Stop State Racism

The murder of Oury Jalloh & the struggle for justice

2012-01-19T23:56:00.000+01:00

The article below, reposted from Uhuru News, covers a recent attack by German police on a protest against the police murder of an African named Oury Jalloh. The Uhuru Solidarity Movement stands in solidarity with the struggle for justice and reparations to the family of Oury Jalloh and the entire African community who have faced colonial violence from the white imperialist State (in the UK, the US and throughout the world where Africans are dispersed and colonized) for more than five centuries. The case of Oury Jalloh is one example of how Africans in Europe--many of whom in recent times have migrated there in pursuit of their own resources that have been stolen to build up European society-- experience colonial conditions of repression and violence just as they do in North America. We say, Down with US and European colonial violence! Justice for Oury Jalloh! Reparations to the African Nation!

Shared from Uhuru News: On January 7, 2005, Oury Jalloh, a young African from Sierra Leone/Guinea, was violently detained by police terrorists in the city of Dessau, Germany and taken to a holding cell in the basement of the local police station.

Four hours later his body was found in a charcoaled state, his corpse chained at the hands and feet to a fireproof mattress.

For seven years, the Initiative in Remembrance of Oury Jalloh has fought for truth, justice and indemnity. Nevertheless, the authorities have responded with terrorism, repression, cover-up and systematic lies.

On January 7, 2012, police terrorists attacked the march in memory of Oury Jalloh in Dessau, Germany. The demonstration was met with massive police brutality and violence against the peaceful demonstrators.

Several demonstrators were injured by the police terrorists. Throughout the demonstration, the behavior of the police terrorists had been provocative and highly aggressive.

In addition to the intentional interferences by the police and the enormous police presence, brutality and arbitrariness, the police especially targeted the leading activists of the Initiative in Remembrance of Oury Jalloh-- Komi Edzro, Mbolo Yufani and Mouctar Bah.

Mouctar Bah was the target of police terrorist attacks before, during and at the end of the demonstration. The strategic aggression against the founder of the Initiative in Remembrance of Oury Jalloh had been announced two days prior to the demonstration when the police threatened Mouctar Bah saying that they would no longer tolerate the word 'murder' with regard to the case of Oury Jalloh and would hold him responsible if it were used during the demonstration.

However, in 2006, courts had already decided that the slogan, 'Oury Jalloh-- That Was Murder' was legally allowed, and the police had no legal restraint allowing them to forbid certain statements at the demonstration.

Therefore this prohibition was a tremendous violation of the right of freedom of speech rooted in the Basic Constitutional Law.

The police tried to keep the demonstrators from referring to the case of Oury Jalloh as murder by violently attempting the removal of those who exposed it as such and abruptly beating on them.

At the end of the demonstration Mouctar Bah was thrown to the ground and beaten until he lost consciousness and had to be brought to the hospital in an ambulance. He is currently still hospitalized due to his injuries caused by the police terrorists.

One of the Initiative's leaders, Komi Edzro, stated, "No matter how hard the police attacks and injures us, we will never give up the fight for a clarification of the murder of Oury Jalloh."

Our struggle continues.

No justice, no more peace on the plantation!

Campaign for Nurjana and Nuradil in Gifhorn (Germany)

2011-12-02T22:07:00.002+01:00

Stopa deportation of Occupy Oakland activist Pancho!

2011-11-16T16:34:00.002+01:00

Free Pancho now!

Demand that Barbara Lee order ICE to lift the immigration ban on Pancho!
Sign the petition now: http://www.change.org/petitions/free-pancho-now.

For more information and actions you can take click here (PDF).

Pancho while being arrested

Francisco “Pancho” Ramos-Stierle was arrested while meditating at the Oscar Grant Plaza during the second early morning raid on the Occupy Oakland encampment on November 14th. He is currently being held by the Oakland Police Department on $10,000 bail and they plan to turn him over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for immediate deportation. He could be sent to Arizona as soon as tommorrow morning. That means we need to act now!

Pancho is an Oakland resident and a powerful community organizer. He was recently pursuing his PH.D in astrophysics at UC Berkeley but resigned from the program when he learned that his work would be used to promote “safer nuclear weapons.” Pancho has continued his service to the Oakland community through promoting community gardens and organizing against divisive programs such as the ICE-coordinated “Secure Communities”.

As a mediator and activist, Pancho has become an icon of peaceful protest against the unnecessary force the city of Oakland is using against the 99%. Join us in demanding that Senator Barbara Lee intervene forcing ICE to drop the immigration hold on Pancho immediately and that they stop the unjust surveillance of immigrants in Oakland.

The photo of Pancho meditating–as riot police arrest him–has gone viral on Twitter, and Facebook and has been a source of incredible inspiration to many around world. In a note from jail Pancho wrote to us saying, “Just tell them I love them all. Great space to meditate!” Now it is time to demand the freedom of our brother as we speak out against police crackdowns, unjust U.S. immigration policies and support this growing movement against Wall Street greed.

Angela Davis speaks on Occupy Oakland - General Strike 02-11-11

2011-11-05T23:45:00.002+01:00

Video footage of Angela Davis giving one of the opening speeches on the morning of November 2, 2011--The day of the first General Strike in Oakland since 1946.

Her speech is followed by an announcement stating that the Longshoreman's Unions has shut down the Port of Oakland in solidarity with the Strike.

Thousands went on the streets an shut down the port...

and the day ended this way....

Traveler's Aid Building Takeover and Police Response

Nov 2 Oakland General Strike

2011-10-30T01:35:00.001+02:00

Blockade Port of Oakland During Nov 2 General Strike

resolution passed unanimously by the Occupy Oakland strike assembly on Friday October 29

On Wednesday, November 2nd as part of the Oakland General Strike, we will march on the Port of Oakland and shut it down. We will converge at 5pm at 14th and Broadway and march to the port to shut it down before the 7pm night shift.

We are doing this in order to blockade the flow of capital on the day of the General Strike, as well as to show our commitment to solidarity with Longshore workers in their struggle against EGT in Longview, Washington. EGT is an international grain exporter which is attempting to rupture longshore jurisdiction. The driving force behind EGT is Bunge LTD, a leading agribusiness and food company which reported 2.4 billion dollars in profit in 2010; this company has strong ties to Wall Street. This is but one example of Wall Street’s corporate attack on workers.

The Oakland General Strike will demonstrate the wide reaching implications of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The entire world is fed up with the huge disparity of wealth caused by the present system. Now is the time that the people are doing something about it.The Oakland General Strike is a warning shot to the 1% – their wealth only exists because the 99% creates it for them.

Police brutally attack Occupy Oakland

2011-10-26T23:50:00.000+02:00

Solidarity actions across U.S.

Please circulate this video of the police attack against the Occupy Oakland movement.

Police have stepped up their attacks to crush the Occupy actions across the country. Police forces in a number of cities have conducted mass sweeps and arrests of peaceful protesters. From the mass false arrest of more than 700 on the Brooklyn Bridge on Oct. 1 to mass arrests in Chicago, Atlanta, Oakland and beyond, the police forces have made clear their role as the servants of the 1 percent.

In Oakland, the police viciously attacked Occupy Oakland with tear gas, flash grenades and projectile weapons. Scott Olsen, an Iraq war veteran, was shot in the head by the police with a projectile. Scott is reported to be in critical condition.

As the video vividly shows, the Oakland police directly targeted those protesters who bravely tried to give aid to the injured.

We must all stand together. Let’s continue to organize, occupy and protest in the coming days and weeks. This is a global grassroots movement for justice and change. We won’t be pushed back by police violence.

There will be several demonstrations in cities across the country in solidarity with Occupy Oakland. Below are some of the actions that have been announced; Occupy movements from across the country are publicizing many others through their websites, Twitter and Facebook accounts.

In the Bay Area: There will be demonstrations at 6 p.m. nightly at 14th and Broadway in Oakland called by Occupy Oakland until protesters until their occupation resumes.

In New York City: Gather at Liberty Plaza tonight (Wednesday, Oct. 26) at 9 p.m. for a march.

In Boston: March tonight (Wednesday, Oct. 26) at 9 p.m. starting at Dewey Square.

People of the world, rise up on October 15th!

2011-10-13T10:09:00.002+02:00

719 cities – 71 countries

‎

OCTOBER 15TH

UNITED FOR #GLOBALCHANGE

On October 15th people from all over the world will take to the streets and squares.

From America to Asia, from Africa to Europe, people are rising up to claim their rights and demand a true democracy. Now it is time for all of us to join in a global non violent protest.

The ruling powers work for the benefit of just a few, ignoring the will of the vast majority and the human and environmental price we all have to pay. This intolerable situation must end.

United in one voice, we will let politicians, and the financial elites they serve, know it is up to us, the people, to decide our future. We are not goods in the hands of politicians and bankers who do not represent us.

On October 15th, we will meet on the streets to initiate the global change we want. We will peacefully demonstrate, talk and organize until we make it happen.

It’s time for us to unite. It’s time for them to listen.

Mumia Abu Jamal's death-sentence has been effectively ruled unconstitutional

2011-10-12T18:04:00.001+02:00

United States Supreme Court Rejects Appeal from Philadelphia DA’s Office
Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Death Sentence is Unconstitutional

(New York, NY) — Today the United States Supreme Court rejected a request from the
Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office to overturn the most recent federal appeals court decision
declaring Mumia Abu-Jamal’s death sentence unconstitutional. The Court’s decision brings to
an end nearly thirty years of litigation over the fairness of the sentencing hearing that resulted in
Mr. Abu-Jamal’s being condemned to death. Mr. Abu-Jamal will be automatically sentenced to
life in prison without the possibility of parole unless the District Attorney elects to seek another
death sentence from a new jury.

The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) and Professor Judith Ritter
of Widener Law School represent Mr. Abu-Jamal in the appeal of his conviction and death
sentence for the 1981 murder of a police officer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Supreme
Court’s decision marks the fourth time that the federal courts have found that Mr. Abu-Jamal’s
sentencing jury was misled about the constitutionally mandated process for considering evidence
supporting a life sentence.

“At long last, the profoundly troubling prospect of Mr. Abu-Jamal facing an execution
that was produced by an unfair and unreliable penalty phase has been eliminated,” said John
Payton, Director-Counsel of LDF. “Like all Americans, Mr. Abu-Jamal was entitled to a proper
proceeding that takes into account the many substantial reasons why death was an inappropriate
sentence.” Professor Ritter stated, “Our system should never condone an execution that stems
from a trial in which the jury was improperly instructed on the law.”

Mr. Abu-Jamal’s case will now return to the Philadelphia County Court of Common
Pleas for final sentencing.

Mumia abu Jamal speaks on Troy Davis execution

2011-09-30T12:05:00.002+02:00

Here you can listen to his statement (mp3 file)

Courtesy of WWW.PRISONRADIO.ORG

Camps – Controlled Life in Isolation

2011-09-27T13:41:00.003+02:00

Call for a demonstration in Erfurt (East-Germany) 22nd of October 2011

Call for Download (pdf)

According to the ‚Asylbewerberleistungsgesetz‘ (law concerning social services for asylum seekers) refugees are forced to live in mass accommodation while their procedure for granting the right of asylum is under way and often even after it is finished. Camps in the federal German state of Thuringia spread out over all districts. When choosing locations for them, the priorities are usually to keep costs low and to maintain a distance to the local population, as public authorities have frequently confirmed. That is why the majority of the camps are located in small towns and villages, also often outside the urban area, in most cases in former barracks of the NVA (Nationale Volksarmee, the army of the German Democratic Republic) or administration buildings of the GDR. In order to avoid responsibility and keep the costs to a minimum, most of the districts leave the running of the camps to private companies. This means that, since profit is the main priority, living conditions that are already bad grow even worse.

The purpose of the camps is to wear refugees down in terms of health and mental well-being; to make deportations go as smoothly and inconspicuously as possible; and to suppress any form of political and legal resistance against bullying and violations of the law. The camps are run by directors and ‚Betreuer‘ (wardens) who are responsible to the migration office and guarantee a thorough control of the refugees‘ private lives. The wardens have far-reaching competencies to decide about the residents‘ lives – e.g. whether they receive shopping vouchers, can see a doctor, can use learning opportunities, get working permissions or even receive their private post unopened and on time. This provides a huge scope for abuses of power and bullying, which creates a general mechanism of suppressing political resistance. According to experience, refugees have to face serious consequences including faster deportation for publicly criticising the situation – or sometimes for merely having visitors.

Residence obligation – Racist controls and suppression of Political Self-Organisation

Another means of isolating refugees is the residence obligation law, which requires refugees to stay in the one district allocated to them. While some other federal states have completely abolished this law, Thuringia modified it this year: the permitted moving space was extended to four districts – four out of 23. There is an official possibility of applying for a vacation, thus gaining permission to leave the district. However, permission is hardly ever granted. When there was a nationwide refugee conference in Jena, Thuringia in April 2011, refugees from the federal state of Lower Saxony were denied permission to leave the district and therefore could not participate. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees stated that asylum seekers did ‚not have the right to be politically active‘. This means that any action and meeting of the refugees‘ network can be criminalised according to this law. The police check for people violating the residence obligation law in train stations and city centres in Thuringia, specifically controlling people they perceive as ‚not German.‘ Violations of the residence obligation can lead to punishment fees or, in cases of repetition, to imprisonment. Residence obligation is therefore the main means German public authorities use to persecute refugees who are politically active.

Seeing that continuous political activism in exile is often important for being granted asylum, this situation shows clearly that the assumed fundamental right to asylum is obviously a lie: not only does Germany forbid political refugees to be politically active; it continues to persecute them like their countries of origin did.

‚We are here because you destroy our countries‘

Unfortunately, this slogan of the Caravan for the Rights of Refugees and Migrants will not lose its topicality. Stressing the importance of political asylum is an attempt to stigmatise so-called ‚economic migrants‘ and set the public up against refugees, especially in times of crisis. The aim of this strategy is to conceal the structural global causes of flight and to prevent people from realising that they are the same structures that lead to crises and poverty in this part of the world. Who are those ‚economic migrants‘, then? If the expression refers to people from Tunisia who, being free from Ben Ali, flee to Europe to find a better life – then the question that must follow is: who supported Ben Ali for years, doing billion dollar deals with him and his clan and thus sustaining extreme financial inequality and an omnipotent repression system? If the expression refers to people from Senegal who cannot sustain themselves by fishing anymore – then the question that must follow is: who sent the high-tech fishing fleets that overfish the West African sea? If it refers to people from Afghanistan who have not only been deprived of any base for agriculture, but have also had all infrastructure destroyed, including their own houses – then the question must be: who has been waging war there for a decade?

If somebody leaves everything behind and flees, illegally crossing dozens of borders facing danger of death and paying through dehumanising clandestine employment on the way, then they must have a good reason. And in most cases it’s the same reason that leads to exclusion, rising poverty and more and more cuts to fundamental liberties in this country: capitalism in a world of national states with increasingly strong security systems.

The VOICE Refugee Forum

Founded as a reaction to the repressive situation in a refugee camp in Thuringia, the network called The VOICE Refugee Forum has for 17 years been fighting deprivation of rights and freedom. A large number of campaigns against deportation, isolation camps and residence obligation have frequently proven the necessity of autonomous self-organisation. The VOICE is not dependent on continuous financial support and functions without any hierarchic structure. The focus of its activism is always the fight for self-determination and continuous public presence of the refugees‘ voices. In Thuringia alone this made it possible to close down many isolation camps, to stop deportations and to prevent punishments for violations of the residence obligation law. For example, Miloud L Cherif has for several months successfully resisted his persecution for crossing a district border. He refuses to pay any fee (‚my freedom is not for sale!‘) and managed to avoid imprisonment through civil disobedience and public protest. Meanwhile, refugee activists in other federal states have begun to build networks of their own and make their voices heard. Refugees in Sachsen-Anhalt have long been fighting the isolation camp Möhlau. Baden-Württemberg saw its first refugee conference this year, along with several actions against deportation and enforced embassy hearings.

Break Isolation

This is the title of a campaign in Thuringia that has been intensified over the last year: a campaign against the isolation of refugees through their obligation to live in camps and the ban on moving freely across district borders. There is now a network of individuals and groups that, aiming to break this isolation, support The VOICE. They help with current actions, but also create documentation material and help to inform the public through regular visits to the camps and meetings with refugee activists.

Through self-organisation of refugees and solidarity within the community, the campaign showed the maltreatment of refugees in Gerstungen, Gangloffsömmern, Breitenworbis and Zella-Mehlis, and this success encouraged many refugees and non-refugees. During the campaign, the resistance drew more attention to the situation of refugees and the practice of isolation camps in Thuringia.

That is why we will demonstrate against exclusion and suppression in Erfurt on October 22nd 2011! The main focus will be on the situation in Thuringia; however, it is identical with that in other parts of Germany, and the world. Refugee activists from all regions of Thuringia, Caravan activists from the nationwide network and many other supporters will take to the streets together.

Support the refugees‘ resistance!!

Show solidarity for an autonomous, dignified and free life for everybody!

Instant closure of the isolation camps in Gerstungen, Breitenworbis and Zella-Mehlis!

Residence obligation and isolation camps have to go – everywhere!

October 22nd 2011 ERFURT
- 10am: manifestation at the ‚Anger‘
- 2pm: demonstration from the central station

Donations:
Förderverein The VOICE e.V.
Bank: Sparkasse Göttingen
Account number: 127829
Code (BLZ): 260 500 01
Keyword: Break Isolation

There’s No Justice in the Capitalist Courts!

2011-09-22T12:54:00.000+02:00

Free Troy Davis! Abolish the Racist Death Penalty!

There’s No Justice in the Capitalist Courts!

By Steven Argue

During slavery a slave named Dred Scott was taken by his master to what is now Minnesota and Illinois. Slavery was illegal in those territories so Dred Scott took his master to court to sue for his freedom. In 1857 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Dred Scott saying that a Black man “has no legal rights that any white man was bound to respect”.

Since that time the Civil War has abolished chattel slavery and the heroic struggles of the Civil Rights and Black Liberation movements have abolished the most blatant forms of Jim Crow segregation. Yet, the death penalty, a hold-over of the class terror of slavery, continues. Likewise, racist injustice is alive and well in the American judicial system.

“Innocence is no Bar to Upholding a Jury Conviction”

In the tradition of Dred Scott, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1993 case of Herrara v Collins that the execution of an innocent man did not violate the Constitution. Judge Scalia stated of the case that "Innocence is no bar to upholding a jury conviction". As a result, strong new evidence that Leonel Herara was innocent was never allowed to be heard in a court of law. Instead, Leonel Herara was executed in 1993 in the state of Texas with his last words being, "I am innocent, innocent, innocent. I am an innocent man, and something very wrong is taking place tonight."

So a standard has been set where those who have been appointed to the highest court in the land don’t think that the execution of an innocent person is a violation of their constitutional rights. It is on this standard that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Troy Davis on March 28, 2011, denying his appeal without comment.

Troy Davis was sentenced to death in 1991 for the killing of an off-duty Savannah policeman. Davis was found “guilty” based on dubious accounts that he confessed to the killing and questionable “eyewitness” identifications that included false eyewitness testimony coerced by the cops. Seven of the prosecution’s nine “eyewitnesses” have since recanted. The only holdouts are one man who may be the actual killer and another who initially denied being able to identify the shooter only to pin it on Davis two years later. Three of the eyewitnesses say their testimony was coerced by the police. New eyewitnesses have come forth identifying another suspect.

Amnesty International said of his case, "Troy Davis was convicted of murder in 1991. Nearly two decades later, Davis remains on death row — even though the case against him has fallen apart."

Now Troy Davis may be executed on Wednesday, September 21st of this week. On September 6th a Chatham County, Georgia Judge issued a death warrant for Troy Davis. The so-called “Department of Corrections” then set the date for the execution. This Monday, September 19th the Georgia parole board heard arguments for and against execution. That five person panel is given the power to issue a ruling on whether Troy Davis lives or is legally lynched. They pronounced no decision Monday and gave no indication on when they will.

How Bill Clinton Prevented the Evidence from Being Heard

For over a decade, state and federal courts refused to hear evidence that Troy Davis is innocent. This included a federal court ruling against Troy Davis on April 16, 2009. A dissenting federal judge said the execution of Davis “in the face of a significant amount of the proffered evidence that may establish his actual innocence” was “unconscionable.” Yet the majority decision cited Bill Clinton’s 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, an act which virtually eliminates the right of federal habeas corpus (i.e. federal review of state legal cases).

The right to federal habeas corpus was a gain of the Civil War passed in the Civil Rights Act of 1871. The act gave the federal government authority to intervene in cases of racial injustice. This included federal habeas corpus giving the federal courts authority to review state legal decisions. Federal habeas corpus was further expanded during the Civil Rights and Black Liberation struggles of the 1960s and 1970s.

Bill Clinton’s 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, on the other hand, virtually eliminated the right to federal habeas corpus. The act bars federal reconsideration of most factual and legal findings of the state courts. It also puts a six month statute of limitations on new evidence in death penalty cases (one year for other cases).

The same 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act that has been used against Troy Davis was also cited as cause against federal review of evidence of the innocence of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is political activist, award winning journalist, and political prisoner on death row in the United States. Mumia was framed by the Philadelphia police and DA's Office. To convict Mumia they produced a crudely falsified “confession” which didn’t surface until two months after the killing; tampered with ballistics “evidence”; and produced “eyewitness” accounts that were secured through police manipulation, coercion, and blatant terror. During the trial the Philadelphia DA’s Office knowingly used perjured testimony and hid essential evidence to procure a conviction. That frame-up case was then presented in a court presided over by Judge Sabo who was heard by a court stenographer during the time of the trial saying, "Ill help you fry the nigger".

After investigation, Amnesty International stated of the trial, “Mumia Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer in 1982 after a trial that failed to meet international standards." Yet, like in the racist frame-up case of Troy Davis, the federal courts have cited the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act as pretext not to hear evidence of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s innocence.

As the historian Howard Zinn stated of Mumia Abu-Jamal in April 2009:

“To me, the Mumia Abu-Jamal case is another instance in the history of American injustice. Our judicial system is stacked against people of color, radicals, and people who are not wealthy, and Mumia fits all three categories.

“It is shameful that he has been in prison, and on death row, for such a large part of his life. He has shown immense courage in refusing to be beaten down by this cruel system.

“I hope that justice will be done in his case, but that will only happen if large numbers of Americans speak out loudly on his behalf, and on behalf of the principle — so much ignored — of equal justice before the law.”

A Continuing Pattern of Racist Injustice

Blacks have long faced political repression in the United States. For many decades the KKK, Democratic Party, and local police ruled over half of the country as a semi-fascist state where Blacks were denied the right to vote and murdered for speaking their minds. With victories won against that system the FBI orchestrated a reign of terror against the most radical Blacks who stood up against racism, class inequalities, and imperialism.

In the 1960’s and 70’s the U.S. government liquidated the Black Panther Party through the murders of 39 members, including the FBI organized police shooting of Fred Hampton in his sleep, and through political frame-ups such as that of Geronimo (Ji. Jaga) Pratt who was finally exonerated (i.e. found innocent) after 30 years in prison. Other framed Black Panthers still sit in prison and Black Panther Assata Shakur lives in exile, granted political asylum by Cuba, but with a one million dollar bounty put on her head by the New Jersey government. Mumia Abu-Jamal, a target of FBI surveillance from the time of his youth in the Black Panther Party, survived the FBI’s physical liquidation of his party, only to be framed-up in the 1980’s after exposing violent police repression against Black radicals in an organization called Move.

Similarly, the Lakota on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota who supported the culturally and politically nationalist American Indian Movement faced brutal counter-insurgency tactics complete with FBI-armed and -trained death squads that murdered 61 political activists and their children on the reservation between 1973 and 1976. As part of that terror war against America’s first nations, American Indian Movement member Leonard Peltier was framed by the FBI and remains in prison to this day. Many of Leonard Peltier’s supporters had hoped that Bill Clinton would pardon Leonard Peltier as he left office, but Clinton refused to do so.

Today, a world movement hopes that Troy Davis is not executed. In the last few days over 300 protests have been held for Troy Davis in cities around the world. Nearly a million petitions have been signed demanding Troy Davis not be executed. He is supported by many important organizations including the NAACP, Amnesty International, and the International Longshore and Warehouseman’s Union

Troy Davis has sat in prison for 20 years in a case that not only shows cause for reasonable doubt, the legal definition of innocence, but also shows the classic symptoms of a racist police frame-up including police coercion of witnesses. Whatever happens in the next couple days, justice in this case will not mean just stopping his execution, it will also mean freeing Troy Davis. Yet, we should be clear, the U.S. government is capable of the worst, it is capable of the murder of innocents, and it is even capable of producing legal arguments like "Innocence is no bar to upholding a jury conviction” to justify state sanctioned murder.

From Dred Scott to Troy Davis

In his May 1857 “Speech on the Dred Scott Decision” Frederick Douglass, a former slave and activist for the abolition of slavery, denounced the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision that a Black man “has no legal rights that any white man was bound to respect” by saying,

“If it were at all likely that the people of these free States would tamely submit to this demoniacal judgment, I might feel gloomy and sad over it, and possibly it might be necessary for my people to look for a home in some other country. But as the case stands, we have nothing to fear.

“In one point of view, we, the abolitionists and colored people, should meet this decision, unlooked for and monstrous as it appears, in a cheerful spirit. This very attempt to blot out forever the hopes of an enslaved people may be one necessary link in the chain of events preparatory to the downfall and complete overthrow of the whole slave system.”

The unpopular Dred Scott decision is widely seen as playing a role in bringing on the Civil War. It was the Civil War that completed the abolition of slavery, a task that had begun in the north with the American Revolution. With U.S. courts now openly ruling that it’s OK to murder innocent people, it is now time to prepare for a second American Revolution. It is with such radical conclusions we should confront government atrocities like what is being done to Troy Davis. In doing so, we make the government pay for its crimes.

By revolution I don’t mean blow things up or any other form of individual terrorism. A revolution is a change in who rules society. Presently the wealthy capitalists rule America through their ownership of the economy; through their political parties, the Democrats and Republicans; and through the repressive actions of their cops, courts, prisons, and military. That entire system must be swept away in a mass proletarian revolution.

Liberation News is dedicated to building a socialist party that has goals like eliminating the dictatorial control of our society by the wealthy, bringing about true workers democracy, ending imperialist wars, and bringing Black liberation through socialist revolution. While capitalism is leading us into an oblivion of economic decay, austerity, unemployment, ever more wars, and environmental catastrophe, a socialist economy can be geared for full employment, free health care, free education, housing for all, and better environmental protection because it will not be run for capitalist profit. A party that fights for such a socialist future also exposes and fights for immediate demands like freeing Troy Davis and abolishing the racist death penalty. In building such a movement that helps people draw the deeper radical conclusions of the injustices perpetrated by this system and the fight that is needed for liberation, we make the capitalist system pay for its crimes.

Troy Davis Murdered, Innocence No Bar To Execution

2011-09-22T12:50:00.002+02:00

"The struggle for justice doesn't end with me. This struggle is for all the Troy Davises who came before me and all the ones who will come after me. I'm in good spirits and I'm prayerful and at peace. But I will not stop fighting until I've taken my last breath." Troy Davis

Photo: Troy Davis

I’m sorry. The horrific news is that Troy Davis has been murdered in a government sanctioned lynching. This comes after over a four hour delay past the scheduled execution. In these moments, I find it difficult to say anything new, but I think the article I wrote a few days ago sums it up, so I'm resending it. In addition, I'm adding Troy Davis's words the day before his execution.

"The struggle for justice doesn't end with me. This struggle is for all the Troy Davises who came before me and all the ones who will come after me. I'm in good spirits and I'm prayerful and at peace. But I will not stop fighting until I've taken my last breath." Troy Davis

Troy Davis, The Fight Isn't Over

2011-09-21T15:00:00.001+02:00

Parole Board Agrees to Legal Lynching

By Steven Argue

The news on Troy Davis is very bad. Despite being innocent, the Georgia Parole Board has OK'd his execution for 7 PM tomorrow (September 21st). Yet the fight to free Troy Davis isn’t over, and if that fails, the fight to overthrow the evil system that murders him will continue.

Troy Davis was sentenced to death in 1991 for the killing of an off-duty Savannah policeman. Davis was found “guilty” based on dubious accounts that he confessed to the killing and questionable “eyewitness” identifications that included false eyewitness testimony coerced by the cops. Seven of the prosecution’s nine “eyewitnesses” have since recanted. The only holdouts are one man who may be the actual killer and another who initially denied being able to identify the shooter only to pin it on Davis two years later. Three of the eyewitnesses say their testimony was coerced by the police. New eyewitnesses have come forth identifying another suspect.

[Troy Davis, Photo from NY Times]

Update for Troy Davis, The Fight Isn't Over

The news on Troy Davis is very bad. Despite being innocent, the Georgia Parole Board has OK'd his execution for 7 PM tomorrow (September 21st). Yet the fight to free Troy Davis isn’t over, and if that fails, the fight to overthrow the evil system that murders him will continue.

This was not an unexpected outcome when I wrote yesterday’s article. For that fighting perspective please see:

“Free Troy Davis! There’s No Justice in the Capitalist Courts!”
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2011/09/116146.html

Troy Davis’s sister, Kim Davis, has started a new petition to have the Georgia Parole Board overturn their decision.

Stop my brother Troy Davis' Execution on Sep. 21.
http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-my-brother-troy-davis-execution-on-sep-21

Protests will also be held in a number of places. One called by Black leaders in L.A. states in their press release, “Echoes of slavery, Jim Crow, Klan lynchings, racist police murders and economic injustice are now heard reverberating in the cell of Troy Davis. So must our rage.” They will be gathering to rally at Leimert Park in Los Angeles (at Crenshaw & Vernon) today (Tuesday, September 20th).

A protest will be held in NY today as well: http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2011/09/116165.html

I am also posting a resolution passed by International Longshore and Warehouseman’s Union (ILWU) in favor of Troy Davis. It would be nice if they would act on this and shut down the ports to stop the execution. Having that kind of fighting labor movement and a bigger socialist movement to help lead it would hit the capitalists who rule America much harder than strategies of petitions and protests. We do what we can to build in that direction.

2009 ILWU Convention Resolution on Racist Oppression and the Death Penalty

Whereas, the ILWU and the militant wing of the American labor movement, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) grew out of the class struggles in the 1920’s and 1930’s mobilizing against anti-worker and racist oppression, notably the cases of San Francisco labor organizer Tom Mooney and the 9 black Scottsboro Boys of Alabama, falsely accused of rape, and

Whereas, police, courts and laws have historically been used against working people in our struggle to organize unions and fight back against racist oppression, and

Whereas, the ILWU has a long-standing principle of opposition to racism and to the death penalty, a vestige of slavery, which is the ultimate form of government oppression, and

Whereas, African Americans, Latin Americans and other people of color are disproportionately imprisoned on death row across the country facing execution, and

Whereas, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Troy Anthony Davis, Kevin Cooper, Leonard Peltier and the San Francisco 8 are some of the most prominent victims of these government frame-ups, Jamal and Davis accused of killing police and Peltier of FBI agents on an Indian reservation, and

Whereas, the U.S. Supreme Court recently denied the appeal of Jamal, while Davis and Cooper lost before federal appeals courts, and

Whereas, Martina Correia, sister of Troy Davis, spoke passionately this year at ILWU Local 10’s Black History month rally against racist repression and has now initiated a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of executing an innocent person,

Therefore Be It Resolved that the ILWU reaffirms our opposition to the death penalty, supports Martina Correia’s lawsuit and demands freedom for these victims of government repression, just as we did for Tom Mooney and the Scottsboro Boys in the wake of the Big Strike of ’34, on this the 75th anniversary of that momentous struggle.

******
Update by Liberation News, subscribe free:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

“Free Troy Davis! There’s No Justice in the Capitalist Courts!”
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2011/09/116146.html

Download Article (PDF)

Stop the State murder of Troy Davis on September 21!

2011-09-19T00:10:00.001+02:00

The following statement is from Kimberly Davis, the sister of Troy Davis, who was wrongfully convicted and put on deathrow in 1991 for the death of a cop. There is no physical evidence against Troy Davis, and seven of the witnesses have recanted their story — many of them saying the police coerced them into give false testimony. Kimberly has launched a campaign on Change.org to stop his execution, which is scheduled for September 21. We urge our readers to participate in the campaign through the petition, call-in and in general to stop the brother's execution.

My brother, Troy Davis, has been on Georgia's death row for 20 years despite strong evidence of his innocence. His execution date is now scheduled for Wed, Sept 21. He has a hearing in front of the Georgia Board of Pardons & Parole two days beforehand.We need to tell the Board strongly and clearly: There's too much doubt to execute Troy Davis!

The case against my brother Troy consisted entirely of witness testimony which contained inconsistencies even at the time of the trial. Since then, seven out of nine witnesses from the trial have recanted or contradicted their testimony.

Many of these witnesses have stated in sworn affidavits that they were pressured or coerced by police into testifying or signing statements against Troy Davis. Here is what one had to say:

“I got tired of them harassing me, and they made it clear that the only way they would leave me alone is if I told them what they wanted to hear. I told them that Troy told me he did it, but it wasn’t true."

We need to tell the Board strongly and clearly: There's too much doubt to execute Troy Davis!

Sign the petition here: http://www.change.org/petitions/7-of-9-witnesses-say-my-brother-is-innocent-stop-troy-davis-execution-on-sep-21

Also, call the Board of Pardons and Parole at 404-656-5651 and demand that they stay Troy Davis' execution!

---------------------------------
If you believe that there will never be peace on the planet without justice, reparations and reconciliation for African people and all the countless victims of imperialism past and present against whom terror, genocide, exploitation were carried out in our name and for our benefit, then Take the Pledge of Solidarity and donate at least $10 to the African-led Uhuru Movement for liberation and self-determination for African people everywhere!

Save Troy Davis' life

2011-09-16T03:51:00.002+02:00

The state of Georgia plans to put Troy Davis to death on September 21. The case against him consisted of witness testimony that was full of inconsistencies. Since then, all but two of the state’s non-police witnesses from the trial have recanted their testimony — and many have sworn in affidavits that police pressured or coerced them into testifying or signing statements.

There is still serious doubt as to Troy Davis’ guilt, and by putting him to death Georgia runs the risk of killing an innocent man. Please call on Board of Pardons and Parole to save Troy Davis’ life. And please share this information with others. Troy Davis needs as many of us as possible to speak up.

-----
Here is the text of the petition you'll send to the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Parole:

My freedom is not for sale!

2011-09-11T00:31:00.001+02:00

Miloud L. Cherif calls for the Abolition of Movement Restriction for Refugees in Germany

The Movement Restriction for Refugees in Germany (Residenzpflicht) is a means or opression by the German state against any effective attempt of refugees to make a stand for their rights and to get organised. The case of Miloud Cherif is the best example on how this law, most of the Germans still do not even know that it is existing, prevents refugees from meeting each other and from geting in touch with human rights organisations.
But Miloud at the same time shows to all the refugees on how to confront the oppression - by civil desobediance:

Miloud Cherif Speaks on Residenzpflicht during Felix Otto rememberance in Jena

Declaration of Miloud L. Cherif against „Residenzpflicht“ - My freedom is not for sale

I wonder why a refugee should pay any amount of money if he left the place he lives in Germany, except the transport expanses.

On the 20.11.2010 I left to attend the nationwide caravan meeting in Berlin, and I've been stopped in Erfurt Hbf because I had no permission to leave my landkreis Schmalkalden-Meiningen in Thueringen and the police obliged me to go back to Zella-Mehlis (My heim – Refugee Isolation Camp).

Months later, and on the same day (24.03.2011) we made the demonstration in Meiningen for the closure of Zella Mehlis lager (The heim I live in), on the same, I received the letter telling me that I have to pay 58,50€ for ''breaking the law'' by being in Erfurt Hbf without permission.

I received many more letters since then, the last letters telling me to pay or to go to the jail in case I refused to pay the fine.

I refused to pay the fine, and I still refuse to pay, and I'll never ever pay the fine, because my freedom is not for sale.

I have been calling and I still call for the abolition of the residentzpflicht for refugees in Germany.

Refugees MUST have the right to move freely in the German territory without any permission or paying for it.

Residenzpflicht (Residential Obligation) was and will be a discriminative and a colonial law, aiming in the first place to ISOLATE the refugee in the same place He/She has been sent to, after submitting HIS/HER asylum file in Germany.

Residenzpflicht is the second tool in German authorities' Arsenal to isolate the refugee after the first which is the location of His/Her lager which in most cases is out of the city, somewhere in the middle on nowhere.

And for that, I call for ALL my brothers and sisters, refugees and non-refugees, to stand beside me, and support me in OUR battle of the justice, it's just another battle in the long war between the good and the evil.

Refugees need solidarity - Refugees want a fair life.

Miloud L. Cherif,
Coordinator of Zella-Mehlis Refugee Community,
Activist and Member of The VOICE Refugee Forum in Germany

Video interview with Miloud L. Cherif on how he fights to Break the Isolation of Refugees in Zella-Mehlis

Miloud L. Cherif fights to Break the Isolation of Refugees in Germany from Zella-Mehlis from The VOICE Refugee Network.

BBC propaganda accident - Darcus Howe refuses to condemn London Riots

2011-08-11T22:48:00.003+02:00

Darcus Howe, a West Indian Writer and Broadcaster with a voice about the riots. Speaking about the mistreatment of youths by police leading to an up-roar and the ignorance of both police and the governement.

Howe was born in Trinidad and Tobago, the son of an Anglican priest. He left Trinidad for London aged 18 to enter the legal profession at Middle Temple, but he swapped the law for journalism. He returned to Trinidad, where his uncle and mentor, radical intellectual CLR James, inspired Howe to combine writing with political activism. A brief spell as assistant editor on the Trinidad trade union paper The Vanguard was followed by return to Britain as editor of British magazine Race Today.

He became a member of the British Black Panther Movement, and in August 1970, following a protest, Howe was arrested and tried for riot, affray and assault. He was acquitted after a trial at the Old Bailey. Later, he was the editor of the magazine Race Today and was imprisoned for three months for assaulting a police officer. The celebration following his release was recalled in the song Man Free by poetLinton Kwesi Johnson. The central lines of the song describe Howe’s legal fight: “I stand up in the court like a mighty lion, I stand up in the court like man of iron, Darcus out of jail, Shabba!”.

Howe organised the 20,000 strong Black People’s March 1981 claiming official neglect and inefficient policing of the investigation of New Cross Fire in which 13 black teenagers died.

Kenneth Harding murdered by San Francisco Police officers

2011-07-27T01:03:00.001+02:00

Dead over a $2 train fare

Neha Sobti, Nikolai Smith and David Russitano look at the outrage provoked by the shooting death of Kenneth Harding--and the violence of San Francisco police.

July 25, 2011

San Francisco police train their guns on Kenneth Harding as he bleeds to death

ON JULY 16 at 4:44 p.m., 19-year-old Kenneth Harding was shot at as many as 10 times by San Francisco Police Department (SFPD). Bullets pierced his leg and neck, and entered his brain, killing him.

This was the third fatal shooting in the past two months by the SFPD, and the second public transit-related shooting in a span of two weeks.

According to witnesses, police chased Harding from the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni) light-rail after he ran away from them for not paying the $2 fare. After Harding was shot, cops surrounded his dying body without offering him medical assistance, as a crowd of angry community members began to gather.

A disturbing video of the event shows an agonizing scene--with many police, guns drawn, threatening bystanders and watching as Harding lay bleeding to death on the ground.

Since the shooting, Harding has been vilified in the corporate media. Most reports focus on his criminal record to try to prove that he was a "bad man"--with the implication that he deserved to die.

Police are trying to shift the blame and conversation away from themselves, but these reports do little to answer the larger questions raised by the recent upsurge of violence by Bay Area police. Why, for example, were armed officers chasing a man for not paying a Muni fee? And why are tax dollars being used to arm, train and fund police to ensure someone pays that $2?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

INCREDIBLY, POLICE now claim that Harding died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. The San Francisco medical examiner released findings last week that the bullet recovered from Harding's head was from a .380 caliber firearm, while police on the scene were supposedly armed with .40-caliber weapons. The medical examiner also claims to have found gunshot residue on one of Harding's hands, and a .380 caliber bullet was allegedly found in one of Harding's pockets.

If police are to be believed, Harding shot backwards through a crowd at officers while running and somehow also--whether accidentally or intentionally--fatally shot himself in his neck.

As SFGate.com noted, this story has led many in the community to believe that police are covering up a murder in cold blood. In what can only be called an understatement, Police Commander Mike Biel said at a recent press conference that "he understands there may be skepticism about the latest evidence revealed by authorities."

Police claims that Harding was not only armed during the chase, but shot first at officers, are contradicted by the reports of multiple witnesses, who say Harding had no gun. "I just saw shots going forward," resident Henry Taylor told channel 7 ABC News. " I didn't see shots coming backwards."

Additionally, no gun was ever found on or near Harding at the scene. Initially, police claimed to have caught a suspect who supposedly removed the gun from the scene, with San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr telling Channel 7: "[W]e believe we have it in custody."

But now the cops' story has changed, and they claim the gun is still missing. Desperate to find a justification for the fatal shooting of the young man, police are now offering a $1,000 reward for the phantom gun.

Police are also making much of Harding's criminal record--announcing publicly that the young man was on parole in connection with charges that he tried to force a 14-year-old girl into prostitution in Seattle, and that he was a person of interest in a shooting in that city that killed one and wounded three others.

But whether or not Harding had a criminal record or was wanted for another crime doesn't justify police chasing him down over a $2 fare and killing him in what many bystanders describe as closer to an execution.

"Regardless of if they found a gun or not, it's the fact they chased him from the T-train over a transfer, and while there's real crime going on," resident Debray Carpenter told ABC News.

Those in the community who experience everyday intimidation from police know that the police lie to cover their tracks. Bayview, the site of Harding's murder and San Francisco's last largely Black community, has the highest poverty rates in the city and an unemployment four times higher than the rest of the city.

Although San Francisco has a civilian review board to supposedly hold violent cops accountable, activists point out that if officers think they will be disciplined, they quit the day before their review board hearing to maintain their pension.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

NOR IS Harding's death the only recent police-involved death. Just 13 days before Harding was killed, Charles Hill, a 45-year-old homeless man, was fatally shot three times by two Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officers moments after the officers responded to a call at the Civic Center Plaza BART station in downtown San Francisco.

The entire incident took only one minute. The media's limited coverage of the killing emphasizes BART and BART police's claims that Hill was intoxicated and wielding a knife and glass bottle. Witnesses, however, claimed that Hill posed no threat and "moved slowly" toward the armed officers, who almost immediately responded with lethal force. The police have refused to release footage of the incident and have not conveyed information of their investigation with the media.

Hill's death came just one week after BART police reached a $1.3 million settlement with the family of Oscar Grant III, who was murdered in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 2009 by BART officer Johannes Mehserle. Mehserle was released from prison this June after spending only 292 days behind bars. The message was clear: shoot and kill an unarmed Black man in the back without provocation, and the system will let you off easy.

The deaths of Harding and Hill also follow the June 7 fatal shooting of a suspected bank robber who allegedly tried to run over SFPD officers with his car, and a June 29 shooting and wounding of a wanted parolee who allegedly shot at the SFPD.

Hill's death also poses larger questions over police action: Why are Bay Area police so quick to shoot? Why didn't BART police utilize any of the non-lethal methods at their disposal before fatally shooting Hill? Why are police and the media emphasizing that Hill was "drunk" and "wielding a bottle" instead of asking why, within a minute of encountering officers, he had been fatally wounded?

This surge of police brutality has sparked anger, pushing community members and activists to the streets in protests, speak outs, and other actions.

On July 16, the day that Harding was shot, there were spontaneous demonstrations in the Bayview and Mission neighborhoods that closed down BART and Muni cars.

A July 20 march in San Francisco called by No Justice No BART, a group formed in the wake of Oscar Grant's killing, saw 150 protesters marching and 46 activists arrested. As the march route passed under a Muni station, a Bank of America window was smashed, and a hammer and flares were thrown at a police station as protesters chanted: "How do you spell murderer? S.F.P.D.!" Protesters carried a large banner that read, "You can't shoot us all!"

As one woman on the demonstration said, "The cops are just trigger-happy. They're trained to shoot young brown and Black men first, and avoid questions later."

That evening, Police Chief Greg Suhr was booed off of the stage by angry residents during a town hall meeting at the Bayview Opera House.

Days earlier, a quickly planned demonstration on July 11 at the BART platform where Charles Hill was murdered had 150 protesters chanting, "No justice! No peace! Disband the BART police!" as they walked in and out of train doors, climbed on trains and successfully shut down three of the busiest downtown San Francisco BART stations for over two hours.

By bringing together diverse community organizations and activists, the recent demonstrations have highlighted the strength in numbers of Californians challenging police violence.

Activists are now planning an August 20 teach-in and protest titled "Freedom from Violence and Police State Terror." Sponsored by the Idriss Stelley Foundation, a San Francisco-based group that works on law enforcement accountability, the protest at San Francisco City Hall is meant to launch a citywide police accountability and transparency movement that can hold police and politicians accountable for the daily violence poor and minority communities are subjected to.

Francois Hughes contributed to this article.

Ethnic Cleansing of Black Libyans

2011-07-02T10:54:00.001+02:00

Rebels, with the help of NATO bombs and missiles, drove out Misrata's Black population

byBlack Star News Editorial

The "rebels" in Misrata in Libya have driven out the entire Black population of the city, according to a chilling story in The Wall Street Journal today under the headline "Libya City Torn by Tribal Feud."

The "rebels" now eye the city of Tawergha, 25 miles away, and vow to cleanse it of all Black people once they seize the city. Isn't this the perfect definition of the term "genocide"?

According to The Journal's article, the "rebels" refer to themselves as "the brigade for purging slaves, black skin." The Journal quotes a rebel commander Ibrahim al-Halbous saying, of Black Libyans, "They should pack up," and that "Tawergha no longer exists, only Mistrata."

You won't read this kind of article in The New York Times, which has become as journalistically corrupt and as compromised as the old PRAVDA, during the Soviet era. This editorial page has been insisting since the beginning of the Libya conflict that the "rebels" embraced racism and used the allegation that Muammar al-Quathafi had employed mercenaries from other African countries as a pretext to massacre Black Libyans.

The evidence of public lynching of Black people are readily available online through simple Google or YouTube searches, even though The New York Times has completely ignored this major story. Does anyone believe that if people of African descent controlled the editorials in The New York Times or even the news pages that such a huge and damning story would be ignored?

If the case were reversed and Black Libyans were committing ethnic cleansing against non-Black Libyans, does anyone believe that the people who now control the editorials or the news pages at The New York Times would ignore such a story? Evidently, it doesn't much bother the sages at The Times that Black Libyans and specifically being targeted for liquidation because of their skin color.

Instead The New York Times is busy, as in a recent editorial boasting of its support for NATO's bombing campaign, which this week alone is reported to have killed 20 civilians. The Times has also ignored Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s call that the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigate NATO commanders on possible war crimes in connection to Libyan civilians killed.

The Times can't write about the ethnic cleansing of Black Libyans and migrants from other African countries because it would diminish the reputation of the "rebels" who the Times have fully embraced, even after the ICC also reported that they too have committed war crimes. Instead, The Times is comfortable with the simplistic narrative: "al-Quathafi bad," and "rebels good," regardless of the fact that The Wall Street Journal also reported that the rebels are being trained by former al-Qaeda leaders who were released from U.S. custody on Guantanamo Bay.

The Times also has totally ignored the African Union (AU) peace plan, which actually calls for a ceasefire, negotiations for a constitution, and democratic elections, all to be monitored by the International community.

So what can one say about the Times for ignoring the ethnic cleansing of Black Libyans by the "rebels" in Mistrata, with the help of NATO? Does this make The New York Times culpable of the ethnic cleansing, since the newspaper not only deliberately ignores the story, but also falsely depicts the "rebels" as Libya's saviors?

Call The New York Times at (212) 556-1234 and ask for the Foreign Desk editor--ask him why his newspaper is not reporting on the ethnic cleansing of Black Libyans.

"Speaking Truth To Empower."

Germany: The despot regime of province authorities

2011-05-16T12:50:00.001+02:00

Foto: A Roma kid seats in fornt of the entrance to protest refugee Lager -
Break the silence in zella-mehlis action day 22.03.11

Action-Day Rally against the refugee Lager camp in Zella-Mehlis on 24.04. at 12.noon, Industriestraße 29

Violation of law and human dignity
An investigation on the actions of Landratsamt Schmalkalden-Meiningen, Thuringia

The despot regime of province authorities

Urlaubsschein : The permission [Urlaubsschein] to leave the Landkreis for a certain time is given out very rarely and selectively. Those who collaborate with the Lager staff and obey any authorities' decision, are in favour. Whereas refugees, who refuse to spy on their comrades and report to the employees, are excluded from any permission.

Firstly, the maximum time being granted to an appplicant for an Urlaubsschein is five days in three months. Secondly, this execution does not in the least correspond with other authorities' practices: The neighbour administration area [Landkreis] of Schmalkalden-Meiningen, which is Suhl, has a completely different and more liberal practice of permitting an Urlaubsschein. It seems that every Landratsamt is ruling its own kingdom and absolutley randomly treating refugees who face the "Jungle Law" .

Housing : The same logic is applied in the field of permitting indiviual housing: Many refugees would have the right to live in a separate flat because of sickness for example. None of them got it. On the other side, there is an inhabitant – friend with the Lager staff – who has his particular flat. All this despite the fact, that the caretaker [Hausmeister] himself confirmed to me the rule of average four single men sharing a flat while pushing me and my wife to share a flat with another woman.

Last year, one kitchen needed to be fixed. It took the workers in the
Lager three months to fix it - a work that could to be done in just a few days. All
refugees of that floor had to go to other floors for cooking throughout the three months.

Taschengeld : Talking about pocket money [Taschengeld], it's identical: Totally dependent on the refugee demanding it or the daily mood, it is given or not. No transparence at all within that Landratsamt.

Intenionally creating sufferance

Any time, a refugee expresses his anger about the conditions, the Lager employees answer the same famous sentence: "Refugees live from the taxes paid by German workers" and "refugees live better than many Germans." **

Gutschein : It is known, that Germany actually permits anyone passing the 4-years line (formerly three) of receiving voucher [Gutschein] to get cash money. In fact, this is disrespected here in the sphere of Landratsamt Meiningen, where anything is possible. There are refugees, that spend ten or twelve years getting only Gutschein. Only when receiving the residence permit, the Gutschein procedure stops.

In the past was another was applied: It was by chipcart,
In those times, the refugee got paid 31.70 every week, which means for times per month. In case, the money was not consumed within that week, it automatically disappeared from the card. The refugee only took note of this, when he ended up at the cash desk in the supermarket. Anytime there was a problem with the chipcard, the refugee had to go to Meiningen, which costs 11.40 by bus – despite that he actually doesn't have the right to get Taschengeld.

Until 2008, the Landratsamt only made shopping in the TOOM market and the CASA N=4 possible, where especially TOOM is more expensive than the other supermarkets.

Medical care : Refugees with health issues are dependent on the permission to go to a doctor instead of deciding this self-determined. Often enoguh, it is denied from the beginning. But in case, a doctor is seen and medicine needs to be bought, the refugees often are asked to cover the costs themselves. Even though, many don't even have the right to possess cash money.

This work been done by Miloud and Salah, a former resident of this lager
for 9 years.

The investigation is going on, more to come in the next reports.

Miloud L Cherif

The VOICE Refugee Forum - Coummunity in Zella-Mehlis

English:
Refugee Community in Zella-Mehlis demand for the right to live a free life in Germany
http://thevoiceforum.org/node/2039
We are Abused, Insulted, Our Privacy and Freedom are taking away from US
http://thevoiceforum.org/node?page=1

Gemeinsam gegen Isolation und Repression – der Solidaritäts- und Aktionstag vom 22.3.2011 in Zella-Mehlis > http://thevoiceforum.org/node/2052
Lager Zella-Mehlis schließen – Die rassistische Isolation der Flüchtlinge durchbrechen
http://thevoiceforum.org/node/2033
„Das Lager muss weg ! “ - Lautstarke Demonstration von Flüchtlingen und UnterstützerInnen in Meiningen am 24.3.2011 > http://thevoiceforum.org/node/2058

Report on Jena Refugee Conference and Zella-Mehlis Lager Protest

2011-05-04T00:21:00.001+02:00

We will Break the Isolation from the Lagers!
Refugee Conference in Jena and Action-day in Zella-Mehlis 22-24.04.2011
Report in German:
Stellungnahme und Video-Bericht von der VOICE-Konferenz in Jena und der Kundgebung in Zella-Mehlis
thevoiceforum.org/node/2110

Mass deportation of Roma from Germany to Kosovo

2011-04-12T22:27:00.001+02:00

Today the future of many inocent people was destroyed!
We do not tolerate any further deportations!

Today, on 12 April, it came despite massive protests and concerns to a large collective deportation to Kosovo. Among the deportees were many Roma, who had been tolerated for years here in Germany. Apart from the fact that deportations represent a violent intrusion into the lives of those affected and therefore already are reprehensible, the deportation of long term tolerated Roma to Kosovo is a special cruelty against innocent people.

Roma in Kosovo are a highly discriminated minority and are exposed to racially motivated attacks and exclusion from society. Their lives are not save there.

Single mothers, elderly and sick people are particularly at risk. In particular, the common practice of the authorities in charge of the tearing apart families, away leads to dramatic destinies and those affected live in fear and vulnerability.

Even now, Germany has an opportunity missed to make amends to a small part of the consequences of the crimes committed against the Roma community by granting Roma refugees protection from discrimination and persecution. On the contrary! New suffering was caused. If we not act quickly especially the youngest generation of children who was born and raised in Germany will have to suffer.

In one case today, a young mother with four young children (1-5 years) was separated from her husband lying in the hospital. Her husband is in a verry bad condition after he was already in January 2010 alone deported to Kosovo. There he lived for several months as a homeless man on the street, before he managed to escape and return to Germany. But he not succeeded his family to see again. He was discovered in Bavaria and put back in detention. After his stay of several months in Kosovo, in deplorable conditions, he was now so ill that he had to be moved to a hospital, where he still fights for his life. In addition to severe tuberculosis and an eye disease he has to cope with the psychological consequences of his experiences. Intensive efforts to prevent the mothers’ deportation failed.

This is just one of known fate of deportation. In the plane were estimated up to 80 involuntary passengers.Many thousands will follow after the plans of the German government. Against the plans has indeed became formed a widespread resistance in the population and the Roma community, but this is not yet enough perceived by the public. Now is important that this resistance is also heard by the people and the politicians.It should be clear that these expulsions cannot be implemented without notice and without resistance. We need the attention of the press for the victims and the fight for their right to stay, so that all may be clear that it should not give these deportations.

Begani family from the district of Wolfenbüttel was lucky. The deportation of the four adult children could be prevented by the decision of a court. The children can stay for the moment with their seriously ill father in Germany.

admin@alle-bleiben.info
www.alle-bleiben.info

Projekt Roma Center Göttingen e.V.
Postfach 30 05
37020 Göttingen

www.roma-center.de
mail@roma-center.de

Bahrain: A Small Country with a Big Struggle Needs Global Support

2011-04-04T17:13:00.001+02:00

Bahrain 101 A Small Country with a Big Struggle Needs Global Support and Attention

By Hanna Nikkanen
Special to The Narco News Bulletin

April 4, 2011

It’s been a long, complicated spring in the Arab world. Bahrain is a small country, unfamiliar to most of us. Right now it’s very important that we know who they are, so even though I’ve never been there, I’ll try to explain…

...Bahrain in a nutshell

On February 17, weeks of non-violent protests against King Hamad’s regime were followed by a ruthless crackdown. In hopes of avoiding the symbolism of Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the government later completely tore down Manama’s Pearl Roundabout, where the largest demonstrations had been taking place.

Bahrain is a sandy archipelago in the Persian gulf, nestled between Saudi Arabia and Qatar. It’s tiny: its total area is slightly smaller than that of a nearby Saudi airport.

Approximately 12 percent of the island nation’s population have participated in the recent protests. They started by demanding greater political rights and, when the regime didn’t budge, many started calling for an end to monarchy.

In mid-March, 1000 troops from Saudi Arabia and 500 from UAE were deployed at the regime’s invitation to “protect assets” and “uphold stability”. The king has declared a three-month martial law that authorises the chief of the armed forces to take all measures to “protect the safety of the country and its citizens”.

Bloggers have been arrested. Hospitals have been raided by the military, doctors and patients brutally beaten.

Al Jazeera English reports from a Manama hospital right after the February crackdown.

Footage from the state TV. The reporter, explaining how there’s no truth to the rumours about attacks on medical staff, is seen turning off her microphone when she hears screams from the hospital.

“We are in a civilized country,” a doctor yells at the camera in Al Jazeera’s report, shocked because his surroundings seem to suggest something else. “We are a civilized people!”

Bahrain is, indeed, a relatively modern country, a fast-growing financial center with a population of just over a million. It may be small, but it is by no means insignificant: Bahrain’s job in the Gulf is to host oil refineries and banks – and the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet.

Now the relevant foreign powers have rallied to support the king. Al Jazeera, too, is keeping a bit of a distance, even though occasionally they publish self-criticism on the matter – like in this piece from March 28: AJE: The West’s ‘double standards’ in Middle East.

A lonely newspaper

Late at night on April 2nd I was talking on Facebook with Bahraini journalist Nada Alwadi. We were subtitling a video (more about that later), me in Helsinki doing the editing, Nada in Manama in charge of the translation. Then Nada got an email from her boss: the Ministry of Information had ordered her newspaper, Alwasat, to shut down.

Alwasat is a thin newspaper, about 20 pages. The country’s other four Arabic dailies are controlled by members of the royal family. Alwasat was founded by Dr. Mansoor Aljamri in 2002 amid a flurry of political reforms. Aljamri, an opposition activist, had recently returned from exile in London.

“They have been attacking whoever is reporting what is really happening,” Nada typed. “Rumors have been spread about our editor-in-chief, our printing building has been attacked and the machines broken, and now here comes this order.”

Minutes later, the newspaper’s website was down.

On April 3rd Alwasat didn’t come out, missing a day for the first time in its history. By the evening, Mansoor Aljamri agreed to leave his position. That seemed to satisfy the ministry, and the paper is back in publication – for now.

“Alwasat will be published again tomorrow”, Nada Alwadi says. “Suspending Dr. Mansoor is a major turn down, as he is a well-known opposition figure. We are all wondering who is next.”

A sectarian uprising?

Bahrain’s state media is intent on portraying the protests as a violent sectarian conflict: the Shia majority against the Sunni ruling class. Many foreign journalists have followed suit, reducing a nation-wide pro-democracy struggle into a sectarian skirmish that threatens the stability in the region and invokes the ghost of Shia-majority Iran.

According to the opposition, the protests have always been non-violent and non-sectarian. “Neither Sunni nor Shia; Bahraini,” was the protesters’ slogan in the now-demolished Pearl Roundabout.

The video that I mentioned above – the one we were subtitling when Nada Alwadi heard about the order to close down her newspaper – repeats that slogan. It’s a song that challenges the media’s portrayal of the movement as a sectarian one.

I am Bahraini, an anti-sectarian song by Waad Alsammaa Band, with English subtitles.

The video shows Sunnis and Shias protesting side by side, often with signs pointing out their dismayal at the regime’s attempts to divide the country along sectarian lines. At 0:39, we see Sunni and Shia men praying together – they position their hands differently in prayer.

A tragic trade-off

On April 2nd, a leaked document seemed to show that Bahrain’s freedom has been sold in a cynical treaty between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

“Two diplomatic sources at the United Nations independently confirmed that Washington, via Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, gave the go-ahead for Saudi Arabia to invade Bahrain and crush the pro-democracy movement in their neighbor in exchange for a ‘yes’ vote by the Arab League for a no-fly zone over Libya,” Pepe Escobar writes in Asia Times.

Escobar continues: “One of the side effects of the dirty US-Saudi deal is that the White House is doing all it can to make sure the Bahrain drama is buried by US media.”

Read Escobar’s entire article here: Asia Times: Exposed: The US-Saudi Libya deal (2 April).

What’s next for Bahrain? The tiny country is teeming with Saudi soldiers, and they may want to stay. The mainstream media seems mostly happy with the simple explanation of a sectarian conflict. The protests continue, although smaller than before, and the religious leaders emphasize the importance of keeping things non-violent, no matter how frustrating it gets.

But it’s becoming obvious that this will be no Egypt.

I wonder if, in our new infatuation with Al Jazeera English, we so-called Westerners are too eager to believe that the Qatari-owned channel is the be-all and end-all of news from the Gulf, and anything that’s not reported on AJE is not worth our time. Or if our news fatigue has already killed our interest in the Arab struggles.

Honestly, I don’t want to believe that our attention span is that short or that our outlook on mass media is that naive.

The Bahrainis are facing a very dangerous time, and we can help by letting the world know that we’re not giving up, that we’re still paying attention. So please spread the word. Circulate the “I am Bahraini” video linked above, look for good articles and link to them, make noise whenever a blogger or a journalist is arrested or an independent newspaper is threatened. Be a Bahraini.

Hanna Nikkanen, of Finland, is in the class of 2011 of the Narco News School of Authentic Journalism.

Egypt: disturbing trends above, contradictory trends below

2011-03-30T12:04:00.002+02:00

28 March 2011. A World to Win News Service. Recent events in Egypt indicate attempts by the US-backed military regime to restabilize the situation on a basis that goes against the aspirations and expectations of many of the youth and others who toppled Hosni Mubarak. The attacks on women demonstrators in Cairo 8 March were a weather vane. There is a rising cold wind representing a convergence between the regime, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists as a force standing against basic social change, and what must be frankly seen as the force of tradition and backwardness that is contending with the people's deep longing for liberation. What was called for as a "Million Woman March" on International Women's Day, in a reference to one of the final demonstrations before Mubarak was forced out, did not reach its goals. The crowd in Tahrir Square numbered only a few hundred or a thousand at most, according to news reports. But it was extremely important in two ways. First, the radicality and relevance of its demands for equal rights for women can be seen in the viciousness with which it was attacked. Second, it brought together a broad section of women, especially but not only young, including women wearing hijab (head scarves) and those whose heads were defiantly uncovered. Some men came out with them as well. These are brave forces with broad roots who are determined to keep the movement going forward. The protest was surrounded by a far larger crowd of men, who heckled them and chanted that women's place is in the home. There was a long period of shouting and debate. Some men argued that this demonstration, held in honour of the martyrs of the anti-Mubarak movement as well as demanding rights for women, was an insult to men. They were incensed by the women's demand that women be allowed to run for the presidency, since, they said, women shouldn't be involved in politics at all. The women persisted in the face of verbal and physical abuse and danger. Many argued vigorously with their accusers. Groups of women and men fought to free women who were being grabbed at and abused. Army security forces in the square did not intervene, except to fire shots in the air at the end as the demonstrators were finally forced to withdraw. Women participants have described the men's behaviour as similar to the crowds of pro-regime thugs who violently attacked the anti-Mubarak protests earlier. This is a complicated question, since at least some of the crowd of men seen in video footage are clearly Islamists, who ended up supporting the anti-Mubarak movement. Interviews and participants' accounts give little reason to believe that it was hard to get together a mob of the same kind of ordinary men who routinely harass and sometimes abuse ordinary women on Cairo's streets, whether wearing hijab or not. (Four out of five women report having been subjected to this, and two out of three men admit having subjected them to it, according to a survey taken in 2008 by the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights widely believed to be accurate.) The following day the army did intervene in Tahrir Square – to clear it of the remaining demonstrators and finally tear down their tents. Although the protest camp was far smaller than in the days leading up to Mubarak's ouster, it was a symbol and rallying point for those who feel that far more change is still required. More than 190 people were arrested. The army targeted the women for some of the most vicious treatment. According to an Amnesty International report based on interviews with women protesters, at least 18 were held in a military detention centre in a Cairo Museum annex near the square. They were handcuffed, beaten with sticks and hoses, and subjected to electric shocks in the chest and legs. Forced to strip naked, their pictures were taken and they were told that the photos could be used against them in the future. Officers demanded to know whether or not they were virgins and submitted them to degrading "virginity checks". They were told that those who were not virgins would be charged with prostitution. All of the women were brought before a military court. Several received suspended one-year prison sentences. They were all released 13 March. Women were at the forefront of the anti-Mubarak movement, and the general atmosphere in Tahrir Square was mainly supportive of their presence. For weeks, up until the day when Mubarak fell and men sexually attacked an American woman reporter, women reported little or no harassment. Several told reporters that for women daily life in the protest camp was like paradise compared to the humiliation they faced on the streets. For millions of Egyptians, Tahrir Square represented the possibility of a different kind of society. The military's behaviour on 9 March basically put their stamp of approval on the mob attacks on the women's rights demonstration the day before. Bad as this is, it is part of an even worse larger picture coming into view. This became fairly plain in the referendum the military held 19 March, meant to clear the way for parliamentary elections within a few months. The military chose a panel to decide what issues to put to a vote and the date. The panel's instructions were, "Get this over with quickly." The referendum was to approve changes to the 1971 constitution. One proposal was to eliminate the changes Mubarak had made to allow him to stay in office indefinitely – which of course the people themselves had already overruled. There was also a proposal to allow candidates to run as independents. This would allow the Muslim Brotherhood to run for parliament as long as they did not officially represent their party, which cannot run in its own name because the constitution bars parties constituted along religious lines. The new parliament could change that. Symbolically, at least, the most important item on the referendum was the addition of a clause forbidding an Egyptian president to have a "foreign" wife. This item combined male chauvinism, national chauvinism and religious intolerance (a popular current of opinion blamed Egypt's woes on alleged female influence on its presidents – Mubarak and his predecessor Anwar Sadat were married to women with English Christian mothers). The mob that attacked the 8 March demonstration had also objected to the presence of foreign women among the protesters. The junta has tried to send some conciliatory messages to the protest movement. The former Interior Minister and other Mubarak regime figures now face trial for killing demonstrators – after protesters led by former political prisoners in Cairo and Alexandria stormed the Amn Dawla (State Security Investigation Service) headquarters and brought out incriminating documents that overworked paper shredders had not yet had time to destroy. The new Interior Minister announced that the SSIS, the secret police whose agents reputedly number in the hundreds of thousands, would be dissolved and replaced with a new organization. A major protest demand was met when Ahmed Shafik, a military man Mubarak, in one of his last acts, had made Prime Minister, stepped down and was replaced by Issam Sharaf, Mubarak's ex-Transportation Minister who came to Tahrir Square to express solidarity with the protesters. However, the decades-old state of emergency is still in force and being viciously wielded. It authorises the military to arrest people and hold them without charges or bring civilians before a military tribunal. Not all of Mubarak's political prisoners have been released, and perhaps a thousand people arrested since Mubarak's fall are still being held. Some have already been sentenced to five years in prison. Currently the ruling military council is considering legislation to make demonstrations and sit-ins illegal. The military's focus on the referendum and early parliamentary elections, then, is not driven by a desire to let the people speak freely, become informed and make decisions but to channel and silence the protest movement and establish a new legitimacy for the rule of the same classes and many of the same men who have long ruled Egypt. Holding parliamentary elections soon, observers agree, would short-circuit the long period of ferment and political and social debate that the military clearly wants to avoid, and favour two parties: Mubarak's National Democratic Party, whose extensive patronage network brought it millions of members, and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Mubarak regime's relations with the Brotherhood were contradictory. Men associated with the Brotherhood served as high officials in part of his government. Mubarak, like Sadat, modified the once secular constitution to declare that Sharia (Islamic religious law) is the source of Egypt's civil law. While for a long time the Brotherhood was allowed to operate semi-openly despite its supposed illegality, in later years Mubarak also manoeuvred to cut down their influence and exclude them from parliament. The secret police jailed and tortured their rank and file members by the thousands. The Brotherhood at first boycotted the movement to get rid of Mubarak, then joined it when it seemed to have a real chance to win. "There is evidence the Brotherhood struck some kind of a deal with the military early on," Elijah Zarwan, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group told The New York Times. The ICG is an authoritative source because as a think tank working out future Western policy it is supported by former heads of state and officials of imperialist powers. "It makes sense to the military: You want stability and people off the street. The Brotherhood is one address where you can go to get 100,000 people off the street." The Brotherhood can do more for the military than get its own members off the street. In recent days Islamist forces have been scuffling with secular people who want to conduct street protests themselves. There are somewhat different trends within the Brotherhood, and outside its ranks is a widespread Salafist movement whose declared aim, unlike the Brotherhood, is strictly religious rule. But there seems to be a trend for Islamic forces in general to oppose attempts by secular forces to continue the protest movement. When the new "pro-revolution" Prime Minister Sharaf came to address a crowd in Tahrir Square, the prominent Brotherhood figure Mohamed al-Beltagi was standing beside him. The referendum seems to have represented the implementation of this new unholy alliance. Although almost two-thirds of the country's eligible voters didn't bother to cast a ballot, all the constitutional changes the military had allowed to be put up to a vote were overwhelmingly approved. To judge by reports from Cairo, Brotherhood officials and members brought people to the polls, queued them up and told them how to vote (and chased away people suspected of being a "no" influence.) At first Brotherhood leaflets pronounced that it was a religious duty to vote for the amendments and that the object of the referendum was to confirm Islam as the regulator of political and social life. Later, when this was widely criticised, they said that a vote for the amendments was a vote for stability. No one can doubt that this is true – a certain kind of stability, the kind that suffocated Egyptians for so long until the rebellion. It is no surprise that millions are still asleep, many wilfully. Now the question is whether or not the millions who have awakened to political life and dared struggle for big changes in their lives, their society and their world are going to be silenced. In this situation, the International Women's Day demonstration, objectively and in the minds of a great many people, both those who supported it and especially those who hated it, embodies a central element characterizing the two roads Egypt faces. The demand for equal rights for women on all levels of law and in practice defies one of the most deeply rooted and extensive features of this society. As in other countries, in Egypt the patriarchal subjugation of women is a basic part of the glue holding together a whole network of relations of exploitation and domination. It is essential to the rule of those classes that both represent these relations and have become junior partners to imperialist monopoly capital and foreign political domination. Further, even in the imperialist (monopoly capitalist) countries where women have won formal (legal) equality through struggle, the logic of the capitalist system has not met and cannot meet the deeper demands for the liberation of women from the powerful persistence of patriarchal domination and old and new chains of inequality and oppression – or in other words, the yearnings that motivated most of the women who demonstrated in Tahrir Square 8 March. How relations will work out between between Egypt's US-trained, financed, armed and lauded military and the variety of Islamic forces is still to be seen. But it has become clear that whether women should go home or keep marching has already become a political dividing line between those who are overjoyed to have thrown out Mubarak but are still unsatisfied, and the most ferocious opponents of social change, those who feel that things have gone far enough or too far already, and want to bring the social upheaval and effervescence to a halt.

CEDP Speaking Tour to End the Death Penalty

2011-03-29T11:26:00.000+02:00

CEDP's National Speaking Tour 2010-2011

Submitted by lily on Wed, 2010-10-13 15:48

Lethal Injustice: Standing against the death penalty and harsh punishment.

A speaking tour to look at what’s behind our massive prison build-up, why so many people of color are locked up and what we can do about it.

Coming tour dates include April 7 - University of Texas-Austin, April 13 - New York City, April 15 - University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, April - University of Chicago, Chicago, April - De Paul University, Chicago

From death rows to super-maxes, over 2.3 million men and women sit behind bars today. "Lethal Injustice" speakers are organizing on the front-lines of the fight against criminal injustice, taking a stand against the racist, prison build-up and harsh sentencing.

Book a Tour stop today! Bring Tour speakers to your campus or community : Email nyc@nodeathpenalty.org for more info.

This national speaking tour will be featuring panelists including, exonerated prisoners, family members, activists, lawyers and scholars.

Mark Clements - former police torture victim, sentenced to life without parole as a juvenile

Martina Correia – sister of Georgia death row prisoner Troy Davis

Jordan Flaherty - journalist and community organizer; author, Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six

Lawrence Hayes - former Black Panther and New York death row prisoner

Victoria Law - author, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women

Anthony Papa - Rockefeller drug law survivor; author, 15 to Life: How I Painted My Way to Freedom

Marvin Reeves - exonerated police torture victim, released in 2009 after serving 21 years

Yusef Salaam – exonerated in the Central Park jogger case

Paul Wright – editor, Prison Legal News

Past Dates Include:

February 17 - Wilmington, Del.

February 18 - Rowan College, Glassboro, N.J.

March 9 - University of Southern California, Los Angeles

March 19-20 - Left Forum Conference, New York City (pending)

March - Grand Valley State University, Allendale, Mich.

Rahim Rostami deported from Norway to Iran in danger of torture or death at Tehran’s Evin prison

2011-03-25T08:44:00.002+01:00

An Iranian-Kurdish asylum seeker extradited from Norway to Iran is in danger of torture, ill-treatment or death at Tehran’s Evin prison

Wednesday 23 March 2011

[English] [فارسى]

Iran Human Rights, March 23: According to reports that reliable sources have given to Iran Human Rights (IHR), an Iranian Kurdish asylum seeker who was extradited from Norway to Iran on February 9th 2011, is in danger of torture, ill-treatment or even death at Tehran’s Evin prison.

Rahim Rostami (19 years old) whose asylum application had been rejected by the Norwegian authorities was arrested by the Norwegian police on February 8th and extradited to Tehran, accompanied by two Norwegian policemen, on February 9th. After being handed over to the Iranian authorities he has been taken to interrogation and later to the notorious Evin prison where he is being held now. According to sources IHR has been in contact with, Rahim has spent many days in solitary confinement.

Iranian authorities have refused releasing him on bail.

Rahim Rostami sought asylum in Norway in 2008, when he was a minor. Norwegian authorities rejected his asylum application and decided to send him back to Iran. In the rejection letter the Norwegian authorities have stated that " We have no reason to believe the asylum seeker (Rahim) will be subjected to persecution, ill-treatment or imprisonment upon his return to Iran".

Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson of Iran Human Rights urged the Norwegian authorities to do whatever they can do in order to save Rahim’s life. He said: "Norwegian authorities must take their share of the responsibility for Rahim’s imprisonment in one of the world’s most notorious prisons". He added: "It is not clear what charges are raised against Rahim, but the fact that the Iranian authorities have refused to release him on bail indicates that his case is very serious and that his life could be in danger". Amiry-Moghaddam also urged the human rights organizations, the civil society and Rahim’s friends in Norway to start a worldwide campaign to save Rahim Rostami’s life.

On extradition of Iranian asylum seekers to Iran, Amiry-Moghaddam said: " Iranian authorities have recently signalized that Iranians who have sought asylum abroad should be charged for "dissemination of false propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran" and punished for that. This means that seeking asylum by itself could be a reason for the Iranian authorities to subject the asylum seekers who are extradited to Iran, to persecution, imprisonment and ill-treatment.

Amiry-Moghaddam urged the authorities of Norway and all other Western countries to immediately stop extradition of Iranian asylum seekers to Iran.

Egyptian women protesters forced to take 'virginity tests'

2011-03-23T22:32:00.000+01:00

23 March 2011

Amnesty International has today called on the Egyptian authorities to investigate serious allegations of torture, including forced 'virginity tests', inflicted by the army on women protesters arrested in Tahrir Square earlier this month.

After army officers violently cleared the square of protesters on 9 March, at least 18 women were held in military detention. Amnesty International has been told by women protesters that they were beaten, given electric shocks, subjected to strip searches while being photographed by male soldiers, then forced to submit to â??virginity checks' and threatened with prostitution charges.

'Virginity tests' are a form of torture when they are forced or coerced.

"Forcing women to have 'virginity tests' is utterly unacceptable. Its purpose is to degrade women because they are women," said Amnesty International. "All members of the medical profession must refuse to take part in such so-called 'tests'."

20-year-old Salwa Hosseini told Amnesty International that after she was arrested and taken to a military prison in Heikstep, she was made, with the other women, to take off all her clothes to be searched by a female prison guard, in a room with two open doors and a window. During the strip search, Salwa Hosseini said male soldiers were looking into the room and taking pictures of the naked women.

The women were then subjected to 'virginity tests' in a different room by a man in a white coat. They were threatened that "those not found to be virgins" would be charged with prostitution.

According to information received by Amnesty International, one woman who said she was a virgin but whose test supposedly proved otherwise was beaten and given electric shocks.

â??Women and girls must be able to express their views on the future of Egypt and protest against the government without being detained, tortured, or subjected to profoundly degrading and discriminatory treatment,â?? said Amnesty International.

"The army officers tried to further humiliate the women by allowing men to watch and photograph what was happening, with the implicit threat that the women could be at further risk of harm if the photographs were made public."

Journalist Rasha Azeb was also detained in Tahrir Square and told Amnesty International that she was handcuffed, beaten and insulted.

Following their arrest, the 18 women were initially taken to a Cairo Museum annex where they were reportedly handcuffed, beaten with sticks and hoses, given electric shocks in the chest and legs, and called 'prostitutes'.

Rasha Azeb could see and hear the other detained women being tortured by being given electric shocks throughout their detention at the museum. She was released several hours later with four other men who were also journalists, but 17 other women were transferred to the military prison in Heikstep

Testimonies of other women detained at the same time collected by the El Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence are consistent with Rasha Azeb and Salwa Hosseini's accounts of beatings, electrocution and 'virginity tests'.

â??The Egyptian authorities must halt the shocking and degrading treatment of women protesters. Women fully participated in bringing change in Egypt and should not be punished for their activism,â?? said Amnesty International.

"All security and army forces must be clearly instructed that torture and other ill-treatment, including forced 'virginity tests', will no longer be tolerated, and will be fully investigated. Those found responsible for such acts must be brought to justice and the courageous women who denounced such abuses be protected from reprisals."

All 17 women detained in the military prison were brought before a military court on 11 March and released on 13 March. Several received one-year suspended prison sentences.

Salwa Hosseini was convicted of disorderly conduct, destroying private and public property, obstructing traffic and carrying weapons.

Amnesty International opposes the trial of civilians before military courts in Egypt, which have a track record of unfair trials and where the right to appeal is severely restricted.

Western powers grab for Libya

2011-03-23T21:37:00.002+01:00

21 March 2010. A World to Win News Service.

The Western powers now bombarding Libya like to pretend that their so-called humanitarian intervention is something new in the world. It would be something new and amazing if the US and Europe were fighting to liberate an oppressed people, but that's not what's happening.

What has now been rebranded as ''humanitarian intervention'' is just as old as what apologists for nineteenth-century colonialism called the ''white man's burden''. And it is no more new than the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, similarly touted as acts taken to rid the people of tyrants, which in fact just brought those peoples even more misery and on top of that foreign occupation.

Our indictment of the Western powers rests on two main arguments based on evidence whose truth would be difficult to deny: what these powers have done in the past, from the late nineteenth century through now, and why they have decided to respond to the Arab spring by singling out Libya for attack. Taken together, an examination of these two questions demonstrates that the West's current actions represent not a break with their colonial past but a continuity.

To start out with the present, without upholding Gaddafi in any way, what has he done to Libyans that other Arab rulers have not done to their own people?

The repression in Bahrain is at least as vicious as in Libya. We are talking, after all, about a movement that initially demanded nothing but legal reforms and not the dismantlement of a regime. Yet Bahrain's security forces have responded with a viciousness rarely seen anywhere else, opening fire on crowds with pistols, rifles and .50 caliber machine guns. Their speciality has been the use of shotguns firing bird shot pellets, so that the number of seriously wounded people is enormous.

People everywhere were rightly outraged when Gaddafi's forces drove up to a Tripoli demonstration in an ambulance and then jumped out shooting. The same thing has happened on an even larger scale in Manama, Bahrain. The security forces there surrounded and burst into the main hospital complex, beating and shooting patients, threatening and beating medical staff, and even arresting a surgeon as he operated on a wounded patient. They are still occupying that hospital and preventing anyone from entering or leaving.

What kind of ''humanitarian intervention'' did the world witness in Bahrain? Troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates poured across the border in tanks and armoured vehicles to support the beleaguered monarchy.

US President Obama rang up the Saudi and Bahraini monarchs and gave them some personal advice. What he told them is not known publicly, but we do know what his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: she called for both sides in Bahrain to abstain from violence and when asked, specifically refused to oppose the Saudi invasion. While she called for ''dialogue'', she refused to criticize the regime for arresting the leadership of what used to be the legal opposition, or for banning demonstrations and any other political activity. She didn't even threaten to cut off US military aid to Bahrain.

Why? Because of Bahrain's strategic importance at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, the dependability of its rulers from the point of view of Western interests, and especially the importance of Saudi Arabia in keeping the region backward and American-dominated.

The very fact that the Bahraini royal family represents a privileged Sunni elite ruling over and against a Shia majority makes this regime extremely dependent on US and British support and therefore pliable to their wishes. This kind of ethnic politics in the interests of empire is much like what the British did in South Asia and Africa.

Even the Western media gives the Bahraini rulers the kind of free pass it never gives Gaddafi. Parroting the US and UK official narrative, the Shia movement for their rights is presented as a ''sectarian conflict'', completely ignoring the question of justice. This is not very different than portraying the Sri Lanka Tamil struggle against being crushed by the Sinhalese rulers or the Black South African struggle against white apartheid as simply unfortunate ethnic rivalries.

The West's pretext is that if they didn't support this absolute monarchy where all major government posts are in the hands of the royal family and there isn't even a parliament, then the majority might be susceptible to Iranian influence, which would be a threat to the Saudi royal family (eastern Saudi Arabia, where the oil is concentrated, is largely Shia) and therefore American and Western interests.

Why is it right for the US and the UK to dominate Bahrain and wrong for Iran to do so (if that were the only alternative, which it isn't)?

The main reason why Bahrain exists as an independent country in the first place is because Britain took it from Iran and allied with the clan that has ruled it for more than two centuries.

And exactly how ''independent'' is a country that is little more than a parking lot for the US Fifth Fleet? What is that fleet even doing there in the first place? It's not "containing" Iranian ambitions since it was put there when Iran was still run by a US client regime. How independent is a place where the Saudis explicitly have the last word, a place whose separate existence seems to be useful above all because it provides an environment where the religious fanatics of the Saudi elite, like their counterparts in Iran and the US, can enjoy the prostitution that is the inevitable accompaniment of their imprisonment of women in their homes, and the alcohol that helps make military service tolerable for American sailors?

And why, exactly, does Saudi Arabia exist, if not because Britain found it useful to bring into existence and because it has been of such service to the UK and US? And why is the rule of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia by god's earthly representatives any better than the same kind of rule in Iran?

In short, for the West, right and wrong are defined by interests – imperialist interests.

Regimes like Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are not necessarily what the US and UK would like to have. Clinton said she was "alarmed" by Bahrain events, and that's probably true, not because of the loss of life but because they make for unwelcome political instability and come at an inconvenient time for the West.

In fact, as seen in Libya, not necessarily every US-friendly despot of today will necessarily be around tomorrow. To paraphrase a nineteenth-century British politician, the imperialists have no permanent allies, only permanent interests.

But what kind of society does the US & Co seek to perpetuate throughout the Middle East, including Libya?

Clinton said she was "thrilled" to be in Cairo's Tahrir Square during the referendum held by the military, which doesn't mind letting people get distracted by the choice of making minor adjustments to the legal order. Most of the clauses in question had to do with limits on a president's term in office, largely irrelevant now that history has vetoed Mubarak's bid to be president for life. The military also added to the constitution a ban on any president marrying a non-Egyptian woman. This is a stinking expression of male chauvinism (it means that a woman president is unthinkable) and religious intolerance, as if what was wrong with Mubarak and his predecessor Anwar Sadat was that they were married to women whose mothers were English Christians. One thing the military did not put up to a vote is the constitutional clause defining Sharia as the main basis for Egyptian law.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the military's choices for this referendum gave its seal of approval for the vile male attacks on women who gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square to celebrate International Women's Day and call for women's rights a week before Clinton's visit. Is this what "thrilled" Clinton? Or was it the fact that the junta hasn't dropped the generations-old state of emergency or released all political prisoners?

Who is claiming to "liberate" Libya?

To look at the other leg of our indictment, look at just who it is that is bombing Libya.

The attack leader was France, which already had its warplanes in the air when the Western nations met to consider a course of action. They started bombing even before the 19 March meeting was finished.

France immediately ignored the stated aim of the UN Security Council resolution authorizing the establishment of a no-fly zone and instead attacked Gaddafi's armoured vehicles. Complaints by some Arab League members, Russia, China and others that this wasn't what they voted to authorize are not to be taken seriously, since France said openly that this is what it planned to do when it called for that resolution.

France previously demonstrated its regard for humanitarian values when its aircraft and troops killed as many as a million Algerians during its war to prevent Algerian independence only 50 years ago. While piously proclaiming the need for "international intervention" in Libya today, France vigorously opposed that independence movement's calls for UN intervention to stop French bombardments of Algerians.

In today's France, only the most ignorant or wilfully blind would argue that President Nicolas Sarkozy has any respect for the lives and rights of Arabs in Libya when he has deliberately expressed flagrant contempt for those of Arab and African immigrants or their children in France.

Some youth in Paris's heavily-immigrant suburbs compare Sarkozy's undisguised lust for blood in Libya to his infamous threat to "clean out the scum with a power hose" in the country's ghettoized housing estates where the hopelessness produced by French society is most ruthlessly enforced by the police. Sarkozy's declaration of war against immigrant youth helped spark the 2005 ghetto rebellion. For all the confusion that reigns among these youth today, there is a stark truth in the connection they see between what the French rulers are doing to them and what they are trying to achieve in the Arab world.

If Sarkozy is so anxious to take the lead in Libya, it is at least partly because France has been weakened in its former colonies and neocolonies in Africa and the Middle East.

The same logic applies to the UK, much of whose empire has been absorbed by the US, despite a record of violence against the world's peoples whose extent and length in Asia and Africa has no parallel in human history.

This relationship with the US has both allowed the UK to retain more of the benefits of empire than might have otherwise been the case, and also made it have to settle for less than what it might otherwise want. Libya is a particularly promising morsel for Britain, whose leading enterprise, BP (formerly known as British Petroleum), purchased the rights to extensive offshore exploration and drilling from Gaddafi. Having a strong hand in deciding what kind of regime will be set up next in Libya is of great importance to the UK, even while it is also paying much attention to regaining political influence in neighbouring Egypt.

While Sarkozy has talked the loudest, UK British leaders have been the most active in visiting Egypt and the Persian Gulf to pick up the threads of British influence that have been somewhat frayed by American domination of these countries. While France had the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia in its pocket, backed the Moroccan monarchy and had a strong hand in Algeria, and the US had Mubarak, the UK was reduced to competing with Italy for Gaddafi. Britain's three governmental parties may disagree on how to handle the treatment of various sectors of society at home, but they all agree that Britain's particular part of the world financial crisis requires deeper and more extensive exploitation of the third world.

As for the US, its slightly ambivalent position reflects its complicated interests in today's Middle East and its already overextended involvement in two wars. While American politicians and pundits (especially during the Bush government) have recognised that most of the regimes the US's regional domination depends on are unsustainable in the long run, Washington has become wary that big changes, especially in the context of today's popular upheaval, may be unfavourable to its interests, both in its conflict with Islamic fundamentalism and in allowing the European powers – who are both allies and rivals – to advance at the expense of a weakening American empire.

Further, as we have analysed previously, the US has its own broader interests in the region and in the world, and its logical, reactionary reasons for wanting to avoid being seen even more than ever as the invader and occupier it really is, especially because of a country it does not consider strategic. This explains the US formulation that the US will be the "leading edge" of the attack on Libya – asserting the leadership that comes from the fact that no other country or even group of countries can match its military strength – while also trying to avoid being at the centre and differing with the UK and even more France about both the publicly admissible and real aims of this war.

Given the complexity of US interests, the relative unity among the American ruling class is just as remarkable as that in the UK. Regardless of what they might prefer, they mostly seem to agree that the worst scenario, from the point of view of the empire, is one which might see further instability and challenges to US domination in the region and the world.

In a word, what the West wants in Libya is control. The interests the monopoly capitalist rulers of all of these powers are pursing have nothing to do with those of the Libyan and other Arab peoples or the world's people – or the most basic and long-term interests of the people in the "homelands". Just the opposite: the aims of this war are the same ones that have motivated European and American policy and actions in the Middle East and elsewhere since the late nineteenth century: the establishment of spheres of influence to monopolize the exploitation of the peoples and their resources, and the establishment or defence of pliant regimes representing exploiting classes whose interests accord with their countries' economic and political domination.

Libya: Popular Uprising, Civilian War, or Military Attack?

2011-03-22T21:09:00.004+01:00

by Grégoire Lalieu and Michel Collon / March 19th, 2011

[This interview took place before the imperialist invasion of Libya, but it provides a requisite background to understanding why this invasion is taking place. -- Eds]

Over the last three weeks there have been confrontations between troops loyal to Colonel Gaddafi and opposition forces based in the east of the country. After Ben Ali and Mubarak, will Gaddafi be the next dictator to fall? Can what is happening in Libya be compared to the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt? What can be made of the antics and u-turns we have seen from the Colonel? Why is NATO preparing for war? How do you tell the difference between a good Arab and a bad Arab? Mohammed Hassan replies to questions from Investig’Action.

Grégoire Lalieu & Michel Collon: After Tunisia and Egypt, has the Arab revolution reached Libya?

Mohammed Hassan: What is happening at the moment in Libya is different. In Tunisia and Egypt, the lack of freedom was flagrant.However, it was the appalling social conditions which really drove young people to rebel.The Tunisians and Egyptians had no hope for the future.

In Libya, Muammar Gadaffi’s regime is corrupt, monopolises a large part of the country’s wealth and has always severely repressed any opposition. But the social conditions of Libyan people are better than in neighbouring countries. Life expectancy in Libya is higher than in the rest of Africa.The health and education systems are good.Libya, moreover, is one of the first African countries to have eradicated malaria.While there are major inequalities in the distribution of wealth, GDP per inhabitant is about $11,000 – one of the highest in the Arab world.You will not therefore find in Libya the same objective conditions that led to the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

GL&MC: How then do you explain what is happening in Libya?

MH: In order to understand current events properly, we should place them in their historic context. Libya was formerly an Ottoman province. In 1835 France took over Algeria. Meanwhile Mohamed Ali, the Egyptian governor under the Ottoman Empire, was implementing ever more independent policies. With the French installed in Algeria on the one hand, and Mohamed Ali in Egypt on the other hand, the Ottomans were fearful of losing control of the region. They sent their troops to Libya.

At the time the Senoussis Brotherhood was highly influential in the country. It had been founded by Sayid Mohammed Ibn Ali as Senoussi, an Algerian who, after studying in his own country and in Morocco, went to preach his version of Islam in Tunisia and Libya. At the start of the 19th century, Senoussie began to attract numerous followers, but he was not much appreciated by certain of the Ottoman religious authorities who criticised him in their sermons.After spending some time in Egypt and in Mecca, Sennoussi decided to exile himself permanently in Cyrenaica, in the east of Libya.

His Brotherhood grew there and organised life in the región, levying taxes, resolving disputes between tribes, etc. It even had its own army and offered its services escorting merchants’ caravans passing through the area. Finally his Senoussis Brotherhood became the de facto government of Cyrenaica, expanding its influence even as far as northern Chad. But then the European colonial powers installed themselves in Africa, dividing the sub-Saharan part of the continent. That had a negative impact on the Senoussis.Libya’s invasion by Italy also seriously undermined the Brotherhood’s regional hegemony.

GL&MC: In 2008 Italy paid compensation to Libya for the crimes of the colonialists.Was colonisation as terrible as all that?Or did Berlusconi want to be seen in a good light in order to be able to conclude commercial contracts with Gaddafi?

MH: The colonisation of Libya was dreadful. At the beginning of the 20th century, a fascist government began spreading propaganda claiming that Italy, which had been defeated by the Ethiopian army at the battle of Adoua in 1896, needed to re-establish the supremacy of the white man over the black continent. It was necessary to cleanse the great civilised nation of the affront inflicted on it by the barbarians. This propaganda claimed that Libya was a country of savages, inhabited by a few backward nomads and it would be good for Italians to install themselves in this pleasant region with its picture postcard beauty.

The invasion of Libya arose out of the Italian-Turkish war of 1911 – a particularly bloody conflict which ended in victory for Italy a year later. Nevertheless, the European power only gained control of the Tripoli region and met with fierce resistance in the rest of the country, especially in Cyrenaica.The Sennousi clan supported Omar al-Mokhtar who led a remarkable guerrilla struggle in the forests, caves and mountains. He inflicted serious losses on the Italian army, although the latter was much better equipped and numerically superior.

Finally, at the beginning of the 1930s, Mussolini took radical measures to wipe out the resistance.Repression became extremely brutal and one of the main butchers, General Rodolfo Graziani, worte:“Italian soldiers were convinced that hey had been entrusted with a noble and civilising mission … They owed it to themselves to fulfil this humane duty at whatever cost … If the Libyans cannot be convinced of the fundamental benefits of what has been proposed to them, then Italians must wage a continual struggle against them and can destroy the entire Libyan population in order to bring peace, the peace of the cemetery …”

In 2008, Silvio Berlusconi paid compensation to Libya for these colonial crimes. Of course it was based on ulterior motives. Berlusconi wanted to get himself into Gaddafi’s good books in order to facilitate economic partnerships. Nevertheless, one can say that the Libyan people suffered terribly under colonialism. It would be no exaggeration to speak in terms of genocide.

GL&MC: How did Libya win its Independence?

MH: While the Italian colonists were suppressing the resistance in Cyrenaica, the Senoussis leader, Idriss, exiled himself in Egypt in order to negotiate with the British.After the Second World War, the European colonial empire was gradually dismantled and Libya became independent in 1951.Supported by Britain, Idriss took power. However, part of the Libyan bourgeoisie, under the influence of Arab nationalism that was developing in Cairo, wanted Libya to become part of Egypt. But the imperialists did not want to see a great Arab nation formed.They therefore supported the independence of Libya by putting their puppet, Idriss into power.

GL&MC: Did King Idriss go along with all this?

MH: Absolutely. At independence, the three regions that made up Libya – Tripolitana, Fezzan and Cyrenaica – found themselves united in a federal system. But it should be borne in mind that Libya is three times larger than France.Because of a lack of infrastructure, the borders of this territory could not be clearly defined until after the aeroplane had been invented.And in 1951, the country only had 1 million inhabitants. Furthermore, the three regions that had just been united had a very different culture and history. Finally, the country lacked roads linking the regions to facilitate communication. Libya was in fact at a very backward stage, and it was not a true nation.

GL&MC: Can you explain this concept?

MH: The nation state is a concept linked to the appearance of the bourgeoisie and of capitalism. In Europe in the middle ages, the capitalist bourgeoisie desired to spread its business interests on as wide a scale as possible, but was impeded in by all the constraints of the feudal system.Territories were divided up into numerous tiny entities which imposed on merchants a large number of taxes if they wanted to transport merchandise from one place to another. And this is without taking into account the various obligations they had to perform for the feudal lords.All these obstacles were removed by the capitalist bourgeois revolutions which allowed them to create nation-states, and big national markets, without obstacles.

But the Libyan nation was created at a time when it was still at a pre-capitalist stage. It lacked the infrastructure; a large part of the population was nomadic and impossible to control; divisions within society were very strong; slavery was still practised. Furthermore King Idriss had no plan for developing the country. He was entirely dependent on US and British aid.

GL&MC: Why did he receive the support of the US and Britain? Was it to do with oil?

MH: In 1951 Libyan oil had not yet been discovered. But the Anglo-Saxons had military bases in the country because it occupies a strategic position from the point of view of control of the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.

It was only in 1954 that a rich Texan, Nelson Bunker Hunt, discovered Libyan oil. At the time Arab oil was being sold at around 90c a barrel. But Libyan oil was bought for 30c because the country was so backward. It was perhaps the poorest in Africa.

GL&MC: But money was nevertheless coming in thanks to oil.What was it used for?

MH: King Idriss and his Senoussis clan enriched themselves personally. They also distributed part of the oil revenues to the heads of other tribes in order to pacify tensions. A small élite developed thanks to the oil trade and some infrastructure was built, principally along the Mediterranean coast, the area of greatest importance for external trade.But the rural areas in the heart of the country remained very poor and large numbers of the poor began to flood into slums around the cities.This continued until 1969 when three officers overthrew the king, one of whom was Gaddafi.

GL&MC: How come the revolution was carried out by army officers?

MH: In a country deeply rent by tribal divisions, the army was in fact the only national institution. Libya as such did not exist except through its army. Alongside this, King Idriss’s Senoussis had their own militia. But in the national army, Libyans from the different regions could get to know each other.

Gaddafi had at first developed as part of a Nasserite group, but then came to understand that this organisation would not be able to overthrow the monarchy, so he joined the army. The three officers who overthrew King Idriss were very much influenced by Nasser. Gamal Abdel Nasser was himself an officer in the Egyptian army that overthrew King Farouk. Inspired by socialism, Nasser was opposed to the interference of foreign neo-colonialism and preached the unity of the Arab world.Moreover he nationalised the Suez Canal, which had until then been managed by France and the UK, which attracted the hostility of the West and bombing in 1956.

The revolutionary pan-Arabism of Nasser was a major influence in Libya, especially in the army and over Gaddafi.The Libyan officers who carried out the coup d’état in 1969 were following the same agenda as Nasser.

GL&MC: What were the effects of the revolution on Libya?

MH: Gaddafi had two options. Either he could leave Libyan oil in the hands of western companies, as King Idriss had done – with Libya becoming like one of the oil monarchies of the Gulf where slavery is still practised, women have no rights and European architects can indulge themselves in building all kinds of bizarre constructions with astronomical budgets supplied at the end of the day from the wealth of the Arab peoples. Or he could follow the road of independence from the neo-colonial powers. Gaddafi chose the second option. He nationalised Libyan oil, greatly angering the imperialists.

In the 1950s a joke went round the White House at the time of the Eisenhower administration, which under Reagan was turned into an actual political theory. How do you tell good Arabs from bad Arabs? A good Arab does was the US tells him. In return he gets aeroplanes, is permitted to deposit his money in Switzerland, is invited to Washington, etc. These are the people Eisenhower and Reagan called good Arabs – the Kinds of Saudi Arabia and Jordan, the Sheikhs and Emirs of Kuwait and the Gulf, the Shah of Iran, the King of Morocco and, of course, King Idris of Libya. The bad Arabs? Those were the ones who did not obey Washington: Nasser, Gaddafi and later Saddam …

GL&MC: All the same, Gadaffi is not very …

MH: Gaddafi is not a bad Arab because he ordered the crowd to be fired on.The same thing was done in Saudi Arabia or in Bahrain and the leaders of those countries still receive all the honours the West can confer. Gaddafi is a bad Arab because he nationalised Libyan oil, which the western companies believed – until the 1969 revolution, to be their own. By doing this, Gaddafi brought about positive changes in Libya in what concerns infrastructure, education, health, the position of women, etc.

>GL&MC: Well, Gaddafi overthrew the monarchy, nationalised oil, opposed the imperial powers and brought about positive changes in Libya. Nevertheless, 40 years later, he is a corrupt dictator which suppresses all opposition and who is once again opening his country to western companies. How do you explain that change?

MH: From the start, Gaddafi was opposed to the great colonial powers and generously supported various liberation movements throughout the world. I think he was very good for that reason. But to give the full picture, it is also necessary to mention that the Colonel was an anti-communist. In 1971, for example, he sent back to Sudan an aeroplane which was carrying Sudanese communist dissidents who were immediately executed by President Nimeiri.

The truth is that Gaddafi has never been a great visionary. His revolution was a bourgeois national revolution and what he established in Libya was state capitalism. To understand how his regime lost its way, we must analyse the context – which has gone against it – and also the personal mistakes made by Gaddafi.

First of all, we have seen that Gaddafi had to start from scratch in Libya. The country was very backward.There were no educated people at his disposal or strong working class to support the revolution. Most of the people who had received education were members of the élite who had bartered Libya’s wealth to the neo-colonial powers. Obviously these people weren’t going to support the revolution and most of them left the country in order to organise opposition from abroad.

Besides, the Libyan officers who overthrew King Idriss were much influenced by Nasser. Egypt and Libya sought to tie up a strategic partnership. But when Nasser died in 1970, this project was dead in the water and Egypt became a counter-revolutionary country aligned with the West. The new Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, allied himself with the US, progressively liberalised the country’s economy and entered into an alliance with Israel. A brief conflict even broke out with Libya in 1977. Imagine the situation in which Gaddafi found himself: the country which had inspired him and with which he had been hoping to set up an important alliance had suddenly become an enemy!

Another element of the situation worked against the Libyan revolution: the major fall in oil revenues during the 1980s. In 1973, at the time of the Israeli-Arab war, the oil-producing countries decided to impose an embargo that caused the price of a barrel of oil to shoot up. This embargo brought about the first great transfer of wealth from the North in the direction of the South. But during the 1980s there also took place what one could call an oil counter-revolution orchestrated by Reagan and the Saudis. Saudi Arabia increased its production considerably and flooded the market, causing a massive drop in prices. The barrel went down from $35 to $8.

GL&MC: Wasn’t Saudi Arabia shooting itself in the foot?

MH: Of course this had a negative impact on the Saudi economy. But oil is not the most important thing for Saudi Arabia. Its relationship with the US matters most, because it is the support of Washington that allows the Saudi dynasty to stay in power.

This tidal wave affecting the oil price proved catastrophic for several petrol-producing countries who fell into debt. All this happened only 10 years after Gaddafi came to power. The Libyan leader, who came from nothing, was seeing the only means he had to build anything disappear like molten snow as the oil money dwindled.

It should also be borne in mind that this oil counter revolution also accelerated the collapse of the USSR which at the time was bogged down in Afghanistan. With the disappearance of the Soviet bloc, Libya lost its major source of political support and found itself isolated on the international scene, and moreover featured on the Reagan administration’s list of terrorist states and was subjected to a whole series of sanctions.

GL&MC: What were Gaddafi’s mistakes?

MH: As I have said, he wasn’t a great visionary.The theory developed in connection with his Green Book is a mix of anti-imperialism, Islamism, nationalism, state capitalism and other things. Besides his lack of political vision, Gaddafi made a serious mistake in attacking Chad in the 1970s. Chad is Africa’s 5th largest country and the Colonel, no doubt feeling Libya was too small to accommodate his megalomanic ambitions, annexed the Aozou Strip. It is true that historically the Senoussis Brotherhood had exercised its influence on this region. And in 1945 the French Foreign Minister, Pierre Laval, wanted to buy off Mussolini by offering him the Aozou Strip.¹ But in the end Mussolini drew close to Hitler and the deal remained a dead letter.

Gaddafi nevertheless wanted to annex this territory and engaged in a struggle against Paris for influence over this former French colony. In the end, the US, France, Egypt, Sudan and other reactionary forces in the region supported the Chadian army which defeated the Libyan troops. Thousands of soldiers and large quantities of arms were captured. The President of Chad, Hissène Habré, sold these soldiers on to the Reagan administration; and the CIA used them as mercenaries in Kenya and Latin America.

But the Libyan revolution’s biggest mistake was to have bet too heavily on its oil. It is human resources that are a country’s greatest wealth. You cannot succeed in a revolution if you do not develop national harmony, social justice and a fair distribution of wealth.

However, the Colonel never eliminated the discriminatory practices that had long been a tradition in Libya. How can you mobilise the population if you do not prove to the Libyans that whatever their ethnic or tribal backgrounds, all are equal and can work together for the good of the nation? The majority of the Libyan population is Arab, speaks the same language and shares the same religion. Ethnic diversity is not very important. It would have been possible to abolish all discrimination in order to mobilise the population.

Gadaffi was also incapable of educating the Libyan people in revolutionary matters. He did not raise the level of political consciousness of citizens and did not build a party to support the revolution.

GL&MC: Nevertheless, in accordance with his 1975 Green Book, he did set up people’s committees, a kind of direct democracy.

MH: This attempt at direct democracy was influenced by Marxist-Leninist concepts. But these people’s committees in Libya were not based on any political analysis, or any clear ideology.They failed. Neither did Gaddafi build a political party to support his revolution. In the end, he cut himself off from the people. The Libyan revolution became a one-man project. Everything revolved around this charismatic leader divorced from reality.And while a gulf opened up between the leader and his people, force and repression step in to fill the void. Excess began to follow excess, corruption expanded and tribal differences crystallised.

Today these divisions have come to the forefront in the Libyan crisis. There is of course a part of Libyan youth that is tired of the dictatorship and has been influenced by events in Tunisia and Egypt. But these popular sentiments are being taken advantage of by the opposition in the east of the country which is after its share of the cake, the distribution of wealth having been very unequal under the Gaddafi regime. It will not belong before the real contradictions see the light of day.

Moreover we don’t know a great deal about this opposition movement.Who are they? What is their programme? If they really wanted to wage a democratic revolution, why have they resorted to he flags of King Idriss, symbols of the time when Cyrenaica was the country’s dominant province? If you are part of a country’s opposition, and as a patriot you want to overthrow your government, you must try to do this correctly. You do not cause a civil war in your own country and you do not put it at risk of balkanisation.

GL&MC: In your view, it is no longer just a question of a civil war resulting from contradictions between different Libyan clans?

MH: It’s worse, I think.There have already been inter-tribal contradictions but they have never been so widespread. Here the US is fanning the flames of these tensions in order to be able to intervene militarily in Libya. From the very first days of the insurrection, the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was suggesting arming the opposition. From early on the opposition organised by the National Council refused all foreign interference on the part of foreign powers because they knew that any such interference would discredit their movement.But today some of the opposition are calling for armed intervention.

Since this conflict broke out, President Obama has called for all possible options to be considered and the US Senate is calling on the international community to impose a no-fly zone over Libyan territory, which would be a real act of war. Moreover the nuclear aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise, which was stationed in the Gulf of Aden to counter piracy, has travelled up to the Libyan coast. Two amphibian ships, USS Kearsage and USS Ponce, with several thousands of marines and fleets of combat helicopters aboard, have also been stationed in the Mediterranean.

Last week, Louis Michel, former EU Development and Humanitarian Aid commissioner, forcefully raised the question in a TV studio as to which government would have courage to make the case to its parliament for the necessity of military intervention in Libya. But Louis Michel never demanded any such intervention in Egypt or Bahrain.Why was that?

GL&MC: Is the repression not more violent in Libya?

MH: The repression was very violent in Egypt but NATO never sent warships to the Egyptian coast to threaten Mubarak. There was merely an appeal to find a democratic solution.

In the case of Libya, it is necessary to be very careful with the information that reaches us. One day there is talk of 2,000 deaths, and the next day the count is revised to 300. It was also being said from the very start of the crisis that Gaddafi was bombing his own people, but the Russian army, which is observing the situation by satellite, has officially given lie to that information. If NATO is preparing to intervene militarily in Libya, we can be sure that the dominant information media are going to spread their usual war propaganda.

In fact the same thing happened in Romania with Ceausescu. On Christmas Eve, 1989, the Belgian prime minister, Wilfred Martiens, made a speech on television.He claimed that Ceaucescu’s security forces had just killed 12,000 people.It was untrue.The images of the famous Timosoara massacre also did the rounds all over the world.They were aimed at proving the mindless violence of the Romanian president.But it was proved later on that it was all staged. Bodies had been pulled out of morgues and placed in trenches in order to impress journalists. It was also said that the communists had poisoned the water, that Syrian and Palestinian mercenaries were present in Romania, or even that Ceaucescu had trained orphans as killing machines.It was all pure propaganda aimed at destabilising the regime.

In the end Ceaucescu and his wife were killed after a kangaroo court trial lasting 55 minutes. Of course, the Romanian president, like Gaddafi, was no choir boy. But what has happened since? Romania has become a European semi-colony. Its cheap labour power is exploited. Numerous services have been privatised for the benefit of western companies, and they are financially out of reach for a large part of the population. And now every year there is no shortage of Romanians who go to weep on Ceaucescu’s tomb. The dictatorship was a terrible thing, but after the country was destroyed economically, it’s even worse.

GL&MC: Why did the US want to overthrow Gaddafi? For the last ten years or so, the Colonel has been quite amenable to the West and privatised a large party of the Libyan economy, benefitting western companies in the process.

MH: One must analyse all these events in the light of the new balance of forces in the world. The imperialist powers are in decline, while other forces are on the rise. Recently China offered to buy the Portuguese debt! In Greece, the population is more and more hostile to this European Union that it perceives as a cover for German imperialism. Similar feelings are growing in the countries of the East. Furthermore, the US attacked Iraq in order to get control of its oil, but in the end only one US company is benefiting; the rest of the oil is being exploited by Malaysian and Chinese companies.In short, imperialism is in crisis.

In addition, the Tunisian revolution really took the West by surprise. The fall of Mubarak even more so. Washington is attempting to regain its influence over these popular movements but its control is slipping away. In Tunisia, prime minister Mohamed Ghannouchi, a straightforward product of the Ben Ali dictatorship, was meant to control the transition, creating the illusion of change. But the people’s determination forced him to resign. In Egypt, the US was relying on the army to keep an acceptable system in place. But I have received information confirming that in very many military barracks around the country, young officers are organising themselves in revolutionary committees in support of the Egyptian people. They have even arrested certain officers associated with the Mubarak regime.

The region could well escape US control. Intervention in Libya would allow Washington to smash this revolutionary movement and stop it spreading to the rest of the Arab world and to Africa. Since last week, the young have been rising in Burkina Faso but the media are quiet about this. As they are about the demonstrations taking place in Iraq.

Another danger for the US is the possible emergence of anti-imperialist governments in Tunisia and Egypt. Should this happen, Gaddafi would no longer be isolated and could renege on the agreements concluded with the West. Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia could unite to form an anti-imperialist bloc. With all the resources they have at their disposal, especially Gaddafi’s large foreign reserves, the three of them could become a major regional power – probably more important than Turkey.

GL&MC: Yet Gaddafi supported Ben Ali when the Tunisian people rebelled.

MH: That goes to show to what extent he is weak, isolated and out of touch with reality. But the changing balance of forces in the region could change matters. Gaddafi could shift his rifle to the other shoulder – it wouldn’t be for the first time.

GL&MC: How could the situation in Libya pan out?

MH: The western powers and the so-called opposition movement have rejected Chavez’s offer of mediation. This means that they are not interested in a peaceful solution to the conflict. But the effects of a NATO intervention would be disastrous.We have seen what that did to Kosovo or Afghanistan.

Moreover, military aggression could encourage Islamic groups to enter Libya who might be able to seize major arms caches there. Al Qaeda could infiltrate and turn Libya into a second Iraq. Besides, there are already armed groups in Niger that nobody has been able to control. Their influence could extend to Libya, Chad, Mali and Algeria.By preparing for military intervention, imperialism is in the process of opening the gates of Hell.

To conclude, the Libyan people deserve better than this opposition movement that is plunging the country into chaos. They need a real democratic movement to replace the Gaddafi regime and bring about social justice. In any case, the Libyans do not deserve military aggression. The retreating imperialist forces seem nevertheless to be preparing a counter-revolutionary offensive in the Arab World. Attacking Libya is their emergency solution. But they will be shooting themselves in the feet.

This area is rich in uranium. [↩]

10 Reasons to say no to western intervention in Libya

2011-03-22T09:10:00.001+01:00

By Andrew Murray, National Chair, Stop the War Coalition
14 March 2011

The political campaign to launch a military intervention in Libya – ostensibly on humanitarian grounds but with patently political ends in sight – is gathering steam among the NATO powers. A “no-fly zone” has now been urged by the Arab League – for the most part a collection of frightened despots desperate to get the US military still more deeply involved in the region. That would be the start of a journey down slippery slope.

Here are ten reasons to resist the siren calls for intervention:

Intervention will violate Libya’s sovereignty. This is not just a legalistic point – although the importance of observing international law should not be discounted if the big powers in the world are not to be given the green light run amok. As soon as NATO starts to intervene, the Libyan people will start to lose control of their own country and future.
Intervention can only prolong, not end the civil war. “No-fly zones” will not be able to halt the conflict and will lead to more bloodshed, not less.
Intervention will lead to escalation. Because the measures being advocated today cannot bring an end to the civil war, the next demand will be for a full-scale armed presence in Libya, as in Iraq – and meeting the same continuing resistance. That way lies decades of conflict.
This is not Spain in 1936, when non-intervention meant helping the fascist side which, if victorious in the conflict, would only encourage the instigators of a wider war – as it did. Here, the powers clamouring for military action are the ones already fighting a wider war across the Middle East and looking to preserve their power even as they lose their autocratic allies. Respecting Libya’s sovereignty is the cause of peace, not is enemy.
It is more like Iraq in the 1990s, after the First Gulf War. Then, the US, Britain and France imposed no-fly zones which did not lead to peace – the two parties in protected Iraqi Kurdistan fought a bitter civil war under the protection of the no-fly zone – and did prepare the ground for the invasion of 2003. Intervention may partition Libya and institutionalise conflict for decades.
Or it is more like the situation in Kosovo and Bosnia. NATO interference has not lead to peace, reconciliation or genuine freedom in the Balkans, just to endless corrupt occupations.
Yes, it is about oil. Why the talk of intervening in Libya, but not the Congo, for example? Ask BP.
It is also about pressure on Egyptian revolution – the biggest threat to imperial interests in the region. A NATO garrison next door would be a base for pressure at least, and intervention at worst, if Egyptian freedom flowers to the point where it challenges western interests in the region.
The hypocrisy gives the game away. When the people of Bahrain rose against their US-backed monarchy and were cut down in the streets, there was no talk of action, even though the US sixth fleet is based there and could doubtless have imposed a solution in short order. As top US republican Senator Lindsey Graham observed last month “there are regimes we want to change, and those we don’t”. NATO will only ever intervene to strangle genuine social revolution, never to support it.
Military aggression in Libya – to give it the righty name – will be used to revive the blood-soaked policy of ‘liberal interventionism’. That beast cannot be allowed to rise from the graves of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Libya: Is Washington Pushing for Civil War to Justify a US-NATO Military Intervention?

2011-02-27T22:49:00.000+01:00

by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

Is Tripoli being set up for a civil war to justify U.S. and NATO military intervention in oil-rich Libya?

Are the talks about sanctions a prelude to an Iraq-like intervention?

Something is Rotten in the so-called “Jamahiriya” of Libya

There is no question that Colonel Muammar Al-Gaddafi (Al-Qaddafi) is a dictator. He has been the dictator and so-called “qaid” of Libya for about 42 years. Yet, it appears that tensions are being ratcheted up and the flames of revolt are being fanned inside Libya. This includes earlier statements by the British Foreign Secretary William Hague that Colonel Qaddafi had fled Libya to Venezuela. [1] This statement served to electrify the revolt against Qaddafi and his regime in Libya.

Although all three have dictatorship in common, Qaddafi’s Libya is quite different from Ben Ali’s Tunisia or Mubarak’s Egypt. The Libyan leadership is not outright subservient to the United States and the European Union. Unlike the cases of Tunisia and Egypt, the relationship that exists between Qaddafi and both the U.S. and E.U. is a modus vivendi. Simply put, Qaddafi is an independent Arab dictator and not a “managed dictator” like Ben Ali and Mubarak.

In Tunisia and Egypt the status quo prevails, the military machine and neo-liberalism remain intact; this works for the interests of the United States and the European Union. In Libya, however, upsetting the established order is a U.S. and E.U. objective.

The U.S. and the E.U. now seek to capitalize on the revolt against Qaddafi and his dictatorship with the hopes of building a far stronger position in Libya than ever before. Weapons are also being brought into Libya from its southern borders to promote revolt. The destabilization of Libya would also have significant implications for North Africa, West Africa, and global energy reserves.

Colonel Qaddafi in Brief Summary

Qaddafi’s rise to power started as a Libyan lieutenant amongst a group of military officers who carried out a coup d’état. The 1969 coup was against the young Libyan monarchy of King Idris Al-Sanusi. Under the monarchy Libya was widely seen as being acquiescent to U.S. and Western European interests.

Although he has no official state or government position, Qaddafi has nurtured and deeply rooted a political culture of cronyism, corruption, and privilege in Libya since the 1969 coup. Added to this is the backdrop of the “cult of personality” that he has also enforced in Libya.

Qaddafi has done everything to portray himself as a hero to the masses, specifically the Arabs and Africans. His military adventures in Chad were also tied to leaving his mark in history and creating a client state by carving up Chad. Qaddafi’s so-called “Green Book” has been forcefully portrayed and venerated as being a great feat in political thought and philosophy. Numerous intellectuals have been forced or bribed to praise it.

Over the years, Colonel Qaddafi has tried to cultivate a romantic figure of himself as a simple man of the people. This includes pretending to live in a tent. He has done everything to make himself stand out. His reprimanding of other Arab dictators, such as King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, at Arab League meetings have made headlines and have been welcomed by many Arabs. While on state visits he has deliberately surrounded himself with an entourage of female body guards with the intent of getting heads to turn. Moreover, he has also presented himself as a so-called imam or leader of the Muslims and a man of God, lecturing about Islam in and outside of Libya.

Libya is run by a government under Qaddafi’s edicts. Fear and cronyism have been the keys to keeping so-called “order” in Libya amongst officials and citizens alike. Libyans and foreigners alike have been killed and have gone missing for over four decades. The case of Lebanon’s Musa Al-Sadr, the founder of the Amal Movement, is one of the most famous of these cases and has always been a hindrance to Lebanese-Libyan relations. Qaddafi has had a very negative effect in creating and conditioning an entire hierarchy of corrupt officials in Tripoli. Each one looks out for their own interests at the expense of the Libyan people.

Fractions and Tensions inside the Hierarchy of Qaddafi’s Regime

Because of the nature of Qaddafi’s regime in Tripoli, there are a lot of internal tensions in Libya and within the regime structure itself. One of these sets of tensions is between Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi and his father’s circle of older ministers. Libyan ministers are generally divided amongst those that gather around Saif Al-Islam and those that are part of the “old guard.”

There are even tensions between Qaddafi and his sons. In 1999, Mutassim Al-Qaddafi tried to ouster his father while Colonel Qaddafi was outside of Libya. Mutassim Qaddafi holds a Libyan cabinet portfolio as a national security advisor. He is also famously known amongst Libyans for being a playboy who has spent much of his time in Europe and abroad. There is also Khames Gaddafi who runs his own militia of thugs, which are called the Khames militia. He has always been thought of as possible contender for succession too against his other brothers.

There have always been fears in Libya about the issue of succession after Colonel Qaddafi is gone. Over the years, Qaddafi has thoroughly purged Libya of any form of organized opposition to him or prevented anyone else, outside his family, from amassing enough power to challenge his authority.

The Issue of Loyalty and Defection in Libya

Undoubtedly, little loyalty is felt for Qaddafi and his family. It has been fear that has kept Libyans in line. At the level of the Libyan government and the Libyan military it has been both fear and self-interest that has kept officials, good and corrupt alike, in line. That mantle of fear has now been dispelled. Statements and declarations of denunciation against Gaddafi’s regime are being heard from officials, towns, and military barracks across Libya.

Aref Sharif, the head of the Libyan Air Force, has renounced Qaddafi. Interior Minister Abdul Fatah Al-Yunis (Al-Younis), who is from Benghazi (Bengasi) and oversees a branch of the special operations work in Libya, has resigned. Yunis is reported to be Qaddafi’s “number two” or second in charge, but this is incorrect. Abdullah Sanusi, the head of Libyan Internal Intelligence and Qaddafi’s relative through marriage, is the closest thing to a “number two” within the structure of power in Tripoli.

Reports have been made about two Libyan pilots defected to Malt and Libyan naval vessels refusing to attack Benghazi. Defections are snowballing amongst the military and government. Yet, there must be pause to analyze the situation.

The Libyan Opposition

At this point, however, it must be asked who is the “opposition” in Libya. The opposition is not a monolithic body. The common denominator is the opposition to the rule of Qaddafi and his family. It has to be said that “actions of opposition or resistance against an oppressor” and an “opposition movement” are also two different things. For the most part, the common people and corrupt Libyan officials, who harbour deep-seated hate towards Qaddafi and his family, are now in the same camp, but there are differences.

There is an authentic form of opposition, which is not organized, and a systematic form of opposition, which is either external or led by figures from within the Libyan regime itself. The authentic people’s internal opposition in Libya is not organized and the people’s “actions of opposition” have been spontaneous. Yet, opposition and revolt has been encouraged and prompted from outside Libya through social media networks, international news stations, and events in the rest of the Arab World. [2]

The leadership of the internal opposition that is emerging in Libya is coming from within the regime itself. Corrupt officials that have rebelled against Gaddafi are not the champions of the people. These opposition figures are not opposed to tyranny; they are merely opposed to the rule of Colonel Qaddafi and his family. Aref Sharif and Al-Yunis are themselves Libyan regime figures.

It has to also be considered that some Libyan officials that have turned against Qaddafi are doing it to save themselves, while others in the future will work to retain or strengthen their positions. Abdel Moneim Al-Honi, the Libyan envoy to the Arab League in Cairo, can be looked at as an example. Al-Honi denounced Qaddafi, but it should be noted that he was one of the members of the group of Libyan officers who executed the coup in 1969 with Qaddafi and that later in 1975 he himself tried to take power in a failed coup. After the failed coup, he would flee Libya and only return in 1990 after Qaddafi pardoned him.

Al-Honi is not the only Libyan diplomat to resign. The Libyan ambassador to India has also done the same. There is an intention on the part of these officials to be members of the power structure in a Libya after the ouster of Qaddafi:

Libyan Ambassador to India Ali al-Essawi told the BBC that he was quitting, opposing his government's violent crackdown on demonstrators.

Mr. Al-Essawi was reported to be a Minister in Tripoli and could be an important figure in an alternative government, in case Libyan President Muammar Qadhafi steps down.

The second Libyan diplomat to put in his papers was Tripoli's Permanent Representative to the Arab League Abdel Moneim al-Honi, who said in Cairo that he had quit his job to “join the revolution” in his country.

“I have submitted my resignation in protest against the acts of repression and violence against demonstrators, and I am joining the ranks of the revolution,” said Mr. Al-Honi. The Second Secretary Hussein Sadiq al Musrati, announced his resignation from China, in an interview with Al-Jazeera, and called on the Army to intervene in the uprising. [3]

Again, these revolting officials, like Al-Yunis and Sharif, are from within the regime. They are not mere diplomats, but former ministers. There is also the possibility that these types of “opposition figures” could have or could make arrangements with external powers.

External Forces at Play in Libya

The governments of the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, and Italy all knew very well that Qaddafi was a despot, but this did not stop any of them from making lucrative deals with Tripoli. When the media covers the violence in Libya, they should also ask, where are the weapons being used coming from? The arms sales that the U.S. and the E.U. have made to Libya should be scrutinized. Is this a part of their democracy promotion programs?

Since rapprochement between the U.S. and Libya, the military forces of both countries have moved closer. Libya and the U.S. have had military transactions and since rapprochement Tripoli has been very interested in buying U.S. military hardware. [4] In 2009, a Pentagon spokeswoman, Lieutenant-Colonel Hibner, affirmed this relationship best: “[The U.S.] will consider Libyan requests for defen[c]e equipment that enables [Libya] to build capabilities in areas that serve our mutual interest [or synchronized U.S. and Libyan interests].” [5] The qualifier here is U.S. interests, meaning that the Pentagon will only arm Libya on the basis of U.S. interests.

In what seems to have happened overnight, a whole new arsenal of U.S. military hardware has appeared in Libya. American-made F-16 jets, Apache helicopters, and ground vehicles are being used inside Libya by Qaddafi. [6] This is a shocking revelation, if corroborated. There are no public records about some of this U.S. military hardware in the the arsenal of the Libyan military. In regards to the F-16s, Libyan jets are traditionally French-made Mirages and Russian-made MiGs.

Silvio Berlusconi and the Italian government have also been strong supporters of Qaddafi’s regime. There is information coming out of Libya that Italian pilots are also being used by the Libyan Air Force. [7] Mercenaries from Chad, Sudan, Niger, and Nigeria are also being used. This has been verified through video evidence coming out of Libya. The Libyan regime is also considering contracting American or European security firms (mercenaries). [8]

The Politics of Al Jazeera

The Libyan government has shut down the internet and phone lines and an information war is underway. Although one of the most professional news networks in the world, it has to be cautioned that Al Jazeera is not a neutral actor. It is subordinate to the Emir of Qatar and the Qatari government, which is also an autocracy. By picking and choosing what to report, Al Jazeera’s coverage of Libya is biased. This is evident when one studies Al Jazeera’s coverage of Bahrain, which has been restrained due to political ties between the leaders of Bahrain and Qatar.

Reports by Al Jazeera about Libyan jets firing on protesters in Tripoli and the major cities are unverified and questionable. [9] Hereto, the reports that Libyan jets have been attacking people in the streets have not been verified. No visual evidence of the jet attacks has been shown, while visual confirmation about other events have been coming out of Libya.

Al Jazeera is not alone in its biased reporting from Libya. The Saudi media is also relishing the events in Libya. Asharq Al-Awsat is a Saudi-owned paper that is strictly aligned to U.S. interests in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region. Its editor-in-chief is now running editorials glorifying the Arab League for their decision to suspend Libya, because of the use of force by Tripoli against Libyans protesters – why were such steps not taken for Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, or Yemen? Inside and outside the Arab World, the mainstream media is now creating the conditions for some sort of intervention in Libya.

The Role of Foreign Interests in Libya

Qaddafi and his sons have run Libya like a private estate. They have squandered its wealth and natural resources. One of Gaddafi’s son’s is known to have paid the American singer Beyoncé Knowles a million or more U.S. dollars for a private music concert. [10] Foreign corporations also play a role in this story.

The positions and actions of foreign corporations, the U.S., and the European Union in regards to Libya should not be ignored.

Questioning the role of foreign governments and corporations in Libya is very important. The Italian and U.S. governments should be questioned about the role that pilots of Italian nationality and newly bought U.S. weaponry are playing in Libya.

It is very clear that democracy is only used as a convenient pretext against dictators and governments that do not bow down and serve U.S. and E.U. interests. All one needs to do is to just look at the way Mutassim Qaddafi was welcomed with open arms in Washington on April 21, 2009 by Hillary Clinton and the Obama Administration. Upon their meeting, Secretary Clinton publicly said:

I am very pleased to welcome Minister Gaddafi to the State Department. We deeply value the relationship between the United States and Libya. We have many opportunities to deepen and broaden our cooperation and I am very much looking forward to building on this relationship. So Mr.Minister welcome so much here. [11]

What the U.S. and the E.U. want to do now is maximize their gain in Libya. Civil war seems to be what Brussels and Washington have in mind.

The Balkanization of Libya and the Push to Civil War

Qaddafi’s son Saif Al-Islam has made statements on Libyan television about deviant Taliban-like faith-based organizations taking over Libya or attempting to take it over. Nothing is further from the truth. He has also warned of doom and civil war. This is part of the Qaddafi family’s efforts to retain power over Libya, but a path towards civil war is unfolding in Libya.

Amongst the ranking members of the military, Mahdi Al-Arab, the deputy chief of Libya’s military staff, was said to have renounced Qaddafi. [12] Al-Arab, however, has modified his position by saying that he does not want to see Libya spiral into a civil war that will allow foreign intervention and tutelage. [13] This is why Al-Arab prevented the people of his city, Zawarah, from joining the revolt and going to nearby Tripoli. [14]

The drive towards civil war in Libya is fuelled by two factors. One is the nature of Qaddafi’s regime. The other is an external desire to divide and weaken Libya.

Qaddafi has always worked to keep Libyans divided. For years there have been fears that Qaddafi’s sons would start a civil war amongst themselves or that some other high ranking officials could try to jockey for power once Qaddafi was gone. Civil war on the basis of ethnicity, regionalism, or tribalism is not a big threat. Tribes and regions could be co-opted or allied with, but the people that would spark a civil war are regime figures. The threats of civil war arise from the rivalries amongst regime officials themselves. Yet, it must be understood that these rivalries are delibertly being encouraged to divide Libya.

The flames of revolt are being fanned inside Libya. Chaos in the Arab World has been viewed as beneficial in many strategic circles in Washington, Tel Aviv, London, and NATO Headquarters. If Libya falls into a state of civil war or becomes balkanized this will benefit the U.S. and the E.U. in the long-term and will have serious geo-political implications.

All the neighbouring states in North Africa would be destabilized by the events in Libya. West Africa and Central Africa would also be destabilized. The tribal boundaries running in Libya and Chad extend into countries like Niger, Algeria, and Sudan. The chaos in Libya would also have a significant effect on Europe and global energy. Already the events in Libya are being used to validate the drive to control the Arctic Circle and its energy resources. [15]

What Will Be Qaddafi’s End?

It is very likely that Qaddafi will not have as fortunate an exit from power as Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt. Finding refuge for Qaddafi will not be easy. In general, Qaddafi is considered a liability by other governments. Saudi Arabia, which can be portrayed as a refuge for Arab dictators, will most likely not give Qaddafi refuge. Libya and Saudi Arabia have bad relations. He is also wanted for investigation in Lebanon. Generally, Qaddafi’s relationship with the leaders of the Arab petro-sheikhdoms in the Persian Gulf is tense and negative. He will not be granted refuge anywhere in the Persian Gulf.

In general, Arab governments will also be afraid to host him. In his efforts to present himself as a champion of the people, he has insulted many of his fellow Arab dictators. There is something to be said, however, when Qaddafi’s statements at Arab League meetings or about Palestine and Iraq are far more popular or candid than the rest of the Arab dictators.

It is highly improbable that any Latin American, European, or ex-Soviet countries will give him refuge. A country in sub-Sahara(n) Africa is the mostly likely place Qaddafi could seek refuge.

His options are limited and he is determined to hold on to power. Civil War seems to be looming in the horizon. It is highly unlikely that he will leave Libya peacefully and the U.S. and its allies have no doubt examined this scenario. On February 23-24, 2010, he met with the leaders of the three biggest tribes in Libya (Werfala, Tarhouna, and Wershfana), to secure their support. [16] His own tribe, Qaddafa is supporting him and it seems that the Madarha and Awlad Slieman tribes are also supporting him. [17]

The Threats of NATO Intervention and U.S. and E.U. Control over Libya

Libya has been in the cross-hairs of the Pentagon for years. According to Wesley Clark, the retired general who was the supreme military commander of NATO, Libya was on a Pentagon list of nations to be invaded after Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The list included Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, and lastly Iran. In Clark’s own words:

So I came back to see him [a high ranking military officer in the Pentagon] a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” — meaning the Secretary of Defence’s office — “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” [18]

In one way or another all the nations on the list have been attacked directly or indirectly and all of them, but Syria and Iran, have succumbed to the U.S. and its allies. Again, the only exceptions are Iran and its ally Syria. In Lebanon, the U.S. has made partial gains, but it is now receding with the decline of the Hariri-led March 14 Alliance.

Libya started secret negotiations with Washington in 2001 that materialized into formal rapprochement after the fall of Baghdad to British and American troops in 2003. Yet, the U.S. and its allies have always wanted to expand their influence over the Libyan energy sector and to appropriate Libya’s vast wealth. A civil war provides the best cover for this.

Libyans Must Be Aware of the Pretext of Humanitarian Intervention

The Libyan people should be on their high guards. In is clear that the U.S. and the E.U. are supporting both sides. The U.S. and the E.U. are not the allies of the people of the Arab World. In this regard, the U.S. supports Qaddafi on the ground through military hardware, while it also supports the “opposition.” If the so-called Western governments were serious about democracy, they would have cut their business ties to Libya, specifically in the energy sector, before 2011.

Both Washington and the powers in Brussels could co-opt opposition forces. They have supported Gaddafi, but they do not control him or his regime like they controlled Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt. Libya is a very different story. The objectives of Washington and Brussels will be to strengthen their control over Libya either through regime change or civil war.

“Actions of opposition to Gaddafi” are strong, but there is no strong organized “opposition movement.” The two are different. Nor is democracy guaranteed, because of the nature of the coalition opposed to Gaddafi, which includes corrupt regime officials.

There is now talk about a “humanitarian intervention” in Libya, similar to Yugoslavia and Iraq. A “no-fly zone” over Libya has been mentioned, as has NATO military intervention. The aims behind such statements are not humanitarian, but are intended to justify foreign interference, which could potentially lead to an invasion. Should this come to fruition, Libya would become an occupied country. Its resources would be plundered and its assets privatized and controlled by foreign corporations as in the case of Iraq.

Today, in Libya and the Arab World the ghosts of Omar Mukhtar and Saladin are still very much alive and active. Getting rid of Gaddafi and his sons alone is not the solution. The entire corrupt system of governance in Libya and the culture of political corruption must be dismantled. At the same time, however, foreign interference or domination should also not be allowed to take root in Libya. If the Libyan people are mobilized and steadfast, they can fight such schemes.

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya specializes in the Middle East and Central Asia. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

NOTES

[1] “UK Hague: some information that Qaddafi on way to Venezuela,” Reuters, February 21, 2011.
[2] One is taken back by the proliferation of pre-1969 coup Libyan flags. Where did all these flags come from?
[3] “3 Libyan Diplomats resign,” The Hindu, February 22, 2011.
[4] James Wolf, “U.S. eyes arms sales to Libya,” Reuters, March 6, 2009.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Information from sources in Libya; not publicly confirmed yet.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.; I have been given two explanations for this. The first explanation is that government agents from Libya have been disseminating misinformation to Al Jazeera. This includes reports made to Al Jazeera that jets have been attacking civilians in the streets. Gaddafi has used this to try to discredit Al Jazeera internally in Libya by pointing out to the Libyan people that no jet attacks have occurred and that Al Jazeera is broadcasting misinformation. The second explanation is that Al Jazeera is simply spreading misinformation. Whatever the case, both explanations agree no Libyan jets have attacked protesters yet.
[10] Marine Hyde, “Beyoncé and the $2m gig for Colonel Gaddafi’s son,” The Guardian (U.K.), January 8, 2010; it was Mutassim and not Hannibal Gaddafi that the music concert was for (the article is wrong). The article is not authoritative and has been cited to illustrate that these types of escapades are even vaguely known by the mainstream press in Britain and Western Europe.
[11] U.S. State Department, “Remarks With Libyan National Security Adviser Dr. Mutassim Qadhafi Before Their Meeting,” April 21, 2009: <http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/04/121993.htm>.
[12] Information from sources in Libya; not publicly confirmed yet.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] David Ljunggren, “Libya turmoil puts focus on Arctic oil: Greenland,” ed. Robert Wilson, Reuters, February 23, 2011.
[16] Information from sources in Libya; not publicly confirmed yet. I have been told that Qaddafi promised the tribes reform and that he would step down in about one year in time. I was also informed that he claimed that none of his sons would control Libya either.
[17] Ibid.
[18] General (retired) Wesley Clark, “92 Street Y Exclusive Live Interview,” interview by Amy Goodman, Democracy Now, March 2, 2007.

Global Research Articles by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

Gaddafi Regime to fall!!!

2011-02-21T02:01:00.000+01:00

February 21

2:00 am Picture from the streets shows Libyans watching Seif Gaddafi address the nation via @ammr

It is time to ACT NOW! The 300 hunger strikers in Greece are in need of YOUR support!

2011-02-20T19:12:00.000+01:00

+++ As hunger strike of 300 approaches day 30, striker are in dire need of transnational support! +++ It is time to ACT NOW! +++ Fax, E-Mail and phone the Greek authorities and demand immediate legalisation NOW +++

I want to be treated as a human being – like the Greeks. When we will get papers, I will not anymore be afraid of police and I can work legally with an insurance. But most of the time I think now: what will happen if the government does not give an answer? (Arqal, hunger striker in Athens)

Since the 25th of January 300 migrants are on a hunger strike in Athens and Thessaloníki. Many of them live in Greece for more than six years. Most have been working in the harvest - all of them under extremely problematic conditions. To be without papers means: no health insurance, unpaid wages, no chance to travel…

They decided to go on a hunger strike, demanding the unconditional legalisation of all migrants in Greece. A big group of hunger strikers came with by ship from Crete. Solidarity groups welcomed the migrants at the port of Piraeus, and then, they altogether moved to an empty building of the university in the centre of Athens. A university building was picked because police is not allowed to enter the university (university asylum) since the end of the military junta, when soldiers entered the polytechnic university by force – but in the case of migrant protesters the university asylum was not respected. As a result of negotiations the hunger strikers moved to a building close to the university.

But until now the government did not move. The hunger strike is at a decisive point. Each day the hunger strikers are getting weaker. Each day brings more dramatic developments. On Friday Hassan, one of the hunger strikers, collapsed during a press conference:

As you well know, today is the 25th day of our hunger strike. So far we have had no response from the Government. No one has spoken. What is the Government waiting for? Is it waiting for us to die?

After speaking these words, Hassan suffered a hypoglycaemic shock and turned unconscious. The incident illustrates the extreme situation of the strikers who have been on an austere hunger strike for more than 25 days now, taking only water, sugar and salt. Eight hunger strikers are in hospital to date (day 26), dozens more face serious health problems. But until now the authorities don't move to fulfill their demand for legalisation.

We are sending a message to the Prime Minister, who has said that he was a cleaner in Sweden and has experienced racism. It is time to intervene before it’s too late. So that we won't have any deaths.

The wave of support for the hunger strikers has become enormous: from institutional members, to unions, hundreds of artists and intellectuals, thousands of supporters in Greece and abroad stand in solidarity. But obviously the government needs some more kicking – so now it’s also up to you. It is time to act!

I believe that the resistance of migrants against expulsions, harassments, discriminations and exploitation, struggling for their rights and their existence, is a dramatic human cause of our times. In addition, or rather, inseparably, it represents a crucial element of the popular movement for democracy in Europe, which crosses borders and for that reason elicits a redoubled xenophobia. The solidarity with the migrants must take form not only at a local scale, but at the continental level. (Etienne Balibar)

+++ THIS IS WHAT YOU CAN DO +++

Send letters, fax and emails of protest to the Greek ministries of interior, of citizen protection and of health and to your local Greek embassy and consulate!

Help spread the word to media, and send press releases to your local, regional, national and european media. Here you find the press release we sent out http://w2eu.net/2011/02/20/300-it-is-time-to-act-now/#pressrelease

Send copies of your press release and solidarity declarations to: hungerstrike300@espiv.net

Pass this message on in your networks and urge other people to act, too!

Below you find a sample fax/emailing greek and english language that you can send to the relevant authorities - also listed below. Please do note that it is always better if you compose a text on your own. It doesn’t need to be long! If you do so, please post your letter as a comment on http://w2eu.net/2011/02/20/300-it-is-time-to-act-now/, so that we can collect our voices.

Please act and help spread the this - solidarity is the proverbial weapon these days. The hunger strikers are asking for your support!!!

e-mails:

dialogue@politicalforum.gr

ypourgos@ypes.gov.gr

info@ypes.gr

papoutsi@otenet.gr

pressoffice@yptp.gr

Louka.katseli@parliament.gr

anna.dalaras@gmail.com

hungerstrike300@gmail.com

fax numbers:

Ministry of Interior, fax: 0030 2103665089,

Ministry of Citizen Protection, fax: 0030 2103387708

Ministry of Labour, fax: 2105249805, 0030 2103213688

Greek:

To:
Greek Embassy/Consulate in [insert the consulate next to you!!]

Ministry of Citizen Protection of the Hellenic Republic
Ministry of Interior, Decentralisation and E-Government of the Hellenic Republic
Ministry of Health of the Hellenic Republic
Hunger strike of 300 migrants in Athens and Thessaloníki: Legalisation Now!

ΧΧ Φεβρουαρίου 2011 [=date]

Κυρίες και κύριοι,
Με αυτή την επιστολή, σας καλούμε να δεχθείτε τα αιτήματα των απεργών πείνας μεταναστών, δηλαδή την χωρίς προϋποθέσεις νομιμοποίηση όλων των μεταναστών στην Ελλάδα, προτού να είναι αργά. Είναι εξαιρετικά ανησυχητικό το γεγονός ότι η απεργία πείνας προσεγγίζει τις 30 ήμερες και ήδη πολλοί απεργοί πείνας χρήζουν νοσηλείας. Η υγεία και η ίδια τους η ζωή βρίσκεται σε κίνδυνο και είναι ευθύνη της ελληνικής κυβέρνησης να επιλύσει το πρόβλημα άμεσα, νομοθετώντας μια νέα διαδικασία νομιμοποίησης. Στην αντίληψη μας, αυτή αποτελεί τη μοναδική λύση με διάρκεια και βιωσιμότητα απέναντι στις απαράδεκτες συνθήκες που βιώνουν οι πρόσφυγες και μετανάστες στην Ελλάδα, ένα πολιτικό ζήτημα που διάφορες ελληνικές κυβερνήσεις δεν έχουν αντιμετωπίσει επιτυχώς.

Ανταποκρινόμενη στο αίτημα των μεταναστών, η ελληνική κυβέρνηση μπορεί να στείλει ένα ισχυρό πολιτικό μήνυμα. Μια νέα διαδικασία νομιμοποίησης θα αποτελέσει το ισχυρότερο μήνυμα προς τα υπόλοιπα κράτη μέλη της ΕΕ ότι το ισχύον σύστημα μετάθεσης της ευθύνης στις συνοριακές περιοχές της Ευρώπης δεν μπορεί πια να συνεχιστεί και ότι απαιτείται μια θαρραλέα λύση. Μια νέα διαδικασία νομιμοποίησης θα δώσει επιτέλους τέλος στην πολυετή αβεβαιότητα που βιώνουν οι μετανάστες στην Ελλάδα και θα τους αναγνώριζε δικαιώματά ως κομμάτι της κοινωνίας, δικαιώματα που έχουν κατακτήσει οι ίδιοι με την εργασία τους και τους δεσμούς ζωής που έχουν δημιουργήσει στην ελληνική κοινωνία. Μια διαδικασία νομιμοποίησης θα στείλει επίσης ένα σαφές πολιτικό μήνυμα ότι είναι αναγκαίο να τεθεί το ζήτημα των νέων και των μελλοντικών πολιτών κατά ένα τρόπο δίκαιο και αξιοπρεπή και η ξενοφοβία και ο ρατσισμός να στιγματιστούν ως στάσεις καταδικαστέες που πρέπει να αφεθούν οριστικά στο παρελθόν.

Η ευρωπαϊκή πολιτική σκλήρυνσης των συνόρων και έντασης του αποκλεισμού δεν έχει μέλλον, δημιουργεί μόνο πόνο και τις παραβιάσεις των δικαιωμάτων.

English

To
Greek Embassy/Consulate in [insert the consulate next to you!!]
Ministry of Citizen Protection of the Hellenic Republic
Ministry of Interior, Decentralisation and E-Government of the Hellenic Republic
Ministry of Health of the Hellenic Republic
Hunger strike of 300 migrants in Athens and Thessaloníki: Legalisation Now!

xx of February 2011
Ladies and Gentlemen,
we are writing to you on the occasion of the hunger strike of 300 migrants which is currently taking place in Athens and Thessaloníki. We have followed the situation of refugees and migrants in Greece. We are not surprised that – again – migrants feel compelled to choose such a strong measure to campaign for their rights: putting their lives at risk. We express our solidarity with their cause.
With this letter, we want to urge you to fulfil the demands of the hunger striking migrants, i.e. the unconditional legalisation of all migrants in Greece, before it is too late. We are acutely aware that the hunger strike is approaching its 30th day, and already, many hunger strikers had to be hospitalised. Their health and indeed their lives are at risk here, and it is the responsibility of the Greek government to resolve the situation immediately by decreeing a legalisation. In our understanding, this constitutes the only permanent and viable solution to the despicable situation of refugees and migrants in Greece, a political issue various Greek governments have struggled with unsuccessfully.
By following the migrants’ demands, the Greek government can send powerful political signals. A legalisation would be the strongest communication to the other EU member states that the current system of delegating responsibility to the fringes of Europe cannot continue and needs a courageous solution. A legalisation would also finally end the years of uncertainty migrants have been facing in Greece and attribute them their rights as part of the society that they have long earned by their labour in the Greek economy and the life they have led in Greece. A legalisation would also send a clear political message that it is necessary to deal with the new and (be)coming citizens in a fair, respectful and dignified way and that xenophobia and racism are damnable attitudes that better belong to the past.
The European answer of bordering and exclusion has no future, it only creates pain and violations of rights.

Assembly of the hunger strikers

A letter from Libya

2011-02-19T23:21:00.001+01:00

A Letter From One Human Being To Another.

I am urging all the international communities who believe in human rights and freedom of speech, in particular, the Obama administration, to Support the Libyan people and help them to express their views and voices, without fear of getting murdered.

The Libyan people wish to express their views via peaceful demonstrations without fearing for their lives. Why is the West turning a blind eye to what is currently happening across Libya?

In civil, western democratic Countries, you don't get shot, tortured or murdered for voicing your opinion. S0 why do western governments think that Libyan people don’t equally deserve to have these basic human rights?

It's a massacre by the criminal regime in Libya. Innocent people are getting murdered, tortured, threatened by SMS, murdered randomly by Secret Police and very intently by hired contractors aka African mercenaries brought in and paid specifically to murder. The regime is using helicopters to fire live ammunition from above on unarmed and peaceful demonstrators. The regime is closing hospitals and purposefully allowing medical supplies to run out.

Why isn't the western media allowed to bring the truth from inside Libya? Why is the regime state TV allowed to tell us that everything is fine?

Don’t be silent, express your voice, call upon your government and ask them to act. Act now before it's too late.

What if Libya Staged a Revolution and Nobody Came?

2011-02-18T12:21:00.003+01:00

follow on: http://abudai.tumblr.com/

Libyans are giving up their lives to overthrow Muammar al-Qaddafi. But is anyone paying attention?

BY NAJLA ABDURRAHMAN | FEBRUARY 17, 2011

Protests erupted in Libya Tuesday evening in the eastern center of Benghazi, prompted by the arrest of Libyan attorney and human rights activist Fathi Terbil early Tuesday morning -- two days ahead of Thursday's highly anticipated Feb. 17 "Day of Rage" planned in cities across the country. Terbil represents a group of families whose sons were massacred by Libyan authorities in 1996 in Tripoli's infamous Abu Salim prison, where an estimated 1,200 prisoners, mostly opponents of the regime, were rounded up and gunned down in the span of a few hours. The victims' bodies were reportedly removed from the prison (eyewitness accounts cite the use of wheel barrows and refrigerated trucks) and buried in mass graves, the whereabouts of which remain undisclosed by Libyan authorities to this day. Several years would pass before the regime finally began to notify some of the victims' families of the deaths, and it wasn't until 2004 that Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi publicly admitted to the massacre at Abu Salim.

Terbil had been working closely with the victims' families, who in recent years have asked that authorities make public the circumstances surrounding the killings, as well as the location of the victims' graves. After Terbil's arrest Tuesday morning, several of the families gathered in front of police headquarters in the city of Benghazi to demand his release. According to sources inside the country, other Benghazi residents gradually began to join them, and by evening the crowd had swelled, with unconfirmed estimates ranging from several hundred to 2,000 protesters.

Although Terbil was eventually released, the crowd refused to disperse, and the protest soon transformed into an anti-government demonstration; video showing protesters calling for Benghazi residents to rise up began to circulate on the Internet. Among the chants heard were "Rise up oh Benghazi, the day you have been waiting for has come," "There is no god but God, and Muammar [al-Qaddafi] is the enemy of God," and "The people want the regime to fall." At one point in the evening, Al Jazeera Arabic managed to get Libyan writer and novelist Idris al-Mesmari on the phone during the protests in Benghazi; a breathless and agitated Mesmari confirmed that police were attacking the protesters before the connection was lost. Shortly thereafter, news surfaced of Mesmari's arrest by Libyan authorities, no doubt an unequivocal warning from the regime to those who dared communicate with the outside world.

In the meantime, Libyans residing abroad were receiving constant unconfirmed reports throughout the evening and into the early hours of the morning from contacts in Libya, which they circulated on Facebook and Twitter and tweeted to various news outlets, including BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, and the Associated Press. Ironically, as hundreds of Libyans inside the country protested against the Qaddafi regime, Libyans outside the country were protesting the media's coverage of events. A group of Libyan activists and observers bombarded various news outlets with frustrated emails and tweets about both the lack of coverage and the inaccuracy of the little coverage that was given. Although multiple videos of the protests in Benghazi were circulated, Al Jazeera English posted a video that included footage of protests that were more than a year old, in addition to the more recent footage. It also initially cited the number of people killed in the Abu Salim prison massacre as 14 -- as opposed to 1,200 -- prompting exasperated tweets demanding that the news outlet check its facts and directing it to the Human Rights Watch report on the Abu Salim prison massacre.

For its part, the Associated Press initially circulated a report that induced a collective groan among Libyan observers; the report claimed that the protests had been directed not against Qaddafi, but against the current Libyan prime minister, Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi. Again, Libyan activists immediately blasted the AP on Facebook and Twitter for its irresponsible reporting, which contradicted video and eyewitness accounts coming from the country. Rather than actually listening to what protesters were chanting in the videos, it seems that the AP had drawn its information directly from Libyan state sources, albeit channeled through Quryna, a "private" newspaper effectively controlled by Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, the leader's son.

Although both Al Jazeera English and the Associated Press amended their reports after pressure from Libyan activists, the reporting on Tuesday's impromptu protests in Benghazi and the lack of information available to international media outlets are indicative of a much larger problem that Libyans have struggled with for decades: the creation of a virtual vacuum of information by the Qaddafi regime's strict censorship policies, highly restrictive press laws, and uncompromising repression of even the slightest expression of dissent. This has created considerable obstacles for Libyans both inside and outside the country attempting to communicate their struggles to the world.

Libyans are painfully aware of the fact that their country does not attract nearly the same level of interest as Egypt or Iran, except perhaps when it comes to the eccentricities of their notoriously flamboyant dictator. This, despite the fact that the Qaddafi regime has been in power significantly longer than nearly any other autocratic system, during which time it has proved itself among the world's most brutal and incompetent. Thus, from the moment a group of Libyans inside Libya -- taking a cue from their Tunisian and Egyptian neighbors -- announced plans for their own day of protest on Feb. 17, Libyan activists outside the country have been working tirelessly to get the word out, circulate audio and video, and pressure media outlets to report on Libya. If the Libyan protesters are ignored, the fear is that Qaddafi -- a man who appears to care little what the rest of the world thinks of him -- will be able to seal the country off from foreign observers, and ruthlessly crush any uprising before it even has a chance to begin. Eyewitness reports to this effect are already trickling in from Libya, and the death toll appears to be slowly mounting. Regrettably, international attention has thus far been minimal.

Another problem Libyans face is a lack of organization among potential demonstrators. Even for those who have followed events in Libya closely and are in contact with people inside the country it's difficult to gauge from the outside how organized the protesters are or how many people actually came out Thursday. For many, the outlook is a pessimistic one. Libya is a very large country with a relatively tiny population of 6.4 million scattered throughout its vast expanse, and the distance between its two most populous cities, Tripoli and Benghazi, is roughly 1,000 miles. In addition, unlike in Tunisia and Egypt, there exists not a single organized opposition group or political party in Libya capable of mobilizing people to come out and protest.

Furthermore, frustration with the regime is by many accounts much higher in the long neglected eastern regions of the country, leading to fears that protests will not extend to the west, and particularly to the country's major center, Tripoli (although discontent is high there as well).

A handful of Libyans residing inside the country have released video and audio calling on people to get out and protest, including a Tripolitanian woman who made an emotionally charged appeal to other Libyan women, "Rise up Libyan women! You are half of the society. Bring your husbands and your sons out!" Only a small percentage of Libyans have Internet access, but sources inside the country say tell me that while most people were aware of Feb. 17, the atmosphere in Libya has grown increasingly tense over the past days and weeks, with very few people willing to discuss the event openly.

In the coming days, the Qaddafi regime will no doubt continue to employ tactics meant to control the production of information coming into or out of Libya and to obscure as much as possible the realities on the ground -- this has long been the regime's modus operandi. As news of the Libyan regime's violent attempts to suppress peaceful protests continues to leak out of the country, it is the responsibility of the international media to be vigilant in reporting the story, and to report it accurately. Above all, they must not rely on Libyan state media for information and must make every effort to reach out to Libyan netizens, activists, and opposition groups, as well as to protesters inside the country, who are working tirelessly to communicate the details as they unfold. Moreover, it is the responsibility of the international community, including the United States government, to forcefully and unequivocally condemn the Libyan regime's attacks on peaceful protesters and to affirm their right to organize and express their grievances just as it has affirmed the rights of Egyptians and Iranians to do so. In the coming days, Qaddafi will likely try to take advantage of Libya's information vacuum to put down any uprising. If the international media and the world don't pay more attention, he will almost certainly succeed.

February 11 - Day of the Egyptian Revolution!

2011-02-12T02:11:00.000+01:00

Live blog Feb 12 - Egypt protests

By Al Jazeera Staff in

Middle East

on February 11th, 2011.

From our headquarters in Doha, we keep you updated on all things Egypt, with reporting from Al Jazeera staff in Cairo and Alexandria.

Live Blog: Jan28 - Jan29 - Jan30 - Jan31 - Feb1 - Feb2 - Feb3 - Feb4 - Feb5 - Feb6 - Feb7 - Feb8 - Feb9 - Feb10 - Feb11

The Battle for Egypt - AJE Live Stream - Timeline - Photo Gallery - AJE Tweets - AJE Audio Blogs

(All times are local in Egypt, GMT+2)

2:40am Headlines on the front page of Al Ahram, Egypt's largest - state-owned - newspaper from before and after the resignation of Mubarak. Above: "Millions out in support of Mubarak" - under: "The people overthrow the regime"

2:10am Cairo's Tahrir Square still packed with people celebrating the resignation of Mubarak.

1:54am Moroccans also celebrate the demise of Mubarak by waving Egyptian flags in the streets of the Moroccan capital Rabat.

1:25am Lebanese and Egyptians are celebrating together in front of the Egyptian embassy in Beirut.

1:21am The rise and fall of president Hosni Mubarak, by Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher:

1:08am In the northern town of Ismailia, crowds cheer and wave Egyptian flags, while in Suez, the armed forces are at the centre of the celebrations, Reuters reports.

1:06am In the streets of New York's "Little Egypt" Egyptian expatriates join their countrymen celebrating the fall of Mubarak. Dozens of people are blocking off a street, waving Egyptian flags and banners while chanting, "Praise be Allah" and "We live for Egypt to be proud."

1:00am Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh reporting from Cairo says celebrations are ongoing throughout the city.

12:35am Palestinians in Gaza are waving Egyptian flags and chant 'Long live Egypt' in a rally of thousands to celebrate
Mubarak's resignation.

12:00am Mubarak is gone - missed it? Go back to our live blog from February 11 - we will continue to bring you reactions to this from Egypt and all over the world.

The Story of 2 Days I spent at the Egyptian Intelligence

2011-02-12T01:48:00.000+01:00

Related peace activists:

Maikel Nabil Sanad

We are against what the army is doing to steal our revolutionLast Friday, the 4th of February, at night, I was arrested at one of the headquarters of the Egyptian intelligence. They were covering my eyes and there was a group of intelligence officers making conversations with many Egyptian activists who were arrested as me (9 of them were arrested while going out from El-Barada’i home). One of the intelligence officers told me in front of them “if we collected those 20 activists it would be 10% of what you did”, so I replied, “I am a humble person and I see that all of them are better than me”.

Before that, when I was writing about me being arrested or any abuse being practised against my rights, I considered this a type of an nonviolent war between me and the regime, meaning that that abuse my rights and I reply back by exposing them in front of the world, and the exposing usually makes good effect. But, this time I’m writing in a different way because this is the first time I feel that I’m a victim, and the first time I would be insulted that much. I’m writing this time not to take revenge, but to let people know what would happen to them if this revolution failed. Our revolution will protect us from these actions to be repeated against me and all of you.

Friday, 4th February – In front of the High Court

- I was heading to El-Tahrir in the noon of Friday Feb. 4th, to attend the protest. I went out from Gamal Abdlenaser Metro Station. Army officer standing beside a tank stopped me in the way to El-Tharir sq. and searched me 3 times, took my banners, my mobile and my ID then asked me to wait!
- “Civil state, not religious or military” , ” No for Omar Soliman or Ahmed Shafik “, ” 59 years are enough, Army” and ” My name is Maikel and will demonstrate despite the pop shenoda said” Was some slogans on my banners. Army officers were stopping any one with bags and i saw them not allowing people with Medical aids!
- I asked to speak to someone higher and he pointed his finger to some one civilian, told me he’s an intelligence officer, I went to him wondering, why are you not allowing me to enter while Omar Soliman and Ahmed Shafik Pledged to allow protesting?, he said “we have direct orders to don’t allow protesters to enter!” then he tied me from my back and connect me to the tank. People started to ask why I’m tied to the tank, I started to speak to them, so the intelligence officer took me to beside Revoli cinema theater to be away of people. I didn’t give up and started to chant against Hosni Mubarak and tell protesters to tell media that i got arrested. The intelligence officer came and slapped me on the face! And what really depressed me that people in the popular committees were helping the army to arrest me, thinking that the army is standing by us!

The Way to Unit 9770 c7

- A military police car with 440700 numbers came and took me, with a military police captain his name is” Mokhtar”. This captain was helping police by Ammo in the Friday of angry Jan. 28th, and then protests set his car in fire. He was insulting protesters along the way to our distention, and he beaten me on the head several times. I was surprised that he was passing on the popular committees with greeting some other civilian intelligence officers with some other Mubarak thugs and they were planning to arrest people heading to El-Tahrir sq.
- He drove his car through El-Sharabya, then stopped in a military area carrying the name” Unit 9770 c7 “. There were lots of arrested demonstrators there. There were also lots of foreigners, whom they ordered to leave the unit without their passports (because they burned their passports)
- At about 3:30 Pm, they tied my hands again behind me, and tied a cloth over my eyes. Then they put me in a microbus with other arrested demonstrators. Then we moved toward our unknown destination.

In the Intelligence Headquarters

- After around 30 minutes driving, the car stopped in an open silent place and it stopped there around 4 hours, we didn’t know where we are? And nobody told us anything. There was a near mosque, was praying “Elasr”, and “Elesha”. Army officers were really giving attention to me, because I was the only politician with political slogans in this group! Captain Mokhtar was Motivate others against me, we were hearing voices of people getting tortured. Officers around me were speaking about someone had been shoot in his leg because he tried to escape and he was bleeding without any help!
- They bring me alone away of others, and ”El-Zaffa” started. ” El-Zaffa” is an expression will-known by the old arrested people in Egypt and “El-Zaffa” is about high dose of beating and scaring that are given to new political prisoners! Someone was catching my nick and forced me to be bending over! And lots of beating sounds around me and some old intelligence officer was saying Rejoiced words!
- An army officer came to me and said this is The Headquarter of State Security Department, to remove suspicions about intelligence or army” and threatened me to be tortured if i didn’t complied with orders. He said “be quiet”, every few minutes some army officer was coming to me and asking about my name, my address, where i got arrested, and if answered the other officer beats me saying ” i said be quiet ” and if i didn’t answer he beats me and says ” answer”! And they kept doing the same stuff for around 30 minutes!
- Then, they started to move me and put me in different places, and every few minutes some army officers come and speak to me for a while. I’ve spoken to around different 10 army officers in that night! I think they were recording by video cam! This happened till 2.30 am, which means more than 6 hours of Investigations! They speak with me about my pacifism, my refusal to the military service, and why this revolution must be ended because the president did all what we asked about!
- Investigations with each activist and been heard by some other activist deliberately, i have heard some Investigations with others and i believe the same thing happened with me! They were targeting to be heard while saying what they want after all torture we got! And when activists listen to each other will lose their respect to their selves! That’s why when they met me with some youth from El-Barada’i campaign i said these youth are heroes and better than me, i did that because i want to confirm that we all respect each-others!
- It was very clear that all officers have personal loyalty to Mubarak, i was very sad about the Egyptian army because it has loyalty to a dictator! I envy Tunisia about its army!
- There was a very Sassy army officer, i think he was the same person that received me by beating in” El-Zaffa”. He told me that he’s 50 years old; he seemed to be a leader in the intelligence! He said, ” Would you serve in the army, Maikel? ” i said ” No.” then he started discussing me about my pacifist beliefs , they didn’t respect the freedom of belief, he said “You’ll serve in the army.” i said that won’t happen.” he said “you’ll get Court-martial” i said ” i choose by myself to get Court-martial when i refused to serve in the army, so it’s OK to get it now.”, also he was very nervous from the foreign persons I contact through my Email, it seems they’re no happy with my work with the pacifist European organizations !
- They were playing the old ” good officer” and ” evil officer” game, a one dealing with us in a bad way and the other one dealing in a very kind way!
- They were ridiculing on Christianity all the time, they gave care to know if I’m Orthodox, Catholic, or Protestant, and they listen me to the lord’s prayer!
- They used to assert always that there’s no law here to protect us, and they can make with us however they want, honestly it was true! We were treated as captured enemy soldiers at war. All the time, we were tied from our backs, blinded, blending over, don’t know where we are, and we were not allowed to speak with each others! It’s really not the way to deal with good citizens in their homeland!
- At 2.30 am they let me sleep alone on open air on ground, i wasn’t with others, ” like Solitary” they didn’t give me a blanket like others, but gave me a carpet, and it was very rough, all my hands had been hurt because of it!
- I spent around 29 hours, till i been freed in the second day, but i was unblinded only in the toilet, and this was the time that i know what time was!

Sexual harassment!

- The first, sexual harassment I experienced was from a small officer that arrested me in downtown, he searched my genitals, but I passed this situation as a part of searching!
- Second, in ” El-Zaffa” when they was catching my nick, and making me bend over and someone from the back trying to lower my jeans to give me impression that I’ll be raped!
- Third, Conscripts, were taking me from officer to other, one of them entered his hands inside my jeans and held me from my boxer!
- They were dealing with me like a female, some officer was speaking to his colleague like” I’ll come to you after I finish with her”
- I faced higher officers with that stuff and they acted like they don’t know, but in the second day these things stopped!

Freedom again, Saturday Feb. 5th 2011

- In the second day we spent till 2.30 pm in open air place and it was raining but they didn’t give a damn to move us to a different place! at 2.30 they moved me to the prison area, they were releasing many people, it was around 8 prisons each floor, the building was two floors, ” around 16 prison”, which means that they had over 300 prisoners. One prison had arrested female demonstrators, and they weren’t allowing the girls to go to the toilets!
- They were releasing everybody and put me in a corner without knowing what will happen to me! They were also bringing new arrested people that confirming the fake of Ahmed Shafik and Omar Soliman statements! At 6.30 Pm they put handcuffs in my hands, i scared because it was the first time in two days (they were tying me with a rope before). They well blinded my eyes, and they woke me long time in sand, i felt they will shoot me” they were criminals’, but they stopped a cab, put me inside, and asked me not to open my eyes except after minutes. I was only caring to go out this place alive! Two days with lots of scare and pain, i don’t want anyone to get similar experience in his/her life! After the cab drove for a while i unblinded my eyes, to see myself in El-Tayaran ST. in Nasr city, so i knew that i was in some military place in Raba’a El-Adawya in Nasr city!

My Last Comments:

- Although that i get the hardest days in my life, but after i was freed i started to feel how these people are cowards, they were scared to show their faces, or to let us know our place, we were tied from the backs, in front of them without weapons, and also they were scared! Never mind, freedom has a price, but they tried to give us the feeling that we’re weak, but we’re strong, there’s a difference between Strength and violence. We are stronger, and they are more violent. In some day Egypt will give everyone been tortured, in 59 years of military ruling his/her right!
- My message to protester in El-Tahrir, don’t give up, you have to continue what you started, that sq. is the only pressure we have, and we must not lose it. This revolution must be continued, because if it didn’t all Egypt will get what i got and maybe more! I’ll be back to El-Tahrir again after i recover within days!
- Again, I’ve been very sad, because the army Loyalty is to Mubarak not to Egypt, but i see people in El-Tahrir are very awared and they didn’t allow tanks to go inside the sq., take care, army is not with us, don’t lose the square,
- And my message to the officers who violated my rights, i know many things about you, and every time i know more. Don’t worry, you’ll be courted sometime!

Thanks for Mahmoud Saber, for the translation
Source: http://www.maikelnabil.com/2011/02/story-of-2-days-i-spent-at-egyptian.html

The US role in Egypt

2011-02-02T23:31:00.000+01:00

"We want our Egypt, not Mubarak"

1 February 2011. A World to Win News Service. Whether or not Hosni Mubarak's reign will come to an end is no longer the question. How he goes, and what this transition leads to, is what is being fought out.

As men and women dressed in business suits as well as torn sandals jubilantly swelled the size of the demonstrations by a hundred-fold in a week, many people thought that the "march of a million" 1 February would end in victory. They thought Mubarak would go, the tanks would leave the streets and the country would be theirs.

What American and European governments consider most important is what they call an "orderly transition". When the Egyptian president announced that he will stay in office until his terms expires in September, he argued that the only choice was a transition under him or "chaos". Some Egyptians were swayed by Mubarak's argument. Die-hard regime supporters were emboldened by U.S. President Barack Omaba's failure to call for Mubarak to step down immediately.

But "order" is not the main priority of many of the millions who have been demanding "Mubarak out!" They took Mubarak's speech as a gesture of defiance and contempt for the people. They were infuriated by his vow to remain on Egyptian soil to the end of his days. At the massive gatherings in in Cairo and Alexandria, he had already been hung in effigy.

It might seem simple for the U.S. to just dump a hated, discredited and isolated autocrat. The fact that the U.S. has so stubbornly resisted that step so far is a sign that things are not so simple, even if the U.S. does end up taking that route.

It must have been infuriating for Egyptians to hear Secretary of State Hillary Clinton argue on 31 January that the U.S. can't tell Mubarak to go because that is up to Egyptians to decide. It is the Egyptian army that has kept Mubarak in power, and it is the U.S., to a large degree, that tells that army what to do.

In late January, as the revolt mounted, the head of the Egyptian armed forces and his staff were conferring with the American government and military in Washington. If they had been told that Mubarak must go immediately – as happened with the Shah of Iran in 1979 and may have been the case with the Ben Ali regime in French-dominated and less strategically important Tunisia – then one way or another Mubarak would have been gone. Even if the U.S. dumps him now, events have already proved that this has not been the U.S.'s preferred outcome.

No matter what changes the U.S. ends up having to accept, it will do its best to minimize the role of the people and avoid encouraging their movement. That is one important reason why the U.S. has preferred that Mubarak be allowed a dignified exit and not be seen as driven out by "the street", with what that might mean for other U.S.-dependent Arab regimes. But above all it wants to make sure that whether or not Mubarak is able to preside over the transition, the regime he built and led remains as intact as possible.

The army: not neutral

While Obama's support for Mubarak was qualified and not necessarily permanent, he was effusive in his praise for the Egyptian army and the way it has handled the protest movement.

During the upsurge before 1 February, the police had been unable to stop the demonstrators, although they killed hundreds and badly hurt many more. In many cases people attacked the police and put them on the run. Armoured cars were pulled down and burned in Cairo and Alexandria. In several cities police stations were assaulted and destroyed. A wave of looting seems to have been largely the work of the police themselves.

People organised neighbourhood roadblocks and crudely-armed groups to protect lives and property. They also organised to protect themselves against provocateurs, clean up the streets and preserve public sanitation and pass out tea and food in Cairo's Tahrir (Liberation) Square, a highly symbolic location named after the 1952 army coup that brought down the British-controlled monarchy, as well as in front of the main mosque in Alexandria. They proudly explained to reporters that the square and the country now belonged to them.

But the army remained omnipresent, demonstrating its power. It lined Cairo's avenues and bridges with armoured vehicles and massed about a hundred new U.S.-supplied tanks around the square. To prevent people from converging on the capital and Alexandria, it cut off the roads and public transportation linking Cairo and other major cities with the provincial towns. Soldiers searched people as they entered the rally and checked IDs. Helicopters filmed the crowds from above. American and French-made fighter planes buzzed Tahrir Square. The military erected a protective wall around Mubarak's residence.

Keeping order while the people want to overthrow the regime is not a neutral act. After Mubarak's non-resignation speech, many protesters suddenly feared that if he wasn't going to resign after all, they might be hunted and punished.

Whose army is it?

If it is true, as some reporters surmise, that the U.S. told the Egyptian military at Tahrir Square that it should refrain from a "Tienanmen" solution, when the Chinese government gunned down a square full of protesters, it is not because anyone in the Obama administration or Washington's corridors of power cares more about Egyptian lives than American interests, but because if the army does open fire on demonstrators in a sustained way – rather than firing into the air, as it has done sporadically so far – the situation may spin even further out of control politically.

The U.S. financed, armed and trained these armed forces and has paid close attention to their military and political training. It is the biggest Arab army and the tenth biggest in the world. Its intelligence service reaches into every corner of society and its prisons and torture chambers are among the world's most fearsome. It would be hard to exaggerate the ties between these armed forces and the U.S. Almost all of U.S. financial aid to Egypt, 1.3 out of 1.5 billion dollars a year, goes to the military. Over the past decades the only country anywhere to receive more American aid has been Israel.

The army is not only the ultimate protector of the state, it is also Egypt's single most powerful economic force. It owns a network of factories, hotels, real estate and other businesses. Further, retired generals run many state-owned enterprises, such as the textile mills that have historically been core components of the country's export-oriented economy, along with the state-run petroleum industry. This makes the army a partner as well as a political and military enabler of Egypt's domination by foreign capital and the imperialist world market.

There are undoubtedly real differences between the wealthy, modernized army and Egypt's petty criminal police who pick the people's pockets for bribes. The police, not the army, have been in charge of street-level repression for decades, and that has had an affect on how the army is seen. It was no accident that the first minister Mubarak threw overboard in an attempt to appease the people was his hated Minister of the Interior.

Further, the armed forces have been able to preserve something of a nationalist aura because of their role in the struggle against British domination, from overthrowing the monarchy to defending Egypt against the 1956 British-French-Israeli invasion when Egypt nationalized the formerly British-controlled Suez Canal. It is also highly regarded for defending the country against the 1967 Israeli invasion that seized Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, and its military successes in the 1973 war with Israel which eventually led to Egypt's getting the Sinai back. Many people, it seems, are also confused by the fact that the army is made up of conscripts.

But the army and the police may be playing the kind of "good cop, bad cop" division of labour familiar around the world. What is probably most fundamental in the unfounded hopes that the army will "support the people" against Mubarak is that the people understand very well what it would mean if the army does not.

Mubarak and the army

Mubarak responded to the revolt against him by making the head of intelligence his vice-president – his first vice president and therefore official successor if Mubarak resigns. Omar Suleiman has been in charge of repression for decades and makes frequent trips to Washington and Tel Aviv. A U.S diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks says that he is one of the Egyptian officials most trusted by the U.S. government. Mubarak made the current air force chief Ahmad Shafiq his prime minister. He also met with his regional military commanders.

Although Mubarak, like his predecessors Gamal Nasser and Anwar Sadar, is a product of the armed forces, until now there has been at least the claim of a separation between the military and the government. Top officers, for instance, were not allowed to be members of Mubarak's party, and most of his recent (and now ex-) ministers have been civilian businessmen and so-called "technocrats". This moving of the army into the centre of the government has two aims: to overrule the people's movement and keep Mubarak on top as long as possible, and to ensure that if the autocrat does go down the military will preserve regime continuity. This seems to reflect the U.S.'s dual tactics in this situation.

But even the militarisation of Mubarak's government, while meant to be a show of strength, has had negative political effects in identifying the military with U.S./Mubarak rule and widening the target of the people's anger. Chants have arisen demanding the departure of the generals as well as Mubarak himself, all of them seen as U.S. puppets by some people. They are disgusted by the fact that Suleiman, Mubarak's chief negotiator and collaborator with Israel, is now calling for opposition parties to negotiate with him.

The things they do can undo them

One of the most important lessons to be learned from the sudden new situation in Egypt and throughout the Middle East is that the very things that the U.S. has done to keep the region under its heel have created huge problems for continuing American domination.

In addition to the U.S.'s dilemma concerning Mubarak's personal future, the other clearest case of this contradiction is the role of Israel as a factor for regional instability. As a settler state and the only society in the region the U.S. can count on, American domination of the region would be much more difficult without this highly militarized outpost. The current situation in the Arab world highlights Israel's centrality to the U.S., even while it also highlights the problems Israel creates for the U.S.-led empire.

In addition to burning down the 15-storey headquarters of Mubarak's political party and attacking the Ministry of the Interior, crowds have besieged and assaulted the Foreign Ministry building. People throughout the Middle East hate what Israel does to the Palestinians, and solidarity with Palestine has been a feature of the upsurges in Egypt, Tunisia and Jordan (half of whose population is Palestinian). Such openly "police state" regimes and monarchies are not only U.S client states in a general sense, they are bulwarks against the Palestinians and pro-Palestinian sentiments among their own people. For example, the Mubarak regime has worked with Israel in the lock-down of the people of Gaza and attempts to control Palestinian politics.

Obama's Secretary of State says she is worried that what follows Mubark may be "not democratic". This is generally taken to express a fear that Mubarak's downfall might favour the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood, historically the father of modern Sunni Islamic fundamentalism and "political Islam" in general. That is one possibility. Even though Islamic fundamentalism does not seek to break with the imperialist world market and the economic and social relations that market imposes, still the Islamicist movement threatens to disrupt the status quo, the present configuration of the Middle East on which U.S. domination depends. But as we've seen in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere, as bad as the rise of Islamism can be for the interests of the American empire, it is also a disaster for the people.

In the past the U.S. and Israel helped build up the Brotherhood in order to undermine more radical secular movements. To this day the relations between the Mubarak government and the Brotherhood are complicated and sometimes ambiguous. The Brotherhood has been allowed to hold seats in parliament until recently and stills operates semi-openly, even while officially illegal and often repressed. Suleiman has been both Mubarak's chief of anti-fundamentalist operations and a man said to enjoy the respect of Islamic forces. The regime cracked down at least as hard, if not harder, on shoots of the leftist secular opposition, such as appeared in opposition to the impending U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The Brotherhood, for its part, stayed out of the current revolt until it seemed on the verge of victory, and even now insists that it wants to play a subordinate role and not seek power – for now. Yet the U.S.'s stubbornness in clinging to Mubarak and its determination to continue humiliating the Egyptian people even after Mubarak, the vacillating role of some secular forces and the identification of the regime with Israel are all factors that could prove favourable to expanding the influence of the Islamic movement, especially (but not only) in the absence of a revolutionary alternative.

Can the U.S. be a force for democracy?

It would be funny if it weren't so criminal to hear the U.S. talk about the need for "free, fair and credible elections" in Egypt now, since only a few months ago, in November 2010, when Mubarak held parliamentary elections that were anything but what these words describe, the whole Western political establishment went along with them. And when Obama talks about "shared values" between the U.S. and Egypt, it should be remembered that what the U.S. has long shared with Mubarak are not only the tear gas canisters, bullets and tanks used to repress the Egyptian people but also the regime's torture chambers. Since 1995, on orders from Secretary of State Clinton's husband, President Bill Clinton, the U.S. has been turning over its captives to the Mubarak regime for torture in a CIA "rendition" programme.

How could it be otherwise, when the interests of the U.S. and its European allies require dominating countries like Egypt by any means possible? The monopoly capitalist countries cannot act otherwise because their position in the world (including major sources of their wealth and their success in rivalry with each other) is based on the financial and political subjugation of the vast majority of the world's people. Within this division of the world, the U.S. has its own particular national interests and neocolonies.

Therefore the basic interests of the imperialist ruling classes, including that of the U.S. (and not just the government under any particular president or prime minister) are in opposition to the democratic demands of the people in the countries they dominate, for political rights and especially the equality of nations and the right of self-determination for oppressed nations. In general imperialism tends to deny or limit the kind of bourgeois-democratic forms of rule (equal rights for all, especially as manifested in elections) that have generally marked monopoly capitalist rule in the imperialist home countries, where the whole purpose of such structures is to preserve the system and smooth functioning of what is, in essence, the dictatorship of the monopoly capitalist class. For instance, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair now admits that his government took part in the invasion of Iraq against the will of the British people. As we have seen in the U.S., UK and other rich countries lately, even there these rights and basic structures can be modified or abandoned when the rule and interests of monopoly capitalism require that.

It's true that the U.S. has been worried about the narrow social base of its client regimes in the Middle East, and now that a crisis has broken out it will put some reforms into motion. It is telling that such wishes did not become a priority for the U.S. in Egypt until the people pushed the Mubarak regime to the edge of a cliff. As the leading American imperialist political counsellor Robert D. Kaplan wrote about Tunisia, "In terms of American interests and regional peace, there is plenty of peril in democracy. It was not democrats, but Arab autocrats, Anwar Sadat [Mubarak's predecessor] of Egypt and [former] King Hussein of Jordan, who made peace with Israel. An autocrat firmly in charge can make concessions more easily than a weak, elected leader... In fact, do we really want a relatively enlightened leader like King Abdullah in Jordan undermined by street demonstrations? We should be careful what we wish for in the Middle East." (The New York Times, 22 January 2011)

Washington may sometimes desire that its client regimes could enjoy more stability by being less openly autocratic, but it is the maintenance of client or otherwise pliable regimes that is the U.S.'s basic aim. All talk about elections and "democracy" is subordinate to those interests. Lebanon is the only Arab country that can be reasonably described as having an elected government. Yet this month when Hezbollah was able to play the decisive role in naming a new prime minister by entirely legal and constitutional means, the U.S. became enraged and determined to punish the country. When Hamas (closely tied to the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt) won elections in Gaza, the U.S. and its allies cried "terrorism" and have supported Israel's collective punishment of the Gaza people for their impudence. In a different kind of example, Turkey, whose governing Justice and Development party (AKP) is a close ally of Washington, has not gone along with Israeli massacres to the degree required by Obama and U.S. interests.

Denial of democracy and democratic illusions

Yet the fact that people's democratic demands are thwarted in the countries oppressed by imperialism is both a source of instability and rebellion, and of illusions among the people. The U.S. and its allies will do their best to limit the achievements of popular movements to reforms, especially some sorts of elections and rights, however limited they must be to preserve imperialist domination. In Egypt, we can be sure that whatever such reforms do occur will be meant to rob the people of their greatest achievement so far, their leap from enforced political passivity to single-minded determination to bring about real change.

The problem for Egypt as for the whole third world is not just the political structures imposed by imperialism, but the whole economic and social structure of society on which the political institutions are based. The Egyptian people's humiliation and misery has deepened as the country has become more fully integrated into the world market over the past decade. Even the country's relatively high economic growth rate, while winning the praise of the IMF and other imperialist institutions, has brought more hardship for the majority.

No regime can oppose imperialism in any long-term and consistent way unless it breaks free of dependency on the imperialist world market in the organization of its economy as well as in the political sphere. This means a revolution that is not bourgeois-democratic, or in other words not aimed at achieving equal rights within the overall imperialist world order, which is generally impossible for structurally oppressed and dependent countries, but what Mao Tsetung called a New Democratic Revolution, a revolution to break the chains of feudalism and imperialist-dependent capitalism that make a country susceptible to foreign political subjugation.

Instead of more becoming more and more entangled in imperialist globalization, which relies on local reactionary classes to impose a political rule that favours the country's subordination to global capital and lopsided development, New Democracy is a transition to a whole new system, socialism, that can break with world capitalism, a revolution in alliance with the world's peoples whose ultimate goal is the defeat of the world capitalist system and its replacement by a world without imperialism or classes, a world of freely associating human beings, communism.

As Egyptians tell anyone who will listen, the demands now uniting the people against Mubarak are an expression of a burning determination to have their own country back. That is what the U.S. cannot agree to, no matter how much it might have to adjust its actions to further its interests in the complex context of what is possible and not just what Washington might want.

The idea of an Egypt without Mubarak is as exhilarating to the Egyptian people as it is frightening for those who run the U.S. and all the regimes through which the U.S. dominates the region. The result has been a fierce tug of war between the Egyptian people and the U.S. that is likely to have far-reaching consequences for the Egyptian people, the region and the U.S.

Mubarak plans for massacre

2011-01-28T08:53:00.000+01:00

Aljazeera confirms: In several low-income parts of Cairo and Alexandria, government-hired thugs were seen to be splashing petroleum over parked cars. This to prepare for protests in which they'll light vehicles on fire when the time is right for them. They will charge through the streets with swords and caustic acid t...o splash on protesters placing blame of violence on protesters

Imagining a new Egypt | Al Jazeera Blogs

Walk like an Egyptian on january 28

2011-01-27T15:59:00.000+01:00

Grab these images. spread them. post them. get the word out :)

Walk Like an Egyptian

2011-01-27T10:00:00.000+01:00

The struggle for freedom in Egypt is not just for the liberation of Egyptians from the oppression of a tyrannical regime, rather, it has far reaching implications for the entire Middle East region. That is why this is important for you to do your part even if you are not Egyptian.

Hosni Mubarak has enslaved the nation and stopped it from progressing in collusion with other powers that stand to gain from it. While the aid that Egypt receives might seem on paper as helping to subsidize food and assist the needy, fact is that it is mechanism of creating a dependence on the master who provides the aid and to carry out his will.

The war on Gaza and the continued starvation of Gazans via the blockade will perish along with this tyrannical regime. Other wars in the region, for the supposed new World Order would not have occurred without the tacit collusion of the selfish dictator, Mubarak. The title is meant to convey this very fact. One is very passionate when it comes to the Palestinian cause owing to their decades of suffering. If Egypt is liberated, not only will the suffering of Egyptians end, but several countries in the region will see an end to their misery.

It is very sad that some lives are being lost in the process. The powers that be would be unflinching in their support of the dictator and would care less for innocent lives, let alone care for any human rights.

While Facebook and Twitter can make the calls to action, they cannot make the noise on the street to bring down this brutal dictatorial regime. All people of conscience, who care for human rights and the sanctity of life, need to do their share by not merely expressing solidarity with Egyptians, but perform a tangible action whether protest on the ground in Egypt or call your lawmakers in your respective districts to urge for their support to the cause of the oppressed people of Egypt.

Life is precious. Let not history record as waste the lives of those who died so far as a result of brute force by the riot police. No more lives need to be lost. If you live in the US contact your representative and urge for their support. http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml. Show your support by 'liking' FB pages like "We are all Khaled Said "- http://www.facebook.com/elshaheeed.co.uk. If you tweet, tag #egypt #jan25. But do your share, even if it is just a repost on Facebook.

We are all Khaled Said

Egyptian Revolution Jan 25th 2011 - Take what's Yours!

2011-01-27T01:28:00.001+01:00

http://www.elshaheeed.co.uk/

Urgent News: Suez is completely cut off. Police has been evacuated. Protesters there are very angry. The army is being brought in according to reports. Some sad speculations say that a massive crackdown will take place in Suez on protesters which could end up with a REAL Massacre. Suez now is Egypt's Sidi Bouzid.

Call for Solidarity to the 300 Migrants Hunger Strikers in Greece

2011-01-25T19:41:00.001+01:00

On January 25, 300 migrant workers went on hunger strike in Athens and Thessaloniki.

Their main demand is to be legalized. At this moment, when the financial crisis has violently erupted and ultra-right political forces have come to the fore, this may sound as a maximalist demand. For this reason, we need to pay attention to their demands so as to create symbolic cracks in the system and achieve political victories.

The political establishment and mainstream media in Greece have already started putting pressure to the migrants' struggle and to those in solidarity. It is urgent to vow now the broadest support possible!

Below you will find the call for signatures. Those that wish to sign are welcome to send their name and profession in the following address:

ypografes.allilegyi.stin.apergia@gmail.com

-------------

Solidarity to the struggle of the 300 hunger strikers

How many times do they have to risk their lives in order to confirm their and our existence?

In order to have the right to live with dignity and hope, in a country that seeks for scapegoats in those who are the most vulnerable and weak.

For the migrant who, with his/her own blood, his/her poorly paid work and his/her creativity, make the country's economic machine move on.

For those who're seeking for freedom and fleeing from neediness, war or some other short of "peaceful" occupation, cross the borders in search of a better life.

For the migrants who lost their lives at the national borders of the European countries, for the 13.000 certified victims of the security doctrine since 1993 and the thousands of persons still missing.

For the migrants' children who from their early age grow with legal and social constraints and exclusions.

In order to bring forward and establish to the common consciousness, as struggle and cause, the joint social interests of Greeks and migrants who produce the social wealth in every short of services, in constructions, in factories, in the fields, in domestic works - as well as the common social interests of the unemployed people.

For the reasons mentioned above and other unmentioned here:

- We express our solidarity to the 300 migrants, hunger strikers

- We demand the unconditional legalization for all migrants

- We support the migrants’ demands for equal political and social rights and duties with the Greek workers

January 2011

Solidarity Assembly to the Migrants Hunger Strikers

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It is also important that individuals, assemblies, groups and organizations express their support through letters of support, press releases and actions of solidarity.

http://hungerstrike300.espivblogs.net/

Down with the Ben Ali regime!

2011-01-13T21:23:00.000+01:00

www.socialistworld.net, 12/01/2011

Stop the repression, for international solidarity!

Translated version of an article first published on Gauche Révolutionnaire’s website (CWI in France)

The unprecedented revolt which began a month ago in Tunisia continues. It started from an ‘everyday’ event, but one which exposes the real state of Tunisian society: a young fruit seller’s stall was confiscated by the police because he had no merchant’s licence. That was basically throwing him on the street, by depriving him of the only way of helping his family, while it obviously meant that the confiscated products ended up in the hands of the police. In a country where justice hardly exists for the poor, the young merchant, who could not bear the idea of becoming a burden for his family, set himself on fire in the public place, in desperate protest. Sometimes, an act like this can trigger a mass movement. Beginning in Sidi Bouzid and other cities of the disadvantaged central and western regions, the revolt spread to the whole country: against this intolerable situation, against the arrogance and corruption of those in power, against a life of misery and the absence of a decent future.

The movement, often initiated by young unemployed graduates -37% of graduates are unemployed 3.5 years after having finished their studies- is now involving all the youth as well as a significant portion of the population, including cities in the North and the seaside tourist areas. Also, the Tunisian revolt is increasingly resonating, in a way or another, in many neighbouring countries. (see our previous article on Algeria: http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/4760)

Repression and politicisation

As always, the Tunisian government has responded with ferocious and indiscriminate repression. Significantly, it has arrested many young bloggers to control information and to silence any dissenting voice. In early January, state forces fired live ammunition on some demonstrations: in Kasserine, for example, police officers and special squadrons fired on demonstrators from the rooftops. Several dozen deaths are now being talked about.

If the disastrous social situation and the lack of prospects for the youth were the first triggers of the movement, now the whole structure of Tunisian society is in question. Economic and political demands are mixing with each other, and the demand for the removal of President Ben Ali is increasingly raised. The movement is taking a mass character, particularly among the youth, and strikes are multiplying in universities and colleges. The government panicked, and ordered the closure of all schools and universities in an attempt to stop the youth strike movements.

The movement is taking an insurrectional character. Although journalists are talking about “riots”, it is mostly government buildings that are targeted. The central trade union, the UGTT, despite the links of some of its leaders with the dictatorship, has been forced to give its support to the movement. Four federations (transport, education, health, ports) even put forward the necessity of a general strike. The lawyers’ strike was followed at 95% and was severely repressed. It is clear that the organisation of a general strike against the government is a necessary step for the continuation of the struggle.

To get rid of this police dictatorship

Tunisia has been held in Ben Ali’s iron fist since his constitutional coup of November 1987. The police, including the “civilian” section, has all the rights, being allowed to stop anyone they want under any pretext. Anger has been brewing for years. Ben Ali’s policy has always served the Tunisian rich and imperialist interests, the French and Italian in particular. Two years ago, Sarkozy even dared to say that “democracy has made great progress under Ben Ali”.

The clan in power is monopolising the country’s wealth, and corruption and cronyism prevail, while the majority of people live in extremely difficult circumstances. The whole political life is under control. The political opposition is, in fact, completely artificial, and the RCD (Ben Ali’s party) is just a machine to deliver seats and careers to those who comply with the wishes of Ben Ali’s clan.

The government is trying to crush the movement. And the ‘measures’ it is proposing are not only insufficient, but also blatant lies. The economic policy coming from the regime serves only the interests of European multinationals, while politicians take bribes in the process. Forty to sixty percent of the workforce is forced to work in the informal sector. Meanwhile, vast free trade zones have been created (Bizerte, Tunis...) where trade union rights do not exist, and where wages are absolutely miserable, for the sole benefit of the multinationals. Infrastructure, notably transport, is inadequate in cities that have seen their population rocket over the past 20 years.

There is obviously no question that the ruling clique would make a single concession in terms of democratic rights. Its position at the head of the state allows it to enrich itself. But it certainly did not realize that this movement is the deepest and most powerful ever known in Tunisia, and that it has a revolutionary potential.

“We don’t want this life anymore”

This revolt must find a way to move forward, because the situation has now changed. Political discussion is spreading, but there is a lack of a strategy and of a mass organisation for the workers, youth, small farmers and poor urban masses. Moreover, it appears that part of the army refused to repress the movement. The need for committees organised in neighbourhoods, universities, colleges and workplaces, and the creation of soldiers’ committees could lay the groundwork for coordinating the movement, and developing a strategy to overthrow the ruling regime.

The vast majority of Tunisians do not want this life anymore, and even if Ben Ali was replaced -he had replaced Bourguiba shortly after the ‘bread riots’ of 1984-, it is the structure of the system itself that must be changed.

Under capitalism, the Tunisian economy will always be in the hands of a handful of corrupt people and multinationals, and the paradise of the big tourist chains will continue to deprive the Tunisian population of a real means of living, and the youth of a real future.

Under Bourguiba, the Tunisian regime has long claimed to be “socialist”, but that was a mask. The prevailing policy was serving the interests of the capitalists, despite a few concessions. The nationalisation of the main means of production, the ports, banks, etc, under the democratic control and management of the workers and the population, would lay the foundation for a truly free and democratic society in Tunisia: a genuinely socialist society. This is the path to be followed by the Tunisian revolution that has just begun! Therefore, there is an urgent need to build an independent party of the working class and the youth to defend this perspective, in Tunisia as in the whole region.

All our solidarity must go to the Tunisian people in struggle. Down with the dictatorship of Ben Ali and his gang!

In memory of Oury Jalloh who died six years ago

2010-12-30T10:08:00.000+01:00

Break the silence
Stop racist police brutality !

• January 7th, 2011 demonstration in Dessau
- 2pm start of the demonstration, main station
• January 8th, 2011 demonstration in Magdeburg
- 1pm start of the demonstration, main station
• January 12th, 2011 beginning of the trial
- Mahnwache! Picket and food for everybody from 9am on, court Magdeburg, Halberstädter Str. 8

On January 7th, 2005 Oury Jalloh burnt with his hands and feet tied in a police cell in Dessau. The trial against the accused police man ended with acquit in December 2008. On demand of the Initiative in remembrance of Oury Jalloh the incidental action contradicted against the verdict at the federal court (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) - rightly. On the exact date of the death the BGH confirmed what the Initiative Oury Jalloh and other organisations criticized since a long time:

The trial against the police men in duty was a farce because: Cover-up of the murder of Oury Jalloh, wheeling and dealing of police men, lies and wrong testemonies of witnesses and accused - all without consequences. The BGH decided therefore logically that the trial against one of the accused police men has to start again because the family of the victim has the right to get a legal procedure.

The fear seems to be certified that the supposed revision was only meant to be the attempt to lower the pressure; because now the trial was abducted and postponed just like the first one. This shows once again that the legal system in Germany is not interested in revealing the truth. The accusation against Schubert is "injury which caused death" and still not murder - what we believe.

The essential questions for clearing up were not answered:
• Who came into the cell directly before the fire burst out and why is it not documented?
• How could a lighter appear although Oury Jalloh was searched before?
• How could a completly tied person burn a hardly inflammable and undamaged mattress?
• Which kind of liquid was on the floor just before the fire started?
• How broke Oury Jallohs nose, an injury which was not detected in the first autopsy?
• Where is the video tape of the crime scene and how could it disappear?
• How could the second pair of handcuffs which was meant to be evidence be thrown away?

That's how the impression evoke that the first trial only served to exonerate the involved police men.

Oury Jalloh - it was murder! All attempts to postpone the trial again and again show the institutional and structural racism in Germany. Never surrender! Never forget!

Participate in the actions!

Lets make the refugee lager to be HISTORY of the past in Germany

2010-12-30T10:07:00.000+01:00

The German Lager Mentality is an act of forceful execution and violation of human dignity

„Lets make the refugee lager to be HISTORY of the past in Germany“

The Lager control mentality of the German Asylum system has a long and dubious history with far reaching Consequences of isolation, stigmatization, persecution, exploitation, enslavement and domination of those people classified as either not directly useful or those that are outrightly unwanted.

Lager and control mentality

From the general point of view to the specific, the strategy is to isolate, stigmatise and then persecute the victims. From the various notorious Lagers under the National Socialists through the Lagers for Guest workers, the Lager and control mentality has been a consistent and perverse feature of the German system in dealing with those that are either considered not directly useful or those that are out rightly unwanted. It should be recalled that in the erstwhile DDR, many contract/guest workers were similarly kept in Lagers and even couples amongst them were separated to ensure they did not raise families. The story is told of some women guest workers who were sent home because they were pregnant and refused to abort the pregnancy. The rule was that you were either here to work as demanded by the state or sent out of here to ensure that not even family issues obstructs that requirement. You are either useful for our economy or you’re out. Through all these phases, the Lager and control mentality was sustained. And was it not this control mentality that was evident in the Nazi requirement of foreigners to obtain permission to have children? Interestingly disturbing to note how deep and ingrained the control mentality is in Germany-so little attitudinal changes in the many years that have gone by.

But why is it so?

Good question. It may not have been necessary beyond academic inquiry to re-visit this question now, if many of us are not currently re-living the hash realities and the bitter consequences of this mentality and its attendant system. When the darkest and bloodiest history of this country was forcefully prevailed upon in the mid-forties, the so-called Allied were determined to set up a system different from what they just defeated. But the new system was set up perfectly to accommodate and rehabilitate majority of the dramatis personae in the very regime they just defeated, blurring over all these with the Nuremberg Trials. So, the rehabilitation and continious presence of highly placed people under the National Socialists in basically all fields of endeavour also meant that there was enough room to accommodate some of the policies of the Nazi past in Germany. As the old culprits settled more comfortably into the new political system with their cohorts, the easier it became for them to re-lapse nearer into their old frame of mind. We should remember here that we are talking of the Lager and control mentality. And nowhere in the Western world is this more demonstrated than in Germany.

History records the restriction of movement placed on Jews and other foreigners in 1938 and the consequent fine for violation of such restriction. While world outrage and condemnation have since been rightly heaped on this and the more horrible crimes of the era, since 1982, this obnoxious restriction has been replicated on all asylum seekers in Germany in the form of the so-called Residenzpflicht. That for a refugee to leave his/her immediate District he/she needs a written permission from the Foreigner’s Office - or else a fine or possible jail term awaits him/her, upon police control as a startling reminder of that 1938 restriction. Now, what does it cost Germany (culturally or economically) if refugees or asylum seekers can move freely within the country like normal human beings? NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING!!! But it is the German Lager and control mentality that is at play here. Just to clarify this with one more example. Many studies by independent investigators have shown that it is much cheaper if refugees are accommodated in private housing. And even different governmental sources have acknowledged this. But the authorities baulked at this cost effective measure and rather continue to take pride in maintaining the humiliating Lager system; that defies human dignity and denies refugees privacy. The same is true of food coupons-the “Gutscheine”. It costs the government more than the value of the Gutscheine that is actually paid out. And with all the unwanted attention, humiliation and the problems associated with Gutscheine, one wonders why the authorities insist on using Gutscheine and not cash, which is cheaper, easier andmore dignified. It has to do with the Lager and control mentality-encrusted old habits!!

-We demand for the abolition of lagers.
-We demand deportation stop.
-Abolish the apartheid Residenzpflicht in Germany.

No compromise with a racist state – Join us to fight for a better world - Our struggle is your struggle

___________________________________________________________

The declaration of The VOICE Refugee Conference 2010 in Jena: Reinforced resistance against institutionalised racism http://thevoiceforum.org/node/1909
The VOICE Refugee Forum Network: On Colonial Injustice and the Continuity of Barbarity in Germany
http://thevoiceforum.org/node/1279
jw presse zu The VOICE Refugee Conference in Jena
http://thevoiceforum.org/node/1901

Make Donation to support the Refugee Community in the lagers/camps in Germany! - Break the Isolation! Close all lagers! http://thevoiceforum.org/node/1851

OAS Diplomat's Words Rattle Haiti’s Occupation Regime

2010-12-30T09:58:00.000+01:00

Written by Roger Annis

Tuesday, 28 December 2010 23:14

As the one-year anniversary of Haiti’s earthquake approaches, a brutally frank account of the plight of its people has been delivered by a highly placed diplomat. Ricardo Seitenfus, the representative to Haiti of the Organization of American States, delivered a hard-hitting assessment of the foreign role in that country in an interview published in the December 20 edition of the Swiss daily Le Temps. i

The interview also appeared in the right-wing, Haitian daily, Le Nouvelliste. For his words, he was immediately recalled from his posting.

Seitenfus is Brazilian and a graduate of the Institute of Advanced International Studies in Geneva. The truths he pronounced in the now-famous interview are not unique; they have been voiced by many Haitians and their allies abroad. But to hear them uttered by someone of his standing is a sign of the unraveling of a miserably-failed foreign military and political occupation force in Haiti.

The Failings in Haiti

Seitenfus questions the legitimacy and utility of the UN Security Council occupation force known as MINUSTAH. It numbers 13,000 military and police (an increase of 50 per cent since the earthquake) along with several thousand political officers. “Haiti is not an international threat,” he says. “We are not experiencing a civil war.”

He is asked, is it a counter-productive presence?

The answer is, yes. The diplomat traces the 200-year history of foreign subjugation of Haiti. He draws a line of continuity to the present. “The world has never known how to treat Haiti, so it has ignored it.”
He says the country has lived a “low intensity war” since 1986, the year of the overthrow of the Duvalier tyranny. “We want to turn Haiti into a capitalist country, an export platform for the U.S. market, it’s absurd. Haiti must return to what it is, that is to say, a predominantly agricultural country still fundamentally imbued with customary law.”

Noting that nearly half of Haiti’s people—4 million—live abroad, Seitenfus says he does not pine for a return to a quaint rural past as a solution to Haiti’s present crisis. But he believes that the foreign intervention runs contrary to the country’s interests and needs. “The problem is socio-economic. When the level of unemployment is 80%, it is unacceptable to deploy a stabilization mission. There is nothing to stabilize and everything to build.”

When the interview turns to questions of aid and earthquake relief, Seitenfus drops a bomb in declaring, “If there is proof of the failure of international aid, it is Haiti.” Charity and aid to Haiti have enfeebled the Haitian state.

“Emergency aid is effective. But when it becomes structural, when it replaces the state in all its duties, collective responsibilities in society end up abandoned.”

His words for the world of charities and ngo’s are harsh. Haiti, he says, has become a “Mecca” for them, a “laboratory,” a “go-to” destination, and worse—a stage in their professional development. The existence of many ngo’s, he says, is dependent on Haiti’s failings.

“Haiti is ground zero of humanity’s tragedy and the failings of its international solidarity.”

A disastrous election

The dismissed ambassador does not comment on the electoral exercise that was staged in Haiti on November 28. It’s not difficult to imagine that, like many others in the world, he was aghast at what took place. By any measure, the vote was a violation of the democratic will of the Haitian people:

* It was financed by foreign powers, to the tune of at least $30 million.
* The country’s most representative political party, the Fanmi Lavalas of exiled, former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was ruled off the ballot.
* The list of registered voters that was used by the country’s electoral commission predated the January 12 earthquake and therefore contained the names of the more than 250,000 people no longer alive.
* It was difficult, if not impossible, for voters to register and cast their ballots. In the last genuinely democratic election in Haiti, the year 2000, there were some 12,000 polling stations. This time, there were less than a thousand.
* Widespread violations and irregularities at polling stations on election day were observed and reported.

But none of this has slowed the international powers in Haiti from pressing ahead to a second-round presidential vote in what many Haitians term not an election but a “selection.” Haitians will end up with a foregone result—a “president” whose extreme-right political leanings will be at odds with the political sentiments of the vast majority of the people but perfectly suited to the interests of the foreign powers that installed him (Martelly) or her (Manigat).

The cholera tragedy

Perhaps the most tragic of the calamities that have befallen Haiti is the introduction of cholera into the country by the very occupation force criticized so heavily by Ricardo Seitenfus. The disease has taken a heavy toll with more than 2,000 killed and tens of thousands fallen ill. Its economic consequences, especially on Haiti’s vital agriculture, will be costly and long lasting. ii

After weeks of denying any responsibility for introducing cholera, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced on December 15 that the organization would conduct an inquiry into its possible role. French epidemiologist Renaud Piarroux says "no other hypothesis" could explain his findings that cases of the diarrheal disease first appeared near a Nepalese-staffed MINUSTAH base in central Haiti. iii

The inquiry will need to look not only at where and how cholera was introduced, but also what measures, if any, were taken by the UN to prevent its occurence. For as New Scientist writer Debora MacKenzie wrote in the December 7 issue of the prestigious weekly magazine:

UN peacekeepers around the world are largely supplied by poor countries, and of the top 15 contributors, which supply 71 per cent of UN troops, 12 harbor cholera. If Haiti's cholera did indeed come from Nepal, it was a foreseeable accident. More caution is called for. iv

MacKenzie’s column slammed the UN for stalling an inquiry and the World Health Organization for stating that finding the source of the disease was “not important.”

Another startling element to the cholera saga was brought to light by Joia Mukherjee, Executive Director of Partners In Health, in an article written shortly after the outbreak. She reminded the world that among the victims of the aid embargo against the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide instituted by the U.S., Europe and Canada following the 2000 election were water treatment facilities in the very region where cholera first appeared. v

A challenge to Latin America

His views reflect the concerns of growing numbers of people in Latin American and the Caribbean over Haiti’s treatment. These concerns were underscored when CARICOM decided to lend legitimacy to the November 28 election by sending a delegation of monitors and then endorse the outcome as regrettable but legitimate.

This writer and co-author Kevin Edmonds published an article on November 15 that argued,

"The decision by CARICOM to participate in this deeply flawed election constitutes a significant reversal of the position it took in February 2004 when Haiti’s elected president and government were overthrown by a paramilitary revolt with key backing from the U.S., Canada, France and the UN Security Council. At that time, CARICOM condemned the overthrow." vi

Ricardo Seitenfus says that as a Latin American, Haiti’s treatment shames him. It’s an “offense to our conscience.”

Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic Policy Research warns in a recent article that the continued participation of Latin American countries in the MINUSTAH military mission is increasingly untenable as the mission’s predatory role becomes more and more evident. Referring to the attempted coup d’etat against the elected government in Venezuela in 2002, he asks rhetorically whether any Latin American government would have dared to participate in an occupation mission had the coup succeeded.

Weisbrot explains the stakes for Latin America and the Caribbean in Haiti thus:

"People who do not understand US foreign policy think that control over Haiti does not matter to Washington, because it is so poor and has no strategic minerals or resources. But that is not how Washington operates… Left governments will be removed or prevented from taking power where it is possible to do so." vii

“Enough of playing with Haiti”

In his damning interview, Ricardo Seitenfus describes a vision for Haiti that would see true international solidarity come into play. “Enough of playing with Haiti!” he declares.

While paying tribute to the outpouring of solidarity and compassion following the earthquake, he says that charity cannot be the driving force of international relations. What is needed, he argues, is autonomy and sovereignty of peoples, fair and equitable commerce, and respect by human beings towards each other.

In Haiti, “We must build roads, hydroelectric dams, assist in building government structures, including a judiciary system.”

“The UN says it is not mandated to do that,” he laments. “It’s mandate in Haiti is to maintain the peace of the graveyard.”

His prophetic words may no longer grace the offices of the OAS in Haiti. But they have given voice to countless Haitians still living in the miserable conditions of the camps of internally displaced or still waiting for the promised “reconstruction.”

They will not wait forever. They will continue to assert their rights. The longer the elites of Haiti and the world fail to offer a vision for the future of the country, the more certain become social explosions through which the people reassert their dignity and their rightful claim to social justice.

Roger Annis is a coordinator of the Canada Haiti Action Network. He resides in Vancouver and can be reached at rogerannis@hotmail.com .

Photo by Tory Field.

Notes:

i. Haiti is Proof of the Failings of International Aid (in French), interview with Ricardo Seitenfus, Le Temps, December 20, 2010.
ii. Impact du cholera sur l’agriculture haïtienne (in French), by William Michel, November 26, 2010.
iii. Haiti cholera outbreak 'came from UN camp', by Deborah Pasmantier, Agence France Presse, November 29, 2010.
iv. Haiti: Epidemics of Denial Must End, by Debora MacKenzie, New Scientist, December 7, 2010.
v. Cholera in Haiti: Another Disease of Poverty in a Traumatized Land, by Joia Mukherjee, October 22, 2010.
vi. With Friends Like These…CARICOM and the Flawed Election in Haiti, by Roger Annis and Kevin Edmonds, November 15, 2010.
vii. Wikileaks Cables Show Why Washington Won't Allow Democracy in Haiti, by Mark Weisbrot, The Guardian, December 17, 2010.

Georgia Prison Inmates Stage Peaceful Strike

2010-12-14T13:05:00.003+01:00

By Bruce A. Dixon

Created 12/09/2010 - 13:41

Submitted by Bruce A. Dixon on Thu, 12/09/2010 - 13:41

By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

In an action which is unprecedented on several levels, black, brown and white inmates of Georgia's notorious state prison system are standing together for a historic one day peaceful strike today, during which they are remaining in their cells, refusing work and other assignments and activities. This is a groundbreaking event not only because inmates are standing up for themselves and their own human rughts, but because prisoners are setting an example by reaching across racial boundaries which, in prisons, have historically been used to pit oppressed communities against each other. PRESS RELEASE BELOW THE FOLD

The action is taking place today in at least half a dozen of Georgia's more than one hundred state prisons, correctional facilities, work camps, county prisons and other correctional facilities. We have unconfirmed reports that authorities at Macon State prison have aggressively responded to the strike by sending tactical squads in to rough up and menace inmates.

Outside calls from concerned citizens and news media will tend to stay the hand of prison authorities who may tend to react with reckless and brutal aggression. So calls to the warden's office of the following Georgia State Prisons expressing concern for the welfare of the prisoners during this and the next few days are welcome.

Macon State Prison is 978-472-3900.	Hays State Prison is at (706) 857-0400
Telfair State prison is 229-868-7721	Baldwin State Prison is at (478) 445- 5218
Valdosta State Prison is 229-333-7900	Smith State Prison is at (912) 654-5000
The Georgia Department of Corrections is at http://www.dcor.state.ga.us [3] and their phone number is 478-992-5246

This is all the news we have for now, more coming.

One in every thirteen adults in the state of Georgia is in prison, on parole or probation or some form of court or correctional supervision.

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

Press Release

BIGGEST PRISONER STRIKE IN U.S. HISTORY

Thousands of Georgia Prisoners to Stage Peaceful Protest

December 8, 2010Atlanta, Georgia

Contacts: Elaine Brown, 404-542-1211, sistaelaine@gmail.com [4];Valerie Porter, 229-931-5348, lashan123@att.net [5]; Faye Sanders, 478-550-7046, reshelias@yahoo.com [6]

Tomorrow morning, December 9, 2010, thousands of Georgia prisoners will refuse to work, stop all other activities and remain in their cells in a peaceful, one-day protest for their human rights. The December 9 Strike is projected to be the biggest prisoner protest in the history of the United States.

These thousands of men, from Baldwin, Hancock, Hays, Macon, Smith and Telfair State Prisons, among others, state they are striking to press the Georgia Department of Corrections (DOC) to stop treating them like animals and slaves and institute programs that address their basic human rights. They have set forth the following demands:

· A LIVING WAGE FOR WORK: In violation of the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude, the DOC demands prisoners work for free.

· EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES: For the great majority of prisoners, the DOC denies all opportunities for education beyond the GED, despite the benefit to both prisoners and society.

· DECENT HEALTH CARE: In violation of the 8^th Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments, the DOC denies adequate medical care to prisoners, charges excessive fees for the most minimal care and is responsible for extraordinary pain and suffering.

· AN END TO CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENTS: In further violation of the 8^th Amendment, the DOC is responsible for cruel prisoner punishments for minor infractions of rules.

· DECENT LIVING CONDITIONS: Georgia prisoners are confined in over-crowded, substandard conditions, with little heat in winter and oppressive heat in summer.

· NUTRITIONAL MEALS: Vegetables and fruit are in short supply in DOC facilities while starches and fatty foods are plentiful.

· VOCATIONAL AND SELF-IMPROVEMENT OPPORTUNITIES: The DOC has stripped its facilities of all opportunities for skills training, self-improvement and proper exercise.

· ACCESS TO FAMILIES: The DOC has disconnected thousands of prisoners from their families by imposing excessive telephone charges and innumerable barriers to visitation.

· JUST PAROLE DECISIONS: The Parole Board capriciously and regularly denies parole to the majority of prisoners despite evidence of eligibility.

Prisoner leaders issued the following call: "No more slavery. Injustice in one place is injustice to all. Inform your family to support our cause. Lock down for liberty!"

__________________________________________________________________

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

The peaceful strike begun by inmates of several Georgia state prisons continued for a second day on Friday, according to family members of some of the participants. Copyrighted news stories [4] by AP, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and local TV stations in Macon and Atlanta quote state corrections who say several institutions were placed on lockdown beginning Thursday in anticipation of the inmate protest, on the initiative of wardens of those prisons.

GA Prisoner Strike Continues a Second Day, Corporate Media Mostly Ignores Them, Corrections Officials Decline Comment

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Offices of the wardens at Hay's, Macon State, Telfair, and Augusta state all referred our inquiries to the Department of Corrections public affairs officer, who so far has declined to return our repeated calls.

The prisoner strike in Georgia is unique, sources among inmates and their families say, because it includes not just black prisoners, but Latinos and whites too, a departure from the usual sharp racial divisions that exist behind prison walls. Inmate families and other sources claim that when thousands of prisoners remained in their cells Thursday, authorities responded with violence and intimidation. Tactical officers rampaged through Telfair State Prison destroying inmate personal effects and severely beating at least six prisoners. Inmates in Macon State Prison say authorities cut the prisoners' hot water, and at Telfair the administration shut off heat Thursday when daytime temperatures were in the 30s. Prisoners responded by screening their cells with blankets, keeping prison authorities from performing an accurate count, a crucial aspect of prison operations.

As of Friday, inmates at several prisons say they are committed to continuing the strike. “We are going to ride it,” the inmate press release quotes one, “till the wheels fall off. We want our human rights.”

The peaceful inmate strike is being led from within the prison. Some of those thought to be its leaders have been placed under close confinement.

The nine specific demands made by Georgia's striking prisoners in two press releases pointedly reflect many of the systemic failures of the U.S. regime of mass incarceration, and the utter disconnection of U.S. prisons from any notions of protecting or serving the public interest. Prisoners are demanding, in their own words, decent living conditions, adequate medical care and nutrition, educational and self-improvement opportunities, just parole decisions, just parole decisions, an end to cruel and unusual punishments, and better access to their families.

It's a fact that Georgia prisons skimp on medical care and nutrition behind the walls, and that in Georgia's prisons recreational facilities are non-existent, and there are no educational programs available beyond GED, with the exception of a single program that trains inmates to be Baptist ministers. Inmates know that upon their release they will have no more education than they did when they went in, and will be legally excluded from Pell Grants and most kinds of educational assistance, they and their families potentially locked into a disadvantaged economic status for life.

Despite the single biggest predictor of successful reintegration into society being sustained contact with family and community, Georgia's prison

authorities make visits and family contact needlessly difficult and expensive. Georgia no longer allows families to send funds via US postal money orders to inmates. It requires families to send money through J-Pay [5], a private company that rakes off nearly ten percent of all transfers. Telephone conversations between Georgia prisoners and their families are also a profit centers for another prison contractor, Global Tel-Link [6] which extracts about $55 a month for a weekly 15 minute phone call from cash-strapped families. It's hard to imagine why the state cannot operate reliable payment and phone systems for inmates and their families with public employees at lower cost, except that this would put contractors, who probably make hefty contributions to local politicians out of business.

Besides being big business, prisons are public policy [7]. The U.S. has less than five percent of the world's population, but accounts for almost a quarter of its prisoners. African Americans are one eighth this nation's population, but make up almost half the locked down. The nation's prison population increased more than 450% in a generation beginning about 1981. It wasn't about crime rates, because those went up, and then back down. It wasn't about rates of drug use, since African Americans have the same rates of drug use as whites and Latinos. Since the 1980s, the nation has undertaken a well-documented policy of mass incarceration, focused primarily though not exclusively on African Americans. The good news is that public policies are ultimately the responsibility of the public to alter, to change or do do away with. America's policy of mass incarceration is overdue for real and sustained public scrutiny. A movement has to be built [8] on both sides of the walls that will demand an end to the prison industry and to the American policy of mass incarceration. That movement will have to be outside the Republican and Democratic parties. Both are responsible for building this system, and both rely on it to sustain their careers. The best Democrats could do on the 100 to 1 crack to powder cocaine disparity this year, with a black president in the White House and thumping majorities in the House and Senate was to reduce it to 18 to 1, and then only by lengthening the sentences for powder cocaine. On this issue, Democrats and Republicans are part of the problem, not the solution.

As this article goes to print Saturday morning, it's not known whether the strike will continue a third day. With prison officials not talking, and corporate media ignoring prisoners not just this week but every day, outlets like Black Agenda Report [9] and the web site upon which you're reading this are among the chief means inmates and their families have of communicating with the public. The prisoners are asking the public to continue to call the Georgia Department of Corrections, and the individual prisons listed below to express concern for the welfare of the prisoners.

Prison is about corruption, power and isolation. You can help break the isolation by calling the wardens' offices at the following prisons. Prisons, naturally , are open Saturdays and Sundays too.

Macon State Prison is 478-472-3900.	Hays State Prison is at (706) 857-0400
Telfair State prison is 229-868-7721	Baldwin State Prison is at (478) 445- 5218
Valdosta State Prison is 229-333-7900	Smith State Prison is at (912) 654-5000
The Georgia Department of Corrections is at http://www.dcor.state.ga.us [10] and their phone number is 478-992-5246

http://www.blackagendareport.com/

Bruce Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and based in Marietta GA. Dixon is a member of the state committee of the GA Green party.

Dozens wounded following police raids on Easter Island

2010-12-13T09:24:00.002+01:00

At least 25 people have reportedly been injured after police evicted indigenous inhabitants from buildings on Rapa Nui, widely known as Easter Island.

Rapa Nui woman wounded by a rubber bullet

Since August this year, Rapa Nui people have occupied a number of buildings on land they claim is legally theirs.

A pro-Rapa Nui website claims that police used tear gas and shot rubber bullets at close range during the protests on Friday.

According to the BBC, officials have claimed 17 police officers and eight civilians were injured during the protests. Local witnesses have put the figure at 19 civilian injuries and deny any police were hurt.

Santi Hitorangi, a documentary filmmaker who was present at the raids, said, ‘What happened… is their way of trying to stop any attempt of the Rapa Nui people to reassert their right to the land. All we are asking for is title to the land. It’s a rightful claim. We are not asking the government for anything else.’

The Rapa Nui are indigenous Polynesians who live on Easter Island, famous for its large carved stone heads known as ‘moai’. The island was incorporated into Chile’s territory in 1888 despite being located more than 3000 km from the South American coast.

An increase in tourism and settlement on the small island has put mounting pressure on native inhabitants who reject the privatisation of their ancestral lands.

Parliamentary president to the island, Leviante Araki, told a Chilean radio station, ‘We are willing to die, we won’t accept them coming to handle our property. No, we will never leave.’

Meanwhile, Chile’s Interior Minister expressed hope that an agreement can be reached, but confirmed they will continue to evict illegal occupants. ‘In our country, nobody can live outside the law,’ he said.

Fuente de fotografías: El ciudadano, Azkintuwe, Prensa Pueblo Rapa Nui.

Posts relacionados:

Massacre of Native Americans in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil

2010-12-05T22:04:00.001+01:00

On behalf of Our Tribe:

We cannot sit still and be quiet anymore in a situation that urges action.

Infants chased away from their birthright and forced to subsist on filth as nourishment?

These photos were taken by a photographer who cannot be identified because his life is at risk. This is a genocide that is happening in Brazil, in a state ruled by President Lula’s political party (PT)*. We must not close our eyes and turn our back to those people who are suffering all kinds of discrimination and violence. Children die of malnutrition and adults commit suicide by drinking themselves to dead. (Where does the booze supply come from?) The infant mortality is high and the murder rates as well. The mass media refuses to publish this because it is the “land of Gilmar Mendes“** (according to the photographer’s own words), a mafia that is not afraid to kill anyone who dares to question or even try to help these poor people. The goal is to transform the little Native American land there is into soybean and livestock area, and this is already happening!

Here you see a photo of an Indigenous person killed by repeated strikes in the face, young Indians who commit suicide victims of depression and alcoholism and children dead from malnutrition. The villages are burned down to force the Kaiowa-Guarani people off their land … Look at the drawings of children, all images shown people being murdered because that is the reality of these little children forgotten by Brazil and all the irresponsible world media who laude Lula as the champion of the poor!

Please forward this, we want it to reach the hands of someone who can help!!

According to the photographer who sent us these pictures the only chance for these slaughtered Indigenous people is the interference of some strong and foreign institution working in the field of human rights.

“Foreign” because the MAFIA that is behind the ongoing genocide is infiltrated in all the branches of official organs and authorities and there are very few who have the courage to speak out or do something since the mobsters threaten and kill without hesitation.

Contact me:
Natalia Forcat
NaT / Illustration Studio and Visual Solutions

NOTICE: This e-mail contains terrible images WHICH MUST BE SEEN!

A coincidence(?): I was with a friend a few days ago and we talked about the ongoing genocide committed against the Kaiowa-Guarani People.

She told me that back in the 80s, early 90s, while she worked on cases of “suicide“, an forensic expert – very famous today – was studying 20 of these suicides and had come to the conclusion, that most of them were incredible “accomplishments” just to avoid a more blunt word. Since most of these “suicides” were committed by young people who hanged themselves from a height less than their own and still managed to break the neck…

The photo of an Indigenous boy hanged below does not invalidate such insinuations. Or did the branch give way over time, until they find his body?

Isn’t it (in many cases) rather opportunistic and ruthless talk on suicides in the region in order to cover the ongoing genocide?

Luis Carlos de Alencar

*Blairo “Motor saw” Maggi (his nickname is a reminder of his stand towards the rainforest and the Native Peoples living in and depending on it) is a soya-billionaire and former governor of Mato Grosso who started out politically in the PPS (a “communist” party opposed to President Lula) but soon changed to PR (a fascist party) in order to support(!) President Lula. (Everything is possible in Brazilian politricks.)
He is the single most responsible person for Marina Silva to step down as (very successful) Secretary of the Environment, since President Lula favored Motor Saw Maggi rather than his secretary and party founding comrade Marina (who is now running for president as the Green Party’s candidate).
He is not governor anymore but doubtlessly still one of the most influential people in Brazil.
See more at http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blairo_Maggi

**53rd President of Brazil’s Supreme Court
Widely criticized by famous Brazilian law professors like Dalmo de Abreu Dallari (who is one of Brazil’s leading intellectuals and lectures on Peace Education, Human Rights and Democray and Tolerance at UNESCO, among other institutions) who wrote in an article in Brazil’s leading daily newspaper Folha de S.Paulo that with Mendes’ approval by the Senate (he was chosen by then president Fernando Henrique Cardoso) Brazil will be running serious risks as a state of law, including the fight against corruption and the constitutional normality.
Gilmar Mendes also had to encounter many regional prosecutors who were working for his impeachment. And he even made it into the BBC headlines. See more at http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilmar_Mendes

DENUNCIA! Massacre de Indios em Matogrosso! Não feche os olhos!

olá,

AVISO: esse email imagens terríveis QUE PRECISAM SER VISTAS!!!!

Toddlers draw out the horrors which have aged them beyond reason

coincidência: estava com uma amiga há alguns dias e comentavamos sobre o genocídio dos kaiowá.
ela me disse, que lá pelos anos 80, início dos 90, trabalhou com os casos de “suicídio”.
um perito – muito famoso até hoje – estudou 20 e tantos episódios naquela ocasião e declarou-lhe, o que também é a sua opinião (a de minha amiga), ser uma proeza incrível (na falta de melhor palavra) a maioria desses “suicídios” serem cometidos por jovens, ou quase jovens, que se enforcaram de uma altura menor do que a sua própria.
e ainda conseguem quebrar o pescoço.
a foto do garoto indígena enforcado abaixo não desmente tais insinuações.
ou será que o galho cedeu com o tempo, até acharem seu corpo?
será que, em algumas situações, não há um oportunismo cruel com o discurso dos suicídios dos kaiowá para encobrir diversos casos de extermínio naquela região?
abraços e solidariedade

Luis Carlos de Alencar

Is this right?

DENUNCIA! Massacre de Indios Guarani Kaiowá em Mato Grosso! Não feche os olhos!

Estas fotos foram tiradas por um fotógrafo que não pode se identificar pois corre risco de morte. Se trata de um genocidio que está acontecendo no Brasil, não devemos fechar os olhos para esta gente que está sofrendo todo tipo de discriminação e violencia. As crianças morrem de desnutrição e os adultos, por não vislumbrar saídas acabam se entregando à bebida ou se suicidam. A mortandade infantil é altíssima e os assassinatos também. Os medios de comunicação se negam a divulgar isto porque lá é “terra de Gilmar Mendes” (segundo as próprias palavras do fotógrafo que plasmou estas atrocidades) , uma mafia que não tem medo de assassinar quem for questionar ou até tentar ajudar esta pobre gente. O objetivo é transformar as reservas em plantação de soja e criação de gado e isso já está acontecendo!!!
Tem uma foto de um índio morto a pauladas no rosto, indios jovens que se suicidam vítimas da depressão e o alcoolismo e crianças mortas de desnutrição. As aldeias são incendiadas para forçar os índios abandonar a terra…Vejam os desenhos das crianças, em todas as imagens aparece gente sendo assassinada pois essa é a realidade destes pequenos filhos esquecidos do Brasil!

Por favor, repasse, queremos que isto chegue às mãos de alguma pessoa que possa ajudar!!!!

Segundo o fotógrafo que nos encaminhou estas fotos a única possibilidade para estos índios é a interferencia de alguma instituição de peso ESTRANGEIRA de direitos humanos pois a MAFIA que está exterminando estos índios está infiltrada em várias instancias do poder e são poucos os que tem coragem de fazer alguma coisa pois estes mafiosos ameaçam e matam mesmo!

How children interpret the evil they're forced to endure

Contato comigo:
Natalia Forcat

NaT / Estúdio de Ilustração e Soluções Visuais

Free Peltier now

2010-12-01T18:12:00.001+01:00

American Indian Movement (AIM) activist Leonard Peltier

Dozens of the supporters of American Indian activist Leonard Peltier have gathered in Rapid City in the US Midwest to call for a review of his case and his release from prison.

Rapid City, IOWA -- The group gathered in the South Dakota city on Friday to pray for Peltier's release, saying that he is innocent and was framed by the FBI because of his political activities.

James Swan, the head of the Black Hills chapter of the United Urban Warrior Society -- a nonprofit group that helps American Indians fight racial discrimination and injustice -- who took part in the gathering, described Peltier as a political prisoner whose case needs to be reviewed by an independent body.

"What we want people to realize is that this is an injustice," AP quoted Swan as saying.

Peltier, 66, was convicted and sentenced to two life sentences in 1977 on charges that he killed two FBI agents.

Peltier asserts that he is innocent and that the FBI framed him for political reasons, especially his activities as a member of the American Indian Movement. He has lodged numerous appeals against the conviction but all of them have been unsuccessful.

He has been denied parole and will not be eligible for it again until 2024, when he turns 79.

According to Peltier's relatives, he suffers a number of health problems such as diabetes, arthritis, and the loss of vision in one eye following a minor stroke.

Many activists say Leonard Peltier is the most important political prisoner in the United States.

In the review of the human rights record of the United States at the UN Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review (UPR) conference in Geneva, one group called for a new trial for Leonard Peltier.

The U.S. Human Rights Network (USHRN) filed a 423-page submission to the Geneva meeting -- actually, 23 separate position papers bound together with a 15-page “overarching report,” or executive summary, Fox News reported

The UN Human Rights Council reviewed the human rights situation in the United States in Geneva on Friday at its Universal Periodic Review conference, which opened on November 1 and runs until November 12

One of the papers, entitled “Political Repression-Political Prisoners,” about cases in the 1970s, indicts the FBI, accusing its Operation COINTELPRO of “maiming, murdering, false prosecutions and frame-ups, destruction and mayhem throughout the country,”

It cites the FBI for targeting the Puerto Rican Independence Front, the Black Panther Party, the Weather Underground, the American Indian Movement, the Black Liberation Army, as well as “peace activists and everyone in between,” and says that “many of today's political prisoners” in the U.S. were jailed indefinitely as a result. That repression has increased since 9/11, the paper argues.

The political repression paper demands an “immediate criminal investigation into the conspiracy,” and also new trials for two now-aged activists jailed on murder charges, Mumia Abu Jamal and Leonard Peltier.

Free Mumia!!! trial on 9th of November

2010-11-05T16:45:00.001+01:00

FREE MUMIA, NOW

MOBILIZE NOW FOR NOVEMBER 9TH IN PHILADELPHIA! RALLY AT 12 NOON AT 6TH AND MARKET STS. MUMIA’S HEARING IS AT 2PM AT 601 N. MARKET ST. AND THE STREETS MUST BE PACKED WITH SUPPORTERS!! D.A. SETH WILLIAMS STATED VERY CLEARLY THAT WHEN THE TIME COMES, HE WILL DEFINITELY ASK FOR THE DEATH SENTENCE FOR MUMIA. THAT TIME IS HERE — NOVEMBER 9! We have very few days to do what is necessary to bring thousands of people to the streets of Philly. People must begin organizing NOW to get there — schools, colleges, labor unions, churches, mosques, temples and every group and individual that can be reached. - CALL D.A. SETH WILLIAMS’ OFFICE AT 215-686-8000 AND TELL HIM HANDS OFF MUMIA!! - CALL/FAX/E-MAIL THE NEWS MEDIA ABOUT THE NEW EVIDENCE W/THE PICTURES (see http://www.freemumia.com)