CounterVortex

BOLIVIA: PRESIDENT OUSTED AGAIN

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

PROTESTS TOPPLE PREZ–AGAIN

Indigenous and campesino protests that had shaken Bolivia since May 16 continued on June 6 around demands for the nationalization of natural gas resources and the seating of a constitutional assembly. Nearly 100,000 people demonstrated in La Paz, gathering in San Francisco Plaza and spreading out even into wealthy neighborhoods. All the main cities were affected by demonstrations, and protesters set up 78 roadblocks around the country, cutting off transit to Chile and Peru and paralyzing some of the highways to Argentina and Paraguay. Campesinos occupied a branch of an oil pipeline, causing a suspension of pumping to Chile.

During the day President Carlos Mesa Gisbert fled the Palacio Quemado, the presidential residence in La Paz. He returned, but in the evening he announced his resignation. Mesa had offered his resignation on March 6, during previous protests, but Congress had refused it and the move was viewed as a political maneuver. This time there was little question the offer was for real. Elected vice president in 2002, Mesa became president on Oct. 17, 2003, when similar protests forced Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada to resign in what is now known as the “first gas war.”

Congressional leaders arranged to meet on June 9 to accept Mesa’s resignation and choose a replacement. The meeting was to be held in the country’s constitutional capital, Sucre, in order to avoid the protests in La Paz and the nearby, largely indigenous city of El Alto. Under the Constitution, the next in line would be the Senate president, followed by the president of the Chamber of Deputies and then the head of the Supreme Court of Justice. It was clear that Senate President Hormando Vaca Diez, a right-winger who represents business interests in Santa Cruz department, would not be acceptable to the protesters, nor would Chamber of Deputies President Mario Cossio. Deputy Evo Morales, a leader of the coca growers (cocaleros) and of the Movement to Socialism (MAS) party, pushed for Vaca Diez and Cossio to step aside in favor of Supreme Court head Eduardo Rodriguez Veltze, who would be mandated to call early elections. Polls taken before the current protests showed Morales as the leading presidential candidate.

While politicians maneuvered in preparation for Congress’s June 9 meeting in Sucre, the protesters kept up the pressure. In La Paz and El Alto unions and community groups organized a popular assembly on June 8, according to Bolivian Workers Central (COB) leader Jaime Solares, who said there were plans for provisioning committees to deal with shortages caused by the roadblocks, and for self-defense committees, because of “information that there might be a coup from the right at any moment.” A campesino group close to Morales occupied seven oilfields in Santa Cruz department belonging to the Spanish corporation Repsol and the British firm BP; the occupation cut off oil shipments to the Chilean port of Arica. Felipe Quispe, leader of the Aymara indigenous group, told a Peruvian radio program that he would welcome a “civil war” in Bolivia that would finally settle the question of who should rule the country.

The protests followed Congress to the usually quiet city of Sucre on June 9. Contingents of campesinos, students and miners marched through the Plaza 25 de Mayo, setting off sticks of dynamite, while Vaca Diez tried to build support for his presidential bid in meetings near Yotala, a community 30 km from Sucre. In the afternoon a confrontation developed between police agents and the miners. Juan Coro Mayta, president of the March 27 Miners Cooperative, was killed by a bullet to the heart. When he learned of the protester’s death, Vaca Diez fled to the headquarters of the Sucre Battalion in the outlying El Tejar neighborhood and demanded military protection.

Top generals in La Paz spoke to Vaca Diez by cellphone, telling him that their position was “at all costs to avoid a confrontation between brothers,” according to an unidentified high-ranking military officer. “And he was reminded that we’d said the voice of the people had to be listened to, the popular demands.” Vaca Diez then returned to Sucre and agreed to step aside, as did Cossio. Congress met in the evening and named Eduardo Rodriguez president. Rodriguez promised to hold early elections and scheduled meetings with leaders of various social sectors.

As of June 10 supplies were beginning to arrive in La Paz and El Alto as protesters suspended roadblocks. Mercedes Condori, a member of the executive committee of the El Alto Federation of Neighborhood Committees (FEJUVE), said an assembly of neighborhood leaders had decided to give Rodriguez 72 hours to satisfy their demands: gas nationalization, a trial of former president Sanchez de Lozada and the seating of a constitutional assembly.

On June 7, the day after Mesa announced his resignation, US assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs Roger Noriega told reporters at the Organization of American States (OAS) General Assembly in Fort Lauderdale, Florida: “The role of [Venezuelan] president [Hugo] Chavez in the events in Bolivia is obvious to the whole world. It’s really worrying.” Later in the day the US State Department attempted to back up Noriega’s statement with copies of news articles indicating that Evo Morales had expressed support for Chavez on various occasions. (La Jornada, Mexico, June 7 from AFP, DPA; June 8 from AFP, DPA, Reuters; June 9 from AFP, DPA, Reuters; June 10, 11/05 from correspondent)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, June 12

GROUPS DEMAND NATIONALIZATION

On June 18, representatives of about 70 neighborhood and community groups, unions, campesino groups and civic associations from the Bolivian departments of La Paz, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, Oruro and Sucre met in the city of Cochabamba to map out a national strategy around key demands. The groups ended the meeting with an agreement to temporarily suspend street protests and road blockades while they present their demands to Congress and to new president Eduardo Rodriguez, who replaced Carlos Mesa Gisbert on June 9. On July 23 the groups are to meet again to discuss the progress made.

The primary demand of the social organizations is for nationalization of the country’s hydrocarbons (gas and oil) resources. They are demanding that the Bolivian state immediately recover ownership of these resources and that the state oil company, Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales de Bolivia (YPFB), take over all hydrocarbons production, industrialization and sales. They are also demanding that Congress revise the Hydrocarbons Law, taking out clauses that protect Bolivia’s current gas and oil contracts with transnational companies. In addition, they want a commission made up of government and social organization representatives to carry out a legal and technical audit of the transnational companies’ investments, to determine whether either the companies or the state require compensation.

The second main demand is for the immediate convening of a Constituent Assembly to write a new constitution. The groups also agreed to support demands for regional autonomy, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the state’s right to exploit natural resources or lead to the creation of a federal republic. In their final resolution, the organizations propose that a referendum on autonomy be carried out the same day as the election for the constituent assembly. (Resumen Latinoamericano 6/20/05 from La Haine]

Weekly News Update on the Americas, June 26

CONGRESS FAILS TO ACT

On July 1, after three days of debate, Bolivia’s Chamber of Deputies failed to approve a constitutional reform which would have allowed general elections in December. The vote was 50-54 against the reform; 105 votes–two thirds of the Chamber–were needed to approve it. The leftist Movement to Socialism (MAS) and right-wing New Republican Force (NFR) parties blocked the measure, demanding that a constituent assembly be convened before new general elections are set. The Only Union Confederation of Bolivian Campesino Workers (CSUTCB) and the Federation of Neighborhood Committees (FEJUVE) in El Alto have threatened to begin blocking roads on July 4; they are demanding that Congress be shut down and general elections be held. (AP, July 1; La Jornada, Mexico, July 2 from AFP, DPA)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, July 3

Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html

BATTLEGROUND BROOKLYN

Muslims Still Targeted for Police, FBI Harassment

by Thomas Tracy and Stephen Witt

One of the largest and fastest-growing Muslim communities in the United States is in the borough of Brooklyn, and incidents of harassment and “profiling”—by both the New York City Police Department and FBI—seem unabated there three years and counting after 9-11.

In one recent incident in the Bay Ridge neighborhood, a police officer reportedly tailed a prominent member of the local Arab community only to finally confront him at a gas station with his gun drawn and ask where “the bombs were.”

Activists as well as members of the Arab community brought these allegations to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly during a special meeting at Medgar Evers College on June 15.

After listening to complaint after complaint, Kelly encouraged all of those concerned to bring their charges to the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB). “If anyone feels aggrieved or abused by the police, the vehicle they can use to get their point across is to contact the CCRB,” he told the audience. “They are the independent agency for the NYPD that investigates these allegations and it’s easier than it has been.”

Some guests attending the community conference said that they had heard stories that cops routinely question Arabs’ immigration status. Others recalled the May incident in the 66th Precinct where a Bangladeshi immigrant was hospitalized during a robbery, but, because of an alleged miscommunication between police officers, the case was never investigated until the hospital informed them that the man had died.

Several hundred Bangladeshi immigrants living in Kensington braved the rain to protest the homicide. Once the case was investigated, detectives arrested two teenagers for the crime, Kelly said, claiming that the “internal miscommunication” was still being investigated.

The worst alleged case of police insensitivity toward Brooklyn’s Muslim communities brought forth at the meeting involved a Bay Ridge man who was reportedly followed by a police officer for two miles, only to be confronted by the cop at a neighborhood gas station with his gun drawn earlier this year.

“He was terrified. The cop followed him for two and a half miles and didn’t put on a siren,” said a friend of the victim. “He [the cop] waited until he was filling up at a gas station, then he got out of his car, pulled a gun and aimed it right at this gentleman, asking him for his license and where the bombs were.”

Sources at the 68th Precinct said that the resident’s allegations were investigated and, after some conversations where apologies were made, the resident decided against taking his complaints any further.

Ultimately, the unnamed community leader received four tickets, which were later dismissed, the friend detailing the story said.

While Kelly said that it was difficult to hear these kinds of stories, he also questioned the validity of the account, because the friend did not witness what had happened and the incident had not been officially reported.

“Something like this should clearly go to the review board,” he said, adding that a retelling of the story after so many months can be “like a game of telephone.”

“One person tells another person and everything is changed,” he said.

But close to a half dozen speakers from the community demanded more sensitivity training from the Commissioner.

Flatbush community activist Asghar Choudry said the cops “are confused because they know nothing about our religion or customs. You should let our Imams and leaders become more active and go into the police stations and give sensitivity training, not only to the new officers but to the supervisors and commanding officers as well.”

Commissioner Kelly said that the next academy class, due out in July, is more educated and more ethnically diverse than in previous years. “We are making our police force more reflective of the community,” he said.

In addition to NYPD “profiling” on Brooklyn’s Muslims, federal “anti-terrorist” investigations continue to target the borough’s Islamic community.

Another community meeting in Brooklyn posed a hardened F.B.I. agent saying it was his job to protect the country against several hundred Muslim immigrants saying the way they were treated was un-American.

That was the scene at the Bukhara Catering hall, on Coney Island Avenue in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn in early June, when representatives from the F.B.I. and the Homelands Security Department’s Immigration & Customs Enforcement came to address concerns of the borough’s fast-growing Muslim community.

Sponsoring the event were the Council on American Islamic Relation (CAIR), the Arab American/Muslim Consultants Network (AAMCM), the Arab American Family Support Center (AAFSC), the American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee (AAADC), and local neighborhood mosques and businesses.

Chuck Frahm, who heads the counter terrorism division of the F.B.I in New York City, called the meeting an important exchange of ideas and said he has now participated in several such forums, where “we listen and hear what you have to say.”

“A proud cornerstone of the United States Constitution is to ensure civil rights are protected, including freedom of religion,” Frahm told the audience. “But I can also say we make no apologies for the actions we must take to protect America. We must be able to obtain information to help you in this room. We service everybody in this room, it doesn’t matter if they are a citizen or not. But I also need your help to keep America safe.”

Frahm said his agency investigates many types of terrorism or terrorism-related crimes, including the illegal transfer of money, but emphasized there are terrorist groups that have nothing to do with the Islamic community that he also investigates, singling our neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

The meeting began with civil rights attorney Khurrum Wahid stating that relations between the government and Muslim community continue to erode and that it is incumbent on both sides to try to repair the “serious lack of trust that happened in the aftermath of September 11.”

Wahid said law enforcement has contributed to the culture of fear in New York, citing the increasing use of confidential informants culled from the local community. Often these informants have outstanding deportation orders and are offered the chance to get a green card if they cooperate and assist in the apprehension of others, Wahid said.

Wahid said the distrust is further hampered by the government practice of using immigration to detain people when in fact they are working on criminal case.

These immigrants are sometimes pulled from their homes in the dead of night in front of their families, where no attorney is provided. There are a number of media reports based on government leaks placing the arrest in a criminal context, when in fact, it is immigration related.

Among these cases, that caused the ire of local Muslim-Americans is the recent detention of two teenage Muslim girls from Queens, who were detained on immigration violations in March, after the F.B.I. became concerned that they might be planning to become suicide bombers.

Their detention without adequate legal representation, and their being held in Pennsylvania far from their families, was the cause of at least one Muslim-American meeting in Kensington in protest. After six weeks in detention the girls were released in early May, and officials have yet to comment on the case.

Lastly, Wahid complained that often at border crossings, Muslim-Americans are detained for no other reason than their name is on a “watch list” because a suspected terrorist or criminal has the same name. The name Mohammad in the Muslim community is akin to John Smith in America, he said, likening this practice to profiling.

Martin Ficke, a special agent with the New York City office of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said that the Asian and Latino communities express the same types of complaints that immigration and customs authorities are targeting and profiling them.

As for the “watch list” of names, Ficke admitted that there are certain names that require local authorities to look into identities. Both Ficke and Frahm said this has to be done in the name of security, and often Latinos with common names such as Fernandez are stopped and questioned if it matches the name of a drug lord.

Frahm admitted it is often an inconvenience to be stopped at the border, even stating that he was once even detained at the Canadian border–but for now it is a security precaution that must be followed. One way to make the detainment go quicker, said Frahm, is to make sure that you always carry plenty of documentation of who you are and what you do.

But Brooklyn was hit especially hard by the post-9-11 sweeps—nearly half of the borough’s 120,000 Pakistanis alone were detained, deported or chose to leave, according to the New York Times. And with abuses continuing, authorities may find that rebuilding trust will take more than appeals for patience and cooperation.

—–

Adopted for WW4 REPORT from journalism that appeared in Brooklyn’s Courier Life publications.

RESOURCES:

Council on American-Islamic Relations
http://www.cair-net.org

“In Brooklyn, 9/11 Damage Continues,” New York Times, June 7, 2003 http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Park/6443/WTC/brooklyn.html

See also:

Our last report on the detained teenage girls:
/node/462

“Fear on Atlantic Avenue,” WW4 REPORT #76
/76.html#nyc3

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Special to WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, July 10, 2005
Reprinting permissible with attribution

http://WW4Report.com

THE RE-OCCUPATION OF HAITI

Lawlessness Brings Call for New U.S. Military Role

by Kody Emmanuel

Since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown in March 2004, Haiti has largely disappeared from the headlines. But the country remains torn by violence and deep in political crisis. The United Nations has now called on the United States to send more troops to Haiti to support the 7,500-strong peacekeeping force, the United Nations Stabilization Mission for Haiti (MINUSTAH), which one year ago formally took over from the joint US-French force that occupied the nation upon on the ouster of Aristide.

Haiti is currently experiencing a crime wave that is effecting all segments of the population. Reports of kidnappings, reprisal killings and robberies are becoming a normal part of Haitians’ daily realities. Behind these crimes are often semi-organized armed groups–former members of the Tonton Macoutes, the fearsome paramilitary force of the old Duvalier dictatorship; remnants of rebel forces that ousted Aristide; gangs tied to Aristide’s Lavalas party; and formerly incarcerated deportees from the United States. But desperate youth–often as young as sixteen–are also committing crimes at a frequency that rival these groups. Many of these young people are not from families with a history of crime–but simply from homes that are despairingly impoverished. The high level of poverty and lack of any economic alternatives is forcing young people into a life of crime.

One young Haitian asks us to imagine a life of bathing in sewage-contaminated water, eating only one meal a day at best, growing up angry, envious and desperate. “What do you expect him to do but hustle, or if it’s a young girl to sell her body? You now put a gun in his hand and instantly he has the one thing that he’s been lacking: respect. I consider myself lucky; both of my parents are working, but there are days when I eat only on one meal… This a vicious cycle that we are living.”

Felipe Donoso, former Haiti delegation chief for the International Committee of the Red Cross, with years of experience in the Port-au-Prince slum of Cite Soleil, says: “Gangs are not people that you can just define as the bad guy. No, you have all kind of people in [the gangs]… This is a product of a system that is not working.”

The streets of Port-au-Prince are overcrowded with young street vendors. Haiti’s economy declined by 0.4% annually throughout the 1990s–largely due to two decades of political upheaval, cuts in financial assistance by the United States, mismanagement in agricultural production, and trade barriers from rich countries for Haitian goods. It has never recovered. This economic downturn impacted all of Haiti’s economic classes–but especially Haiti’s street children and vendors, rural poor and small-scale enterprises. Along with the country’s economic malaise, many of the youth programs started by President Aristide, such as Radyo Timoun, Haiti’s first youth-based radio station, were looted and burned during the violence that ousted him last year–along with the Aristide Foundation for Democracy, in which the station was located, and which oversaw other community development programs.

Haiti’s young people are increasingly the victims of random shootings by neighborhood gangs, the Haitian police and even the UN peacekeeping force–which has an official mandate to maintain law and order and aid the government in demobilizing armed groups and protecting civilians from violence. MINUSTAH–made up largely of Brazilians, with smaller military detachments from several other countries–is also responsible for helping the transitional government restructure the police and organize fall elections.

Critics of MINUSTAH claim that it has failed to distinguish between the general population and gang members, leading peacekeeping troops to kill many innocent people. Evel Fanfan, president of the Association of University Students Committed to a Haiti with Rights, has brought charges against MINUSTAH soldiers, accusing the peace-keeping force of killing 15-year-old Fedia Raphael of Cite Soleil. According to the charges, Fedia was shot on the morning of April 9, 2004 by MINUSTAH soldiers on patrol in the troubled neighborhood of Cite Soleil. The shooting came at a time when the area was relatively calm; still, emergency units only reached Fedia after she had died in a pool of her own blood. According to Fanfan, numerous cases such as the shooting of Fedia–along with those of thousands of young people held in abysmal conditions in Haiti’s National Penitentiary–have yet to be reviewed by Haitian courts.

Haiti’s poor neighborhoods, such as Cite Soleil, have become virtual prisons for their residents. UN peacekeepers stormed into Cite Soleil on July 6, 2005, killing two supporters of former President Aristide. According to Haiti Police Chief Leon Charles, longtime well-known Aristide supporter and community activist Emmanuel Wilme, known as “Dred Wilme,” was killed during several hours of gunfights between the 350 peacekeepers and Aristide supporters.

Since the forced departure of Aristide from office last year, Dred Wilme had repeatedly denounced the interim government of Prime Minister Gerard Latortue for killing Aristide supporters. He also accused Andy Apaid, a business leader who prominently supported the anti-Aristide rebels, of hiring known criminals to murder residents of Cite Soleil. He has also accused MINUSTAH of neglecting its peacekeeping mission and behaving more like an occupation force.

Said Dred Wilme during a recent interview with the New York-based Haitian community radio program Lakou New York: “They [MINUSTAH] shoot people sitting and selling in the marketplace. MINUSTAH must understand that the people in the streets are the masses of the people. They say that these people are ‘chime’ [pro-Aristide militia] but they are not ‘chime.’ They are the masses of the people fighting for their rights and demanding the return of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to Haiti. Inside Cite Soleil today we are facing a very serious climate of terror where many people have been killed and many children have been shot. We are asking for support because President Aristide must come back for peace to reign in Haiti.”

While Aristide’s supporters continue to be the target of police raids, random killings and arrests, members of the disbanded army and well-known human rights abusers are beginning to seek positions in mainstream politics.

Says Marguerite Laurent, founder of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network: “Dred Wilme was announced dead on July 7, 2005, the same day that US CIA asset and the real killer and Haitian bandit, Guy Phillipe, announced his candidacy for president of Haiti. Guy Phillipe is a terrorist to the majority of Haitians; thus, naturally he’s a ‘freedom fighter’ for [US assistant secretary of state] Roger Noreiga, [US ambassador to Haiti] James Foley, Haiti Democracy Project, NED [National Endowment for Democracy], IRI [International Republican Institute] and their Group 184 lackeys.” Group 184 is Andy Apaid’s anti-Aristide “pro-democracy” formation. Guy Phillipe was the most visible leader of the armed rebellion against Aristide.

In a series of raids in early June, over 20 residents were killed and their homes put to the torch by the Haitian National Police in the poor Port-au-Prince district of Bel-Air, a stronghold of Aristide’s Lavalas movement. The attacks were officially part of an anti-crime sweep, but residents accused the police of targeting Lavalas supporters. Nobody has been held accountable for the killings. Meanwhile, Aristide’s former prime minister Yvon Neptune has been jailed since his government was overthrown in March 2004, accused of overseeing a massacre of Aristide opponents at the village of St. Marc three weeks earlier, during the destabilization campaign. He was only formally charged this May, and he rejects the accusations.

Many Haitians are increasingly skeptical of calls for MINUSTAH to take more robust actions on handling gangs and crime, given the peacekeeping force’s own involvement in lawless violence. And many are more cynical still about calls for a renewed US military role in Haiti.

The US and France, responsible for the military intervention that led to the departure of President Aristide, appear to be gearing up for a return to Haiti, with the rationale that MINUSTAH is not capable of ensuring the degree of security required to hold elections in October-December this year. But military action will not be enough to contain the growing resentment and resistance against what majority of Haitians view as the re-occupation of their country by France and America, either directly or through their proxies: MINUSTAH member countries and the interim government.

RESOURCES:

Lakou New York interview with Dred Wilme, April 4, 2005 http://www.williambowles.info/haiti-news/2005/wilme_interview.html

Global Security page on international military operations in Haiti http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/haiti-background.htm

Amnesty International 2005 report on Haiti
http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/hti-summary-eng

Haiti Action Committee
http://www.haitiaction.net/

See also:

“Haiti’s Silent Agony,” WW4 REPORT #103
http://www.ww3report.com/static/haitigangs.html

Our last blog post on Haiti
/node/449

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Special to WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, July 10, 2005
Reprinting permissible with attribution

http://WW4Report.com

IRAQ: MEMOGATE AND THE COMFORTS OF VINDICATION

Yeah, Bush Lied–So What Do We Do About It?

by Bill Weinberg

Two years and counting after the invasion, a year after the official transfer to Iraqi “sovereignty,” and two months after the formation of an elected government, Iraq remains a classic counter-insurgency quagmire. And irrefutable documentary evidence has now emerged that Bush lied about his intentions in the war. We—the anti-war forces who warned of all this back in 2003—are vindicated. Just as the so-called “Memogate” revelations have come to light, global activists are gathering in Istanbul for a self-declared “tribunal” on US war crimes in Iraq, which is reiterating our all too obvious vindication.

This may make us feel good about ourselves. It may even be helpful in documenting US war crimes in a visible forum. But does that, alone, in any way help the people of Iraq? No. Does it even necessarily hasten the day when US troops will leave? If we merely gloat at the agony in Iraq and fail to grapple with the tough questions—again, no.

YES, IT’S A QUAGMIRE

The Bush administration itself issues statements on the state of the war laden with contradictions, a sure sign of the beginnings, at least, of official panic. Vice President Dick Cheney tells us “the insurgency is in its last throes.” Defense Secretary Rumsfeld paradoxically defended this statement, even while warning June 26 that “Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years.” He assured, however, that the fighting would eventually be left to the Iraqis. “We’re going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against the insurgency.”

President Bush’s address at Ft. Bragg on June 28 was assailed even by Republicans for its repeated invocation of 9-11, another sign of waning confidence in public support for the war. Said Bush: “The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of Sept. 11, if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi and if we yield the future of the Middle East to men like bin Laden.” The obvious response is that it is the US occupation that lured al-Zarqawi to Iraq in the first place, and made the country a hotbed of Islamist terrorism.

On June 25, the UK Independent provided a survey of how the insurgency has fared over the past year since the official transfer to Iraqi sovereignty:

“Car bombers have struck Iraq 479 times in the past year, and a third of the attacks followed the naming of a new Iraqi government two months ago, according to a count compiled by the Associated Press news agency and based on reports from police, military and hospital officials. The unrelenting attacks, using bombs that can cost as little $17 (£9.30) each to assemble, have become the most-favored weapon of the government’s most determined enemies, Islamic extremists. The toll has been tremendous: From 28 April through 23 June, there were at least 160 vehicle bombings that killed at least 580 people and wounded at least 1,734. For the year from the handover of sovereignty on 28 June 2004, until 23 June, 2005, there were at least 479 car bombs, killing 2,174 people and wounding 5,520. Altogether, insurgents have killed at least 1,245 people since the government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari took over on 28 April. There were 77 car bombs in May, killing 317 people and wounding 896. Last month was the most violent for Iraqi civilians since the US-led invasion to remove Saddam Hussein from power in March 2003.”

On May 27, New York’s Spanish-language daily El Diario/La Prensa noted a study by Puerto Rico’s government finding that “US government reports on soldiers under U.S. command killed in Iraq are so fragmented that they account for less than half of the total number.” This analysis was confirmed by El Diario/La Prensa’s review of multiple documents, including official releases by the Department of Defense, the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior and more than 230 battlefront reports, which reveal that over 4,076 troops under US command had been killed in 799 days of battle. The official toll reported in the US papers—counting only US troops, as opposed to all troops under US command—was 1,649. (It has since gone up to 1,736.)

Military affairs expert José Rodríguez Beruff from the University of Puerto Rico told El Diario that the figures showing more than 4,000 dead indicate that, far from winning the war in Iraq, “what is happening is that the troops are being worn down.” He said that traditional theorists calculate that for an occupation force to win a guerrilla war, its casualties should be one to ten of its enemy’s. In this case, that would require 40,000 casualties among the insurgents.

There is still more confusion when it comes to the wounded, which US authorities put at 12,600 and counting. But El Diario cited the German Press Agency (DPA), which ran a story reporting on US Army documents putting the number of US soldiers with war-related mental ailments at 100,000.

The figures came to light in the course of an ongoing investigation by El Diario/La Prensa into the number of Puerto Rican and Latino casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. That inquiry prompted Rep. José Serrano (D-NY) and Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, then resident commissioner of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, to request a full casualty report, which yielded a partial list of 200 Puerto Rican losses, including battlefield deaths, wounded and medical discharges. After his election as Puerto Rico’s governor, Acevedo Vilá renewed his request to the Defense Department for a total and specific accounting, but has yet to receive an answer.

According to documents reviewed by El Diario, in addition to the 1,649 fatalities among US uniformed troops, there were 88 from the UK, 92 from other coalition member countries, 238 reported by private contractors, and at least 2,000 from members of the Iraqi army. The biggest gap in the published counts is that of Iraqi troops under command of the occupying forces.

Meanwhile, as we watch the corpses pile up, the basics of ordinary life still haven’t been restored to Iraqis. In a July 1 statement, Baghdad’s mayor decried the capital’s crumbling infrastructure and its inability to supply enough clean water to residents, threatening to resign if the government won’t provide more money.

The statement from Mayor Alaa Mahmoud al-Timimi was a signal of the daily misery still endured by Baghdad’s 6.45 million people. In addition to the unrelenting bombings and kidnappings, serious shortages in water, electricity and fuel continue to make normal life untenable. “It’s useless for any official to stay in office without the means to accomplish his job,” said al-Timimi, who is seeking $1.5 billion for Baghdad in 2005 but so far has received only $85 million.

Just as al-Timimi released this statement, one of Baghdad’s central water plants was shut down by a fire, possibly resulting from insurgent mortar fire, leaving millions in the capital without water.

And, like the West Bank, Baghdad is now divided by a “security fence”—actually a huge concrete wall—that separates the Green Zone, where the US authorities and their client state have set up shop in Saddam’s old palaces and ministry buildings, from the rest of the city. The wall draws mortar and rocket fire, and the shops around it have become targets for suicide attacks, making life in central Baghdad more dangerous, not less.

YES, BUSH LIED

In his official final word in April, Charles Duelfer, the CIA’s top weapons inspector in Iraq, said that the search for weapons of mass destruction had “gone as far as feasible” and resulted in nothing. “After more than 18 months, the WMD investigation and debriefing of the WMD-related detainees has been exhausted,” wrote Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group, in an addendum to the 1,500-page final report he issued last fall.

In the 92-page addendum, Duelfer gave a final look at the investigation that employed over 1,000 military and civilian translators, weapons specialists and other experts. Duelfer said there is no purpose in keeping the detainees who are being held because of their supposed knowledge on Iraq’s weapons, although he did not provide details about the current number of such detainees.

This little-noted embarrassment was shortly followed by the Downing Street Memo revelations, which have made something of a bigger splash. Leaked by a “British Deep Throat” to reporter Michael Smith of the London Times in mid-May, the secret document, slugged “eyes only,” summarizes a July 23, 2002 meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair with his top security advisers, in which Richard Dearlove head of Britain’s MI-6 intelligence service (referred to by his code-name “C”) reported on a recent visit to Washington. The memo notoriously reads:

“There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action…

“It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.

“The Attorney-General [Lord Peter Goldsmith] said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC [Security Council] authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago [November 1998 resolution calling on Saddam to cooperate with weapons inspectors] would be difficult. The situation might of course change.”

These words were written at a time when the Bush administration was still insisting that military action would be a “last resort” against Iraq.

The London Times also reported May 29 that MPs from the UK’s Liberal Democrats had received information from the Royal Air Force showing that the bombing of Iraqi targets dramatically escalated in the prelude to the invasion, in an apparent attempt to goad Saddam into war. The information shows that the allies dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq in the second half of 2002 as they did during the whole of 2001.

Another leaked British memo, reported in the Washington Post June 12, has proved particularly prescient. The briefing paper, prepared for Blair and his top advisers eight months before the invasion, concluded that the US military was not preparing adequately for what the memo predicted would be a “protracted and costly” postwar occupation. The eight-page memo, written in advance of the notorious July 2002 Downing Street meeting, is entitled “Iraq: Conditions for Military Action.” It notes that US “military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace,” but that “little thought” has been given to “the aftermath and how to shape it.”

WHITHER THE TRIBUNAL?

At the end of June, the World Tribunal on Iraq got underway in Istanbul, convened by leading luminaries of the global anti-war movement. Among other things, the tribunal charged the United States with: waging a war of aggression contrary to Nuremberg Principles and UN charter, targeting the civilian population, using disproportionate force and indiscriminate weapons systems, failing to safeguard the lives of civilians under occupation, using deadly violence against peaceful protesters, imposing punishments without charge or trial and using collective punishment, re-writing the laws of a country that has been illegally invaded and occupied, creating the conditions under which the status of Iraqi women has been seriously degraded, and redefining torture in violation of international law to allow the use of torture and illegal detentions.

The opening statement also calls for “recognizing the right of the Iraqi people to resist the illegal occupation and to develop independent institutions, and affirming that the right to resist the occupation is the right to wage a struggle for self-determination…”

The World Tribunal on Iraq is consciously echoing the 1967 International War Crimes Tribunal on Vietnam, held in Stockholm and Copenhagen and overseen by British pacifist Bertrand Russell. Many of the criticisms that were leveled against the Russell Tribunal, as it was popularly known, are now being heard against the Istanbul tribunal: that it has no legal legitimacy, is recognized by no sovereign power, that nobody is arguing for the defense, that the jurors are all already convinced and the outcome is predermined.

At the opening session in Istanbul, Arundhati Roy delineated these charges, and answered them in her typically self-righteous style that the left finds so irresistible:

“The first is that this tribunal is a Kangaroo Court. That it represents only one point of view. That it is a prosecution without a defense. That the verdict is a foregone conclusion. Now this view seems to suggest a touching concern that in this harsh world, the views of the US government and the so-called Coalition of the Willing headed by President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair have somehow gone unrepresented. That the World Tribunal on Iraq isn’t aware of the arguments in support of the war and is unwilling to consider the point of view of the invaders. If in the era of the multinational corporate media and embedded journalism anybody can seriously hold this view, then we truly do live in the Age of Irony, in an age when satire has become meaningless because real life is more satirical than satire can ever be.”

Richard Falk, author of over 30 books on international law, addressed the event’s mission in less sarcastic terms in his remarks, stating that this “Tribunal movement” works “to reinforce the claims of international law by filling in the gaps where governments and even the United Nations are unable and unwilling to act, or even speak. When governments are silent, and fail to protect victims of aggression, tribunals of concerned citizens possess a law-making authority.” But even he implicitly admitted that the verdict was a foregone conclusion, stating that in contrast to traditional tribunals, the Istanbul tribunal’s “essential purpose is to confirm the truth, not to discover it.” And indeed, the 1967 Russell Tribunal found the US guilty on every charge with a unanimity that even the judges at Nuremberg failed to achieve.

But the far bigger problem concerns the Tribunal’s stance towards the Iraqi “resistance,” which, like that of the international left generally, is muddled and naive.

The Tribunal affirms the abstract right to resist, but abjectly fails to grapple with the realities of Iraq’s actually-existing armed resistance. Arundhati Roy, for her part, has written enthusiastically of the Iraqi resistance in the past, a stance which is at least minimally clearer if no more morally consistent than that of the tribunal she now represents. It is, presumably, the same groups which are attacking US and (more often) Iraqi government forces which are also attacking perceived ethnic and religious enemies within Iraq with even greater ferocity. The June 2 suicide attack on a Sufi gathering north of Baghdad that left ten worshippers dead is but among the most deadly in a long list of recent examples.

In this light, some of the tribunal’s charges take on an ironic aspect. The US is accused of “failing to safeguard the lives of civilians under occupation”: the “resistance” that Roy and others glorify is one of the primary forces that Iraq’s civilians need to be protected from. The US is accused of “using deadly violence against peaceful protesters”: this is something else the “resistance” has done, as when presumed Sunni militants opened fire on Shi’ite protesters in Baghdad in April. Perversely, these Shi’ites were protesting against the US occupation, indicating that elements of the “resistance” are more concerned with sectarian supremacy than building a united front against the occupier.

The tribunal also accuses the US of “creating the conditions under which the status of Iraqi women has been seriously degraded.” This one is so ironic as to be hilarious when it comes from defenders of the Iraqi “resistance,” which is imposing harsh sharia law in its areas of control, as well as abducting and raping women with impunity, throwing acid in the face of those who refuse to take the veil. But perhaps these Taliban-style ultra-fundamentalist enclaves are what is meant by the “independent institutions” that the tribunal affirms the Iraqi “resistance” has the right to develop.

The situation is somewhat muddied by reports of clandestine “black propaganda” units carrying out some of the worst attacks in a bid to marginalize the resistance. But in the absence of evidence, deciding that the preponderance of the ostensible “resistance” attacks on civilians is the work of the CIA or Pentagon is arbitrary and dishonest.

The Bush administration is doubtless guilty of everything the tribunal accuses it of. If anything, the tribunal is guilty of belaboring the obvious. But our vindication does not help the Iraqis. What answer do we have for Americans who are persuaded by Bush’s warning that we can’t abandon Iraq to al-Zarqawi? That we not only intend to do exactly that, but that we actually support al-Zarqawi as “the resistance”? This is as tactically stupid as it is morally bankrupt.

The anti-war movement is guilty of a monumental abdication of its responsibility to the people of Iraq. One thing which all of the pronouncements from Istanbul has failed to emphasize is the need to seek out and loan vigorous solidarity to Iraqis who oppose the occupation not in pursuit of ethnic or sectarian supremacy but of a secular, pluralist and tolerant social order, of basic rights for women (which are also threatened by Islamists in the US-backed regime), of something more democratic, not less, than the torture state currently in power.

Such organizations do exist, and the most prominent is the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), which helped lead the successful campaign against the measure imposing recognition of sharia law in Iraq’s interim constitution. OWFI’s street protests and public advocacy are carried out in defiance of the regime and “resistance” alike, and their leaders are under constant threat of death. None of them were invited to Istanbul.

One of OWFI’s leaders, Layla Mohammed, told a gathering in Osaka in March that there is a “civil resistance” movement that considers the Iraqi people themselves to be a “third force” that can stand up against both political Islam and the US occupation. This “third force,” she said, is one that “defends human rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, and asks for a secular government with separation between state and religion—where religion becomes a personal thing and no one forces anyone to believe what he or she believes. That’s the important thing.”

If only the anti-war movement in the West could be convinced of this importance.

RESOURCES:

Rumsfeld: Iraq Insurgency Could Last Years
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/062705B.shtml

One Year After “Sovereignty” Iraq Still in Crisis
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/062505X.shtml

El Diario-La Prensa on the casualty count
http://www.indypressny.org/article.php3?ArticleID=2128

Baghdad’s Mayor Decries Crumbling Capital
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/070105Z.shtml

WW4 REPORT on Baghdad’s “Apartheid Wall”
/node/718

Final Curtain Falls on Iraq WMD Myth
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/042605Z.shtml

Bombing Raids Tried to Goad Saddam into War
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/052905X.shtml

World Tribunal on Iraq
http://www.worldtribunal.org

Brendan Smith on the “Tribunal Movement” for TruthOut
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/062605Y.shtml

Arundhati Roy opening remarks
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/062505Y.shtml

Richard Falk opening remarks
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/wti.shtml

WW4 REPORT on Sufi massacre
/node/558

WW4 REPORT on acid attacks on Iraqi women
/node/727

June 22 IndyBay report on Layla Mohammed in Osaka
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/06/1748740.php

See also:

Can Iraq Avoid Civil War? (And Can the US Anti-War Movement Help?)
/node/456

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Special to WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, July 10, 2005
Reprinting permissible with attribution

http://WW4Report.com

LEBANON’S POST-ELECTORAL CROSSROADS

Michel Aoun and the Sectarian Shadow

by Bilal El-Amine

The last round of the staggered parliamentary elections ended with a bang June 26 in the north of Lebanon. Most of the final results were predictable: the Harriri-Jumblatt alliance will control the majority in the new parliament with 72 members, the Shia Muslim bloc of Amal and Hizbullah got 35 seats, and the remaining 21 went to Michel Aoun and his allies. Ostensibly favoring a “secular” Lebanon, Aoun is a longtime opponent of the Syrian military presence in the country and many fear he is now poised to become the new political boss of the Christians–stirring recent memories of sectarian strife.

Keep in mind that these are not solid blocs and could easily come apart as they get down to work. The Harriri list, for example, includes a number of right-wing Christian parties and the supposedly anti-Syrian Aoun managed to ally himself with some of Syria’s most loyal servants like Michel Murr–who was integral to Syrian control of Lebanon as a security and defense minister and likely played a central role in suppressing the mainly “Aounist” student protests in 2000.

The big surprise came in the Mt. Lebanon round of voting the previous week as Aoun and his allies made a clean sweep of the heavily Christian Kisrwan-Jbail and Metn districts. Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement got 14 seats and tipped the scales in his allies’ favor for an additional seven. This panicked the Harriri-Jumblatt opposition who thought they were on their way to an easy majority–another Aoun upset in the north would deny them outright control of the new government. Saad Harriri reportedly rented the Quality Inn (all of it!) in the northern city of Tripoli for a week to serve as his campaign headquarters, spreading his money far and wide to assure his list a win.

In the short time between his return to Lebanon on May 7 and the staggered June elections, Aoun pulled a political somersault–with a double twist–that left many utterly puzzled as to what he was up to. In the 15 years he spent in exile, he worked tirelessly to get Syria out of Lebanon. He testified before the US Congress in support of the Syrian Accountability Act, which imposed economic sanctions, and probably had a hand in UN Resolution 1559 which finally ended the Syrian military presence in Lebanon. But even before his return to Lebanon, Aoun was butting heads with the rest of the opposition over who can take credit for expelling the Syrians and therefore deserves the bigger stake in the new government. Lebanon was apparently too small for two oppositions.

Christian Boss

Soon Aoun was striking deals with pro-Syrian politicians, even becoming the number one defender of Syria’s last loyalist in the Lebanese state, President Emile Lahoud. It would appear that such unsavory alliances would hurt Aoun’s standing, particularly among his mainly Christian base who bitterly opposed Syrian rule. But the very opposite happened and Lebanon’s Christians flocked in large numbers to vote for Aoun, making him a major player in the coming period. No one, perhaps not even Aoun, could have imagined this course of events.

You can only understand what happened after you factor in Lebanon’s sectarian politics, which, everyone agrees, animated the parliamentary elections from beginning to end. By the time the voting reached the Christian heartland of Mt. Lebanon, it appeared to voters there that a Muslim tsunami–made up of the Harriri-Jumblatt-Amal-Hizbullah quartet–was about to swallow them whole. So they turned to Aoun to save them from oblivion. Aoun has always maintained that he is a strict secularist and sought to lead a multi-religious movement. Unwittingly perhaps, he has now become Lebanon’s new Christian boss, or zaim in Arabic.

The question remains where does Aoun really stand, who are his supporters, and what do they want for Lebanon?

Many have accused the former army general of having shady Washington connections, particularly with the neo-cons and even the Israeli lobby. Others–Muslim as well as Christian–say he is the best hope for Lebanon and point to his unstinting opposition to sectarianism and corruption, the two plagues of Lebanese politics. He is probably somewhere between: closer to a Lebanese nationalist (right-leaning but with populist overtones) who nevertheless still falls within the general outlook of the Christian sectarian right.

Internally, Aoun represents a break from the failed strategy of Maronite power that crashed and burned in the civil war. His movement reflects a willingness to try another, perhaps less confrontational strategy–maybe even sharing the country with Lebanon’s Muslims on an equal footing. He advocates a “Lebanon First” type of populism that calls for reforming the Lebanese state and economy, something that appeals to a lot of Lebanese regardless of religion.

New Beginning

But regionally and internationally, Aoun bears some of the hallmarks of the Christian right by questioning the Arab identity of Lebanon–which is another way of saying that the key regional question of Palestinian is not a Lebanese concern–and preferring a Western orientation instead. That the Christian vote catapulted him into parliament may in the end force him to play the traditional role of a zaim, representing the narrow concerns of Lebanon’s Maronites–something that Aoun may not have been planning on.

Given the short lifespan of almost any political observation one makes about Lebanon, this may not continue to hold true. Aoun may very well start to be more cooperative given the balance of power in parliament, and join the new government. The real test for all the political parties will be in the coming weeks, as the government grapples with the hardest issues: a new election law, Hizbullah’s weapons, the $44 billion national debt, and replacing the president, to name just a few.

Many here are pessimistic given the sectarian nature of Lebanon’s first (theoretically) free elections. And there are legitimate fears that Lebanon is now passing into of the hands of new external powers–this time, France and the US (some add Saudi Arabia)–who will have final say in critical decisions the country takes. The daily and public appearances of the French and American ambassadors, airing their views on what most consider internal Lebanese matters, only inflames such fears.

But there is also a widespread sense that a new beginning may finally be possible, now that both the Israelis and Syrians have left. US and French meddling is certainly worrisome, but it should not be viewed as inevitable. Much will depend on how the Lebanese will respond. The cataclysmic events sparked by Rafiq Harriri’s assassination in February–the mass demonstrations, the Syrian pullout, and the parliamentary elections–have only whetted people’s appetite for change, some real change finally in Lebanon. More importantly, they learned that they also, and not only their political bosses or parties, can make it happen.

I am—like most Lebanese—both wary and hopeful.

Beirut, June 28, 2005

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Bilal El-Amine is founder and former editor of Left Turn magazine, (www.leftturn.org/). He recently returned to his native Lebanon. He can be contacted at zaloom33 (at) yahoo.com

LEBANON SCORECARD: WHO ARE THE PLAYERS

by David Bloom

FACTIONS

HEZBOLLAH (the party of God): Founded with political and military wings in 1982 to fight the Israeli invaders, after the Shi’ites–who originally welcomed the Israelis because they were getting rid of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), then using Lebanon as a base–turned against Israel’s occupation. It is funded by Iran and close to the hardline elements of the Iranian regime. It is considered a Shi’ite fundamentalist organization. Although Israel pulled out of its occupation zone in Lebanon’s south in 2000, Hezbollah still remains armed, and fights with Israel for a strip of land called Shaba’a Farms which was Lebanese under the French Mandate (1920-41) and now considered by the UN to be Syrian territory, but controlled by Israel. Hezbollah states as a goal the liberation of Jerusalem and has been connected to Palestinian resistance activities. It is led by Shiek Hassan Nasrallah, formerly of Amal. Hezbollah is considered terroist group by the US and most western countries.

AMAL: Established in 1975 by Imam Musa as Sadr, an Iranian-born Shi’ite cleric of Lebanese ancestry who had founded the Higher Shia Islamic Council in 1969. Amal, which means hope in Arabic, is the acronym for Afwaj al Muqawamah al Lubnaniyyah (Lebanese Resistance Detachments), and was initially the name given to the military arm of the Movement of the Disinherited, created in 1974 by Sadr as a vehicle to promote the Shi’ite cause in Lebanon.

Sadr refused to engage Amal in the fighting during the 1975 Civil War. This reluctance discredited the movement in the eyes of many Shi’ites, who chose instead to support the PLO or other leftist parties. Amal was also unpopular for endorsing Syria’s intervention in 1976. Nonetheless, several factors caused the movement to undergo a dramatic resurgence in the late 1970s. First, Shi’ites became disillusioned with the PLO and its Lebanese allies. Second, the mysterious disappearance of Sadr while on a visit to Libya in 1978 rendered the missing imam a religious martyr. Third, the Iranian Revolution revived hope among Lebanese Shi’ites and instilled in them a greater communal spirit. When the growing strength of Amal appeared to threaten the position of the PLO in southern Lebanon, the PLO tried to crack down on Amal by military force. This strategy backfired and rallied even greater numbers of Shi’ites around Amal. By the early ’80s, Amal had become the largest organization in Lebanon. Led by Nabih Berri, Amal was perceived as pro-Syrian, as opposed to the Iran-oriented than Hezbollah. Amal called for national unity and did not push an Islamic state in Lebanon. Berri’s followers tend to be educated, middle class and secular; a second faction, led by Daud Daud, is of more religious and peasant orientation. In 2000, Syria decided to favor Hezbollah by giving both groups equal representation on their lists of candidates for Lebanon’s elections.

THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT: Two parties of the Christian right in Lebanon are officially banned, but still organize: the Lebanese Forces, founded in 1977 as a confederation of Christian factions by Bashir Gemayal of the Phalange (Kataeb) party; and the Guardians of the Cedars. The Guardians of the Cedars believe Lebanese are descended from the Phoenicians, and the founders of western civilization; the explicitly reject an Arab identity. Both groups openly allied with the Israeli military during its incursions in Lebanon. The Guardians of the Cedars operated death squads against Palestinians with Israeli complicity. The official slogan of the organization adopted in 1976 was “It is the duty of each Lebanese to kill one Palestinian.” The Kateab or Phalangist movement, mostly Maronite Christian, also collaborated with the Israelis. It was a Phalangist unit under the command of Elie Hobieka (now in exile) that committed the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian refugees at the Sabra and Chatila camps in 1982 after Gemayel’s assassination. Elements of the Guardians joined the Southern Lebanon Army (SLA), a proxy force armed by and allied with Israel, many of whom are now in exile in Israel. After Gemayel’s death, the Lebanese Forces were led by Samir Geagea, currently serving a life sentence for assassinations carried out during the civil war. The Lebanese Forces were politically prominent in this year’s “Cedar Revolution” which resulted in the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon.

PEOPLE

GEN. MICHEL AOUN: Born in 1935 in Beirut. Lebanon’s former prime minister, acting president, and armed forces chief. Aoun, coming from a lower-middle class Maronite background, considers himself more of a Lebanese patriot than a sectarian partisan. Although he is now said to be close to US neo-cons, according to Sandra Mackay, author of Lebanon: Death of a Nation (Doubleday, 1991), Washington and Aoun have not always seen eye-to-eye. In the summer of 1989, during the Aoun-led revolt against the Syrian occupation, the general–then serving as prime minister–appealed to the West to “Save the Christians”; Aoun was “stunned,” Mackay wrote, when George Bush senior ignored the plea. “Picking up the sword of intimidation, Aoun wielded an ugly anti-American propaganda campaign. At the same time, his gunners harassed US helicopters flying in supplies to the American mission in Beirut. And on two occasions, Aoun’s supporters created a human blockade around the American ambassador’s residence while chanting that nothing would go in or out until Aoun’s demands for greater American involvement in solving Lebanon’s crisis were met. On Sept. 2, Aoun, caught up in his own propaganda, told the French newspaper Figaro that perhaps he should settle Lebanon’s problems through ‘Christian terrorism’ by taking ‘twenty American hostages.’ It was the final straw. On Sept. 5, three United States Military helicopters landed at the American compound in the hills overlooking East Beirut and plucked Ambassador John McCarthy and the thirty other staff members from the embassy. There was a chilling paradox in the event. After pro-Iranian Muslims bent on forcing the United States out of Lebanese territory had twice bombed the American embassy, killed 241 Marines, and held American citizens hostage for years, it was the pro-Western Christians who finally drove Uncle Sam out of Lebanon.” Aoun spent years in exile after losing to the Syrians. He remained a force in Lebanon during his period of exile through the United Free Lebanon Movement, which opposed the Syrian occupation. He returned in 2005 and stunned the Lebanese political scene by allying himself with pro-Syrian Lebanese political forces, reasoning that since Syria had pulled out of the country there was no longer a need for enmity. The move has left him the major Christian power broker in Lebanon.

RAFIK HARRIRI: Former Lebanese prime minister, assassinated on Feb.. 14, 2005. Born to a Sunni family of modest means in Sidon in 1944, Harriri became a self-made billionaire through work in Saudi Arabia. He returned to Lebanon in 1992 and became prime mister, a role reserved for Sunnis under the previous year’s peace accords. He earned plaudits for Lebanon’s post-war reconstruction, though he was criticized for ignoring the poor. He resigned in protest of the extension of President Emile Lahoud’s term under Syrian pressure in 2004. His assassination sparked the political upheaval in Lebanon that led to the withdrawal of Syrian forces. His son Saad Harriri leads the anti-Syria coalition that just won a majority in last month’s historic parliamentary elections.

A report on Beirut Indymedia claims that the Harriri family reconstruction company, Soldiere, ran roughshod over homeowners whose houses it wanted to destroy to make way for its plan to reconstruct Beirut. According to the report, Solidere used a number of illegal tactics to force owners who refused the company’s offer of compensation out of their homes and offices, including cutting off their water and electricity; suspending trash service; and overtly threatening their safety.

GEN. EMILE LAHOUD: Born in 1936, the current pro-Syrian president of Lebanon. His father, Gen. Jamil Lahoud, was a leader of the Lebanese independence movement. Lahoud, a Maronite Christian, served under Gen. Michel Aoun. After the war ended in 1990, Lahoud made political ties with the Syrians, who promoted his career. He ran for the presidency and won in 1998, limited to one six-year term. In 2004 his term was extended by parliament under Syrian pressure for three years, after which Hariri resigned in protest.

WALID JUMBLATT: Born in 1949, the most prominent leader of Lebanon’s Druze community. His father, Kamal Jumblatt, founded the Progressive Socialist Party of Lebanon. Allied with Syrian forces, Jumblatt’s militia in 1982-3 rampaged through 60 Maronite villages, killing thousands, in retaliation for earlier Maronite hostilities. Known for his shifting alliances, Jumblatt campaigned for an end to the Syrian occupation after the death of longtime Syrian strongman Hazef el-Assad in 2000.

MICHEL MURR: Greek Orthodox Christian construction magnate who supported the Phalangist forces in the civil war, but was expelled from the Phalangist successor organization, the Lebanese Forces, when he threw his support behind the Syrian intervention. In 1994, he became head of the Interior Ministry, which he ran as a fiefdom with his son Elias (the security chief and President Lahoud’s son-in-law). Currently deputy speaker of parliament

See also:

“Hizbollah and the Beirut Poll” by Bilal El-Amine
/node/563

WW4 REPORT’s last weblog post on Lebanon
/node/669

For more on Gen. Aoun, see WW4 REPORT #79
/79.html#shadows2

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Special to WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, July 10, 2005
Reprinting permissible with attribution

http://WW4Report.com

Argentina: Amnesty Laws Overturned

On June 14, Argentina’s Supreme Court of Justice voted 7-1 with one abstention to overturn two amnesty laws as unconstitutional. The December 1986 Full Stop law and the June 1987 Due Obedience law gave military officers almost total impunity for crimes committed during Argentina’s 1976-1983 “dirty war,” in which the military regime disappeared some 30,000 suspected leftists.

The Full Stop law set a 60-day deadline for bringing charges; when that failed to stop the trials the Due Obedience law was passed, granting automatic immunity from prosecution to all members of the military except top commanders. On June 22, 1987, the Supreme Court found the due obedience law constitutional. The only crimes not covered by the amnesty were rape and the theft of babies born to mothers who were detained and disappeared.

The Supreme Court’s new ruling confirms lower court decisions that deemed the amnesty laws unconstitutional. The amnesty laws were also annulled by Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies on Aug. 12, 2003, and by the Senate on Aug. 22, 2003. As a legal precedent for its groundbreaking decision, the Supreme Court cited a 2001 ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the Barrios Altos massacre case in Peru, which declared two 1995 amnesty laws in Peru to be incompatible with the American Convention on Human Rights.

The case which led to the new ruling involves charges against two police agents for the 1978 torture and disappearance of Chilean activist Jose Liborio Poblete and his Argentine wife, Marta Gertrudis Hlaczik. In 2001, federal judge Gabriel Cavallo declared the amnesty laws unconstitutional and reopened the case.

Human rights groups say the ruling could lead to the arrest of nearly 500 retired military and police officers on charges related to the torture and forced disappearance of prisoners and the theft of prisoners’ homes and other properties, among other crimes. The measure does not affect pardons granted in 1990 to a number of high-ranking officers. (La Jornada, Mexico, June 15; La Republica, Uruguay, June 15, via Red Solidaria por los Derechos Humanos-REDH; Reuters AlertNet, June 14 from Human Rights Watch)

Defense Minister Jose Pampuro quickly reassured the public that the ruling would not cause any concern on the part of the armed forces, only on a “personal” level among those who might face charges. The Defense Ministry said some 3,000 former members of the military–and perhaps as many as 40 still in active duty–may now be called to testify in human rights cases. (LJ, June 15)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, June 19, 2005

Hope and Horror in Sierra Leone

HOW DE BODY?
One Man’s Terrifying Journey Through an African War
by Teun Voeten
St. Martins Press, 2002

by Bill Weinberg

Belgium-based Dutch photojournalist Teun Voeten was already a veteran of the bloodbaths in Bosnia, Rwanda, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Colombia when he arrived in the West African nation of Sierra Leone in February 1998. A particularly brutal guerilla army, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), had been terrorizing Sierra Leone since 1991, and Voeten was there to photograph demobilized child soldiers who had been abducted and forced to fight for the rebels. At first, he is almost cynical about the whole ghastly affair, as if jaded to the point of complacency—the cliché of the hardbitten war reporter.

But shortly after his arrival, a ceasefire ended as the country was invaded by a multi-national intervention force led by Nigeria. RUF and government troops alike went on a rampage of looting and senseless killing, plundering what they could before Nigerian forces seized the country. As a European journalist, Voeten was an obvious target. He was forced to flee into the bush before he finally escaped across the border to Guinea weeks later. Voeten quickly loses his swagger after a few brushes with death. He was humbled by the selflessness of locals who put their lives on the line to help him survive, hiding him from the rebels, feeding and housing him. Voeten certainly wouldn’t have made it without the bravery and savvy of his colleague, local BBC correspondent Eddie Smith. When Voeten was safely back home in Brussels, Smith would be killed in a rebel ambush.

Reckoning with the experience sent Voeten back to Sierra Leone a year later—partly to deliver funds to a friend’s school project. It also drove him to dissect and understand the conflict, and how it has frayed Sierra Leone’s social fabric. “How de body?” is the common greeting in Krio, Sierra Leone’s creole tongue—which takes on a hideous irony in light of the rebels’ habit of ritual amputation of their victims. “Jamba” (marijuana) didn’t seem to mellow out these killers, who were also hootched up on amphetamines, heroin and worse stuff—the better to brainwash press-ganged pre-adolescents. As numerous war victims bitterly complained to Voeten, the Sierra Leone violence was even worse than that of Bosnia and Kosovo—yet the world paid little attention.

For all his vivid depictions of on-the-ground brutality, Voeten doesn’t overlook the international context for a near-forgotten war in a paradoxically impoverished but resource-rich part of Africa. His investigations also took him back to Belgium, where he interviewed sleazy Antwerp diamond merchants who fund the rebels and launder their “conflict diamonds.” He documents how the British, meanwhile, snuck around an official embargo to sell arms to the government forces, who were hardly less brutal than the rebels. As in so many countries in Africa and the global south, Sierra Leone’s people were caught between hostile forces backed by foreign powers for their own ends.

How de Body?, illustrated with Voeten’s own photos, is a testament to the heroism of ordinary people around the world who struggle to keep alive a sense of simple humanity in wars that grind on outside the global media spotlight—portrayed only as decontextualized atrocity pornography, if at all. Voeten’s journeys through Sierra Leone’s nightmares shed light where too many other journalists have only seen hearts of darkness.

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See Teun Voeten’s special WW3 REPORT photo essay IMAGES OF OCCUPIED BAGHDAD: ww3report.com/iraqphotoessay/

IS GEORGE BUSH A SITH LORD?

And Does Ice Cube Save America from Donald Rumsfeld? Well, Duh!

by Shlomo Svesnik

In two of this spring’s Hollywood blockbusters, you have to wait until the very last of the final credits for the real punch line.

“All characters are fictional and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.”

Uh-huh. We’ve heard that one before.

Everybody’s talking about the Bush allusions in Revenge of the Sith, the dark conclusion of the new (and, thankfully, last) Star Wars trilogy. There were several obvious parallels for the fall of the Galactic Republic to a despotic Empire, from ancient Rome to Weimar Germany. What a strange twist of fate that this final installment, in which the dread transition reaches its climax, should be released as precisely this phenomenon appears to be befalling the American republic.

“If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy,” the fledgling Darth Vader notoriously proclaims, echoing nearly verbatim George Bush’s post-9-11 warning “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” The other line everybody points to is: “This is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.” So speaks pure-hearted Padme Amidala as Senator Palpatine declares himself Emperor. It could be the passage of the Homeland Security Act.

Fewer noticed that the last installment, Attack of the Clones, had the Galactic Senate voting to raise a standing clone army exactly as Congress was voting to approve military action against Iraq here in the real world in 2002, with Chuck Schumer happily voting along like a clueless Jar-Jar Binks. Now the new movie reveals that the Separatist rebellion was a phantom menace to justify war–just as the real-world media are acknowledging as much about Saddam’s WMD threat.

This instance of life imitating art is sufficiently blatant that the right is calling for a boycott. (FreeRepublic.com‘s chat forums are all over it.) If only this FX-fest was a fraction as dangerous as they think. But then, as Obi-Wan says, “Only Sith deal in absolutes.”

There are more than a few ironies to the Star Wars series’ cultural trajectory. When the first one came out in ’77 (remember how spontaneous and refreshing and fun it seemed in comparison to the stiff bogus solemnity of the latter trilogy?), it was bashed by many as a move away from the then-fashionable dystopia genre of sci-fi in favor of mere Flash Gordon nostalgia. In retrospect, Soylent Green and Omega Man were also pretty reactionary, with their Malthusian nightmares and Social Darwinist assumptions. But at least they were addressing (or exploiting) “issues” like ecology and the nuclear threat, while Star Wars was seen by socially-conscious popcorn-heads as apolitical escapism.

Still, in the post-’60s climate, it was mandated that the good guys be the Rebels and the bad guys the Empire. It wouldn’t have worked the other way in an America that had just been through Vietnam and Watergate. The Star Trek heroes with their imperial Federation belonged to a zeitgeist that had passed (for the moment). In fact, the Ewoks, those low-tech guerilla teddy-bears who bring down the ultra-mechanized Imperial forces in Return of the Jedi, were an obvious parallel for the Viet Cong.

Yet (I think Marx called this the paradoxical unity of opposites) the very nomenclature of the Star Wars series was appropriated by Ronald Reagan precisely to reverse the post-Vietnam aversion to militarism and imperialism. The very name “Star Wars” became the popular shorthand for the Strategic Defense Initiative, the system of space-based weapons (which the government is still pursuing, under other names and slightly less grandiose forms). The Soviet Union, of course, became the “Evil Empire.”

So maybe George Lucas thinks he is atoning for his sins in Jedi fashion by making a flick with unsubtle disses of Darth Dubya. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s just shrewd–even cynical–marketing. You know how all along the series has had these hifalutin’ pseudo-Taoist pretensions? Yet you notice that Lucas is not above decidedly un-Taoist Burger King promotional tie-ins. (You think Yoda would eat that crap?) Similarly, one of the trailers that ran before the showing of Sith we attended was an ad for the Air National Guard, with digitally-enhanced fighter jets careening around the screen like a (no doubt intentional) harbinger of the dazzle to come in the feature attraction. The kicker–“Guarding America, Defending Freedom.”

Who’s taking who for a ride, Freepers?

Much has also been made of the creepy ethnic innuendos in the second trilogy, with alien species designed to invoke the Yellow Peril, Third World Wogs, and so on. Our fave was Watto, the (literally) elephant-nosed slave-keeper from Episode IV, who was simply an undifferentiated Semite, so he could be appreciated by Judeophobes and Arabophobes alike. The same stereotypes apply: the official Star Wars website helpfully informs us that this digital creation is “shrewd and gruff,” with a “love of credits” and “a knack for haggling.”

Nobody’s talking about ethnic allusions in the new flick, but we can’t help but notice that the notion of Empire as secret pawn of the demonic Sith cult (Sith=Seth, third son of Adam and ancestor of the Jews=Set, Egyptian god of evil) smells a little like the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion–and the current paranoia on both the left and right that the government has been taken over by hidden Semitic puppet-masters (the Israelis or the Saudis, take your pick).

Another thing nobody is talking about is that two of the current cinema extravaganzas are essentially about a right-wing coup d’etat: the other one is State of the Union, second installment in the burgeoning xXx series. xXx is obviously conceived as James Bond for the young, hip and tuxedo-alienated: the anti-Bond. In this one, Ice Cube plays a thug from the ‘hood who becomes Agent xXx and teams up with his old car-jacking homies to save America from the putschist designs of a bellicose Defense Secretary who smells suspiciously like Donald Rumsfeld. (Incongruously, the president he seeks to overthrow seems more like Al Gore–he must be removed for seeking multilateralism, wanting to rebuild bridges with Europe and the UN, cut the Pentagon budget, et cetera.) It is set almost entirely within the Beltway, yet the action is nearly Jedi-like in its implausibility. The most significant difference is that Ice Cube saves the day before going underground at the end of the flick; Obi-Wan and Yoda fail to before they do the same thing.

So is it true? Has Hollywood really been taken over by screaming liberals who seek to undermine respect for authority, cause us to falter in the War on Terror and indoctrinate us in weak-willed globalism?

Don’t be a shlemeil. All they’re interested in is making money, and they are adept at playing both sides of the spectrum in order to do so. The best evidence is that the same guy who directed State of the Union, Lee Tamahori, also directed the last 007 monstrosity, Die Another Day. Not only a square Bond flick in which the hero drinks martinis and wears a tux, but one which shamelessly featured bad guys from the Axis of Evil (the downsized Evil Empire)–North Korean terrorists, Cuban mad scientists.

They’ve been playing this game for a long time. Just like Archie Bunker could be a caricature to laugh at for the liberals or an icon to admire for the bigots. Just like Paul Verhoeven’s sinister 1997 production of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers could be lampooning fascism for the deconstructionist crowd, or glorifying it for teenage testosterone-heads.

As Hakim Bey has written: “The problem is not that too much has been revealed, but that every revelation finds its sponsor, its CEO, its monthly slick, its clone Judases & replacement people.”

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See Shlomo Svesnik’s last piece:

OY VEY, JERUSALEM!
Why Both Christian and Muslim Fundamentalists Hate Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven
/node/451

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Special to WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, June 10, 2005
Reprinting permissible with attribution

http://WW4Report.com

CENTRAL AMERICA: TERROR TARGETS ANTI-CAFTA RESISTANCE

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

GUATEMALA: CAMPESINO LEADER KIDNAPPED

An unidentified group of armed men intercepted and abducted Maria Antonieta Carrillo, a local leader of Guatemala’s Campesino Unity Committee (CUC), on May 28 in the village of La Arenera, Puerto de San Jose municipality, in the southern department of Escuintla, according to a communique the CUC released on May 29. “We hold the government and the business sector responsible,” the CUC said. “This act is part of the repressive policy [Guatemalan president Oscar] Berger has mounted against the indigenous and campesino movement.” According to the CUC, La Arenera is a leading community in the “struggle for land and for campesinos’ labor rights” in an area which has the highest concentration of large sugar plantations in the country.

The kidnapping came at a time when human rights organizations say they are the victims of a wave of intimidation. A little more than a week before, a source in Unity for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders told the Cuban wire service Prensa Latina that 656 threats or attacks against activists and social organizations had been reported from the beginning of the year to May 13. The most frequent targets were groups that oppose privatization, human rights violations, increased mining and the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), a trade pact pushed by the US. (PL, May 29; El Nuevo Herald, Miami, May 29)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, June 5

HONDURAS: CAMPESINO LEADER MURDERED

On May 24, an unidentified assailant shot to death campesino leader Ericson Roberto Lemus on an urban bus in the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula. The assailant boarded the bus, went straight to Lemus and shot him four times in the head before fleeing. No arrests have been made. Lemus was regional secretary of the National Federation of Agricultural Workers (CNTC) for the northern region of Honduras, a post to which he was elected in March of this year. “We in the CNTC believe Lemus was murdered for reasons linked to his tasks in the organization, since he was following up with several campesino groups in the region which are fighting for a piece of land,” said CNTC finance secretary Ivan Romero in Tegucigalpa. Romero said the CNTC is demanding that the government investigate the murder and punish those responsible. “With the murder of Lemus now there have been 15 comrades who in the past three years have spilled their blood for a piece of land in this country, and none of the cases have been investigated, nor have any of those responsible been punished,” said Romero. (ACAN-EFE, Panama,. May 25)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, May 29

CAFTA CRITICS HARASSED

Unknown persons broke into the office of Guatemala’s National Coordinating Committee of Peasant Organizations (CNOC) on May 8. The intruders stole 15 computers with sensitive information stored in their hard drives, but other valuable equipment was left behind. CNOC is a member of the Indigenous, Campesino, Union and Popular Movement (MICSP), an umbrella organization opposed to the DR-CAFTA; it organized massive demonstrations against the treaty in March. The information stolen included details of MICSP activities against DR-CAFTA, and the way MICSP is organized, as well as CNOC’s records of land conflict cases and its membership database.

After the break-in, CNOC moved into the offices of the Institute of Comparative Studies in Criminal Sciences of Guatemala (ICCPG). This office was broken into on May 10 in an apparent attempt to intimidate the staff of CNOC. Nothing was taken. On the same night two other MICSP member organizations suffered break-ins: the General Confederation of Workers of Guatemala (CGTG) and the Confederation of Labor Unity of Guatemala (CUSG).

There was a break-in at the offices of Children for Identity and Justice, against Forgetting and Silence (HIJOS) the night of May 11. HIJOS works on behalf of children whose parents “disappeared” in armed conflicts, but it has also been actively opposed to DR-CAFTA. The back doors of the office were forced, and the intruders examined the organization’s files and took two computers containing sensitive information about the organization’s work. A brand-new computer with no information stored on it was not taken, and other valuable office equipment was also left behind. In a possibly related incident, two armed men robbed HIJOS member Francisco Sanchez and tried to abduct him; they stopped when he resisted.

There have been 15 break-ins at human rights and social movement offices this year; eight took place between May 7 and May 12. (Amnesty International Alert, May 13; HIJOS Alert, May 12; Servicio Informativo “Alai-amlatina”, May 17)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, May 22

MORE ANTI-CAFTA PROTESTS IN HONDURAS

Some 300 indigenous people and campesinos from the Honduran provinces of Intibuca, Comayagua and Santa Barbara protested on May 11 in front of the US embassy in Tegucigalpa to demand that DR-CAFTA not be ratified. “For the right to health, education and work, no to the TLC [free trade treaty],” read a banner held by the protesters in front of the embassy, which was surrounded by riot police. The demonstration was timed to coincide with a series of protests in the US against DR-CAFTA. According to Salvador Zuniga of the Civic Council of Grassroots and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), the protesters reject the “servile” role played by the Central American presidents who were meeting in the US to promote DR-CAFTA. “These presidents are offering the riches of the Central American peoples on a silver platter, and in the case of the president of Honduras, asking that an anti-national and anti-Honduran treaty be ratified which will only bring more unemployment and poverty,” Zuniga said. (Tiempo, Honduras, May 12; AP, May 11)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, May 15

PROTESTS GREET U.S. CAFTA TOUR

Three Central American presidents gathered in Miami on May 9 to launch a four-day 10-city US tour by a total of six presidents to promote the Free Trade Agreement, which US president George W. Bush is trying to get approved by Congress before the summer. Oscar Berger of Guatemala, Ricardo Maduro of Honduras and Enrique Bolanos of Nicaragua joined with Florida governor Jeb Bush to speak, under tight security, at the Port of Miami. Dozens of protesters–steel workers, retirees, Latino group representatives and others–stood holding placards on the corner outside behind a line of 18-wheelers waiting to enter the port. “It was hard to do interviews because all the trucks were honking [in support of the protesters],” Eric Rubin, the director of the Florida Fair Trade Coalition, told the Miami Herald. “I think we got our message across.” (Florida FTAA press release, May 8; MH, May 10)

Dominican president Leonel Fernandez visited New York on May 10 to talk up DR-CAFTA at a luncheon at the City College of New York in Harlem. Dozens of members of the 1199/SEIU health care union, Dominican community organizations and Central American solidarity groups marched through the campus chanting “No to CAFTA, yes to life” in Spanish. Sonia Ivany of the New York state AFL-CIO told a rally that DR-CAFTA is based on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which she said caused the loss of 780,000 jobs nationally in the garment and textile industries, 56,000 of them in New York. (El Nacional, Santo Domingo, May 12; El Diario-La Prensa, NY, May 11)

Salvadoran President Tony Saca visited Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Fe before arriving in Washington on May 11 to join Fernandez, Berger, Maduro, Bolanos and Costa Rican president Abel Pacheco for what was supposedly the first lobbying action at the US Congress by six presidents at one time. They met with Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R-TN), Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Richard Lugar (R-IN) and other senators. A meeting with House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) was hastily cancelled when the Capitol was evacuated because a small civilian airplane had wandered off course over downtown Washington. On May 12 the six presidents met with President Bush at the White House, where Bush told reporters that DR-CAFTA meant “stability and security, which can only be achieved with freedom.” (AP, May 10, 11; El Nuevo Herald, Miami, May 1 from AP, quote retranslated from Spanish)

Other Central Americans were in Washington to lobby against DR-CAFTA, including Salvadoran legislative deputy Salvador Arias of the leftist Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN). Arias also took part in anti-CAFTA demonstrations, along with another FMLN deputy, Lourdes Palacios. Salvadoran interior minister Rene Figueroa reportedly said Arias’ participation in the protests was “no more than an act of treason.” Arias told reporters that “in El Salvador this is a death sentence.” He said the FMLN would be taking extra security measures for him when he returned to El Salvador. (ED-LP, May 14 from AP)

The New York Times reports that DR-CAFTA is “the current centerpiece of President Bush’s trade agenda” but that it “is facing unusually united Democratic opposition as well as serious problems in overcoming well-entrenched special interest groups like sugar producers and much of the textile industry.” The UK Financial Times notes that “[i]n a hemisphere where anti-Americanism has become the norm, Central American governments have been among Mr. Bush’s most loyal allies… [I]f Mr. Bush fails to win congressional support, he will let down his closest friends and send a bleak message to pro-US politicians further south. Defeat on CAFTA would also sound the death knell for more ambitious liberalization such as the continent-embracing Free Trade Area of the America (FTAA).” (NYT , May 10; FT, May 13)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, May 15

So far only the legislatures of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have ratified the agreement. The US Senate Committee on Finance began considering DR-CAFTA on April 6. The administration would like to hold the vote before July 1, the expiration date for the “fast-track” rule which keeps Congress from changing or amending trade agreements. The Senate is expected to approve, but the measure faces problems in the House of Representatives. On May 4, four centrist representatives–Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), Adam Smith (D-WA), Arthur Davis (D-AL) and Ron Kind (D-WI)–announced they were not backing DR-CAFTA. The opposition is “very strong,” Tauscher said, but she couldn’t say whether it would be enough to stop the trade pact.

Weekly News Update on the Americas, May 8

MAY DAY MARCHES BLAST CAFTA

May Day marches in Central America focused on opposition to DR-CAFTA and neoliberal economic policies. (La Jornada, Mexico, May 2 from AFP, DPA, Reuters)

In Guatemala City, nearly 30,000 people marched five kilometers from a labor monument to Constitution Plaza to protest the free trade treaty. The march was organized by the Indigenous, Campesino, Union and Grassroots Movement. Similar protests were held in the departments of Izabal, Quetzaltenango, Suchitepequez, Escuintla and Jutiapa, among others. (EFE, May 1; Guatemala Hoy, May 2)

More than 40,000 workers and students marched in the Salvadoran capital on May Day to protest DR-CAFTA and call for respect for labor rights. Participants were demanding that El Salvador ratify all the International Labor Organization (ILO) conventions, including one which refers to the right of public sector workers to be represented by unions. (EFE, May 1; Argenpress, May 3)

More than 70,000 people marched in 10 Honduran cities to protest DR-CAFTA and Mexico’s Plan Puebla-Panama, as well as government corruption and the high price of basic necessities. The marches in Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula, La Ceiba, Puerto Cortes and six other towns were also commemorating the 51st anniversary of a strike by banana workers against the US multinationals Standard Fruit and Chiquita Brands, which marked the birth of the Honduran labor movement. (Argenpress, May 3)

In Nicaragua, there were two opposing May Day marches, together drawing about 4,000 people. One march was headed by rightwing President Enrique Bolanos; the other was led by leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) founder and leader Tomas Borge. (EFE, May 2; LJ, May 2 from AFP, DPA, Reuters)

For the second year in a row, thousands of workers and students marched on May 1 in San Jose, Costa Rica to demand that the government reject DR-CAFTA. This year there were no clashes or incidents. (La Nacion, Costa Rica, May 2; EFE, May 1)

On April 26, Costa Rican President Abel Pacheco announced that he would designate a commission of five “notables”–supposedly with no political, business or union affiliations–to study DR-CAFTA and make a recommendation which will help him decide whether or not to send the measure to Congress for approval. On May 5, Pacheco designated the commission’s first member, Franklin Chang, a US astronaut of Costa Rican descent. Pacheco said that once he gets the report from the commission he will proceed in accordance with his conscience. (La Republica, Costa Rica, May 6)

Thousands of workers and students marched in Panama City to protest proposed social security “reforms,” demand an increase in the minimum wage, and condemn government corruption. (EFE, May 2) As the march ended, three agents from the National Police arrested Carlos Obaldia, finance secretary of the Single Union of Construction and Similar Workers (SUNTRACS), a combative union which has been active in the struggle against the privatization of social security. Obaldia was released after a half hour; he said police claimed they arrested him for painting graffiti, though he denied doing so. (La Prensa, Panama, May 2)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, May 8

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: MAY DAY AGAINST CAFTA

On May 1 in the northern Dominican Republic city of Santiago, transport workers marched with members of neighborhood and grassroots organizations to protest the government’s economic policies and DR-CAFTA. The march was organized by the Alternative Social Forum of the Northern Region, whose spokesperson, Victor Breton, warned that DR-CAFTA will deepen the economic crisis affecting Dominican farmers. Breton noted that “thousands” of workers have been laid off from the country’s “free trade zones,” tourism is down and unemployment is at its highest rate in years. Fidel Santana, general spokesperson of the Alternative Social Forum, also spoke at the march, saying that DR-CAFTA will make Dominicans poorer. Hundreds of workers from the northern region took part in the march in Santiago, which was joined by a delegation of grassroots leaders from Santo Domingo. (EFE, May 1)

The Dominican Senate has conditioned its approval of DR-CAFTA on a series of compensatory measures for national producers, who will be unable to compete with the other treaty partners. On May 3, a mission of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which was in the Dominican Republic to evaluate an accord signed with the government last January, recommended a fiscal reform to recover the income which the country will lose when DR-CAFTA takes effect. (Hoy, NY, May 6 from wire services)

The Alternative Social Forum, which groups more than 50 union and grassroots organizations from throughout the Dominican Republic, organized a mass march to the National Palace in Santo Domingo on April 20 to protest DR-CAFTA and put forth alternative economic proposals. The march was blocked by a heavy police and military presence. The Forum also organized a picket on April 28 outside the National Social Security Council to protest the privatization of health care and demand that the government continue to provide medical insurance to Dominican workers. (Hoy, NY, April 29)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, May 8

Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html

COLOMBIA: PARAMILITARY AMNESTY PASSES, NEW AID PENDING

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

AMNESTY LAW PASSES

On June 20, the last day of ordinary sessions for the Colombian Congress, the Senate approved the “Justice and Peace” law, which paves the way for a “demobilization” and amnesty process under negotiation with the country’s right-wing paramilitaries since last July. The law grants the paramilitaries political status, allowing them to potentially benefit from pardons. Under the demobilization program, paramilitary commanders are supposed to confess all their crimes in order to benefit from reduced sentences of 4-8 years in prison. The Chamber of Representatives approved the law on June 21 in an extraordinary session. Colombia’s right-wing paramilitaries have historically been strongly supported by the state. (El Nuevo Herald, Miami, June 21 from AP; Inter Press Service, June 22)

Under the “Justice and Peace” law, which President Alvaro Uribe Velez signed on June 22, a group of 20 prosecutors will investigate within a maximum period of 60 days the crimes of each of the 10,000 paramilitary members who are eligible to demobilize from now through December.

Congressional representative Gustavo Petro of the leftist Independent Democratic Pole (PDI) party accuses Uribe of pushing through the “Justice and Peace” law in order to benefit relatives linked to paramilitary groups in Antioquia, where Uribe served as governor from 1995 to 1997. Petro said that Santiago Uribe Velez, the president’s brother, formed and financed a paramilitary group called “The 12 Apostles” around 1993-1994. The group, based out of the Uribe family’s La Carolina ranch in Yarumal, Antioquia, killed at least 50 people. Santiago Uribe was interrogated in 1997 about the group but the case was archived in 1999 for lack of evidence. Relatives of the victims of the June 1990 Campamento massacre, in which four people were killed and two disappeared by “The 12 Apostles,” have brought the case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Petro also said two first cousins and an uncle of President Uribe led a paramilitary group known as “Los Erre,” linked to the killings of another 50 or more people in Titiribi and Armenia-Mantequilla municipalities in Antioquia. Carlos Alberto Velez Ochoa, Juan Diego Velez Ochoa and Mario Velez Ochoa were initially sentenced in the case but were released from prison after a year for lack of evidence. President Uribe and his family also apparently had close ties to Antioquia drug lords Pablo Escobar Gaviria and Fabio Ochoa Vasquez, who is related to the Velez Ochoa family.
(ENH, June 23 from correspondent; IPS, June 22)

On June 20, Colombia’s Congress approved two other laws pushed by Uribe’s government: a pension reform law which will take effect in 2010, and a law providing foreign investors with legal guarantees protecting their contracts from any changes in law or policy. But Congress rejected four legislative proposals presented by Defense Minister Jorge Alberto Uribe, including one which would have unified the state’s intelligence services and another which would have increased the length of obligatory military service from 18 to 24 months. The defense minister narrowly avoided being fired the previous week when the Chamber of Representatives–but not the Senate–passed a vote of censure against him. (ENH, June 21 from AP)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, June 26

U.S. HOUSE OK’S NEW MILITARY AID

On June 28, the US House of Representatives voted 189-234 to defeat an amendment which would have cut $100 million in military aid for Colombia from a $734 million “Andean Counterdrug Initiative” in the 2006 foreign operations appropriations bill (HR 3057). The amendment to cut funding for the US-sponsored “Plan Colombia” military program was introduced by Reps. James McGovern (D-MA), Betty McCollum (D-MN) and Dennis Moore (D-KS). The Washington-based Latin America Working Group (LAWG) described the Colombia amendment as “the single most hotly-debated issue on the foreign operations bill.” Congress members who spoke out against it included Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), who noted how Afro-Colombians and indigenous peoples are disproportionately affected by Colombia’s ongoing internal violence, and amendment co-sponsor McCollum, who pointed out that in Colombia, “90% of violent crimes…go unpunished, and human rights abuses among Colombia’s military are all too common.”

Later on June 28, the House voted 393-32 to approve the full bill, officially titled the Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2006. In addition to the $734 million Andean Counterdrug Initiative, the bill will provide military aid of $2.3 billion for Israel and $1.3 billion for Egypt. In order for the bill to become law, a final version must be passed by both the House and Senate and then signed by the president. A subcommittee met June 29 to begin work on the Senate version. (LAWG Update, June 30; News from Lutheran World Relief, July 1; US Department of State Press Release, June 29 via allAfrica.com; Press Release from House Speaker Dennis Hastert, June 28 via US Newswire)

Weekly New Update on the Americas, July 3

SOLDIERS CHARGED IN MASSACRE

The Colombian attorney general’s office has ordered the arrest of six soldiers to face homicide charges for the killing of five civilians on April 10, 2004, in the village of Potosi, Cajamarca municipality, Tolima department. The army claimed the five villagers were killed in crossfire as a military patrol was pursuing a group of leftist guerrillas; the soldiers argued that they hadn’t been able to distinguish the victims as civilians because dense fog limited their visibility. The attorney general’s office ordered the arrests after an autopsy on 17-year old campesino Albeiro Mendoza showed he was shot at a distance of between 30 and 60 centimeters–practically point blank. The other victims were Mendoza’s son, six-month old Cristian Albeiro Mendoza Uruena; the baby’s mother, 17-year old Yamile Uruena Arango; 14-year old Julio Cesar Santana; and 24-year old Norberto Mendoza. The family was taking the baby to the doctor for an ear infection when they were killed. (El Tiempo, Bogota, July 1 via Servicio Prensa Rural)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, July 3

Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html

ECUADOR: STRIKERS SEIZE OIL WELLS

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On May 21, residents of the northern Ecuadoran provinces of Sucumbios and Orellana began an open-ended civic strike to demand improvements to roads, schools, housing and health care in the region, which borders on Colombia and Peru. The protesters seized 114 oil wells on nine fields operated by the state-run oil company Petroecuador and blocked access roads to oil facilities, forcing a shutdown of drilling and repair work.

As the strike continued on May 25, President Alfredo Palacio declared a 60-day state of emergency in Sucumbios and Orellana, deeming the oil region a “security territory.” The state of emergency allows the restriction of certain civil rights. (La Jornada, Mexico, May 25; AP, May 26)

Late on May 25, after the government signed an agreement promising to address their demands, the protesters ended their strike and left the oil fields. Under the terms of the agreement, Petroecuador and other state agencies must finance roads and electricification projects in the region. The state of emergency remains in effect. (AP, Reuters, May 26)

On May 24, Palacio outlined a six-point plan for restoring stability in Ecuador over the next 18 months with a call for “a great national accord.” The proposed steps include calling a “People’s Assembly” to define an agenda of change; the assembly’s proposals would then be put to a referendum, and in the same election, representatives would be chosen for a constitutional assembly. Palacio became president on April 20 after mass protests forced the ouster of Lucio Gutierrez from office. (LJ, May 25, 26, from wire services)

The National Federation of Campesino, Indigenous and Black Organizations (FENOCIN) and other grassroots organizations in Ecuador are planning protests during the 10th round of negotiations over a free trade treaty (TLC) with the US, Colombia and Peru, scheduled for June 6-19 in Guayaquil. Grassroots groups are demanding that Palacio suspend the TLC negotiations and instead call a referendum on the trade pact. (El Comercio, Peru, May 28, from EFE)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, May 29

Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html

PERU: COCALEROS, PEASANT ECOLOGISTS STAGE STRIKES

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

HUALLAGA VALLEY: COCALEROS CLASH WITH COPS

On May 29 in Tocache province, in the Huallaga valley of San Martin in north central Peru, at least 3,500 campesino coca growers (cocaleros) armed with sticks surrounded a group of 230 police agents charged with carrying out coca leaf eradication operations. According to police, the resulting clash left 17 agents hurt–one by a bullet, the rest by beatings. Twenty cocaleros were injured; Tocache mayor Nancy Zagerra said three of them are in serious condition with bullet wounds. (La Jornada, Mexico, May 31 from DPA)

The 230 anti-drug police agents had arrived in the area on May 26, along with 50 workers from the Control and Reduction of Coca Crops in the Alto Huallaga (CORAH) project. On May 28, the anti-drug forces set up camp in the village of 5 de Diciembre, where according to cocalero leader Nancy Obregon they forced the campesinos from their homes and destroyed their crops, even after the campesinos showed them documents from the state-run National Coca Company (ENACO) demonstrating that the crops were legal. “They said those [documents] were no good and they threw everyone out. The people have had to sleep outside,” said Obregon Outraged at the incident, Obregon organized nearly 4,000 cocaleros to confront the agents at their camp the next day. (La Republica, Lima, May 30)

On May 31 a representative of the Office of the Defender of the People, Manlio Alvarez Soto, traveled to Tocache from Tingo Maria, in neighboring Huanuco region, to meet with the cocaleros and gather information about the conflict. Alvarez also visited two of the wounded cocaleros in the Tingo Maria hospital, where they were taken for treatment. [LR 6/1/05] On June 3, some 6,000 cocaleros from Monzon and Alto Huallaga marched in Tingo Maria in support of the Tocache cocaleros. (LR, May 6) Obregon said the cocaleros will start an open-ended strike on June 27. (LR, May 30)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, June 5

CUSCO: RESIDENTS SEIZE MINE

On May 24, some 2,000 residents of Espinar province in the southern Peruvian region of Cusco seized a copper mining camp run by the British-Australian corporation BHP Billiton-Tintaya. The protesters looted and burned camp facilities, and police used tear gas to try to remove them; dozens of people were injured. Residents are demanding that the mining company provide $20 million a year in funding for social programs in the region and that it take measures to improve infrastructure and protect the environment. BHP Billiton-Tintaya is the third largest copper mine in Peru, producing 80,000 tons a year, 12.1% of national production.

As the number of residents surrounding the camp swelled to 4,000 on May 25, BHP Billiton-Tintaya pulled its personnel out and shut down operations at the camp. The same day, the protesters beat the mayor of Espinar when he asked them to dialogue with the mining company.

On May 26, a government delegation headed by Energy and Mines deputy minister Romulo Mucho arrived to negotiate with the protesters, who now numbered some 6,000 and were gathered in the plaza in Yauri, the provincial capital of Espinar. The crowd was furious to see that the Energy and Mines minister had not come with the delegation, but eventually agreed to a dialogue.

The company is not participating, saying it will not negotiate under pressure, and that it will not contribute more than what it agreed to in an 2003 contract: 3% of utilities, with a minimum payment set at $1.5 million a year. In the first year of the contract the company paid $2 million. (LJ, May 25 from Reuters; Reuters May 26)

Police in Yauri say that early on May 26 they found pamphlets of the Maoist rebel group Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) scattered in the streets, calling on residents to “rid our land of the traitor dogs and those miserable gringos who loot our resources.” The news led some media to suggest that the Espinar protests were organized by “subversives,” but legislator Jose Taco, a member of the government negotiating team, rejected the theory. “I’m from the zone, I know the people, and I deny the subversive character, they’re not criminals, [though] there are groups which take advantage,” he said.

On May 27, after a 12-hour meeting with the government delegation, Espinar residents agreed to suspend their protests while local leaders consult with their bases about whether or not to accept a June 2 meeting to renew dialogue with the company. BHP Billiton-Tintaya has not yet agreed to the dialogue, and says it will keep its operations shut down for security reasons. Economy minister Pedro Pablo Kuczynski told the media on May 26 that the company will leave Peru if the protests are not resolved quickly. (Reuters, May 26, 27)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, May 29

AYACUCHO TO AMAZONIA: CAMPESINOS STRIKE

On May 23, thousands of campesinos in seven Peruvian regions began blocking highways in an agrarian strike to demand fair prices for their produce, protest unfair competition from imports and reject a free trade treaty being negotiated with the US, Ecuador and Colombia which they say will exacerbate their current crisis. In addition, the campesinos were demanding that sales tax be reduced from 19% to 4% for the agricultural sector, and that the state agrarian bank, Agrobanco, open up branches in rural areas to grant low-interest credits to campesinos. The strikers mainly produce rice, cotton and bananas in Peru’s northern regions, and potatoes in the south.

The protest was initially called as a 48-hour strike in Tumbes, Piura, Cajamarca, Loreto and Ayacucho departments, and as an open-ended strike in Lambayeque and San Martin. In Tumbes, on the northern coast bordering Ecuador, some 5,000 rice and banana producers blocked several kilometers of the Panamerican highway. In the northern coastal city of Chiclayo, in Lambayeque, police arrested some 20 people who were watching campesinos blockade the Panamerican highway. Strike actions also took place in Piura, also on the northern coast, and in Cajamarca, just inland in the northern Andes.

Further east, on the edge of the Peruvian Amazon, more than 10,000 rice growers from San Martin and Loreto departments blocked the road linking the towns of Yurimaguas (Loreto) and Tarapoto (San Martin) and shut down activities in the zone. Campesino leader Luis Zuniga, president of the National Convention of Peruvian Farmers (CONVEAGRO), noted that Peruvian authorities had encouraged farmers to grow more rice, causing a production glut which has forced prices down.

In Ayacucho, in the south-central Andean highlands, more than 8,000 campesino potato growers began their strike on May 23 by occupying the offices of the Regional Department of Agriculture and blocking the main access highways into the city of Huamanga.

Agriculture Minister Manuel Manrique said late on May 23 that he had reached a pre-accord with the Ayacucho producers, and that they had agreed to lift their strike once negotiations with campesino representatives from the other regions were successful. Under the terms of the accord, the government agreed to purchase 4,100 tons of potatoes from the Ayacucho producers. (Telam, AP, May 23, 24; Prensa Latina, May 24; ANSA, May 23; La Jornada, Mexico, May 26) The strikes ended May 26 after the government signed an accord with the northern producers, in which it pledged to buy this year’s entire crop of rice in order to stabilize prices. (LJ, May 27 from DPA)

President Alejandro Toledo left Peru on May 24 to begin a 17-day trip in which he is to visit China, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian city of Ramallah in the Occupied Territories. Manrique, the agriculture minister, was also scheduled to take part in the trip. (AP, May 24)

The agrarian strike came in a conflictive week in Peru. On May 24, some 7,000 nurses employed by the state-run Social Security agency began an open-ended national strike to demand a wage increase. In the northern city of Trujillo, state workers burned tires and threw paint at offices of the Chilean airline Lan-Peru in a protest to demand a series of labor laws. On May 23, Aymara indigenous residents of the Uros islands in Lake Titicaca began a 48-hour strike to demand that the National Institute of Natural Resources stop barring them from using the lake’s flora and fauna. On May 24, the Aymara announced that their strike would be open-ended. (LJ, May 26 from DPA, AFP, Reuters; AP, May 24)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, May 29

Weekly News Update on the Americas
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