CounterVortex

NYC Indymedia Hall of Flame

A typical comments exchange from NYC Indymedia:

BOORISH Orthodox Crusade

Mar 22, 2011 02:45PM EDT
…. http://

Your zionist, pro-Jewish leanings fooled no-one.
Your program was smarmy and faked sincere feelings for tre peace, boring and self-indulgent. You always seemd to support aggressions against Arabs from time to time…even your title with the word CRUSADE in it? Wise? Or a self-inside-joke? Why not MOORISH ORTHODOX HOLOCAUST? Or JIHAD? Or–well you get the point.

good riddance.

—

pro-Jewish

Mar 22, 2011 10:31PM EDT
Bill Weinberg http://

Every time I post on Indymedia the responses include at least one textbook case in anti-Semitism. Mr. “good riddance” doesn’t even try to hide it, refreshingly. I have never uttered a syllable of defense for Zionism or “aggressions against Arabs.” But is there any reason I shouldn’t be “pro-Jewish”? Of course I’m pro-Jewish. Forgot to use your code word there for a minute, didn’t you?

The name Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade was not invented by me but by the show’s founder Peter Lamborn Wilson, and was intended as a satire of the various “Christian Radio Crusades” out there. Not an inside joke, but clear political satire. So no, I certainly don’t get your “point.”

—

THE ETERNAL VICTIMS

Mar 22, 2011 11:56PM EDT
…. http://

Please, Bill…
If I said pro-Christian or pro-Muslim….no false smear of ant- whatever.

BUT–just mention the word JEWISH…and BOY OH BOY….FREE SPEECH gets shut down by the BIG BAD BILL!

What a joke.

GOOD RIDDANCE!

ps AMY GOODMAN (also JEWISH) also does NOT show up to WBAI studios yet YOU do NOT condemn HER?

WHY NOT?

ur a fraud dude.

—

Amy isn’t a quack

Mar 23, 2011 12:57AM EDT
Bill Weinberg http://

One red herring down.

I fail to understand why you would use “pro-Muslim” as a disparaging remark. Nothing wrong with that. But you clearly used “pro-Jewish” as an insult, and implied I was trying to “fool” people.

Two red herrings down.

Nobody called for your censorship.

Third red herring down.

I will note however, that Indymedia would never tolerate this kind of ethnic taunting if it were directed at any other ethnicity.

—

Wrong again Bill.

Mar 23, 2011 01:54AM EDT
…. http://

Bill, I didn’t say the ‘pro-Muslim’ was a disparaging remark.
But I notice how you leave ‘pro-Christian’ out.

I’d listen to ur show from time to time. Always slamming certain anti-war groups.

Btw-AMY GOODMAN is a SOROS corporaate, zionist shill who simply re-hashes YESTERDAYS news and interviews the ususal suspects. Chomsky, etc.

And INDYMEDIA constantly allows remarks insulting gays, women, Muslims (written by some of the most vile zionists).

And–Perhaps YOU dont like Null cause he’s a WHITE MALE? (Perhaps Christian)?
What’s wrong with NULL being successful?

ALL your un-truths, lies and red-herrings have been exposed AGAIN.

—

That’s exactly my point

Mar 23, 2011 02:10AM EDT
Bill Weinberg http://

For you”pro-Jewish” is an insult; “pro-Muslim” and “pro-Christian” are not.

—

Bill is caught on the glue-trap!

Mar 23, 2011 01:46PM EDT
…. http://

Haha!

If you’re so proud of the title or ur OLD show mocking ‘Christian’ shows…and you are supposed to be against all religions – then WHY WOULD you be ‘pro-Jewish’?

It’s an observation NOT an insult.
It’s YOU however who seem to LIKE the fact that Muslim nations are being attacked (you attack anti-war groups) for the protection of israel.

The point is – YOU are comfortable endorsing US military actions against Muslim nations: Iran and LIBYA and make a mockery of everything Christian- yet support the Jewish / zionist spin.

you’re a fraud- who’s finnaly been exposed.

LET’S ASK YOU THIS BILL:

DO YOU WANT ISRAEL DISMANTLED?

—

DEBATE continues

Mar 23, 2011 03:07PM EDT
…. http://

Since religions are for the weak-minded Bill and are a creation of humankind Bill, then WHY do you support the Taxpayer and Congress funded terrorist state of ISRAEL which has been created due to a BIBLICAL command ?

So, BILL– do you call for the terror state of ISRAEL to be de-funded, dismantled and de-weaponized?

—

sheep-whacking

Mar 23, 2011 03:23PM EDT
Bill Weinberg http://

The name pokes fun not at Christianity, but Christian FUNDAMENTALISM. The show always opposed fundamentalism of all stripes.

And I utterly reject the reductionist view that “Jewish” just refers to religion. I am a Jewish atheist, and there are plenty of us.

As an anarchist, I would like to see all states dismantled.

Yes, I know arguing with the anonymous on Indymedia is a glue trap. I’m a sucker, what can I say?

Last Chance to Save World War 4 Report’s Monthly Edition!

Dear Readers:

We weren’t sure we were going to put out a March issue, but we received some very insightful material on Libya and the revolutions in the Arab world that we couldn’t resist helping to get out to a wider readership. We believe our offerings this month help articulate a principled anti-imperialist response to the crisis in North Africa—a question which has unfortunately occasioned much confusion on the left.

We are currently working on our redesign of the website, which we will hope to unveil later this month. We are still grappling with whether to continue the monthly magazine-style issue in the new format, or just the Daily Report news blog. Back in September, we put the question to you the readers, pledging that if we could raise $500 before the format change, we would keep the monthly edition going. One reader in Japan immediately contributed $100 towards that goal. After that, we received little response. So that still means nearly $400 to go.

It’s up to you, readers. If the monthly edition means something to you, please vote with your credit card or checkbook. This will be our last issue before we make a decision and switch to the new format. If we make our goal, even after six months, we will keep our pledge to maintain the monthly edition. And if you donate and we don’t make the goal, your money will still go towards sustaining our work—daily updates on the Arab revolutions, indigenous struggles in Latin America, and the forgotten wars waged by corporate-military empires around the world, as well as dissident-left perspectives marginalized by the mainstream and “alternative” media alike.

This September will mark our ten-year anniversary. We dare to hope that the current developments on the world stage mark a break with the dystopian dynamic of jihad-versus-GWOT that began with the 9-11 attacks. And we want to be there to help document this process as it unfolds, and to help move it, in our small but pointed way, in what we perceive to be the right direction.

Help us to do that.

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REVOLUTION IN THE AGE OF FACEBOOK

by Michael I. Niman, ArtVoice, Buffalo, NY

For the past three weeks our screens have been awash with images of indignant Egyptians defying their brutal government with a loud, unprecedented, unified call for democracy. Our radios hummed with an accented song of rage, indignation, hope, and, finally, triumph and jubilation. The script for this drama moved fast, as if made for generations weaned on the ADHD world of TV. It was three weeks from the first public signs of discontent to the fall of Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak. The whole scenario has played out with almost no bloodshed so far.

Prior to this month, Egypt had been a dictatorship of one sort or another for 6,000 years.

Like a House Party, But Bigger
The genesis for this revolution, upending one of the most firmly entrenched status quos in history, took form last month as Facebook chatter. Like American college students planning a 40s-and-blunts party, Egypt’s soon-to-be revolutionaries posted calls for their online community to meet up in public squares and peaceably call for an overthrow of their ancient dictatorship. And, like the invite for the house party that drew a thousand guests, the Egyptian Facebook call for revolution went viral.

The infovirus that took down the Egyptian government had vectors stemming out of Tunisia, whose dictatorship collapsed a month earlier, similarly after a short but massive outburst of peaceful street protests and strikes. The first skirmishes of what the international media calls the “Jasmine Revolution” also played out on Facebook, when the Tunisian government’s infowarriors attempted to hack their population’s Facebook access to oblivion—this in response to a rapid, almost exponential increase in Tunisian Facebook accounts at the start of the year.

The government’s hack offensive ultimately failed, as Tunisians went on to use the social network to share logistic information about the anti-government protests and the government’s response. Twenty-nine days after protests began, dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s 23-year reign abruptly ended with the collapse of his regime. In the wake of his fall, the term “social media revolution” started to take on new meaning, especially in Egypt, where tech-savvy youth had been following the Tunisian drama.

Weaponized Facebook
And the virus keeps spreading. Inspired by the Egyptian revolution, activists in the Persian Gulf island monarchy of Bahrain, home to the US Fifth Naval Fleet, issued a statement calling on “all Bahraini people—men, woman, boys and girls—to share in our rallies in a peaceful and civilized way to guarantee a stable and promising future for ourselves and our children.” And hence the Bahraini revolution began, with riot police attacking demonstrators with rubber bullets, tear gas, and concussion grenades. The kingdom of Jordan has also caught the bug, with Twitter- and Facebook-inspired democracy protests coalescing this week.

Meanwhile, in Yemen, on January 28, as the Egyptian revolution was gaining steam, 24-year-old al-Razaq al-Azazi started a Facebook group called “Let’s change the president,” which he later renamed “Revolution against ignorance,” in preparation for pro-democracy demonstrations. More than 1,200 people defied the government and accepted the site’s invitation to a February 3 “Yemeni People Uprising,” challenging the three-decade-long reign of their government. This past weekend, during four days of protest, police attacked demonstrators with US-made Taser weapons while pro-government goons descended on the crowd swinging bottles, sticks, and other crude weapons. The Yemeni government, like Egypt and Bahrain, is a strong ally in the US “War on Terror.”

Across the Sahara from Egypt, Algerian Facebook and Twitter accounts have been buzzing with democratic revolution, too. Early street demonstrations there are successfully pressuring the government to end its 19-year-old, civil-rights-restricting “state of emergency.” However in mid-February, Algerian security forces, in an effort to contain the growing democracy movement, arrested approximately 400 demonstrators.

It’s not just US client states that have caught the Egyptian bug. In Iran, demonstrators gathered illegally to celebrate the popular pro-democracy uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, sparking Iran’s Twitter-inspired Green Revolution back to life. Democracy protesters are battling to occupy Azadi Square in Tehran as I sit here and write. On the cyber front, activists appear to be posting what some journalists believe are doctored videos showing mass protest footage from over a year ago with more timely chants celebrating the democracy movement’s victory in Egypt dubbed in. The apparent aim here would be creation of a perception that the protests are once again massive, which in turn, would likely result in them once again becoming massive.

The spark has also spread to Syria, where Facebook, though officially banned, is available via proxy servers around the globe. Using both Facebook and Twitter, thousands of people called for a “Day of Rage” in mid-February. In response, the Syrian government sentenced a high school blogger to five years in prison for anti-government posts, as young Syrians gear up for the next round of their nascent revolution.

While all of these revolutionary movements have been kindled by social media sparks, it’s important to note that they all have deep-seated roots that predate the recent uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. However, these two revolutions demonstrated that removing a Middle Eastern dictator is indeed possible, thus raising the stakes and bringing people back out in the streets throughout the region. The new social media platforms allowed people to celebrate collectively both the victories in Tunisia and Egypt and the fantasy that maybe they could be replicated at home.

Moreover, the new communication technology brought home the reality that revolutions don’t have to be violent, as tweets and posts affirmed collective commitments to nonviolence in advance of protests. Once social media effectively spread the word that protests would be nonviolent, they became acceptable to wider swaths of the population, ultimately emerging as genuinely popular uprisings.

Victory, If But for a Moment
Social media brings a new aspect to communication. Where TV is inherently anti-democratic, with one voice talking to the masses who can’t talk back, social media opens up a two-way discourse, allowing for organic, leaderless movements to reset national zeitgeists. The staying power of these leaderless revolutions remains to be seen. To date, they haven’t really fully liberated any territory—just moments of time where crowds won the space to cheer in public squares. The Egyptian revolution created what anarchist theorist Hakim Bey terms a temporary autonomous zone, or TAZ. For a moment, Egyptians from a host of diverse backgrounds put their differences aside and fought for a simple common goal: ridding the nation of its dictator. And they were rewarded by the triumphant moment that is inspiring oppressed people around the world.

At this moment, and only at this moment, we can imagine the Egyptian revolution, like a lover we haven’t yet met, to be anything we want it to be.

The reality on the ground is that while Egyptians defeated their dictator, his military is now running the country, essentially coming to power in a coup at the height of the demonstrations. So far the protestors who brought the dictator down don’t have a seat at the table as the ruling military leaders re-engineer the Egyptian political landscape.

Of course, their revolution, like our own 1776 revolution, will never be over, and they know it. Hence, Egyptians in the street keep reassuring international journalists that they are wary, but not fearful, of the military. Their reasoning is that their passion for democracy has been unleashed and is unstoppable. Time will tell how temporary or permanent the Egyptian moment proves to be.

It’s also important to note that these social media revolutions aren’t grassroots movements, as the grassroots don’t have internet access. For that matter, the grassroots often are not literate. In Yemen, for example, only one half of one percent of the population has access to the Internet, and hence to social media. And only 50 percent of the population can read.

What makes these revolutions possible, however, is who this wired minority is. The new breed of Facebook and Twitter warriors aren’t the landless peasants we normally associate with revolutions, and ultimately with massacres at the hands of the government. Instead, they’re the relatively affluent and hence powerful middle class. As such, their class status provides them with just enough invincibility to get away with expressing discontent.

Put simply, there’s a greater chance of an inquiry when you arrest, beat, or murder a child of the educated bourgeoisie.

Where social media gets its real power is that once these folks open the door for revolution, everyone else can more easily jump on board. Then traditional social media—word of mouth, graffiti, and so on—can take over, and you have revolution.

But You Better Hurry
It’s also important to understand that the moment for Facebook and Twitter revolutions is about to pass, so you better have your social media revolution quickly. While the still developing global Internet provides an anarchistic communications platform, the more developed Internet that we are beginning to see reins in this democratic chaos. While the Internet allows users in the developing world to incite revolutions (which still must play out in the street), developed police states see the Internet with an opposite potential—allowing them to spy on activists and track incubating political movements. In a technologically savvy police state, both you and your tweet may never see the light of day.

So don’t drink the “social media revolution” Kool-Aid. And don’t throw away your spray paint.

—-

Dr. Michael I. Niman is a professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Buffalo State College. His previous columns are at artvoice.com, archived at www.mediastudy.com, and available globally through syndication. This column first ran Feb. 17 in Buffalo’s alternative weekly ArtVoice.

From our Daily Report:

Protests hit Saudi Arabia; “Bloody Friday” in Yemen; riots in Alexandria
World War 4 Report, March 5, 2011

——————-
Reprinted by World War 4 Report, March 6, 2011
Reprinting permissible with attribution

LIBYA: THE WASHINGTON-LONDON DILEMMA

by Paul Rogers, OpenDemocracy

The emerging pattern of resistance and repression in Libya following the outbreak of protest in the eastern city of Benghazi on February 15 is very different from that in other parts of the Arab world. In part this reflects the distinctive nature of the country, and of the regime of Moammar Qaddafi which has ruled Libya for 42 years.

The military-political standoff there, and the degree of violence the regime is using (and seems prepared to use) to maintain and restore its control, raises the acute question of what and how much the international community can do to support Libyans’ rights and security.

The question has been forcefully raised in the United States and Britain in the first week of March 2011, where domestic pressures from senior members of the media and the foreign-policy community have combined to press the respective governments to take a firm stand.

The hardening rhetoric has included talk (especially from Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron) of some form of military action against Libya, including the imposition of a “no-fly zone”; though states such as Russia and Turkey instantly discounted this suggestion, and the US defense secretary Robert M. Gates—with a reference to “loose talk” that represents a coded rebuke of Cameron—is notably cautious about the logistics of enforcing such a zone.

There may be elements of diplomatic bluff in the efforts of Washington and London in particular to exert pressure on the Qaddafi regime. But words have consequences, and the effect of the rhetoric is also to create expectations (including among Libyans) that action will be taken to resolve the crisis in a positive way. The relatively tough resolution passed on February 26 by the United Nations Security Council, and the International Criminal Court’s declaration on March 3 that it would investigate leading figures of the Qaddafi regime for possible crimes against humanity, contribute to the sense of momentum here.

Yet the international community and its leading states still face broader problems over whether and how to intervene in relation to Libya. They involve calculations over how the complex and fluid conflict inside Libya will unfold, assessments of the capacity and impact of the instruments at their disposal, and issues relating to the legitimacy and inheritance of earlier interventions in the wider region—especially those led by the United States and Britain in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Libyan Prospect
The immediate problem is the uncertain course and outcome of the crisis within Libya. The regime appears to be maintaining reasonably firm control of the greater Tripoli district; this contains nearly a third of Libya’s population of 6.1 million, including many of those with direct or indirect links to the regime (including key army units).

It is just possible that Moammar Qaddafi and his key allies (including his immediate family) will seek to consolidate this area and refrain from serious attempts to regain control of the whole country—in turn providing a degree of space for some new form of governance to be introduced.

The assaults on Libyan oil-terminal towns such as Brega towards the east on March 2-3 make this option look even less likely, however. Against it, the evident determination and effectiveness of those resisting his rule may succeed in eroding the confidence of some of his forces and create a tipping-point of change towards a different order.

But perhaps a more feasible development (and in many ways the worst-case one) is that the regime deploys extensive force against lightly-armed protesters, inflicting many casualties and much destruction. The regime has greatly superior military resources at its disposal: strike-aircraft, helicopter-gunships, and elite forces, such as the 32nd Brigade and paramilitary units attached to the security and intelligence organizations.

The Military Response
The problem of what the international community should do is highlighted by the rapid switch in David Cameron’s position towards greater denunciation of Qaddafi, which followed stinging criticism of the delays and inefficiency of his government’s response to the crisis (especially in evacuating British civilians from Libya).

The new approach soon proved equally vulnerable, as it coincided with the revelation of weaknesses in national defense—over the Eurofighter project (now costing around £100 million per plane), the announcement of cuts of 11,000 in armed-forces personnel (including soldiers returned from Afghanistan), and a report from a parliamentary foreign-affairs committee critical of the military-political strategy in Afghanistan.

The Barack Obama administration too has been obliged to take account of a wider climate of opinion. This is composed of both belligerent Republicans who see in every foreign-policy crisis a military solution, and policy experts concerned that the US develop a more coherent policy towards the Arab uprisings (and, in the case of Libya, explore ways of implementing the “responsibility to protect”—that is, the obligation of United Nations member-states to act together to protect people’s lives and safety when these are under attack, including from their own government).

The administration’s response has centered on the redeployment of the US Navy’s sixth fleet. The fleet is headquartered near Naples; its carrier battle-group (headed by the USS Enterprise), recently on anti-piracy patrol off Somalia, transited the Suez Canal into the eastern Mediterranean on March 2. This powerful amphibious-assault capability includes the USS Kearsarge and the USS Ponce. The Kearsarge alone is a 41,000-ton Wasp-class ship twice the size of Britain’s recently decommissioned aircraft-carrier, HMS Ark Royal; it is normally deployed with 1,850 marines, forty-two CH46 transport helicopters and five AVH-8B jump-jets.

This build-up, together with that of other naval and US aerial forces in the region, is significant. But in itself it does not offer a solution to the interventionist dilemma.

The Interventionist Dilemma
The combination of events on the ground, public pressure and limited military re-deployments (as well as the humanitarian crisis resulting from the large-scale flow of displaced workers of many nationalities inside Libya) is difficult enough for Western governments to handle. It would become even more so if a war of attrition develops further in Libya, with greater suffering and increased calls (including by Libyans at the sharp end of conflict) for direct foreign military intervention.

The broad-based appeals for international action from within the region include one from a coalition of over 200 Arab non-government organizations drawn from eight countries, including Egypt, Morocco, Qatar, Syria and Saudi Arabia (see Thalif Deen, “Arab Civil Society Calls for No-Fly Zone over Libya,” TerraViva/IPS, March 1).

Even the proposal of a no-fly zone over the Tripoli area would be a huge operation that would require several carrier battle-groups and aircraft with permission to operate out of neighboring countries. The effort to stop Libyan strike-aircraft from flying would (as the US defense secretary outlined before a congressional panel on March 2) require the suppression of air-defense missile systems, associated radar stations and command-and-control centers; after all this, even more difficult would be preventing the use of helicopters (an issue whose omission from the ceasefire agreement that concluded the war over Kuwait in 1991 allowed Saddam Hussein to crush the Shi’a uprising in southern Iraq with extreme violence).

Moreover, there remains a possibility that—even were a no-fly zone to be established and succeed in controlling aircraft movements—the regime might still be able to maintain control via the intensive use of ground forces. In that event, the coalition enforcing the zone would be required either to acknowledge failure or escalate.

The Political Dilemma
The current scenario plans of leading states must take such concerns into urgent account. But there is a further problem over military intervention (as opposed to other forms), which is at heart political.

Any successful campaign to protect Libyans from the Qaddafi regime by military means would need to be organized by the United States, and be aided by supportive countries such as Britain. The reputation of these states across the region remains in key respects very negative, however, after what is perceived as their history of self-interested and illegitimate intervention (most of which had minimal United Nations approval).

Thus, the imposition of a no-fly zone (and its accompanying attacks) would be portrayed by the Qaddafi regime as part of a campaign to colonize Libya and grab its oil—a narrative that would almost certainly resonate even among many of the Libyans who had called for such a policy (and many other people in the region).

The immediate transformation from an internal war to one of “external aggression” would also have many implications beyond Libya, including in the Arab countries whose citizens have been mobilizing in support of freedom and democracy. It would not take many air-strike targeting disasters of the kind that have become so common in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia for ambivalence at western action to revert to deep hostility.

All this emphasizes the position of the United Nations in relation to the debate over intervention, and in particular the doctrine of the international “responsibility to protect” (R2P) developed in the late 1990s following the disastrous failures to prevent genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda. The work of putting this doctrine into practice at the highest level then collided with rival geopolitical agendas, especially following 9-11 and the George W. Bush administration’s declaration of the “war on terror.”

The UN was from the start central to the discussions over R2P, many of which led to a recommendation that a UN standing force supported by a full logistics capability was essential to put the idea into effective practice. In the event, this proposal has so far come to nothing, leaving a handful of individual states with any kind of rapid-intervention capability: Britain and France (on a small scale), India (in theory, and close to its borders), and the United States (the only state with a global reach).

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have had appalling human consequences. But their damage goes far wider, for they have made genuine international cooperation in pursuit of shared human interests—including the “responsibility to protect”—much more difficult. In the absence of a sudden capitulation by Libya’s regime, the costs of this damage may continue to be demonstrated in the coming days and weeks.

—-

This story first ran March 3 on Open Democracy.

See related story, this issue:

THE LAST CIRCLE IN LIBYA
by Rene Wadlow, Toward Freedom
World War 4 Report, March 2011

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Reprinted by World War 4 Report, March 6, 2011
Reprinting permissible with attribution

THE LAST CIRCLE IN LIBYA

by Rene Wadlow, Toward Freedom

While the People’s Revolution in Tunisia and Egypt was largely non-violent, the revolution in Libya may turn still more violent as the last of the palace guard circle around Colonel Qaddafi, his family and a small number of people with tribal ties to him.

Somewhat too late in the day, the UN Security Council demanded an embargo on arms sales to Libya. However, the country has more arms than it can use. The Security Council also requested the International Criminal Court to investigate if there have been war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Libya as well as freezing the foreign bank holdings of the Qaddafi family.

The UN Human Rights Council, like the Commission on Human Rights, had been silent on human rights violations in Libya for years. In fact, the then Libyan Ambassador, Najat al-Hajjaji, a former wife of one of the Qaddafi sons, had chaired the Commission on Human Rights in 2003. There is now discussion of expelling Libya from the Human Rights Council; however, the Libyan representatives in both New York and Geneva have resigned in order to join the opposition. At this stage, Colonel Qaddafi is not interested in diplomatic symbols.

The representatives of the European Union are worried, especially of a possible migration of Africans through Libya towards Europe. Colonel Qaddafi had signed an agreement that he would try to control migration through Libya toward Europe, and he had been given speed boats from Europe to help him in his task. The Europeans are also worried about energy supplies from Libya, although Libya represents a very small—some 2 percent—of energy to Europe, easily replaced from other sources. However, revolution in Libya and unrest in other parts of the Arab world has moved oil prices upward, and they are not likely to go down soon. NATO planners are meeting, reflecting the same worries as those of the EU officials.

The EU and US officials remind one of the aristocrats watching the French Revolution from safety in London or Belgium. They had not seen that the people were getting tired of the contempt in which they were held, nor that there was a rise of an educated middle class that could take care of itself without the nobles and the clergy. Likewise many in the Arab world can do without the kings and tribal chiefs, without the higher military officers who played a role of nobles and without the preaching of the Islamic clergy.

Today’s People’s Revolution, like that of France in 1789, is the victory of an educated middle class bringing along with it in its current a mass of the unemployed, small merchants, regular soldiers often from the rural farming milieu which has little prospered from modernization.

The question now is how will the young and educated middle class in the Arab world be able to structure a new society based on relative equality and justice. In each country, there are remains of the old society with some power, some skills, and a continuing sense of their own importance. We have seen in Tunisia how some of the old structure wanted to continue in power though this was met with continuing street protests.

Creation of new structures in a society is never easy. Both Tunisia and Egypt face an influx of workers fleeing Libya. Just as the French Revolution did not have only friends abroad, the People’s Revolution of the Arab world has more sceptical observers saying “what next?” than friends.

The governments, such as those of Algeria, Morocco and Jordan where only the first shocks have been felt, are promising “reforms” or “bread and circuses” but probably too little and too late.

The People’s Revolution is just that, the rise of a new people, not yet structured into a real social class. It has some leaders but rarely on a national level, and interest groups are only partly structured. This is not chaos except in the sense described by the classical Greek thinker Hesiod who saw chaos, creativity, and transformation working together. For Hesiod, chaos was not confusion but a richly creative space which flowed from the dual cosmic forces of heaven and earth or as in Chinese philosophy, from Yin and Yang. From this chaos comes new and more mature organization, one with more complexity and greater adequacy for dealing with the challenges of life.

Thus we need to find ways to support the People’s Revolution, to keep an eye open for counter-revolutionary activities and to watch closely as the next structures are put into place.

—-

Rene Wadlow is a representative to the United Nations, Geneva, for the Association of World Citizens. This story first ran March 3 in Toward Freedom.

See related story, this issue:

INTERNATIONALISM, LIBYA AND THE ARAB REVOLTS
by Pierre Beaudet, Viento Sur
World War 4 Report, March 2011

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Reprinted by World War 4 Report, March 6, 2011
Reprinting permissible with attribution

INTERNATIONALISM, LIBYA AND THE ARAB REVOLTS

by Pierre Beaudet, Viento Sur

The right-wing press in Venezuela and throughout the world is raving against the government of Hugo Chávez for its expressed support for the regime of Qaddafi. The Venezuelan exterior minister, Nicolás Maduro, has declared that the repression in Libya was necessary in the name “of peace and national unity.” The same Venezuelan right recalls that Chávez has visited Libya frequently since 2001, most recently in October 2010, with the aim of signing various accords relating to oil, agriculture, communications and higher education. In his turn, Fidel Castro emphasizes that the destabilization of Qaddafi’s regime forms part of a NATO strategy to invade Libya, implying that we consequently must support the regime.

This is all amazing, and brings back bad memories. For several years, Hugo Chávez has been seeking to reinforce his cooperation with states whose principal characteristic, from his point of view, is opposition to United States hegemony (Iran, Belarus, Zimbabwe, etc.). In Iran, the reactionary regime of Ahmadinejad vaingloriously boasts the good relations maintained with his Venezuelan “brother.” Certainly Fidel Castro has a point in at least one aspect: US imperialism is ready to intervene to “save”” Libya as in its day “save” Iraq and Afghanistan. For the anti-imperialist and other-worldist movements of the world, the dilemma is not trivial.

It is impossible to defend these reactionary regimes on the pretext that they oppose the United States. There is no room for doubt that Libya or Iran are ruled by autocratic and predatory regimes that beat back popular aspirations. The repression in the form of massacres of innocent civilians or the denial of fundamental rights (arbitrary detentions, torture, etc.) have nothing to do with the vulgar “anti-Americanism” of Qaddafi and Ahmadinejad, but reflects a pathological obsession with maintaining power. Even so, the fact is certain that the current crisis opens the door for imperialist intervention that will hoist, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, the “humanitarian” flag.

It is already known that the “humanitarian aid” operations on the part of US imperialism only generate still more repression, still more massacres. After the programmatic destruction of these states and their peoples by US occupiers, Saddam Hussein and Mullah Omar seem retrospectively to be mere heads of criminal bands.

The Double Standard
Likewise, it is not necessary to emphasize the absolute hypocrisy of the Western powers that are “scandalized” by the repression in Libya as they “ignore” that carried out by their Israeli, Saudi or Colombian allies. Said powers not only support these dictatorships, but they maintain commercial and military links with “strong” states whose merit is to maintain “stability.” Do we recall that Qaddafi himself, today condemned by Washington and its allies, was just recently a “partner” in oil exploitation, and was welcomed in the “endless war” of the United States against “international terrorism”?

Where does this leave us? Should we support the enemy of our enemy at the expense of the truth and struggle for justice?

In a time not long distant, this Manichean logic acquired caricatured forms. Movements of the left across the world declaimed their support for the Soviet Union, for China (or Albania!). They said, “the world is divided in two and we have to choose sides, like it or not.” We had to swallow a lot of toads [accept the unacceptable—ed.] in regard to the brutal Soviet invasions of Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. There were parties of the extreme brain-damaged left that defended the same Chinese government that supported repression in Chile and Sudan, or that invaded Vietnam under the pretext of opposing “Soviet hegemony.”

This antique political culture that has done so much damage to the left vanished after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the monstrosity that called itself the “international communist movement.” Later, unprecedented mobilizations and movements surged in many parts of the world, and especially in Latin America, finally liberated of this sickly vision: it was no longer necessary to support the Soviet “Big Brother,” which in any case had ceased to exist. It was no longer necessary to be afraid to solidarize with the Chinese people in Tiananmen Square. There was no longer doubt in condemning dictatorships such as those of Khomeini in Iran or Saddam Hussein in Iraq, because failing to do so would be playing the game of the United States’ “humanitarian” imperialism. In this way, the social movement reinforced its legitimacy, reaffirming untouchable principles, beginning to support all people who struggle against oppressors, no matter who they are.

New Threats
Today, things have become a little complicated. US imperialism is retreating, yet at the same time on the offensive. It has been exposed as incapable of winning the “endless war” in pursuit of the foolish dream of “re-ordering the world.” Nonetheless, it has not suffered a strategic defeat, and maintains under Obama the same strategy, even if many of the tactics have changed. In the center of this effort is the will of the US, together with its subalterns in the European Union, Japan and Canada, to establish absolute supremacy in the world. The real adversaries in this project are above all China and Russia, in a competitive logic that is the soul of capitalism and imperialism. But given that these states are powerful, it is not possible to attack them head-on; therefore the tactic consists of waging conflicts on “secondary” fronts—weak or fragile states that refuse to submit to the Empire. This was the case with Saddam and today it is the case with Ahmadinejad.

Clearly, this offensive against “rogue states” thusly defined by Washington forms part of a long-term strategy to shore up its supremacy and prevent real or potential adversaries from expanding their influence. Evidently, to not let these “competitors” reinforce themselves, capitalist and imperialist practices are consolidated on the backs of the world’s peoples.

Epicenter of the Crisis
In the current phase, the epicenter of the crisis is in that vast arc that crosses Asia and Africa through the Middle East, where the main energy resources are located, and where persists a culture of anti-imperialist resistance that has caused hard reverses for United States hegemony on several occasions—and where the present rebellions have surged. There is no doubt that for the US and its strategic partner Israel, the prisons, the tortures and massacres are acceptable when the dictatorships demonstrate their “effectiveness.” But now they have ceased to be so.

Nonetheless, the battle has not ended. Washington is seeking to stabilize the situation and assure an orderly “transition,” which implies maintaining essentially the same politics as before. They need to support the repressive apparatuses, modernizing them and maintaining them under the authority of US military mechanisms. They also seek to seduce part of the so-called “middle class” which has acquired privileges, but which also seeks to loosen archaic and antiquated autocracies, installing “liberal democracies” whose mission consists of maintaining neoliberal policies and controlling the region to the benefit of the US and at the expense of its multiple enemies. The operation is risky, but has at times been obtainable, as occurred in Indonesia, the Philippines and other countries. In this “crisis management,” it can also be very tempting to totally or partially occupy select countries, as much to install in them new centers of military command as to eliminate “free radicals” or uncontrollable elements in the mode of Qaddafi (or Saddam Hussein in his moment).

This could also come to pass in Yemen, in Sudan, in other places where repressive regimes persist that have occasionally confronted the US and which now “dissimulate” in order to gain a place in the sun under the “Pax Americana.” If this project materializes, the consequences will be disastrous for the peoples of these countries. In any case, Libya in the hands of the imperialists will be a real threat for the emancipation struggles throughout the region.

History Continues
Meanwhile, on the ground, the popular revolt continues. In Egypt and in Tunisia, the popular classes begin to enjoy their freedom and (self-)organization. Every day, new popular organizations appear in the factories and barrios. The people continue occupying the streets and reminding the “renovated” dictatorships that they will not accept subterfuges.

The task of this new popular movement is enormous, especially considering that during the years of the dictatorships, with the aid of their Western mentors, they repressed everything that moved. Thousands of activists were assassinated, imprisoned, exiled. All opposition movements were crushed or—when they played by the “rules of the game,” as the Islamist movement did in Egypt—co-opted, content to occupy a subaltern space and collaborate with the regime. It is understood, therefore, that now the proletarian masses seek new instruments, new identities. This cannot be constructed from one day to the next.

It is correct and justified to expose Western hypocrisy—but not to portray the “anti-imperialist” dictators as allies of the “cause.” In this sense, the policy of the Hugo Chávez government is not acceptable. Worse still, it threatens to delegitimize that state which has had the courage to impose new priorities in response to the popular expectations in Venezuela. It is necessary to find the way to say this in a way that will not be exploited by the discourse of “humanitarian” imperialism.

But in the end, this is not the highest priority. That must be to support, seriously and systematically, our true allies in the womb of the popular movements. In the first place, they lack everything, including the indispensable resources which are now monopolized by the middle classes, little prone to facilitate the organization of the masses. It is in this point that internationalist mobilizations can intercede. We maintain our course towards Helwan and Gafsa [working class cities in Egypt and Tunisia, respectively] and the various places of popular mobilization by those little spoken of, and see what we can do to assist them in a concrete and immediate manner.

In the second place, it is mandated to incorporate and involve these sectors in the construction of the world social movement, where they can and wish to contribute much, and also where they can fertilize the popular dynamic of all the world. In this sense, the World Social Forum must redefine its priorities for 2011 and 2012, and concentrate is forces in North Africa and the Middle East.

—-

Pierre Beaudet is a professor at the University of Ottawa, an editor of the French-language Journal des Alternatives, and an organizer of this year’s World Social Forum, to be held in Dakar. This story first ran March 4 in the Spanish-language publication Viento Sur, which translated it from the French. It was in turn translated into English by World War 4 Report.

From our Daily Report:

Libya: rebels retake oil port, US sends warships
World War 4 Report, March 3, 2011

Libya: rebels tighten circle around Tripoli; Western intervention next?
World War 4 Report, Feb. 25, 2011

See related story, this issue:

FROM LATIN AMERICA TO THE ARAB WORLD
What’s going on in Libya?
by Santiago Alba Rico & Alma Allende, Rebelión
World War 4 Report, March 2011

——————-
Reprinted by World War 4 Report, March 6, 2011
Reprinting permissible with attribution

FROM LATIN AMERICA TO THE ARAB WORLD

What’s going on in Libya?

by Santiago Alba Rico & Alma Allende, Rebelión

We have the impression that a great worldwide liberation process may be aborted by the unappeasable ferocity of Qaddafi, US interventionism, and a lack of foresight in Latin America.

We might describe the situation like this: in a part of the world linked once again to strong internal solidarities and from which only lethargy or fanaticism was expected, a wave of popular uprisings have arisen which have threatened to topple the allies of Western powers in the region, one after the other. Independent of local differences, these uprisings have something in common that radically distinguishes them from the orange- and rose-colored “revolutions” promoted by capitalism in the former Soviet bloc: they demand democracy, certainly, but far from being fascinated by Europe and the United States, they are the holders of a long, entrenched, radical anti-imperialist tradition forged around Palestine and Iraq. There’s not even a hint of socialism in the popular Arab uprisings, but neither is there one of Islamism, nor—most importantly—of Euro-centric seduction: it is simultaneously a matter of economic upheaval and democratic, nationalistic and anti-colonial revolution, something that, 40 years after their defeat, suddenly opens an unexpected opportunity for the region’s socialist and pan-Arabist left.

Progressive Latin America, whose pioneering liberation processes constitute hope for world-wide anti-imperialism, ought to support the Arab world right now without reservation, moving beyond the strategy of the Western powers overtaken by events, as well as those who are providing an opportunity for Qaddafi’s return—perhaps militarily, but above all, propagandistically—as a champion of human rights and democracy. That discourse is hardly credible in this part of the world, where Fidel and Chávez enjoy enormous popular credit; but if Latin America aligns itself, actively or passively, with the tyrant, the contagious popular advances that are already extending toward Europe, and have gone as far as Wisconsin, will not only see themselves irreparably halted but will also produce a new fracture in the anti-imperialist camp, so that the world’s ever-vigilant timekeeper, the United States of America, can seize advantage in order to recover lost ground. Something like this may already be occurring as a result of a combination of ignorance with schematic and summary anti-imperialism. The Arab people, who are returning to history’s stage, need the support of their Latin American brothers and sisters. But above all, it is the relationship between world powers that cannot allow for vacillation by Cuba and Venezuela without having Cuba and Venezuela also suffer the consequences, with Latin America and the hopes for transformation at a global level suffering along with them.

We might say that we know very little of what it happening in Libya and are suspicious about the condemnations coming from the Western media and institutional powers in recent days. We might leave it at that. The imperialists are more intelligent. With many specific interests in the area, they have defended their dictators to the bitter end, but when they have understood that those dictators were unsustainable, they have let them fall and chosen another strategy: that of supporting controlled democratic processes, choosing and deploying post-modern minorities as a driving force for limited change, a new rainbow of democratic rhetoric, in the sure knowledge that memory is short and leftist reflexes quite immediate. Any kind of Western interference must be opposed, but we don’t believe, truly, that NATO is going to invade Libya; it seems to us that this threat, just barely hinted at, has the effect of entangling and blurring the anti-imperialist camp, even to the point of making us forget something that we ought to know: who Qaddafi is. Forgetting this produces three terrible effects in the end: breaking the ties with the popular Arab movements, giving legitimacy to the accusations against Venezuela and Cuba, and granting new prestige to the very damaged imperialist discourse on democracy. All without a doubt, a triumph for imperialist interests in the region.

Over the past ten years, Qaddafi has been a great friend to the European Union and the United States, and its dictator allies in the region. We need only recall the inflammatory statements of support from the Libyan Caligula for the deposed Ben Ali [of Tunisia], to whose militias he quite probably provided weapons and money in the days following January 14. It’s sufficient as well to recall Qaddafi’s docile collaboration with the US in the framework of the so-called “war on terrorism.” The political collaboration has been accompanied by close economic ties with the EU, including Spain: the sale of oil to Germany, Italy, France and the United States has paralleled the entry into Libya by the large Western oil companies (the Spanish Repsol, the British BP, the French Total, the Italian ENI and the Austrian OM), not to mention the juicy contracts for European and Spanish construction firms in Tripoli. Moreover, France and the US have continued providing the weapons that are now killing Libyans from the air, following imperial Italy’s example from 1911 [the year Italy took Libya from the Ottoman Empire]. In 2008, the former US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice made it quite clear: “Libya and the United States share permanent interests: cooperation in the fight against terrorism, trade, nuclear proliferation, Africa, human rights and democracy.”

When Qaddafi visited France in December of 2007, [French-based commentator] Ayman El-Kayman summarized the situation in the following paragraph: “Almost ten years ago, as far as the democratic West was concerned, Qaddafi was no long a reprehensible individual: in order to get off the US terrorist list, he took responsibility for the bombing over Lockerbie; in order to normalize his relations with the United Kingdom, he turned over the names of all the Irish Republicans who’d trained in Libya; for normalization with the United States, he turned over all the information he had about Libyans suspected of participating in jihad along with bin Laden, and renounced his ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ as well as calling on Syria to do the same; in order to normalize relations with the European Union, he became the guardian of concentration camps where thousands of Africans headed for Europe are held; in order to normalize his relations with his sinister neighbor Ben Ali, he turned over the opponents of the Tunisian regime who had been living as refugees in Libya.”

As is apparent, Qaddafi is neither a revolutionary nor an ally, not even a tactical one, of the world’s revolutionaries. In 2008 Fidel and Chávez (along with Mercosur) rightly denounced what was known as the “shameful directive” from Europe that reinforced an already very severe persecution in Europe of defenseless immigrants who’d been stripped of everything. Of all Qaddafi’s crimes, perhaps the most serious and least known is his complicity in the EU’s immigration policy, particularly that of Italy, as the executioner of African migrants. Anyone seeking a wealth of information on the subject can read Il Mare di Mezzo, by the courageous journalist Gabriele del Grande, or consult his website, Fortresseurope, where there is a collection of horrifying documents. By 2006 Human Rights Watch and AFVIC [Association des amis et familles des victimes de l’immigration clandestine] denounced the arbitrary arrests and tortures taking place in Libyan detention centers financed by Italy. The Berlusconi-Qaddafi agreement of 2003 can be read in its entirety at Gabriele del Grande’s site, and its consequences summarized succinctly and painfully in the cry of Farah Anam, the Somali fugitive from Libyan death camps: “I’d prefer to die at sea than return to Libya.” Despite the denunciations of the real extermination practices taking place—or precisely because of them, proof of Qaddafi’s efficiency as Europe’s guardian—the European Commission signed a “cooperative agenda” [with Tripoli] in order to “direct migration flows” and “control borders,” valid until 2013 and accompanied by the delivery of 50 million Euros to Libya.

Europe’s relationship with Qaddafi has been a submissive one. Berlusconi, Sarkozy, Zapatero and Blair received him with open arms in 2007 and Zapatero himself visited him in Tripoli in 2010. Even the Spanish king, Juan Carlos, was dispatched to Tripoli in January of 2009 in order to promote Spanish business. On the other hand, the EU didn’t hesitate to humiliate itself and make a public apology on March 27, 2010, through the Spanish foreign minister at the time, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, for having prohibited 188 Libyan citizens entry into Europe due to the conflict between Switzerland and Libya over the arrest of one of Qaddafi’s sons in Geneva where he was accused of assaulting his maids. More than that: the EU didn’t issue the slightest protest when Qaddafi imposed economic, trade and human reprisals against Switzerland, nor when he effectively called for a holy war against that country and made a public statement about his wish that it be wiped from the map.

And so now when Qaddafi’s imperialist friends—who’ve seen how the Arab world revolted without their intervention—condemn the Libyan dictatorship and talk about democracy, we vacillate. We apply the universal template of the anti-imperialist struggle, with its conspiracy theories and its paradoxical distrust of the people, and ask for time so that the clouds of dust thrown up by the bombs dropped from the air might clear—to be sure that there are no CIA cadavers underneath. That is, when we don’t offer direct support, as the Nicaraguan government did, to a criminal with whom the slightest contact can only stain forever anyone who claims to be leftist or progressive. It’s not NATO who’s bombing the Libyans, but Qaddafi. “Rifle against rifle” is how the revolutionary song goes; “Missiles against civilians” is something that we cannot accept and that, without even asking ourselves, we ought to condemn with all our might and indignation. But let’s ask ourselves the questions as well. Because if we ask ourselves, the answers that we have—few as they might be—provide further proof of which side the revolutionaries of the world should be on right now. With any luck, Qaddafi will fall—better today than tomorrow—and Latin America will understand that what is happening right now in the Arab world has to do, not with the Machiavellian plans of the EU and the US (which without a doubt are maneuvering in the shadows), but with the open processes of Our America, that America which belongs to everyone, that of ALBA and dignity, since the beginning of the 1990s, following in the wake of the Cuba of 1958.

The opportunity is great, and possibly the last for a definitive reversal in the balance of forces, and for isolating the imperialist powers within a new global framework. We ought not to fall into such a simple trap. We ought not to underestimate the Arabs. No, they aren’t socialists, but in the last two months, in an unexpected way, they have stripped away the hypocrisy from the EU and the United States, have expressed their desire for authentic democracy, far removed from any colonial tutelage, and have opened a space for the left to thwart capitalism’s attempts to recover lost ground. It’s the Latin America of ALBA, of Che, and Playa Girón [Bay of Pigs], whose prestige in this area remained intact until yesterday, that must support the process before the world’s timekeeper manages to turn the hands back and to its favor. The capitalist countries have “interests,” the socialist ones only “limits.” Many of these “interests” were with Qaddafi, but none of these “limits” have anything to do with him. He is a criminal and moreover, a hindrance. Please, revolutionary comrades of Latin America, the revolutionary comrades of the Arab world are asking that you not support him.

—-

This story first ran in Spanish Feb. 24 on the Mexico-based website Rebelión. This translation by Machetera, of the multi-cultural translators’ network Tlaxcala, first appeared March 3 on VenezuelAnalysis. It has been slightly edited by World War 4 Report.

From our Daily Report:

Libya: battle for Tripoli begins; more massacres reported
World War 4 Report, March 6, 2011

Hugo Chávez to mediate in Libya crisis?
World War 4 Report, March 3, 2011

Latin leftist leaders in love-in with Libyan lunatic
World War 4 Report, Feb. 26, 2011

See related stories, this issue:

INTERNATIONALISM, LIBYA AND THE ARAB REVOLTS
by Pierre Beaudet, Viento Sur
World War 4 Report, March 2011

LIBYA: THE WASHINGTON-LONDON DILEMMA
How Will the Empire React?
by Paul Rogers, OpenDemocracy
World War 4 Report, March 2011

——————-
Reprinted by World War 4 Report, March 6, 2011
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Coming Soon: World War 4 Report Reloaded

Dear Readers:

World War 4 Report’s autumn hiatus turned out be longer and deeper than we had anticipated, with your chief editor and trusty blogger under a state of force majeure for several weeks. But we are back. The Daily Report news blog is being updated each day, with some (shall we say?) lively interchanges in the reader comment section.

We are currently preparing a long-overdue major redesign of the website, which we will be unveiling sometime over the winter. After years of reader complaints about the format, we are working on something that will be more graphically exciting and user-friendly.

One question we are still grappling with is whether to continue the monthly e-journal in the new format. How much does it mean to you to have a magazine-style forum for a few offerings of finished journalism and commentary each month, in addition to the daily digests and bloggery? We put it to the readers as this month’s Exit Poll, as well as asking you to vote with a donation.

Before we went on autumn hiatus, we pledged that if we could raise $500 over the autumn, we would keep the monthly edition going. One reader in Japan immediately contributed $100 towards that goal. That makes $400 to go.

What do you say, readers? Please be in touch with feedback—and, if you want to give us some encouragement, a donation. (It doesn’t have to be anywhere near what our Japanese reader gave, of course.)

Thank you, arigato, shukran and gracias,

Bill Weinberg

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FRESH EYES NEEDED ON WIKILEAKS’ TROVE OF SECRETS

by Rohan Jayasekera, Index on Censorship

With maybe hundreds of human rights activists named in the WikiLeaks files, and frontman Julian Assange threatening to throw them open to the world if “forced” to do so, it’s time for fair assessment of the potential threat to whistle-blowers and free expression advocates argues Rohan Jayasekera

When WikiLeaks turned from publishing battlefield reports to secret US State Department cables, the initial effect of seeing state-to-state relations shorn of traditional diplomatic obfuscation was electric. The lasting effect was more like reading your teenager’s Facebook page, initially shocking but ultimately predictable, and for those with the right experience, actually pretty familiar.

Again, there were fears about exposure and endangerment. The Atlantic magazine even alleged that WikiLeaks had exposed Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to treason charges by revealing his views on sanctions, as if Robert Mugabe had ever felt that he needed “evidence” to jail someone.

Some regimes are passing laws to extend the meaning of treason to cover economic “attacks” as well as military or political ones. In that particular hall of mirrors simply voicing sympathy for a tourism boycott can get you bundled into the back of a van.

And any association with the US looks bad to a lot of people in some parts of the world, especially when done in private. WikiLeaks frontman Julian Assange hardly helped this week by telling al-Jazeera TV that many officials visiting US embassies are “spies for the US in their countries.”

Generally though, the diplomats and politicians named and shamed (and sometimes praised) in the WikiLeaks cables tended to escape chastened but safe from the experience.

The risk is far greater for the many ordinary human rights defenders and civil society activists who have risked a visit to US embassies in their home countries. They come, often in surprisingly large numbers, to make advocacy cases to what they hope are sympathetic US ears, and until WikiLeaks, away from the dictators’ prying eyes.

Mercifully, it seems—though Assange now suggests otherwise, to al-Jazeera at least—the rights defenders have been saved from being cited in US embassy CIA staff reports.

Intelligence officers have a reputation for boosting the significance of their reports by making more out of routine contact with dissidents than the exchanges actually deserve. But the CIA removed them all from the SIPRNET digital shoebox of US diplomatic cables that alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning drew from.

But the risk remains, as I was firmly told by a US embassy political attache in an Arab state this month. A veteran human rights campaigner had already warned that many local rights activists expect more support from US diplomats than they will actually get; in the vault-like security of a typical US embassy they speak more freely than they possibly should.

The embassy attache was adamant. It was only a matter of time before a human rights defender was exposed by WikiLeaks, and jailed or killed as a result. “Then in that case,” he said grimly, “you may ask Mr Assange exactly what he thinks he has done for ‘transparency and human rights.'”

Weirdly, almost on cue, Wikileaks released a cable that might have proven his point, in which the name of the source—a public critic of a particularly reprehensible head of state — was redacted by WikiLeaks. However the redactor, presumably unfamiliar with the dissident’s work, failed to recognise a giveaway clue cited in the cable’s title.

Even with the redactions, anyone with reasonable knowledge of the country concerned could have guessed who was being quoted giving off-the-record, publicly unatributable, deep background information—or so he thought—to US diplomats about top-level state corruption.

Again, dictators don’t need evidence to jail people, and the key equation at the heart of the work of free expression defenders supported by Index on Censorship is simple: risk balanced against effect.

The risk posed by exposure by WikiLeaks is one more fresh edge to the multi-faceted threat they, their families and friends already face.

But WikiLeaks is supposed to be helping, no?

Redaction of data was never meant to be WikiLeaks’ prime duty, so it should be no surprise that they do it unwillingly, and when they do, that they can do it badly or obscurely. Index on Censorship raised the issue of the giveaway clue in the title of the otherwise redacted leaked cable with WikiLeaks directly.

They replied sympathetically, but noted that the redacted name was already out there as author of a critical book about the head of state. “…[S]o we feel that too much redaction is futile,” said the reply. “However, we do feel it is better to be safe than sorry and so have redacted the title…”

Well, OK, but the root of the question is the same as that raised everywhere, very specifically at an Index on Censorship debate between WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange and UK journalist David Aaronovich at London’s City University this year.

Since WikiLeaks decided to take editorial responsibility for selecting, redacting and publishing the content, what editorial criteria do they apply, what process is followed, what in-house oversight is there of their work and what qualifies for redaction under its “harm minimisation procedure“?

WikiLeaks itself said this was a problem, solved by opening up the data in advance to selected international publications, The Guardian, Der Spiegel and the New York Times among them. That relationship has since splintered over coverage of Julian Assange’s personal issues, but the relevance of adding external expertise to the process—expertise that WikiLeaks doesn’t have—still stands.

Assange repeatedly maintains that “[WikiLeaks] must protect our sources at whatever cost. This is our sincere concern.” But while he says his organisation presently releases files in a “responsible” manner, he fears extradition to the US and makes a clear threat to everyone involved, willingly or otherwise. “If I am forced we could go to the extreme and expose each and every file that we have access to.”

It’s easy to underestimate how much time US embassy staff spend talking to dissidents, opposition leaders, human rights and civil society activists. Hundreds could be named in the WikiLeaks collection of diplomatic cables still unreleased. It might be helpful to provide advance warning to dissidents about to get their moment in the WikiLeaks sun, and prepare the various organisations charged to defend them.

The WikiLeaks core principles, at least as they were when Index on Censorship honored the organisation in 2008, are good ones. But surely it’s possible to bring together independent groups of advisors, or draw on the advice of local human rights defenders. Maybe just three experts, easy to find, who before redacting or not redacting a name, will have at least read one of the redactee’s books or are more personally acquainted with the threats he or she faces?

—-

Rohan Jayasekera is Associate Editor and Deputy Chief Executive of Index on Censorship

This story first ran Dec. 31 on Index on Censorship.

From our Daily Report:

Enough with the Julian Assange hero worship
World War 4 Report, Dec. 26, 2010

WikiLeaks and the Belarus affair
World War 4 Report, Dec. 30, 2010

See related stories, this issue:

WIKILEAKS HONDURAS
State Department Busted on Support of Coup
by Robert Naiman, TruthOut
World War 4 Report, January 2011

WIKILEAKS BOLIVIA
Cable Lays Bare Washington’s Stance Toward Evo Morales
by Benjamin Dangl, Toward Freedom
World War 4 Report, January 2011

——————-
Reprinted by World War 4 Report, January 1, 2011
Reprinting permissible with attribution

THE AMBASSADOR HAS NO CLOTHES

WikiLeaks Cable Lays Bare Washington’s Stance Toward Bolivia

by Benjamin Dangl, Toward Freedom

A classified cable from the US embassy in La Paz, Bolivia released by WikiLeaks lays bare an embassy that is biased against the Evo Morales government, underestimates the sophistication of the governing party’s grassroots base, and out of touch with the political reality of the country.

The recently released Jan. 23, 2009 cable, entitled “Bolivia’s Referendum: Margin of Victory Matters,” analyzes the political landscape of the country in the lead up to the January 2009 referendum on the country’s new constitution, and was sent to all US embassies in South America and various offices in Washington.

In 2006, the leftist union leader and politician Evo Morales was inaugurated as Bolivia’s first indigenous president. Since his election he and members of his party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), have partially nationalized gas reserves, enacted land reform and convoked an assembly to rewrite the country’s constitution. Following years of debates among assembly members, this constitution was passed in a national referendum on Jan. 25, 2009.

The US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks that was written during the politically-charged days leading up to this vote shows a mischaracterization on the part of embassy officials of the MAS government and its supporters.

The cable cites Bolivian newspaper reports that many community leaders and their supporters in the Altiplano, the high plains of western Bolivia, where much of the MAS support lies, had not even read the constitution, and instead would simply “take their marching orders from the MAS, and vote for the constitution.” Many had not read the document out of, according to the US embassy, “disinterest, blind faith in Evo Morales’ political project, and illiteracy.” The cable describes one meeting between members of the US embassy and Bolivian political officials who “lamented the way the MAS had ‘cheated’ and ‘fooled’ campesinos into believing Morales was himself truly indigenous or cared about indigenous issues.” The officials said the MAS popularity was due to “‘vertical control’ in the countryside…”

These are all inaccurate portrayals of the dynamics of the MAS party and its grassroots base. Support for the constitution and the MAS did not simply grow out of illiteracy, disinterestedness, blind faith or the vertical control of the MAS over its members, as embassy officials would have those reading of this cable believe.

While many social sectors in Bolivia had serious critiques of the new constitution, the writing and passage of it was largely the result of years of discussions and consultations with constituents. The political consciousness among the MAS party base, both rural and urban, is highly sophisticated and has benefited from years of social mobilizations and a first hand understanding of the needs of the impoverished majority of the country. People support the MAS because the party speaks to those needs, has opened up political participation to marginalized sectors of society, and has developed a political project that seeks to empower disenfranchised and indigenous communities.

Such democratic tendencies challenge the economic interests and political power of Washington and the Bolivian right. It is telling, therefore, that many of the sources the US embassy drew from in this cable are members of the Bolivian right and critics of Morales.

For example, in the cable, the embassy officials cite Bolivia’s Santa Cruz Civic Committee as a source on the supposed electoral fraud of the MAS. Since Morales’ election, this Civic Committee has risen to notoriety as a fierce critic of the MAS government, and is tied to Bolivian business elites, racist youth groups, and acts of violent repression against indigenous activists and MAS supporters.

According to the released cable, US embassy officials were told by members of the Santa Cruz Civic Committee that they did not trust international electoral observers—including those from the Organization of American States, the Carter Center, the United Nations and the European Union—because they had “blessed” an August 2008 recall vote which empowered Morales with over 60% of the vote. Therefore, members of the Civic Committee did “not expect an honest review of the constitutional referendum” in January of 2009.

These views are illustrative for a couple of reasons. For one thing, the US embassy, in this diplomatic primer on one of the most important votes of the decade in Bolivia, emphasized electoral fraud on the part of the MAS where leading international observers saw none. Secondly, it looked to the Civic Committee, an organization that is totally unrepresentative of the views of the majority of the population, as a source on the topic.

Such misdirection and detachedness from Bolivia’s political reality was also demonstrated in a section of the cable which described a conflict in the department of Pando, Bolivia in September of 2008. Here, the embassy shares the views of an unnamed source:

In a conversation with PolOff, xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx alleged the MAS deliberately fomented unrest in Pando in September to justify a military siege, depose Prefect Leopoldo Fernandez, and arrest opposition-aligned leaders to swing the balance of power to the MAS in the Senate. Besides disabling the opposition’s ability to campaign by arresting many of its leaders,xxxxxxxxxxxx alleged the government crackdown changed Pando’s electoral map by causing hundreds of opposition voters to flee to Brazil while importing 2,000 new security forces, which xxxxxxxxxxxx claimed were likely MAS voters from the Altiplano (Reftel B).

This is an egregiously inaccurate portrayal of events. In September of 2008, in what Morales called a civic coup attempt, right forces in the country mobilized against the MAS government, ransacking human rights offices, attacking indigenous people and MAS supporters, and destabilizing the country. The most violent manifestation of this uprising occurred in Pando, where paramilitaries hired by Pando Prefect Leopoldo Fernandez fired on unarmed campesinos marching in support of the MAS. Following this upheaval, the US ambassador to Bolivia was kicked out of the country by Morales for “conspiring against democracy” and funding right wing opposition groups in Bolivia.

This cable provides useful insights into the inner workings of Washington’s diplomacy toward Bolivia, and will hopefully be one among many more such cables that become available to the public, thus spreading awareness about the true tactics of Washington in international relations. These revelations have contributed an already extensive lack of trust among citizens around the world toward the US government.

According to Bolivian Vice President Álvaro García Linera, this lack of trust toward Washington won’t be erased by castigating those who downloaded and leaked the documents. It will only be erased, said Linera, through “a change of attitude on the part of the North American government.”

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Benjamin Dangl is the author of the new book, Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America (AK Press, 2010), and The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia (AK Press, 2007). He is the editor of Toward Freedom, a progressive perspective on world events, and Upside Down World, a website on activism and politics in Latin America.

This story first ran Dec. 1 on Toward Freedom.

From our Daily Report:

Bolivia charges dozens in destabilization complot
World War 4 Report, Dec. 20, 2010

A dissenting view:

Enough with the Julian Assange hero worship
World War 4 Report, Dec. 26, 2010

See also:

BOLIVIA: CONGRESS APPROVES CONSTITUTIONAL REFERENDUM
by Benjamin Dangl, Upside Down World
World War 4 Report, November 2008

See related stories, this issue:

WIKILEAKS HONDURAS
State Department Busted on Support of Coup
by Robert Naiman, TruthOut
World War 4 Report, January 2011

THE DARK SIDE OF WIKILEAKS?
Released Diplomatic Cables Place Dissidents at Risk
by Rohan Jayasekera, Index on Censorship
World War 4 Report, January 2011

BOLIVIA’S NEW WATER WARS
Climate Change & Indigenous Struggle
by Bill Weinberg, NACLA Report on the Americas
World War 4 Report, January 2011

——————-
Reprinted by World War 4 Report, January 1, 2011
Reprinting permissible with attribution

WIKILEAKS HONDURAS

State Department Busted on Support of Coup

by Robert Naiman, TruthOut

By July 24, 2009, the US government was totally clear about the basic facts of what took place in Honduras on June 28, 2009. The US embassy in Tegucigalpa sent a cable to Washington with the subject, “Open and Shut: The Case of the Honduran Coup,” asserting that “there is no doubt” that the events of June 28 “constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup.” The embassy listed arguments being made by supporters of the coup to claim its legality, and dismissed them thus: “None…has any substantive validity under the Honduran constitution.” The Honduran military clearly had no legal authority to remove President Manuel Zelaya from office or from Honduras, the embassy said, and their action—the embassy described it as an “abduction” and “kidnapping”—was clearly unconstitutional.

It is inconceivable that any top US official responsible for US policy in Honduras was not familiar with the contents of the July 24 cable, which summarized the assessment of the US embassy in Honduras on key facts that were politically disputed by supporters of the coup regime. The cable was addressed to Tom Shannon, then assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs; Harold Koh, the State Department’s legal adviser; and Dan Restrepo, senior director for western hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council. The cable was sent to the White House and to Secretary of State Clinton.

But despite the fact that the US government was crystal clear on what had transpired, the US did not immediately cut off all aid to Honduras except “democracy assistance,” as required by US law.

Instead, a month after this cable was sent, the State Department, in its public pronouncements, pretended that the events of June 28—in particular, “who did what to whom” and the constitutionality of these actions—were murky and needed further study by State Department lawyers, despite the fact that the State Department’s top lawyer, Harold Koh, knew exactly “who did what to whom” and that these actions were unconstitutional at least one month earlier. The State Department, to justify its delay in carrying out US law, invented a legal distinction between a “coup” and a “military coup,” claiming that the State Department’s lawyers had to determine whether a “military coup” took place, because only that determination would meet the legal threshold for the aid cutoff.

Question: And so—sorry, just a follow-up. If this is a coup—the State Department considers this a coup, what’s the next step? And I mean, there is a legal framework on the US laws dealing with countries that are under coup d’etat? I mean, what’s holding you guys [back from taking] other measures according [to] the law?

Senior State Department Official: I think what you’re referring to, Mr. Davila, is whether or not this is—has been determined to be a military coup. And you’re correct that there are provisions in our law that have to be applied if it is determined that this is a military coup. And frankly, our lawyers are looking at that exact question. And when we get the answer to that, you are right, there will be things that—if it is determined that this was a military coup, there will be things that will kick in.

As you know, on the ground, there’s a lot of discussion about who did what to whom and what things were constitutional or not, which is why our lawyers are really looking at the event as we understand them in order to come out with the accurate determination.

But the July 24 cable shows that this was nonsense. The phrase “military coup” occurs nowhere in the document, a remarkable omission in a cable from the embassy presenting its analysis of the June 28 events’ constitutionality and legality one month after the fact, if that were a crucial distinction in assessing US policy. And indeed, initial press reports on the statements of top US officials in response to the coup made no such distinction, using the descriptions “coup” and “military coup” interchangeably.

Why did the State Department drag its feet, pretending that facts which it knew to be clear-cut were murky? Why didn’t the State Department speak publicly after July 24 with the same moral clarity as the July 24 cable from the embassy in Honduras? Had the State Department shared publicly the embassy’s clear assessment of the June 28 events after July 24, history might have turned out differently, because supporters of the coup in the United States—including Republican members of Congress and media talking heads—continued to dispute basic facts about the coup which the US embassy in Honduras had reported were not subject to reasonable dispute, and US media reporting on the coup continued to describe these facts as subject to reasonable dispute, long after the embassy had firmly declared that they were not.

As the Center for Economic and Policy Research noted in an August 2009 report, in the previous 12 months the US had responded to other coups by cutting US aid within days. In these cases—in Africa—there was no lengthy deliberation on whether a “coup” was a “military coup.”

What was the difference?

A key difference was that Honduras is in Central America, “our backyard,” so different rules applied. Top officials in Washington supported the political aims of the coup. They did not nominally support the means of the coup, as far as we know, but they supported its political end: the removal of the ability of President Zelaya and his supporters to pursue a meaningful reform project in Honduras. On the other hand, they were politically constrained not to support the coup openly, since they knew it to be illegal and unconstitutional. Thus, they pursued a “diplomatic compromise” which would “restore constitutional order” while achieving the coup’s central political aim: removal of the ability of President Zelaya and his supporters to pursue a meaningful reform project in Honduras. The effect of their efforts at “diplomatic compromise” was to allow the coup to stand, a result that these supporters of the coup’s political aims were evidently content with.

Why does this matter now?

First, the constitutional and political crisis in Honduras is ongoing, and the failure of the US to take immediate, decisive action in response to the coup was a significant cause of the ongoing crisis. After nominally opposing the coup, and slowly and fitfully implementing partial sanctions against the coup regime in a way that did not convince the coup regime that the US was serious, the US moved to support elections under the coup regime which were not recognized by the rest of the hemisphere, and today the US is lobbying for the government created by that disputed election to be readmitted to the Organization of American States, in opposition to most of the rest of the hemisphere, despite ongoing, major violations of human rights in Honduras, about which the US is doing essentially nothing.

Second, the relationship of actual US policy—as opposed to rhetorical pronouncements—to democracy in the region is very much a live issue from Haiti to Bolivia.

Yesterday there was an election in Haiti. This election was funded by the US, despite the fact that major parties were excluded from participation by the government’s electoral council, a fact that Republican and Democratic Members of Congress, in addition to NGOs, complained about without result. The Washington Post reports that the election ended with “nearly all the major candidates calling for the results to be tossed out amid ‘massive fraud'”: “12 of the 19 candidates on Sunday’s ballot appeared together at a raucous afternoon news conference to accuse the government of President Rene Preval of trying to steal the election and install his chosen candidate, Jude Celestin.”

Yesterday’s election in Haiti had the fingerprints of the US government all over it. It was funded by the US “Security” for the election was purportedly provided by UN troops, paid for by the US And the crucial historical context of the election was the 2004 coup that deposed democratically elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide, a coup engineered by the US with years of economic destruction clearly intended to topple the elected government.

Last week, Bolivian President Evo Morales called out the US for its recent history of supporting coups in the region.

AP’s treatment of President Morales’ remarks was instructive:

Morales also alleged US involvement in coup attempts or political upheaval in Venezuela in 2002, Honduras in 2009 and Ecuador in 2010.

“The empire of the United States won,” in Honduras, Morales said, a reference to the allegations of former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya that the US was behind his ouster.

“The people of the Americas in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, we won,” Morales continued. “We are three to one with the United States. Let’s see what the future brings.”

US officials have repeatedly denied involvement in all of those cases and critics of the United States have produced no clear evidence. [my emphasis]

It’s certainly true that critics have produced “no clear evidence” of US “involvement” in any of these cases – if your standard for “clear evidence” of US “involvement” is a US government document that dictated in advance everything that subsequently happened. But this would be like saying that critics have produced “no clear evidence” for the Armenian genocide because researchers haven’t yet found a Turkish Mein Kampf. [Some who dispute that there was an “Armenian genocide” do actually claim something like this – “there is no proof of a plan” – but claims like this are generally not taken seriously by US media – except when the US government is an author of the crime, and the crime is recent.]

In the case of the coup in Venezuela in 2002, we know the following:

* Groups in Venezuela that participated in the coup had been supported financially and politically by the US.

* The CIA had advance knowledge of the plans for a coup, and did nothing to warn the Venezuelan government, nor did the US do anything meaningful to try to stop the coup.

* although the US knew in advance about the plans for a coup, when these events played out, the US tried to claim that there was no coup.

* the US pushed for international recognition of the coup government.

* the International Monetary Fund, which would not take such action without advance approval from the United States, announced its willingness to support the coup government a few hours after the coup took place.

These facts about US government “involvement” in the coup in Venezuela are documented in Oliver Stone’s recent movie, South of the Border. This is why it’s so important for as many Americans as possible to see this movie: because there are basic facts about the relationship of actual US government policies—as opposed to rhetoric—to democracy in Latin America that major US media simply cannot be counted upon to report straight. In order to successfully agitate for meaningful reform of US government policy in Latin America, Americans have to know what the actual policy of the US government has been.

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This story first ran Nov. 30 on TruthOut.

Resources:

South of the Border
Film website

Senior State Department Officials on Honduras
State Department press release, Aug. 25, 2009

Bolivian leader lectures Gates about US behavior
AP, Nov. 22, 2010

From our Daily Report:

Honduras: Resistance Front protests Porfirio Lobo’s presence at UN
World War 4 Report, Sept. 26, 2010

Haiti: protests greet dubious election results
World War 4 Report, Dec. 14, 2010

World Bank, EU, NATO certify “constitutional rule” in Mauritania
World War 4 Report, Oct. 11, 2009

From our Archive:

Venezuela: Anatomy of the Coup d’Etat
World War 4 Report, April 21, 2002

A dissenting view:

Enough with the Julian Assange hero worship
World War 4 Report, Dec. 26, 2010

See also:

HONDURAS AND THE POLITICAL USES OF THE DRUG WAR
by Nikolas Kozloff and Bill Weinberg, NACLA News
World War 4 Report, May 2010

See related stories, this issue:

WIKILEAKS BOLIVIA
Cable Lays Bare Washington’s Stance Toward Evo Morales
by Benjamin Dangl, Toward Freedom
World War 4 Report, January 2011

THE DARK SIDE OF WIKILEAKS?
Released Diplomatic Cables Place Dissidents at Risk
by Rohan Jayasekera, Index on Censorship
World War 4 Report, January 2011

——————-
Reprinted by World War 4 Report, January 1, 2011
Reprinting permissible with attribution

2010: TURNING POINTS FOR CHIHUAHUA DRUG WAR

from Frontera NorteSur

If anything could be said about 2010 in Ciudad Juarez and the state of Chihuahua, it might be stated that any semblance of human rights flew out the window. Ushered in with the January murder of Juarez Valley human rights defender and army critic Josefina Reyes, the year drew to a close with the December slaying of activist Marisela Escobedo in the state capital of Chihuahua City, a crime which was captured on camera and transmitted across the world via the Internet.

Despite the immediate outrage provoked by the murder of Escobedo, who had spent more than two years protesting the disappearance and murder of her daughter in Ciudad Juarez, gunmen soon not only burned down the business of Escobedo’s male partner, but also kidnapped and murdered the man’s brother in the beleaguered border city.

Four of Escobedo‚s surviving relatives took the hint and hightailed it across the Rio Bravo to El Paso, where they are expected to seek political asylum.

From January onward, the killing machine greased by the mechanics of the underworld roared non-stop. The slaughter of 14 young people in Ciudad Juárez’s Villas de Salvarcar neighborhood plunged the troubled city and Mexico into deepened crisis. Villas de Salvarcar popularized the word “youthcide” [jovenicidio] in the national vocabulary. Additional massacres at house parties, in bars and on public streets kept the public in a perpetual state of terror.

The Calderon administration unveiled a reconstruction plan for Ciudad Juárez, “We are all Juárez,” and put the Federal Police instead of the army in charge of the city‚s security. Yet the killing intensified, more people fled and the once-vibrant business/tourist and residential districts of Ciudad Juárez fell into an eye-grabbing decay.

Tourism Ministry statistics obtained by Ciudad Juárez’s Diario newspaper via Mexico’s Freedom of Information Act, reported that hotel occupancy plummeted from 447,034 people from January to October 2007 to 310,000 people during the same period in 2010.

The crash surely would have been much worse. Some establishments managed to stay afloat thanks to the Federal Police officers in need of lodging and the involuntary guests from across Mexico seeking US residency who were forced by the US government to stay in Ciudad Juárez while completing their approval process.

“We don’t have visitors coming for border tourism, or for shopping or for realizing cultural and sporting activities,” said Jorge Ruíz Carres, president of the Ciudad Juárez Hotel and Motel Association. “That type of visit is almost non-existent.”

Added to the factory lay-offs related to the global financial melt-down and the financial losses from extortion and robbery, the disappearance of tourist revenues from the local economy will be felt for a long time.

In 2010 international media devoted much reporting to the violence that engulfed Ciudad Juárez, blamed on the conflict between the Juárez and Sinaloa syndicates, but less international attention was given to the war also battering many other parts of the state of Chihuahua.

Nobody really knows for sure how many people perished in the course of the year. Citing official numbers from the Chihuahua state attorney general’s office, the Reforma news agency reported 5,212 people were murdered in the state between Jan. 1 and Dec. 19 of 2010. The authorities blamed organzied crime for the bulk of killings, or 3,766 homicides, according to Reforma.

Violence hit hard the state capital of Chihuahua City, where 488 people were reportedly slain just between the months of May and August. In a city where extreme insecurity should imply at least a modicum of government security response, the brazen murder of Marisela Escobedo in front of Chihuahua state government offices and in plain public view was quite noteworthy.

The public security crisis had its repercussions on the political scene. In July, a minority of eligible Chihuahua voters elected César Duarte of the Institutional Revolutionary Party to the governorship and chose Héctor “Teto” Murguía (Ciudad Juárez mayor 2004-2007) for a second try at leading an embattled municipality.

As he was preparing to leave office, Ciudad Juárez Mayor José Reyes Ferriz created a stir by accusing outgoing Governor José Reyes Baeza of abandoning Ciudad Juárez to the wolves during the past three years. Others criticized Reyes Ferriz for making untimely remarks and shirking his own responsibilities for the crisis.

The atmosphere surrounding the political transition got uglier. Media-savvy kidnappers snatched Mario González, the brother of former Chihuahua State Attorney General Patricia González, and released a series of videotaped “confessions” in which González, surrounded by a group of armed, hooded men, detailed the alleged participation of his sister in murder and crime. He named individuals supposedly connected to femicides, publicly tarred members of the political class-including former Governor Reyes Baeza— with accusations of illicit activities, and fueled new doubts among a public increasingly fed up with the political system.

A key player in the US Agency for International Development’s program to reform Mexico’s legal system, Patricia González was also a partner in the efforts of the outgoing Richardson administration in neighboring New Mexico to expand legal, trade and other ties with Chihuahua.

González challenged the credibility of statements her brother made under extreme duress and offered to sacrifice herself for his life. No matter. Mario González was executed and, despite the arrests of suspects allegedly behind the kidnap/murder, the scandal was largely forgotten amid fresh headlines publicizing an endless slew of new murders and crimes.

Other crucial events occurred in 2010 that could influence developments in 2011. Perhaps most significantly, civil society began stirring and emerging as an independent voice in a socio-political melodrama dominated by business groups, politicians, urban and rural bosses, and government and private security forces.

In the northern Chihuahua farming town of Ascension, thousands of residents rose up against kidnappers, killed two suspected criminals, disarmed police accused of corruption and temporarily occupied city hall. In December, thousands of doctors and health care workers carried out a one-day work stoppage in Ciudad Juárez to protest criminal attacks on members of their profession and the overall public safety situation in their city.

Galvanized into action by the Villas de Salvarcar massacre, groups of youth, especially from the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez took to the streets to protest death and uphold life.

In one such action on Oct. 29, 19-year-old José Dario Alvarez was shot in the back by members of the Federal Police. Alvarez survived but was left physically impaired- possibly for life.

The murder of Marisela Escobedo sparked a wave of protest across Mexico and the world, eliciting condemnations from the European Union and the Organization of American States‚ Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Civil society organizations from the US, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Spain, Ireland, and the Philippines joined hundreds of individuals and groups from Ciudad Juarez and Mexico in signing on to a December 20 statement that demanded a genuine investigation of the activist‚s murder, protection for members of the Escobedo family and government compliance with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ 2009 sentence related to the murders of women in Ciudad Juárez.

The statement read in part: “More than 50 million poor people, more than 7 million young people that don‚t work or study, more than 3,000 murders this year in Ciudad Juárez, more than 10,000 orphans, hunger, and unemployment are definitive evidence that we have failed as a society.”

Tracing Ciudad Juárez’s and Mexico’s troubles to corruption, myopia, authoritarianism, patronage politics, impunity, and an ineffective citizenry, the Dec. 20 statement declared, “A society in peace is built on freedom, truth and justice.”

Widespread protests against the Escobedo assassination continued into the holiday season. In Chihuahua City, thousands of candles that had been placed at the murder scene to honor the fallen activist were mysteriously removed but then quickly replaced by enraged citizens and activists. Decorated with altars, the scene outside the state government complex soon resembled a shrine.

In California, activist groups including Centro Azteca, Amnesty International and the Mexican American Political Association plan a Dec. 30 protest at the Mexican Consulate in San Francisco.

“We are demanding that the government of Mexico stop protecting murderers and drug cartels and instead stand up to protect the women, children and other innocents of Mexico,” read a flier announcing the protest.

A former Chihuahua state and federal lawmaker, columnist Victor Quintana wrote that Escobedo’s murder could be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Quintana contended that Marisela Escobedo’s relentless pursuit of justice was now spreading to many sectors in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua.

Escobedo’s example, Quintana wrote, could inspire a new determination to “rebel for life.”

Expect more grassroots mobilizations in 2011. For instance, on Jan. 29, near the date of the first anniversary of the Villas de Salvarcar slaughter, citizen groups in the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez area plan a joint, binational protest at the borderline dividing the common and bloodied land they inhabit.

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This story first ran Dec. 29 on Frontera NorteSur.

From our Daily Report:

Mexico: activist murdered, survivors harassed
World War 4 Report, Dec. 21, 2010

See also:

MEXICO’S OTHER DISAPPEARED
Demanding Justice for Missing Migrants
from Frontera NorteSur
World War 4 Report, June 2010

THE MEXICAN HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY GAP
Media Misreadings of the Border Violence
by Kent Paterson, Frontera NorteSur
World War 4 Report, May 2010

WOMEN IN BLACK MARCH ON CIUDAD JUAREZ
from Frontera NorteSur
World War 4 Report, December 2009

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Reprinted by World War 4 Report, January 1, 2011
Reprinting permissible with attribution