurdish intellectuals have written both in Kurdish in as well as in the languages of the dominating cultures (Blau 2007).

Despite a long history of oppression that includes the banning of the written and spoken Kurdish word, the Kurdish people have a rich literary history. Ell Herirl (1425-1495) is the first well-known Kurdish poet (Blau 2007). He, like the many patriotic Kurdish poets that followed, wrote of his love of Kurdish lands and its women (Blau 2007).

Up until very recently the Kurdish language was brutally suppressed everywhere in its native range except the Soviet Republic of Armenia. Armenian Kurds enjoyed special status as an ethnic minority in the Soviet Union including special programs for economic development. The Kurdish language, far from being banned, enjoyed sponsorship through state-sponsored Kurdish radio, a Kurdish newspaper, and Kurdish cultural events. After the fall of the Soviet Union Armenian Kurds lost language rights and other protections and most Kurds have been forcefully deported or have fled to Germany and other west European countries as well as to Russia (Mehrdad [date?]).

In Turkey, the Kurdish language was illegal up until 1991 when political and armed struggle forced the Turkish government to recognize some Kurdish language rights. Kurds and international human rights organizations, however, still complain of an oppressive situation imposed by the Turkish government (Human Rights Watch 2006).

In Iraq, Saddam Hussein, as a U.S. backed ally at the time, is famous for committing mass murder against the Kurdish speaking population. Today Kurdish literature is still repressed with a number of Kurdish journalists jailed by what the Kurdish leftist opposition considers to be a puppet government of the United States and central government.

Iranian policy forbids the Kurdish language and has attempted to assimilate the Kurds into the dominant Persian culture. Besides the state of war between Iraq and the Kurds in the Iran-Iraq war, there was also a state of war between the Iranian government and Iranian Kurds at that same time. More recently in 2005 the Iranian government opened fire on Kurdish protesters with attack helicopters killing 20 and wounding 200 (Amnesty International 2005). Despite the attempts by the Iranian government to stomp out Kurdish culture, Kurdish literature and histories are available in Iran in both Kurdish and Persian (Blau 2007).

In Syria, the written Kurdish language has been banned since 1958. In 1987 that ban was extended to Kurdish music and Kurdish videos (Amnesty International 2005). Hundreds of thousands of native Syrian Kurds have no citizenship rights, the Kurdish flag is illegal (but still flown), and numerous acts of repression have been documented.

Due to the fact that Kurdish culture is horribly repressed in all of their native lands, today it is the Kurdish Diaspora living in Europe, the United States, and Australia that create most of the new Kurdish literature. This includes poetry, children’s books, newspapers, and magazines. Sweden, with a very enlightened policy towards immigrant populations, encourages Kurds and other groups to continue their languages and cultures and allocates a large amount of money to the relatively small Kurdish population for Kurdish language publications (Blau 2007). In addition works in the Kurdish language are being produced in other countries where funding is harder to come by.

The tenacity of Kurdish culture owes much to its extensive historic roots, pride of its people in their literature and language, and refusal to die in the face of attempts at forced assimilation and brutal repression.

Kurdish Modes of Production and Their Development

Kurdish lands are rich and productive, and they sustain the Kurdish people both through pastoral activity as well as through agriculture (Izady 1992). The gathering of wild nuts, berries, and truffles are also important sources of food and income for the Kurdish people, especially in forested regions (Izady 1992). In addition some of the Kurdish lands are rich in oil resources, but the Kurds have been denied access to this oil wealth.

It is established that a number of domestic animals as well as cereal crops used around the world were first domesticated in Kurdish lands (Izady 1992).

Kurdish pastoralism takes place primarily in areas not suitable for agriculture because they are too high in elevation, to steep, or too low in precipitation (Izady 1992). Pastoral activities were once nomadic, but now encompass only lands within a few days of permanent dwellings. As a result some lands that were traditionally grazed are no longer used (Izady 1992).

Kurdish lands grow large amounts of wheat, barley, rice, cotton, tobacco, sugar beets, olives, corn, sunflowers, soybeans, fruits, and nuts. Many of these are cash crops sold to other areas of the Near East where there is far less arable land (Izady 1992).

In many areas of Kurdistan agriculture is still practiced with ox, mule, or donkey drawn wooden ploughs (Jaff 2007).

A merchant class of Kurds has arisen since the 1950s making a living off of capitalist exchanges (Marriage and Family Encyclopedia 2007).

While participating in the broader economy, household families are the most basic economic unit for rural Kurds. Such households are patrilocal containing the first son and his wife and their children. Households participate in reciprocal non-capitalist labor exchanges and share what the household earns. Urban Kurds often continue this family communal structure, but it sometimes falls apart in the face of wage earners no longer wishing to share their income (Marriage and Family Encyclopedia 2007).

Many rural Kurds also seasonally participate in construction labor in the cities, bringing additional income back to their families (Marriage and Family Encyclopedia 2007).

Reciprocal exchanges are not just confined to households. They also take place between neighbors and kin in a village, and are expected. These communal exchanges also take place among urban Kurds (Marriage and Family Encyclopedia 2007).

In addition tribal Kurds are expected to work for landlords and tribal leaders, with durations of labor not clearly defined (Marriage and Family Encyclopedia 2007).

The labor structure in Kurdish villages reflects the labor-intensive, technologically primitive, agriculture forced on them by the neglect of the oil rich nations many Kurds are part of. Meanwhile, due to discrimination, the petroleum and mining operations in Kurdish areas rarely hire Kurds (Jaff 2007). This contributes to Kurdish poverty in regions that are rich in natural resources; fueling resentment and separatist desires.

Kurdish Sexuality, Birth, Domestic Life, Descent, and Kinship

The Kurdish people are organized in patrilineal clans (Refugee Health 2007). As such there is patriarchal control of marriage and property, with women treated in many ways like property. In addition, political status is often the product of patrilineal descent (Refugee Health 2007). It is a male dominated culture where female sexuality is repressed and women are oppressed.

Rural Kurdish women are allowed to mingle with males, but they are not allowed to make their own decisions regarding sexuality or husbands (Hassanpour 2001). Marriage for Kurdish women is a form of bondage traditionally decided upon by the male members of her family (Hassanpour 2001). These decisions have often been made in the girl’s childhood, and sometimes even before she is born (Hassanpour 2001). In Kurdish Iraq such practices of arranged marriage have been on the wane for a number of years, but family permission and payments for brides are still the rule (Refugee Health 2007).

Rural Kurdish marriages are patrilocal (Hassanpour 2001). The family receiving the bride pays the family she came from (Hassanpour 2001). This price is seen as payment for the labor that will be lost when she moves to live with the groom’s family (Hassanpour 2001). To hold onto the wealth of the village marriages within the village are preferred and marriages between first cousins are often arranged (Refugee Health 2007). Families also sometimes exchange sons and daughters with the same family to save on expenses (Refugee Health 2007).

The male families of urban Kurds do not pay a bride price at the time of marriage. Yet if the male decides to divorce the woman, his family is contractually obliged to pay her family. Urban Kurdish women are also not permitted to ask for a man’s hand in marriage, nor decide to divorce. Divorced women do not have a right to custody of the children (Hassanpour 2001).

Polygamy also sometimes occurs amongst Kurds. In such cases the wives are ranked in status by their age (Hassanpour 2001). While polygamy is not the norm, up to four wives are allowed (Refugee Health 2007).

Like marriage, men hold women’s sexuality under a strict ideal of shame and constraint, including virginity before marriage (Hassanpour 2001). This “ideal” is upheld under the threat, and use of, male violence against women. Such violence includes beatings, pouring acid on faces, shaving heads, and even “honor” killings where women are murdered to by family members to bring back the family’s good name (Kurdish Women’s Rights Watch 2007).

While Kurdish women may be murdered for adultery, no similar treatment is dished out to Kurdish men for the same act (Hassanpour 2001).

Kurds tend to see having large families as the ideal. This grows out of the material need for more laboring hands in the rural areas where most Kurds live, as well as from religious beliefs that consider birth control immoral by Islamic law. Yet there are growing numbers of young couples that ask aid workers for birth control. The birth of a child is celebrated with a feast. (Refugee Health 2007)

While the Kurdish people are oppressed and denied many fundamental rights, Kurdish women are doubly oppressed. While some Kurds have claimed better treatment of women than most of the Islamic world, treatment of Kurdish women does appear to have many similarities to those of the dominating cultures. One difference with Iranian treatment is that Kurdish women are not forced to wear the veil and are generally allowed freer movement than in many traditionally Muslim societies including Iran (Refugee Health 2007).

In Iraq, however, Kurdish women are not historically better off. Currently the Kurdish nationalist parties in power, working with the U.S. occupation, have done much to undermine the gains made for women’s rights during the rule of Saddam Hussein. Under Saddam Hussein’s secular government, Iraqi women had many rights found nowhere else in the historically Islamic world except in the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Over 50% of Iraqi doctors were women. Iraqi women were allowed to walk unescorted in the streets, to drive, to freely criticize men, and the right to work and control their own funds. Today the Kurdish parties that the U.S. has put in control of Iraqi Kurdistan are working towards adding brutally anti-woman Sharia (Islamic Law) to the constitution that would strip women of more rights. Similar moves are being made by the U.S. imposed central government in Iraq.

In Turkey, it is well documented that the Turkish government has routinely used rape as a weapon in the their counter-insurgency measures against Kurdish separatists (Hilton 2002).

There are many historical examples of Kurdish nationalists and communists speaking out for women’s rights (Hassanpour 2001). Additionally Kurdish parties in Iraq that advocate women’s rights, such as the Worker’s Communist Party of Iraq, have been excluded by the U.S. occupation from participation in elections. Besides in Iraq, the use by the United States of rightwing misogynist Islamic forces against socialists and nationalists with progressive stands on women is well established, with the U.S. bankrolling of the Mujahideen holy war against women’s rights in Afghanistan in the 1980’s being another well known example.

Kurdish women, with the exception of those that lived in Soviet Armenia, have not had the benefit of the feminist movements of the west nor the social revolutions of the Soviet Union and China that greatly advanced women’s rights in those societies. While not achieving perfection, the Chinese and Soviet revolutions outlawed forced marriages and made other giant strides towards women’s equality including in the areas of women’s education, employment, and reproductive rights.

While outsiders may find it easy to judge Kurdish treatment of women, it is worth noting that up until now the Kurdish nation has been denied the right to make any fundamental decisions regarding any policies in their land without outside control. Given the record of the dominating countries, including the United States, it appears that it is only within the context of Kurdish self-determination that the problems of women’s oppression can be solved by the Kurdish people themselves.

Kurdish Political Organization

The Kurdish people have organized themselves into many political organizations that advocate language rights, freedom from the social chauvinism and violence of the dominant cultures, Kurdish independence, and in many cases socialism. These Kurdish political organizations often exist in direct contradiction to widespread feudal village structures and the oppression of women.

The Kurdish Worker’s Party (KKP), one of the main Kurdish resistance groups in Turkey, sees the continuation of feudal political structures on the village level as being the result of oppression and exploitation from the Turkish State. The following emic from the program of the KKP spells out this point of view:
"National oppression exercised by Turkish state through massacres, compulsory resettlement and forced immigration goes on brutally. This oppression manifests itself economically in the fact that Kurdistan is a domestic market for Turkey, plundered and destroyed; politically in the fact that the Kurds are under the oppression of a foreign state, and denied of national sovereignty; and socially and culturally in the national humiliation and cultural backwardness created by continuing tribalism, widespread ignorance and forced assimilation." (The Kurdish Worker’s Party Programme)

The KKP is one of nineteen different Kurdish parties in Turkey (Turkey 2004). Of these thirteen have been declared illegal by the central government, including the KKP (Turkey 2004). On the other hand the Democratic People’s Party, one of the few legal Kurdish parties, does participate in Turkish elections (Turkey 2004). They are a member of the reformist and generally pro-capitalist Socialist International. Parties with stronger political programs for Kurdish independence and for socialism are banned and communities identified with them have faced brutal counter-insurgency methods that have included massacres, the raping of women, and execution of leaders.

In Iraq, two Kurdish parties, working with the U.S. occupation, rule Iraqi Kurdistan. These are the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and three minor Kurdish parties that have participated in an electoral alliance with the PUK and KDP called National Democratic Kurdish List. In the Kurdish area the National Democratic Kurdish List received 89.55% of the vote in the 2005 elections (Iraq 2005).

While the 2005 vote may appear to show widespread support among Iraqi Kurds for the KDP – PUK –USA government, other reports contradict this. Mass protests have erupted in Kurdish areas against the occupation-imposed lack of electricity and water (Worker-Communist Party of Iraq 2007). In response the KDP – PUK –USA government has used violence against protesters and arrested a number of journalists (Worker-Communist Party of Iraq 2007). Involved in these protests is the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq, a political party with members across Iraq of all ethnicities that supports Kurdish rights. In Kurdistan the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq has protested U.S. policy on Kurdistan where they point out that although the Kurdish people in Iraq had gained a high level of economic independence in the last two decades, U.S. policy has in effect annexed Iraqi Kurdistan back into the central government (Worker-Communist Party of Iraq 2007).

Unlike the KDP and PUK, the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq. They did this while also opposing the government of Saddam Hussein. In addition the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq, at great risk to their lives, is carrying out a campaign in Kurdistan against the imposition of Sharia (Islamic Law) through the constitution of the puppet KDP and PUK government. They see this as horribly anti-woman and also argue that it will also further increase sectarian violence (Worker-Communist Party of Iraq 2007).

Syria has fourteen different Kurdish political parties (Syria 2004). These organizations are banned in a country where it is illegal to even raise the flag of Kurdistan, yet Syrian Kurds continue to struggle for a homeland.

Iran has five different Kurdish political parties (Iran 2004). These have been involved in a number of uprisings against the central government in the last few years that have faced brutal repression (Kamala 2004). One of these organizations leading the uprisings is the Kamala (Revolutionary Organisation of Toilers of Iranian Kurdistan), a socialist grouping that has been organizing armed struggle against the central Islamic regime. As strong advocates of women’s rights the Kamala were the first Kurdish organization to integrate women into their armed forces (Kamala 2004).

Prior to the 1979 Islamic revolution the Kamala was also one of many leftist and pro-woman organizations struggling against the brutal U.S. imposed monarchy of the Shah of Iran, but in a great tragedy for women and for Kurds, it was chauvinistic Islamists that got the upper hand (Kamala 2004). In their assessment of the Islamic regime the Kamala states, “The Iranian regime has imposed the a series of discriminative policies in Kurdistan, which has ultimately resulted in the military occupation of Kurdistan, widespread poverty amongst this massive population, the suppression of Kurdish culture, drug addiction (especially amongst youth), religious suppression, forced migration, imprisonment, terror, torture, and the Killing of whoever opposing these tyrannical policies."

Armenian Kurds have suffered as well. While Kurds were given special language rights in Soviet Armenia, after the capitalist counter-revolution Kurds in Armenia faced mass violence and forced deportations. I have found no evidence Kurdish political organization in Armenia today.

The fate of Armenia’s largely ethnically cleansed Kurds is what has been attempted by all other countries that dominate the Kurds, elimination of the Kurdish question through violence and forced assimilation. Yet there is stubborn resistance in the will of the Kurdish people that refuses to give up. Instead many Kurds become resistance fighters that are bold enough to see a redrawn map where Kurdistan gains its independence from Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. In addition many are also bold enough to see that future as one that ends feudal backwardness, promotes education, builds socialism, and brings equality for women.

The Socialization of Kurdish Children in Language and Culture

The defining trait of Kurdish culture is their language. The education of Kurdish youth in their native tongue is an essential component, not only in the preservation of Kurdish culture, but also simply in giving the best education to young Kurds. The reason for this is that young people often have many difficulties learning when they are taught in a foreign tongue.

In the early part of the 20th century British colonial authorities in charge of education in Iraq referred to the Kurdish language as “vernacular”. Their educational model was one of teaching in the Kurdish language only at the primary school level, with all higher education in Arabic (The Education of Kurdish Language, 1995-2003).

In 1926 the famous Kurdish nationalist Huzni Mukriyani suggested in a fictional conversation between a Kurdish father and son that ignorance was better than being taught in a foreign tongue. The father states, “My dear son, I like education and I am not an enemy of knowledge and enlightenment, but it is better for you to remain ignorant than to be unaware of your identity, not to study in your language and to serve the strangers...” (The Education of Kurdish Language, 1995-2003).

This emic view of Huzni Mukriyani’s of the over riding importance of children learning in Kurdish wasn’t just based on a nationalistic or romantic desire for cultural preservation, but also grew out of the practical desire of having Kurdish children be able to understand the language they were being taught in. This point was driven home in another line of the fictional conversation where the father states to his son, “You had better become a shepherd, [Or] do ploughing for me. These are better than taking lessons and not understanding them” (The Education of Kurdish Language, 1995-2003).

In the 1950’s, in Iraqi Kurdistan, demands by the Kurdish community for more education in Kurdish began to bear some fruit, but many instructors had difficulty teaching in Kurdish because they had been instructed in Arabic (The Education of Kurdish Language, 1995-2003).

In Turkey, Iran, and Syria education in the Kurdish language has been even more wanting. The Kurdish language was illegal in Turkey up until 1991 and education in the Kurdish language is still lacking (Human Rights Watch 2006).

Yet, as an oppressed people without many educational opportunities, Kurdish children continue to learn their language from their families and communities even when formal education is lacking. Thus, the Kurdish language continues to be passed on to the children, partly out of necessity, partly out of a nationalistic pride and refuses to die or be forcefully assimilated.

Religion In Kurdistan, Belief and Disbelief

Kurds practice a variety of monotheist religions including a number of varieties of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. In addition some Kurdish nationalist movements led by socialists have a strong history of atheism and secularism.

The wide variety of Kurdish religions is due, in part, to the absorption of differing religions from surrounding nationalities. These religions have moved through the region over differing historical times. The predominance of Islam began in the seventh century when most Kurds were converted (Encyclopedia Britannica 2007).

Most religious Kurds are Muslim of the Sunni denomination (Encyclopedia Britannica 2007). Kurdish Sunnis predominantly belong to the Shafi’I sect. Another Islamic denomination found among the beliefs of the Kurdish people is the Shia, primarily of the Alevi sect. A small number of Kurds are also Yezidi Muslims, Christians, and Jews.

There is also a large Sufi influence among many Kurdish Muslims, often cited as a moderating influence on Islamic fundamentalism in many areas, including the oppression of women. Others see that religious moderation; to the point it does exist among the Kurds, is the result of heavy influences from atheistic socialist forces leading many of the struggles against Kurdish national oppression.

While information on the rarest and most obscure religions is often very easy to come by, demographic assessments of atheism are difficult to nearly impossible to obtain for much of the world. This lack of important anthropological data is due, in part, to the fact that atheists are oppressed in much of the world and afraid to identify themselves when attempts are made at collecting such data. But, in addition, there is a glaring shortage of writings that attempt to look at the role of atheism on individual cultures. Perhaps this is due, in part, to the universality of atheism and its lack of quaint provincial deities, sects, or rituals as are found in the thousands of religions of the world.

A look at the political programs the socialists that are playing a leading role in the nationalist liberation movements of Kurdistan does, however, reveal a strong influence of atheism and secularism in their advocacy of women’s rights and opposition to Islamic Law.

It is a tendency found in many mainstream anthropological writings to play up the role of various religions in different societies while ignoring the influences of atheism. Yet it has been atheistic leadership that has led major advances in women’s rights for much of the world’s population. Well known examples are the Chinese and Russian revolutions that outlawed forced marriages, bride prices, and other manifestations of female slavery still suffered by most Kurdistani women.

Likewise it is popular groups with atheistic programs, such as the Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) in Turkey, that advocate full emancipation for women. As the PKK states in their program:

“All laws reflecting male domination should be annulled. Violence against women, all forms of control on women’s bodies and lives resulting from outdated custom and traditional habits, and bride’s price should be forbidden.” (KKP Program, 2003)

This program of the PKK is in stark contrast to the harsh anti-woman positions of the Islamic capitalist governments of Iran, Turkey, and Iraq.

While there is good reason to study the role of religions in various societies, anthropological studies are often incomplete if they ignore the role atheism. Kurdish society is no exception where religious belief is mixed with a strong peppering of disbelief.

U.S. Imperialism and the Kurdish Question

While the regime of Saddam Hussein was no friend to the Iraqi Kurdish people, this of course has nothing to do with why the United States government hated Saddam Hussein. This hatred by the U.S. capitalist government is not based on humanitarian concerns. They hated Saddam Hussein for the good things he did, such as the nationalization of Iraqi oil that benefited the people of Iraq by keeping oil wealth in the country for social programs and benefited of the Iraqi economy.

America’s so-called concern for human rights can be seen in the past US interventions in Iraq. Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party first came to power in 1963. Immediately after taking power, based on lists provided by the CIA, they rounded up 5,000 leftists and trade-union leaders and murdered them. After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait we were shown pictures of Iraqi Kurds killed by poison gas in the U.S. media. What we were not told is why the US was silent when this was happening and the fact that the US supplied the gas to kill the Kurds and to kill Iranians in the Iran-Iraq war. While we are now told of the Iraqi repression of the Kurdish people we are not told of how the Turkish government is carrying out the same policies of genocide against the Turkish Kurds, and doing it with U.S. weaponry.

In addition to these proxy genocides by the U.S. government on the Kurdish people the U.S. government has participated directly in the war on Kurds. This occurred on February 15, 1999 when U.S. forces kidnapped Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan and turned him over to the genocidal Turkish government. Subsequently Abdullah Ocalan was sentenced to death for his role in defending Kurdish territory in Turkey from the murderous Turkish military. This U.S. kidnapping was admitted on CNN TV by former Turkish President and ethnic cleanser Suleyman Demiral.

Today, in Iraq, the basic question of Kurds getting a piece of the oil wealth is not on the imperialist agenda. Instead they are pushing through their puppet governments and outside pressure for the oil wealth to be privatized and turned over to U.S. corporations.

Many of the Kurds know that their national interests will never be served by the “liberating” forces of Turkey and Iran or British and American imperialism. This will only be established by the Kurds themselves and by the alliances they build with other anti-imperialist forces. British imperialism divided Kurdistan, a country with its own unique language and culture, into a minority inside the nations of Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran. Today the Kurds are the largest nation without a homeland in the world. Imperialism, with its motto of divide and conquer, never has and never will solve the Kurdish question. A free and united Kurdistan will only be born through a sweeping socialist revolution that overthrows the capitalist regimes of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria while challenging the military dictates of the United States.

The mutual language and oppression shared by the Kurdish people has solidified the Kurdish identity, even though they have differing religions, and even though they are spread out into five different countries of origin where they are an ethnic minority in each.

Facing violence and attempts at forced assimilation there is stubborn resistance in the will of the Kurdish people that refuses to give up. Instead many Kurds become resistance fighters that are bold enough to see a redrawn map where Kurdistan gains its independence from Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. In addition, many Kurds are also bold enough to see that future as one that ends feudal backwardness, promotes education, builds socialism, and brings equality for women.

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References:

Banaz could have been saved. 20 March 2007. Kurdish Women’s Rights Watch. Accessed 5 April 2007. Available from:
http://www.kwrw.org/index.asp?id=83

Blau, Joyce. 2007. The Kurdish Language and Literature. Institut Kurde de Paris. http://www.institutkurde.org/en/language/ Internet.

Chivers, C. J.. Hundreds Disappear Into the Black Hole of the Kurdish Prison System in Iraq. New York Times, 12/26/2006, Vol. 156 Issue 53805, pA12-A12

CIA, The World Fact Book, Armenia. CIA. Feb. 8, 2007.
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CIA, The World Fact Book, Iraq. CIA. Feb. 8, 2007. https://cia.gov/cia//publications/factbook/geos/iz.html

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Donovan, Shane. Kurdistan. Harvard International Review, Fall2006, Vol. 28 Issue 3. p8-8.

Gunter, Michael. The Kurdish National Movement: Its Origins and Development. Middle East Journal, Winter2007, Vol. 61 Issue 1, p167-168.

Gunter, Michael. The Kurdish Nationalist Movement: Opportunity, Mobilization and Identity. By: Middle East Journal, Winter2007, Vol. 61 Issue 1, p168-170.

Hassanpour, Amir. The (Re)production of Kurdish Patriarchy in the Kurdish Language. 2001. Accessed 5 April 2007. Available from:
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Hilton, Isabel. 28 May 2002. Turkey’s Record in Kurdistan is a Grim Warning for Afghan Women. The Guardian. Accessed 5 April 2007. Available from:
http://www.rawa.org/turkey2.htm

Human Rights Watch. Questions and Answers: Freedom of Expression and Language Rights in Turkey. 2006. Accessed 2 March 2007. Available from: http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/08/turkeyqa041902.htm. Internet.

Iran. Leftist Parties of the World. 15 July 2004. Accessed 24 April 2007. Available from: http://www.broadleft.org/ir.htm

Iran: Amnesty International calls for an urgent investigation into the killing of demonstrators. 5 August 2005. Amnesty International. Accessed 3 March 2007. Available from: http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGMDE130432005. Internet.

Iraq. Leftist Parties of the World. 02 October 2005. Accessed 24 April 2007. Available from: http://www.broadleft.org/iq.htm

Izady, Mehrdad. Kurdish Literature. Accessed 2 March 2007. Available from:
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Izady, Prof. M.R. 1992. Kurds, A Concise Handbook. Accessed 6 April 2007. Available from: http://www.kurdistanica.com/english/economy/agriculture/the_agriculture.html

Jaff, Dr, Akram. The Fractured Economy of Kurdistan. Accessed 6 April 2007. Available from: http://www.kurd.org/about/economy.htm

Kamala. 2004. Accessed 24 April 2007. Available from: http://www.komala.org/

Khan, Adnan. Kurds Matter. Maclean's, 12/25/2006, Vol. 119 Issue 51, p31-32.

Klein, Janet. Kurdish nationalists and non-nationalist Kurdists: rethinking minority nationalism and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, 1908–1909. Nations & Nationalism, Jan2007, Vol. 13 Issue 1, p135-153.

Kurdish Families - Kurdish Family And Households. 2007. Accessed 6 April 2007. Available from: http://family.jrank.org/pages/1025/Kurdish-Families-Kurdish-Family-Households.html

Kurdish Refugees From Iraq. Refugee Health. Accessed 5 April 2007. Available from:
http://www3.baylor.edu/~Charles_Kemp/kurdish_refugees.htm

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Lowe, Robert. The Syrian Kurds: A People Discovered. Middle East Program. Chatham House. Jan2006,

Olson, Robert. Turkey's Policies Toward Kurdistan-Iraq and Iraq: Nationalism, Capitalism, and State Formation. Mediterranean Quarterly, Winter2006, Vol. 17 Issue 1, p48-72

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Repression of Kurds in Syria is widespread. Amnesty International. March2005. http://web.amnesty.org/wire/March2005/Syria.

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Syria. Leftist Parties of the World. 22 June 2004. Accessed 24 April 2007. Available from: http://www.broadleft.org/sy.htm

Talabany, Nouri. The Kurdish Case. Middle East Quarterly, Winter2007, Vol. 14 Issue 1, p75-78.

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Yeğen, Mesut. Turkish nationalism and the Kurdish question. Ethnic & Racial Studies, Jan2007, Vol. 30 Issue 1, p119-151.

posted in Human Rights - 1 reply

The Socialist Kurdish PKK Reject the Soviet Model

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 02:18:05 GMT

The Socialist Kurdish PKK Reject the Soviet Model

By STEVEN ARGUE

Turkey is now bombing and shelling Kurds in Iraq once again under the excuse of trying to destroy the PKK. This is a continuation of the horrible oppression and repression faced by Kurds that I wrote about in:

Kurdish Culture, Repression, Women’s Rights, and Resistance
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/06/12/18426957.php

One of the criticisms I faced from those backing the repression against the Kurds was the fact that the PKK is a revolutionary socialist organization. An attempt was made to equate the leadership of the PKK with Stalin.

Yet, here is part of what the PKK says about the Soviet Union and socialism in their program:

"The Soviet Union has disappeared, the Soviet Bloc has dissolved itself, and there have been major developments in the socialist movement. The phase of Soviet-dominated socialism is finished. That was a phase of primitive and brutal socialism. Now, a new phase of socialism has begun, namely its rich phase. Our party is the embodiment of one of the most significant socialist movements during this new phase, and we plan to live up to our duties in our revolutionary work."

I have not seen a detailed analysis by the PKK of the Soviet model, but I see their rejection of that model as encouraging. The PKK are a popular group among Turkish Kurds that have gained that support through their struggle for socialism against the horrible oppression and repression faced by both Kurds and women in inside of Turkey. No matter what the position of the PKK on the Soviet Union or anything else, I support the Kurdish right, as an oppressed people, to self-determination.

The Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky, were swept to power in a popular revolution that called for an end to the war with Germany, land reform, and socialism. Besides the betterment this revolution meant for the workers and peasants in general, including access to healthcare and education, giant strides forward were made for oppressed nationalities, Jews, women's rights, and gay rights. Before the revolution, under Czarist rule, Jews were routinely slaughtered in the thousands in government-sponsored pogroms. Peasants were the property of feudal landlords, and huge numbers of drafted young peasants were dying in the inter-imperialist war with Germany. This all ended with the Russian Revolution. In addition, gay rights and the right to abortion were legalized for the first time in any country with the birth of the Soviet Union and backward anti-woman practices such as bride-price and forced marriage were made illegal. Priorities were made of literacy and meeting the basic needs of the people. These were huge advances made by a revolution that had inherited a poor economically backward nation, soon to be further devastated by civil war and the invasion of many imperialist armies.

Yet, Rosa Luxemburg, a key leader of the German and international communist movement, while praising the advances made by the Russian Revolution, did not excuse the lack of democracy in the Soviet Union. She saw the Marxist concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" in a completely different way than Lenin and Trotsky. She saw this simply as the toiling majority becoming the dictators over the capitalist minority that once held power. For that majority to actually be in charge, however, they would need democratic organs, universal suffrage, and democratic rights. For Lenin and Trotsky, the concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" fit more into bourgeois models of individual dictatorship by those in power. As Rosa Luxemburg states in her 1918 work, the “Russian Revolution”:

Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only a bureaucracy remains as the active element. Public life gradually falls asleep, a few dozen party leaders with inexhaustible energy and boundless experience direct and rule [...] a dictatorship, to be sure, but not dictatorship of the proletariat [...].

A different position by Lenin and Trotsky more in league with that of Rosa Luxemburg would have produced a much better and more open society that would have made Stalin's type of rise to power through skullduggery, corruption, and terror within the ranks of the party much more difficult.

Rosa Luxemburg did not see the question as being counterpoised between bourgeois democracy (democracy for the rich as we have in the United States) on the one hand (defended by "socialists" who had betrayed socialism and become administrators of capitalist exploitation and war), and dictatorial communism on the other. Instead, she rejected both and fought for a socialist society with nationalized industries where the working class has democratic control.

It is this essential banner of democratic revolutionary socialism that is being revived in the struggle for human rights against brutal U.S. backed capitalist dictatorships and other capitalist governments in the struggle for human rights such as language rights, women's rights, medicine, food, clean drinking water, for environmental survival, an end to U.S. imposed wars, and an end to capitalist and imperialist exploitation. Forward in the struggle for democratic revolutionary socialism!

Liberation News
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

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Peter Gabriel human rights campaign

marvindublin — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 13:09:13 GMT

http://lessig.org/blog/2007/11/pop_musician_peter_gabriel_lau.html

This is awesome! He's an incredible person.

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Terror watch list swells to more than 755,000

rareworlds — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:28:05 GMT

Mimi Hall
USA TODAY
Thursday October 25, 2007

WASHINGTON — The government's terrorist watch list has swelled to more than 755,000 names, according to a new government report that has raised worries about the list's effectiveness.

The size of the list, typically used to check people entering the country through land border crossings, airports and sea ports, has been growing by 200,000 names a year since 2004. Some lawmakers, security experts and civil rights advocates warn that it will become useless if it includes too many people.

"It undermines the authority of the list," says Lisa Graves of the Center for National Security Studies. "There's just no rational, reasonable estimate that there's anywhere close to that many suspected terrorists."

The exact number of people on the list, compiled after 9/11 to help government agents keep terrorists out of the country, is unclear, according to the report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Some people may be on the list more than once because they are listed under multiple spellings.

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who plans a hearing on the report today, says "serious hurdles remain if (the list) is to be as effective as we need it to be. Some of the concerns stem from its rapid growth, which could call into question the quality of the list itself."

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Senate | Government | Government Accounting Office | Joe Lieberman | Senate Homeland Security
About 53,000 people on the list were questioned since 2004, according to the GAO, which says the Homeland Security Department doesn't keep records on how many were denied entry or allowed into the country after questioning. Most were apparently released and allowed to enter, the GAO says.

Leonard Boyle, director of the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center, which maintains the list, says in testimony to be given today that 269 foreigners were denied entry in fiscal 2006.

The GAO report also says:

•The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) could not specify how many people on its no-fly list, which is a small subset of the watch list, might have slipped through screening and been allowed on domestic flights.

•TSA data show "a number of individuals" on the no-fly list passed undetected through screening and boarded international flights bound for the United States. Several planes have been diverted once officials realized that people named on the watch lists were on board.

•Homeland Security has not done enough to use the list more broadly in the private sector, where workers applying for jobs in sensitive places such as chemical factories could do harm.

Boyle also urges that the list be used by for screening at businesses where workers could "carry out attacks on our critical infrastructure that could harm large numbers of persons or cause immense economic damage."

But the sheer size of the watch list raised the most alarms.

"They are quickly galloping towards the million mark — a mark of real distinction because the list is already cumbersome and is approaching absolutely useless," said Tim Sparapani of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, says "creating and maintaining a comprehensive terrorist watch list is an enormous endeavor fraught with technical and tactical challenges."

The report, she says, "underscores the need to make the watch lists more accurate, to improve screening procedures at airports and the ports of entry, and to provide individuals with the ability to seek redress if they believe they have been wrongfully targeted."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-10-23-Watchlist_

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

The Ether

marvindublin — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 15:29:36 GMT

http://tribes.tribe.net/2crossroadsofreligion2/thread/7500e88a-3c12-4536-82bc-656a71ef95a3

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Columbus Day of Shame

rareworlds — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 18:43:09 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wm0EvTk8o4

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

spread this video: Burma

zigo — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 18:27:47 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnzQDFFGZgI

1976 Nobel Peace Laureate, Betty Williams, recounts her experience from visiting the children in a Refugee Camp for Burmese. Honest, Graphic, Real.

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

China

marvindublin — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 17:39:09 GMT

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6169522054399337360&q=UNDERGROUND&total=59139&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=3

SKYNEWS

posted in Human Rights - 2 replies

Parliament and the British slave trade 1600 - 1807

marvindublin — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 17:45:14 GMT

http://slavetrade.parliament.uk/slavetrade/index.html

I just came across this and thought I'd share.

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Nations lining up for Darfur peacekeeping mission

Sinja — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 15:34:18 GMT

France, Denmark and Indonesia offered Wednesday to contribute troops to the joint United Nations-African Union mission for Darfur, as observers predicted the UN would have trouble recruiting troops from already overstretched military forces.

The UN Security Council approved a force of 26,000, comprising mostly peacekeepers from Africa with support from Asia, for the troubled Sudanese region on Tuesday.

The conflict in Darfur has claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people and forced millions to live as refugees since it began in 2003, when ethnic African tribes rebelled against what they considered decades of neglect and discrimination by the Arab-dominated government. The Sudanese government has been accused of retaliating by unleashing the Janjaweed, an Arab militia, resulting in widespread atrocities.

The force, which if fully deployed would be the largest peacekeeping mission in the world, will consist of as many as 19,555 military personnel authorized to use force, including 360 military observers and liaison officers. As well, 3,772 police personnel and 19 police units of up to 140 personnel each will be deployed.

Observers say coming up with such large numbers of new troops could be a challenge, as many militaries are already overstretched in peacekeeping efforts and conflicts such as Iraq.

For example, Britain's military has 7,100 service members in Afghanistan and 5,500 in Iraq.

"We would consider requests to support the United Nations-Africans Mission in Darfur once we receive a formal request to do so," Britain's Defence Ministry said Wednesday in a statement, adding that it is assisting the existing African Union mission in Darfur in areas including logistics and planning.

A spokeswoman at the British foreign office, speaking anonymously according to ministry regulations, said Britain would not send ground troops.

"We're not going to be putting soldiers with guns and tanks in Darfur."

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the country would send a small number of doctors and nurses, but no troops or security personnel, given its existing commitments in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Solomon Islands.

Other countries have already started offering personnel for the mission.

Nigeria, which has about 2,000 troops in Darfur, is ready to send an additional battalion of about 700 soldiers, said army spokesman Col. Mohammed Yusuf.

France offered to send soldiers to participate in the chain of command as well as provide assistance for reconstruction and humanitarian efforts, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Wednesday. He did not say how many troops the country would contribute.

Denmark's Defence Minister Soeren Gade said he was "certain" the country would send assistance.

"That Denmark will take part, I consider that as certain," Gade said in an interview from Iraq. "There are several possibilities. Beside the fact that there is a need for quite a lot of soldiers, there is a need for logistical staff, people in the [commanding] headquarters, ships that can ferry equipment on long distances, planes that can move equipment and personnel."

Waiting for details

Indonesia also offered to assist the force on Wednesday. Desra Percaya, a spokesperson for Indonesia's Foreign Ministry, said the country was willing to contribute troops, but was waiting for details on how many non-African troops are needed.

China has not said whether it will provide troops, but in June the country's special envoy on Darfur said the government would seriously consider sending peacekeepers.

Canada's international co-operation minister, Josée Verner, said Tuesday the country has not yet been asked to contribute soldiers to the international effort, but is ready to respond to any requests in terms of humanitarian assistance. There are 31 Canadian Forces members serving in Sudan as part of a UN mission.

Many countries, including Italy, Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands, Thailand and South Africa, said they had not made a decision yet.

The first peacekeepers are scheduled to arrive in Darfur in December.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/08/01/darfur-troops.html

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

stanford

costin — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 02:35:08 GMT

Stanford Law School’s Immigrants Rights Clinic Argues U.S. Immigration Policy Violates International Human Rights Standards

-- Clinic Files Amicus Brief for Human Rights Watch --

STANFORD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Stanford Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (IRC) has filed an amicus brief on behalf of the organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) arguing that the U.S. immigration policy mandating deportation of legal immigrants convicted of a crime violates international human rights standards. The case is to be heard by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights July 20 in Washington, D.C.

The IRC submitted a friend of the court brief on behalf of HRW in the cases of Wayne Smith and Hugo Armendariz, two men who were granted legal permanent residence over two decades ago, but who were recently deported from the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act for drug crimes they committed in their youth. Both men left behind children who are U.S. citizens. Their combined case Smith and Armendariz v. U.S. asks the Commission to find that the mandatory deportation provisions, which were added to the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1996, violate the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man.

“The mandatory deportation provisions of the 1996 immigration laws are inhumane and completely out of line with international standards,” said Jayashri Srikantiah, an associate professor at Stanford Law School and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic.

Since Congress passed the 1996 reforms, immigration judges have been precluded from considering individual facts — family and community relationships, the rights of children, or claims for refugee protection — in cases involving deportation based on certain criminal convictions.

The hearing coincides with a report just issued by Human Rights Watch, which asserts that “mandatory detention of legal immigrants convicted of a crime, even a minor one, has separated an estimated 1.6 million children and adults, including U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, from their non-citizen family members.” The report, called “Forced Apart: Families Separated and Immigrants Harmed by U.S. Deportation Laws,” documents deportation cases of non-citizens with criminal convictions and says that U.S. immigration officials have deported just over 670,000 immigrants since 1997 because of a criminal conviction, many of which were minor and non-violent, and often committed before changes to the law took effect.

The author of the report, Alison Parker, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch’s U.S. program said, “The laws are not only cruel in their rigidity, they are senseless. How do you explain to a child that her father has been sent thousands of miles away and can never come home because he forged a check?”

The cases were brought before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2002 by private practice attorney Robert Pauw in tandem with the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) and the Center for Global Justice. The Commission determined the cases to be admissible in 2006 and combined them.

The hearing will be held July 20, 2007 at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 1998 F Street, Washington D.C. at 10:15 a.m. in Room A and will be webcast at: www.oas.org. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) is an autonomous organ of the Organization of American States (OAS) created in 1959 for the promotion and protection of human rights. IACHR’s website is at www.cidh.org.

About the IRC’s Amicus Brief on behalf of HRW

The amicus brief argues that U.S. laws imposing mandatory deportation violate Articles V, VI, VII, XVIII, XXVI, and XXVII of the American Declaration. The mandatory deportation of persons convicted of certain, often minor, crimes means that families such as those of Petitioners Smith and Armendariz will be torn apart in violation of Articles V and VI of the American Declaration’s protection of family life and the international human right to family unity. Mandatory deportation also violates the American Declaration’s protection of the private life of non-citizens, which includes non-familial relationships and community ties. U.S. laws fail to consider the best interests of the children of immigrants, in contravention of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. Last, U.S. immigration laws that impose refoulement on refugees with criminal convictions violate the American Declaration’s guarantees of due process and the right to seek asylum and the guarantees of the Refugee Convention.

Clinic students Gloria Borges and Lin Yee Chan worked on the amicus brief. A copy of the brief will be available online at the IRC clinic website.

About the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic

The Immigrants' Rights Clinic (IRC) at Stanford Law School is committed to protecting the human rights of all non-citizens regardless of immigration status. Clinic Director Jayashri Srikantiah and Jennifer H. Lee, the clinic’s Cooley Godward Kronish Fellow, supervise students on direct services and legal advocacy projects. Students in the clinic represent individual immigrants in a variety of settings and since the clinic’s inception, students have sought humanitarian relief from deportation on behalf of non-citizens with criminal convictions, obtained asylum protection for non-citizens fleeing persecution, and assisted immigrant survivors of domestic violence in gaining lawful status in the United States. The clinic’s website is at: www.law.stanford.edu/clinics/irc.

About the Stanford Legal Clinic

Stanford Law School runs a variety of clinics that litigate in a number of specialized fields, including immigrants’ rights, community law, cyberlaw, environmental protection, and educational advocacy. The clinics operate cohesively as a single law firm — the Stanford Legal Clinic (SLC) — and provide pro bono representation to the public. Clinical courses are structured as supervised settings that teach students: how to work with clients and colleagues, how to address the ethical dilemmas that arise in practice, and how to apply legal concepts taught hypothetically or in the abstract in the classroom to a real world, client representation situation. Overall, the SLC has the capacity for every student to take one clinical course at some point during their three years at Stanford Law School. The school’s long term goal is to expand the number and range of its clinical courses and develop a “clinical rotation” where students take only a clinic during a particular quarter — with no competing exams or classes. Expanding the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic and other course offerings within the Stanford Legal Clinic is a central part of the comprehensive curricular innovation underway at Stanford Law School. The Stanford Legal Clinic homepage is located at: www.law.stanford.edu/program/clinics.

About Stanford Law School

Stanford Law School is one of the nation’s leading institutions for legal scholarship and education. Its alumni are among the most influential decision makers in law, politics, business, and high technology. Faculty members argue before the Supreme Court, testify before Congress, and write books and articles for academic audiences, as well as the popular press. Along with offering traditional law school classes, the school has embraced new subjects and new ways of teaching. The school’s home page is located at www.law.stanford.edu.

Media Contacts

For comments:

Jayashri Srikantiah, Associate Professor of Law (Teaching) and
Director of the Immigrants' Rights Clinic
Email: jsrikantiah@law.stanford.edu
Phone: 650 724.2442
Bio:
http://www.law.stanford.edu/directory/profile/55/Jayashri%20Srikantiah

Alternative contact for Jayashri Srikantiah:

Irma Perez, Legal Assistant
Stanford Legal Clinic
Phone: 650 724.9086
Email: iperez@law.stanford.edu

Stanford Law School editorial contact:
Judith Romero, Associate Director of Media Relations
Phone: 650.723.2232
Email: judith.romero@stanford.edu
www.law.stanford.edu/news

Human Rights Watch media liaison:

Alison Parker, Senior Researcher
Human Rights Watch
Phone: 202.612.4321
Email: parkera@hrw.org

posted in Human Rights - 1 reply

Top Ten “Fry Mumia” Myths Debunked (Myth #1) “Five eyewitnesses saw Mumia shoot officer Faulkner.”

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 04:40:20 GMT

Top Ten “Fry Mumia” Myths Debunked
(Myth #1) “Five eyewitnesses saw Mumia shoot officer Faulkner.”

By Steven Argue

The following is the first in a series of ten articles I have written answering the top ten myths being circulated by those who advocate execution or continued prison for Mumia Abu-Jamal.

(Myth #1) “Five eyewitnesses saw Mumia shoot officer Faulkner.”

In the preliminary hearings, Mumia made requests for a line-up. This is not the kind of move one does if they are guilty. Part of Mumia’s reasoning was that eyewitnesses that were lying would have a harder time with their conscience if they actually saw him in the flesh.

Interestingly enough, the prosecution didn’t want a line-up and argued their point saying that none of the witnesses had actually seen Mumia shoot Faulkner. Judge Sabo denied the line-ups on these grounds. Yet two “eyewitnesses”, Cynthia White and Robert Chobert, did claim they saw Mumia shoot Faulkner, so Mumia was unfairly denied a line-up.

Supposed Witness To Mumia Shooting Faulkner Number One…
Prosecution Star Witness Cynthia White

Despite the false claims by the prosecution used to deny a line-up, Cynthia White did testify that she saw Mumia with a gun in his hand, that she saw him shoot Faulkner twice in the back, and that she saw Mumia standing over Faulkner as shots were being fired. Overwhelming physical and eyewitness evidence proves that this was perjured testimony.

The prosecution’s version of events, largely dependent on White’s testimony, claims that Mumia stood over Faulkner repeatedly shooting and missing until he hit Faulkner’s head. Yet the physical evidence says this is not true. No divots or marks were left on the sidewalk from these missed shots. Later articles will explore this and other physical evidence further.

As a prosecution witness, Cynthia White gave two extremely different versions of events at two different trials. One version was given at William Cook’s trial, and a differing version at Mumia’s trial. At Cook’s trial she said there was a passenger in Cook’s VW. At Mumia’s trial she claimed there was no passenger.

In the case of Mumia, eyewitnesses have said that the passenger in Cook’s VW was one of the actual killers. Yet Mumia was not riding in the VW and the prosecution claims that Mumia was the lone killer. So in Mumia’s trial, it was useful for the prosecution to disappear the passenger from the testimony, despite White’s other testimony that there was a passenger. These two differing versions, obviously including perjured testimony, were cynically used by prosecutors to fit differing prosecutions.

There is also physical evidence of a passenger in the VW, evidence that was illegally suppressed by the prosecution for 13 years. That evidence was an ID found on the body of Officer Faulkner. It was in the name of Arnold Howard. As a result of this evidence, Arnold Howard was arrested by the police and tested to see if he had fired a gun the night of the shooting. Arnold Howard told the police that he had loaned his ID to Kenneth Freeman. (Transcript for August 11, 1995, pp. 130-131.)

In addition, Arnold Howard testified at that post conviction hearing that Kenneth Freeman was also arrested that night, and that Howard personally witnessed a woman picking Freeman out of a line-up. Like Arnold Howard’s ID, police reports of this arrest and line-up of Kenneth Freeman have also apparently been suppressed, but in this case have never been released.

The VW driver, William Cook, also placed Kenneth Freeman as the passenger in the VW. In Cook’s signed declaration of what happened he also says Freeman was carrying a .38 that night. Cook went on to say, in that declaration, that after the shooting,

“Poppi [Kenneth Freeman] talked about a plan to kill Faulkner. He told me that he was armed on that night and participated in the shooting. He was connected and knew all kinds of people. I used to ask him about it but he talked but never said much. He wasn't a talker. I didn't see Poppi [Kenneth Freeman] for a while after that. Poppi [Kenneth Freeman] had been in Germany in the army. That night he was wearing his green army jacket.”

Eyewitness William Singletary says that a man in a green army jacket got out of the VW, shot Faulkner, and ran. Mumia Abu-Jamal was not wearing an army jacket that night and not riding in the VW. Nor did Mumia run away, he was shot and ran nowhere. The jacket Mumia was wearing is in evidence and it is a red quilted ski jacket with a couple blue stripes. Nor was William Cook, the driver of the VW, wearing a green army jacket.

The prosecution’s version of events denies anyone on the scene wearing a green army jacket. Besides Singletary and Cook, five other eyewitnesses also put a man in a green army jacket on the scene. These were stake out Officer Forbes (the putative first officer to arrive), Officer Stephen Trembetta, Robert Magiltan, Michael Scanlan, and Arnold Beverly, who has confessed to being one of two people that killed Faulkner. Beverly states in his confession that he was also wearing a green army jacket that night as well.

In addition, the prosecution’s version of events denies anyone running from the scene.
Six eyewitnesses contradict this by saying they saw men running from the scene. These would have been the real shooter or shooters. Those eyewitnesses are Dessie Hightower, William Singletary, Veronica Jones, Robert Chobert, Arnold Beverly, and William Cook.

So the prosecution’s star witness testified for the prosecution that there was a passenger at Cook’s trial, and said there was no passenger at Mumia’s trial. Eyewitness testimony and physical evidence suppressed by the prosecution shows there was a passenger wearing a green army jacket that shot Faulkner and ran. That passenger, Kenneth Freeman, murdered Officer Faulkner either by himself or with the help of Arnold Beverly. On May 14, 1985, according to the testimony of Arnold Howard, Kenneth Freeman’s naked corpse was found outside in the cold handcuffed. No investigation was carried out on Freeman’s death and the coroner reported the cause of death to be a heart attack.

So it is established, with her contradictory stories, that Cynthia White was not telling the truth. This would be bad enough. But, in fact, none of the nine eyewitnesses that testified at the trial and subsequent hearings can remember seeing Cynthia White at the immediate scene at all. None, this includes the other prosecution witnesses.

William Singletary states that he saw her earlier down the street. When he saw her she said, “Hey, how you doing? It's cold out here.” Then noticing his car she said “a brand-new Cadillac Eldorado, 1982 model, wow, that's a great car! You ain't that bad-looking either. But I don't date black guys.” To which Singletary says he responded, “And I don't date prostitutes.” Singletary says that she then walked down the street and didn’t actually see the shooting. ("Witness: Abu-Jamal didn't do it" Philadelphia Daily News Dec. 8, 2006)

In fact, Cynthia White confessed to both Pamela Jenkins and Yvette Williams that she did not see the shooting and that the police put the screws to her to lie. In addition, a mountain of testimony shows a clear pattern by the police to try to get similar perjured testimony from other people.

In a hearing after the trial Pamela Jenkins testified, “I know that Cynthia White worked as a prostitute in the Center City area, specifically at Locust and 13th Street, during 1980 and 1981, and that she was a prostitute, police informant, and turned tricks for the police officers in the district.”

If in fact Cynthia White was a police informant, and this information was withheld from the defense by the prosecution, that alone would be legal grounds for a new trial, but it gets much worse.

Jenkins testified at hearings in 1997 that Police Officer Thomas Ryan tried to make her testify that she saw Mumia shoot Officer Faulkner at the original trial, even though she was not at the scene of the shooting. Jenkins, 15 and a prostitute, was the girlfriend of Officer Ryan at that time. She also testified that she worked both as a prostitute for police and as a police informant for the corrupt Center City Police.

Jenkins also testified that Cynthia White told her in late 1981 that she was also being pressured to testify against Mumia, and that White was afraid for her life.

In a signed affidavit Jenkins states,

“Tom Ryan, Richard Ryan and other police officers pressured me and asked me if I had seen the shooting of the police officer and whether I had been in the area of the shooting that night. When I said 'no' they pressured (me) some more and asked me was I really sure that I hadn't been on the street that night and seen the shooting. It was clear to me that Tom Ryan and Richard Ryan wanted me to perjure myself and say that I had seen Jamal shoot the police officer."

Despite showing a clear intention by the police to frame Mumia, no jury has been allowed to hear Jenkins’ testimony in Mumia’s case. Not only is Pamela Jenkin's testimony essential evidence of a deliberate police conspiracy to frame Mumia by manufacturing perjured evidence, it also helps to destroy the testimony of the prosecution’s star witness, Cynthia White.

Jenkins' credibility has, however, been bolstered by the fact that she was a key witness used to unravel the massive police corruption in Center City District. Her testimony was instrumental in reversing the decisions of hundreds of cases and helped lead to the removal of the entire team of cops that led the “investigation” of Mumia’s case due to their corruption and mob connections.

Other eyewitnesses have said the same thing as Jenkins. In a signed affidavit Yvette Williams has stated,

“I was in jail with Cynthia White in December of 1981 after Police Officer Daniel Faulkner was shot and killed. Cynthia White told me the police were making her lie and say she saw Mr. Jamal shoot Officer Faulkner when she really did not see who did it.”

Later in the Affidavit Yvette Williams states,

“When Lucky [Cynthia White] told me she didn’t even see who shot Officer Faulkner, I asked her why she was “lying on that man” [Mumia Abu-Jamal]. She told me it was because for the police and vice threatened her life. Additionally, the police were giving her money for tricks. “The way she talked, we were talking “G’s” [$1,000.00]. She also said she was terrified of what the police would do to her if she didn’t say that Mumia shot Officer Faulkner. According to Lucky, the police told her they would consolidate all her cases and send her “up” (Muncy), a women’s prison, for a long time if she didn’t testify to what they told her to say. Lucky told me she had a lot of open cases and out-of-state warrants and was scared of going to Muncy. She was scared that her pimp “would get pissed off” at all the money he was losing when she was locked up, and off the street. She was afraid that when she got out he would beat her up or kill her.”

According to legal papers filed by the defense,

“in the days after the shooting, [White] was arrested at least twice for prostitution. Her picture was posted in the 6th District with instructions for arresting officers to 'Contact Homicide'. Each time police picked White up and took her statement, she revised her story [on Faulkner's shooting]. Without explanation, bench warrants against her were not prosecuted.”

Pamela Jenkins has publicly asked Cynthia White to tell the truth stating:

“We know we can bring this down to a nutshell if you just come forward. We've all lost a lot by coming forward, I've lost somebody I love dearly... Just do it this one time, one favor, that's not asking a lot. Then maybe you can clean up your past, like the rest of us are doing.”

The prosecution does seem to be afraid of Cynthia White coming forward to tell the truth, and have presented false testimony of evidence that she is dead. In a hearing in Judge Sabo’s court, a Philadelphia police detective testified that the FBI had "authenticated" that a corpse had the same fingerprints as White. Yet the fingerprints the DA withheld at that time, and later finally produced for the now cremated corpse, don’t match the fingerprints of Cynthia White.

Cynthia White’s own mother stated that the same corpse was not Cynthia White. Other eyewitnesses, that the defense attempted to have testify, testimony denied by Sabo, had seen Cynthia White alive and walking around during the time she was supposed to be dead. Yet instead of hearing defense witnesses that stated that Cynthia White was alive, the only testimony Sabo would allow was the false testimony of the Philadelphia detective claiming “authenticated” fingerprints. Sabo snapped, “As far as I’m concerned she’s dead. I’m making a ruling. We’re finished.” Evidence has never meant much in Judge Sabo’s court, if the prosecution says she’s dead, she’s dead.

So the evidence on Cynthia White shows that she could not have seen the shooting; that Mumia was wrongly denied his right to a line-up; that the police intimidated White and others to testify against Mumia; that the police that “investigated” Mumia have been kicked off the force for corruption; that Cynthia White had a motive to lie; that the police possibly withheld information that Cynthia White was a police informant; that the DA illegally withheld physical evidence for 13 years that showed that White’s testimony was perjured and that showed that Mumia did not commit the crime; that the DA knowingly used testimony from White that was perjured; and that claims of the prosecution and police were accepted without evidence or witness rebuttal in Judge Sabo’s court.

Essential Eyewitnesses Ignored By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number One, Pamela Jenkins

I include Pamela Jenkins in this list, not because the “fry Mumia” camp includes her among the eyewitnesses that supposedly saw Mumia kill Faulkner, but because they don’t, and why they don’t. As was shown in the section on Cynthia White, the police tried to pressure here into testifying that she saw Mumia kill Faulkner, even though Jenkins was not at the scene of the shooting, but Jenkins refused to do it. The honesty of Jenkins is the only reason why the prosecution did not use her, and this also why she is not mentioned in the “fry Mumia” literature as seeing Mumia shoot Faulkner.

Essential Eyewitnesses Ignored By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number Two, Veronica Jones

Veronica Jones also is not mentioned in the fry Mumia literature, but she is also a very important eyewitness. Jones, while being called by the defense in 1982, testified for the police and prosecution.

Before the trial, Veronica Jones gave a completely different version of events than was contained in an earlier police report. In her original version of events, contained in a report she gave to police, Veronica Jones said she saw two men running from the scene. Yet at the trial the two men running were missing from her testimony. This came as a complete surprise to the defense because Mumia’s supposed attorney, Anthony Jackson, did not even bother to interview witnesses before the trial. Earlier in the trial Mumia was denied his legal rights when his attempt to fire Anthony Jackson was denied by Judge Sabo.

Jones retracted her 1982 court testimony in 1996, saying that her original police report was the truth, and that she was coerced by the police into saying she didn’t see anybody running from the scene. She gave this testimony despite being forcefully reminded by Judge Sabo that her testimony could be seen as an admission of perjury and could land her seven years in prison. She was in fact arrested from the witness stand, but for a bounced check from a different state, being served with an insufficient warrant by out of state New Jersey State Troopers.

Despite the police harassment, and a review of her entire criminal history on the witness stand, including her life as a prostitute, Jones brought her children to court to learn from her mistakes. She explained that she was relieved to be setting things straight because what she did to Mumia with her false testimony had been eating her up inside over all those years.

On the stand, admitting to perjury, Jones explained that she was awaiting trial for an unrelated robbery charge in 1982 when police detectives approached her in her cell offering to give her a deal by changing her story as a witness in Mumia’s case. She had originally stated that she heard two shots, looked around the corner, and saw two men running from the scene. The two men running fit the version of William Singletary where he saw someone else shoot Mumia and run, but it didn’t fit the police/prosecution story being woven against Mumia. Mumia was unable to run because he was shot.

She explained that the deal offered by the police was that she could go to prison for five to ten years and loose custody of her two young children or she could get out of the predicament by lying for the police saying that nobody was running from the scene.

Despite the importance of the testimony of Veronica Jones in Mumia’s case, both in corroborating eyewitnesses that say the actual killer or killers ran from the scene, and as another witness testifying to a clear pattern of police intimidation to acquire falsified testimony, Sabo ruled in 1996 against her testimony being heard by a new jury trial.

Likewise, in the original trial, Sabo ruled in favor of prosecution objections when Veronica Jones was already admitting to being the target of the police in their attempts at gaining false testimony:

"I had got locked up [together with other prostitutes] I think it was in January [1982]. […] I think sometime after that incident. They were getting on me telling me I was in the area and I seen Mumia, you know, do it, intentionally. They were trying to get me to say something that the other girl [Cynthia White] said. I couldn’t do that."

As Jackson continued this questioning Veronica Jones said, “we had brought up Cynthia [White]’s name and they told us we can work the area [as prostitutes] if we tell them [what the police wanted to hear].” At this point Judge Sabo ruled in favor of prosecutor McGill’s objections and would only allow further questions of Veronica Jones on what she saw the night of the shooting. As from the beginning of the trial, ruling after ruling has declared, police misconduct is not open to scrutiny and a court of law is no place for evidence of Mumia’s innocence.

Supposed Witness To Mumia Shooting Faulkner Number Two, Michael Scanlon

The use of Michael Scanlon’s name in “fry Mumia” literature as a witness to Mumia committing the murder is nothing but the purest cynicism. Michael Scanlon did not identify Mumia as the person who shot Faulkner, and could not say that the person he saw shoot Faulkner was Mumia. At the trial, when asked by prosecutor Mcgill, “Are you able to identify anybody, either the driver, or the man who ran over and shot the police officer?” Scanlon replied, “No, sir.” (trial transcript, 6/25/82).

Michael Scanlon’s testimony actually puts further holes in the prosecution’s story by placing someone in a green army jacket in the immediate scene of the shooting around the VW. According to the prosecution only Mumia, Cook, and Faulkner were present at this location, but the evidence shows that one or two people were present wearing green army jackets that killed Faulkner before Mumia arrived. The jackets Mumia and Cook were wearing are in evidence and they do not resemble green army jackets.

Supposed Witness To Mumia Shooting Faulkner Number Three, Albert Magiltan

Like Scanlon, Magiltan is used in the “fry Mumia” literature as a witness to Mumia committing the murder, and like Scanlan, Magilton did not identify Mumia as the person who shot Faulkner. When Magiltan was asked at the trial, "you don't know who fired the shot at him, do you?" Albert Magiltan responded, "I never said I did, no." (trial transcript, 6/25/82). Magiltan didn’t even see the shooting.

Magilton did, however, report to defense investigators that he saw a person run from the parking lot wearing a green army jacket. This fits the confession of Arnold Beverly, who says he ran out from the parking lot, wearing a green army jacket, to shoot Faulkner.

Essential Eyewitness Ignored By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number Three, Police Officer Stephen Trombetta

Police Officer Stephen Trombetta reported that the suspect was wearing a green army jacket as opposed to Mumia’s red and blue ski jacket.

In addition, Trombetta rode with Mumia in the van to the hospital. Inspector Alfonso Giordano, the senior officer on the scene in charge of the Mumia “investigation”, reported that on that van ride Mumia had confessed to shooting Faulkner. Giordano was removed from the Philadelphia Police and prosecuted for corruption immediately after Mumia’s trial. P.O. Trembetta was with Mumia during that entire van ride and, in direct contradiction to Giordano’s claim of a confession, reported that Mumia made no comment.

Essential Eyewitness Despised By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number Four, William Singletary

While William Singletary did sign a statement saying that Mumia did it, he later stated that he signed that statement under the duress of police threats. Of that statement he says, “That's what they made me say, I stayed in there [in a police interrogation room] from 4:30 to 9:30 a.m. and when I left, I felt like I had been raped.”

William Singletary has since stated, "Mumia Abu-Jamal didn't shoot Daniel Faulkner. The passenger in the right-hand side of the Volkswagen got out of the car and shot him [Faulkner]. When Mumia came on the scene, we [Singletary and another man] were on the police radio trying to radio for help." ("Witness: Abu-Jamal didn't do it" Philadelphia Daily News Dec. 8, 2006)

Despite signing the statement, Singletary refused to lie for the police during the trial. Yet the “fry Mumia” camp often cite Singletary as an eyewitness against Mumia stating that his statement (that he says the police typed up and told him to sign) was so similar to those of the other “eyewitnesses” that his first signed statement had to be the truth and that what Singletary has been insisting for the past 25 years is a lie.

Singletary says that he is willing to take a lie detector test, but he is afraid of coming to Philadelphia. He says the Philadelphia police harassed his business to the point that it went under while also threatening him and warning him to get out of town. He did eventually move to North Carolina and says, “I'm not coming to Philadelphia unless y'all got Wells Fargo and Lords of London" for protection.

Supposed Witness To Mumia Shooting Faulkner Number Four, Robert Chobert

In his initial report taken by Inspector Alfonzo Giordono, five minutes after the shooting, Robert Chobert stated that the man that shot Mumia ran away. Mumia, who was shot at the scene, never did any running.

Later, Robert Chobert changed his story to that of the prosecution. The shooter no longer was running away and the jury was never allowed to hear Chobert’s original report.

Robert Chobert, a convicted arsonist that was driving on a suspended license and was on felony probation at the time of the shooting, has also recanted his testimony according to a sworn statement by Mark Newman.

At the time of Mumia’s trial, Chobert was on felony probation for the firebombing of a school. Revocation of that probation could have meant over 20 years in prison. Chobert was in fact violating that probation by unlawfully driving his taxi on a suspended license that night. Thus, Chobert would have been easily manipulated by the police and/or by the prosecution.

Under penalty of perjury, Mark Newman stated in a signed affidavit that, “Chobert told me that he did not see anyone standing over a prone Officer Faulkner, firing shots at the officer. Chobert said that what actually happened was that he was sitting in his taxi when he heard gunfire.” And that he did not actually see the shooting.

According to that signed affidavit of Mark Newman, Chobert didn't see Mumia shoot Faulkner, wasn't parked behind Faulkner as he said he was at the trial, and that Chobert gave the police that false testimony they wanted to avoid having his parole revoked.

Physical evidence, as well as eyewitness testimony, proves that Chobert's cab was not parked behind Faulkner's as Chobert claimed in court. This evidence includes 31 recently released photos taken by photojournalist Pedro Polakoff just minutes after the shooting. These photos clearly show that Chobert's cab was not parked behind Faulkner’s police car as Chobert had claimed in court.

This corroborates the testimony of Mark Newman when he states, "Chobert told me that on December 9, 1981, he had actually been parked, in his taxi, on 13th Street, north of Locust (contradicting his trial testimony that he was parked behind Officer Faulkner's police car on Locust St., east of 13th Street.)" This is also relevant to Chobert not having the vantage for seeing the shooting.

Newman’s testimony is also corroborated by Chobert’s legal troubles and a clear pattern by the police to offer similar deals to other witnesses including three eyewitnesses, Pamela Jenkins, William Singletary, and Veronica Jones, stating publicly, and Cynthia White also stating privately, that they were coerced, threatened, or otherwise offered deals by the cops to give false testimony.

The police officer that got the “identification” of Mumia from Robert Chobert was Alfonzo Giordano. In the original police report that has the shooter running from the scene, Robert Chobert is said by Giordano to say it was the guy from MOVE that did it. Giordano was removed from the force and prosecuted for corruption related to the mob, a corruption probe that turned over many other police/prosecution convictions. In addition, Giordano had been involved in political operations against Philadelphia MOVE and the Black Panther Party. As such, Giordano would have instantly recognized Mumia, a former Black Panther and an independent journalist that had exposed police wrong doing against MOVE.

In a revealing set of moves Giordano was never called as a witness at Mumia’s trial. This despite Giordano providing testimony at Mumia’s preliminary hearing of a “confession” in the van, despite his being the senior officer at the scene, despite his supposed firsthand identification of a witness, and despite his testimony of finding the “murder weapon”. During the trial Giordano was removed from active duty and assigned to a desk. The first working day after the trial was over Giordano resigned from the Philadelphia police force. In 1986 Giordano copped a plea on federal charges based on receiving tens of thousands of dollars in illegal payoffs during the 1979-80 period but didn’t spend any time in jail.

In addition to Giordono’s corruption, under racist Police Chief Frank Rizzo, Giordono was in charge of the Stake Out Unit of the Philadelphia Police that carried out repression against the Black Panther Party from 1968 –1970. Giordono also played a supervisory role in the 1977-78 police barricade and attack on the MOVE organization under Mayor Frank Rizzo. That police attack had followed earlier murders by the Philadelphia police of MOVE members and followed a long starvation blockade by the Philadelphia Police against the MOVE headquarters. In the police attack two MOVE members were shot, nine MOVE members were framed by the Philadelphia Police, MOVE children were stolen, and, as film footage shows, Delbert Africa was kicked and stomped by the police as he lay on the ground. In addition, Officer Ramp was shot and killed.

While nine MOVE members were railroaded to prison for the death of Officer Ramp, the evidence does not fit. The one bullet that killed Ramp came from behind and had a downward trajectory. Yet Ramp was facing the MOVE headquarters where MOVE members were in the basement and any bullets would have had an upward trajectory and hit him from in front.

Presiding over the kangaroo court that convicted the MOVE 9 was Judge Malmed. Shortly after the trial and conviction of the MOVE 9, Mumia, as an independent journalist, called in to a talk radio show where he asked Judge Malmed, “Who shot James Ramp?” Judge Malmed honestly answered, “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

In the attack on MOVE the police and Mayor Rizzo claimed that the first shots came from the MOVE headquarters, but the independent eyewitnesses including a number of journalists present, confirm what MOVE members and the physical evidence says, that the first shot came from across the street and not from the MOVE headquarters.

At Mayor Frank Rizzo’s victory press conference on the 1978 police attack, Frank Rizzo directly threatened Mumia Abu-Jamal when Mumia asked him a question. Mumia was present as a freelance journalist and asked the gloating Rizzo, “What about the brutality?” Instead of answering Mumia’s question Rizzo responded angrily with a threat: “They believe what you write, and what you say, and it's got to stop. And one day, and I hope it's in my career, that you're going to have to be held responsible and accountable for what you do.”

In addition to commanding this attack against MOVE, Giordono, earlier, then under Police Chief Rizzo, carried out surveillance of leftists including the Black Panther Party.

With Mumia having been a former member of the Black Panther Party and a high profile critic of police actions against MOVE, there is no question that officer Giordono would have instantly recognized Mumia at the crime scene. This would be one of the motives for Giordono to want to falsify testimony and other evidence to pin the murder on Mumia.

A number of other well-known political frame-ups have occurred in the United States. The prosecution of Mumia fits the pattern of the FBI’s COINTELPRO program against the Black Panther Party, where local law enforcement worked with the FBI in murdering some BPP leaders in cold blood, such as Fred Hampton in Chicago, and knowingly framed and prosecuted other innocent BPP members, such as Geronimo ji Jagga in LA who spent 30 years in prison before he was exonerated of the false charges against him and freed.

A possible additional motive for framing Mumia can be found in the confession of Arnold Beverly. Beverly stated, “I was hired, along with another guy, and paid to shoot and kill Faulkner. I had heard that Faulkner was a problem for the mob and corrupt policemen because he interfered with the graft and payoffs made to allow illegal activity including prostitution, gambling, drugs without prosecution in the center city area.”

Things that Beverly said are corroborated by, among other things, police corruption, three separate FBI investigations of police corruption in the Center City area at the time, evidence of fear that Faulkner was an FBI informant, evidence that Faulkner was an FBI informant, and the murder of other witnesses involved in cases against the Center City Police at that time. One of those murders was of Bertram Schlein, an eyewitness that testified against Central Division Chief John DeBenedetto. A suspect in that murder was Kenneth Schwartz, a former police officer and reported associate of Inspector Alfonzo Giordono.

A former Philadelphia Police Officer turned mob hit man, Ronald Previte, has testified as government informant on mob killings. Previte stated that during his ten years as a Philadelphia cop he “learned more about being a crook” than any other time in his life.

If the police were in fact involved in the murder of Police Officer Faulkner, this would mean that they would not be interested in finding the actual killer. They would want to pin the murder on someone else, and who better in the eyes of Giordano than his journalistic critic, Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Whatever the exact motive or motives, the mountain of police, prosecutorial, and judicial misconduct in this case proves that the criminal “justice” system both had (and has) no interest in finding the real killer or killers while at the same time desiring to execute an innocent man.

It is funny that when presented with this evidence, “fry Mumia” fanatics counter that if it was indeed a frame-up, why was it so sloppy. Why would Giordano have included that the shooter was running away in his original report? The irony is that if the frame-up wasn’t so sloppy we’d be asked why the case is so airtight. Yet I think that answers to the question of why there are so many loose ends lies in the fact that the police were accustomed to being sloppy and getting away with it. Even though the truth of the shooter running away was included in the original report, this was no problem for the police or prosecution, since the judge did not allow the original report into court anyway. All that was allowed was the lie that Chobert saw the shooting and that it was Mumia that did it.

The deeper irony is that when the “fry Mumia” fanatics admit that there are so many loose ends, they are admitting that Mumia is innocent by the essential legal standard of “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt”.

Essential Eyewitness Despised By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number Five, Dessie Hightower

College student Dessie Hightower saw someone running from the scene. This is what Hightower told police 80 minutes after the shooting, and Dessie Hightower has never changed his story. Hightower’s report of one or more people running is the same as eyewitnesses William Singletary, Veronica Jones, Robert Chobert, Arnold Beverly, and William Cook. This corroborates William Cook when he said, “Freeman ran from the scene after Officer Faulkner was shot”. It also corroborates William Singletary when he says, “The passenger [Freeman] in the right-hand side of the Volkswagen got out of the car and shot him [Faulkner]” and ran. Hightower also said that he saw no gun in Mumia’s hand.

Supposed Witness To Mumia Shooting Faulkner Number Five, Robert Harkins

Harkins was not seen as a credible witness by the prosecution at the trial. Harkins was never called to testify at the trial against Mumia by the prosecution. Yet in “fry Mumia” literature the name of Robert Harkins has begun to occasionally pop up as an additional supposed eyewitness to Mumia shooting Faulkner. Like other supposed eyewitnesses of the “fry Mumia” crowd that “saw Mumia shoot Faulkner”, Harkins did not identify Mumia as the shooter.

The Harkins testimony is at odds with the physical evidence and that of all of the other eyewitnesses, including prosecution witnesses. Harkins, a known child molester, could have easily been manipulated by the police and prosecution, as was done with other eyewitnesses. If so, the police and prosecution succeeded in destroying a potential defense witness, but did not produce a useful witness for their frame-up.

Essential Eyewitness Despised By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number Six, Terri Maurer-Carter

Terri Maurer-Carter, an official court stenographer in the courts where Mumia was framed, has come forward stating in a signed affidavit,

“Judge Sabo and another person were engaged in conversation. Judge Sabo was discussing the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. During the course of that conversation, I heard Judge Sabo say, ‘Yeah, and I'm going to help them fry the nigger.’ There were three people present when Judge Sabo made that remark, including myself.”

These words Maurer-Carter heard from Sabo sum up the blatant nature of the racist and political crime carried out by Sabo, the prosecution, and the police against Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Conclusion

There are a large number of other important eyewitnesses that will be looked at in future articles, but let us review a few key points of what has already been established.

“Fry Mumia” fanatics claim that Mumia shot Faulkner. Yet, not a single eyewitness saw Mumia shoot Faulkner. Cynthia White and Robert Chobert claimed they saw Mumia shoot Faulkner, but neither saw the shooting. Michael Scanlon, Robert Harkins, and Robert Magiltan, despite “fry Mumia” lies, never claimed they saw Mumia shoot Faulkner.

Four eyewitnesses say in no uncertain terms that Mumia did not shoot Faulkner. These are William Singletary, William Cook, Arnold Beverly, and Mumia Abu Jamal.

Five eyewitnesses contradict the prosecution’s version of events by saying they saw men running from the scene. These would have been the real shooters or shooter. Those eyewitnesses are Dessie Hightower, William Singletary, Veronica Jones, Robert Chobert, and William Cook. The prosecution version of events denies anyone running from the scene.

Five eyewitnesses have stated that they were threatened, coerced, or otherwise offered favors for testimony against Mumia. These are Veronica Jones, William Singletary, Pamela Jenkins, Cynthia White, and Robert Chobert.

The prosecution’s version of events denies anyone on the scene wearing a green army jacket. Yet all evidence points to one or two men on the scene wearing green army jackets shooting Faulkner. Seven eyewitnesses saw a green army jacket. Those that saw green army-jackets were William Singletary, William Cook, stake out Officer Forbes (the putative first officer to arrive), Officer Stephen Trembetta, Michael Scanlan, Robert Magiltan, and Arnold Beverly.

Kenneth Freeman, the real killer, or one of the real killers, was linked to the crime scene by physical evidence that was illegally suppressed by the prosecution for 13 years.

Not only did nobody see Mumia shoot Faulkner, the body of evidence shows overwhelming prosecutorial, police, and judicial misconduct pointing to a clear frame-up of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and backing Mumia’s claim that he is innocent.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner in the United States, with what could be the final decision on his legal appeals possibly coming down this summer. That decision could give Mumia his freedom, life in prison, or execution. It is time to turn up the heat against this injustice. Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!

This is the first in a series of ten articles on the top ten “fry Mumia” myths that will be published at Liberation News.

Subscribe to Liberation News:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Copyright Liberation News, noncommercial verbatim distribution of this article in its entirety, including this notice, is allowed without special permission. Publication in any commercial form may require payment and requires special permission.

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

The Hunger Site

marvindublin — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 03:28:38 GMT

http://www.thehungersite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=1

Has anyone heard of or contributed to this site?

posted in Human Rights - 3 replies

we can prevent gun violence

newbie — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 07:18:20 GMT

Blacksburg is such a beautiful town. It's bike friendly and full of nature lovers. They have the kindest, friendliest small town folks. The gorgeous New river, which is one of the oldest rivers in the country, runs near it. College students love to float down it and climb the mountains which are close by.

I'm just heartsick about these murders. I worked at Virginia Tech in 1980 in the Chemistry department. My sister volunteered there with countless students and my brother-in-law taught there for years. I dated a police officer there who's still in active duty. I've contacted him to tell him people all over the world are thinking of them. I have college age kids so I particularly empathize with the parents who sent their loved ones to school, expecting them to be safe.

How long will we let American companies profit from the blood of our children?
http://www.vpc.org/studies/vidintr.htm

Please sign this gun control petition in response to the Blacksburg, Virginia tragedy.
http://www.bradynetwork.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=2960&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS

This week I'll light candles for those who were killed, all the more tragic, knowing this was utterly preventable.

More helpful links:

California gun law report card:
http://www.bradycampaign.org/legislation/state/viewstate.php?st=CA

from Million Mom March:

"All Americans have the right to be safe from gun violence in their homes, neighborhoods, schools, and places of work and worship.

All children have the right to grow up in environments free from the threat of gun violence.

Gun violence is a public health crisis that harms not only the physical, but also the spiritual, social, and economic health of our families and communities.

The availability and lethality of guns make death or severe injury more likely in domestic violence, criminal activity, suicide attempts, and unintentional shootings.

It is possible to reduce the number of deaths and injuries caused by gun violence with reasonable, common sense policy."
http://www.millionmommarch.org/aboutus/

The Brady campaign to prevent gun violence has excellent statistics that prove that nations that implement gun control have much less gun violence.
http://www.bradycampaign.org/

Here's another petition to get Walmart to stop selling bullets and includes stories of people who purchased bullets there and went on to murder others.
http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/involved/walmart/index.php

So many gun control opponents are abusive:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-price13aug13,0,4661455.story?coll=la-opinion-center

Gun companies should be held liable for the damage their weapons cause:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/reparchives/107/hearings/04182002Hearing537/Barnes919.htm

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Humanitarian hero = Victoria Hale

marvindublin — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 21:07:19 GMT

http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.2070789/apps/nl/content2.asp?content_id=%7B5D8A799A-19C1-4C8B-8DFF-0E1CD9BA6AC4%7D&notoc=1

Visionary leadership!

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Child Soldiers

lemonhead — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 17:49:19 GMT

Hello all. New to the tribe, but found this wonderous story on CNN.com, and am looking for ways to help the various causes on this issue. If you know of any agencies or organizations that accept donations, etc. Please post links here:

Here's the story:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/02/12/child.soldiers/index.html

And check the labels of the clothing etc you buy from outside the US. The following countries are listed by CNN as "using child soldiers" (sadly, not much more detail was offered in-depth).

Haiti, Colmubia, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Philippines, Sri Lanka, India, [Guinea, Ivory Coast, Congo, Chad, Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Somailia]
The bracketed group is all within the African continent, and was kind of a given from what I knew, and not much product comes from there, but for example, I happened to go to the mall this weekend, and Banana Republic featured a lot of clothing made in Sri Lanka. I'm wondering how much economic pressure could be exerted to encourage countries to take this problem on more seriously. I dunno, big ugly complex problem. Looking for resources, and ways to help.

Thanks!

posted in Human Rights - 4 replies

Subjugating Your Inferiors With A Human Touch: Compassionate Oppression

torrid_wind — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 22:40:44 GMT

Peace:

This was a very entertaining read. It was difficult to decipher at first (and daunting to begin reading, because it is SO LONG). I was stuck at the opening. I had no idea who Ehud Olmert or T.D. "Daddy" Rice was. I finally looked up both on the Internet. I was surprised to find out that Ehud Olmert is currently the Prime Minister of Israel. Since I stopped watching television a year and a half ago, I'm not constantly being bombarded with news about Israel. I read news on the Internet, but only what appears relevant to me. I suppose that Israel rarely ranks. T.D. "Daddy" Rice is an obscure reference. The writer of this piece, Jason Miller, uses this name as his pen name. T.D. "Daddy" Rice was a white performer during the 19th Century who performed in blackface [see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_D._Rice].

Check it out.

****************************
Subjugating Your Inferiors With A Human Touch: Compassionate Oppression
By Jason Miller
2-19-7

An Open Letter to Ehud Olmert [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehud_Olmert]
By T.D. "Daddy" Rice [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_D._Rice]

Ehud Olmert
Office of the Prime Minister
3 Kaplan St.
Hakiyra, Jerusalem 91919

Dear Ehud,

My hearty congratulations to you and your fellow Zionists! You sure know how to contain those infernal camel jockeys infesting your Holy Land. A man can't help but admire your fierce determination to keep that pack of maggots from maturing into a full blown infestation of flies.

But I have to tell you that despite my reverence for you and your cause, I have concluded that you folks are going about this the wrong way. You've infuriated most of the Arab and Islamic world, the UN is constantly assailing you, and untold numbers of liberal (excuse my language) pussies are calling for my great nation to stop funding your good work. By persistently applying those ruthless, heavy-handed tactics to rein in your inferiors, you're borrowing trouble faster than our spend-happy government can increase its debts with Chinaand Japan. You are in some deep fecal matter, my friend.

I know our situations are different. We in the United States imported our ineducable criminals. Yours were squatting on your land when you arrived. Yet we both have the same essential problem. Our nations are populated by a large number of lazy, illiterate, and violent beings who stopped evolving somewhere between ape and human. I feel a deep sense of solidarity with you, brother. Therefore, nothing would please me more than to see you manage your horde of savages in a more civilized and humane manner, like us.

The smartest thing we did in the United States was to enslave the Negroids. The existence of chattel slavery for two centuries enabled a very small group of our people to accumulate tremendous amounts of wealth. Under the yoke of servitude, our African underclass had little opportunity to contaminate us with their filth or demand the "humane treatment" your scourge in Gaza and the West Bank clamor for in perpetuity. Unfortunately, overt slavery became untenable with the advent of that sanctimonious Abolitionist movement and the disastrous Civil War.

Ironically though, the emancipation of the slaves was probably the best thing that could have happened. Had we maintained that institution, the United States would have become moral pariahs, like your country.

We found better solutions to our Negro problem. We promised them forty acres and a mule. Boy did we shine in the eyes of the world when we delivered. And who noticed when Congress rescinded the Freedmen's Bureau Act and gave the land back to its rightful owners?

Old Jim Crow rose to towering heights to keep the "free men" in their rightful place. Poll taxes, separate but "equal" institutions, and lynchings (in which we all delighted) committed by radical fringe groups (with the complicity of law enforcement) were just a few of our strategies. We kept our former slaves ignorant, terrorized, impoverished, and politically impotent. What could they do but shuffle along and mumble "yes sir"?

Tragically, some uppity Negroes managed to overcome their innate deficiencies. The small handful that actually manifested some intellect and moral fiber wreaked havoc on a nearly ideal system. Genetic anomalies like W.E.B. DuBois, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X brought the United States to the brink of insurrection. We had to do something. So we gave our troglodytes the "special rights" they demanded. Rights like voting, sharing public institutions and facilities with the rest of us, living where they wanted to, borrowing money from the lender of their choice, and unfortunately, many more.

But did we give up? Hell no! Like you Zionists, we true Americans are tenacious, clever, and innovative. We were not about to roll over and allow a group of uncivilized, genetically disadvantaged Africans steal our treasure and power.

While the losses of slavery and institutionalized racism were both significant blows, they merely steeled our determination to come up with a more opaque and subtle system of oppression.

Which brings me to the point of my letter, Mr. Olmert. Your current modus operandi is unsustainable. So pay close attention to the next few paragraphs as I delineate the fine art of subjugating a segment of your population while maintaining the appearances of a society based on equality, justice, and all that nonsense.

In the aftermath of the civil rights movement, we quickly recognized that despite our setbacks, we could still wield our power like a skull-crushing cudgel. Desegregate our schools and let those disgusting cockroaches move into our neighborhoods? No problem. We simply built an interstate highway system and created a vast network of suburbs to enable white flight from the inner cities. Before the uppity Negroes and their weak-kneed liberal allies knew what hit them, we had legal segregation of schools created by demographics, ghettos riddled with crime, poverty, and blight for "people of color" and clean, safe, comfortable neighborhoods for us real Americans. And now that dark folks are slithering their way into suburbia, we are gentrifying the inner cities to take them back for our people.

What about empowered black leaders, you might ask?

At first our methods were crude. As you know, we simply assassinated MLK. That was probably the most effective thing to do in the long run. King was a real threat. However, in the short term eliminating him caused us a host of problems. We have since learned to give the appearance of appeasement by throwing agitators like him a few meaningless crumbs. We now watch with delight as those suckers snap them up as if we had presented them with a feast fit for a King.

We have even begun carefully screening rising leaders in the colored community. Once we feel confident that such a leader will represent the interests of our moneyed elite, we allow them a degree of political power. Yet they are painfully aware that the spigots that fill their campaign coffers can close rapidly and that the corporate media selling them to the American public can turn on them in a heartbeat. As one of those rare Negroes that has attained wealth and privilege, we might just allow Obama to become President. That is provided he behaves and doesn't let his black genes come to the fore.

In a stroke of sheer brilliance, we learned to capitalize on the natural talents of these lesser beings in our midst. We all know they excel in running, jumping, and song and dance. While we allow a tiny percentage of our darkies to make millions of dollars by showcasing their talents in the sports and entertainment industries, the nearly invisible detriment to their race is worth that sacrifice. Tens of millions of young blacks neglect educations and real opportunities to chase a one in a billion chance to become a "star". A significant number of them also join a violent subculture glorified by some of the performers they emulate. Media-induced self-destruction is a powerful tool indeed.

All right, Ehud. I know this has been a long letter. Here is your payoff for laboring through it. Having saved the best for last, I will now reveal our most ingenious means of maintaining social control.

As you are well aware, in the United States the masses are easily manipulated. They eagerly accept the tripe about the mainstream media being "liberal". We both know the reality is that virtually anything that moves more than a tick left of dead center on the political spectrum is DOA in a system of "news" delivery monopolized by five behemoth corporations. Thankfully, they wouldn't let those cowardly morons from the true Left within miles of their centers of propaganda dissemination. Thus faux liberal commentators and pundits have successfully inculcated many real Americans with the belief that the black mongrels amongst us represent a perpetual threat that can only be contained through brutal incarceration.

Herein lies the essence of our domination of the African scourge in our midst. Consider, my dear comrade in arms, the myriad benefits of our resplendent mechanism that nauseating moonbats cynically refer to as the "prison industrial complex":

1. 90% of black males face arrest and jail for at least a minor offense at some point during their lives.

2. As I compose this missive, at least one million of our 35 million former slaves are safely behind bars.

3. In 1989 we had more blacks in our prisons than did the Apartheid regime in South Africa.

4. From 1980 to 2000 we increased spending on law enforcement by over 400%. This enabled us to funnel tremendous sums of public money away from education, health care, and other programs that would have benefited the black canker that slowly eats away at our social fabric.

5. 1.4 million so-called Afro-Americans have permanently lost the right to vote because they are convicted felons. An impressive political coup on our part considering the fact that only 4.6 million blacks voted in the 1996 federal elections. And remember that your good friend in the White House "won" the 2000 election in part because we managed to disenfranchise thousands of voters in Florida, despite their lack of a criminal record.

6. Rather than promoting treatment or ways out of the poverty that often motivates a person to become addicted to drugs, we have criminalized the behavior. We impose the harshest sentences on those caught possessing crack, the drug of choice for our Negroids.

7. Prison inmates, half of whom are black, provide a pool of free labor for major corporations such as Nordstrom's, IBM, Toys R Us, Victoria's Secret, JC Penney and Microsoft.

Preying upon and feeding their miserable cycle of impoverishment, violence against one another, splintered families, substance abuse, ignorance, and incarceration, we have our undesirables well in hand.

Forgive me if I am too blunt, but I must tell you that in contrasting America with Israel, it is painfully obvious that your nation needs to make some significant adjustments in how it deals with its lower order of beings. Despite the best efforts of our corporate media, which is as sympathetic to your cause of Palestinian oppression as I am, the world is awakening to the brutality of your tactics.

Increasingly, when people look to Israel, they see a nation that imposes collective punishment on a vulnerable group of indigenous people because some of them resort to violence. They see eight Palestinian children killed by Israelis for every one Israeli child killed by Palestinians, oppressive military checkpoints, wanton destruction of civilian infrastructure in the Occupied Territories by the IDF, imprisonment at a ratio of 10,000 Palestinians to ten Israelis, four Palestinian adults slaughtered for every one Israeli adult, the Apartheid Wall, illegal Israeli settlements, razings of Palestinian homes and orchards, Israeli monopolization of water supplies, and Palestinians living in abject poverty as a result of Israel's withering economic sanctions.

We in the United States project an entirely different image. The world reveres us for emancipating our slaves, abolishing the Jim Crow laws, desegregating our schools, and enacting civil rights legislation. Many view the African refugee population in our country as the failed subspecies that it is. Outside observers are intelligent enough to note that we gave those festering pustules of our society welfare, affirmative action, affordable housing, and a host of other means to escape their misery, yet they chose to continue wallowing in it.

While we in the United States are certainly under fire for our aggressive foreign policy, through brilliant machinations we have managed to preserve the façade that our domestic policies are benevolent, compassionate, and just. From the world's perspective, our Negroes have demonstrated themselves to be a failed segment of the human race, in spite of our monumental, magnanimous efforts to help them. Meanwhile, your stratagems and actions are martyrizing the Palestinians.

Ehud, I applaud your objectives and the agony you have inflicted upon those sand monkeys in your back yard. Yet my purpose in writing you is to express my deep concerns that your approaches will come back to haunt you and your fellow Zionists. I felt it was my duty to warn you of the perils of your present course and to bring potential alternative tactics to your attention.

Necessity is the mother of invention, but I do hope that you implement changes concerning the Palestinians before circumstances force your hand. If I can be of further assistance, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Best Wishes,

T.D. "Daddy" Rice

Jason Miller is a wage slave of the American Empire who has freed himself intellectually and spiritually. He writes prolifically, his essays have appeared widely on the Internet, and he volunteers at homeless shelters. He sometimes writes satirical apologias for racism and Zionism under the nom de plume T.D. “Daddy” Rice. He welcomes constructive correspondence at willpowerful@hotmail.com or via his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/

From: http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/2007/02/compassionate-oppression-subjugating.html

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

hi am new to group

newbie — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 23:20:53 GMT

hi yall. i'm new to the group; i work in pesticide reform with environmental justice groups, children's health advocates, and farm worker rights groups.

if anyone has any groups you'd like me to hook up with, i'd be glad to pass it on to our campaigns and programs people.

glad to know you're here!

posted in Human Rights - 1 reply

We are about to attack Iran - october surprise / nuclear war

Wed, 11 Oct 2006 18:09:56 GMT

Hey Y'all,

[I appologize for the multiple tribe posting of this but This is urgent.]

Bush has sent Millitary ships, carriers, and planes to Iran. They are
going to war with a country that will spark the end of ANY stability in
the region and can ignite a world nuclear war.
please read http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1009-20.htm

This is one of those times that try our souls, when our smaller issues
need to take 2nd priority to the priority of dealling with this potential
end of everything.

Please forward this and seriously think about what YOU can do to try to
bring your centered attention back to reigning in the federal governement.

The American Revoltution happened for many reasons but much of it had to
do with the destruction of local economies and the use of the millitary to
maintain the East India Companies corporate monopoly on goods.

We have gone so far beyond that now. The declaration of independence tells
us WHEN it is required of us to have a revolution:

It says: we have unablienable rights. Governements exist to secure those
rights "deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed...
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is
the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new
Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its
Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
Safety and Happiness."

Bush is threatening our very lives and the lives of future generations.
Jefferson reminds us that governements should not be brought down for
"light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn,
that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than
to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the
same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it
is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to
provide new Guards for their future Security."

This last line is important for it tells us that when power is repeatedly
abused by someone with no right to use it. When it becomes evident that
there is a pattern to those abuses: that there is a "design to reduce them
under absolute despotism" we must stop this governemnt for it is no longer
the legitamate government of the poeople.

I don't know what we can do. It is so hard just to keep the bills paid,
and protests that just march down the streets of already liberal cities
obviously is not the answer. But there are people who are accountable who
must face the consequences of their actions and their complicency. And
there are many many many people who agree that this MUST END. We need to
put our efforts into building up resistance to this.

There is another reason for public resistance. It is essential that people
who might decide to target the united states understand that we are
opposed to the government's actions. Many people around the world think
that we want this to happen. They don't understand the powerlessness of
being in this country. There must but global recognition that the US
citizenry does not support their dictator. If the world understands that
we oppose this, then maybe they won't nuke us. Maybe they will offer
support or asylum or whatever.

Power is all about inequality. It builds up even though it is not
supported. The vast majority do not want to be ruled, they want their
lives to work out to be simple and full of friends they want to not worry.

Currently their are calls for seccession in Vermont and many in Vermont
are calling for the Pentagon to stage a millitary coup in the event of an
attack on Iran. We may find we have strange allies in this time.

This is what we must do:
-get our checkbooks, bodies, rooms, homes, and gardens in order.
-Get out of the house and spend time with friends as much as possible,
-If you are under 35, get your conscientious objector status together (ask
me how)
-Visit your congressmen and senators' offices in person to tell them what
you think.
-Be prepared to get back into protest mode and decide on a few triggers
that will get you on the streets:
-Will you go if bush removes due process rights (already has happened)
-Will you stand if bush announces he will atack iran?
-Will you take over buildings if he does atack iran?
-Will you march on Washington D.C. if he drops a nuclear bomb?
WHAT ARE YOUR TIPPING POINTS? once you decide what you are committed to
responing to, hold yourself to it.

good luck

posted in Human Rights - 6 replies

Has anyone seen this?

marvindublin — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 02:37:59 GMT

http://www.screamersmovie.com/

It looks like a good one. Brent posted this link in the "Politics" tribe.

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

WHY WE FIGHT documentary

marvindublin — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 21:26:02 GMT

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/

I saw this last night and highly reccommend it to everyone! : )

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Race - The Power of an Illusion

marvindublin — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 23:42:02 GMT

http://www.newsreel.org/guides/race/pressreleasecredit.htm

There is no such thing as race.

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Guantanamo Bay: Five years of lawlessness

Sanaag — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 22:27:40 GMT

Tomorrow, Thursday January 11, marks five years since the first detainees were shipped to Guantanamo. The Center for Constitutional Rights has been fighting against GB right from the beginning. It has already won a number of cases and has recently sued Rumsfeld . Visit CCR's 'Guantanamo Action Center' to download useful materials, read court documents and detainee testimonies, watch videos featuring detainees and attorneys and find out what else you can do: www.ccr-ny.org/v2/gac/

You could read more on the case against Rumsfeld and sign their petition on: http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/GermanCase2006/germancase.asp

Article: Rumsfeld okayed abuses, says former US army general:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L25726413.htm

posted in Human Rights - 1 reply

Persecution of Baha'is

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 02:41:32 GMT

I'm posting this here because many people have not heard of the persecution of Baha'is in the Middle East. I did a search on the term "Baha'i" here and it didn't come up, so I figured I'd be the first to post some info:-) Below I am cutting and pasting some history as well as recent developments. In addition to being Baha'i myself, I have personal friends who have survived or have family members who suffered the nightmare of imprisonment, torture and executions, in addition to denial of basic human rights such as to jobs and education - so this is of particular interest to me. I hope will also be of interest to you :-)

SITUATION IN IRAN

Some 300,000 Baha’is live throughout Iran, making the Baha’i Faith the country’s largest minority religion. Baha’is have been targets of discrimination and violence in Iran since the religion began there in the mid-nineteenth century. More than 200 Baha’is were killed in Iran between 1978 and 1998, the majority by execution, and thousands more were imprisoned.

Today the Iranian government regards Baha’is as apostates and “unprotected infidels.” Baha’is in Iran have no legal rights, and they are not permitted to elect leaders of their community. The Baha’i Faith has no clergy, and community affairs are coordinated by democratically elected governing councils called Spiritual Assemblies.

Baha'is in Iran are systematically denied jobs, pensions and the right to inherit property. More than 10,000 Baha’is have been dismissed from government and university posts since Iran’s 1979 revolution. Consistent with the Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council’s 1991 memorandum, Baha’i youth in Iran have been barred from higher education for more than 25 years.

All Baha’i cemeteries, holy places and community properties were seized soon after the 1979 revolution. None have been returned, and many sites of the greatest historical significance to Baha’is have been destroyed.

In November 2004, the Baha’is of Iran wrote a courteous letter to then-President Mohammad Khatami in which they requested that their civil and human rights be respected. Since that letter was distributed, Baha’is throughout the country have been arrested and detained for varying periods of time.

2 November 2006 (BWNS) -- In an ominous move, Iran's Ministry of Interior has ordered officials throughout the country to step up the surveillance of Iranian Baha'is focusing in particular on their community activities. The Ministry has requested provincial officials to complete a detailed questionnaire about the circumstances and activities of local Baha'is, including their "financial status," "social interactions," and "association with foreign assemblies," among other things. The Ministry's order came in a letter dated 19 August 2006 and addressed to provincial deputies of the Department of Politics and Security in Offices of the Governors' General throughout Iran.

The 19 August letter, which was recently obtained by the Baha'i International Community, asks these deputies to order "relevant offices to cautiously and sensitively monitor and supervise" all Baha'i social activities. The letter is the latest in a series of threatening documents that outline a secret national effort to identify and monitor Baha'is in Iran. "The emergence of this new letter highlights the gravity of the situation facing Iranian Baha'is," said Bani Dugal, the principal representative of the Baha'i International Community to the United Nations.
"This letter further confirms that Iran's government has targeted the Baha'is for covert surveillance," said Ms. Dugal. "It also reveals for the first time the type of information the government strives to collect on both individuals and the Baha'i community as a whole -- information that in most societies would be considered private and highly sensitive.

"The letter also contains elements of misinformation. For example, the letter asks for information on the 'socio-political activities' of Baha'is -- even though it is well known to authorities that Baha'is are entirely non-political in their activities, inasmuch as the Baha'i sacred writings stress the importance of non-involvement in politics, as well as non-violence.[MB1] The 19 August letter follows the release earlier this year of a secret 29 October 2005 letter from the Iranian military headquarters to various Revolutionary Guard and police forces instructing them to "identify" and "monitor" Baha'is around the country.

News of the 29 October letter, first publicized by Asma Jahangir, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief in March 2006, stirred alarm among international human rights groups. Ms. Jahangir herself expressed concern that "the information gained as a result of such monitoring will be used as a basis for the increased persecution of, and discrimination against, members of the Baha'i Faith."

Another letter, dated 2 May 2006, showed the degree to which the government has sought to implement such surveillance at the local level. That letter, from the Trades, Production, and Technical Services Society of Kermanshah to the Iranian Union of Battery Manufacturers, asked the Union to provide a list of members of "the Baha'i sect" in their membership.

Some observers have compared the government's effort to identify and monitor Baha'is to the situation facing Jews at the beginning of the Nazi era. In April, for example, the Anti-Defamation League said the orders issued in the 29 October letter were "reminiscent of the steps taken against Jews in Europe and a dangerous step toward the institution of Nuremberg-type laws."

Iranian authorities have continued to arrest and detain Baha'is throughout Iran in recent months, subjecting them to a "revolving door" sequence of imprisonment and release that is apparently designed to harass and oppress the Baha'i community.

Throughout the country, Iranian authorities have continued to arrest and detain Baha’is throughout Iran in recent months, subjecting them to a “revolving door” sequence of imprisonment and release that is apparently designed to harass and oppress the Baha’i community.
Over the last two years, at least 129 Baha'is have been arrested, released on bail, and are now awaiting trial throughout the country. The bail demands have been high, in most cases requiring the Baha'is to hand over considerable sums of money, deeds to property, business or work licenses.

[To read the full text of the 19 August 2006 letter in an English translation, along with a link to the original letter in Persian, go to http://bahai.org/persecution/iran/19-08-06]

**For more information, please visit "The Baha'i Question: Cultural Cleansing in Iran" at http://question.bahai.org/

SITUATION IN EGYPT

Recent court rulings in Egypt have highlighted the dire human rights situation facing the Baha'i community there. The rulings in turn have touched off a debate between human rights organizations and major Islamic groups about freedom of religion and belief.

Deprived of all rights as an organized religious community since 1960, Egyptian Baha’is are facing an immediate crisis over government efforts to deny them all-important identification cards. The ID cards are required by law and are essential for access to employment, education, and medical and financial services, as well as freedom of movement and security of property.

At the heart of the current situation is a government policy that forces Baha’is to either lie about their religion and illegally falsify their religious affiliation—or go without ID cards, which currently require that a person choose either Islam, Christianity or Judaism, which are the three officially recognized religions in Egypt.

As Baha’is are forbidden by religious law to deny their faith, they are put in the spot of having to go without these essential ID cards.

Posted : December 27, 2006 - 6:18pm | Terms : News | Egypt
In a letter to Nabil Fahmy, Egypt's ambassador to the United States, U.S. representatives Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) express disappointment at a recent decision by the Egyptian Supreme Administrative Court to deny Baha'is the right to document their religion on official documents.

Kirk and Lantos write that "the court decision upholds the government policy which forces the Baha'is either to lie about their religious beliefs or to be prevented from obtaining state identification cards. Without identification cards, Egyptian Baha'is lose access to most citizenship rights, including education, financial services and medical care."

The ruling overturns a decision by a lower administrative court granting Baha'is permission to list their religion on official government identification cards.

posted in Human Rights - 1 reply

Unicef's 2007 State of the World's Children Report

Sanaag — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 21:55:29 GMT

The report examines the discrimination and disempowerment women face throughout their lives - and outlines what must be done to eliminate gender discrimination and empower women and girls. It looks at the status of women today, discusses how gender equality will move all the Millennium Development Goals forward, and shows how investment in women’s rights will ultimately produce a double dividend: advancing the rights of both women and children.

http://www.unicef.org/publications/index_36587.html

This link gives a breakdown of the adult life expectancy, death rates, and literacy rates per region according to Unicef's report:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/interactives/map-unicef2007childreport/

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

SAVE SUZANNE AND MANY OTHER INNOCENTS !!!

mermaidsutra — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 19:10:07 GMT

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILIES, COWORKERS, ANYONE WHO YOU CAN THINK OF !!!

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD IN ORDER TO SAVE SUZANNE ( AND MANY OTHER INNOCENTS ) AND TO STOP THE WAR RIGHT NOW !!!

this was shared by the mother of Suzanne
http://tribes.tribe.net/freesuzanne/thread/2d5f4113-f531-40a1-b160-fc7831802fb1

.............................................................................

A friend of mine wrote this today:
Suzanne's Summary Court Martial tomorrow 12-13-06

This is what is happened:

There was a girl who was in the Army.

She was stationed in Iraq as a Security Policeman.

She was raped repeatedly by her superior officer in the US Army.

He told her either she could sleep with him or he would put
her on the most dangerous duty of all and may end up dead.

She valued her life and chose the lesser of two evils.

When she returned to her base in the states she tried to
tell people what happened and they made fun of her and
called her a liar.

They said: You brought this on yourself. You have no
proof.

She tried to use her chain of command but the chain
was broken and no one would listen to her.

At her new base in Fort Lewis, Washington, word had
gotten around that this girl could be taken advantage of.

When she asked her new boss where she should report,
he said: In my bed. Naked.

When she reported this to her chain of command,
she was ignored again.

Then they told her: Pack your bags. You're going back to
Iraq.

She packed her bags but did not show up for her deployment.

She was about to walk out the door but she couldn't do it.

She was afraid so she said: Mom I can't go back there.
I don't want to be raped again.

She waited for a few days at home and the Army came to arrest her.

She was Absent Without Leave (AWOL). She chose to go
AWOL because she was afraid of being raped again by her boss.

They detained her at Fort Lewis.

Her baggage went ahead to Iraq.

A big suitcase that included her baby blanket arrived in Bagdhad.
When some soldiers found out it was hers they rifled through the
contents and threw her baby blanket in a trash heap.

They said Suzanne was guilty of missing a movement and going
AWOL.

Suzanne said: But this is what happened to me and I don't want to
go back.

Then they asked some of the guys: Did you rape her?

And the guys said: No.

There was no trial.

Only a questioning where it was her word against theirs.

Rep. DeFazio (D-Oregon) said he would open a Congressional
Investigation. But this never happened.

Suzanne started to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD) which happens after you've survived a battle or a sexual
assault or a natural disaster.

PTSD makes you really depressed. Most of the times you want
to kill yourself.

When you aren't depressed, you are numb with alchohol or drugs.

I know this because I was sexually assaulted when I was
in the military too.

That happened a long time ago.

When I was first attacked I didn't speak up.

And then the man went and raped another girl.

It took me years of therapy to deal with the emotional
pain of not speaking up and of being attacked.

Unfortunately, no one talks about sexual assault in the military
because very few victims actually speak up.

This is what is happening:

Suzanne is speaking up.

She is saying: I was raped by this man, can someone please help?

The Army says it didn't happen because they asked the guys and the
guys said: We didn't do it.

The Army is offering her a Summary Court Martial today.

This means that Suzanne can be sent back to Iraq. It also means
she will be in confinement for 30 days.

Today they are packing her belongings and will not tell her where she is going.

The Army is making an example of Suzanne.

The Army is saying if you go AWOL, you will be punished.

The Army is saying: the needs of the military always come first, including
the sexual needs of some of our commanders.

They are also saying, if you rape someone in America's Army,
we will protect you.

If you join the Army, you will have permission to rape
women and then return to society.

Suzanne needs our help.

Suzanne needs an Honorable Discharge and intense therapy just to survive.

Ask yourself: Could go on doing your job if all this had happened to you?

Ask yourself: If this happened to my daughter or son would I find the way the
government is handling this, acceptable?

Please Call your News Stations, Newspapers, Congresspeople and Senators today.
Just one call could make a huge difference for Suzanne.

Their info is here:

www.congress.org

Info about Suzanne is at:

www.suzanneswift.org

Thank you.

April Fitzsimmons
USAF Veteran (1985-1989)
true2selph@aol.com

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Rumsfeld okayed abuses, says former US army general

Sanaag — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 19:32:22 GMT

MADRID, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Outgoing U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorised the mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the prison's former U.S. commander said in an interview on Saturday.

Former U.S. Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski told Spain's El Pais newspaper she had seen a letter apparently signed by Rumsfeld which allowed civilian contractors to use techniques such as sleep deprivation during interrogation.

Karpinski, who ran the prison until early 2004, said she saw a memorandum signed by Rumsfeld detailing the use of harsh interrogation methods.

"The handwritten signature was above his printed name and in the same handwriting in the margin was written: "Make sure this is accomplished"," she told Saturday's El Pais.

"The methods consisted of making prisoners stand for long periods, sleep deprivation ... playing music at full volume, having to sit in uncomfortably ... Rumsfeld authorised these specific techniques."

The Geneva Convention says prisoners of war should suffer "no physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion" to secure information.

"Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind," the document states.

A spokesman for the Pentagon declined to comment on Karpinski's accusations, while U.S. army in Iraq could not immediately be reached for comment.

Karpinski was withdrawn from Iraq in early 2004, shortly after photographs showing American troops abusing detainees at the prison were flashed around the world. She was subsequently removed from active duty and then demoted to the rank of colonel on unrelated charges.

Karpinski insists she knew nothing about the abuse of prisoners until she saw the photos, as interrogation was carried out in a prison wing run by U.S. military intelligence.

Rumsfeld also authorised the army to break the Geneva Conventions by not registering all prisoners, Karpinski said, explaining how she raised the case of one unregistered inmate with an aide to former U.S. commander Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez.

"We received a message from the Pentagon, from the Defense Secretary, ordering us to hold the prisoner without registering him. I now know this happened on various occasions."

Karpinski said last week she was ready to testify against Rumsfeld, if a suit filed by civil rights groups in Germany over Abu Ghraib led to a full investigation.

U.S. President George W. Bush announced Rumsfeld's resignation after Democrats wrested power from the Republicans in midterm elections earlier this month, partly due to public criticism over the Iraq war.

(Additional reporting by Diane Bartz in Washington)

Source: source: Reuters Alertnet
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L25726413.htm

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

execution of a 16 year old girl

Sat, 25 Nov 2006 17:02:35 GMT

Hello everyone, I'm new to this tribe, looking forward to reading the threads here. I wanted post a link to a well-done documentary that I thought some here might find interesting - about a 16 year old girl executed in Iran for "crimes against chastity" in 2004. . It is 48 minutes, but very interesting - there were many violations to normal legal procedures in this case, not to mention of course violations to human rights in general. I should warn you however that there are graphic photos and clips of torture and executions by Iranian authorities.

www.youtube.com/watch

At the end of the video they say that an outcry managed to get two young girls awaiting execution for chastity crimes a life sentence instead - their ages are 13 and 17. *Almost* (unfortunately) unbelievable.

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

The Gold Braclet

marvindublin — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 14:30:01 GMT

http://www.thegoldbracelet.com/productionnotes.html

Has anyone seen this movie?

posted in Human Rights - 2 replies

Dendron News / Mind Freedom

marvindublin — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 14:48:02 GMT

http://www.bio.net/bionet/mm/toxicol/1996-June/000693.html

Psychiatry & human rights.

posted in Human Rights - 1 reply

U.N.: 100,000 Iraq Refugees Flee Monthly

Sanaag — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 11:47:14 GMT

By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS
Associated Press Writer

Nov 3, 2006

GENEVA (AP) -- Nearly 100,000 Iraqis are fleeing each month to Syria and Jordan, forcing the United Nations to set aside its goal of helping refugees return home after the U.S.-led invasion, officials said Friday.

Instead, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has drawn up plans to deal with the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who are desperate to escape the violence, chief spokesman Ron Redmond said.

"Much of our work in the three years since the fall of the previous regime was based on the assumption that the domestic situation would stabilize and hundreds of thousands of previously displaced Iraqis would be able to go home," Redmond said. "Now, however, we're seeing more and more displacement linked to the continuing violence."

It has been impossible to obtain accurate totals on the numbers of refugees because few Iraqis are registering with UNHCR, and most are being cared for by host families or charitable organizations, he said.

The U.N. agency has been counting those entering Syria in recent months, however, and has found an average of 2,000 a day leaving Iraq by that route.

The outflow of refugees caught the agency by surprise because it was hard to detect.

"If people flee to camps, it's quite visible," Redmond said. "This is a steady stream of people now who are leaving."

The Jordanian government says another 1,000 a day are entering Jordan, he said.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said he couldn't comment on whether the figures were accurate.

"Obviously there has been some level of violence in Baghdad and it's natural that you would expect some people to leave," Fratto said. "But we're going to continue to work to bring down violence so that Iraqis can stay there and stay in a free country and a free democracy."

Redmond said almost all the refugees are believed to be staying in Syria and Jordan, but that a few are returning to Iraq and still others are going to other countries. He noted that Iraqis were the leading nationality seeking asylum in Europe in the first half of this year, with 8,100 applying - a 50 percent increase over the year-earlier period.

Figures were unavailable for arrivals in other neighboring countries, but the agency says an additional 50,000 Iraqis a month are fleeing their homes but remaining within Iraq, which classifies them as "internally displaced" rather than as refugees who have crossed an international border.

"We've got a displacement crisis under way here, and the international community needs to do more to chip in to support the humanitarian needs of these people," Redmond said.

The influx has been driving up prices in Syria and Jordan for housing, food and other commodities, Redmond said.

UNHCR estimates that 425,000 Iraqis have been displaced this year alone, largely due to sectarian violence sparked by the bombing of an important Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra in February,

Redmond recalled that, before the 2003 invasion, UNHCR had made contingency plans for 600,000 refugees and displaced people, and had a budget of $154 million. But there was no mass exodus in the beginning, and UNHCR has long since scaled back to $29 million.

UNHCR now estimates that 1.8 million Iraqis are living in neighboring countries and 1.6 million are displaced internally, but those numbers include many who fled during the 1990s, long before the invasion, Redmond said. As of July, Iraq's population was estimated at 26.7 million.

Source: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/UN_REFUGEES_IRAQ?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

French complicity in Rwandan 1994 genocide?

torrid_wind — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 19:44:24 GMT

France to declassify Rwanda files

France says it will release classified documents on the Rwandan genocide, after claims that French troops were complicit in the 1994 massacre.

Some 105 documents will be given to a magistrate investigating the claims by four genocide survivors.

Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie took the decision on the recommendation of France's defence secrets commission.

The plaintiffs accuse soldiers of rape, murder and complicity "in genocide and/or crimes against humanity".

The Rwandan Tutsis, aged between 25 and 39, have brought their case against the French military in the French courts.

During the genocide some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu extremists (in some 100 days).

French troops were sent to Rwanda as part of a United Nations force.

Rwanda has repeatedly accused Paris of complicity in the genocide. France has denied any role.

The four survivors say French troops committed crimes themselves, and also let Hutu killers enter refugee camps under their protection.

An inquiry began last month in Rwanda into alleged French complicity in training and arming the Hutu extremists.

After hearing testimony from witnesses, the Rwandan panel will rule on whether to file a suit at the International Court of Justice.

From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6110646.stm (horrifying photo included - brace yourself)

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

a letter from a former US soldier stationed in Iraq - This is a compelling read

torrid_wind — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 13:10:32 GMT

Peace:

I read the following article/letter on Michael Moore's website. I found it to be a compelling read. I hope that you do also. I just have to share this with you:

Friday, October 20th, 2006
'After Pat's Birthday' ...by Kevin Tillman

(Editor’s note: Kevin Tillman joined the Army with his brother Pat in 2002, and they served together in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. Kevin, was discharged in 2005 / From: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200601019_after_pats_birthday/)

It is Pat’s birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice… until we get out.

Much has happened since we handed over our voice:

Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can’t be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.

Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few “bad apples” in the military.

Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It’s interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.

Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.

Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.

Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.

Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.

Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.

Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.

Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.

Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.

Somehow torture is tolerated.

Somehow lying is tolerated.

Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.

Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.

Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.

Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.

Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.

Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

Somehow this is tolerated.

Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.

Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat’s birthday.

Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman,

Kevin Tillman

From: http://michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=745

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

UN: New Report Says Violence Against Women Is a Human Rights Violation

torrid_wind — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 07:11:58 GMT

UN: New Report Says Violence Against Women Is a Human Rights Violation

Classification Obliges States to Punish Perpetrators and Prevent Abuse

(New York, October 9, 2006) – Human Rights Watch and the Center for Women’s Global Leadership welcomed a report issued by United Nations today that classifies abuse against women – whether it happens in the home or elsewhere – as a human rights violation. As such, states are obliged by international human rights standards to hold perpetrators accountable.

The 140-page report, entitled “In-depth study on all forms of violence against women,” which was issued by Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s office, confirms that violence against women by spouses, family members and employers is a human rights violation, settling any outstanding debate on this issue. By squarely stating that it is, the report says that governments have an obligation to protect women whether the perpetrators are state or non-state actors.

“This report acknowledges for the first time from the highest levels of the United Nations what human and women’s rights advocates have documented over the past few decades: violence against women is a massive human rights violation that is both a cause and a consequence of deeply ingrained inequality between men and women,” said Charlotte Bunch, executive director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University, and a member of the secretary-general’s International Advisory Committee for the study.

The report describes promising practices in the fight against violence against women, but dismisses state efforts so far as mostly ineffective. Even with a sophisticated analysis of the problem and, in certain cases, strong laws related to this violence, most national-level responses have been inadequate, and have not eradicated the impunity perpetrators too often enjoy.

“The secretary-general’s study conveys a very simple message,” said LaShawn R. Jefferson, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Women’s Rights Division. “The individual who carries out any form of violence against women has committed a crime. A government that does not develop, fund and implement all necessary laws and programs to prevent and to punish this violence violates international human rights law. Both the individual committing the violence and the government blithely letting it happen must be held responsible.”

The study highlights the need for additional attention to violence suffered by women from marginalized groups (such as indigenous peoples or ethnic minorities). The report also draws attention to the problem of under-documentation of violence and control of women’s bodies and sexuality as an insidious component of gender inequality. In addition, the study addresses violence in conflict situations, pertinent issues related to criminal justice systems, service provision for survivors, the need to work with men to address violence, and needs of women who are facing multiple forms of discrimination.

It is incumbent upon the next UN secretary-general to commit to advancing the specific recommendations set out in Kofi Annan’s study, and it is imperative for human rights advocates to keep pressure on governments to fulfill their responsibility, said Human Rights Watch and the Center for Women’s Global Leadership upon the launch of the report.

The report’s recommendations are directed at member states and at various entities within the UN system, and include a call to document and register all forms of violence against women and to provide leadership at all levels in the condemnation and prevention of violence against women.

“What the secretary-general’s study makes clear is that this violence is not inevitable: with sufficient political will, funding, and carefully developed and targeted programs, violence against women can be significantly reduced,” said Bunch. “The issue now is, will governments and the United Nations make a firm commitment to act on the findings of this report?”

From: http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/10/09/global14363.htm

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Can we stop Walmart from corporate human rights violations?

torrid_wind — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 05:57:26 GMT

Walmart: THE LARGEST CORPORATE HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATORS IN THE WORLD

I AM HENCEFORTH NEVER SHOPPING AT WALMART OR SAM'S CLUB EVER AGAIN! I encourage you to do the same.

Sure, its cheap, but at what cost to the rest of the world?

Walmart uses Sweatshop (slave) labour in China, Taiwan, Honduras, Mexico, Bangladesh, India and many other countries. The workers are usually women, sometimes even children. They are beaten, forced to work 7 days a week and make everything from toys to clothes to computer products.

90% of Walmart's products are made in sweatshops in China run by the local Chinese mafia and bogus subsidiary companies that Walmart uses to create cheap knock-offs of Levis and other brand-name products (Levis is currently suing Walmart for brand-name infringement). They beat, intimidate, kill and extort their workers, forcing them into what is effectively slave labour.

The average Walmart factory worker in China makes $.13 - $.18 cents/hour, works 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, is beaten/raped if they try not to work, and killed if they try to start an union.

Don't believe me?

I highly encourage you to rent the documentary, "Walmart: The High Price of Low Cost" (available at Netflix: http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=70040809&trkid=189530&strkid=1267420043_0_0).

QUESTION: What do you believe the possibility is of getting even 5% of Americans to support such a boycott? Walmart needs to be hit where they will feel it the most, at their bottom line. It's the only thing they care about.

posted in Human Rights - 2 replies

Ideas for discussion?

marvindublin — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 22:07:49 GMT

I want to engage more in this tribe. I almost feel ashamed for not being more proactive myself. We have to remind ourselves (not beat ourselves up) that each passing moment, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, as we live our lives, there are oppressed people around the world that need our help. What can we do today? What can we do tommorrow & the next day?

posted in Human Rights - 4 replies

Impunity

marvindublin — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 14:11:37 GMT

http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/impu/eng.html

Just an interesting link I came across yesterday.

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

US Senate backs controversial terror trial bill

Sanaag — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 08:57:14 GMT

The US Senate has passed controversial legislation endorsing President George W Bush's proposals to interrogate and prosecute foreign terror suspects.

The 65-34 vote followed Thursday's backing by the House of Representatives for almost identical legislation.

The new bill could be signed into law by the president within a few days.

Under the new legislation, special tribunals will be set up to question and try suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"As our troops risk their lives to fight terrorism, this bill will ensure they are prepared to defeat today's enemies and address tomorrow's threats," President Bush said in a statement on Thursday.

Mr Bush had to compromise to get it past his own party but the guts of what he wanted are all there, says the BBC's Justin Webb.

In the run up to the mid-term elections he is now free to trumpet his party's tough approach and accuse the Democrats of coddling the terrorists, our correspondent says.

But human rights activists have expressed concern that the new tribunals might not give the same protection to suspects as the existing civil courts.

Legal standards

The legislation is a response to a Supreme Court ruling in June that the original military tribunals set up by the Bush administration to prosecute detainees were in violation of US and international law.

The new measures provide defendants with more legal rights than they had under the old system but eliminate their right to challenge their detention and treatment in federal courts.

The bill forbids treatment of detainees that would constitute war crimes - such as torture, rape and biological experiments - but gives the president the authority to decide which other techniques interrogators can use.

However, during a heated debate, Democrat senators accused the administration of tearing up 200 years of legal standards by removing detainees rights such as habeas corpus - the right to challenge their own detention.

"This longstanding tradition of our country about to be abandoned here is one of the great, great mistakes that I think history will record," Democrat Chris Dodd told the Senate.

Others backed claims by human rights groups that worry that the complex set of rules will allow harsh techniques that border on torture - such as sleep deprivation.

"This bill gives an administration that lobbied for torture exactly what it wanted," said Senator John Kerry.

A US army reserve office and lawyer representing a Yemeni detainee in Guantanamo Bay, Tom Fleener, criticised the loss of some rights, such as habeas corpus, to secure others, such as a detainee's right to see evidence.

He said the legislation was "horrific" and that "anything short of torture" could be admitted against such detainees.

McCain backing

Republican Senator Kit Bond responded by accusing the Democrats of being soft on terrorism.

"Now some want to tie the hands of our terror fighters," he said. "They want to take away the tools we use to fight terror. To handcuff us. To hamper us in our fight to protect our families."

And Republican Senator John McCain, a former prisoner-of-war who had been critical of the Bush administration's earlier policy on foreign terror suspects, welcomed the bill's passage.

"I think what you'll see now after the president signs this bill is convening of tribunals to address these cases which are long overdue; a bolstering of the Geneva Conventions because of our renewed commitment to it; and I am convinced that because of this legislation certain, quote, techniques, unquote, such as water boarding, prolonged stress positions, long, extreme sleep deprivation, will not be allowed."

As a result of the Senate vote, the military tribunals could resume under the new guidelines in early 2007.

But there is the possibility that this new legislation could also be challenged in the Supreme Court.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5390848.stm

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Air Force chief: Test weapons on testy U.S. mobs

Sanaag — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 08:55:10 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before being used on the battlefield, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday.

The object is basically public relations. Domestic use would make it easier to avoid questions from others about possible safety considerations, said Secretary Michael Wynne.

"If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation," said Wynne. "(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press."

The Air Force has paid for research into nonlethal weapons, but he said the service is unlikely to spend more money on development until injury problems are reviewed by medical experts and resolved.

Nonlethal weapons generally can weaken people if they are hit with the beam. Some of the weapons can emit short, intense energy pulses that also can be effective in disabling some electronic devices.

On another subject, Wynne said he expects to choose a new contractor for the next generation aerial refueling tankers by next summer. He said a draft request for bids will be put out next month, and there are two qualified bidders: the Boeing Co. and a team of Northrop Grumman Corp. and European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., the majority owner of European jet maker Airbus SAS.

The contract is expected to be worth at least $20 billion (€15.75 billion).
Chicago, Illinois-based Boeing lost the tanker deal in 2004 amid revelations that it had hired a top Air Force acquisitions official who had given the company preferential treatment.

Wynne also said the Air Force, which is already chopping 40,000 active duty, civilian and reserves jobs, is now struggling to find new ways to slash about $1.8 billion (€1.4 billion) from its budget to cover costs from the latest round of base closings.

He said he can't cut more people, and it would not be wise to take funding from military programs that are needed to protect the country. But he said he also incurs resistance when he tries to save money on operations and maintenance by retiring aging aircraft.

"We're finding out that those are, unfortunately, prized possessions of some congressional districts," said Wynne, adding that the Air Force will have to "take some appetite suppressant pills." He said he has asked employees to look for efficiencies in their offices.

The base closings initially were expected to create savings by reducing Air Force infrastructure by 24 percent.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/09/12/usaf.weapons.ap/

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

PROTEST & REVOLT

marvindublin — Thu, 25 May 2006 02:22:57 GMT

http://www.protest.net/

Current events link. Keyword - NETWORK.

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Urgent!!! Please help

mentalfreedomne1 — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 03:44:08 GMT

Urgent!!! Please Help

I am posting this everywhere I possibly can, Please help us.
There are thousands of good people who could potentially lose their lives very soon.

Since the release of the information on the Sujiatun concentration camp in China, which is reported to do live organ harvesting on Falun Gong practicioners. More people have been stepping forward to reveal information. Recently, a veteran military doctor in the region of Shenyang said that the Sujiatun Concentration camp is just one of 36 such camps. Another camp in Jilin Province referred to as 672-S is said to hold over 120,000 people.

According to the Integrated Committee's announcement, transplant hospitals in China are now telling patients to "come in quickly" to get transplants. Patients are told that matching organs can be found at this time in as short as one or two days. The hospitals are also reported to say that, "it will be difficult after this batch of organs is used up."

We fear that there is going to be a mass execution to “hide the evidence” and get rid of witnesses. PLEASE HELP us, Falun Gong practitioners around the world are requesting an international investigation while there is still time.

This is the US petition, please sign it. It can save someone’s life.
http://www.fofg.org/act/act_petition.php?pid=1

you can also help by going here:
http://publicpetition.unvcc.com/UN/index.php
this is an easy, fill in the blank letter that with a click is automatically
sent to the senators and representatives of your choice
And it would also greatly help us if you would please pass this information on.

Thank you,
Joshua

You can learn more about this at:
The Epoch Times
http://www.theepochtimes.com/211,111,,1.html
Amnesty International
http://web.amnesty.org/report2004/chn-summary-eng
Falun Dafa Information Center
http://www.faluninfo.net/why/index.asp
or, you can ask me any questions you have by sending me a message.

posted in Human Rights - 2 replies

Racism in Romania

julia_voiceofroma — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:06:04 GMT

Last week two black players of football team CSU Sibiu, Brice Kabengele and Brian Evans have been beaten in the streets of Sibiu Romania. The football (soccer) players were â€œaccusedâ€™ of dating white women. The supporters of the team plan to display a banner against racism during the next game (http://www.prosport.ro/index.php?c=15&a=99400)Â

A more detailed description of recent anti-Gypsysim on the stadiums in Romania can be found here http://www.romanetwork.org/Football.html.

We are trying to organize a game against racism in Romania on 5th or 6th of April and we would appreciate any help from people who want to get involved. The main two football clubs want to get involved and there is support from the press and civil society. For more info please contact me on this e-mail address or at 0032-476-538194.Â

Valeriu Nicolae

valeriu@romanetwork.org

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Worse Than Any Nightmare—Journalist Quits China to Expose Concentration Camp Horrors and Bird Flu Coverup

mentalfreedomne1 — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 21:39:37 GMT

Over 6,000 Falun Gong Practitioners Detained in Secret Concentration Camp in China; 425 Bird Flu Patients in Two Facilities
Epoch Times Staff
Mar 10, 2006

A reporter from China who worked for a Japanese television news agency and specialized in Chinese news recently escaped to the United States after being wanted in China for reporting on controversial issues. (The Epoch Times)
High-res image (1200 x 900 px, 72 dpi)

A long-time reporter who worked for a Japanese television news agency and specialized in news on China told The Epoch Times that some little-known and very frightening things are happening in China today. To protect his identity, The Epoch Times will refer to him as Mr. R.

CCP is Hiding Bird Flu from the World

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has concealed the spread of the H5N1 bird flu epidemic within China from the rest of the world, according to Mr. R. Currently, 425 bird flu patients are detained at the Heping District Contagious Disease Hospital and the Affiliated Hospital of Liaoning College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Huanggu District, Shenyang City. These patients are being used for medical experiments. Liaoning Province has decided to not report these patients to the central government and use all of them as subjects for medical experiments. These people have no chance of survival.

Over 6,000 Falun Gong Practitioners are Secretly Detained at Sujiatun Concentration Camp

In Sujiatun District, Shenyang City, the CCP has established a secret concentration camp, where over 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners are detained, said Mr. R. The concentration camp has a crematorium to dispose of bodies. There are also many doctors on site. No detainees have managed to leave the concentration camp alive. Before cremation, the internal organs are all removed from the bodies and sold. Now there are only a few Falun Gong practitioners at the Masanjia Labor Camp and Dabei Second Prison. Most of them have been moved to Sujiatun. Other practitioners from northeastern China and central China are also being transferred there.

"I Am Not Afraid of Death"

"I have escaped to the United States and have just told you about the situation of the bird flu and the Falun Gong practitioners in Sujiatun. Many people are shocked that I exposed the situation. To be honest, I am not afraid of death," said Mr. R, apparently reflecting on measures that the CCP may take against him after his disclosures.

The following was compiled from an audio record of an interview with Mr. R.

Using Limited Freedom of Speech to Make A Difference for the People of China

I worked in a Japanese television news agency, in charge of news about China. We sold our news programs to various commercial television stations.

Since 1999, the Chinese Embassy in Japan established a news communications company. They also founded a Chinese-language TV station. I was hired by the Education Department of the Chinese Embassy responsible for the production and examination of news reports.

In the last few years, economic reform was speeding up in China and many problems began to emerge. It was as though Pandora's Box had opened. Hope, crime, and darkness; everything was released.

Since taking office, Premier Wen Jiabao has stressed the issue of land acquisition and compensation to farmers for taking their land. However, the local officials did not implement the policies at all. In many areas of China, local gang members were hired by the local governments to attack the farmers who did not want to give up their land. In some areas, the conflicts were small. However, in Guangzhou and Hebei, big conflicts broke out. It started out with knives and shovels, and developed into paramilitary police shooting with guns. As a reporter living overseas [but working in China], I was very angry about the issues. I thought I needed to use the limited freedom of speech I had to make a difference for the people of China. However, that has caused me a lot of trouble, especially since I exposed an incident involving a Japanese consulate official.

Report on Japanese Diplomat's Suicide Caused a Big Stir

What was the incident about? In May 2004, I reported on a Japanese consulate official's suicide. The diplomat was from the Japanese Consulate in Shanghai. However, both the Chinese and Japanese governments were quiet about it. The incident was a big taboo for both governments.

The consulate official was just a secretary, not a consul. He liked women, and his weakness was easily discovered by the National Security Agency. I gathered a lot of information on him through interviews with his lover's colleagues, as well as those who worked in the hotel and security guards at the parking lots of the popular clubs.

After the incident was exposed, and before the Chinese Embassy realized what was going on, the Tokyo Public Security Commission and police bureau visited me and took away my research on this matter. Soon thereafter, in December 2005, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe and Foreign Minister Taro Aso gave speeches to address the incident. Making use of its connections with The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (MOFA), the Chinese Embassy in Japan eventually found out who had reported on this incident. This contributed to my public affairs passport being confiscated [by the Chinese authorities].

Photo Footage from Shanwei

[Prior to that,] On December 6, when the Shanwei shooting in Guangdong Province just happened, we were the first there to cover the incident. At the news meeting, we were detained, guns were pointed at us, and we were forced to lie on the ground. When reporting in China, I liked the idea of having a Japanese photographer taking photos [in addition to video footage]. I thought, naively, that a foreign [of non-Chinese ethnicity] photographer would have less trouble, that even though they may detain me, they may not detain a foreign photographer.

Also, in China, we are not allowed to openly take photos. I was also amazed by the Japanese's photographers' techniques of secretly taking photos. At that time, the Japanese photographer told me, "We can hide the memory card in our Nike sneakers. It is a specially-made one; you can flip the shoe-pad up and put the card in it. They won't find it."

Japanese are good at these types of things. The hidden shoe compartment was originally designed for hiding money. At that time, even though our video camera and many small things were confiscated, we were able to retain the memory card with the photos. That is why for the Shanwei shooting, we were the only ones that were able to take and keep photos of the event.

Arrested with the Excuse of "Revealing State Secrets"

I was detained by the National Security Agency of Liaoning Province on January 28, 2006. There were two crimes they accused me of: one was "revealing state secrets," and the other was "subversion of state power." I was arrested, but since I have many connections in Sengyang, the capital of Liaoning Province, I was released on medical parole [a pretext for getting out of prison] on February 8.

On February 9, I managed to board on a flight for Japan. Life was still troublesome after I arrived in Japan because both my boss and the Chinese Embassy were giving me problems. I decided to go to the United States.

VCD of Police Gang-Raping a Falun Gong Practitioner

There was a video tape in the reference room of the Shenyang Public Security Bureau. It documented the beating of Falun Gong practitioners and the use of torture instruments. There were also scenes of the rape of a female Falun Gong practitioner. This video tape came from brainwashing classes in Huanggu District of Shenyang City. When they [the authorities] were doing the interrogation, they thought they have turned off the camera, but it had not been turned off. While they interrogated the Falun Gong practitioner, they gang raped her. The scenes were wretched. I just don't know how this videotape was made into VCD's and passed along.

At first, the VCD's were found at some market stalls and were for sale. Later, the Shenyang Public Security Bureau found them and started investigating it. They caught the person who made the VCD but didn't punish the person. They only confiscated the original tape. But the VCDs are still available in Shenyang. I viewed the VCD myself.

On the VCD, there was no sound. It took place in a police station. You can see the ones who were interrogating the Falun Gong practitioner, and you can see what they were doing. It was a vivid scene of an interrogation. Upon seeing it, you will know that it's not a fake. It's not possible to fake such things. It was all too real. [Upon seeing it] you will know it is an interrogation in a police station. There were police holding electric batons, and there were those who took notes. If someone takes this VCD to overseas countries, it will become a piece of indisputable evidence. The scenes were inhuman and terrible. The Chinese Communist regime has hidden many things. Many working units persecute Falun Gong. The police have done so many bad things. Some practitioners were beaten to death, but their family members weren't even allowed to take care of their dead. The bodies were directly sent to a crematorium. After cremation, the family members were not even allowed to collect the ashes. What kind of social status is there for Falun Gong in China? As long as you practice Falun Gong, all people in society will look down upon you. And if you disappear, you will disappear forever. Nobody can find you and nobody is allowed to ask.

In the beginning, if your family gave police money, they would release you. Later, this was not allowed anymore. If you truly practice Falun Gong and if you don't yield, the persecution you will receive is beyond imagination. It is similar to the situation of the martyr Zhang Zhixin. I wanted to write an article about her but I just could not get the evidence. In Shenyang, I once wanted to write something about the Great Cultural Revolution, and I had just no way to get the evidence I needed. Right now, for Falun Gong, it is the same.

I Went to Hospitals To Interview Some Nurses

I went to a few hospitals to interview some nurses, and was told that the Falun Gong practitioners incarcerated in hospital were in a wretched condition. The persecution of Falun Gong is not any less cruel than what occurred during the Cultural Revolution.

I wanted to learn and understand more about Falun Gong. The Falun Gong practitioners in Japan look simple and sincere and are not like other Chinese people living in Japan. Generally Chinese people living in Japan are always looking for the good life. Two to three thousand US$ per month seems to be considered a fairly good income. In U.S and in Japan everyone aspires to a high income, yet only Falun Gong practitioners are dressed very simply and live a pure, monastic sort of life.

I have found myself feeling very close to Falun Gong practitioners in conversation and by listening to them I found something that has been lost for a long time in the souls of the Chinese people. Because there are many cult groups in Japan, such as Aum Shinriykyo, I wanted to understand the teachings of Falun Gong: Why they practise; and what kind of level they want to achieve.

After talking to Falun Gong practitioners and reading Mr. Li Hongzhi's books, I could not find anything that relates to the end of the world or anything that teaches people to kill or destroy, so I do not understand why the Chinese communist regime calls it a cult and persecutes them. Everything I heard them say is kind and honest, and I don't believe that anyone would have a problem in accepting them at face value.

I was very moved by the Falun Gong practitioner's banners "Falun Dafa is Good" and "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance are Good." I also wanted to know the reason why the communist regime is persecuting Falun Gong. I really wanted to understand why, and the deeper I understood, the more I realized that Falun Gong practitioners are enduring a horrendous suffering through this inhumane persecution happening today in China.

Recently in Hong Kong, Falun Gong practitioners were beaten when thugs broke into the Epoch Times Office and damaged the Epoch Times printing factory. I want to remind Falun Gong practitioners and other organizations in Japan, to please be careful.

Two Hospitals in Shenyang City Locked Up 425 Bird Flu-infected Patients

I also want to talk about the bird flu problem in China. I believe that most people are aware of bird flu [in China], but do you believe there is no bird flu outbreak in China at present?

On Feb 27, China's State Forest Administration Wild Life Plant Conservation Office Chief Zhuo Rongsheng said, "Now, I can be sure there is no bird flu [in humans] outbreak in China." Yet, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has never stopped suspecting that there is a bird flu outbreak [in humans] in China. The WHO could not find any evidence to support their suspicions, and they remain unsure whether the bird flu [in humans] is still only contained in Guangzhou.

Two days ago, hospital medical staff accidentally leaked information that one person had died of bird flu in Guangzhou. It was then the outside world began to pay attention to the region of Guangzhou. Now the world is closely watching bird flu issue because of its highly infectious nature. However, in China's northeast city Shenyang there is an area that no ones knows or thinks about [with respect to this issue]. Recently I kept a close watch on that. The Wild Life Plant Conservation Office has been saying that there were 150 state level wild life observation stations and 402 provincial level observation stations, but I found that they either do not exist, or they have not been activated.

The Communist regime has stated to the world that there is no bird flu problem in China and they also claim to have many observation stations in China, but the truth of the matter is that there is no monitoring of bird flu in China.

In the past when talking about AIDS, Chinese people think of Hebei Province. Now, when talking about bird flu, people think of Guangzhou. Because there are many poultry farms in Guangzhou's suburb, the infectious problem is more serious than in other places. Actually, the bird flu is not just spread from birds, it can be passed around wild animals like civet cats. I have found and can prove that now there are large number of cases of bird flu infection in Zhalong, Helongjiang province and Xianghai, Jilin Province.

I Can Name Two Institutions Housing a Large Number Human Bird Flu Infection Cases

The Chinese Communist regime has said there were only 14 lab-verified human bird flu infection cases and eight deaths, not including the three recent cases. I can give the names of two institutions [involved in a coverup], Shenyang City Contagious Disease Hospital in Heping District, Shenyang and the Affiliated Hospital of Liaoning College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Huanggu District, Shenyang. Most of the bird flu-infected patients are locked in these two hospitals, and shockingly there are 425 patients who have contracted bird flu.

I got this information from a Shenyang Municipal Public Health Bureau internal report. The Bureau reported this directly to the Liaoning Provincial Committee, bypassing the Shenyang Municipal Committee even though the Municipal Committee is located on the other side of the street from the Provincial Committee.

So what is the Provincial Committee's policy in handling this issue? It is not to report to upper level authorities any outbreaks of bird flu, and all bird flu patients in the hospital are being treated as experimental medical subjects.

Relatives Cannot Help Bird Flu Infection Patients, as They Will Never Be Released

Bird flu patients are just like SARS patients, their relatives cannot help them because they are nearly dead, and they will never be released out of the hospitals [where they are held]. Some of the patients are not Shenyang residents, and nobody knows that they are inside the hospital. As soon as they entered the hospital they become experimental medical subjects—this will never be made public.

Secret Concentration Camp in Sujiatun, Shenyang

I have worked as journalist in China for some time now, and have been exposing the situation of Falun Gong. Most of the people know that there is a Masanjia Labor Camp in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, that there is a Dabei Second Prison near the Masanjia Labor Camp, and that there is a brainwashing center located in the Huanggu District Police Department. You may not know that there is another facility especially used to torture Falun Dafa practitioners in the Sujiatun District. Up until now, nobody has dared to do an interview to report this place.

Most prisons and labor camps have detainees going in and out, and eventually information will be brought out. But this Sujiatun Concentration Camp has not had anyone come out yet; therefore, the people outside find it very difficult to know what is happening inside. During my other interviews in Shenyang, I learned that there are very few Falun Dafa practitioners still detained in the Masanjia Labor Camp or in Dabei Prison, because they have been sent to this concentration camp in Sujiatun.

The Sujiatun Concentration Camp has steel gates that remain closed all the time. There is a three-meter high brick wall that has electric wire netting on top. No one can see in from outside, and people living nearby have said that this place is always tightly sealed. This is a secret prison, so you will see neither people (uniformed or not) nor vehicles coming in or out for two or three days at a time.

In China, actually, there is no constitutional law that can legally sentence Falun Gong practitioners, so they are locked inside this facility.

Practitioners from the Three Northeastern Provinces Are Shifting to Sujiatun

According to an insider, all people locked inside the Sujiatun facility are Falun Gong practitioners, and currently, there are more than six thousand Falun Dafa practitioners detained here, including practitioners from the three northeastern provinces and central China.

Maybe you have heard about the torture methods used at the Masanjia Labor Camp—the most common torture is shocking with electrical batons. The torture techniques from Masanjia have been passed to all levels of the CCP Political and Judiciary Committees.

If Falun Gong practitioners are sent to Sujiatun, I believe that they will never come out. What is the Chinese communist regime doing to them behind those walls? The Chinese regime would never feed and house them indefinitely. What many people probably do not know is that the CCP Political and Judiciary Committee system in the Shenyang City Area and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture have learned many things from the Concentration Camps in North Korea.

Prisoners' Organs Were Removed and Doctors Sell Them

I am sorry that I have to use such a direct way to speak such a fact, Falun Gong practitioners are killed for their organs, which are then sent to medical facilities. Currently, the organ business is a very profitable one in China.

Many patients that have died on operating tables have had their organs taken away. No one investigates it. Even doctors are involved in this trade. They cannot find enough bodies through executions, and no one is more readily available than practitioners to do this business.

Why Was a Crematorium Built and Why Are So Many Doctors Housed There?

Someone told me all of the people who built the Sujiatun Camp were long term prisoners who did not know what they were building, and for what purpose. Why was a crematorium built and why are so many doctors housed there? The CCP is not kind enough to treat prisoners so well. The answer is something beyond your imagination. You must be clear that a body cremator is different than a burner used for sanitizing. Each prison is normally equipped with a burner. But if someone dies, that is no small matter, and the body must be sent to the crematorium in the city. Why is there a crematorium inside the Sujiatun Secret Camp? Why do they need to burn bodies? Why do they need so many doctors? Now you know why.

About the reliability of this information—I have many information sources, and I am very careful about each source. I obtained this information from public health systems and hospitals, which are sources that are highly important to me.

We buy information from informants, as we have many informants. For example, in Shenyang city, I have many informers. No matter whether they have news or not, every month I pay them a good salary.

What Is Happening in China today Is Worse than Any Nightmare

For example, on December 6, 2005, in Dongzhou village, Shanwei, Guangzhou province many people were shot and killed. It was not a sudden riot; it was an organized, planned massacre. We were the first batch of journalists who got there to do interviews. Although we had a fair idea what had happened, nothing could prepare us for the reality of the situation.

We went there to report under the name of a Japanese TV station. Many photos on the Japanese version of The Epoch Times are from us. In other words, we have informers all around China, and our informers arrange many other informers. We pay them every month and the cost is very high. In Japan, people respect good work and it is important that the photos I shot, and the news I report must be true. For the pictures at the Shanwei massacre, I paid a huge price.

Now that I am in the U.S., I can talk about the bird flu outbreak [in China] and about the Falun Gong practitioners in Sujiatun Concentration Camp. Everyone will be shocked when they hear this news. Today, every word in this conversation [interview] is true.

I have already put my life at risk to get this important news out to the world. I believe this is an issue of whether or not I am a responsible journalist and human being. I am unveiling this information through The Epoch Times . This is my faith [reporting important news truthfully], the faith of my profession, and it is this faith that drives me out to expose these atrocities.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/6-3-10/39111.html

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

The Persecution and Severe Torture of Falun Dafa practicioners -story

mentalfreedomne1 — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 19:53:36 GMT

the following is a first hand account of the torture and slave labor.
this story is from http://clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/3/23/46322.html

Laishui County Police Viciously Torture Practitioners; One Thousand Lengths of Rope Used up in a Few Days

By a Dafa practitioner in Laishui County, Baoding District

(Clearwisdom.net) My home is located in Laishui County in the Baoding district, Hebei Province. In March 2000 when the Chinese People's Congress was in session, the government stated on TV that they would actually meet with those who had appealed to high level authorities for help, and that the People's Congress would focus on the problems which had received many public complaints. So my wife and I went to Beijing to appeal for help on the Falun Gong issue and to seek justice. When we arrived at the Public Appeals office on Yongdingmen Street, I saw crowds of people. Later on I learned that those people were plainclothes police from all over the country. We were immediately arrested when we walked in that direction. They pushed us into a vehicle. I told them that I came to appeal, but they did not listen at all. We were forced into the vehicle and taken to a vacant hotel. The police searched us and beat us in a room, and took away 400 Yuan cash and our identification cards.

After we were taken back to our town in the Baoding district, the town head, Zhang Cheng, led more than ten people to beat us. I was put into the county's detention center the next day. The town government has detained me eight or nine times since July 20 of 1999. My family had to bring me food and I was followed even when going to restroom. In April 2000, I managed to get out of the local authorities' control and arrived in Beijing. I unfurled a large banner reading, "Falun Dafa is great!" at Tiananmen Square. The police from the Tiananmen Square station tightly handcuffed me behind the back. It was so painful that my whole body began to sweat. The police continued to tighten the handcuffs and I finally passed out. I did not know how long I was unconscious. When I woke up, my hands had become black and blue.

After Laishui County Police Department personnel from the Baoding district had taken me back from Beijing, they sent me to a brainwashing session held by Laishui County's Communist Party school. More than 70 Dafa practitioners were being kept there. People from Public Security, the prosecutor's office and law enforcement departments were in charge of the "transformation." They forced us to make statements that were against our conscience (defaming Falun Dafa and its founder), and write pledges to renounce Falun Dafa. If a person did not speak or write, they would keep torturing that person.

Just for tying up and beating people, they bought one thousand pieces of rope at one time. They soaked the ropes in water and twisted them into torture instruments, which were strong and hard when striking practitioners' bodies. In just a few days, they used up these one thousand pieces of rope. Each day the sound of cries was constantly heard in the compound. Angry voices, hitting tables and cursing were repeatedly heard. The police held whips made from electrical wires and followed behind Dafa practitioners. They beat practitioners at will.

Since I refused to give up my cultivation, the police used leather belts to viciously whip my lower body. Each lashing was like a knife cutting into my body. My legs felt like they were being filled with lead and mechanically moved forward, little by little; my mind became numb from the beatings and my ears were ringing. When I was once again arrested, my hip muscle was still very stiff.

In July 2000, the town administration sent me to the county's detention center after detaining me for more than 10 days. The detention card stated a 15-day detention; however, they would not release me after one month had passed. In order to protest this illegal detention, I began a hunger strike. They not only did not release me, but also called in police to beat me. Liu Yaohua beat us. Wounds covered my body. They used bamboo poles to beat us, too. When a bamboo pole was broken, the splinters plunged into my flesh, causing such extreme pain that I could not sit or lie down.

Because I was persistent in practicing Falun Gong, I was forced into a brainwashing class twice, a detention center twice, a custody center twice and into a forced labor camp twice.

When I was in the 4th Division of the Gaoyang Labor Camp, I was forced into slave labor. Each day we got up before sunrise. Thirty people were responsible for 800 mu (130 acres) of cornfields. The guards carried sticks. If we slowed down in our work even a little bit, we would be struck by a large stick. We harvested the corn by hand. The work was so grueling that our hands bled. Due to the suffering from the effects of the long-term persecution, my body became very weak, yet I still had to endure highly intensive physical labor. I lost more than 65 lbs. in three months. They did not allow us to take a rest at all. There are no human rights or laws here.

Falun Dafa is a peaceful spriitual practice that is being brutally persecuted in China
for pictures and accounts (graphic) go to http://clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/9/1/51972.html

Posting date: 3/23/2004

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

UN inquiry demands immediate closure of Guantanamo

Sinja — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 17:56:16 GMT

A United Nations inquiry has called for the immediate closure of America's Guantanamo Bay detention centre and the prosecution of officers and politicians "up to the highest level" who are accused of torturing detainees.

The UN Human Rights Commission report, due to be published this week, concludes that Washington should put the 520 detainees on trial or release them.

It calls for the United States to halt all "practices amounting to torture", including the force-feeding of inmates who go on hunger strike.

The report wants the Bush administration to ensure that all allegations of torture are investigated by US criminal courts, and that "all perpetrators up to the highest level of military and political command are brought to justice".

It does not specify who it means by "political command" but logically this would include President George W Bush.

The demands are contained in the final report of the commission's working group on arbitrary detention, which will be presented at its Geneva headquarters in the next few days. A copy of the report has been obtained exclusively by The Daily Telegraph.

The report is bound to intensify the already strained relations between the US and the UN over the Iraq war.

Washington officials yesterday denounced it as "a hatchet job" when informed of the contents by this newspaper.

"This shows precisely what is wrong with the United Nations today," said a senior official. "These people are supposed to be undertaking a serious investigation of the facts relating to Guantanamo.

"Instead, they deliver a report with a bunch of old allegations from lawyers representing released detainees that are so generalised that you cannot even tell what they are talking about.

"When the UN produces an unprofessional hatchet job like this it discredits the whole organisation."

The Bush administration has repeatedly called for the UN's wholesale reform, and the report is likely to lead to demands from Congress for a freeze on Washington's annual donations.

The authors question the right of America to classify the detainees as "enemy combatants" and argue that the "war on terror" is no justification for holding them indefinitely without charge.

The report is also deeply critical of the US over recent disclosures that some of the detainees have been subjected to force-feeding when they have gone on hunger strike.

The authors argue that force-feeding is akin to torture, and demands that "the authorities in Guantanamo Bay do not force-feed any detainee who is capable of forming a rational judgment and is aware of the consequences of refusing food."

But US officials refuted the suggestion that force-feeding is torture, arguing that they had a duty under international law to protect the lives of the detainees.

"We have a duty to prevent people killing themselves," said an official, "and we are proud of the fact that none of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay has died since it opened."

The Guantanamo Bay detention centre was adapted to hold hundreds of al-Qa'eda fighters captured during the 2001 war in Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban.

More than 750 detainees have been processed by the facility during the past four years.

After interrogation by US intelligence officers, some have been released and others returned to their country of origin.

Because the al-Qa'eda fighters do not wear uniforms and have no allegiance to any government they are not covered by the Geneva Conventions.

And while there is insufficient evidence to charge most of the 520 detainees with war crimes, the US insists on the right to detain them to prevent them returning to the battlefield to carry out further attacks against the coalition.

There have already been at least 12 instances where released Guantanamo detainees have resumed attacks against the coalition.

US officials are also prepared to return detainees to their home countries, assuming those countries are prepared to receive them and that they will not be subjected to torture on their return.

While American officials are prepared to concede that there are conflicting interpretations over how the laws governing international conflict should be applied, they are furious at the way the investigation was conducted, especially the evidence that the four "special rapporteurs" who compiled the report have used to reach their conclusions.

Although Washington invited the group to visit Guantanamo at the end of last year to inspect the facility, the rapporteurs rejected the invitation after American officials made it clear that they would not be allowed to meet the detainees.

"They [the rapporteurs] were offered the same access as congressmen responsible for overseeing the facility, but they declined to take up the offer," said a government official. "And then they complain that they had no access to doctors or guards - all of which they were offered."

The Bush administration also challenges whether it is the responsibility of a body such as the UN Human Rights Commission to investigate Guantanamo.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the internationally recognised body responsible for monitoring detention facilities, visits Guantanamo on a monthly basis.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/13/wguan13.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/02/13/ixnewstop.html

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Rumsfeld Corrected by General During Press Conference

Abraxas2k12 — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 17:32:07 GMT

http://movies.crooksandliars.com/pentagon_rumsfeld_pace_torture_051129a.wmv
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/12/01.html#a6137

General Pace: "It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene to stop it,"

Rumsfeld: "But I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it's to report it."

General Pace: "If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it ."

---

Yeah Rummy... just sit down and shut the fuck up, 'fore you make a bigger ass of yourself.

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

STOP THE EXECUTION OF FRANCES NEWTON

dangerangel — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 05:58:51 GMT

EMERGENCY: STOP THE TEXAS EXECUTION OF FRANCES NEWTON ON SEPTEMBER 14!

FRANCES IS THE FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMAN
SCHEDULED TO BE EXECUTED BY TEXAS IN MODERN HISTORY.

NEW EVIDENCE AFFIRMS HER INNOCENCE.

Please join the online campaign to STOP THE EXECUTION OF FRANCES NEWTON! She is scheduled to be executed by the state of Texas on September 14.

YOUR EMERGENCY ACTION IS NEEDED NOW!

Send emails to Texas Governor Rick Perry, Attorney General Greg Abbott, President Bush, Congressional leaders and Senators and Representatives from Texas and the Texas State Legislature, the Mayor of Houston and Houston City Councilors, The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, U.N. Secy General Kofi Anan and your senators and representative, DEMANDING that Frances' execution be stopped IMMEDIATELY!

Go to
www.iacenter.org/francesne...campaign.shtml
for the following letter to be sent in your name:

Sample Text (you will be able to edit it on the website):
........................................................
Governor Perry, Attorney General Abbott, President Bush, Senators and Representatives, Houston Mayor White, Houston City Councilors, and Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles:

On September 14, 2005, Frances Newton, AN INNOCENT WOMAN, is scheduled to be executed by the state of Texas. If the jury had known the facts that are presently known, they would not have found Frances guilty nor given her the death sentence. The dubious motive, unrealistic timeline, the police's refusal to follow important leads, and most of all, her incompetent counsel, all point to the compelling evidence that proves Frances Newton is innocent. She has been on death row for 18 years, and you have already granted her a 120- day stay. But on the basis of new evidence, Frances needs to finally have her day in court. We plead to you in good conscience to STOP THE EXECUTION OF FRANCES NEWTON.

Sincerely,

-------

For more information and to order DVD's of Frances or postcards to the Texas Governor, go to
www.freefrances.org

-------

STOP THE EXECUTION OF FRANCES NEWTON CAMPAIGN
International Action Center
39 West 14th Street, Room 206
New York, NY 10011
1-212-633-6646
email: francesnewtoncampaign@iacenter.org
www.iacenter.org

posted in Human Rights - 1 reply

human trafficking in south/southeast asia

Sun, 14 Aug 2005 16:23:14 GMT

hello,

I'm working on a blog including a page of links to pages from NGOs involved with awareness and rescue of those involved in forced prostitution in India, Nepal, Bankok and similar locales.

I'm most interested in charities involved in shelter/rescue, but any links of interest are welcome.

I'm familiar with the sites of Human Rights Watch and the following, but assistance/suggestions with others would be wonderful.

http://www.indianngos.com/r/race_navimumbai.htm
http://www.asiapacificms.com/articles/nepal_sex_trade/
http://www.captivedaughters.org/

thanks!

paul

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

violence against women link

Tue, 09 Aug 2005 01:51:26 GMT

Another Amnesty International link that may be of interest. You can e-sign the petition to Congress, to try to reinstate the violence against women act, and read more about domestic abuse/ statistics:

http://www.700women.org

posted in Human Rights - 1 reply

Amnesty international petition/ link...torture

Fri, 05 Aug 2005 06:00:19 GMT

Hi,

I'm new. I thought a lot of you may be interested in this link to help stop torture, if you were not e-mailed this already as an Amnesty member. You can also read the petition, and get more info, at the first link.

I would post this on the Amnesty tribe too, but it seems to be only a San Franciso group.

*************************************************************

You can help Amnesty International stop torture.

The use of torture is an affront to human dignity that can never be justified
and must be opposed in every country of the world. Those who try to justify
torture contribute to undermining the rule of law. Help us stop it. Start by
signing our petition letter and show the U.S. Administration, Congress, and
others that those living in the United States are strongly opposed to torture
and ill-treatment in all circumstances.

ACT NOW: Sign the petition
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/ctt.asp?u=610468&l=13839

Spread the Word! Ask your friends to sign the petition. Let them know how
important it is to pledge their commitment to denounce torture:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/ctt.asp?u=610468&l=13834

**************************************************************

posted in Human Rights - 1 reply

Child-free cocoa labour 'decades' away

Sinja — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 22:20:17 GMT

U.S. chocolate makers have three more years to bring child labour under control in West African cocoa fields, but it may be two decades before children are seen in school instead of their parents' farms, an industry offical said.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of aid also will be required to ensure adequate education facilities in one of the world's poorest regions, Jan Vingerhoets, executive director of the International Cocoa Organisation, said.

"You're talking about a poverty problem--nothing more, nothing less," Vingerhoets said in an interview yesterday on the sidelines of an international cocoa conference in Malaysia.

"The African cocoa farmer is keen to see his child go to university and escape the vicious cycle he went through. But he has no money, so he takes him to the farm instead.

Two U.S. politicians brought to world attention the issue of child and slave labour on West African cocoa fields when they set a four year deadline for chocolate makers to come up with a certificiation that their products were free of child labour. The deadline expired on July 1 without result.

Source: Metro, Tuesday, July 19, 2005.

posted in Human Rights - 2 replies

"Tour de Freedom" fundraiser

doombilly — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 13:12:20 GMT

We're proud to introduce our first "Tour de Freedom" fundraiser. Amateur cyclist Andrej Mucic is taking time off from his job at Home Depot in Boston to bike across the harsh wilderness of Siberia. As you read this, Andrej is in Russia biking past old Soviet gulag camps - in the hope that you can help him raise $10,000 to free slaves.

While Lance Armstrong leads the Tour de France, Andrej is singlehandedly blazing the Tour de Freedom. Like the Tour de France, Andrej's bike-a-thon is in several stages. Members like you have helped meet the Stage 1 goal of $2,500 – one-quarter of the way to $10,000.

Today, we're announcing the Stage 2 time-trial. Between now and July 31, Andrej is biking to benefit 17 Cambodian women who are survivors of sex slavery. After being held in brothels in Thailand, they've now been rescued – but need a stipend to cover school tuition.

The Stage 2 goal for this project is $3,500. If you donate right now, 100% of your donation will go towards helping these survivors rebuild their lives. And you will help Andrej get over halfway to his goal.

Over the next 10 days, we'll be updating you on Andrej's ride, fundraising progress, and the women survivors who need your help. In the meantime, click here to learn more about the Tour de Freedom, or click here to make your pledge now.

Thank you so much for your help!

In Freedom,

Liora Kasten
American Anti-Slavery Group

http://www.iabolish.com/act/camp/andrej/index.html

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

World 'Ignores' Niger Food Crisis

alternate-realities — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 18:08:50 GMT

(News source taken from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4698943.stm )

The United Nations top aid official has accused the international community of neglecting the food crisis in Niger.

Some 150,000 children will die soon without aid, out of 2.5m who need food, said Jan Egeland.

"Niger is the example of a neglected emergency, where early warnings went unheeded," he told the BBC.

The UN's Niger appeal in May initially failed to attract a single pledge. But the government there has also sought to downplay the scale of the crisis.

It has refused demands to distribute free food and has been criticised for not doing more to prepare for the food shortages.

The crisis was widely predicted after last year's poor harvests, following poor rains and locust invasions.

'Too late'

"The world wakes up when we see images on the TV and when we see children dying," Mr Egeland told the BBC's World Today programme.

"We have received more pledges in the past week than we have in six months. But it is too late for some of these children."

Europeans eat ice cream for $10bn a year and Americans spend $35bn on their pets each year

UN's Jan Egeland

Food crisis timeline
The slow response has greatly increased the cost of dealing with the crisis, aid workers say.

"The funding needs are sky-rocketing because it's a matter of saving lives," said UN World Food Programme Niger representative Gian Carlo Cirri.

"The pity is we designed early enough a preventative strategy, but we didn't have the chance to implement it."

Mr Egeland said it would have cost $1 a day to prevent children becoming malnourished but it was now costing $80 a day to save a child's life.

Aid workers in Niger say that children are dying every day in feeding centres in the south of one of the world's poorest countries, much of which lies in the Sahara desert.

They say that up to a quarter of Niger's 12m people need food aid.

The UN has now received just a third of the $30m it had asked for, Mr Egeland said.

The UN under secretary general for humanitarian affairs also said that beyond immediate food aid, the world should help Niger improve its agricultural methods to avoid future food crises - but this programme had received even fewer pledges.

He said the $30m requested for both short - and long-term aid "was nothing".

"Europeans eat ice cream for $10bn a year and Americans spend $35bn on their pets each year."

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Sweatshop owner sentenced to 40 years

Sinja — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 20:37:59 GMT

A United States court in Hawaii has sentenced the Korean owner of a sweatshop factory to 40 years in jail, the most severe punishment ever imposed in a human trafficking case.

Prosecutors called it the biggest case ever of "modern day slavery" and said that the tough sentence was justified. "Justice was served, and we're glad the victims are safe," said prosecutor Robert Moossy.

The U.S. Justice Department said Lee Soo-Kil held more than 300 victims from China and Vietnam as forced labourers in involuntary servitude at his garment factory in American Samoa.

He's accused of using arrests, forced deportations and brutal physical beatings to keep workers under control.

The court was told that he ordered a worker to gouge the eye of another worker who dared to complain about her living and working conditions.

The workers were recruited from China and state-owned labour export companies in Vietnam, and each had paid a fee of up to $5,000 US to get a job at Daewoosa Samoa Ltd. in Pago Pago.

About 200 of the workers have been allowed to remain in the United States. Approximately 100 others have opted to return to their homes.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/06/23/sweathsop050623.html

posted in Human Rights - 1 reply

Canada leads the way with Darfur pledge

Sinja — Fri, 27 May 2005 15:58:33 GMT

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia -- International donors, led by Canada, pledged an additional $200 million US to fund the African Union peacekeeping operation in Darfur on Thursday.

Source: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=b72fed51-8a8b-46c0-b0b6-665cfae32b0f

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Slave trade

Sinja — Fri, 13 May 2005 21:56:16 GMT

At least 12.3 million people worldwide work as slaves or in other forms of forced labour, the UN's International Labour Organization reports. About 9.5 million of them are in Asia, most forced into bonded labour over debts, especially in Pakistan and India. About 1.2 million worldwide are in the sex trade.

Source: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=d70df7e3-e8e8-4ff0-9f7c-eeadb11fcff2

posted in Human Rights - 1 reply

Canada may send 150 troops to Sudan

Sinja — Sun, 08 May 2005 06:59:48 GMT

OTTAWA - Canada is reported ready to send up to 150 military personnel as peacekeepers to war-torn Sudan.

Ottawa would also donate some used military equipment and increase its humanitarian aid for the northeast African country.

An official announcement is coming in the next few days, the Canadian Press reported Saturday.

The federal government has already earmarked $20 million in aid for Sudan. And Gen. Rick Hillier told CBC News Friday that Canada was making plans to send troops to the Darfur region of Sudan by the end of the summer.

Darfur is the western province of Sudan, where a government-backed militia is accused of killing thousands of people because of political, ethnic and religious differences.

At least 180,000 people have died and more than 2 million others have been displaced in two years of conflict there.

Canada has also already promised 31 soldiers to act as advisers to an African Union mission in Addis Ababa, the capital of neighbouring Ethiopia.

The additional Canadian military personnel would serve as short-term advisers, mechanics and trainers, CP reported.

The United Nations has called the situation in Darfur the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

The Canadian government has a new sense of urgency to deal with Sudan as it seeks the support of members of Parliament for a looming confidence vote in the Commons this month.

Paul Martin's minority Liberal government has the support of the New Democratic Party, but it needs the votes of all three Independent MPs to survive a motion of non-confidence.

David Kilgour, who quit the Liberal caucus to sit as an Independent recently, has said he wants to see a tougher Canadian response to the Darfur crisis before he decides whether to support the government.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/05/07/canada-darfur050507.html

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

North Korea gassing its citizens: rights group

Sinja — Wed, 27 Apr 2005 16:46:28 GMT

WASHINGTON - A human rights organization known for tracking down Nazi war criminals is taking aim at North Korea, saying the regime uses deadly nerve gas on its own citizens and may even be operating experimental gas chambers.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center sent American rabbi Abraham Cooper, the centre's associate dean, to Asia to investigate the reports, which the North Korean regime denies.

Cooper interviewed a number of former North Korean officials who have since defected.

One man, a 55-year-old chemist, claimed he was in charge of an experiment to test the effect of deadly nerve gas on political prisoners.

"He said he was involved in the killing of two people – one who did not expire for 2½ hours, and the second didn't die till 3½ hours had passed," Cooper told CBC for a documentary airing Wednesday night on the radio program Dispatches.

Other defectors told him of "mass starvations, gruesome experimentations, and yes, as we now are beginning to learn and to confirm, gas chambers," he said.

Soon Ok Lee, a North Korean now living in the United States, said she spent years in a political prison camp before escaping.

"When I was in jail, there was at least once or twice in the prison camp, chemical testing on humans that I witnessed," she said.

Crimes against humanity alleged

Cooper said the Simon Wiesenthal Centre intends to pursue action against the North Korean regime, which it says might be guilty of crimes against humanity.

"We're not talking about mass murder, utilizing these gas chambers to mass-murder huge numbers of people," he said. "But on the other hand, you have in the North Korean regime folks who have learned from Hitler, from Stalin."

During the Second World War, Hitler's regime killed an estimated six million Jews, many of them in gas chambers. More than 10 million are estimated to have died as a result of Stalin's collectivization policies and political purges in the 1930s.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center was founded in 1977 by a Holocaust survivor to preserve the memory of those killed by taking action against racism and genocide around the world, as well as helping bring Nazi war criminals to justice.

"We are here today to put the 'N' back into 'Never again,'" said Cooper.

On Thursday, human rights activists in Asia, Europe and North America plan to stage demonstrations in a number of cities to draw attention to alleged rights violations in North Korea.

They are calling the effort "North Korea Freedom Day."

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/04/27/north-korea-gas050427.html

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Kosovo Roma refugees face unspeakable poverty, exposure to toxic metals

julia_voiceofroma — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 14:10:42 GMT

Source: Agence France-Presse (AFP)
Date: 10 Apr 2005

Kosovo Roma refugees face unspeakable poverty, exposure to toxic metals
by Ismet Hajdari

ZITKOVAC, Serbia-Montenegro, April 10 (AFP) - Amid flimsy makeshift huts lacking basic sanitation and with plastic sheeting for windows, a group of children play in muddy paths in the three camps in Kosovo where some 500 Romas have been settled for almost six years in the shadow of a toxic waste dump.

Despite growing signs of illnesses among the children -- memory loss, convulsions, vomiting and walking problems -- bureaucratic infighting has kept them from being moved in the UN-administered province.

"We were told this will be our settlement only for 40 days. Now, six years after that promise we are without any fundamental support necessary to make our lives livable," Roma representative Elizabeta Bajrami said.

Agron Qosa, 40, who has been living in the Cesmin Lug camp, said his main income -- besides welfare of 35 euros (41 dollars) per month -- has come from "scavenging through garbage containers every day."

"This is not a human but life of animals. The last food assistance that we got in February had expiration date of October 2004," said Qosa.

Qosa and the others were forced to move to the outskirts of the Serb-populated northern part of the ethnically-divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica when their houses were burnt to the ground during the violent reprisal attacks against Kosovo Serbs and Romas in 1999.

Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since June 1999, after the NATO bombing campaign on the troops of then president Slobodan Milosevic, aimed at halting Belgrade's repression on the majority ethnic Albanian population seeking independence.

The UN Ombudsman in Kosovo, Marek Nowicki, has launched an investigation into their situation as a human rights violation.

"I said earlier that my deep suspicion was that these people were being treated this way for no other reason than that they were Roma. I still think so," Nowicki told AFP.

Besides the crushing poverty which strikes even the most hardhearted, two of three camps are located near a toxic metal waste dump, left over from the Trepca mines, once among the largest in Europe, with reserves of lead, zinc and gold.

A report by the local office of the World Health Organization (WHO) said last year that "twelve Roma children were found to have exceptionally high levels of lead in their blood, while six of them possibly fall within the range described as constituting a medical emergency."

Also last year, in a letter to the UN mission chief in Kosovo Soren Jessen-Petersen, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned that the lead poisoning in the Roma camps "is the biggest medical tragedy in Kosovo," that demands the immediate evacuation of the camps.

Roma activist Paul Polanski said exposure to toxic metals had devastating consequences on the health of the residents, especially among the children.

"Over twenty children in the Zitkovac camp have the same symptoms: they lose memory, walk funny, often vomit and have convulsions," Polanski said.

"They need to be treated urgently because the toxins create irreparable brain damage," Polansky warned.

Habib Hajdini from the Zitkovac camp warned that nothing has been done since the first signs of poisoning, saying such a stance was "unbearable."

"But even the worst is when you see that no one is doing anything ... while we ourselves are powerless," Hajdini said.

Part of the reason why a solution has not been found may be the controversial administrative rules that exist in the UN-run province.

It appears that, despite many international and local humanitarian organizations, nobody is in charge of the Romas in Kosovo.

The UN refugee agency insists that the Roma are "internally displaced people," who are not under the UNHCR mandate.

Regional UN official Sergei Shevchenko has said local authorities should take care of moving the Roma from the camps, while the Kosovo Albanian-dominated government insists it had no access to the Serb-populated area.

"Everybody is trying to wash their hands (of the issue) and cover up. No one wants to take the responsibility," Polanski said.

Andi Dobrushi of the European Roma rights center (ERRC) told AFP they were considering possible legal action against the UN or local authorities.

"We believe they can not hide behind immunity," Dobrushi said.

Nowicki warned that the situation in the camps was "a test of sincerity of everyone from the international and local authorities to the Albanian majority."

"They have a moral obligation to help these people to go back home in South Mitrovica," Nowicki said.

ih/an/rl AFP 101519 GMT 04 05

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

CRA act will Turn US into a Theocracy

Tue, 19 Apr 2005 18:09:32 GMT

I'm sending this to most of my friends, i would suggest that you do too.

It has recently come to my attention that Sen. Richard Shelby has put
forward an act called The Constitution Restoration Act

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.520:

It is really freaky and The CRA already has 28 sponsors in the House and
Senate. Sen. Richard Shelby's office beleives that "we have the votes for
passage."

OKAY here's what it does:

"Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, the Supreme Court
shall not have jurisdiction to review, by appeal, writ of certiorari, or
otherwise, any matter to the extent that relief is sought against an
entity of Federal, State, or local government, or against an officer or
agent of Federal, State, or local government (whether or not acting in
official or personal capacity), concerning that entity's, officer's, or
agent's acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or
government."

This means that, when a legal issue has to do with questioning christian
religious perspective, then the court and political system has no right to
intervine.

It means that, if a judge or politician tries to intervine (by say, not
letting the 10 commandments appear in a classroom or deaming policy
unconstitution because it supports the christian agenda,) that are
committing an illegal act and will be subject to impeachment.

It also means that international law does not apply and it would be
illegal for an elected official or a judge to invoke the Geneva
Convention, the Covenant on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women, or any other international treaty, that elected official
would be jubject to impeachment.

IF THIS PASSES, in other words, WE WILL FIND OURSELVES FULLY IN THE MIDDLE
OF A CHRISTIAN THEOCRACY. where christians are above the law and where
neocons can cloud themselves in the rational of "god speaks to me" or "i
am doing gods work"

this is scary and must be stopped if we are to maintain and restory ANY
scrap of our democracy.

PLEASE PASS THIS ON. There has been no debate about this and it must be
known what is about to happen.

info:

the bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.520:

some commentary:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0503/S00266.htm
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0419/p08s03-comv.html
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0421-03.htm

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Anti-Slavery Marathon

doombilly — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 15:19:26 GMT

For the 109th Boston Marathon on April 18th, some runners are getting into shape, some are testing their endurance. Jeffrey Louis Perrin is raising money to stop genocide.

Mr. Perrin will be running in the Boston Marathon on Monday and is asking you to sponsor him in the 26-mile run. Donations will go to the American Anti-Slavery Group in support of our work to end the Sudan genocide.

According to experts, 300,000 black Sudanese have died in Darfur at the hands of the dictatorship in Sudan and its Arab militia. 2 million have been displaced from their homes, and countless civilians have been raped, tortured, starved, and enslaved.

The international community has done little to stop these atrocities. But we have the ability to use our freedom to help liberate those being brutally persecuted in Sudan.

By sponsoring Mr. Perrin in the Boston Marathon on April 18th, you will be contributing to the American Anti-Slavery Group's efforts to stop the genocide and slavery. Your donations will provide much-needed aid to survivors of slavery and genocide in Sudan, support our Sudanese survivor speakers, and further our activism efforts within the United States.

Help us stop the genocide by donating to this campaign or become a monthly donor by joining the Freedom Brigade.

To learn more about what you can do to stop the Sudan genocide, visit SudanActivism.com

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Unlisted Human Rights

zanthran — Sun, 03 Apr 2005 09:15:34 GMT

Have you ever thought about personal rights that arent listed or clearly designated in any way, those freedoms that our deep roots call ever so longingly for. Ideas or random thought that produced possible growth of the fundamental basis for that which our human race stands(or lack thereof).
This is one of those ideas that kinda get thrown together over a period, and ive considered and accepted some unifying freedoms, a couple ive had in mind;

freedom of thought
freedom of movement
freedom of societal discrimination
freedom of love
freedom of 'status'
freedom to connect
freedom to education
freedom to die
freedom to reproduce
freedom to communicate
freedom for equality

posted in Human Rights - 1 reply

UN peacekeepers headed to Sudan, but not Darfur

Sinja — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 18:14:28 GMT

UNITED NATIONS - An attempt to bring alleged war criminals in the Darfur region of Sudan to justice and to impose sanctions on the government in Khartoum has failed.

The UN Security Council, plagued by internal haggling, has once again postponed an effort to stop the civil war in Darfur.

A French resolution was withdrawn on Thursday. That resolution called for war criminals to be brought to the international criminal court in The Hague.

But the council has passed a resolution authorizing a large peacekeeping force to be sent to enforce a truce in the 21-year, north-south war in the country.

The UN is sending a peacekeeping force into southern Sudan which will eventually number 10,000 soldiers. It's hoped that force can keep the Arab North and African South from resuming their civil war.

The peacekeepers will monitor an agreement signed in January between the government and southern rebels.

That conflict has cost two million lives and forced four million people from their homes.

But for western Darfur, where another conflict being fought along very similar ethnic lines still rages, the Security Council had little to offer.

"Very little has been done to stop the cause of the problems of displacement, starvation and disease – and that's the fighting," said Ken Bacon, the president of Refugees International. He fears the United Nations may never act on Darfur.

The attempt to pass a resolution over where to put war criminals on trial is just one snag. There's also the fact that China buys a lot of oil from Sudan and Russia sells the country plenty of arms. Both countries have Security Council vetoes.

Bacon says it may be time to look elsewhere to try to stop the violence in Darfur. "Canada, the United States, France, Great Britain should be bringing a lot more pressure on the government of Sudan to stop this fighting," he said.

Allan Rock, Canada's ambassador to the UN, says the vote is a disappointing development.

"I think someone in Darfur today could be forgiven for thinking that the UN has failed them," he said.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/03/24/sudan050324.html

posted in Human Rights - 0 replies

Tsunami highlights need for clean water: Red Cross

Sinja — Tue, 22 Mar 2005 19:15:36 GMT

GENEVA - December's tsunami underlined the urgent need for clean water in the developing world, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said Tuesday in a statement marking World Water Day.

The organizations said the rapid deployment of clean water and sanitation teams averted major outbreaks of disease. But they also stressed that clean water is essential for longer-term chronic shortages in the developing world.

According to the United Nations, more than 1.1 billion people lack safe water and 2.4 billion have no access to sanitation, leading to more than three million deaths every year.

"People who can turn on a tap and have safe and clean water to drink, to cook with and to bathe in, often take it for granted," Dr. Lee Jong-Wook, head of the World Health Organization, told the Associated Press. "Yet more than one billion of our fellow human beings have little choice but to use potentially harmful sources of water."

This year's World Water Day launches the "Water for Life" decade, during which the UN and world governments will try to cut in half the number of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015.

Countries around the world have marked the UN's World Water Day on March 22 since 1993, promoting public awareness of a vital resource.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/03/22/WaterDay0322.html

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Take Action: Stop Violence Against Women

missadventure — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 22:44:22 GMT

Today, during International Women's Day, we invite you to join our efforts to help stop violence against women. Your support can change the lives of the women featured in the following cases. Please take action to protect them.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/stopviolence/takeaction.html

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Hooh Yoh Akha

Matthew — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 19:11:10 GMT

On Feb 1 the Queen of Thailand made official the project at Hooh Yoh Akha in Chiangrai province, that takes 4500 acres of land, from five villages, more than 90% of all their land.

www.akha.org has more information and links on this project on the home page.

We need people to protest these actions to the Thai embassies world wide.

The Thai government has been relentlessly taking Akha land nation wide while American Missionaries take their children and the drug war takes the fathers and mothers to prison.

American missionaries are TOTALLY silent about this, are we surprised?

Take some time to read the site and mail me if you have any questions or better yet, you want to get involved.

Matthew McDaniel
akha@akha.org

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Tibetan refugees threathened by Nepal unrest

janina — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 15:38:54 GMT

As you have probably seen in the news, the Kingdom of Nepal has been thrown into major political turmoil. What you may not know is that, as a result, a crisis looms for thousands of Tibetan refugees.

Iwant to ask you to consider giving a donation today to make sure we have the resources to continue to protect these refugees.

On February 1, the Nepalese King seized total control of the government and placed most government ministers under house arrest. He declared an indefinite state of emergency and the suspension of all civil liberties.

The week preceding the King's coup, the Nepalese government had issued notice to the Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Refugee Welfare Office in Kathmandu ordering both offices to close immediately allegedly because they were not legally registered.

The notice was unexpected as the Office of the Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been operating in Nepal since 1960, when it first rallied international support and coordinated emergency care for thousands of Tibetan refugees who fled in the immediate aftermath of China's invasion and occupation.

In recent years, we have documented an increase of Chinese government influence in Nepal and our monitors suggest that China's pressure provoked the Nepalese government to close the offices. Indeed, the Chinese Foreign Ministry commended the closures as a legitimate expression of Nepal's sovereignty.

While the closure of the Representative's office is likely a political gesture to China, the closure of the Tibetan Refugee Welfare Office raises immediate humanitarian concerns because it serves as the implementing partner of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees --providing rescue, shelter and other assistance to Tibetan refugees in Nepal.

This is the season when most Tibetans make their dangerous crossing over the Himalayas to the Transit Center in Kathmandu run by the Tibetan Refugee Welfare Office. Approximately 1,000 Tibetan refugees are there now. Their future is now in question.

Our human rights monitors are keeping close watch on events unfolding in Nepal. Our staffs in Washington and Europe are working quietly and deliberately through government channels to avert further action against the Tibetans and to create conditions for a swift resolution.

However, in the coming weeks, quiet diplomacy may reach its limits. At that time, we hope we can count on you to help increase pressure on the Nepalese King so that the Tibetan Refugee Welfare Office can continue its vital protection work.

In 2004, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan exile government asked ICT to do whatever is possible to assist Tibetan refugees. This is a crucial time for our work and our members like you.

Please donate today to help ensure that ICT resources remain sufficient for information gathering and analysis, governmental work, and many other ways we support the Tibetan refugees.

China is making serious efforts to convince Nepal that its age-old cultural and religious ties with the Tibetans are counter to Nepal's national interests as a friend of China. We must always be ready to match their efforts and defend the fundamental human rights of the Tibetan people.

Sincerely,

John Ackerly,
President

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

International Campaign for Tibet
1825 Jefferson Place NW
Washington, DC 20036
United States of America
Phone: 202.785.1515
Fax: 202.785.4343
info@savetibet.org

ICT Europe
P.O. Box 3337
1001 AC Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Phone: 31 (0)20 3308265
Fax: 31 (0)20 3308266
icteurope@savetibet.org

ICT Deutschland e.V.
Marienstr. 30
10117 Berlin
Germany
Phone: 49 (0)30 27879086
Fax: 49 (0)30 27879087
info@savetibet.de

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Sudan's mass killings not genocide: UN report

Sinja — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 01:25:57 GMT

ABUJA, NIGERIA - A United Nations report says Sudan's government is responsible for mass killings, rape and other atrocities in the Darfur region, but it stopped short of saying Khartoum actively supported genocide.

"Some of these violations are very likely to amount to war crimes, and given the systematic and widespread pattern of many of the violations, they would also amount to crimes against humanity," said the report, released Monday.

But "the crucial element of genocidal intent appears to be missing, at least as far as the central government authorities are concerned."

A United Nations convention defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." If a government is found to have committed genocide, nations that signed the convention are obliged to intervene to prevent further deaths, as well as find and prosecute those responsible for the genocide.

The conclusion of Monday's report was welcomed by Sudanese government officials who have long denied oppressing black Africans in favour of Arabs in the western Darfur region.

But the 176-page report does list individuals it believes should be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court. Suspects included government officials, militia members, rebels and even "certain foreign army officers acting in their personal capacity."

However, UN spokesperson Fred Eckhard said suspects' names will remain secret until the Security Council decides what to do. They're concerned criminal trials could be tainted if names are released prematurely.

The number of deaths in the Darfur crisis is estimated to be about 300,000. Another two million have fled their homes.

The Security Council has been divided over how to approach Sudan. Some members wants economic sanctions. Others want the issue brought before the International Criminal Court. But the U.S., which has called the Sudanese killings a genocide, refuses to join or support the International Criminal Court.

* FROM SEPT. 9, 2004: Atrocities in Sudan 'genocide': Powell

On Monday, Canada, New Zealand and Australia sent a letter to the Security Council urging it to take action sooner rather than later.

"It's clear, frankly, that the situation in Darfur is worsening. It's not getting better," said Australia's UN Ambassador John Dauth.

In the meantime, Sudan's parliament unanimously ratified the government's peace agreement with southern rebels, officially ending Africa's longest civil war.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/02/01/newdarfur-report050201.html

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UN remembers Holocaust with special assembly

Sinja — Mon, 24 Jan 2005 18:33:58 GMT

UNITED NATIONS - The Holocaust "traumatized history," Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel said on Monday as he addressed a special session of the United Nations, held to commemorate the liberation of the Nazi death camps.

Kofi Annan opened the General Assembly by reminding the delegates that the UN has vowed never to allow the Nazi death camps to return, but that genocide continues to threaten the world.

"Since the Holocaust, the world has, to its shame, failed more than once to prevent or halt genocide," said Annan, mentioning Cambodia, Rwanda, and the former Yugoslavia.

"On occasions such as this, rhetoric comes easily ... Action comes harder."

The special session begins four days of remembrance that will culminate on Thursday in a ceremony at the site of the Auschwitz death camp near Krakow, Poland.

Soviet troops liberated the notorious camp 60 years ago this week. Monday's special session of the General Assembly is the first time the UN, which was created at the end of the Second World War, has recognized the Holocaust in this way.

A Holocaust survivor, Wiesel told the assembly that despite the volumes of documentation surrounding Nazi Germany's systematic murder of six million people, "Auschwitz still defies language and understanding."

"This catastrophe which has traumatized history has forever changed perception of man's responsibility towards other human beings," Wiesel said.

Wiesel pointed out that Western nations had many opportunities to prevent, or at least diminish the Holocaust, by intervening when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and Austria, by accepting refugees, by allowing Jews to go to Palestine, by bombing the rail lines used by the Nazis to transport Jews to the camps.

"This shameful indifference we must remember," said Wiesel.

Of 191 member nations of the General Assembly, 148 agreed to today's special session. Canada worked with the United States and Israel to get the votes necessary.

But there were a large number of empty seats as the assembly got underway.

Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew delivered Canada's message, calling the commemoration an occasion of solemnity and an opportunity to make changes.

"We must renew our determination to be a better world and a better United Nations," said Pettigrew.

"Let us join together with loud voices to speak out against hatred and indifference. Never again, never again," said Pettigrew.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/01/24/un-session-050124.html

posted in Human Rights - 1 reply

U.S. soldier who abused Iraqi prisoners sentenced

Sinja — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 17:58:01 GMT

FORT HOOD, TEXAS - A military jury sentenced Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr. to 10 years in prison for Abu Ghraib abuses on Saturday.

He was also demoted to private and ordered to forfeit all pay and benefits. When his prison sentence is completed, he will be dishonorably discharged.

Asked to react to his sentence, Graner simply said: "There's a war on. Bad things happen."

Graner is the first U.S. soldier to be tried in connection with the prisoner abuse scandal at the Iraqi prison.

He was convicted Friday on five charges related to abusing Iraqi detainees.

Graner faced 10 counts under five separate charges: assault, conspiracy, maltreatment of detainees, committing indecent acts and dereliction of duty.

He was found guilty on all counts, except that one assault count was downgraded to battery.

During the five-day trial, the 36-year-old Pennsylvania reservist was accused of stacking naked prisoners in a human pyramid and later ordering them to masturbate while other soldiers took photographs.

He also allegedly punched one man in the head hard enough to knock him out, and struck an injured prisoner with a collapsible metal stick.

One Syrian prisoner characterized Graner as the "primary torturer," who whistled, sang and laughed while brutalizing him. He said he was forced to eat pork and drink alcohol in violation of his Muslim faith.

An Iraqi detainee said he was stripped by Graner and other Abu Ghraib guards, stacked up naked in a human pyramid while female soldiers watched, and later told to masturbate.

The defence had argued that Graner and other guards were following orders from intelligence agents at the prison and were told to use physical violence to prepare detainees for questioning.

Photos from the prison showing naked detainees posed in sexual positions, hooked to electrodes and tethered to a leash sparked international outrage.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/01/15/ghraib050115.html

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Enforcing Single-Season Seeds, Monsanto Sues Farmers

Sinja — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 21:00:24 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Monsanto Co.'s "seed police" snared soy farmer Homan McFarling in 1999, and the company is demanding he pay it hundreds of thousands of dollars for alleged technology piracy.

McFarling's sin? He saved seed from one harvest and replanted it the following season, a revered and ancient agricultural practice.

"My daddy saved seed. I saved seed," said McFarling, 62, who still grows soy on the 5,000 acre family farm in Shannon, Miss. and is fighting the agribusiness giant in court.

Saving Monsanto's seeds, genetically engineered to kill bugs and resist weed sprays, violates provisions of the company's contracts with farmers.

Since 1997, Monsanto has filed similar lawsuits 90 times in 25 states against 147 farmers and 39 agriculture companies, according to a report issued Thursday by The Center for Food Safety, a biotechnology foe.

In a similar case a year ago, Tennessee farmer Kem Ralph was sued by Monsanto and sentenced to eight months in prison after he was caught lying about a truckload of cotton seed he hid for a friend.

Ralph's prison term is believed to be the first criminal prosecution linked to Monsanto's crackdown. Ralph has also been ordered to pay Monsanto more than $1.7 million.

The company itself says it annually investigates about 500 "tips" that farmers are illegally using its seeds and settles many of those cases before a lawsuit is filed.

In this way, Monsanto is attempting to protect its business from pirates in much the same way the entertainment industry does when it sues underground digital distributors exploiting music, movies and video games.

In the process, it has turned farmer on farmer and sent private investigators into small towns to ask prying questions of friends and business acquaintances.

Monsanto's licensing contracts and litigation tactics are coming under increased scrutiny as more of the planet's farmland comes under genetically engineered cultivation.

Some 200 million acres of the world's farms grew biotech crops last year, an increase of 20 percent from 2003, according to a separate report released Wednesday.

Many of the farmers Monsanto has sued say, as McFarling claims, that they didn't read the company's technology agreement close enough. Others say they never received an agreement in the first place.

The company counters that it sues only the most egregious violations and is protecting the 300,000 law-abiding U.S. farmers who annually pay a premium for its technology. Soy farmers, for instance, pay a "technology fee" of about $6.50 an acre each year.

Some 85 percent of the nation's soy crop is genetically engineered to resist Monsanto's herbicide Roundup, a trait many farmers say makes it easier to weed their fields and ultimately cheaper to grow their crops.

"It's a very efficient and cost-effective way to raise soybeans and that's why the market has embraced it," said Ron Heck, who grows 900 acres of genetically engineered soybeans in Perry, Iowa.

Heck, who is also chairman of the American Soybean Association, said he doesn't mind buying new seed each year and appreciates Monsanto's crackdown on competitors who don't pay for their seed.

"You can save seed if you want to use the old technology," Heck said.

The company said the licensing agreement protects its more than 600 biotech-related patents and ensures a return on its research and development expenses, which amount to more than $400 million annually.

"We have to balance our obligations and our responsibilities to our customers, to our employees and to our shareholders," said Scott Baucum, Monsanto's chief intellectual property protector.

Still, Monsanto's investigative tactics are sewing seeds of fear and mistrust in some farming communities, company critics say.

Monsanto encourages farmers to call a company hot line with piracy tips, and private investigators in its employ act on leads with visits to the associates of suspect farmers.

Baucum acknowledged that the company walks a fine line when it sues farmers.

"It is very uncomfortable for us," Baucum said. "They are our customers and they are important to us."

The Center for Food Safety established its own hot line Thursday where farmers getting sued can receive aid. It also said it hopes to convene a meeting among defense lawyers to develop legal strategies to fight Monsanto.

The company said it has gone to trial five times and has never lost a legal fight against an accused pirate. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1980 allowed for the patenting of genetically engineered life forms and extended the same protections to altered plants in 2001. Earlier this year, a Washington D.C. federal appeals court specifically upheld Monsanto's license.

"It's sad. It's sickening. I'm disillusioned," said Rodney Nelson, a North Dakota farmer who settled a Monsanto suit in 2001 that he said was unfairly filed. "We have a heck of an uphill battle that I don't think can be won."

Source: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBXKA5WX3E.html

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Aid agencies fear tsunami orphans prey for Tamil Tigers

Sinja — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 19:18:50 GMT

TRINCOMALEE, SRI LANKA - Tsunami orphans have become prime targets for forced labour and the sex slave industry, but they're also sought in Sri Lanka by the Tamil Tigers as child soldiers, say international aid agencies.

On Thursday, Ted Chaiban, the chief of UNICEF in Sri Lanka, verified three girls, aged 11, 12 and 15 had been recruited. He said the agency was working with the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam to get them released.

The three girls were taken from eastern Batticaloa and Ampara.

Rough estimates show nearly 1,000 children were orphaned by the tsunami and another 3,200 lost one parent, says Chaiban.

Tamil teenage boys report that the Tamil Tigers have approached refugee camps trying to recruit them.

Sixteen-year-old Raja says the Tamil Tigers come to his camp, one or two at a time, endearing the lone boys with stories of struggle, tempting them to join the group. Some go willingly, but those who refuse are taken by force, he adds.

Back in December, Raja was taken from his house by the Tamil Tigers to one of their compounds. He escaped but continues to feel their threat.

"I have to look after my family," Raja says. "I'm not interested in their kind of trouble. My mother, two sisters and a brother were all killed in the tsunami. There's only my father left and I have to look after him."

A woman in the camp supports Raja's claims, saying the Tamil Tigers use emotional force by saying, "some of your children have already been sacrificed to the sea...why can't you sacrifice some of your boys for the cause?"

The Tamil Tigers have fought a two-decade civil war, demanding a separate state. About 65,000 people have been killed in the conflict. A ceasefire was brokered in 2002.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/01/13/tigers-tsunami050113.html

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Thatcher fined for role in African coup plot

Sinja — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 22:28:24 GMT

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA - The son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher received a $600,000 fine and a suspended jail sentence Thursday as he pleaded guilty to inadvertently funding a failed coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea.

Sir Mark Thatcher was sentenced during a court appearance in Cape Town, South Africa.

Court documents show Thatcher has admitted he gave $330,000 in two instalments to charter a military helicopter that mercenaries intended to use in the oil-rich country.

However, Thatcher said he thought the helicopter was going to be used for "commercial purposes."

Earlier Thursday, a family friend had said Thatcher believed the Alouette III helicopter would be used for humanitarian work, acting as an air ambulance.

"This has been a difficult time for all of the family," Lady Thatcher, who served as Britain's prime minister from 1979 to 1990, told a news agency Thursday. "Obviously I am delighted that it has been brought to an end."

Mark Thatcher was arrested in August 2004 and accused of contributing to a March takeover attempt co-ordinated by a group of African mercenaries and opposition forces in Equatorial Guinea.

He still faces charges in the West African country, which ranks third among African oil producers.

That country may try to extradite him from South Africa, where he has lived since 1995.

Under the terms of Thursday's deal, Thatcher can leave South Africa to join his family in the United States as soon as he pays the fine. His wife Diane is from a wealthy family in Texas.

If he does not pay the fine by Jan. 17, he could be jailed for at least five years.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/01/13/thatcher-coup050113.html

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G-7 suspends debt repayments for tsunami countries

Sinja — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 19:59:16 GMT

JAKARTA, INDONESIA - The Group of Seven finance ministers agreed Friday to suspend debt repayment for countries hit by the Asian tsunami.

Finance ministers said they will work out details of the freeze with the Paris Club, an informal group of creditor nations who help debtor countries find payment solutions. Canada, a member of the club, announced its moratorium on debt repayment on Dec. 30.

"We would not expect debt payments from affected countries that request it until the World Bank and IMF have completed a full needs assessment of their reconstruction and financing requirements, recognizing that some countries may be unable to make debt payments," the G7 said in a statement.

The decision comes as the tsunami death toll in Indonesia rose to nearly 98,500, pushing the total official death toll across Asia and Africa to almost 145,000.

Indonesia's Ministry of Social Affairs says that number will likely rise again because more than 10,000 people are still missing in the Aceh province on the northern tip of Sumatra.

"I have never seen such utter destruction mile after mile," UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told reporters after flying over Sumatra Friday. "You wonder: Where are the people? What has happened to them?"

During a United Nations briefing on Friday, spokesperson Kevin Kennedy said it's still not possible to determine how many people died in the tsumani because many areas are unreachable by road. There are dozens of villages in western Sumatra aid workers haven't been to get to.

The UN has set up a disaster-management centre to manage the co-ordination of aid, with a special section devoted solely to Sumatra. A separate Bangkok-based office will manage the operations of the 11 international militaries – including the U.S., Britain, Australia, Germany and France – working on the aid effort.

Kennedy says roads need to be built so trucks can haul larger amounts of food and supplies to isolated villages. Helicopters have been critical to the effort, but are expensive, he said. A Blackhawk helicopter can carry a half-tonne of food, but a truck can haul up to 20 tonnes, said Kennedy.

The World Health Organization predicts that tens of thousands of people will die of infectious diseases if they are not given immediate access to safe drinking water.

"We now estimate that as many as 150,000 people are at extreme risk if a major disease outbreak in the affected areas occurs," said WHO Director-General Dr. Lee Jong-wook.

The building of rudimentary toilets is also important to fend off disease, the WHO said.

UN officials agree that hygiene remains a problem in many of the hundreds of refugee camps, which among them house between 3 million and 5 million people.

Kennedy says roads need to be built so trucks can haul larger amounts of food and supplies to isolated villages. Helicopters have been critical to the effort, but are expensive, he said. A Blackhawk helicopter can carry a half-tonne of food, but a truck can haul up to 20 tonnes, said Kennedy.

The World Health Organization predicts that tens of thousands of people will die of infectious diseases if they are not given immediate access to safe drinking water.

"We now estimate that as many as 150,000 people are at extreme risk if a major disease outbreak in the affected areas occurs," said WHO Director-General Dr. Lee Jong-wook.

The building of rudimentary toilets is also important to fend off disease, the WHO said.

UN officials agree that hygiene remains a problem in many of the hundreds of refugee camps, which among them house between 3 million and 5 million people.

Kennedy says roads need to be built so trucks can haul larger amounts of food and supplies to isolated villages. Helicopters have been critical to the effort, but are expensive, he said. A Blackhawk helicopter can carry a half-tonne of food, but a truck can haul up to 20 tonnes, said Kennedy.

The World Health Organization predicts that tens of thousands of people will die of infectious diseases if they are not given immediate access to safe drinking water.

"We now estimate that as many as 150,000 people are at extreme risk if a major disease outbreak in the affected areas occurs," said WHO Director-General Dr. Lee Jong-wook.

The building of rudimentary toilets is also important to fend off disease, the WHO said.

UN officials agree that hygiene remains a problem in many of the hundreds of refugee camps, which among them house between 3 million and 5 million people.

Kennedy says roads need to be built so trucks can haul larger amounts of food and supplies to isolated villages. Helicopters have been critical to the effort, but are expensive, he said. A Blackhawk helicopter can carry a half-tonne of food, but a truck can haul up to 20 tonnes, said Kennedy.

The World Health Organization predicts that tens of thousands of people will die of infectious diseases if they are not given immediate access to safe drinking water.

"We now estimate that as many as 150,000 people are at extreme risk if a major disease outbreak in the affected areas occurs," said WHO Director-General Dr. Lee Jong-wook.

The building of rudimentary toilets is also important to fend off disease, the WHO said.

UN officials agree that hygiene remains a problem in many of the hundreds of refugee camps, which among them house between 3 million and 5 million people.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/01/07/indonesia-tsunami050107.html

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Anti-Slavery Activists Call for Measures to Prevent Child Slavery

doombilly — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 18:17:11 GMT

In Wake of Asian Tsunami, Sri Lankan Ex-Slave and Anti-Slavery Activists Call for Measures to Prevent Child Slavery

Children left homeless and orphaned facing increased risk from traffickers

BOSTON - Beatrice Fernando, a Sri Lankan survivor of slavery, joined with the American Anti-Slavery Group to call for increased vigilance against child trafficking in the wake of the recent tsunami in Southeast Asia.

"So many children are at risk," Fernando said. "The governments of Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, and India need to act now to prevent traffickers from exploiting the crisis."

According to recent reports, one of the devastating consequences of the recent tsunami in Southeast Asia is an increased risk of children being abducted into slavery.

"Even before the tsunami hit, human trafficking was rampant in the region," noted Anti-Slavery Group associate director Jesse Sage. "But now thousands of children are homeless, displaced, and orphaned -- easy targets for crime rings that profit from trafficking in human beings."

Fernando, who as a young woman was trafficked from Sri Lanka to Lebanon, ended up enslaved, forced to endure severe beatings and work without pay. She recently published an autobiography, In Contempt of Fate, which addresses the problem of human trafficking.

"Sri Lankans are like one big family," Fernando explained. "Even a stranger you meet on the street, you call 'auntie' or 'uncle.' So children are naturally open to strangers. We must make sure that orphaned children are not falling prey to traffickers planning to sell them into slavery. I have felt that pain and barely survived to return to my family. I cannot imagine the horror of these children, who have no families left to comfort them."

Sage hailed Fernando's courage in speaking out about her own experience. "Beatrice's experience reminds us that slavery is not history. Today, we must remain vigilant."

The Anti-Slavery Group's latest action alert to its 40,000 members includes a call on regional governments to take concrete steps to reduce the potential for abductions, including: effectively monitoring borders, alerting displaced persons about the methods used by traffickers, registering children taking shelter in refugee camps and orphanages, and offering a hotline for people who suspect traffickers operating in their communities.

"Governments and relief workers are struggling to cope with the tsunami's devastating destruction," Fernando said. "I hope they can prevent human traffickers from making the situation worse."

For more information, visit http://www.iAbolish.com/

# # #

posted in Human Rights - 2 replies

Massive Change Art Exhibit

Sinja — Tue, 04 Jan 2005 18:05:01 GMT

http://www.massivechange.com/

1. Learn
2. Act

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Quiz: Amount of money spent on bottled water?

Sinja — Tue, 04 Jan 2005 17:51:40 GMT

37 Billion annually

1.6 Billion annually is the amount required by NGOs to provide clean water to low-income nations who lack it.

I learned that at the Vancouver Art Gallery Massive Change exhibit.

*scary*

www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/exhibi...s_massive.cfm

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Aid groups accepting donations for victims

Sinja — Tue, 28 Dec 2004 19:02:00 GMT

AmeriCares

Action Against Hunger

ADRA International

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Inc.

Association for India's Development

CARE

Catholic Relief Services

Christian Children's Fund

Church World Service

Direct Relief International

Doctors Without Borders

Food for the Hungry, Inc.

International Aid

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

International Medical Corps

International Rescue Committee

Lutheran World Relief

MAP International

Mercy Corps

Network for Good

Operation USA

Oxfam America

Plan USA

Project Concern International

Save the Children USA

UNICEF

U.N. World Food Programme

World Concern

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/27/quake.aidsites/index.html

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Children's charity pulls out of Darfur over killings

Sinja — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 16:18:26 GMT

LONDON - A British charity, Save the Children, is pulling out of Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, where it was serving a quarter of a million people.

Four of the charity's staff have been killed in two incidents since October.

Save the Children said the risks facing its workers in western Sudan were too great.

"We are devastated that we are unable to continue to offer health care, nutritional support, child protection and education to the approximately 250,000 children and family members served by our current programs," charity chief Mike Aaronson said Tuesday.

Two of Save the Children's 350 staff in Darfur were killed on Dec. 12 in an attack believed to have been carried out by anti-government rebels.

Save the Children said they had been travelling in clearly marked vehicles when they were shot dead.

Another two of the agency's staff died when their vehicle hit a landmine in October.

Ethnic and political violence continues to rage in the region despite the presence of African Union soldiers and international peace efforts that have resulted in a number of ceasefires and partial agreements.

About 60,000 people have died in Darfur over the past year and 1.5 million more have fled fighting between Christian rebels and the Janjaweed militia, backed by Sudan's Islamic government.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2004/12/21/save-children041221.html

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100,000 flee into jungle in Congo: UN

Sinja — Mon, 20 Dec 2004 17:24:27 GMT

KINSHASA - Tens of thousands of Congolese civilians have fled a week of fighting between renegade soldiers and army loyalists, hiding deep in the forest where humanitarian workers cannot reach them, according to United Nations officials.

Some 100,000 civilians are now believed to have fled the fighting since Dec. 12 in eastern Congo near the Rwandan border, said Rachel Leflaive, a spokeswoman for the UN humanitarian operations in Congo.

Battles flared up again Sunday north of Kanyabayonga, where reinforcements sent by the Kinshasa-based central government have been fighting a force largely drawn from rebels backed by neighbouring Rwanda during Congo's 1998-2002 war, said Eliane Nabaa, another UN spokeswoman.

The UN's 11,000-strong peacekeeping mission determined the tally of the displaced after finding all but abandoned towns and villages along a road near Kanyabayonga.

The displaced civilians are living in the surrounding forest and cannot be reached by humanitarian workers, Flaive said. Earlier aid-agency estimates said only 35,000 had fled their homes.

Congo's war drew in six nations and left more than 3 million dead, mostly from hunger and disease, according to aid-group estimates.

The postwar national-unity government, which includes former rebels, is trying to project its authority over the lawless east still controlled by the ex-insurgents. The army's cohesion is viewed as a crucial test for long-term peace in Congo.

The UN said this week that troops from tiny Rwanda, Congo's long-time foe, crossed into its vastly larger neighbour – raising concerns of a return to the war that embroiled Central Africa.

But Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Sunday told a senior European official that Rwanda had withdrawn its threat to attack militias in eastern Congo after being reassured the rebels would be disarmed, said Foreign Affairs Minister Charles Murigande on Monday.

Twice in the past three weeks Kagame had threatened to invade Congo, complaining that a five-month-old UN-led disarmament effort so far had failed to neutralize the militias that carried out the 1994 genocide in Rwanda together with army soldiers, killing more than 500,000 people, mostly Tutsis.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2004/12/20/congo-displaced041220.html

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Human rights on Martin's Libya agenda

Sinja — Sat, 18 Dec 2004 21:42:31 GMT

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Paul Martin is expected to talk trade and human rights when he begins an official visit to Libya Sunday.

Amnesty International says there are three people being held in Libyan prisons who have Canadian connections and are not being treated fairly. The group wants Martin to raise those cases during a meeting with Libyan leader Moammar Gahdafi.
One such case involves Mustapha Muhammad Krer, a Canadian citizen and native of Libya who was arrested upon arrival at Tripoli airport in May 2002.

Amnesty International says when its delegates met with Krer in February 2004, he had still not been charged or tried. Libya has accused him of being a member of a banned militant organization, an allegation he denies.

Martin is following the footsteps of several other western leaders who have recently met with Gadhafi since he renounced terrorism last year and agreed to stop developing weapons of mass destruction.

Complete article: http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2004/12/18/martin-libya041218.html

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