Sudbury Against War and Occupation

US Army 'kill team' in Afghanistan posed with photos of murdered civilians

2011-03-20T22:48:00.001-04:00

US Army 'kill team' in Afghanistan posed with photos of murdered civilians
by Jon Boone, from The Guardian, March 21, 2011.

Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of "trophy" photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed.

Senior officials at Nato's International Security Assistance Force in Kabul have compared the pictures published by the German news weekly Der Spiegel to the images of US soldiers abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq which sparked waves of anti-US protests around the world.

They fear that the pictures could be even more damaging as they show the aftermath of the deliberate murders of Afghan civilians by a rogue US Stryker tank unit that operated in the southern province of Kandahar last year.

Some of the activities of the self-styled "kill team" are already public, with 12 men currently on trial in Seattle for their role in the killing of three civilians.

Five of the soldiers are on trial for pre-meditated murder, after they staged killings to make it look like they were defending themselves from Taliban attacks.

Other charges include the mutilation of corpses, the possession of images of human casualties and drug abuse.

All of the soldiers have denied the charges. They face the death penalty or life in prison if convicted.

The case has already created shock around the world, particularly with the revelations that the men cut "trophies" from the bodies of the people they killed.

An investigation by Der Spiegel has unearthed approximately 4,000 photos and videos taken by the men.

The magazine, which is planning to publish only three images, said that in addition to the crimes the men were on trial for there are "also entire collections of pictures of other victims that some of the defendants were keeping".

The US military has strived to keep the pictures out of the public domain fearing it could inflame feelings at a time when anti-Americanism in Afghanistan is already running high.

In a statement, the army said it apologised for the distress caused by photographs "depicting actions repugnant to us as human beings and contrary to the standards and values of the United States".

The lengthy Spiegel article that accompanies the photographs contains new details about the sadistic behaviour of the men.

In one incident in May last year, the article says, during a patrol, the team apprehended a mullah who was standing by the road and took him into a ditch where they made him kneel down.

The group's leader, Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, then allegedly threw a grenade at the man while an order was given for him to be shot.

Afterwards, Gibbs is described cutting off one of the man's little fingers and removing a tooth.

The patrol team later claimed to their superiors that the mullah had tried to threaten them with a grenade and that they had no choice but to shoot.

Last night many organisations employing foreign staff, including the United Nations, ordered their staff into a "lockdown", banning all movements around Kabul and requiring people to remain in their compounds.

In addition to the threat from the publication of the photographs, security has been heightened amid fears the Taliban may try to attack Persian new year celebrations.

Tomorrow could also attract attacks because Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, is due to make a speech declaring which areas of the country should be transferred from international to Afghan control in the coming months.

One security manager for the US company DynCorp sent an email to clients warning that publication of the photos was likely "to incite the local population" as the "severity of the incidents to be revealed are graphic and extreme".

Women Lead Latin America’s Growing Anti-Militarization Movements

2011-01-26T22:38:00.002-05:00

Women Lead Latin America’s Growing Anti-Militarization Movements
by Laura Carlsen, form Z-Net, January 26, 2011.

When George W. Bush left the White House, the rest of the world breathed a sigh of relief. The National Security Doctrine of unilateral attacks, the invasion of Iraq under the false pretext of weapons of mass destruction, and the abandonment of multilateral forums had opened up a new phase of U.S. aggression. Despite the focus on the Middle East, the increased threat of U.S. military intervention cast a long shadow over many parts of the world.

Two years later, that sense of relief has given way to deep concern. After hopes of a something closer to FDR’s Good Neighbor Policy of (relative) non-intervention, we find ourselves facing a new wave of militarization in Latin America–supported and promoted by the Obama administration.

In some countries, militarization already characterizes everyday life; soldiers with assault rifles patrol neighborhood streets and armed convoys rule the highways. For Haiti, Honduras, Mexico and Colombia hopes of returning to civilian peaceful coexistence have been dashed in the wake of this wave.

In other countries, like Costa Rica, new policies forged between conservative governments and the U.S. State and Defense Departments are cracking civilian and constitutional restraints on military involvement. Fear, chaos and secrecy are the preferred tools for breaking downs the barriers to militarization.

The Cost of Militarization

An examination of this new reality reveals deteriorating living standards, increased violence, forced displacement, the diversion of budgetary priorities from the basic needs of the population to weapons and espionage, and violations of civil and human rights. In our region, the Bush counterterrorism paradigm has been converted—with very few tweaks—into a counternarcotics war.

This rhetorical shift seeks to distance the no-less interventionist polices from the discredited national security doctrine of the Bush administration. The latter was wildly unpopular in Latin America, a region that does not face international terrorist threats. The promoters of the war on drugs, on the other hand, can at least point to a real threat and a classic villain. The macho mindset once again trots out the old story of good and evil fighting it out on the social battlefield, the only possible outcome being the victor and the vanquished.

As citizens we are merely on-lookers, called on to ignore the way massive corruption blurs the lines and accept the fact that the battle never ends.

In Latin America, the new drug war is accompanied by a subtext of counterinsurgency. The drug war’s inclusion of counterinsurgency is well-established in countries like Peru and Colombia, and implicit in the war on the hybrid “narco-insurgency” announced by Sec. of State Hillary Clinton recently in Mexico and Central America. Once armies have been assigned to fight their own citizens on national soil, the shift from a focus on drug cartels to a wider objective of all perceived challenges to the state historically has proved to be a minor step. It’s a step that places all dissidents, even and especially non-violent ones, in the crosshairs of a repressive state apparatus.

What we see now in Latin America is that behind the stated goals, lie longterm objectives to control and guarantee access to natural resources–through the use of force if necessary.

Women in the Call for Non-Violent Resistance

Throughout Latin America women—among the most vulnerable and formally least powerful sectors—have organizing against violence. Their fundamental role in peace and anti-war movements has nothing to do with fundamentalist arguments that women have a stronger biological link to life that causes them to oppose war. We’ve seen enough examples of women in politics and society who have promoted war and militarization to belie the claim, and numerous examples of men who refuse to support wars.

The commitment of women who organize against militarization arises from their particular consciences, experiences and roles in society. From Feminists in Resistance who joined to fight the coup in Honduras, to the mothers of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, it’s the terrible violence sown by strategies of confrontation and militarism that has motivated women to mobilize on behalf of peace and democracy. Their own experiences compel them to act.

Another reason that explains the widespread activism of women in anti-militarization movements is that they face particular risks under military occupation. They are, or can be, victims of sexual violence and gender-based crimes, including the systematic use of rape as a weapon of war and sexual abuse as punishment for insubordination.

For some time we have known that rape and sexual abuse aren’t merely acts of indiviudal soldiers or “war booty.” They are tactics of domination that employ women’s bodies as a means of achieving military and political goals. Nevertheless, it was only relatively recently that the United Nations recognized sexual violence as a war crime and a matter of international security. Despite the adoption of Resolution 1325 ten years ago this past October, impunity in these cases continues in the wake of public indifference, the weakness of judicial systems and the power of the very military forces responsible for the abuses.

Women’s Organizing in Nations Under Siege

Haiti today is a tragic example of sexual violence in a militarized environment. Despite the presence of 12,000 troops of the MINUSTAH [United Nations Stabilization Mission], after the January 12 earthquake hundreds of cases of rape have been reported in refugee camps; one NGO reported 230 rapes between January and March 2010 in 15 camps alone–a statistic that unfortunately appears to be just the tip of the iceberg. Although it seems that most rapes are not attributable to the security forces, the concentration of international aid in security and the deployment of troops have not served to protect Haitian women. In their testimonies, Haitian women who have been raped in the camps point out that soldiers don’t respond to their complaints. Through their weeping, they note that the country’s militarization strategy has diverted enormous amounts of resources to troops and that if those resources were channeled into food and housing, women wouldn’t be in such high-risk conditions.

The case of Haiti highlights the importance of developing gender-based analysis from the beginning of peace efforts, to achieve a comprehensive vision of the violence and a broad and inclusive definition of security. The contribution of women to anti-militarization movements in their countries is not just a matter of lending support to popular organizations or ensuring that more women are represented in these movements, although those are both important motives. They also have their own demands for their rights as women and gender equality. That agenda must be a pillar in the construction of social justice and lasting peace.

Despite the urgency struggles against militarization in many places, women haven’t set aside the feminist agenda or left it “for later” the feminist agenda. As Adelay Carias of Feministas en Resistance explains:

“At first, the urgent and immediate need to fight the military, to stop repression and demand a return to the constitutional order was what motivated us and guided us in joining this struggle. But also, from the beginning we understood that it was time to position our demands, to broaden the boundaries of our feminist project … Our chants– “No to the coup d’etat, No to blows against women” [Ni golpes de Esatado, ni golpes a las mujeres] “Stop femicide,” “Neither the soldier’s boot nor the priest’s cassock against lesbians,” “Get your rosaries out of my ovaries,”–could be heard as we marched in towns all over Honduras demanding peace, freedom, equality, democracy, justice.”

Yolanda Becerra, of the Popular Women’s Organization of Colombia (OFP, by its Spanish initials), emphasizes that in her country the women’s movement against militarization and for peace with justice is fighting “for all rights—the right to a life with dignity, the right to choose, the right to speak, the right to eat in the midst of poverty….”

In August, Colombian women held the International Encounter of Women and Peoples of America against Militarization to build networks, discuss armed conflict from a gender perspective and “look for ways to disarticulate the logic of war.” Women from all over the world participated in the event, which was tied to protests against the agreement to allow U.S. military presence in at least seven Colombian military bases.

Women pay a high price for their resistance. Members of Feminists in Resistance–the alliance of women’s organizations formed after the Honduran coup— presented a report to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission on Nov. 2, 2010 The report documents hundreds of cases of rape, sexual abuse, violations of rights, and the assassination of women in the resistance at the hands of the coup regime.

After receiving multiple threats, Becerra of the OFP was granted precautionary measures (protective orders) from the Commission.

Senator Piedad Córdoba, a well-known opponent of the militarization of her country and an advocate for a negotiated end to the conflict, described the situation in Colombia at the anti-militarization conference. She spoke of the four million internal refuges that are the result of the Colombia’s militarization and “the transfer of more than five million hectares of land belonging to campesinos to big business interests that finance paramilitaries….”

She concluded: “That’s why we women have decided: No more sons for war, it’s impossible to use war to stop the war here. … Peace is not just a pretty word. Peace is the need to talk about how to distribute the benefits of development, about who ends up with the wealth… We confront a state that militarizes thought, that even militarizes desire, love, friendship—whatever happens, we have to use our voices to speak up against war.”

The government’s response to Córdoba’s bold words was swift. Less than a month after her participation in the women’s meeting against militarization, the Colombian Attorney General announced his decision to remove her from her Senate seat and prevent her from holding public office for 18 years. The government of “democratic security,” the latest form of militarization, alleged ties to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Indeed, Córdoba has participated in official negotiations with the FARC–another expression of patriarchal military structures–and achieved the release of several hostages. She says that she will not be silenced by the government measure and continues to play a role in the peace movement.

Now Mexican women are beginning to suffer what their Colombian colleagues have known for decades. Despite the admittedly dismal results of Plan Colombia in reducing drug trafficking and creating stability, several weeks ago Hillary Clinton announced that Mexico and Central America need “the equivalent” of a Plan Colombia. The militarization of Mexico has advanced to a shocking extent under the pretext of Calderón’s war on drugs and the U.S. Mérida Initiative. So have the number of drug-war related deaths. Under Clinton’s proposal, this violence would be intensified.

In Mexico, as in Colombia, women are at the forefront of new organizations against militarization. It was a woman—the mother of a young man who was assassinated—who interrupted Calderón’s speech in Ciudad Juárez in February of 2010, shouting in protest against the failed security strategy that has turned the city into occupied territory and increased more than tenfold the number of killings. It was women who stood up and turned their backs on a president who promised security and delivered death. It continues to be women–within women’s organizations or in mixed citizens’ organizations–who reject the claim the government makes ad nauseum that the death of their sons is a reasonable price to pay in the confrontation with organized crime.

On Mexico’s northern border, human rights defenders have been executed and exiled. Their cases are different from those of the young women who were victims of femicide—they are targeted not because of their vulnerability, but precisely because of their courage and activism. Nevertheless, the impunity that reigns in the cases of sex crimes against women and the murder of activists is the same.

The militarization of countries like Mexico, Colombia and Honduras has a direct impact on the lives of women and on their forms of resistance. Daysi Flores of Feminists in Resistance explains their experience: “In just a year, we’ve had to learn to live with sadness, with a sense of impotence, anger, fear and despair. They try to put a pretty face on the dictatorship, but just walking through the streets you see that it’s a country taken over by the military.

“So we’ve had to be creative–to learn how to face threats, to not be killed, detained, raped or kidnapped. Despite the threats, we refuse to give up the idea of democracy, the real democracy, the one they robbed us of with their rifles, tear gas, beatings and killings. That’s why we continue to go out and protest, even when we put our lives at risk.”

The solidarity networks between women at an international level have been piecemeal or ephemeral. Women who confront militarization in conflict situations are exposed to risks that range from threats to themselves and their families, to assassination, sexual abuse, physical and psychological violence.

We have to build rapid response networks so that no woman who has been threatened or put in danger for having raised her voice against militarization has to go through this alone. National women’s organizations against militarization and for peace are just beginning their organizational development in most countries; meanwhile they face the accelerating pace of militarization. Yolanda Beccera notes that the women’s anti-war movement in Colombia has been developing for more than ten years to arrive at the point of organizing the recent international meeting. What is certain is that for Mexico and Central America the process has to be speeded up, before militarization becomes a structural aspect of everyday life and destroys the social fabric that is the basis for lasting peace. This is the great challenge for all of us.

Laura Carlsen is director of the Americas Program of the Center for International Policy in Mexico City atwww.cipamericas.org.

2011-01-14T09:51:00.001-05:00

Jail harms aboriginal men, hearing told
by Alexandra Paul, from Winnipeg Free Press, January 14, 2011.

WHEN War Lake First Nation Chief Betsy Kennedy was a slip of a girl in The Pas, a First Nation man would watch over her wherever she went.

It was a troubled time.

Helen Betty Osborne had been murdered a year earlier. Racial tension was high, there were fist fights every weekend in the streets and aboriginal girls were vulnerable to white men.

First Nations men became the first line of defence in a hostile society.

"I was protected all the time," Kennedy said with a sad smile outside a federal hearing on violence against aboriginal women. "That doesn't happen anymore."

Today, many First Nations men are in jail or damaged by their experiences behind bars.

The House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women stopped in Winnipeg for hearings Thursday as part of seven-city tour over 10 days this month. The committee will report to the Harper government this spring on ways to reduce the violence, St. Boniface Conservative MP Shelly Glover said.

Kennedy was among 11 witnesses listed to make five-minute presentations. She appeared with fellow First Nation Chief Francine Meeches from Swan Lake to deliver a brief from the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, the province's largest political organization for First Nations.

A joint RCMP and the Winnipeg Police Service task force is examining 84 unsolved cases of Manitoba aboriginal women who've vanished or been killed in the last 20 years. Kennedy left the hearings with a sense of unease. She doesn't feel aboriginal women are getting any added protection from the current federal crackdown on crime.

Some aboriginal women said handing out stiffer sentences to men convicted of family violence charges only escalates the cycle of abuse.

"It's aboriginal men who are put in jail. And they come out worse," Winnipegger Karen Chevillard said. She was among a group of 25 women wearing bright yellow T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan 'Decolonize yourself. Break the racist pattern.'

"They want to build more jails and if they build more jails, it will be genocide for our families," Chevillard said.

Solange Garson talked about the impact when aboriginal men are vastly over-represented in prison populations. "Jails are a breeding ground for gangs and criminal activity."

Afghan Reality

2011-01-12T22:18:00.001-05:00

The Tentacles of American Power: Afghan Reality
By Vijay Prashad, from CounterPunch, January 12, 2011.

Slowly, but surely, the leakage of the U. S. State Department cables continues. Media interest in the United States has died down. One reason for this is that the prosecution of Wikileaks leader Julian Assange became the story, and that spiked interest in the cables themselves. The New York Times has since reported on Assange, in the manner of a celebrity scandal, and failed to take any further interest in the cables. Crises in the cables are now academic; the scandals are on the front page. It tells us something about the state of journalism that this is so: few journalists at the major newspapers continue to scour the cables. That would require effort and time. They have moved on to other stories. The revelations are left to be uncovered at leisure. The danger to the U. S. has passed.

The sheer size of the leak tells us something about the nature of the U. S. footprint. Embassies across the world are not involved alone in the humdrum work of diplomatic niceties. Down the street from most of these embassies are U. S. military bases, where the Generals are in occupation as equal partners in the country to the Ambassador. Both the Ambassador and the General collect information to pass on through their various channels toward the State Department headquarters (Foggy Bottom) and the military headquarters (the Pentagon). This massive amount of information is siphoned by those in power, who must make sense of it as they formulate policy. The larger the footprint, the harder it is to digest the intelligence and make sensible policy.

Across 130 countries (of 192), the United States armed forces maintain over 700 military bases. During the Bush years, Andrew Hoehn was tasked by the White House to study the need for a robust U. S. response to the “arc of instability” that apparently stretches from Colombia to Indonesia. “When you overlay our [base] footprint onto that,” he said, “we don’t look particularly well-positioned to deal with the problems we’re now going to confront.” To take the teeth out of these military outposts, Bush’s Secretary of State Colin Powell called them “our family of bases.” Chalmers Johnson, the academic and former CIA analyst who died in December, wrote a series of books excoriating this tendency to make U. S. expansion into something normal, to deny that “our garrisons encircle the planet.” The bases give the Ambassadors the kind of heft that allows them to interfere with the minutiae of policy in far-flung countries.

The cables from Kabul show a policy in fiasco. On the ground, the State Department officials bemoan the lack of clarity. Their partners, the government led by Hamid Karzai, appears to dither, with sections in the government given over to various forms of corruption. In a cable from November 2009 (leaked last year), U. S. Ambassador to Kabul Karl Eikenberry called Karzai “not an adequate strategic partner.” Even Karzai tells the U. S. officials that Afghanistan “lacks capable administrators on almost every level. The brain drain of the war years was enormous, Karzai said, and claimed that luring back expatriates would not succeed since now they were ‘too costly’ to keep” (10KABUL170, January 19, 2010). The “security situation,” which is to say the violence in the country, makes it hard to encourage the middle class to return from its exile. The rot is quite deep, and the disagreements rife.

Even the facts are in dispute: plain speaking from the intelligence services is discounted. In his first review of the U. S. war in Afghanistan, President Obama designated July 2011 as the date at which withdrawal would begin. Even then the promise was hedged, with a clause (“whether conditions might allow”) that permitted a change in plans. In late 2010, Obama’s team conducted its second major review of the war. The Wikileaks cable dump confirmed the chaos on the ground, with U. S. officials frustrated with the Afghan government and floundering in their meetings with those on the penumbra of the Taliban (including one amusing cable that describes a meeting with former Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, 10KABUL503, February 9, 2010). More than 700 soldiers died in 2010, with the year bringing in the largest civilian and military casualties for the conflict thus far. Reports show that the insurgency has not been countered; indeed it might even be in an expansive mood (this is so in Anand Gopal’s informative study for the New America Foundation, “The Battle for Afghanistan: Militancy and Conflict in Kandahar,” November 2010).

A poll in the U. S. (conducted in mid-December 2010) showed the public’s weariness with a war few understand and many despair over: 56% of the public felt that “things are going badly for the U. S. in Afghanistan” (CNN/Opinion Research Corporation). 70% of those who make under $50,000 opposed the war, while of those who made more money, only 54% opposed the war. Even 45% of the Tea Party members and 44% of Republicans are against the war; 74% of Democrats agree with them. There is a straightforward political mandate for Obama to stick to his July 2011 withdrawal date.

Tricky Leaks

In mid-December 2010, the Senate Intelligence Committee held hearings on the Afghan war. To help them out, the sixteen intelligence agencies in the U. S. prepared their National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). Not long after, the NIE was leaked to the major newspapers. Luckily for the Obama administration, both the NIE leak and the White House review were announced during the Christmas break; most people were too busy with their families to notice the discrepancy. The NIE documents point out that Afghanistan remains vulnerable to the insurgency, and that Pakistan’s government is unwilling to stop its covert support to the Afghan Taliban. The latter point amplifies U. S. Ambassador Anne Patterson’s cable that “there is no chance that Pakistan will view enhanced assistance as sufficient compensation for abandoning support to these groups” (091ISLAMABAD2295, September 23, 2009).

Already in November, at the NATO summit, Obama had begun to talk about a withdrawal date of 2014, three years after his original date. In early December, his defense secretary Robert Gates told the press in Kabul, “There is no doubt the security climate is improving.” The senior general, David Petraeus (who missed his father’s funeral to remain at his post), said, “We’ve made important progress in recent months.” That was the word of the moment, “progress.” It was in all Obama’s comments on the war. On December 16, Obama announced that the results of the review, saying that the U. S.-NATO alliance had made “significant progress” in the country. To the journalist Bob Woodward, Obama had said he didn’t want Afghanistan to be his political graveyard (Obama’s War, 2010). His choices were not clear. A mandate from the public was not enough. During an earlier review, CIA director Leon Panetta told the cabinet that “no Democratic president can go against military advice, especially if he asked for it.” This is what scuttled the first review, and it has certainly defined the most recent one. The NIE assessment is absent. God spat into the mouth of Cassandra.

In Kabul, Ambassador Eikenberry remains forlorn. One would like to read his current cables, but these are under wraps. At a speech on December 7 at the newly opened office of the American Chamber of Commerce in Kabul, Eikenberry stumbled. According to David Smith-Ferri, Eikenberry said the following, “Afghanistan still is a country that…. Although great improvements have been made in the last seven or eight years in building the infrastructure that can facilitate commerce: roads, power, access to water – it is a country that still remains challenging.” Eikenberry’s hesitancy about the military solution continues to plague him, but it makes little impact on U. S. policy.

Obama’s top counterterrorism advisor John Brennan believes that “Afghanistan is a small piece of real estate.” It is not the base camp of terror. Brennan saw these in Yemen and Somalia, where the U. S. has a much more modest footprint. Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti manages the Somali sector. In January 2010, Yemen’s foreign minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi said that a base on Yemeni soil was “inconceivable.” The veracity of the statements of Yemen’s officials is in doubt after the Wikileaks disclosures (Yemen’s President Ali Abdulla Saleh told Brennan in 2009, “I have given you an open door on terrorism”; 09SANAA1669, September 15, 2009). A joint operations center opened in Yemen early last year. This is what Chalmers Johnson called “America’s empire of bases.” Wars continue. Withdrawals take place, but bases remain. The tentacles of American power are hard to disentangle.

Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT His most recent book, The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, won the Muzaffar Ahmad Book Prize for 2009. The Swedish and French editions are just out. He can be reached at: vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu

Obama’s Afghanistan Review

2011-01-02T11:00:00.001-05:00

Obama’s Afghanistan Review: A Whitewash of a Disastrous Occupation
by Phyllis Bennis and Kevin Martin, from Z-Net, December 28, 2010.

Apparently nothing can happen in the U.S. war in Afghanistan that doesn’t mean good news. If violence rises, it’s because “we’re taking the fight to the enemy.” The Pentagon must be taking a lot of fighting to whoever they’re calling the enemy – this year alone the war has killed over 2500 Afghan civilians, and almost 500 U.S. troops and more than 200 other NATO forces have died too. Of course in those isolated areas where violence may have dropped, it’s because “our strategy is winning.”

President Obama’s most recent Afghanistan review process resulted – surprise! – in the announcement that the U.S./NATO occupation will continue at least until 2014. Another four years of war, death, and devastation for the people of Afghanistan, as well as for the young U.S. soldiers drafted by poverty and lack of opportunity and sent to kill and die there in escalating numbers.

That earlier promise of July 2011 as the pull-out date? That one was always at least partially a sham – designed to pacify Obama’s powerfully anti-war base. The language even when first announced was a carefully ambiguous version that sounded like “July 2011 will start a process to determine whether conditions might allow preparation for beginning consideration of when the partial transfer of some control to Afghan forces might allow for a partial withdrawal of a few U.S. troops…”

As is recognized by the 60% of people in the U.S. who understand that the war in Afghanistan is “not worth fighting,” this is a war we cannot win and cannot afford. There is no military solution – we’ve heard that for years now, from the very leaders orchestrating the war, in the Pentagon, in Congress, in the White House. And yet, the military battle goes on, despite its inevitable failure.

And the cost continues to rise, exacting a huge price from U.S. taxpayers. The 2010 military budget plus the costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq totaled over one TRILLION dollars – an amount so huge we can’t even comprehend it. Here’s one slightly smaller, that maybe we can grasp. Just the cost of President Obama’s escalation this last year, those additional 30,000 troops, was over $33 billion. That money could instead have been used to create 600,000 new green middle-class jobs here at home – and still had $3 billion left over to help with the rebuilding of post-occupation Afghanistan. Wouldn’t those 60% of Americans who think the war is not worth fighting have preferred to use the money for jobs instead of war?

President Obama told us the military is succeeding in its mission to “disrupt and dismantle, defeat and destroy” al Qaeda. And yet the CIA and other intelligence agencies acknowledge there are somewhere between 50 and 100 al Qaeda operatives even in Afghanistan. So we’ve sent 100,000 troops to wage war against the insurgents in Afghanistan who aren’t al Qaeda. Do they really believe that al Qaeda-style terrorism really requires large swathes of territory? They’re not training up battalions of soldiers who need to practice. All they really need are a few garage-sized labs and an Internet café with a fast connection.

As is true in any guerrilla war, the insurgents will fade before massed conventional forces, only to reappear when those forces move on. “Clearing” an area of the Taliban or other Afghan opposition forces is relatively easy; “holding” the area, not so much. And “building” – that’s pretty much off the agenda altogether. Why? It has a lot to do with the Afghan government, as well as the Afghan National Army and National Police. We hear a lot about how we’re making improvements in their recruitment and training, how they’re gaining skills and capacity every day. That’s probably all true. (Recruitment is fairly easy in a country with such pervasive unemployment.)

But it’s mostly irrelevant too. The problem isn’t training, it isn’t even the widespread lack of literacy. Many Taliban, Haqqani, and other fighters are largely illiterate also, and have no access to sophisticated training. It’s not about training, it’s about loyalty. And there’s no reason in the world to believe that a majority of Afghans, even those temporarily accepting pay in military or civil service, are going to develop real loyalty to a U.S.-imposed, western-style “strong central government” when there is nothing anywhere in Afghan culture that has created strong central governments or primarily national identity. That would be the case even with a legitimate, relatively honest administration in Kabul – let alone Hamid Karzai’s government that remains so thoroughly mired in fraud and corruption linked to the billions of U.S. tax dollars funneling in and out of Afghanistan.

Ironically, while President Obama’s review was all about the positive, the latest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Afghanistan was leaked just the day before. And boy, did they see things differently. The NIE is important – it reflects the consensus view of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies – the CIA, the DIA, the NSA and all the rest. And what they said was profoundly different from the rosy-eyed assessment of the White House and the Pentagon. Officials briefed on the NIE said it acknowledged that large swaths of Afghanistan are still at risk of falling to the Taliban. And that there is no chance for anything resembling success in Afghanistan without the kind of massive shift in Pakistan that would eliminate the Afghan Taliban’s current access to safe havens across the border.

And as of now, since the government in Pakistan we’re propping up with billions of dollars in military and economic aid has made quite clear that it – especially its powerful ISI intelligence agency – has no intention of ending support for the Afghan Taliban, the possibility of “success” seems to be just about zero.

It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. The Pakistani government is perfectly happy to accept U.S. aid and weapons and use them to go after the Pakistani Taliban – who could indeed threaten the stability, maybe even the survival of the current government in Islamabad. But they are just as clear that the Afghan Taliban, currently taking advantage of Pakistan’s welcome and support, is pretty much the opposite of a threat to the government in Islamabad. To the contrary, the Afghan Taliban are understood to represent Pakistan’s interests in Afghanistan – especially against those of Pakistan’s arch-rival India. And, like every regional government surrounding Afghanistan, Pakistan is looking out for its own interests, making sure it has a reliable surrogate in Kabul, especially whenever the U.S. troops begin to leave.

The ultimate military goal, we are told, is to make sure the Taliban doesn’t come back to power, because supposedly that will prevent al Qaeda from launching another 9/11. Let’s just take a “worst case scenario.” The U.S. invasion, war and occupation have devastated Afghanistan, and in a post-occupation scenario the Taliban will certainly be one of the forces contending for political power. Could they win?

Maybe – they did once before, in 1996, when a huge proportion of Afghans welcomed them because the Taliban promised to end the five years of bloody inter-warlord fighting that had devastated the country and nearly destroyed Kabul.

What if they did? The Taliban leadership are no fools – they know they lost their hold on power only because of their protection (for a while) of al Qaeda and its leaders. Chances are pretty good they might not want to risk that again.

And if they did? We know that war doesn’t work against terrorism – what does work, what has worked in every example where the U.S. has managed to find and capture top al Qaeda officials or information, has not been bombing but good intelligence, good police work, good cooperation with other governments and international institutions. That hasn’t changed. That’s why we need – and shouldn’t fear – negotiations with everybody at the table. Including the Taliban.

The U.S. war and occupation has not made Afghans safer, more secure, more prosperous – they still have one of the lowest life expectancies on earth. The war has not protected women – Afghan women still die in childbirth at rates second highest in the world. And children are not better off – UNICEF reports that Afghan babies are more likely to die before their first or fifth birthdays than any other children in the world.

War isn’t working. Sixty percent of Americans know it. The U.S. intelligence agencies know it too. And we’re thinking even President Obama knows it.

The president was quoted in Bob Woodward’s recent book Obama’s Wars as saying he would not lose his political base over Afghanistan, yet he is risking exactly that. Despite some significant political victories on gay rights and disarmament in the lame duck session of Congress that have him looking much better than after the mid-term election “shellacking” just seven weeks ago, Obama and his political advisers must know his chances of re-election will be very poor if the economy is still in the doldrums and we remain mired in a seemingly endless war in Afghanistan. His base, both on the war and peace side, and the economic justice side, simply won’t hustle for him as it did in 2008 (and without said hustle he’d still be the junior senator from Illinois).

Our main concern is not for the president’s re-election prospects, it’s to end this disastrous war as soon as possible. But it’s conceivable the two could be strategically linked. The president’s anti-war base must connect the urgency of getting out of Afghanistan and making serious cuts in the military budget, with the immediate need to reinvest in the working economy, job creation, and environmental restoration. That means building powerful alliances with the key movements rising in response to the economic crisis, and fighting now for immigrant, labor, community and civil rights.

If the president and his political team are as savvy as everyone thinks they are (or at least were in the 2008 campaign), they’d do well to get in front of that wave and run on a genuine peace and green prosperity platform. Imagine if that happened, and President Obama really did start paying attention to his anti-war base, and began carrying out the dramatic shift in policy necessary to insure a real withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, a genuine move to close Guantanamo, a final withdrawal of all remaining troops in Iraq, a serious level of pressure on Israel to end its occupation, as well as to launch a serious New New Deal to create green jobs and rebuild the economy… Then not only would the president likely coast to re-election, but the Afghan and U.S. people would be the real beneficiaries – instead of banks, war profiteers and Wall Street – and THAT election would really be one for the history books.

Phyllis Bennis is a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies (www.ips-dc.org) and co-author of Ending the U.S. War in Afghanistan: A Primer. Kevin Martin is Executive Director of Peace Action (www.peace-action.org), the country's largest grassroots peace and disarmament organization with 100,000 members.

Rape rampant in US military

2010-12-22T09:47:00.002-05:00

Rape rampant in US military: Statistics and soldiers' testimonies reveal a harrowing epidemic of sexual assault in the US military.
by Dahr Jamail, from Al Jazeera, December 21, 2010.

Sexual assault within the ranks of the military is not a new problem. It is a systemic problem that has necessitated that the military conduct its own annual reporting on the crisis.

A 2003 Air Force Academy sexual assault scandal prompted the department of defense to include a provision in the 2004 National Defense Authorization Act that required investigations and reports of sexual harassment and assaults within US military academies to be filed. The personal toll is, nevertheless, devastating.

Military sexual trauma (MST) survivor Susan Avila-Smith is director of the veteran’s advocacy group Women Organizing Women. She has been serving female and scores of male clients in various stages of recovery from MST for 15 years and knows of its devastating effects up close.

“People cannot conceive how badly wounded these people are,” she told Al Jazeera, “Of the 3,000 I’ve worked with, only one is employed. Combat trauma is bad enough, but with MST it’s not the enemy, it’s our guys who are doing it. You’re fighting your friends, your peers, people you’ve been told have your back. That betrayal, then the betrayal from the command is, they say, worse than the sexual assault itself.”

On December 13, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other groups filed a federal lawsuit seeking Pentagon records in order to get the real facts about the incidence of sexual assault in the ranks.

The Pentagon has consistently refused to release records that fully document the problem and how it is handled. Sexual assaults on women in the US military have claimed some degree of visibility, but about male victims there is absolute silence.

Pack Parachute, a non-profit in Seattle, assists veterans who are sexual assault survivors. Its founder Kira Mountjoy-Pepka, was raped as a cadet at the Air Force Academy. In July 2003 she was member of a team of female cadets handpicked by Donald Rumsfeld, at the time the secretary of defense, to tell their stories of having been sexually assaulted. The ensuing media coverage and a Pentagon investigation forced the academy to make the aforementioned major policy changes.

Report reveals alarming statistics

Mountjoy-Pepka often works with male survivors of MST. She stated in a telephone interview that four per cent of men in the military experience MST. “Most choose not to talk about it until after their discharge from the military, largely because the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in over 60 percent of MST cases is too overwhelming,” she informed Al Jazeera.

Last week the Pentagon released its “annual report on sexual harassment and violence at the military service academies”. At its three academies, the number of reports of sexual assault and harassment has risen a staggering 64 percent from last year.

The report attributes the huge increase to better reporting of incidents due to increased training and education about sexual assault and harassment. Veteran’s Administration (VA) statistics show that more than 50 percent of the veterans who screen positive for MST are men.

According to the US Census Bureau, there are roughly 22 million male veterans compared to less than two million female vets.

In Congressional testimony in the summer of 2008, Lt. Gen. Rochelle, the army chief of personnel, reported the little known statistic that 12 percent (approximately 260) of the 2,200 reported rapes in the military in 2007 were reported by military male victims.

Due to their sheer numbers in the military, more men (at a rough estimate one in twenty), have experienced MST than women.

Shamed into silence

Billy Capshaw was 17 when he joined the Army in 1977. After being trained as a medic he was transferred to Baumholder, Germany. His roommate, Jeffrey Dahmer, by virtue of his seniority ensured that Capshaw had no formal assignment, no mail, and no pay. Having completely isolated the young medic, Dahmer regularly sexually assaulted, raped, and tortured him.

Dahmer went on to become the infamous serial killer and sex offender who murdered 17 boys and men before being beaten to death by an inmate at Columbia Correction Institution in 1994.

Capshaw reflects back, “At that young age I didn’t know how to deal with it. My commander did not believe me. Nobody helped me, even though I begged and begged and begged.”

The debilitating lifelong struggle Capshaw has had to face is common among survivors of military sexual assault.

Later during therapy he needed to go public. Since then he says, “I’ve talked to a lot of men, many of them soldiers, who are raped but who won’t go public with their story. The shame alone is overwhelming.”

In 1985 Michael Warren enlisted in the navy and for three years worked as a submarine machinist mate on a nuclear submarine. One day he awoke to find another soldier performing fellatio on him.

He recollects with horror, “I was paralyzed with fear. I was in disbelief... shame. When I reported it to the commander he said it was better for me to deal with it after being discharged. Nobody helped me, not even the chaplain. The commander at the processing centre wouldn’t look me in the face. When I filled out my claim later they didn’t believe me. It’s so frustrating.”

Armando Javier was an active duty Marine from 1990 to 1994. He was a Lance Corporal at Camp Lejeune in 1993 when he was raped.

Five Marines jumped Javier and beat him until he was nearly unconscious, before taking turns raping him. His sexual victimization narrative reads, “One of them, a corporal, pulled down my shorts and instructed the others to ‘Get the grease’. Another corporal instructed someone to bring the stick. They began to insert the stick inside my anus. The people present during this sadistic and ritual-like ceremony started to cajole, cheer, and laugh, saying “stick em’ – stick-em’.”

Extreme shame and trauma compelled him not to disclose the crime to anyone except a friend in his unit. He wrote in his account, “My experience left me torn apart physically, mentally, and spiritually. I was dehumanized and treated with ultimate cruelty, by my perpetrators… I was embarrassed and ashamed and didn’t know what to do. I was young at that time. And being part of an elite organization that values brotherhood, integrity and faithfulness made it hard to come forward and reveal what happened.”

The reality of being less equal

Women in America were first allowed into the military during the Revolutionary War in 1775 and their travails are as old. Drill instructors indoctrinate new recruits into it at the outset by routinely referring to them as “girl,” “pussy,” “bitch,” and “dyke.”

A Command Sergeant Major told Catherine Jayne West of the Mississippi National Guard, “There aren’t but two places for women - in the kitchen or in the bedroom. Women have no place in the military.”

She was raped by fellow soldier Private First Class Kevin Lemeiux, at the sprawling Camp Anaconda, north of Baghdad. The defense lawyer in court merely wanted to know why, as a member of the army, she had not fought back.

The morning after the rape, an army doctor gave her a thorough examination. The army’s criminal investigation team concluded her story was true. Moreover, Lemeiux had bragged about the incident to his buddies and they had turned him in. It seemed like a closed case, but in court the defense claimed that the fact that West had not fought back during the rape was what incriminated her. In addition, her commanding officer and 1st Sergeant declared, in court, that she was a “promiscuous female.”

In contrast, Lemeiux, after the third court hearing of the trial, was promoted to a Specialist. Meanwhile his lawyer entered a plea of insanity.

He was later found guilty of kidnapping but not rape, despite his own admission of the crime. He was given three years for kidnapping, half of which was knocked off.

The long term affects of MST

Jasmine Black, a human resources specialist in the Army National Guard from June 2006 to September 2008 was raped by another soldier in her battalion when she was stationed in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. She reported it to her Sexual Assault Response Coordinator (SARC) and the Military Police, but the culprit was not brought to book.

After an early discharge due to MST and treatment at a PTSD Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program (PRRTP) facility, she was raped again by a higher-ranking member of the air force in February 2009.

Administrator for a combat engineering instruction unit in Knoxville, Tennessee, Tracey Harmon has no illusions. “For women in the military, you are either a bitch, a dyke, or a whore. If you sleep with one person in your unit you are a whore. If you are a lesbian you are a dyke, and if you don’t sleep with other soldiers you are a bitch.”

Maricela Guzman served in the navy from 1998 to 2002 as a computer technician on the island of Diego Garcia. She was raped while in boot camp, but fear of consequences kept her from talking about it for the rest of her time in the military. “I survived by becoming a workaholic and was much awarded as a soldier for my work ethic.”

On witnessing the way it treated the native population in Diego Garcia, she chose to dissociate from the military. Post discharge, her life became unmanageable. She underwent a divorce, survived a failed suicide attempt and became homeless before deciding to move in with her parents. A chance encounter with a female veteran at a political event in Los Angeles prompted her to contact the VA for help. Her therapist there diagnosed her with PTSD from her rape.

The VA denied her claim nevertheless, “Because they said I couldn’t prove it … since I had not brought it up when it happened and also because I had not shown any deviant behavior while in the service. I was outraged and felt compelled to talk about what happened.”

While it will go to any length to maintain public silence over the issue, the military machine has no such qualms within its own corridors. Guzman discloses, “Through the gossip mill we would hear of women who had reported being raped. No confidentiality was maintained nor any protection given to victims. The boys’ club culture is strong and the competition exclusive. That forces many not to report rape, because it is a blemish and can ruin your career.”

The department of defence reported that in fiscal year 2009, there were 3,230 reports of sexual assault, an increase of 11 percent over the prior year.

However, as high as the military’s own figures are of rape and sexual assault, victims and advocates Al Jazeera spoke with believe the real figures are sure to be higher.

Veteran April Fitzsimmons, another victim of sexual assault, knows what an uphill battle it is for women to take on the military system. “When victims come forward, they are ostracized and isolated from their communities. Many of the perpetrators are officers who use their ranks to coerce women to sleep with them. It’s a closely interwoven community, so they are safe and move fearlessly amongst their victims.”

Her advice to women considering joining the US military?

“The crisis is so severe that I’m telling women to simply not join the military because it’s completely unsafe and puts them at risk. Until something changes at the top, no woman should join the military.”

Israeli Government Documents Show Deliberate Policy To Keep Gazans At Near-starvation Levels

2010-12-01T12:51:00.002-05:00

Israeli Government Documents Show Deliberate Policy To Keep Gazans At Near-starvation Levels
by Saed Bannoura, from International Middle East Media Center, November 6, 2010.

Documents, whose existence were denied by the Israeli government for over a year, have been released after a legal battle led by Israeli human rights group, Gisha. The documents reveal a deliberate policy by the Israeli government in which the dietary needs for the population of Gaza are chillingly calculated, and the amounts of food let in by the Israeli government measured to remain just enough to keep the population alive at a near-starvation level. This documents the statement made by a number of Israeli officials that they are "putting the people of Gaza on a diet".

In 2007, when Israel began its full siege on Gaza, Dov Weisglass, adviser to then Prime-Minister Ehud Olmert, stated clearly, “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.” The documents now released contain equations used by the Israeli government to calculate the exact amounts of food, fuel and other necessities needed to do exactly that.

The documents are even more disturbing, say human rights activists, when one considers the fact that close to half of the people of Gaza are children under the age of eighteen. This means that Israel has deliberately forced the undernourishment of hundreds of thousands of children in direct violation of international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention.

This release of documents also severely undermines Israel's oft-made claim that the siege is "for security reasons", as it documents a deliberate and systematic policy of collective punishment of the entire population of Gaza.

Gisha's director, in relation to the release of documents, said, "Israel banned glucose for biscuits and the fuel needed for regular supply of electricity – paralyzing normal life in Gaza and impairing the moral character of the State of Israel. I am sorry to say that major elements of this policy are still in place."

In its statement accompanying the release of the documents, Gisha wrote:

The documents reveal that the state approved "a policy of deliberate reduction" for basic goods in the Gaza Strip (section h.4, page 5*). Thus, for example, Israel restricted the supply of fuel needed for the power plant, disrupting the supply of electricity and water. The state set a "lower warning line" (section g.2, page 5) to give advance warning of expected shortages in a particular item, but at the same time approved ignoring that warning, if the good in question was subject to a policy of "deliberate reduction". Moreover, the state set an "upper red line" above which even basic humanitarian items could be blocked, even if they were in demand (section g.1, page 5). The state claimed in a cover letter to Gisha that in practice, it had not authorized reduction of "basic goods" below the "lower warning line", but it did not define what these "basic goods" were.

Commentator Richard Silverstein wrote: "In reviewing the list of permitted items for import, you come to realize that these are the only items allowed. In other words, if an item is not on the list, it’s prohibited. So, for example, here is the list of permitted spices: Black pepper, soup powder, hyssop, sesame. cinnamon, anise, babuna (chamomile), sage. Sorry, cumin, basil, bay leaf, allspice, carraway, cardamon, chiles, chives, cilantro, cloves, garlic, sesame, tamarind, thyme, oregano, cayenne. Not on the list. You're not a spice Palestinians need according to some IDF dunderhead. And tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, toys, glassware, paint, and shoes? You can forget about them too. Luxuries all, or else security threats."

Despite the disturbing nature of the documents, which show a calculated policy of deliberate undernourishment of an entire population, no major media organizations have reported the story.

The full text of the released documents, and the original Freedom of Information Act request filed by Gisha, can be found on Gisha's website at the link below:

http://www.gisha.org/index.php?intLanguage=2&intItemId=1904&intSiteSN=113

Laying Down Arms

2010-11-11T22:30:00.002-05:00

On the 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month: Laying Down Arms
By Peter Linebaugh, from CounterPunch, November 11, 2010.

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month the Great Powers of the World signed the armistice laying down arms after four years of the bloodiest war in history. That was 1918.

Now, we call it Veteran's Day.

What caused the armistice was the refusal of soldiers to fight. They refused 'to go over the top' anymore. In Russia, France, England, Italy they refused to participate in the slaughter which had begun in 1914.

What we learn from Armistice Day is that the soldier is the front line of the peace movement.

Sailors and soldiers mutinied against the war, turning their arms not on so-called "enemies," namely brother soldiers from across the world: instead, they turned their arms upon the officers who otherwise sent them to the butchery of the trenches or ordered them to a freezing death in battles at sea.

In late October 1918 at Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, the home ports of the German fleet, the sailors refused the orders of their officers. Soldiers were brought in to force the sailors to obey. Instead the soldiers embraced their cause, "Frieden und Brot” or Peace and Bread.

One such sailor was a former stoker named Karl Artelt who had shoveled coal into the fires which kept the steam engines of the battleships burning. On a voyage to the Far East he witnessed the Chinese revolution of Sun Yat-sen. Later, perhaps as the engines of the German naval squadron were transformed from coal to oil, he became a skilled metal worker in the engine room. In other words his experiences below decks put him at the central themes of his historical epoch - imperialism and the oil machine - and he used these experiences to overthrow the war mongers. Such men put an end to World War One.

Together soldiers and sailors formed direct democratic councils. On 9th November 1918 a socialist republic was declared in Berlin. Hindenburg and Ludendorf, the German generals, had to agree to an armistice.

So: Honor the soldier who takes direct action for peace. Honor the soldier who thinks. Honor the soldier who brings Empire to its end.

Remember the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month!
Bring the troops home!

Peter Linebaugh teaches history at the University of Toledo. The London Hanged and (with Marcus Rediker) The Many-Headed Hydra: the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic. His essay on the history of May Day is included in Serpents in the Garden. His latest book is the Magna Carta Manifesto. He can be reached at: plineba@yahoo.com

Are these cops above the law?

2010-10-28T12:39:00.001-04:00

Are these cops above the law?
by David Bruser and Michele Henry, from The Toronto Star, October 28, 2010. (Link found via A.P.)

A Toronto police officer inexplicably floors his gas pedal, speeds into an illegal right turn and runs down a grandmother, severing her brain stem and killing her instantly.

An OPP constable wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a baton and pepper spray shoots and kills an intellectually challenged 59-year-old man holding a small pocket knife.

During a traffic stop near Canada's Wonderland, York Region officers rough up a small, 50-year-old accountant, breaking his arm and leaving him roadside.

A Peel Region police officer sucker-punches a handcuffed prisoner and breaks his jaw in two places.

Two teens chatting on the grass in a public park are run over by a Durham Region squad car, suffering extensive injuries.

All of these officers were quickly cleared by the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) — the provincial agency responsible for investigating serious injuries and deaths resulting from interactions between police and the public. All still work as police officers.

The Toronto Star investigated two decades of SIU cases. It found that police officers across the province are treated far differently than civilians when accused of shooting, beating and running over and killing people, some of them innocent bystanders.

Ontario's criminal justice system heavily favours police and gives officers breaks at every turn — from the SIU, which hardly ever charges officers, to prosecutors, juries and judges.

Where civilians causing similar damage are typically prosecuted, cops walk.

Even in the rare instances when officers are charged and convicted, they almost always avoid jail time.

The Star also found police officers' lack of preparation, reckless and ill-advised tactics, and tendency to use excessive force led to civilian injuries and deaths.

“(The SIU) doesn't charge anybody. It's all a waste of time,” said David Orbst, the short, unintimidating accountant whose arm was broken during a traffic stop by York Region police officers, including an officer Orbst identified as Const. Derek Cadieux. “If a (civilian) had done this to me, I point the finger and they get arrested.”

The head of the SIU, Ian Scott, defended his agency in an interview with the Star but said, “Police officers get all kinds of breaks in the (criminal justice) system.”

The Star found in many cases that the reckless actions of some police officers have tarnished the oft-stated mottos — “to serve and protect” or “leaders in community safety” — of police forces across the province.

In one case, Toronto Police Supt. Neale Tweedy, who was tasked with disciplining a constable who killed a bystander, said police officers must lead by example. He said “preventing property damage, injury and death is a core business function.”

The Star found the SIU is hampered by a justice system that heavily favours police, and has not done its job holding officers to this standard.

In its 20-year history, the SIU has conducted at least 3,400 investigations and laid criminal charges after only 95 of them, according to a Star analysis. The SIU does not track what happens to those it charges. But the Star has, and found only 16 officers have been convicted of a crime. Only three have seen the inside of a jail — as inmates.

“Two words on the (SIU) website are: Independent and rigorous. (But) it's just a farce organization,” says Emal Bariali, whose schizophrenic brother Elyas was shot dead by Durham police in 2005. “Seems to me like there are no consequences (for officers). Why would the police take the SIU seriously?”

The numbers should not surprise Scott. Four years before he took the helm in 2008, he said he had little faith in the agency's effectiveness given the constraints of the justice system.

In a presentation he made to a lawyers' conference in 2004, Scott, who once worked as a prosecutor, noted that police officers accused of using excessive force stood a less than one-in-five chance of facing the same level of justice as civilians accused of similar crimes.

“It is an ineffective use of state resources to investigate, charge and prosecute cases in which the high probability is ... acquittal,” Scott wrote in 2004.

He proposed a second option — give the SIU the power to send some suspect officers to the Ontario Civilian Policing Commission, an independent oversight agency, where they could be fined or fired. He said a commission verdict would act as a “deterrent” to police misconduct. But Scott's call went unanswered.

The SIU was created in 1990 after a series of police shootings of black civilians provoked community backlash and fear the incidents would be covered up by police-friendly investigations. In one case in 1988, a Peel Region officer shot and killed teenager Michael Wade Lawson as he drove a stolen car.

Supporters of the new agency, including the Toronto police chief of the day Bill McCormack, said the independent SIU would boost public confidence in police oversight. But community groups expressed concern that the unit, staffed by former police officers, would not be independent enough. Today, the SIU employs 54 full- and part-time investigators, 47 of whom are former police officers.

“While the SIU is far from perfect ... the alternative is to return to the police investigating the police, an option that has fallen into disfavour due to the conflict-of-interest issues,” SIU director Scott said.

The taxpayer-funded agency, which today has an annual budget of around $7 million, refused to cooperate with the Star investigation by providing short summaries of hundreds of investigations, internal reports the SIU writes after it concludes investigations, and other documents.

The Star, through police, court and civilian witness sources, built files on 700 SIU cases. In some cases, sources provided evidence collected during SIU investigations.

The Star found:

• The SIU missed or ignored crucial evidence in at least six cases.

• Officers are too quick to take aggressive action against civilians.

• A cozy relationship between police and prosecutors has allowed officers to avoid punishment.

• Police officers involved in an incident investigated by the SIU break a conduct rule by delaying writing their notes, and share the same lawyer, leaving victims worried officers are collaborating to get their story straight and prevent the SIU from learning the truth.

As a result, neither police nor victims believe the SIU can conduct the kind of independent, “rigorous” investigations it was set up for.

Some cases the Star reviewed involved innocent bystanders while others involved those with criminal records, histories of violence and a variety of backgrounds police often come into contact with in the course of their duties.

In 2006, Hafeez Mohamed was punched in the head, neck and shoulder eight to 10 times during an arrest by Durham Region police officer Prasanth Tella.

Responding to a report of an assault outside a house in Elmvale, Ont., OPP Const, Jeff Seguin arrived to talk with the suspect, Doug Minty, an intellectually challenged 59-year-old living with his mother. Minty moved toward Seguin and was shot dead.

The SIU did not conduct a thorough investigation and cleared Seguin, though his sketchy story failed to conclusively show that a fatal bullet was his only option. Minty's brother John said the family still does not understand why Doug was killed last summer.

“I think the family is entitled” to answers, John Minty said. “And the SIU investigation certainly didn't, and won't, provide us with those answers.”

Grandmother Mei Han Lee, 67, was not a suspect. She was walking home to help care for her autistic grandson when Toronto police officer Juan Quijada-Mancia sped into an illegal right turn, hit Lee and killed her instantly.

Lee's family says the SIU was eager to sweep the case into obscurity. The officer was not responding to an emergency call, and to this day neither the SIU nor Toronto Police have said where Quijada-Mancia was going in such a hurry on that February morning in 2005.

“She always obeyed the law. What was the officer doing?” asks Lee's daughter-in-law Rose Chen.

Police officers such as Quijada-Mancia can also face internal disciplinary hearings, which are conducted by superiors in their own force and carry softer punishments than those that could result from a criminal charge.

Quijada-Mancia was disciplined by the Toronto Police. He lost 40 hours' pay. It was in this decision that Supt. Tweedy stressed the importance of police officers being held to the same standard as civilians.

The Star found no accountability for incidents that caused civilian injuries and deaths. The SIU completes reports after investigations and then gives them to the Ministry of the Attorney General. But the victims and the public do not get to see the information.

Most of the police officers involved in incidents probed by the Star declined to be interviewed.

Durham Insp. Bruce Townley said officers are traumatized by incidents that result in death or injury.

“Contrary to what may be perceived, that we're all cowboys, we're human beings,” said Townley, whose force features in three cases reviewed by the Star. “These people are out to protect the public and protect themselves.”

The Star found that the virtual immunity police officers enjoy is not the SIU's fault alone. The agency faces obstacles that Scott knew well before he took over in 2008.

An officer investigated by the SIU benefits from a presumption of good character by jurors and judges.

In the rare instance when the SIU has laid charges, one of every four officers sees the charges dropped before trial, many others are acquitted, or, as has happened at least 10 times, an officer is found guilty before a judge spares him jail time. Some guilty police officers walk out of court with their record wiped clean.

Hamilton Police Const. Jason Williams was charged in 2002 with assault for kicking a handcuffed 57-year-old psychiatric resident of a group home in the head. Five fellow officers testified they saw Williams repeatedly punch and kick the man. Williams was convicted of assault, though the judge dismissed the more serious charge of assault causing bodily harm. Ian Scott was the prosecutor. At sentencing, he asked for jail time, but Williams received none.

Scott also prosecuted Niagara constable Michael Moore, found guilty in 2002 of breach of trust after he accepted oral sex from a woman in exchange for not issuing her a traffic ticket. Scott called Moore a “wolf in police uniform” and wanted him jailed for six to nine months. Moore got a year of house arrest. He has since resigned from the force.

Police trials, Scott said in an interview, are “very different” because many in the justice system view these as “occupational crimes” — the consequences of a dangerous job — as opposed to crimes committed by criminals.

Officers also enjoy stiff protection from the sturdy blue wall of their police force, insulation by scrappy lawyers working for unions with deep pockets, and typically a close working relationship with prosecutors.

Following a judge's criticism of this type of relationship, the SIU recently re-investigated and charged a Peel Region police officer with assault against Quang Hoang Tran.

Tran had been convicted of playing a role in a series of brutal home invasions, but the conviction was thrown out this year after an appeals court found Peel officers “beat him up” and “attempted to cover up their shocking conduct.”

Because of the behaviour of the police and prosecutor, a criminal walked free.

Though they are afforded special powers — to stop and arrest civilians, and carry a gun — officers enjoy some of the same protections as civilians when investigated.

Police officers at the centre of SIU probes do not have to give a statement to the agency — a right zealously protected by police lawyers and unions.

One well-known police lawyer, Gary Clewley, recently said in an article he wrote for a police union magazine that he has been tempted to tell so-called “subject officers” to “Shut the f--- up” before writing their notes, and talk to a lawyer.

As part of their internal disciplinary proceedings, police forces can compel officers to give statements, but the SIU is not entitled to that crucial evidence.

Now that Scott has the job he previously thought so impotent, a defence lawyer who has represented officers investigated by the SIU summed up Scott's untenable position this way: “Ian has the worst job in the province. Everyone hates him — the police, the community. No matter what he does he can't do anything right. Every decision he makes will be criticized for years.”

The powerful OPP union has sent out a newsletter accusing Scott of anti-cop bias.

Though the justice system heavily favours police, one Ontario judge was surprised that police officers complain of persecution when they are hardly ever charged. In 2001, when Justice John Ground threw out a $10 million malicious prosecution lawsuit brought by York Region officer Robert Wiche against the SIU, he said:

“There appeared to be on the part of certain police witnesses and certain police associations an almost Pavlovian reaction against a civilian agency (the SIU) investigating the conduct of police officers ... and against the idea that such an agency could conduct an investigation which could be fair to police officers,” the judge wrote.

“This is particularly surprising when ... in about 97 per cent of the cases, the investigation exonerates the subject officer.”

No Thanksgiving for migrant workers

2010-10-08T09:58:00.002-04:00

No Thanksgiving for migrant workers
by David Goutor and Chris Ramsaroop, from The Toronto Star, October 8, 2010. (Link via B.B.)

While Thanksgiving means a feast with family and friends for most Canadians, scores of migrant workers will be gathering in Leamington for a much different type of event.

They will be embarking on a gruelling march of more than 50 kilometres from Leamington to Windsor — the “Pilgrimage to Freedom” — to draw attention to the conditions many migrants face in Canada today.

The choice of Thanksgiving — a celebration of the harvest — as the day of the march is quite deliberate, as these are the migrant workers who grow, harvest and process much of the food Canadians enjoy. The march's route is also carefully chosen to challenge Canada to live up to its image as a haven for the oppressed: It will end at Windsor's Monument for Freedom, dedicated to the underground railroad that brought slaves to freedom in Canada.

If Stephen Harper and the federal Conservatives are serious about their recent efforts to improve the immigration system, and particularly to reduce abuses by recruiters, they should lend their support to this march. But that would be the last thing the marchers expect.

Indeed, over the last decade both federal and provincial governments have quietly implemented a fundamental — and entirely regressive — transformation in immigration policy. In particular, they vastly expanded temporary worker programs that are ripe for manipulation and exploitation, and that leave the migrants with no reliable means of redress.

Just how sweeping is this policy shift? Statistics from 2009 show that temporary foreign workers, at over 280,000, actually outnumbered immigrants seeking permanent residence. Hence the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) has become a monster with well-developed tentacles. These include the Live-in Caregiver Program, which sends nannies and domestic servants to upper- and middle-class households, and the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program, which brings workers to agribusinesses in places such as Leamington.

Agriculture and domestic service traditionally receive large numbers of migrant workers, but the expansion of the TFWP has brought thousands more to a growing array of industries in different parts of the country. Alberta has become particularly addicted to temporary workers, who are now working everywhere from the tarsands to meat-packing plants to fast food outlets.

A massive power imbalance between boss and worker is built into all of these programs. Most migrants' presence in Canada is dependent on them staying in their job. In addition, their employment contracts essentially bond them to one employer and deny them the right to seek out a different job. Technically, they have minimum protections from provincial labour laws but have no idea what these employment standards are and almost no sense that they are able to exert their rights. Indeed, the threat of deportation looms constantly, as they could be sent home — immediately and without right to appeal — if they resist the wishes of their bosses, get sick or are injured, are deemed to be underperforming or are simply no longer needed.

The government ruthlessly exploits these workers through payroll taxes. Migrants pay federal and provincial taxes but their access to social programs is severely restricted. They are denied access to public health care for their first three months in Canada, which constitutes much of their stay if they are in seasonal industries. Missing work to try to find medical care or other social supports is considered a firing offence. Foreign workers must also pay into the employment insurance fund and Canada Pension Plan even though they are not eligible for benefits.

Recent proposals to “reform” these programs are examples of calculated cynicism. A prime illustration is the proposed ban on employers who are found to have abused migrant workers. The ban will only affect direct hiring through the TFWP — nothing will stop an employer from simply acquiring more migrants from a recruiter or contractor. In other words, at the same time that the federal Conservatives grab headlines with new campaigns against immigration recruiters, they propose new policies that will only increase recruiters' role and power in the system.

Another example is the government's response to complaints that temporary worker programs are entrenching a new class of inexpensive and easily exploitable labour. The Tories could have granted migrants access to permanent status in Canada. Instead, they propose to punish the workers, particularly in the unskilled stream, through a cap on the number of years they can work in Canada: After four years, they will be banned from entering the country for four more years.

The Pilgrimage to Freedom is one example of growing resistance to the TFWP. While the Tories have tried to manipulate outrage against immigration scams to their political advantage, the migrants themselves are organizing meaningful action against recruiters. They are working to create “recruiter-free zones” in their communities in Canada and spread information about particularly dangerous labour contractors.

Moreover, several community groups and trade unions came together earlier this year to form the Coalition for Change. In response to the hollow measures to “reform” the TFWP, the coalition has developed five broad-based principles that will be essential to any worthwhile improvement to the system:

• Status upon arrival for all temporary foreign workers.

• The elimination of placement and recruitment fees for all migrant workers.

• An appeals mechanism against deportation orders.

• Reform labour laws to provide better coverage for TFWP workers.

• Provide migrants equal access to all social entitlements, including EI, CPP, welfare and health care.

For migrant workers, the Pilgrimage to Freedom is part of a tradition of resistance by “foreign” workers that dates back to the 19th century. For the Canadian public, this is a chance to wake up to a migrant labour system that challenges our self-image as a just and fair country.

David Goutor is an assistant professor in the School of Labour Studies at McMaster University. Chris Ramsaroop is an organizer with Justicia for Migrant Workers ( www.justicia4migrantworkers.org), a grassroots collective of community, labour and migrant activists.

De-mystifying the "Project Samossa" arrests

2010-09-26T10:47:00.002-04:00

De-mystifying the "Project Samossa" arrests: Community Advisory from the People's Commission Network
received by email from The People's Commission, Montreal, September 2010.

Montreal, September 2010

The recent arrests associated with the RCMP’s offensively named "Project Samossa" have generated a lot of questions and uncertainties in communities targeted by Islamophobia and racism. This community advisory is aimed at providing information and advice to address some of those questions. We hope that it will contribute to confident resistance to profiling, marginalization and criminalization.

Questions

1. What is the Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act?
2. What does it mean if individuals are arrested on terrorism-related charges?
3. Why are they in prison if they haven’t been found guilty of anything?
4. In how much detail should I talk about an accused whom I may know?
5. What do I do if someone I don't know asks me about an accused, related matters that have come up in the media, and what I think of the situation?
6. How do we build secure communities and not fall prey to paranoia?
7. Is it safe to go to the mosque?
8. If I get involved with community and broader initiatives denouncing the racism and Islamaphobia around this issue - including the racism in media and readers' comments – will I come under surveillance?
9. What should I do if the police come to my door or ask to speak to me?
10. What should I do if the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) approaches me, my family, or my community ?
11. What can I do about the profiling of my community and its members by CSIS and other agencies, and the anti-Muslim media coverage?
12. Where can I go for more information or help?

1) What is the Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act?

The Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act was passed in December 2001, in the wake of the events surrounding September 11th in the United States. The Liberal government at the time fast-tracked the passing of the legislation, curtailing debate over its potential for abuse and refusing all substantial amendments.

The explicit purposes of the changes were to allow the government to act “preventively” and to broaden the definition of terrorism to include more indirect support.

The Act introduced new offences under the Criminal Code, including the financing and facilitation of terrorist activities. It also granted the police broader powers, including permitting them to undertake "preventive" arrests and compel witnesses to testify before a judge. A broader use of secret evidence was allowed. In addition, the Anti-Terrorism Act made it easier for security agencies to use electronic surveillance.

Two of the measures which generated most controversy, preventive arrests and investigative hearings (compelling witnesses to testify), were temporary and expired in 2007. They were re-introduced by the Conservative government in fall 2007, and re-re-introduced as Bill C-17, The Combating Terrorism Act, in April 2010, which is currently at first reading stage in Parliament.

It is important to note that most, if not all, of the activities the Anti-Terrorism Act addresses are crimes and that many so-called terrorism offences could simply - and with far less stigma - be charged as “ordinary” criminal conspiracies.

At the heart of the legal definition of terrorist activities – what sets them apart from “ordinary” crimes - is a “motive clause”, stipulating that the Crown must prove that a terrorist activity was committed for political, religious, or ideological purposes. In 2008, the Court declared this portion of anti-terrorism law to be unconstitutional, after Mohammad Momin Khawaja’s lawyers argued that it violated fundamental freedoms of conscience and religion, and thought, belief, and opinion as well as expression. In its decision, the Court found that the motive clause, by focusing state attention on the religious and political beliefs of certan individuals and communities, carried a danger of racial and religious profiling. Although the decision is now in appeal, the case highlights the problems with Canadian anti-terrorism legislation and suggests that it can (and should) be challenged.

Offences under Canadian anti-terrorism legislation are defined very broadly. Some examples:

* The government has designated certain groups as terrorist organizations. It is a crime to collect funds for, facilitate activities in, or instruct anyone to take part in a listed group. The process of listing is highly, if not essentially, politicized, with the result that some very surprising groups are listed.
* Facilitating a terrorist activity is a very broadly defined crime. Notably, it is not necessary for the activity to be planned at the time of facilitation, nor for the terrorist activity to be actually carried out. Although the legislation stipulates that the person "knowingly" facilitate, they do not need to know that a particular terrorist activity is facilitated.

2) What does it mean if individuals are arrested on terrorism-related charges?

Despite the way the state and the media are portraying the recent arrests, just because people are arrested does not mean that they are guilty of any wrong-doing or even of any crime.

It is a cornerstone of the Canadian justice system that people are supposed to be considered innocent until proven otherwise. This goes for terrorism cases just as much as any other criminal case. There are, in fact, plenty of examples of intelligence and police agencies getting it completely wrong. Moreover, as noted above, Canadian anti-terrorism legislation is broadly defined and has the potential to capture activities that many would not consider to be wrong.

All these arrests mean is that the police have charged the individuals with breaking the law. These charges are not proven, but remain simple allegations.

3) Why are they in prison/under conditions if they haven’t been found guilty of anything?

Normally, those facing trial under criminal law are detained in prison with the possibility of being released on bail while they wait for the outcome of their trial. The accused will normally have bail hearings within the first weeks of their arrest.

Unfortunately, prejudiced attitudes, fear and political considerations do play into court decisions. This may mean that people accused of terrorism, who would be released if they were facing equally serious, but less sensationalized, charges, may be more likely to be kept in pre-trial detention. If they are not released at their initial hearing, they will be able to re-apply for release on bail later on.

If they are released pending the outcome of the trial, they can still be placed under strict conditions or even house arrest. These conditions can later be modified by the court on the request of either the defence or the Crown.

4) In how much detail should I talk about an accused whom I may know?

In general, whether in person, on the phone, on email or on facebook, it is important not to speculate or repeat facts about the accused, especially those that could pertain to the criminal accusations that have been laid. As they say, “loose lips sink ships”. This is not because any of the accused have anything to hide, but because you will have no control over how your comments could be interpreted, taken out of context, or even manipulated.

It is particularly important to avoid commenting on whether or not you think that an accused may have committed an offense they are being charged with. A mantra to keep in mind is that everyone should be considered innocent until proven guilty.

While you should avoid speculating on the criminal charges laid against the accused, speaking in a humanizing way about the character of an accused and other aspects of their lives, as long as it isn't compromising (or personal!) information, may be helpful.

It is important to always keep in mind that electronic communications such as email and facebook may be stored in databanks accessible to security agencies or be under surveillance. A litmus test to apply when communicating by email or facebook is to consider whether any untoward consequences could come from your message being inadvertently forwarded to the wrong person or made public.

5) What do I do if someone I don't know asks me about an accused, related matters that have come up in the media, and what I think of the situation?

As a general rule, you are not under any obligation to talk with anyone about any of this simply because they ask you. If you feel uncomfortable for any reason, there is nothing wrong with politely saying you don't feel comfortable talking about the situation.

It must be recognized that the current context has created a general atmosphere of suspicion, in which there can be a tendency to wonder whether people we don't know are journalists, police officers or even intelligence agents. At the same time, it is healthy and normal to discuss issues and questions that are of deep concern to our communities, and to maintain a positive openness to strangers and a confidence in others. It is a question of balancing mindfulness of the potential consequences of our words and avoiding gossip and speculation, as outlined above, while not allowing our basic trust in other people to be destroyed.

6) How do we build secure communities and not fall prey to paranoia?

Knowing that intelligence and police are keeping tabs on and even going so far as to infiltrate targeted communities should not make us paranoid. A spirit of paranoia can divide us and weaken our organizations and communities. While recognizing that there is active surveillance, we should resist spreading rumours and increasing levels of suspicion and fear. In these times, it is important to maintain solidarity.

While we should never allow ourselves to be silenced, it is obviously important to be mindful of what we say, avoiding loose talk and gossip that may be falsely construed and used against you or others.

7) Is it safe to go to the mosque?

It is important to resist the pressure to stay away from certain places (mosques, community centres, etc.) when you otherwise would have gone.

We must not allow our fundamental freedoms and rights – including the freedom of conscience and religion and of association - to be stripped away by the atmosphere of fear created by mainstream media and government officials.

Going to the mosque with family members or friends is one way to alleviate potential anxiety. Our safety lies in sticking together and not allowing ourselves to be divided, isolated or intimidated.

8) If I get involved with community and broader initiatives denouncing the racism and Islamaphobia around this issue - including the racism in media and readers' comments – will I come under surveillance?

Even though the fundamental freedoms of thought, belief, opinion and expression are formally protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it is an unfortunate reality that state surveillance, harrassment and infiltration of marginalised ethnic/religious/racialized communities, as well as social justice activists exists.

Although people should be mindful of this reality, we should not allow these tactics to silence us or prevent us from participating in projects, campaigns or protests for social justice. Not only is there nothing wrong with speaking out against racism and Islamophobia, we should confidently assume the responsibility to do so. If we don’t, who will?

9) What should I do if the police come to my door or ask to speak to me?

If police officers—from the RCMP or any provincial or municipal police force—approach you and want to talk to you, remember that you are never obliged to speak to the police. If you do not wish to talk to them, simply say so and close the door or walk away.

The police cannot force you to do anything unless they place you under arrest, which they cannot legally do unless there are reasonable grounds to believe that you have committed an offence. It is also illegal for them to search your home, car, community space or any other place unless they have a search warrant authorized by a judge.

You are not required to leave the premises in the event that your home is being searched with a valid search warrant. In fact, you are within your rights to observe the officers searching your home.

10) What should I do if the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) approaches me, my family, or my community?

CSIS is Canada’s principal intelligence agency, and it is often involved in gathering information about individuals, groups or communities before there is any indication that a crime may be committed.

People may come to the attention of CSIS for any number of reasons. In some instances, it may be due to their involvement or connections to an organization, initiative, or event. In some instances, it may be simply due to their membership in a targeted community. In general, there is no fail-safe way to ensure that you or your family won't be approached.

The People’s Commission Network advocates total non-collaboration with CSIS. That means refusing to answer questions from CSIS agents who show up at your door, refusing to listen to whatever CSIS may want to tell you, and breaking the silence by speaking out whenever CSIS comes knocking.

This is not a question of having nothing to hide nor of protecting our communities from random acts of violence. It is a matter of recognizing that you have no control over information that you give to CSIS: your words can be misunderstood, taken out of context, misrepresented, passed on to other agencies overseas (such as the CIA, Mossad, and the mukhabarat of various countries), and used in unjust processes (such as “terrorist lists”) as secret, unsourced evidence. It is also the case that CSIS is guided by domestic and international policies which do not take the interests of all communities into account.

Generally speaking, you are never obliged to talk to CSIS. CSIS has no power to force you to talk—or to listen—to them. They have no right to enter your home without your permission. You have the right to refuse to speak to them and ask them to leave.

If you are approached, the best way to keep CSIS from continuing to bother you is simply let them know you have nothing to say to them. CSIS looks for “sources of information” on various communities; if you refuse to speak to them, they will normally have little interest in coming back. If they persist in approaching you, ask them to contact a lawyer of your own choosing to set up a formal meeting or ask a lawyer to contact them on your behalf.

If you are in immigration proceedings and are called for a formal, mandatory, interview, or if you are in a vulnerable situation which makes you feel unable to refuse to speak to CSIS, we strongly advise you to insist that any interview with CSIS be conducted in the presence of a lawyer of your own choosing.

Above all, please remember to take care of each other during these times. CSIS visits can be upsetting and destabilizing. It is important that we stand together and support one another when CSIS visits occur and communities find themselves under surveillance.

If CSIS comes knocking (flyer in English, French, Arabic, Spanish, Turkish): www.peoplescommission.org/en/csis/whattodo-csis.php

CSIS visits videos (in English and French):
www.peoplescommission.org/en/csis/videos.php

Top Ten Reasons not to Speak to CSIS (French, English, Turkish, Spanish): www.peoplescommission.org/files/csis/top10_en.pdf

11) What can I do about the profiling of my community and its members by CSIS and other agencies, and the anti-Muslim media coverage?

a) Write letters to the editor stating your objections to the racist framing of events and to media collusion in the targeting of Muslim communities.

b) Ask organizations you are involved in (community groups, unions, political parties) to issue statements denouncing Islamophobia, rejecting the use of evidence extracted through torture, and insisting that the principle of innocent-until-proven-guilty be applied to all.

c) Encourage your networks to refuse any cooperation with CSIS and distribute CSIS Watch materials (website links above).

12) Where can I go for more information or help?

The following groups have a variety of materials with related information, may be able to give you advice or refer you to other organizations or lawyers that can help.

In Montreal:
Muslim Council of Montreal (MCM): www.muslimcouncil.org
People’s Commission: www.peoplescommission.org

In Toronto:
Canadian Arab Federation (CAF): www.caf.ca

In Ottawa:
Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIRCAN): www.caircan.ca

Native leaders warn of conflict over Ontario northern development legislation

2010-09-17T09:36:00.002-04:00

Native leaders warn of conflict over Ontario northern development legislation
by Lee Greenberg, from Ottawa Citizen, September 16, 2010.

TORONTO — Ontario is heading for conflict with First Nations, Native leaders said Thursday, after the province moved ahead with contentious legislation governing northern development.

Native leaders are worried they will lose control over traditional land under the Far North Act, which is on the verge of passing.

The legislation opens half the northern boreal region – about 42 per cent of the province — to development like the kind being planned in the so-called “Ring of Fire”, a pristine 5,000-square-kilometre swathe of land set to be mined for its rich ore deposits.

Native leaders were at Queen’s Park on Thursday demanding the bill be halted

“If it passes as is, there’s going to be conflict on the land,” said Margaret Sakchekapo-Kenequana, executive director of the Shibogama First Nations Council. “We cannot simply just hand over jurisdiction to the government of Ontario, because the jurisdiction was given to us by the creator and we will uphold that. That is our sacred responsibility.”

Grand Chief Stan Beardy said Premier Dalton McGuinty ignored direct requests for changes to the legislation.

“We’ve told him for one whole year what our issues are, what our concerns are, and it almost seems like they’re not listening,” said Beardy, who leads 49 northern bands.

Beardy said if passed, he would oppose the new legislation “by any means necessary.”

The threat opens the specter of disruptive occupations like the one that has haunted the southwestern Ontario community of Caledonia since 2006.

Liberal ministers attempted to cool the rhetoric yesterday, touting their own outreach efforts in negotiating changes to the bill.

Linda Jeffrey, minister of natural resources, said the government had implemented all the changes demanded by Aboriginal groups.

She said their continued discontent was caused by the confusing language of a bill “drafted by lawyers.”

“I think there are some challenges with trying to communicate what’s happening in the bill,” she said. “My goal was to accommodate all of the requests… That’s what I think the amendments have done. We’ll see on the ground how the First Nations community comes around to understanding it.”

The bill has cleared all legislative hurdles and can now be passed any time.

Aboriginal leaders warned against that.

“If I came into your backyard and started pitching up my teepee, would you like that? Probably not, eh? You probably would want consent or tell me that I’m loitering, I’m trespassing,” said Sakchekapo-Kenequana. “That’s the same thing. The far north, 42 per cent of Ontario, is our homeland.

"That is our homeland. We have a right to say what happens in that territory.”

Protest over Lockheed's $16 billion contract

2010-09-15T20:25:00.002-04:00

Defence Industry Cheers: Protest over Lockheed's $16 billion contract
by Hillary Bain Lindsay, from Halifax Media Co-Op, September 10, 2010. (Link found via Myths for Profit.)

"This is a racket. You guys are crooks!" shouts Tamara Lorincz as two men leave DEFSEC Atlantic, a defense, security and aerospace exhibition that wraps up today at the Cunard Centre in Halifax.

The men smirk and drive away.

"These guys are producing and pedaling weapons, and they're laughing about it because our government continues to give them money," says Lorincz, one of a dozen members of the Halifax Peace Coalition (HPC) who gathered outside the Cunard Centre on September 9 in protest.

The primary target of the protesters was weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin, who recently received a no-bid contract worth $16 billion to sell the F-35 Joint Strike fighter jets to the Department of National Defence.

Steward Caldwell, a recent graduate of Mount Saint Vincent University, holds up a sign protesting the war in Afghanistan. He says that years of university have left him "horribly in debt" and believes there are better ways to spend $16 billion than giving it to a company that "deals in death and destruction."

"The federal government should be investing in hospitals, schools and affordable housing to provide true security for Canadians, not fighter jets," says Lorincz .

On its website, DEFSEC Atlantic describes the exhibition as an opportunity for the defense industry and government to "network, display, partner and discover potential."

The HPC planned its protest to coincide with Lockheed Martin's "Hour of Good Cheer," a wine and cheese that the weapons manufacturer sponsored on Thursday, immediately following its industry presentation.

"Lockheed is cheering because they're planning on getting 16 billion of our tax dollars," says Lorincz.

"We're in a global recession and the arms trade is profiting. Canadian military spending is at an all time high."

The Nova Scotia department of Rural and Economic Development, one of the exhibition's chief sponsors, was unable to respond to questions for deadline.

US soldiers 'killed Afghan civilians for sport and collected fingers as trophies'

2010-09-09T16:42:00.002-04:00

US soldiers 'killed Afghan civilians for sport and collected fingers as trophies': Soldiers face charges over secret 'kill team' which allegedly murdered at random and collected fingers as trophies of war
by Chris McGreal, from The Guardian, September 9, 2010. (Link found via A.D., R.D.O., and D.B.)

Twelve American soldiers face charges over a secret "kill team" that allegedly blew up and shot Afghan civilians at random and collected their fingers as trophies.

Five of the soldiers are charged with murdering three Afghan men who were allegedly killed for sport in separate attacks this year. Seven others are accused of covering up the killings and assaulting a recruit who exposed the murders when he reported other abuses, including members of the unit smoking hashish stolen from civilians.

In one of the most serious accusations of war crimes to emerge from the Afghan conflict, the killings are alleged to have been carried out by members of a Stryker infantry brigade based in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan.

According to investigators and legal documents, discussion of killing Afghan civilians began after the arrival of Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs at forward operating base Ramrod last November. Other soldiers told the army's criminal investigation command that Gibbs boasted of the things he got away with while serving in Iraq and said how easy it would be to "toss a grenade at someone and kill them".

One soldier said he believed Gibbs was "feeling out the platoon".

Investigators said Gibbs, 25, hatched a plan with another soldier, Jeremy Morlock, 22, and other members of the unit to form a "kill team". While on patrol over the following months they allegedly killed at least three Afghan civilians. According to the charge sheet, the first target was Gul Mudin, who was killed "by means of throwing a fragmentary grenade at him and shooting him with a rifle", when the patrol entered the village of La Mohammed Kalay in January.

Morlock and another soldier, Andrew Holmes, were on guard at the edge of a poppy field when Mudin emerged and stopped on the other side of a wall from the soldiers. Gibbs allegedly handed Morlock a grenade who armed it and dropped it over the wall next to the Afghan and dived for cover. Holmes, 19, then allegedly fired over the wall.

Later in the day, Morlock is alleged to have told Holmes that the killing was for fun and threatened him if he told anyone.

The second victim, Marach Agha, was shot and killed the following month. Gibbs is alleged to have shot him and placed a Kalashnikov next to the body to justify the killing. In May Mullah Adadhdad was killed after being shot and attacked with a grenade.

The Army Times reported that a least one of the soldiers collected the fingers of the victims as souvenirs and that some of them posed for photographs with the bodies.

Five soldiers – Gibbs, Morlock, Holmes, Michael Wagnon and Adam Winfield – are accused of murder and aggravated assault among other charges. All of the soldiers have denied the charges. They face the death penalty or life in prison if convicted.

The killings came to light in May after the army began investigating a brutal assault on a soldier who told superiors that members of his unit were smoking hashish. The Army Times reported that members of the unit regularly smoked the drug on duty and sometimes stole it from civilians.

The soldier, who was straight out of basic training and has not been named, said he witnessed the smoking of hashish and drinking of smuggled alcohol but initially did not report it out of loyalty to his comrades. But when he returned from an assignment at an army headquarters and discovered soldiers using the shipping container in which he was billeted to smoke hashish he reported it.

Two days later members of his platoon, including Gibbs and Morlock, accused him of "snitching", gave him a beating and told him to keep his mouth shut. The soldier reported the beating and threats to his officers and then told investigators what he knew of the "kill team".

Following the arrest of the original five accused in June, seven other soldiers were charged last month with attempting to cover up the killings and violent assault on the soldier who reported the smoking of hashish. The charges will be considered by a military grand jury later this month which will decide if there is enough evidence for a court martial. Army investigators say Morlock has admitted his involvement in the killings and given details about the role of others including Gibbs. But his lawyer, Michael Waddington, is seeking to have that confession suppressed because he says his client was interviewed while under the influence of prescription drugs taken for battlefield injuries and that he was also suffering from traumatic brain injury.

"Our position is that his statements were incoherent, and taken while he was under a cocktail of drugs that shouldn't have been mixed," Waddington told the Seattle Times.

Your House Is On Ground Zero

2010-09-08T23:51:00.002-04:00

Your House Is On Ground Zero (And Quite Without Permission)
by Tim Wise, from Z-Net, September 7, 2010.

In all the rancor over whether or not one group of Muslims should be allowed to build a cultural center and worship space near the site of the 9/11 attacks -- which were committed by a separate and totally unrelated group of Muslims --there is one thing above all else that no one appears anxious to point out: namely, that for any white Christian to say "Ground Zero" is off limits to anyone is possibly the most deliciously and yet grotesquely ironic thing ever suggested.

After all, there is scarcely a square foot of land upon which we tread that is not, for someone, Ground Zero. I am sitting atop one now: a killing field for Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Creek; a graveyard in which are buried the bones -- and if no longer the bones, then surely the dust -- of peoples whose evisceration occurred not so long ago, and is still remembered by those who have not the luxury of forgetting.

And so the New Yorkers who believe against all evidence that their trauma is unique in the history of the world -- or even their city for that matter -- prattle on about the "defiling" of the former World Trade Center location. Meanwhile they overlook that their precious island was itself cajoled from indigenous peoples for a handful of worthless beads. And white men have been swindling those we viewed as inferior -- be they of color, or even other white men -- ever since, especially (and this is where the geographic symbolism of their protests becomes revealing) in and around Wall Street, where the actions of wealthy investors and financiers have done far more damage than Osama Bin Laden ever could. Would that we might prohibit the construction of banks anywhere in New York so as to make a point about terrorism and our unwillingness to collaborate with it.

Indeed, if those protesting the Cordoba House were the least bit interested in consistency -- as opposed to being content to wallow in a type of hypocrisy both profound and typical -- they would, to a person, vacate downtown Manhattan immediately. And this they would do out of respect for the lives destroyed by people such as they: black peoples forced to build Fort Amsterdam for the Dutch, which is where Battery Park is now, or the walls that gave the famous street its name, or the roads, or the very auction blocks upon which their compatriots would be sold, thereby allowing 40 percent of white New York households to possess other human beings as property by the mid-1700s.

And they would vacate midtown too, especially any with Irish ancestry, since it was their ancestral fathers who - and so as to show how badly they desired to become white - burned down a black orphanage on 5th Avenue between 43rd and 44th during the 1863 Draft Riots. But I'm guessing there is an Irish Pub within walking distance of the former orphanage, and yet no one seems particularly concerned about the slight.

Truth be told, that whole city is a Ground Zero, and has been for far longer than the existence of al-Qaeda, since long before those phallic monuments to architectural ingenuity and big business were constructed, and since long before there were any airplanes capable of bringing them down. It was Ground Zero for Amadou Diallo but we still allow police to operate in the vicinity of Wheeler Street in the Bronx. It was Ground Zero for Sean Bell but we haven't banned the NYPD from around the environs of the Kalua Cabaret in Queens, where they shot he and his friends 50 times in 2006. Neither have we seen too many New Yorkers losing sleep over the inherent insensitivity towards the respective Ground Zeros for Patrick Dorismond or Timothy Stansbury Jr., both of whom were felled by police bullets, and yet which spots have hardly been made off limits to law enforcement out of respect for the dead.

That many New Yorkers in 2010, and especially white ones -- since there are few residents of the South Bronx or Washington Heights who are making their way downtown for these protests -- cannot feel those other pains hardly acquits their arrogance. That they cannot see how their livelihoods, their homes, their bank accounts, and the clothes on their backs have been paid for with the blood of innocent people, is their problem. It is not the fault of those who would build Cordoba House, and in so doing disturb the hallowed ground of what has been, most recently, a Burlington Coat Factory.

Their houses, and mine, and yours, sit atop Ground Zero. And those who died to make it so gave no permission for the construction of the homes, to say nothing of the churches that for so long were instrumental in rationalizing the slaughter. There were no building permits issued by those who died here so that we could be, as we like to say, "free." But here we are nonetheless. And it takes some nerve to pretend, even as we sleep above the graves of those extirpated to make way for us, that 9/11 was the day everything changed. Or to believe that we have the right to tell anyone where they can and cannot live, pray or work. Or to suggest that we are the only ones who have ever died, or known terror, and that having done so we now have the right to draw a circle around us, a bubble of specialness, which can keep us warm and protected as though it were an amniotic sac inside of which we will forever be insulated from harm.

We wish to be free from the pain, which is understandable. But it is not acceptable that in seeking that freedom we should ignore the pain by which we have come this far already.

Tim Wise is the author of five books on race, including his latest, Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2010). He can be reached at his website, www.timwise.com.

Native women 'disappear' in Canada

2010-09-01T18:31:00.003-04:00

Native women 'disappear' in Canada: On the International Day of the Displaced, activists say fate of hundreds of missing indigenous women must be examined.
by Chris Arsenault, from Al Jazeera, September 1, 2010. (Link found via Racialicious.)

As human rights activists around the world marked the International Day of the Disappeared by focusing on Peru, Iraq, Nepal and Mexico, Leslie Spillett sat in her office in Winnipeg, contemplating the fate of more than 500 indigenous women who have disappeared in Canada.

The violence, primarily targeting young women from disadvantaged backgrounds over the past three decades, is "truly appalling" according to Amnesty International and, say human rights groups, has not been properly addressed by security forces in one of the world's richest countries.

When framed purely in numerical terms, the disappearances in Canada pale in comparison to the 15,000 who vanished during Peru's battle with Shining Path fighters in the early 1990s and come nowhere near to the estimated one million who have disappeared in Iraq during 30 years of dictatorship and occupation.

But these facts provide little comfort to the families of the missing women.

"The measurement of what is worse is a pointless question," Jessica Yee, an indigenous youth activist in Ontario province, says. "Do you really brush something off because it is not open war?"

'Disappeared'

Disappeared, as a pejorative verb, first entered the popular lexicon in the 1970s, during a series of dirty wars in Latin America, notably Argentina, says Marieke Van den Berg, a spokesperson for the International Coalition against Enforced Disappearances.

"Since the 1970s hundreds of thousands have disappeared and most have not resurfaced alive," Van den Berg says.

Enforced disappearance, in its most basic definition, refers to actions undertaken by a state, or its proxies, and while there is no systematic campaign by Canadian security forces to murder indigenous women, Nathan Derejko, a doctoral fellow in international humanitarian law at the University of Galway, says: "If there are a specific group of individuals who are going missing, the state has an obligation to investigate."

"Canada has both negative and positive obligations under international human rights law," Derejko says.

"Negative obligations [include] refraining from taking certain action [such as torture or extra-judicial killings].

"For its positive obligations, the state must take legislative and judicial steps [to deal with abuses] even if they are committed by non-state actors."

'Starlight tours'

Most of the disappeared indigenous Canadians are thought to have been killed by sexual predators or serial killers like William Pickton, who was convicted of murdering six women and is thought to have killed dozens more.

But there have been isolated cases of security forces actively attacking indigenous people - hauling them to the outskirts of cities and leaving them to freeze in a process that has become known as the "starlight tour".

In 1990, 17-year-old Neil Stonechild was found frozen to death in a remote field outside Saskatoon. The temperature was -28C that night and Stonechild was found wearing only one shoe.

His mother and indigenous leaders believe police drove him out of the city and left him for dead, in what could be considered an extra-judicial killing.

After years of stalling and bad press, the government called an inquiry into the teenager's death.

Police admitted to bungling the investigation, and closing his case file without interviewing the proper witnesses.

The two officers blamed for driving him out of the city were fired from the force, but no one was charged over his death.

In 2000, two veteran police officers admitted to picking up Darrell Night, an indigenous man, and driving him to the outskirts of Saskatoon, leaving him alone in -22C weather.

A jury found the men guilty of unlawful confinement, not murder, and sentenced the pair to eight months in jail. They served half that sentence.

Law undermined

These cases do not count as enforced disappearances because the bodies of those involved were found, but comparisons have been drawn with extra-judicial killings.

However, even if Canada was considered to have participated in enforced disappearances, it could not be held accountable under international law as it has not signed the 2006 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance - joining Algeria, Colombia, Israel, Saudi Arabia and a host of other countries.

"We are calling on states to enforce the convention, because it still hasn't been ratified," Nicole Engelbrecht, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), says.

Canada is particularly troubled by article 33, which demands that states "adequately investigate ... those responsible for the death and disappearance of indigenous women" and article 26 which calls for taking "measures to combat socio-economic discrimination which is a cause of continuous violence against Aboriginal women".

While international treaties on forced disappearance are often not worth the paper they are printed on, signing conventions at least signals a willingness to address the issues.

Presently, 19 countries have signed the agreement.

But it does not come into force until 20 states ratify, meaning that Canada's lack of participation plays a role in undermining the entire framework.

"As soon as 20 countries have signed on, states that have ratified have to [follow through with their obligations]," Van den Berg says.

Canada and the US have also refused to sign the 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which does not help the situation for disappeared women.

History of colonialism

Spillett believes the current violence must be framed within the history of colonialism.

"We have been displaced from out land, so people come to the cities thinking there might be some opportunities, but there aren't any," she says.

When young women leave their families in search of work or a better life, they can become vulnerable to predators, addiction and other forms of marginalisation.

But regardless of the historical roots, not knowing what has happened to their loved-ones is often the hardest part for family members.

"It is a universal phenomenon and something needs to be done," Engelbrecht says. "The families must be able to retain the remains and mourn."

After military rule in Argentina, the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo - women who had lost their children to fates unknown - played an important role in pressuring the government to find out what happened to the disappeared, to seek justice and to preserve the memories of their children.

And despite the many differences between the plight of missing indigenous women in Canada and those who have been made to disappear by violent governments, the desire to know what happened and to seek justice transcends ethnicity, class and national divisions.

There Is a War Going On and It's Not in Afghanistan - It Is In Ontario's North

2010-08-31T19:49:00.002-04:00

There Is a War Going On and It's Not in Afghanistan - It Is In Ontario's North
from SooNews Wire, August 31, 2010. (Link found via B.B. and R.K.)

In 2008, in Ontario the RCMP's Annual Report on the Domestic Violence Death Review Committee (DVDRC) stated there were 165 women and children were killed in domestic violence. The figure increases to 230 when you add male victims of domestic violence - the majority of which were suicides by the domestic violence perpetrator.

This war conducted behind closed doors is shocking. Women are being murdered in Canada at an alarming rate. In the seven-year period from 2000 to 2006, 101 Canadian soldiers and police officers were killed here at home and in Afghanistan. At the same time, more than 500 women in Canada were shot, stabbed, strangled or beaten to death by the intimate males in their lives. (Figures from The War on Women: Elly Amour, Jane Hurshman and Criminal Violence in Canadian Homes, by Brian Vall'e. )

What has this got to do with the Long-Gun Registry? Everything. Like in a "real" war, guns are used in domestic violence as a primary weapon. In Canada's domestic violence war, shooting was the second main cause of death of victims. (The main cause was stabbing.) But that is where the comparison ends. In a real "war" deaths are inevitable. In Canada's domestic violence "war", deaths are prevented and preventable each and every day.

The tool used to prevent these deaths is the long-gun registry. Police use this tool more than 13,000 times a day before, during and after crime. This tool, the long-gun registry is crucial. Statistics from the Domestic Violence Death Review Committee found firearms to be present in 47% of domestic homicides in 2007. A woman is 12 times more likely to be murdered if a gun is involved in domestic violence. If police know a registered gun is on the premises - whether in a domestic violence dispute or suicide attempt - they can act accordingly. They can save lives and prevent gunshot injuries - that of potential victims and their own.

There is overwhelming evidence that the long-gun registry works. For four million dollars - a mere doubling of the amount spent on Toronto's G20 "fake lake' - it is a terrific bargain. In 1991, more than 1400 Canadians a year were killed with gun. Now it is fewer than 800. Since 1991, the rate of murder by rifle or shotgun has dropped by more than 78%. Suicide rates, particularly among young men have declined.

Most people from Northern Ontario, if asked whether they would prevent soldiers dying in Afghanistan would answer in the affirmative. If they were then told preventing these deaths would involve minimal effort, far less time than say filling out a tax form, the response would be a resounding yes. Registering a gun is simple. It is a onetime procedure. It costs nothing. It takes minutes to fill out online.

The question begs why isn't this same standard applied to preventing deaths in our own homes? Domestic violence victims are women, men, children and babies in Northern Ontario. One day they might be your friend or relative. Preventing their deaths also requires an effort on par with buying an airline ticket on-line. What makes the deaths of (mostly) women and children less important than saving the lives of Canadian troops or police? Let your MP know that you put public safety over ideology. Say yes, to filling out an online form that could save lives. Say no to the unnecessary destruction of seven million gun registry records. Say a resounding yes to saving lives. Say yes to the gun registry.

There Are No Heroes In Illegal And Immoral Wars

2010-08-28T22:06:00.003-04:00

There Are No Heroes In Illegal And Immoral Wars
by Robert Jensen, from Z-Net, August 28, 2010.

When the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division rolled out of Iraq last week, the colonel commanding the brigade told a reporter that his soldiers were “leaving as heroes.”

While we can understand the pride of professional soldiers and the emotion behind that statement, it’s time for Americans -- military and civilian -- to face a difficult reality: In seven years of the deceptively named “Operation Iraqi Freedom” and nine years of “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan, no member of the U.S. has been a hero.

This is not an attack on soldiers, sailors, and Marines. Military personnel may act heroically in specific situations, showing courage and compassion, but for them to be heroes in the truest sense they must be engaged in a legal and morally justifiable conflict. That is not the case with the U.S. invasions and occupations of Iraq or Afghanistan, and the social pressure on us to use the language of heroism -- or risk being labeled callous or traitors -- undermines our ability to evaluate the politics and ethics of wars in a historical framework.

The legal case is straightforward: Neither invasion had the necessary approval of the United Nations Security Council, and neither was a response to an imminent attack. In both cases, U.S. officials pretended to engage in diplomacy but demanded war. Under international law and the U.S. Constitution (Article 6 is clear that “all Treaties made,” such as the UN Charter, are “the supreme Law of the Land”), both invasions were illegal.

The moral case is also clear: U.S. officials’ claims that the invasions were necessary to protect us from terrorism or locate weapons of mass destruction were never plausible and have been exposed as lies. The world is a more dangerous place today than it was in 2001, when sensible changes in U.S. foreign policy and vigorous law enforcement in collaboration with other nations could have made us safer.

The people who bear the greatest legal and moral responsibility for these crimes are the politicians who send the military to war and the generals who plan the actions, and it may seem unfair to deny the front-line service personnel the label of “hero” when they did their duty as they understood it. But this talk of heroism is part of the way we avoid politics and deny the unpleasant fact that these are imperial wars. U.S. military forces are in the Middle East and Central Asia not to bring freedom but to extend and deepen U.S. power in a region home to the world’s most important energy resources. The nation exercising control there increases its influence over the global economy, and despite all the U.S. propaganda, the world realizes we have tens of thousands of troops on the ground because of those oil and gas reserves.

Individuals can act with courage and compassion serving in imperial armies. There no doubt were soldiers among the British forces in colonial India who acted heroically, and Soviet soldiers stationed in Eastern Europe were capable of bravery. But they were serving in imperial armies engaged in indefensible attempts to dominate and control. They were fighting not for freedom but to advance the interests of elites in their home countries.

I recognize the complexity of the choices the men and women serving in our military face. I am aware that economic realities and the false promises of recruiters lure many of them into service. I am not judging or condemning them. Judgments and condemnations should be aimed at the powerful, who typically avoid their responsibility. For example, a journalist recently asked Ryan Crocker, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, to reflect on U.S. culpability for the current state of Iraqi politics. Crocker was reluctant to go there, and then refused even to consider the United States’ moral responsibility: “You can ask the question, was the whole bloody thing a mistake?” he said. “I don’t spend a lot of time on that.”

It’s not surprising U.S. policymakers don’t want to reflect on the invasions, but the public must. Until we can tell the truth about U.S. foreign policy, and how the military is used to advance that policy in illegal and immoral ways, we will remain easy marks for the politicians and their propagandists.

Part of that propaganda campaign is suggesting that critics of the war don’t support the troops, don’t recognize their sacrifices, don’t appreciate their heroism. We escape the propaganda by not playing that game, by telling the truth even when it is painful.

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

Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center in Austin. He is the author of All My Bones Shake: Seeking a Progressive Path to the Prophetic Voice, (Soft Skull Press, 2009); Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007); The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege (City Lights, 2005); Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (City Lights, 2004); and Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream (Peter Lang, 2002). Jensen is also co-producer of the documentary film “Abe Osheroff: One Foot in the Grave, the Other Still Dancing,” which chronicles the life and philosophy of the longtime radical activist. Information about the film, distributed by the Media Education Foundation, and an extended interview Jensen conducted with Osheroff are online at http://thirdcoastactivist.org/osheroff.html.

Jensen can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu and his articles can be found online at http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/index.html. To join an email list to receive articles by Jensen, go to http://www.thirdcoastactivist.org/jensenupdates-info.html.

Canadian Military Seeking Lessons From Israeli Occupying Army

2010-08-26T11:17:00.002-04:00

Ties that Bind: Canadian military seeking lessons from Israeli occupying army
by Yavar Hameed and Jeffrey Monaghan, from The Dominion, August 25, 2010. (Link via D.B.)

OTTAWA—Canadian military officials have undertaken a comprehensive effort with their Israeli counterparts to “pursue deeper relationships,” to borrow from Israel’s weapons, war training, and counter-insurgency strategies, and to strengthen diplomatic ties, according to documents obtained through access to information (ATI) requests.

The documents from the Department of National Defence (DND) detail an October 2009 visit to Israel by General Walter Natynczyk, chief of the Canadian Forces (CF).

“Your trip to Israel…will also offer you insight into broader regional issues, the multitude of threats facing Israel, the lessons learned from IDF [Israeli Defence Force] operations, and Israeli strategic thinking and military equipment,” states one briefing note.

Although Israel has found itself increasingly isolated diplomatically in recent years, support from successive Canadian governments has grown.

“It is harder to find a country friendlier to Israel than Canada these days,” ultra right-wing Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on a trip to Canada last year. “No other country in the world has demonstrated such a full understanding of us.”

Canadian government and military officials appear ready to disregard what critics like South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu refer to as Israel’s apartheid practices in order to maintain, as the documents put it, a “robust and rich” bilateral relationship.

The DND refused repeated requests for an interview.

The series of formal high-level meetings between figures in the Canadian military and the IDF have gone under the name of “Strategic Dialogue,” according to the disclosed documents. The first of these meetings, described in the documents as being “very successful” took place in Tel Aviv in February 2008.

“Overall, the trip solidified existing friendships, uncovered further opportunities for military-military cooperation, and, perhaps most importantly, revealed that DND/CF is well situated to pursue deeper relationships,” states a memo written after the meetings. Since February, 2008, there have been a number of formal “staff talks” between the upper echelons of Canada and Israel’s defence establishments.

Comprised mostly of briefing notes and backgrounders, the documents explain contentious issues, outline strict talking points, and, under heavy redaction, disclose “future considerations” for improving Canadian bilateral relations with Israel and the IDF. Several briefing notes deal exclusively with particular issues of cooperation, such as Science and Technology Cooperation, Military Medical Cooperation, and Defence Material Relations.

Documents prepared for Natynczyk’s trip in October, 2009, note that one of the “key objectives” was to “examine IDF equipment, tactics, doctrine, procedures, that might have operational benefits for the Canadian Forces.” To that end, Natynczyk met with a host of IDF senior generals, as well as Defence Minister Ehud Barak. The meetings focussed on gaining access to Israeli areas of “expertise,” including gaining insights into Israeli military strategies and tactics.

While meeting Brigadier General Harel Knafo, Natynczyk received a briefing on “the lessons learned from [2008’s] Gaza War.” Knafo commanded Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s aerial bombardment and ground invasion during the Gaza War that killed more than 1380 Palestinians, 400 of them children, according to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

The visit came on the heels of the Goldstone Report, a UN investigation into the Gaza War by former South African Supreme Court judge Richard Goldstone.

In his report, Goldstone criticized both Hamas and Israel for crimes of war during the conflict, but the report singled out Israel for the most serious condemnation. Goldstone documented the IDF’s use of Palestinians as human shields – itself a war crime – and warned that the Israeli blockade of Gaza amounted to “collective punishment intentionally inflicted by the government of Israel on the people of the Gaza Strip.”

Israel’s war, according to Goldstone, was designed to “punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population.”

Natynczyk also discussed counter-insurgency operations with top Israeli General Gabi Ashkenazi.

“[Ashkenazi] suggested further military-military cooperation with Canada, including regarding doctrines and tactics that enable forces to switch conduct both asymmetric and conventional operations and switch between the two,” recounts a summary note of the meeting.

The switch between “asymmetric” and “conventional” operations is a reference to Israel’s special brand of counter-insurgency: the unconventional, often urban warfare Israel engages in against Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Presiding over one of the longest military occupations in modern times, Israel is an acknowledged leader in innovating new tactics of urban warfare. As Israeli scholar and architect Eyal Weizman has documented, the Israeli military reshape the battleground to meet their objectives in the densely populated and often impenetrable cities and refugee camps of the West Bank: rather than fight in the streets, for instance, they blast holes through the walls and ceilings of houses, moving in this manner often through entire streets.

Battles in half-demolished living rooms, bedrooms and corridors of refugee camp homes have blurred the lines between civilian and military – or private and public – space.

This is the military laboratory in which the “doctrines and tactics” mentioned by Ashkenazi are studied and, as the memo indicates, exported to other urban environments.

Canadian military officials have clearly stated their strategy in Afghanistan has focused on developing stronger counterinsurgency tactics. Canada has said it will withdraw its military presence in the country in 2011, but Canadian Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie has said Canada’s military future is based on counterinsurgency measures.

“It’s not going to be peacemaking anymore, it’s going to be counter-insurgency because the odds of us doing peacemaking between two functional states are probably pretty low, ergo COIN (counter-insurgency),” he told the Toronto Star in 2009.

While clearly interested in borrowing from IDF technologies, briefing notes also indicate Canadian officials are eager to win recognition of their war-making capacities from both Israeli and U.S. authorities.

“In Israel, the IDF’s warm welcome and insistence [redacted] is open to Canada reflects both the deepening relations between our two militaries and the credibility and respect won by CF operations in Afghanistan,” says a briefing memo to Natynczyk.

In various notes, Natynczyk is reminded to highlight Canada’s military efforts in Afghanistan and stress Canada’s contributions to various U.S. and Israeli diplomatic initiatives.

In addition to advancing military cooperation through the Strategic Dialogue, documents reveal that Natynczyk’s trip is part diplomatic mission. An array of diplomatic initiatives are tied to the Strategic Dialogue, and Canada’s increased role in supporting a militarized international agenda premised on an aggressive and militarized Israel in the Middle East.

The Canadian military’s most significant operation in Israel is in support of US-led operations under the command of US Lieutenant-General Keith Dayton. Dayton, in close coordination with Israel, leads the United States Security Coordinator (USSC) program, initiated in 2005. It was created, according to then-US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, in order to oversee the training of a new integrated Palestinian police force and to referee problems between rival political parties Hamas and Fatah. Under Dayton’s leadership, the program is closely coordinated with the Israelis. Canadian members make up the bulk of Dayton’s training team – with 18 Canadian officers alongside 10 American.

The USSC program has come under scrutiny, though. A 2008 exposé by Vanity Fair revealed that these security forces attempted to overthrow Hamas and prop up Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party following Hamas’s victory in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections.

US forces face restrictions around their movement in the West Bank, though, that Candian forces do not. Due in large part to Canada’s reputation as a “trusted, impartial third-party,” the notes claim that CF personnel enter the West Bank daily allowing them to offer a useful window of intelligence on the West Bank to the American army. As briefing notes indicate, Dayton is “an enthusiastic advocate of Canada’s support to his mission” with the US government.

Canada plays a similar conduit like role in respect to facilitating communication between NATO and Israel. In this regard, the Canadian Embassy in Tel Aviv is serving as Israel’s NATO Contact Point Embassy until 31 December 2010.

Beyond the role as a NATO contact, the documents reveal a small glimpse into Canada’s behind-the-scenes role in lobbying for Israel’s inclusion into NATO.

Canada serves as “the liaison between Israel and NATO, assists with visits of NATO officials...to Israel.” Canada is also the first country to speak at NATO meetings that involve Israel, details one briefing note.

The documents show Canada has been working with Israel towards its goal of a stronger partnership with NATO. This includes helping Israel in its “pursuit of a Status of Forces Agreement, getting access to the NATO Maintenance Supply Agency, [redacted].”

The fundamental principle of the Cold War NATO alliance is that an attack against one party is equivalent to an attack against all parties of the alliance. Hence bringing Israel into NATO could mean that Canada would automatically declare war on an aggressor that attacked Israel, whatever the definition of aggression.

These sentiments were recently made public when junior Foreign Affairs minister Peter Kent mused to the magazine Shalom Life that “an attack on Israel would be considered an attack on Canada.” Kent later apologized for the public comment but noted that Israel understood its substance.

The documents are only a small glimpse into the dialogue between the two nations’ militaries. A talking point laid out in a note to Natynczyk during his October 2009 visit confirm a strong commitment to increasing and future collaboration.

“I am pleased with the increased cooperation between Canadian Forces and the IDF and I am looking forward to future coordination and partnership between our armed forces.”

SIDEBAR: Recent Developments in Canada-Israel Relations

• Although Canada’s diplomatic support for an Israeli state predates Israel’s inception, policy toward the country became more friendly under Liberal prime minister Paul Martin, and veered further right under Stephen Harper.

• Among the long list of examples of Canada’s ardent pro-Israel turn was Harper’s response to the massive bombardment of Lebanon in 2006 following the Hezbollah abduction of two Israeli soldiers. While the international community decried Israel’s aberrant bombardment, Harper described it as a “measured response.”

• The conflict killed at least 1,500 people, mostly Lebanese civilians, and severely damaged Lebanese infrastructure. Among the accounts of widespread collateral damage was the death of Canadian soldier Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener.

• Kruedener was among four UN Military Observers killed when the Israeli Air Force attacked a UN observation post in southern Lebanon. Briefing notes written for Natynczyk shed light on Canadian diplomatic actions in the aftermath of Kruedener’s death.

• The notes state Israel took responsibility for their deaths, but that the killings were unintentional. Unbeknownst to many, however, the notes mention that Harper subsequently wrote to Israeli Prime Minister Olmert accepting Israel’s account. While Harper presents himself as a defender of military personnel, it appears – in the face of widespread criticism of Israel following the attack on the UN position – that Canada was more inclined to defend the reputation of its ally than demand answers to uncomfortable questions on behalf of its soldiers.

• Revealing Israel’s sensitivity to the issue, Natynczyk is warned in the briefings: “Israel has made clear that it has answered all the questions it intends to with respect to the deaths of the four.”

Yavar Hameed is a human rights lawyer and sessional lecturer at Carleton University in Ottawa. Jeff Monaghan works with Books to Prisoners in Ottawa.

Afghans mark Independence Day with anti-occupation protests

2010-08-23T10:34:00.003-04:00

Afghans mark Independence Day with anti-occupation protests
by Derrick O'Keefe, from Rabble, August 19, 2010. (Link via P.C.)

Today marks 91 years since Afghanistan gained its freedom from the British Empire, following three bloody wars of independence. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has issued a video statement to mark the occasion. It's worth watching or reading the text in full, if only to appreciate the new Empire's irony-laden platitudes.

This August 19th, on behalf of President Obama and the American people, I want to congratulate the people of Afghanistan on 91 years of independence.

This is an occasion to celebrate the freedom your nation achieved more than nine decades ago -- a proud moment in your long and rich history. It is also a chance to look to the future -- a future that people across Afghanistan are working hard to build, in partnership with citizens from many nations, joined together in a shared vision of a secure, stable, and prosperous Afghanistan.

I had the honor of visiting Afghanistan last month -- the fifth visit I've made in my lifetime and my second as Secretary of State. And every time I return, I'm reminded of the warmth of the Afghan people and the resilience that you show in the face of great challenges. I have seen for myself the progress that you've been making and that we've been honored to support you in doing -- one street at a time, one community at a time -- promoting peace and planting the seeds for long-term progress.

The people of the United States share a stake in your future. So we are proud to join you today in celebrating your past. But more importantly, as we extend to you our best wishes for a happy and safe Independence Day, to send you our strong support, our partnership and our friendship for all of the years ahead. Thank you very much.

Of course for almost nine years now the U.S.-led occupation has denied freedom and independence to the people of Afghanistan. Whatever sheen of consent and legitimacy the U.S./NATO project once had is now long gone. Wikileaks has just confirmed for the rest of us some of the reality that Afghans have been facing: year after year of increases in troops and overall violence, and a Special Forces war running rampant on both sides of the Af-Pak border.

I reached Malalai Joya somewhere in Kabul yesterday over a crackling phone line. She informed me that Afghans would be marking their August 19 independence day by protesting against the NATO occupation. She explained that for security reasons she would be personally unable to attend, but that she knew of supporters planning to take part in anti-occupation protests in Jalalabad. As the New York Times reports, residents there have already been taking the streets in response to the type of brutality that puts the lie to Clinton's goodwill message. The conflicting casuality reports are now very familiar to anyone remotely paying attention to media coverage of the war:

The disputed raid occurred early Wednesday in the Surkh Rod district of Nangarhar Province, about nine miles from Jalalabad, the largest city in eastern Afghanistan. It was at least the third raid in the district in four months, and in each, the military’s account and that of local people have been sharply at odds, with local residents insisting that those killed were civilians and the military asserting that there were Taliban present.

Hundreds of suburban residents of Jalalabad blocked its main east-west highway on Wednesday to protest the killings.

Local residents said that the two men killed were both civilians, while a NATO military spokesman said that they had been shot by American troops only after opening fire themselves...

Meanwhile, on the homefront the propaganda war continues. TIME magazine's cover story about Afghan women earlier this summer has been widely discussed and debated. Long-time correspondent Ann Jones and others have called into question the veracity of the narrative, while a number of organizations explained the real political and historical context of Afghan women and the war.

One noteworthy statement, which I was happy to sign, was issued by the South Asia Solidarity Initiative (SASI). I hope this statement makes the rounds of the networks that make up the mostly-dormant U.S. anti-war movement. It's well past time to shake off the slumber induced by Obama and seriously mobilize for an end to this war. That would be the least we could do for Afghans, who continue to show resilience "in the face of so many challenges" by fighting for a true and lasting independence from foregin domination.

'What Happens if We Stay in Afghanistan': A Response to TIME Magazine

The August 9, 2010 issue of TIME magazine featured a striking cover photograph of an 18-year-old Afghan woman, Aisha, who was disfigured by the Taliban last year. The cover title read, "What happens if we leave Afghanistan." While Aisha's story and the stories of many other women like her may depict some part of the reality of women's lives under the Taliban, TIME's conclusion that continuing the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan is necessary, is highly misleading and troubling.

Afghan women, like women around the world, have lived under very oppressive conditions for decades. Many women remain indoors, without education or health care, or economic security, have early marriages, and are unprotected from domestic violence. Today, after a decade of the U.S.-led occupation, the lives of Afghan women have become worse, not better: in addition to facing continued oppression under the Taliban and the equally oppressive Northern Alliance, they also live in a war zone.

TIME's statement echoes and resurrects the same justification for the war given during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan: if U.S. forces withdraw from Afghanistan, any rights gained for Afghan women will be reversed by fundamentalist forces. However, this false logic grossly ignores the history of the U.S. imperialist relationship and presence in the region and its effect on women's rights. During the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, the U.S. armed the anti-Soviet Mujahideen forces, who were at one point led by Osama Bin Laden. In subsequent years the Taliban rose to power, with the United States as its ally. In 2001, when the Bush administration sought to topple the Taliban regime, the United States armed and enlisted the help of the Northern Alliance, a coalition of warlords with its own track record of human rights abuses. Indeed, the United States has consistently chosen the side of fundamentalist allies at the expense of Afghan women, and has always sought its own gains in the region.

In its nine long years, the U.S.-led occupation of Afghanistan has done nothing to improve the conditions for people in Afghanistan, especially for women. As the classified documents recently leaked by WikiLeaks.org corroborate, the coalition forces have been killing hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents. According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, the 2009 civilian death toll, close to 2,412 civilian deaths, was the highest of any year since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, and an increase of 24% from 2008. There has been a general increase in violence and civilian deaths because of occupation. A Human Rights Watch Press Alert in 2005 stated that up to 60% of law makers in the lower house of Afghanistan's newly elected parliament are directly or indirectly connected to human rights abuses. By 2009, the U.N. human development index ranked Afghanistan 181 out of 182 countries. The maternal mortality rate in Afghanistan reveals the highest ever documented. Over the past decade, the immensely corrupt, U.S.-backed Afghan regime led by Hamid Karzai has passed and maintained numerous misogynist laws, including the one that put Aisha in jail after she fled from her in-laws.

For the last decade, the occupying forces of the U.S. and its NATO allies have nourished warlords and supported a corrupt government, leading many to join the Taliban and increasing their influence across Afghanistan. Increased civilian deaths, a fundamentalist resurgence, and deadly bombing raids have led to a devastated country and a Taliban stronger than ever before. TIME's claim to "illuminate what is actually happening on the ground" falsely equates the last decade of occupation with progress. The occupation has not and will not bring democracy to Afghanistan, nor will it bring liberation to Afghan women. Instead, it has exacerbated deep-seated corruption in the government, the widespread abuse of women's rights and human rights by fundamentalists, including Karzai's allies, and stymied critical infrastructure development in the country. The question should not be "what happens if we leave Afghanistan," the question should be "what happened when we invaded Afghanistan" and "what happens if we stay in Afghanistan."

The Afghan people are capable of creating their own democratic future. Progressive groups and democratic parties in Afghanistan are fighting to reconstruct the peace and safety of their country, and more often than not, are forced underground for fear of their safety. Despite the repression from the U.S.-backed Karzai government, thousands of brave students and women have come out on to the streets of Kabul to protest the bombings and the continued war. It is from these forces that a larger progressive movement will emerge that could play a role in bringing real democracy to Afghanistan. If the United States continues the occupation, the space for progressive forces becomes increasingly limited.

We must know and remember, that liberation never comes from occupation. We must know and remember, that there will always be resistance to occupation. Occupations, no matter where they take place, from Iraq to Palestine to Turtle Island, are unjust. The American people must come out in support and solidarity with the resilient peoples of Afghanistan and elsewhere who are fighting for their own liberation, and must call for the end of all U.S. wars and occupations.

Initial Signatories:

South Asia Solidarity Initiative
Iraq Veterans Against the War
Derrick O'Keefe co-writer of the autobiography Malalai Joya -- A Woman Among Warlords
Veterans For Peace
Courage to Resist
Anjali Kamat, Producer, Democracy Now!
Robert Jensen, University of Texas, Austin, TX
The South Asia Solidarity Initiative (SASI) is an organization based the United States that is in solidarity with progressive social movements and democratic politics in South Asia. We believe in the shared history and common struggles of South Asia and break from the confines of nation-states to carry forward an alternative vision for South Asia and its peoples.

Why we should welcome boatful of Tamil refugees into Canada

2010-08-14T12:04:00.001-04:00

Why we should welcome boatful of Tamil refugees into Canada
by Harsha Walia, from Vancouver Sun, August 14, 2010.

From the Komagata Maru carrying 376 Punjabi passengers and the SS St. Louis travelling with 900 Jewish asylum seekers, to the boats with 600 people from China's Fujian province and the Ocean Lady that docked in B.C. last year with Tamil refugees - there is something about boatloads of migrants that triggers a national hysteria. Perhaps it is the realization that the expanse of ocean is not enough to enforce the divide between the West and the so-called Third World.

This past week has been no different with the arrival of the MV Sun Sea and approximately 500 Tamil migrants. With little substantiation, officials and media are regurgitating the refrain of "terrorists," "illegals" and "queue jumpers." Yet refugee advocates have repeatedly reminded us that there is no queue for refugees. It is inherent to the refugee experience that one does not wait in a line, fearing serious harm or death, to make the difficult decision to flee. Nor are they so-called illegals; they are asylum seekers. Canadian and international refugee law recognizes that many asylum seekers will be forced to travel irregularly, including by boat, to seek safety.

Relying on sound-bites about organized crime and terrorism is the best way to close public debate about government actions. Instead of relying on sensationalism, let us ask: On what basis are the Tamil migrants being declared terrorists? Is it even logical that well-financed and often state-backed terrorists or traffickers would suffer in a three-month long, arduous journey risking death? Even if we believe that women and children were forced onto this boat, how do we justify jailing them as a humane response?

What we do know is that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Kimoon has appointed a panel to investigate war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan government against Tamils. Human rights organizations have documented government and military atrocities including indiscriminate killings, arbitrary detentions and imprisonment, and mass displacement of Tamils. Canada has itself accepted more than 90 per cent of refugee claimants from Sri Lanka in the past two years.

Last year we succumbed to unfounded panic when the Ocean Lady landed with 76 Tamils aboard. All the men were eventually released when the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) was forced to admit they had no evidence of terrorist connections. Ottawa even tried to use Section 86 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, a draconian section that allows for secret evidence in closed hearings, to make their case. Still, based on a lack of evidence, in January the CBSA announced that it would not contest the release of the last group of detainees.

Rohan Gunaratna, the anti-terrorism expert who is the government's primary source, was discredited by immigration lawyers as well as adjudicator Otto Nuppanen during the Ocean Lady proceedings. As detailed in news articles, his unverified sources were questioned, as well as his credibility, given his close relationship with the Sri Lankan government. Following a recent investigation by the newspaper the Sunday Age in Australia, Gunaratna has retracted some of his alleged credentials.

So Canadian officials are either continuing to make uninformed statements despite the lack of evidence, or they are deliberately relying on the racist stereotyping of all Tamils as likely being associated with terrorism in order to fuel public fears. Their irresponsibility is facilitating a climate where anti-immigration advocates are gaining more traction in their demands for the boat to be sent back and for Canada to stop welcoming refugees.

Frankly, I think there is more reason to be mistrustful of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews than of the migrants. Their regime has advanced an agenda of corporate bailouts and economic austerity; ballooning military, police and prison budgets; unmitigated resource extraction and environmental destruction; and an immigration policy that is moving toward the repressive Australia and Arizona models of accepting fewer refugees and jailing more asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. These politicians sell us strange paradoxes - military occupation as liberation, refugees as terrorists.

Instead, author McKenzie Wark reminds us, "Those who seek refuge, who are rarely accorded a voice, are nevertheless the bodies that confront the injustice of the world.

They give up their particular claim to sovereignty and cast themselves on the waters.

Only when the world is its own refuge will their limitless demand be met."

Harsha Walia has a law degree and is a local activist with, among other social justice groups, No One Is Illegal.

Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation

2010-07-25T22:36:00.002-04:00

Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation
by Nick Davies and David Leigh, from The Guardian, July 25, 2010.

A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.

The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The files, which were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years, which has so far cost the lives of more than 320 British and more than 1,000 US troops.

Their publication comes amid mounting concern that Barack Obama's "surge" strategy is failing and as coalition troops hunt for two US naval personnel captured by the Taliban south of Kabul on Friday.

The war logs also detail:

• How a secret "black" unit of special forces hunts down Taliban leaders for "kill or capture" without trial.

• How the US covered up evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles.

• How the coalition is increasingly using deadly Reaper drones to hunt and kill Taliban targets by remote control from a base in Nevada.

• How the Taliban have caused growing carnage with a massive escalation of their roadside bombing campaign, which has killed more than 2,000 civilians to date.

In a statement, the White House said the chaotic picture painted by the logs was the result of "under-resourcing" under Obama's predecessor, saying: "It is important to note that the time period reflected in the documents is January 2004 to December 2009."

The White House also criticised the publication of the files by Wikileaks: "We strongly condemn the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organisations, which puts the lives of the US and partner service members at risk and threatens our national security. Wikileaks made no effort to contact the US government about these documents, which may contain information that endanger the lives of Americans, our partners, and local populations who co-operate with us."

The logs detail, in sometimes harrowing vignettes, the toll on civilians exacted by coalition forces: events termed "blue on white" in military jargon. The logs reveal 144 such incidents.

Some of these casualties come from the controversial air strikes that have led to Afghan government protests, but a large number of previously unknown incidents also appear to be the result of troops shooting unarmed drivers or motorcyclists out of a determination to protect themselves from suicide bombers.

At least 195 civilians are admitted to have been killed and 174 wounded in total, but this is likely to be an underestimate as many disputed incidents are omitted from the daily snapshots reported by troops on the ground and then collated, sometimes erratically, by military intelligence analysts.

Bloody errors at civilians' expense, as recorded in the logs, include the day French troops strafed a bus full of children in 2008, wounding eight. A US patrol similarly machine-gunned a bus, wounding or killing 15 of its passengers, and in 2007 Polish troops mortared a village, killing a wedding party including a pregnant woman, in an apparent revenge attack.

Questionable shootings of civilians by UK troops also figure. The US compilers detail an unusual cluster of four British shootings in Kabul in the space of barely a month, in October/November 2007, culminating in the death of the son of an Afghan general. Of one shooting, they wrote: "Investigation controlled by the British. We are not able to get [sic] complete story."

A second cluster of similar shootings, all involving Royal Marine commandos in Helmand province, took place in a six-month period at the end of 2008, according to the log entries. Asked by the Guardian about these allegations, the Ministry of Defence said: "We have been unable to corroborate these claims in the short time available and it would be inappropriate to speculate on specific cases without further verification of the alleged actions."

Rachel Reid, who investigates civilian casualty incidents in Afghanistan for Human Rights Watch, said: "These files bring to light what's been a consistent trend by US and Nato forces: the concealment of civilian casualties. Despite numerous tactical directives ordering transparent investigations when civilians are killed, there have been incidents I've investigated in recent months where this is still not happening.

Accountability is not just something you do when you are caught. It should be part of the way the US and Nato do business in Afghanistan every time they kill or harm civilians." The reports, many of which the Guardian is publishing in full online, present an unvarnished and often compelling account of the reality of modern war.

Most of the material, though classified "secret" at the time, is no longer militarily sensitive. A small amount of information has been withheld from publication because it might endanger local informants or give away genuine military secrets. Wikileaks, whose founder, Julian Assange, obtained the material in circumstances he will not discuss, said it would redact harmful material before posting the bulk of the data on its "uncensorable" servers.

Wikileaks published in April this year a previously suppressed classified video of US Apache helicopters killing two Reuters cameramen on the streets of Baghdad, which gained international attention. A 22-year-old intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, was arrested in Iraq and charged with leaking the video, but not with leaking the latest material. The Pentagon's criminal investigations department continues to try to trace the leaks and recently unsuccessfully asked Assange, he says, to meet them outside the US to help them. Assange allowed the Guardian to examine the logs at our request. No fee was involved and Wikileaks was not involved in the preparation of the Guardian's articles.

Video: The Troops are Waking Up

2010-07-19T18:18:00.002-04:00

Check out this great video of testimony by a U.S. veteran of the occupation of Iraq, talking about the evils of the occupation, and its connection to class oppression and racism. Everything he says applies equally to the Canadian role in the occupation of Afghanistan. Found via Ms. Marx.

The Haudenosaunee ‘right of return’

2010-07-12T14:09:00.003-04:00

The Haudenosaunee ‘right of return’
by Steven Newcomb, from Indian Country Today, July 12, 2010. (Link found via RDO.)

For some 30 years, the Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse), often known as the Six Nations Confederation, have been accustomed to traveling internationally from and back to North America on Haudenosaunee passports. Now, however, the United States government has evidently taken issue with the Haudenosaunee passports.

As a result, the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team has been delayed from its scheduled July 11 departure from New York to Manchester, England for the 14-day 2010 World Lacrosse Championships.

The United Kingdom government has refused to grant travel visas to the 23 Haudenosaunee players because the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Department of Homeland Security have refused to guarantee that the United States will allow the Iroquois Nationals players to return to Haudenosaunee territory by re-crossing the international boundary of the United States.

Even under the George W. Bush administration, the United States government did not attempt to stop the Haudenosaunee from traveling internationally on Haudenosaunee passports. Now it appears that the U.S. government may have shifted its position. Under President Barack Obama’s watch, it appears that the United States is not going to honor Haudenosaunee passports despite Obama’s statements during his election campaign in Indian country that he was going to respect the nation-to-nation relationship between the United States and indigenous nations such as the Haudenosaunee.

The United States has treaties with member nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederation and those treaties recognize that a nation-to-nation relationship of peace and friendship exists between the Haudenosaunee and the United States. Furthermore, the Haudenosaunee right to travel to and from their home territory is an ancestral birthright, a fundamental right, and an international human right.

It is conceivable that the United States might try to say that the Haudenosaunee players traveling on their own national passports is an issue of “national security” for the United States. Yet to make this argument in any credible manner, the U.S. government would have to explain how Haudenosaunee lacrosse players pose any sort of threat to the United States by traveling on Haudenosaunee passports. There is no such argument to be made because, quite simply put, international travel by lacrosse players on Haudenosaunee passports poses no national security threat to the United States.

The United States government evidently desires to demonstrate a position of authority, dominance if you will, in relation to the Haudenosaunee. To their credit, the Haudenosaunee chiefs are determined to exercise Haudenosaunee sovereignty by insisting that the Haudenosaunee be able to travel internationally to and from Haudenosaunee territory by crossing and re-crossing the international border of the United States.

A major issue seems to be: Do the Haudenosaunee have a right of return to their traditional homeland and territory after traveling internationally on their Haudenosaunee passports?

There is an even more basic question that needs to be addressed by the people of the United States. Since Sept. 11, 2001, has the United States gradually and steadily moved into a state of fear? Since that fateful day, the government of the United States has failed to heed Benjamin Franklin’s warning. “They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.”

The Haudenosaunee model of liberty served as a powerful and inspirational model for the British colonists who founded the United States of America. The Haudenosaunee Confederation gave the founders of the United States a tutorial on the framework of a democratic republic, and thereby greatly influenced a number of those men who constructed the United States system of government.

In 1987, the United States Congress passed Concurrent Resolution S. 76, formally recognizing the Haudenosaunee contribution to the United States constitutional system. It is ironic, indeed, that the U.S. government – which has been considered by many to be a beacon of liberty in the world – is now moving to restrict the liberty and sovereignty of the very Confederation that inspired many of the founders of the United States.

Are we to understand that the United States government that previously recognized by Senate Resolution the Haudenosaunee contribution to the founding of the U.S. constitutional system, now refuses to recognize Haudenosaunee passports and the right of 23 peaceful Haudenosaunee lacrosse players to return to their home territory?

The Haudenosaunee played a vital role in introducing lacrosse to the world. (For them lacrosse is ceremonial, for they consider it to be “the Creator’s game.”) How ironic, then, that the United States government may prevent the Haudenosaunee players from competing internationally in a world lacrosse championship.

The United States has already made it virtually impossible for the Haudenosaunee lacrosse players to travel in a timely manner and rest up before their competition with England’s lacrosse team on July 15. Immediate phone calls to the White House and U.S. Department of State in support of the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse players are in order.

Steven Newcomb, Shawnee and Lenape, is co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute, author of “Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery,” and a columnist for Indian Country Today.

Toronto G20: Remembering Politics, Celebrating Activism

2010-07-06T23:12:00.002-04:00

Toronto G20: Remembering Politics, Celebrating Activism
by Mitu Sengupta, from MRZine, July 6, 2010.

As news of the G20's Toronto Summit recedes from the headlines, which memories shall prevail? The answer to this question will not only shape official decisions, such as whether allegations of police brutality are seriously investigated, but may also have a profound impact on the political sensibilities of a generation of Canadians. Given the constant deluge of upsetting imagery and negative reportage, many seem ready to dismiss the masses of people who protested the summit as troublemakers who achieved nothing, and because of the likes of whom, such events should never be held in Toronto again.

A potential shift, and not only among Canadians, is deeper cynicism about the value of activism, an exaggerated view of its dangers, and much greater faith in the strong arm of the state. Such disturbing forms of memorialising are already underway, and must be resisted. In what follows, I try to highlight the significance of what the G20 protesters accomplished, despite the millions of dollars spent on security, a metres-high concrete and metal fence that closed off parts of the city, and a set of special powers that were arbitrarily granted to the police. I also suggest that the perils of marching the streets in protest were greatly overstated.

G20's Politics Out in the Open . . .

At its Pittsburgh summit in 2009, the G20 announced that it would replace the more elite and First World-centric G8 as the new permanent council for international economic cooperation. The decision, backed by the Obama administration, seemed a landmark in terms of meaningfully enlarging the voice of developing countries on the global stage.

This gain in representation did not, however, translate into a diversification of policy options. The G20's response to the crisis was narrow and technocratic, invested in prescriptions that had arguably precipitated the crisis in the first place -- free capital mobility and an unwavering faith in unfettered markets. Recovery hinged on debt-socialization schemes and stimulus packages that were obviously designed to benefit the financial and corporate sectors rather than small business, workers and marginalized communities. At Pittsburgh it was clear that the same old hat-tricks were being performed beneath a façade of expanded representation, and that the G20 was yet another arena for the celebration of state power, capitalism and nationalism, not of genuinely inclusive people-centred alternatives. This is perhaps sufficient reason to oppose the G20, and indeed, a rallying point for protesters. There is, however, a larger concern.

Forums like the G20 -- which pretend to represent voices from the Global South -- are particularly treacherous because they depict the sort of neoliberal, corporate-dominated globalization prevalent today as a natural and open process, and one on which there is a broad, global consensus. What it is, of course, is a very deliberate process, driven by political deals worked out behind closed doors (or, as in Toronto's case, an impenetrable fence). An important challenge, in the face of such obfuscation, is to confront and resist the G20's efforts to depoliticize and normalize highly political decisions, which are made by a very narrow circle of global powerbrokers.

Given this, the dozens of rallies, marches and demonstrations that marked the 'Days of Action' achieved a hugely important objective: they forced the politics of the G20 to the forefront. Despite the differences in their specific agendas, the labour unions, feminists, environmentalists, disability rights advocates, and other activists that came together at the Toronto People's Summit -- held in the weekend prior to the G20 summit -- sent a signal to the world that something questionable was afoot at this benign-looking meeting, and that people know and are prepared to demand answers. In fact, one could argue that the generally liberal city of Toronto facilitated the effective articulation of this message and was, in this sense, a far better space to hold the summit than a more routinely securitized site such as Doha or Singapore. If the G20 must exist, along with its dreadful summits, open cities such as Toronto are perhaps the best bets for venue.

Nose-to-Gas Masks: Protesting without Fear

The media's reports of Toronto's descent into a 'war zone' over the summit weekend were ridiculously inflated. I walked around the city for more than six hours on June 26th (the main day of protest), and saw people milling around, eating ice cream, strumming guitars, and photographing everything in sight, especially smashed-in shop windows. Throngs of Ghana soccer fans hooted past every now and then (Ghana's victory against the US in the World Cup was the other big news of the day). I came across several barricades of police and RCMP too -- decked out in gas masks and riot suits -- but even here, there was often a surprising calm. Dressed in T-shirts and sandals, groups of protesters napped, prayed, smoked and chatted at the cops' feet.

I am not trying to minimize what happened in other parts of the city (several police cruisers were set on fire: the police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets). But given the alarmist tenor of virtually every newsflash and sound-bite, the point that the vast majority of protests were peaceful, even serene, cannot be emphasized strongly enough.

It must also be stressed that everyone who smashed shop windows was not a 'criminal,' especially because of what the label implies -- that this person's actions are random, senseless and purely for self-gain, and that we, as citizens and protesters, are possible targets. The protesters who adopted 'Black Bloc' tactics were not, of course, devoid of rationality or guiding ideology (though they were clumsily branded 'anarchist'). While I personally do not subscribe to the argument -- which I feel is meant to punish, not change -- the breaking of shop windows may be regarded a reasonable response to the violence inflicted by capitalism and authoritarian states. In fact, the former is obscenely dwarfed by the latter.

It is also dwarfed by the well-documented excesses of the police, which have included beatings, taunting, indiscriminate arrests, and detention for hours in cramped and inhumane conditions (hundreds of bloggers and independent journalists poured in with evidence, including a fairly mainstream TV personality, Steve Paikin). These reports suggest that the police were a greater danger to the city during the summit than the small, youthful minority who selected vandalism as a means of protest. This is crucial to remembering that turbulent weekend truthfully. Even more important, however, is to stay focused on the tens of thousands who walked the streets of Toronto freely and without fear, registering their opposition to the states and governments that consistently place profits before people and, when in trouble, hide behind fences and convenient political rhetoric.

Jury clears activists who broke into Brighton arms factory

2010-07-05T10:46:00.002-04:00

Jury clears activists who broke into Brighton arms factory: Five found not guilty after arguing they were seeking to prevent Israeli war crimes in Gaza
by Bibi van der Zee and Rob Evans, from The Guardian, June 30, 2010. (Link via MB.)

Five activists who caused £180,000 damage to an arms factory were acquitted after they argued they were seeking to prevent Israeli war crimes.

The five were jubilant after a jury found them not guilty of conspiring to cause criminal damage to the factory on the outskirts of Brighton.

The five admitted they had broken in and sabotaged the factory, but argued they were legally justified in doing so.

They believed that EDO MBM, the firm that owns the factory, was breaking export regulations by manufacturing and selling to the Israelis military equipment which would be used in the occupied territories. They wanted to slow down the manufacture of these components, and impede what they believed were war crimes being committed by Israel against the Palestinians.

After being acquitted, one of them, Robert Nicholls, told the Guardian: "I'm joyful really, at being a free man. The action was impulsive really, we just wanted to do something that would make a real difference to the people of Palestine."

Another, Ornella Saibene, said: "I've felt very peaceful all the way through the trial because I'm proud of what I've done. It was the right thing to do."

They are the latest group of peace and climate-change activists to successfully use the "lawful excuse" defence – committing an offence to prevent a more serious crime – as a tactic in their campaigns. The acquitted are Nicholls, 52, Tom Woodhead, 25, Harvey Tadman, 44, Ornella Saibene, 50, all from Bristol, and Simon Levin, 35, from Brighton. They had decided to act last January after three weeks of Israeli military manoeuvres against Gaza in which many Palestinians were killed. According to a UN investigation by former South African judge Richard Goldstone, Israel committed war crimes by deliberately attacking civilians during the offensive known as Operation Cast Lead.

In his summing up, Judge George Bathurst-Norman suggested to the jury that "you may well think that hell on earth would not be an understatement of what the Gazans suffered in that time".

The judge highlighted the testimony by Caroline Lucas, the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, that "all democratic paths had been exhausted" before the activists embarked on their action.

Hove crown court heard the activists had broken into the factory in the night. They had video-taped interviews beforehand outlining their intention to cause damage and, in the words of prosecutor Stephen Shay, "smash-up" the factory.

These statements were posted on the Indymedia website shortly after they were arrested. Dexter Dias, barrister for one of the defendants, accused Paul Hills, EDO MBM's managing director, of lying in the witness box when he said his company did not supply components which were being used by the Israeli military. The jury is considering its verdict on two other defendants, Elijah Smith, 42, and Chris Osmond, 29 of Brighton.

Challenging Toronto's corporate security walls

2010-06-24T19:41:00.002-04:00

Challenging Toronto's corporate security walls
by Harsha Walia and Stefan Christoff, from Rabble, June 24, 2010.

Toronto's winding razor-sharp tipped security walls surrounding the upcoming G20 summit centre certainly have inspired controversy and critiques across the political spectrum.

Behind the immediately pressing story of security checkpoints cutting up downtown Toronto, intrusive CSIS interrogations targeting social justice activists, and a government-driven security atmosphere aiming to intimidate social movements working to challenge the G20, is a corporate-driven narrative of profit by any means.

In Toronto this week, contract workers are putting final touches on the three-metre high and six-kilometre long $5.5 million dollar concrete and metal security fence encompassing the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Total security bill for the G20 in Toronto and G8 in Huntsville is expected to reach over $1 billion, the most expensive in history. Within and around this armed camp are 20,000 law enforcement officials, 1,000 private security guards, closed circuit TV cameras, military-style checkpoints along with sound and water cannons.

Behind these steel cages is a corporate-driven narrative of profiteering. An open conspiracy that fuses Canadian state security agencies and one of Canada's key multinational corporations, directing millions in public funds towards private accounts.

Montreal-based engineering giant SNC-Lavalin has been awarded the contract for the construction and conceptualization of the militarization of downtown Toronto. SNC-Lavalin's history is global in reach and politically fascinating as a corporation that has quickly moved to seek global contracts in occupied lands with minimal public controversy.

In 2004, SNC Technologies, a subsidiary, secured a deal to manufacture 300-500 million bullets for the U.S. military in the months after the Bush administration launched the "shock and awe" invasion of Iraq. Protests in Toronto targeted SNC-Lavalin's annual general meeting in 2005, bringing attention to the role of Canadian corporations in the U.S. occupation of Iraq. In 2006, SNC-Lavalin dropped the bullet-making division as public critique towards the Iraq arm contract compounded.

SNC-Lavalin is also the largest Canadian private contractor in Afghanistan, working in close co-ordination with the Canadian military in Kandahar. With hundreds of employees in the country, SNC-Lavalin works to develop infrastructure that normalizes the reality of a NATO-lead military occupation, under which torture, poverty, and violence have come to shape contemporary life for many Afghans.

As part of the 3D -- defence, diplomacy, development -- paradigm touted by the Canadian military, in 2009 the corporation was selected to rebuild a major dam on the Arghandab River. Billed as one of Canada's "signature projects," today the $50-million Dahla Dam project in the northern Kandahar province is heading towards a political disaster.

SNC-Lavalin operates directly within the militarized compound of Ahmed Wali Karzai, younger half-brother of Afghani leader Hamid Karzai, and recent paramilitary clashes over the project facing a ballooning budget have forced Canadians guarding the project to flee Afghanistan.

Reports indicate that U.S. investigators are currently probing the possibility that Karzai-linked security officials "may be colluding with insurgents to maximize profits," in securing a "development" project that is on the brink of becoming a national controversy, pointing to blurry lines between corporate interests in Afghanistan, Canadian military activities and interchanging local political alliances, all forces playing politics for greater influence and capital gains within a war zone. Disaster capitalism at ground zero of the first major U.S. military strike point post 9/11.

SNC Lavalin is a direct beneficiary of the global security industry that has been rapidly ballooning in the post 9/11 climate. Private security and engineering contractors have crafted a niche market that relies on escalating conflict and perpetuating fear.

A deliberate manipulation of fear, supported by government and media sound-bytes on terrorism, has meant the mass introduction of mass surveillance systems. An atmosphere that allows countries like Israel to normalize its daily illegal occupation of Palestine, and the U.S. to justify its construction of the anti-migrant U.S.-Mexico border wall, both inherently unjust realities cloaked in security. It has also meant deep pockets for pioneering companies like Boeing and Elbit Systems who produce related security technologies. In the years after 9/11, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security handed out $130 billion to private contractors.

In Toronto, the summit perimeter walls are similarly rooted in post 9/11 security concepts. A security fence that is also a strong ideological reminder of the contradiction of the G20 process: select global leaders having closed-door meetings that exclude voices of dissent, while simultaneously extolling political rhetoric promoting the "free flow of ideas," "removal of barriers," and "global community," language standing in stark contrast to thousands of armed police silencing dissenting voices. Democracy is rooted in dialogue and engagement, not militarization.

In 2009, Barack Obama delivered a major address in Europe, pointing towards nuclear disarmament, advocating that "voices for peace and progress must be raised together," political language pointing to the violent contradiction of advocating for global justice from behind kilometres of razor wire fence as militarized police repel voices advocating for change from the streets.

As the G20 convention centre is shrouded in two tight rows of welded wire, as armed police flank street check points and state-issued photo ID is the only ticket into the Toronto's downtown core, it is clear that security preparations towards the G20 summit, as previously with the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, are testing limits on security culture in Canada.

Certainly fences are becoming a symbol our era, locally and globally, as security doctrines often conflate terrorism with political protest, walls silencing dissent become politically possible.

CSIS has itself admitted that the risk of "terrorism" is low, hence the tired-old stereotype of "violent anarchists." This has resulted in intrusive CSIS and RCMP interrogations targeting and intimidating social justice activists of all stripes and efforts to demonize protestors in the eyes of Toronto residents. Tips in the G20 Summit Resident Information Guide include not engaging in conversations with protesters.

Currently in Toronto, the main rationale for the $1 billion security apparatus is apparently an incredibly dangerous form of domestic terrorism: protestors.

Over the past decades, countless thousands advocating for global justice have gathered on the streets every year to protest the closed door meetings of both G8 and G20 summits, as global inequalities continues to rise protests have grown; never at these mass convergences has a single protester serious harmed anyone.

It was in Genoa, Italy, at the G8 summit in 2001 when the first lethal gunshot rang out, and Carlo Giuliani, a young Italian anarchist, was shot in the face by Italian police. Giuliani died on that Italian street surrounded by police. In Quebec City, as tens-of-thousands gathered to protest U.S.-driven efforts to establish the hemispheric Free Trade Area of the Americas Agreement (FTAA), street protesters suffered multiple injuries on the part of police, one young activist from Montreal was permanently disabled, a rubber bullet crushing his larynx, forever silencing one voice of dissent in Canada.

Today in Toronto, police rule the day on downtown boulevards, while SNC-Lavalin is laughing all the way to the bank at having perfected the equation between militarization and profit. Mainstream political rhetoric revolving around the G20 remains a surface level discussion on security, silencing real global issues of poverty, war and displacement facing so many throughout the global south.

So the question for those caged within Fortress Toronto is a simple one: will we capitulate to this cultivated culture of fear and the normalization of an Orwellian police state? Today, let us see past the smoke and mirrors of security and join thousands on the streets in the daily struggles against the violence of G20 policies locally and globally.

Harsha Walia is a Vancouver-based writer and activist who is at http://www.twitter.com/harshawalia. Stefan Christoff is a Montreal-based writer and activist who is at http://www.twitter.com/spirodon.

The spoils of war?

2010-06-14T12:30:00.003-04:00

The spoils of war? U.S. finds 'nearly $1 trillion of mineral deposits' in Afghanistan
by Derrick O'Keefe, from Rabble, June 14, 2010.

Underneath Afghanistan's battle-scarred land, the spoils of war await. According to U.S. geologists, the country has nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral wealth.

This stunning news has huge ramifications, especially for Canada, which is by far the world's leading extraction mining power. Here's the story from the New York Times:

"US geologists have discovered nearly one trillion dollars' worth of untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, including vast reserves of copper and lithium, the New York Times reported Monday.

The deposits, which also include huge veins of iron, gold, niobium and cobalt, are enough to turn the battle-scarred country into one of the world's leading mining exporters, senior US government officials told the Times.

Afghanistan's potential lithium deposits as large of those of Bolivia, which currently has the world's largest known lithium reserves, the Times said.

Lithium is a key mineral used in rechargeable batteries, as well as everything from cell phones and laptops to electric cars.

Afghanistan has so much of it that it could become the 'Saudi Arabia of lithium,' according to an internal Pentagon memo quoted by the newspaper.

The iron and copper deposits are large enough to make Afghanistan one of the world's top producers, US officials said.

'There is stunning potential here,' General David Petraeus, head of the US Central Command, told the newspaper. 'There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.'"

Canadian foreign policy has always been carried out with the interests of Canadian corporations in mind, and the war in Afghanistan has been no exception. Then Foreign Minister Peter MacKay made exactly this point at a 2007 event hosted by the Vancouver Board of Trade and sponsored by Canadian mining firms Teck-Cominco and Hunter Dickinson Inc:

'[MacKay] added that Canada’s overall foreign policy, including the country’s involvement in Afghanistan, is designed to help promote security, good governance, and economic and social development, all of which 'dovetail with the interests of Canadian business.'"

Hunter Dickinson, in fact, was a runner-up in the bidding for the right to exploit Afghanistan's massive copper deposits located at Aynak -- the largest private investment in the history of Afghanistan. China's state-owned Metallurgical Group eventually won the contract; earlier this year, it was alleged that the minister of mining had accepted a bribe of at least $20 million from the heads of the Chinese bid.

The Aynak decision certainly irked the U.S. and the other NATO powers, not least of all Canada, and one could speculate that it has contributed to the increasing tensions between the Karzai regime and its western backers.

Now it turns out that Aynak was far from the only mining prize in Afghanistan. One hundred thousand NATO troops will help see to it that China does not gobble up the rest of the $1 trillion treasure. The western powers are sure to assert more forcefully now that 'to the belligerents go the spoils'.

The new revelations about Afghanistan's massive mineral wealth mean that the interests of Canadian business and Canadian war-making now dovetail more than ever in Central Asia. It's all the more reason to expect the government in Ottawa to find new ways to prolong Canada's military involvement in the occupation.

Israeli piracy and murder: An act of self defence?

2010-06-01T21:47:00.002-04:00

Israeli piracy and murder: An act of self defence?
by Harsha Walia, from Vancouver Sun: Community of Interest, June 1, 2010.

As international outrage spreads at the Israeli elite commando attack on an unarmed humanitarian convey in the middle of the night on international waters, Israel is desperately trying to rebrand the incident as one of self-defence. It is nothing new for Israel, and other aggressing powers, to smear their victims as perpetrators. Afterall, unjustifiable murder is too jarring to stomach.

Yet, Amnesty International released a statement about Israel's excessive use of force, further stating that Israel's version of events begs credibility. Former Archbishop Desmond Tutu proclaimed the actions of Israel as "completely inexcusable". According to Craig Murray, specialist on maritime law, "To attack a foreign flagged vessel in international waters is illegal."

Deported activists tell a horrifying story of the use of electric shock, live ammunition, smoke bombs, gas canisters, beatings, and seizure of all evidence on cameras. Greek activist Michalis Grigoropoulos said, "They took us hostage, pointing guns at our heads...There was absolutely nothing we could do." A Turkish woman, with her 1 year old baby, recalls "The ship turned into a lake of blood."

Israeli-Arab Knesset member Hanin Zoabi, who was on board, demanded an international inquiry: "It was clear from size of force that boarded ship that purpose was not to stop sail, but to cause largest number of fatalities to prevent future initiatives." In contradiction of the carefully managed public relations campaign, a top Israeli Navy commander brags to the Jerusalem Post that "We boarded the ship and were attacked as if it was a war." The names of the 10-19 dead, 60-80 injured, and hundreds detained have yet to be released.

Zoabi further stated that the passengers made clear they were non-confrontational, substantiated by live footage of a white flag raised shortly after the armed commandos descended from helicopters. Upon release from Israeli custody, two German parliamentarians also denied that the activists provoked the violence, though some had tried to stop the armed onslaught by using two wooden sticks. If that were not enough, custom officials in Greece confirmed that the boats were screened prior to departure and no weapons were aboard.

Even before the events of May 31, the Israeli government had publically warned that the Flotilla would be intercepted, even though the convoy would be entering from international waters in the Mediterranean and not from Israeli territory. An extensive May 25 article in the Jerusalem Post describes a campaign between the media, military, and government officials to "coordinate efforts to stop the flotilla and manage the potential media fallout."

The Gaza Freedom Flotilla convoy was comprised of nine ships and 700 activists, politicians, journalists, Nobel laureates, and aid workers from 40 countries. An initiative that took almost two years of grassroots organization, they were bringing 10,000 tons of medical and humanitarian aid including toys, wheelchairs, construction supplies, paper, food, and medicines for Gaza's 1.5 million besieged residents.

Since 2007, Israel has imposed a tight blockade on Gaza: maintaining control of airspace, waters, and land crossings; disallowing residents to leave without permits; and prohibition on imports and exports including food, fuel, and medical supplies. The result has been catastrophic: 70% of Gazans live on under $1 a day, 60% have no daily access to water, only 23 of 3,900 industrial enterprises are operational. This constitutes collective punishment of an entire civilian population and condemns them to an open-air prison, leading the UN to call the siege 'medieval'.

One of the justifications for the siege is the violence inflicted by Palestinian fighters. Palestinians live under occupation and lack any effective military capabilities. According to UN statistics, from 2000-2008, the Israeli military killed 2677 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. In the same period, 11 Israelis were killed by Palestinian home-made rockets. During the bombings of Gaza in 2008-2009, over 1400 Palestinians and five Israelis were killed. While these numbers are clearly asymmetrical, a focus on violence alone obscures the reality of the occupation of Palestine since 1948. UN Special Rapporteur John Dugard has stated that acts committed against a military occupation may not be justifiable but must be understood not as mindless acts of terror but as "a painful but inevitable consequence of colonialism, apartheid or occupation."

Though Stephen Harper and Barack Obama are shameless in rolling out the red carpet for Benjamin Netanyahu; UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk has called on the world to act: "It is essential that those Israelis responsible for this lawless and murderous behavior, including political leaders who issued the orders, be held criminally accountable for their wrongful acts. It is time to insist on the end of the blockade of Gaza. The worldwide campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel is now a moral and political imperative."

Standing upto one of the worlds most powerful state's - who possesses nuclear capabilities, one of the largest militaries, has repeatedly rebuked international law, and continues an immoral occupation - hundreds of thousands of people have spilled onto the streets in every continent. Spain, Sweden, Greece, Jordan, Egypt, and Turkey have recalled their ambassadors to Israel. Perhaps most poignantly, human rights activists in South Africa called the deadly raid 'Israel's Sharpeville' with a bold reminder that "the desperation of the oppressor is an indication of the beginning of freedom for the oppressed."

Israel's 'friends' also to blame

2010-06-01T10:33:00.002-04:00

Israel's 'friends' also to blame
by Mark LeVine, from Al-Jazeera English, June 1, 2010.

Perhaps now Americans will understand the true nature of the Israeli occupation.

It has never been about security. Not for one day. It has been about land and power. And this is where it has led. And we have made it possible.

Since at least the mid-1970s, only one country has had the power to force Israel to give up its dreams of permanent occupation of the West Bank: The US.

After the success against Soviet-backed Arab forces in 1967, Israel suddenly became a "strategic asset" - a useful proxy in the global great game against Communism.

For three decades the US and its political class have feigned concern, affection and even love for Israel; the reality is that Israel has always been a tool to advance US strategic goals and power, and nothing more.

All the while, thoughtful Israelis - not to mention Palestinians and the rest of the world - have begged the US to intervene, to stop the insanity before it created an abscess that threatened not just the Jewish state, but the whole region, and even global peace.

But the US goal was never to "protect" or "support" Israel.

Facilitators

We have pretended to be its friend, but we are the friend in the way your drug dealer is your friend, sitting with you late at night listening to your problems while hooking you up with your next fix - only in strange twist, the American people rather than the Israelis are paying for the habit their government and corporate elites grow richer sustaining.

We are the ultimate facilitators of this insane and immoral arrangement, which is part of our larger addiction to war that now reaches $1 trillion per year.

We cannot see Israel and the occupation for what they are, because to do so would be to look into the most uncomfortable mirror imaginable.

We are like the local arms dealer - Nicholas Cage's character in the chilling film Lord of War, only real, and 300,000,000 strong.

We tell Israel everything is okay when it is disastrously wrong. We reinforce every bad habit while declaring its behaviour largely above reproach.

We "defend" Israel from every criticism - "No! It doesn't have a problem!" "It's the only democracy in the region!" "We stand with Israel!" - really, we stand beside Israel, give it some more "brown-brown" (cocaine mixed with gun powder) to snort, hand it some new weapons and send it out to kill and oppress some more, in our name.

Some friend.

Politicide

The occupation has been an act of sheer brutality for decades. What has happened in Gaza - what the US and the world community have allowed to happen, for we could always stop it with a simple phone call from the US president to the Israeli prime minister - is sheer madness.

It is politicide. It is slow starvation, of the soul and mind as much as the body. Not the kind that produces pictures of distended bellies, blank eyes and ragged clothes, but that slowly eats away at the personality, the will to fight, the ability to overcome, that produces medical problems that will haunt a million people for life.

And because the US and other so-called "great powers" would do nothing and Palestinians have little power left to effectively resist, people around the world, average people, from Palestinians to Holocaust survivors, have felt compelled to act.

They have sent ships now numerous times to break the siege of Gaza. Israel could not allow the siege to be broken because if the world saw what Gaza has become, not merely a prison but something far worse and hard to speak of, even its vaunted "hasbara" or propaganda machine, would not be able to spin it.

And the worse it gets, the more Israel's backers, like the US, cannot afford the world to see it because we have made it happen.

Moral turpitude

And now at least 10 people are dead because of the shame, because of the inability of Israel's best friends to look it in the eye and say: "Stop this insanity. Treat Palestinians like humans before you destroy not only them, but you."

We cannot say that because we are guilty as well, and the US has proved singularly unable to come to grips with our own culpability in occupations from Iraq and Afghanistan to Gaza and, of course, our own original sin, which demanded millions of dead native Americans to ensure the creation of the very country that now supplies Israel with its weapons and tells it everything is going to be okay.

Some day you can let the Palestinians have casinos and they will thank you.

It is tragically fitting that this disaster should happen on Memorial Day in the US.

The martyrs of the ships are heroes, they are warriors every bit as deserving of our tears and support as the soldiers of American wars past and present.

They are, in fact, the soldiers of the future - the only ones who can help us get out of the disastrous slide to moral turpitude that we, as much as Israel, have descended as a country.

Let us hope that the deaths of the Gaza flotilla activists will not be as in vain as those of the 5,000 American soldiers who have died in our own illegal and useless wars in the last decade.

Mark LeVine is a professor of history at UC Irvine and senior visiting researcher at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden. His most recent books are Heavy Metal Islam (Random House) and Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books).

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Israel attacks Gaza aid fleet

2010-05-31T09:54:00.002-04:00

Israel attacks Gaza aid fleet
from Al Jazeera English, May 31, 2010.

Israeli forces have attacked a flotilla of aid-carrying ships aiming to break the country's siege on Gaza.

At least 19 people were killed and dozens injured when troops intercepted the convoy of ships dubbed the Freedom Flotilla early on Monday, Israeli radio reported.

The flotilla was attacked in international waters, 65km off the Gaza coast.

Avital Leibovich, an Israeli military spokeswoman, confirmed that the attack took place in international waters, saying: "This happened in waters outside of Israeli territory, but we have the right to defend ourselves."

Footage from the flotilla's lead vessel, the Mavi Marmara, showed armed Israeli soldiers boarding the ship and helicopters flying overhead.

Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal, on board the Mavi Marmara, said Israeli troops had used live ammunition during the operation.

The Israeli military said four soldiers had been wounded and claimed troops opened fire after "demonstrators onboard attacked the IDF Naval personnel with live fire and light weaponry including knives and clubs".

Free Gaza Movement, the organisers of the flotilla, however, said the troops opened fire as soon as they stormed the convoy.

Our correspondent said that a white surrender flag was raised from the ship and there was no live fire coming from the passengers.

Before losing communication with our correspondent, a voice in Hebrew was clearly heard saying: "Everyone shut up".

Israeli intervention

Earlier, the Israeli navy had contacted the captain of the Mavi Marmara, asking him to identify himself and say where the ship was headed.

Shortly after, two Israeli naval vessels had flanked the flotilla on either side, but at a distance.

Organisers of the flotilla carrying 10,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid then diverted their ships and slowed down to avoid a confrontation during the night.

They also issued all passengers life jackets and asked them to remain below deck.

Al Jazeera’s Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from Jerusalem, said the Israeli action was surprising.

"All the images being shown from the activists on board those ships show clearly that they were civilians and peaceful in nature, with medical supplies on board. So it will surprise many in the international community to learn what could have possibly led to this type of confrontation," he said.

Meanwhile, Israeli police have been put on a heightened state of alert across the country to prevent any civil disturbances.

Sheikh Raed Salah,a leading member of the Islamic Movement who was on board the ship, was reported to have been seriously injured. He was being treated in Israel's Tal Hasharon hospital.

In Um Al Faham, the stronghold of the Islamic movement in Israel and the birth place of Salah, preparations for mass demonstrations were under way.

Protests

Condemnation has been quick to pour in after the Israeli action.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, officially declared a three-day state of mourning over Monday's deaths.

Turkey, Spain, Greece, Denmark and Sweden have all summoned the Israeli ambassador's in their respective countries to protest against the deadly assault.

Thousands of Turkish protesters tried to storm the Israeli consulate in Istanbul soon after the news of the operation broke. The protesters shouted "Damn Israel" as police blocked them.

"(The interception on the convoy) is unacceptable ... Israel will have to endure the consequences of this behaviour," the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement.

Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader in Gaza, has also dubbed the Israeli action as "barbaric".

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists, including a Nobel laureate and several European legislators, were with the flotilla, aiming to reach Gaza in defiance of an Israeli embargo.

The convoy came from the UK, Ireland, Algeria, Kuwait, Greece and Turkey, and was comprised of about 700 people from 50 nationalities.

But Israel had said it would not allow the flotilla to reach the Gaza Strip and vowed to stop the six ships from reaching the coastal Palestinian territory.

The flotilla had set sail from a port in Cyprus on Sunday and aimed to reach Gaza by Monday morning.

Israel said the boats were embarking on "an act of provocation" against the Israeli military, rather than providing aid, and that it had issued warrants to prohibit their entrance to Gaza.

It asserted that the flotilla would be breaking international law by landing in Gaza, a claim the organisers rejected.

Open Letter to Pride Toronto from founders of Pride in 1981

2010-05-27T22:24:00.002-04:00

Open Letter to Pride Toronto from founders of Pride in 1981
from Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, May 27, 2010.

As founding members of the Toronto Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee, and people involved in organizing the first Pride event in Toronto at the end of June in 1981, we stand totally opposed to the decision of the current Toronto Pride Committee to ban the use of “Israeli Apartheid” at Toronto Pride events. This banning of political speech is clearly an attempt to ban the participation of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) and queer Palestine Solidarity supporters from the parade and from participation in a major event in our communities. This sets a very dangerous precedent for the exclusion of certain political perspectives within our movements and communities from Pride events. We call on the Pride committee to immediately rescind this banning and to instead encourage QuAIA’s participation in the pride parade.

We remind people of the political roots of Pride in the Stonewall rebellion against police repression in 1969 and that the Pride march in 1981 in Toronto grew out of our community resistance to the massive bath raids of that year. On the Pride march in 1981 about a thousand of us stopped in protest in front of 52 Division Police Station (which played a major part in the raids) and our resistance to the bath raids was rooted in solidarity with other communities (including the Black and South Asian communities) also facing police repression. Two of the initiating groups for Pride in 1981 — Gay Liberation Against the Right Everywhere (GLARE) and Lesbians Against the Right (LAR) — organized Pride as part of more general organizing against the moral conservative right-wing. This included not only its anti-queer but also its anti-feminist, racist and anti-working class agendas.

We also remember in the 1980s that lesbian and gay activists around the world, including in Toronto in the Simon Nkoli Anti-Apartheid Committee, took up the struggle not only for lesbian and gay rights in South Africa but linked this to our opposition to the apartheid system of racial segregation and white supremacy in South Africa. This global queer solidarity helps to account for how it was that constitutional protection for lesbians and gay men was first established in the new post-apartheid South Africa.

Solidarity with all struggles against oppression has been a crucial part of the history of Pride. To break this solidarity as the Pride Committee has now done not only refuses to recognize how queer people always live our lives in relation to race, class, gender, ability and other forms of oppression but also breaks our connections with the struggles of important allies who have assisted us in making the important gains that we have won.

Signers:

Katherine Arnup, founding member of the Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee, member of Lesbians Against the Right and Gay Liberation Against the Right Everywhere.

Hugh English, one of the first organizers of Toronto Pride, a former member of GLARE, and a queer in solidarity with struggles against oppression around the world.

Amy Gottlieb, member of Lesbians Against the Right.

Gary Kinsman, founding member of the Toronto Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee, member of Gays and Lesbians Against the Right Everywhere, member of the Simon Nkoli Anti-Apartheid Committee. [Kinsman is also a member of Sudbury Against War and Occupation -- SN]

Ian Lumsden, founding member of the Toronto Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee and member of Gay Liberation Against the Right Everywhere.

Michael Riordon, co-host (with Lorna Weir) of the first Toronto Lesbian & Gay Pride Day, 1981; founding member of Bridges (between gay/lesbian & Latin American liberation movements); author of the forthcoming book, Our Way to Fight, on peace activists in Israel and Palestine.

Lorna Weir, co-host (with Michael Riordon) of the first Toronto Lesbian and Gay Pride Day, founding member of Lesbians Against the Right.

Brian Woods, member of Gays and Lesbians Against the Right Everywhere, and founding member of the Toronto Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee.

Sanctions-busting telethon supporters risked jail for Abdelrazik

2010-05-05T19:13:00.002-04:00

Sanctions-busting telethon supporters risked jail for Abdelrazik
by Matthew Behrens, from Rabble.CA, May 4, 2010.

Viewers tuning in to Wednesday evening's rabble.ca videocast from Montreal could be forgiven for thinking they had stumbled across a surreal version of the infamous PBS fund drives that annually dominate American airwaves.

Indeed, the perky pitches from energetic hosts, a phone bank of pledge takers, and a large map of Canada with pins marking the city of each donation would have seemed familiar to anyone who enjoys public television or radio.

But that is where the similarities ended. Those calling in to take part in a "sanctions-busting telethon" in support of Montreal's Abousfian Abdelrazik were informed that, by donating, they could risk prosecution under Canadian law. Remarkably, over 100 people who did get through understood the caution, pledged thousands of dollars, and consented to having their names listed in a public act of defiance.

The telethon was part of a six-month campaign to remove Abdelrazik from the United Nations 1267 list, which imposes a travel ban and asset freeze on anyone unlucky enough to be named. Individuals can be placed on the list without notice or access to the "case" against them, and with no right to a hearing or an appeal.

Abdelrazik was placed there during a six-year ordeal of detention and torture in Sudan, one in which the Canadian government was found complicit by the federal court in 2009.

After repeated attempts to return home were foiled by the federal government, Abdelrazik entered the Canadian embassy in Khartoum in April 2008, and endured a 14-month exile there until hundreds of Canadians under the banner of "Project Flyhome" purchased an airline ticket for him, risking prosecution under Canada's United Nations Al Qaeda and Taliban Regulations (which stipulate that no Canadian shall "provide or collect by any means, directly or indirectly, funds with the intention that the funds be used" by a listed person).

Ottawa's refusal to issue a subsequent travel document triggered a federal court case that eventually resulted in an order compelling the government to bring Abdelrazik home. That decision also condemned the 1267 listing as "a denial of basic legal remedies and as untenable under the principles of international human rights. There is nothing in the listing or de-listing procedure that recognizes the principles of natural justice or that provides for basic procedural fairness."

And although he returned home on June 27, 2009, Abdelrazik found himself in a prison without walls, still subject to the 1267 restrictions preventing him from travel, accessing any assets, holding a job, or receiving social assistance.

In an interview with rabble.ca during the telethon, Abdelrazik described his shock last July when, shortly after opening a bank account in Montreal, he was called in by a manager who informed him his assets had been frozen. "I couldn't believe it," he says, "The manager, he looked sad, but said there was nothing he could do."

Since that time, Abdelrazik and his children have been condemned to legally enforced poverty, given the Canadian government's failure to push the UN to remove him from the 1267 list and to stop enforcement of his own restrictions, which, notably, have never been reviewed by Parliament.

Faced with the same Kafkaesque conundrum that his supporters met in 2009, the telethon seemed the perfect vehicle to again publicly challenge the sanctions imposed on Abdelrazik. No doubt to Ottawa's chagrin, the response to the telethon was immediate and enthusiastic.

Even before the event began, individuals from across the country -- from Camrose and Vancouver to Meaford, Iqaluit, Rivière de Loup, and Halifax -- had already pledged more than $1,350. As the telethon officially kicked off at 7 p.m., the phone lines were immediately flooded with calls from across the country, and remained busy until 9 p.m.

No one balked at the warning repeated scores of times throughout the evening about potential prosecution. In fact, many welcomed the challenge and, as one pledge taker noted, "One woman who is 87 said if the Mounties don't like it, they can come and take her away. Then she put her 91-year-old husband on the line and he said they could take him too."

Midway through the telethon, which also featured diverse entertainment by the likes of Norman Nawrocki, Al and Jess Blair, Ehab Lotayef, and Jou Jou Tourenne, viewers were informed that Abdelrazik has been granted an exemption that allows him to access a small portion of his funds for basic living expenses, a limited window of hope that he credits in part to the amount of grassroots support he has enjoyed since his return.

But the exemption is not enough. Addressing Stephen Harper and Foreign Affairs minister Lawrence Cannon directly, Abdelrazik pleaded, through an Arabic-speaking interpreter: "I'm asking you at least for once to give priority to the human side. My kids, my family, have suffered for seven years. Please address the United Nations and ask that my name by taken off this inhuman list. I want to live like any other Canadian. I want a normal life."

In a subsequent interview, Abdelrazik said the telethon "gives me hope and encouragement to go on. This support, it makes me happy and sad at the same time. They are all taking a risk for me."

Always on Abdelrazik's mind are his three children and step-child who, he says, are also victims of this process, since they do not have a normal life, and can sense that they "do not have a normal father." He describes the pain he feels when he has to explain why they are the only family in Canada who cannot travel to the U.S. and visit Disneyworld.

Abdelrazik thanked his supporters, and noted, "I spent six years trying to come home. I can't spend another six trying to get off this list. This list makes me insecure and isolates me from others; until I am free of it, I won't feel like I am truly home."

Individuals wishing to make Mr. Abdelrazik feel more at home can join the campaign by contacting Project Fly Home, and by donating directly. Write cheques to Abousfian Abdelrazik and mail them to CSCP Charlevoix, P.O. Box 65053, Montréal, Q.C., H3K 0K4

Sanctions-busting Telethon in Solidarity With Abousfian Abdelrazik

2010-04-22T19:57:00.002-04:00

Sanctions-busting Telethon
in solidarity with Abousfian Abdelrazik and against oppressive "national security" logic.

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

From anywhere, between 7pm and 9pm EDT:
Call toll free 1 877 737 4070
Tune in to live-broadcast on Rabble TV, www.rabble.ca

In Montreal:
Free dinner from 6pm; Telethon begins at 7pm
Georges Vanier Cultural Centre, 2450 Workman St. (metro Lionel Groulx)
Wheelchair accessible. Free childcare on site.

ALSO, tune in to Amandla on CKUT 90.3 FM for live reports.

Project Fly Home is organizing the first ever "Sanctions-busting Telethon" on April 28th to call people to donate to Abousfian Abdelrazik in open defiance of the United Nations 1267 regime, challenging the fear, racism and isolation it creates and feeds on. The evening will include a free spaghetti dinner and a host of poets, musicians, performers, and speakers, including Hasan Abdulhai, Kader B, Al and Jess Blair, Ehab Lotayef, Norman Nawrocki and Jou Jou Turenne!

Two years ago, on April 28th, 2008, Abousfian Abdelrazik went public with his story of detention, torture and exile and claimed refuge in the Canadian Embassy in Khartoum. He lived in the Embassy for fourteen months, unable to leave the grounds, until the Canadian government was forced to bring him back to Montreal in June 2009. Now he is home, but still not free. Background on Abelrazik's story.

In 2006, without his knowledge, Abdelrazik’s name was placed on the United Nations “1267 list”. The 1267 regime imposes financial sanctions that prevent Abdelrazik from earning a salary, receiving any money, or maintaining a bank account. This makes rebuilding his life impossible. It's like "living in a prison without walls" – indefinitely, without charge or trial. There is little recourse. As the Federal Court of Canada wrote, "There is nothing in the listing or de-listing procedure [of the 1267 regime] that recognizes the principles of natural justice or that provides for basic procedural fairness." (Justice Russel Zinn, 4 June 2009). Background on the 1267 regime.

Despite its official position that Mr. Abdelrazik should be removed from the 1267 list, the Canadian government has made no serious attempt to have him delisted. Nor has it made any move to lift sanctions from Mr. Abdelrazik in Canada, although it is within its power to do so immediately.

Under federal law, anyone who contributes money to Mr. Abdelrazik risks prosecution. Canadian regulations state that no Canadian shall "provide or collect by any means, directly or indirectly, funds with the intention that the funds be used" by someone on the 1267 list.

We did it before! In early 2009, a group stretching from Vancouver to Halifax, including people from all walks of life, banded together to buy Abdelrazik a plane ticket home for April 3rd, despite federal government insistence that financially supporting Mr. Abdelrazik could violate the law (see complete list). This powerful act of solidarity reflected a groundswell of support for Mr. Abdelrazik as well as growing outrage at the government's abusive treatment of him.

We are calling on you to do it again! Restate your solidarity or join the long list of people who have defied the 1267 regime by contributing money to Mr. Abdelrazik as an act of solidarity.

On April 28th, between 7pm and 9pm, come out to the Telethon in Montreal or call 1 877 737 4070 to make a donation to Abousfian Abdelrazik. Tune in to watch the telethon live-broadcast on www.rabble.ca or listen to Amandla on CKUT 90.3 FM for live reports.

Your donations will help challenge the oppressive "national security" logic which endangers all of us.

Build the pressure! Break the sanctions!
Sponsored by:
CKUT 90.3 FM
Rabble.ca

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Project Fly Home
projectflyhome@gmail.com
www.peoplescommission.org/en/abdelrazik

-----------------
This telethon is part of a six-month campaign launched by Project Fly Home leading up to the first anniversary of Abdelrazik's return to Canada. The six-month campaign demands that Canada: immediately free Abdelrazik from the 1267 sanctions; put pressure on members of the 1267 committee to delist Abdelrazik; and pull out of the 1267 regime. For more information, to download postcards and flyers, or to get involved:
www.peoplescommission.org/en/abdelrazik.

Project Fly Home - People's Commission Network
projectflyhome@gmail.com
www.peoplescommission.org/en/abdelrazik

To add your organization to the list of groups endorsing Project Fly Home's
six demands, please read the sign-on statement
www.peoplescommission.org/files/abousfianMedia/ProjectFlyHomeSignOn.pdf
and email your organization's name in English and French to
projectflyhome@gmail.com

Non/No Bill 94 Coalition Statement

2010-04-15T22:01:00.002-04:00

Sudbury Against War and Occupation recently endorsed this statement from the "Non/No to Bill 94 Coalition" in opposition to Bill 94, a piece of legislation recently proposed in the National Assembly of Quebec which would deny public services and employment to women who wear face-veils. We encourage other groups from across Canada to endorse the statement as well. The statement was originally posted here.

Non/No Bill 94 Coalition Statement

Quebec Premier Jean Charest has proposed legislation which, if approved by the National Assembly of Quebec, would deny essential government services, public employment, educational opportunities, and health care to people who wear facial coverings. Bill 94 specifically targets Muslim women who wear the niqab (face veil). The bill is an exaggerated response to a manufactured crisis that will allow the government to deny women services to which they are entitled. A truly democratic society is one in which all individuals have the freedom of religious expression and a right to access public services.

Although touted as a step toward gender equality, Bill 94, if approved, will perpetuate gender inequality by legislating control over women’s bodies and sanctioning discrimination against Muslim women who wear the niqab. Instead of singling out a minuscule percentage of the population, government resources would be better spent implementing poverty reduction and education programs to address real gender inequality in meaningful ways. Barring any woman from social services, employment, health, and education, as well as creating a climate of shame and fear around her is not an effective means to her empowerment. If Premier Charest’s government is truly committed to gender equality it should foster a safe and inclusive society that respects a woman’s right to make decisions for herself. Standing up for women’s rights is admirable. “Rescuing” women is paternalistic and insulting. Further marginalizing Muslim women who wear niqab and denying them access to social services, economic opportunities and civic participation is unacceptable.

Forcing a woman to reveal part of her body is no different from forcing her to be covered. Both the federal Conservative and Liberal parties have expressed support for Bill 94, which raises the very real possibility that similar legislation will be proposed across Canada. We demand that Bill 94 be withdrawn immediately, as it has no place in a democratic state that values autonomy, liberty and justice.

No Bill 94 Coalition is made up of concerned individuals, organizations and grassroots movements that are demanding that the proposed Quebec legislation, Bill 94, be withdrawn immediately.

We invite all individuals and groups of conscience inside and outside of Quebec to publicly or privately endorse this statement by emailing their name(s), location (city, state/province, and country), and contact information to nonbill94 [at] gmail [dot] com

# # #

Déclaration de la Coalition Non au Bill 94

Le premier ministre québécois Jean Charest vient de déposer un projet de loi qui, s’il est approuvé par l’Assemblée nationale du Québec, priverait de services gouvernementaux essentiels, d’emplois dans la fonction publique, d’occasions de s’instruire et de soins de santé les personnes qui portent des vêtements faciaux. Le Bill 94 vise spécifiquement les Musulmanes qui portent le niqab (voile facial). Ce projet de loi constitue une réaction exagérée à une crise fabriquée de toutes pièces qui va permettre que l’on prive des femmes de services auxquels elles ont droit. Une société réellement démocratique en est une où chaque personne dispose de la liberté de religion et d’un droit d’accès aux services publics.

Bien qu’il soit vanté comme un pas vers l’égalité des sexes, le Bill 94, s’il est approuvé, perpétuera l’inégalité entre femmes et hommes en enchâssant dans une loi le contrôle du corps des femmes et en endossant une discrimination contre les Musulmanes qui portent le niqab. Plutôt que de s’en prendre sélectivement à une proportion minuscule de la population, le gouvernement ferait un meilleur usage de ses ressources en adoptant des programmes de réduction de la pauvreté et des initiatives d’éducation populaire, pour pallier la véritable inégalité des sexes de façons significatives. Priver toute femme de services sociaux, d’emplois, d’accès aux soins de santé et à l’éducation, en plus de créer autour d’elle un climat de honte et de peur, n’est pas une façon efficace de l’aider à se donner du pouvoir. Si le gouvernement Charest tient réellement à promouvoir l’égalité des sexes, il devrait favoriser une société sécuritaire et inclusive qui respecte le droit de chaque femme de prendre ses propres décisions. Prendre parti pour les droits des femmes est admirable; les « secourir » de la sorte est paternaliste et insultant. Et il est proprement inacceptable de marginaliser encore plus les femmes musulmanes qui portent le niqab et de les priver d’accès à des services sociaux, des occasions économiques et d’une participation à la société civile.

Forcer une femme à dévoiler une partie de son corps n’est pas différent de forcer celle-ci à se couvrir. Comme les partis fédéraux Conservateur et Libéral ont exprimé un soutien au projet de loi 94, il est plus que possible qu’une loi semblable soit déposée pour l’ensemble du Canada. Nous réclamons le retrait immédiat du projet de loi 94, car il n’a pas sa place dans un État démocratique qui valorise l’autonomie, la liberté et la justice.

La Coalition Non au Bill 94 est un regroupement de personnes, organisations et mouvements populaires préoccupés qui réclament le retrait immédiat du projet de loi 94 du Québec.

Nous invitons l’ensemble des personnes et organisations de bonne volonté, qu’elles vivent au Québec ou ailleurs, à endosser publiquement ou de manière privée la présente déclaration en adressant par courriel leur(s) nom(s), lieu de résidence (ville, province/État, pays), et leurs coordonnées à nonbill94@gmail.com.

The Ethnography of an Air-Strike

2010-04-14T18:22:00.002-04:00

The Ethnography of an Air-Strike: Canada’s military academics in the Afghan war and at home
by Cameron Fenton, from The Dominion, April 12, 2010.

MONTREAL—In the age of counterinsurgency and the battle for “hearts and minds,” cultural knowledge is valuable currency for the military intelligence business. The desire for cultural intelligence in Afghanistan and Iraq has led Canada and the United States to implement hybrid military-academic programs meant to mimic anthropological research, mapping the “human terrain” of a battlefield.

These programs have led to serious concerns among social scientists in general, and anthropologists in particular, about the possible militarization of their practice, and the erosion of the creditability of their work.

According to Robert Albro of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), there is a fear among academics that the military wants to “plug into” anthropological knowledge without engaging in a dialogue that respects the work, ethics and history of the discipline. Anthropologists in Canada and the United States worry that their discipline could go the way of physics after the creation of the atomic bomb in World War II, weaponizing knowledge at a cost to anthropology as well as the cultures and people it studies.

In late 2008 the Canadian Forces launched a new counterinsurgency initiative in Afghanistan. Entitled the White Situational Awareness Team (WSAT) program—named for military colour codes of red for enemy, blue for friendly and white for civilian. It is similar to the controversial Human Terrain Teams (HTT) deployed by the United States military in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2007. HTTs are the on-the-ground research arm of the United States’ Human Terrain System (HTS) which, according to military sources, is “designed to meet the military’s requirements for socio-cultural knowledge across a spectrum of operations that the US may encounter in today’s world.” Each HTT is made up of five members, three military personnel and two civilians, while each WSAT includes two military intelligence officers and three civilian Department of Foreign Affairs employees.

Critiques of HTS range from calls for its immediate and complete halt, to recognizing an inherent value while denouncing program management. Plagued by scandal, HTS has been caught in a firestorm of internal and external discontent. According to a former employee who spoke confidentially to The Dominion, HTS, in its current form, cannot function as a war-fighting system, and those who should be concerned with its ineffectiveness are more concerned with selling the perception that it works.

Anthropologists in the United States have pushed back. The AAA, founded in 1902 and the largest professional association of anthropologists in North America, published a public statement on HTS in October 2007 calling HTS an “unacceptable application of anthropological expertise.”

The Network of Concerned Anthropologists (NCA) was founded by eleven academics in 2007 to resist the militarization of anthropology. In 2009, the NCA published The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual: Or, Notes on Demilitarizing American Society in response to the publication of US Army US Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, a document the NCA calls “faking scholarship.” They directly counter the military’s declaration of success, writing, “[T]here is no evidence, as some supporters have claimed, that the program saves lives.”

In fact, even as these programs are developed, casualty rates have continued to increase year over year. According to a report from the Integrated Regional Information Networks, a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 6,584 civilians were killed in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2009. In the first ten months of 2009, they estimated that over 2,000 civilians had been added to that total.

“We modelled our approach upon that taken by physicists critical of Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative,” said Roberto Gonzalez, founding member of the NCA. “After much discussion, we decided to take collective action and produce a statement of our objections to developing trends in the militarization of anthropology.”

The statement has since garnered 1,000 signatures from anthropologists and other like-minded scholars, including a number of Canadian anthropologists, declaring non-participation in all counterinsurgency (COIN) operations. Although not opposed to “all work with military and civilian policy makers,” the NCA is “staunchly opposed to HTS.”

One of these Canadian signatories is Dr. Maximilian Forte, Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology at Concordia University in Montreal, and member of the steering committee for Anthropologists for Justice and Peace.

“I am totally opposed to the use of anthropologists and other social scientists in any situation where combat, counterinsurgency, or even the psychological and cultural manipulation of other societies is concerned,” said Forte. “If academics align themselves with the national security state, they diminish the relevance and credibility of their work, and potentially endanger the reputations and lives of all other academics.”

Anthropologists for Justice and Peace was founded in 2009 with a mandate to work in solidarity with civil society, anti-war activist groups, and Indigenous communities, and “call[s] on anthropologists to radically rethink the nature of their position in local communities, to decolonize ethnography, and to re-conceive the nature of the research process so that ethics are not a minor, procedural consideration.”

The NCA and AAA both identify ethics as a major issue within HTS, citing an absence of any code of ethics for both researchers and the use of knowledge collected. The Human Terrain program attempts to approximate anthropological fieldwork methods where we develop intimate and constructive relationships with research subjects, Robert Albro told The Dominion, but does so operating in a state of ethical exception.

“Leadership [of HTS] has at different times and ways stated it doesn’t need to follow United States ethics,” said Albro.

The NCA has a similar position, writing that “the HTS program violates scientific and federal research standards mandating informed consent by research subjects.” Both are referring to the Common Rule, an ethical regulation which enshrines the protection of human subjects in scientific and medical research.

The AAA code of ethics promotes responsibility by anthropologists in the field, specifically toward the subjects of their research. At the heart of this code, Albro cites a “do no harm” ideology. This creates a problem if research is feeding military intelligence and facilitating the kill chain. Additionally, anthropological ethics state that research should be shared openly, especially with the fieldwork subjects. In the HTS, research immediately becomes classified, creating what Albro calls an issue with “social scientists working in secrecy.”

HTS adopts the language of anthropology and trains recruits in the basics of fieldwork,
yet only six PhD anthropologists, of over four hundred employees, are serving in the program. According to Zenia Helbidg—a former HTS recruit, who was fired for pointing out some of the program’s shortfalls to superior officers—HTS is “hiring anyone with a degree which they can sell as social sciences.”

There is concern that deploying the army approximation of anthropologists, clad in fatigues with a gun in hand, gives the image of bringing the full force of the military to bear in a fieldwork situation and fundamentally skews power dynamics between researchers and the communities they study.

“One [blowback] is to recast anthropologists as servants of empire, and as the eyes and ears of the national security state,” Canadian anthropologist Maximilian Forte told The Dominion. “Many anthropologists already, in the best of times, have been suspected of being intelligence agents. These developments will only solidify that perception, and could potentially put the lives of anthropologists abroad at risk.”

The most public example of this was on November 5, 2008, when Paula Loyd, a member of HTT AF4, was doused in a flammable liquid and set on fire while interviewing residents of the village of Chehel Gazi, 80 kilometers west of Kandahar city. She later died in a United States medical facility.

A United States military statement described the incident noting that one of Loyd's HTT co-workers shot and killed her assailant, sparking questions about why a United States civilian is carrying a weapon while deployed as part of an active military counterinsurgency operation. Lloyd’s team was embedded with Task Force 2-2, a United States unit deployed under the command and purview of the Canadian Forces Task Force Kandahar. The Canadian Forces made no public comment on the incident.

The situation in Canada is exasperated by the fact that any social scientist deployed with the Canadian military is a federal employee first, and an academic second.

“Their [WSATs'] job seems to be no different from that of HTS, except that for now the civilians they use are government employees, not academics,” Forte told The Dominion. “They have breached a barrier however: the idea that social and cultural knowledge can be useful for counterinsurgency, at least that door has now been opened in Canada”

Inquiries to the Canadian Forces were not returned by press time.

Academics, and their research, become part of the military intelligence machine in a system where, according the Canadian Forces COIN manual, “[R]egardless of what agencies are used to undertake activities, much of the assessment in support of operations will come from military intelligence staff.”

This places academia in a position which, according to Dr. Forte, mistakes “service to the state as service to the people—a mistake that is a hallmark of classic fascism.”

To date, the debate about military influence in anthropology and other social sciences remain chiefly in Unites States, but that could be changing. A well attended panel entitled “The Use of Culture and Anthropology in Counter-insurgency and Peacekeeping Operations” at the Canadian Anthropological Society’s 2009 conference, along with the foundation of groups like Anthropologists for Justice and Peace, are evidence of growing momentum against the military’s attempts to drape a green beret on the ivory tower.

Human intelligence programs represent a dangerous step towards “cultivating a dependency on the national security state, and on military funding, to build prestige, prominence and power,” according to Dr. Forte. “This will diminish the space of independent, critical intellectual endeavours, and ultimately create momentum against academia as a safe space in which to produce knowledge that challenges dominant assumptions.”

Cameron Fenton is an intern at The Dominion and an anthropology student at Concordia University in Montreal.

NOII opposes Kenney’s Proposed Refugee Reforms

2010-03-30T16:09:00.002-04:00

NOII opposes Kenney’s Proposed Refugee Reforms
media release from No One Is Illegal, March 30, 2010.

Community Group Outraged at Kenney’s Proposed Refugee Reforms

March 30, 2010, Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories – The refugee rights and migrant justice organization No One Is Illegal is outraged at Minister Kenney’s proposed refugee reforms. These reforms create two streams of refugees, download financial and social support of 2,000 refugees to private organizations, and drastically limit avenues such as the Humanitarian and Compassionate Claim and Pre-Removal Risk Assessment available to refugee claimants.

According to Alex Mah of No One Is Illegal, “What Kenney is calling an overhaul of the system is a dismantling of refugee protection. What use is a token Refugee Appeal Division if it will not apply to refugees from so-called safe countries of origin? Ironically, Kenney is saying he wants to avoid a two-tier immigration system, but is himself creating a racist two-tier refugee system based on nationality.” The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres has warned that the refugee system must focus on individual cases rather than the claimant’s country of origin.

The growing difficulty asylum seekers are facing in Canada is evident through a series of fundamental shifts under Kenney. According to figures obtained by the Canadian Press, deportations from Canada have skyrocketed 50 % over the last decade, with approximately 13,000 deportations annually. With the Conservatives in power since 2005, according to Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s 2009 annual report the number of refugees who had their asylum claims approved dropped by 56% over the past four years. The 2009 report also revealed a decreasing “target” of 11,000 people in the number of accepted asylum seekers and sponsored family members.

“Expediency and efficiency are bureaucratic terms to cover for the violent reality of immigrant and refugee exclusion. Contrary to Kenney’s fear-mongering and what he would like the public to believe, deportation is a daily business for Canada and a daily experience for refugees,” further states Mah.

Over the past year, Kenney appointed a known anti-gay activist to the Immigration and Refugee Board, cut funding to community groups for their involvement in pro-Palestinian efforts, barred British MP George Galloway from entering Canada because of his opposition to the occupation of Afghanistan, instituted immediate visa requirements for Czechs and Mexicans, oversaw unprecedented immigration raids in workplaces and women shelters in Ontario, and deliberately removed references to LGBT rights from a newly revised study guide for immigrants applying for Canadian citizenship.

Kenney has also made inflammatory comments about getting tough on immigrants and “fake” refugee claimants. He is currently the subject of a Federal Court inquiry on whether such public statements have interfered with the independence of the Immigration and Refugee Board.

Earlier this month, Habtom Kibraeb, an Eritrean refugee, committed suicide in Halifax from fear of a pending deportation. In December 2008, a 24-year-old woman was deported to Mexico, where she was murdered months later. She had applied for asylum in Canada twice. This tragedy occurred while Kenney was imposing visa requirements on Mexicans, claiming they were bogus.

“This whole system is corrupt, oppressive, inhumane, and arbitrary. While people are dying, Kenney is concerned about becoming Canada’s next prime minister,” states Mariana Payet of No One Is Illegal.

- 30 -

Anti-Racists Crash Anti-Native Rally in Caledonia

2010-03-28T11:22:00.003-04:00

Anti-Racists Crash Anti-Native Rally in Caledonia: Activists in solidarity with Six Nations stage a counter-demonstration to Gary McHale's March 21 rally in Caledonia
by Alex Hundert, from Toronto Media Co-op, March 24, 2010.

This past Sunday March 21, more than 50 people from across southern Ontario converged in Caledonia. “We were there to show solidarity with sovereigntists and land defenders from Six Nations, and to take a stand against racism and white supremacy in Southern Ontario and in Canada,” said Leah Henderson, a representative of the activist group AW@L.

March 21 was the International Day for the Elimination of Racism. The annual event was founded in recognition of the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa in 1960. However, in recent years, while the day is still recognized by anti-racist action around the world, the event has also been appropriated by white supremacists. In Vancouver, as many as 300 anti-racists crashed a would-be white-power rally held for White Pride World Wide day, also now held on March 21.

In Caledonia, Gary McHale and the same group of individuals that attempted formation of an anti-native Caledonia Militia last summer, called for a so-called “anti-racist” rally this past Sunday. These organizers accuse Canada and the Ontario Provincial Police of racism and two-tiered justice that discriminates against white people in the interest of “native extremists.”

The counter-demonstration group arrived at the rally site about an hour before those coming for McHale’s event. They stood at entrances to the site with banners and placards, handing out anti-racist literature. A large banner quoting Martin Luther King Jr. read: “Non-whites have committed crimes, but they are derivative crimes: they are born of the greater crimes of the white society.”

As the pro-McHale crowd of nearly 100 began their rally, a car equipped with a sound system pulled up, and the counter-demonstrators moved to the rally site.

CUPE 3903 First Nation Solidarity Working Group’s Tom Keefer took the mic and announced, “Welcome to the anti-racism rally in Caledonia... So I guess some people may have come here without understanding what the International Day for the Elimination of Racism is.”

Almost immediately, McHale’s crowd started to trickle away. Then, the counter-rally started a series of speeches which included Union activists from CAW and CUPE and other allies from across the spectrum, including a member of the Hoskanigetha (the Six Nations Men’s Council Fire).

During the speeches, people from both crowds were co-mingling. Surprisingly, many individuals were actually listening to what the counter-demonstrators had to say. This caused visible panic in Gary McHale and the other organizers of his so-called “anti-racist” rally, and they promptly cancelled their event and scurried off site.

An anti-racist, anti-colonial victory was declared on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Gary McHale has rescheduled his rally for Sunday, March 28 at 2pm. Another counter-rally rally has been called for 1pm at the Lion’s Hall in Caledonia.

Coming out against Israeli apartheid

2010-03-14T14:27:00.003-04:00

Coming out against Israeli apartheid: The case for solidarity
by Jenny Peto, from Rabble, March 11, 2010.

Each year, in the lead up to Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), organizers expect backlash and attempts to shut down events. IAW 2010 was no different. The Ontario Legislature condemned IAW, The Toronto District School Board banned IAW from its premises even though no events were scheduled there, and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff slammed IAW for the second year in a row.

One noticeable difference is that this year queer issues have been front and centre in the attacks on IAW. This is no doubt in response to the "Coming out Against Apartheid" event at IAW, along with the huge success of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA). This backlash is an indication of success -- our movement is growing and evoking strong reactions from Israel's supporters. While this is something to be proud of, it means that now more than ever, all of us need to be prepared to answer these attacks by clearly giving our reasons for being queers against Israeli apartheid. My goal in writing is to give everyone the rationale behind queer Palestine solidarity organizing so that they can be empowered to counter the homophobic, sexist and racist arguments put forward by Israel's supporters.

So I am going to take you on a little journey into pro-Israel logic around queer issues -- along the way, I will challenge their rationale and dismantle their arguments, so that when readers are confronted with them, they can readily do the same.

The Zionists attacks queer down into three main points:

1. Palestinian society is inherently homophobic.

2. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and the only safe-haven for queers.

3. Queers worldwide should naturally align with queer-friendly Israel, not homophobic Palestinians.

Palestine is Homophobic

Let's look at the first argument: Palestinian society is homophobic. I cannot disagree with that statement. Queer Palestinians do face violence and discrimination and it is unacceptable. I oppose homophobia in Palestine, but I oppose it everywhere because it exists everywhere, even here. Queers in Canada have achieved some rights and many people have dedicated their lives to fighting for those rights. Despite what Canadian nationalists want us to believe, we didn't get these rights because we live in the enlightened, tolerant west -- it was not simply the natural course of history here. Social movements achieved these changes through struggle. Anyone engaged in activism knows how hard it is to mobilize people even under the best of circumstances. Now imagine trying to organize under military occupation and apartheid -- these are the enormous additional challenges facing Palestinian queer social movements.

Just take for example the fact that there is no place on earth, not one square foot where a queer Palestinian citizen of Israel, a queer from Gaza, the West Bank, and a queer Palestinian refugee could meet. Gazans are under siege and cannot leave, people in the West Bank need permits to travel, Palestinian citizens of Israel cannot go to Gaza or the West Bank and many refugees cannot go anywhere. So before we criticize Palestinian homophobia, we need to look at the challenges facing activists there, and remember that there are activists there. We need to ask how can we best support queer Palestinian social movements? The answer to me is clearly that we fight Israeli apartheid. Ending apartheid is good for all Palestinian social movements -- queer and straight.

Queer Palestinians are oppressed by Israel as Palestinians, not just as queers. We cannot choose to support them as queers, but not as Palestinians or vice versa. Real support comes through solidarity -- it can and does effect change. In South Africa, alongside queer mobilizing there, international queer anti-apartheid activism shifted the ANC's position on queer issues and to this day, South Africa has some of the most progressive gay rights in the world. This can happen in Palestine if we work alongside queer Palestinians through genuine solidarity and supporting the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). You can see that happening already. When queer filmmaker John Greyson pulled his film from the Toronto International Film Festival in protest over the city-to-city spotlight on Tel Aviv, he was attacked in fiercely homophobic ways. In response, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) put out a statement condemning the homophobia of those attacks. In early 2010, Judith Butler, one of the most famous queer theorists taught guest lectures at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah. How does this happen? It happens because Greyson and Butler stand with Palestinians, support BDS and their solidarity is clearly having an impact.

Israel is a safe haven for queers in the Middle East

Since we are on a journey into the pro-Israel mind, for the sake of argument I will take their first point as true -- Palestinian society is inherently homophobic. That brings me to point two -- Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and the only safe haven for queers. First of all, Israel is not a democracy -- it is an apartheid state. Apartheid is a crime under international law, a crime of systematic segregation based on race or ethnicity. Israel's war crimes in the West Bank -- settlements, checkpoints, the Apartheid Wall -- and last year's brutal military assault and the now three-year-long siege of Gaza are well documented, but the situation inside Israel itself is also one of apartheid. Palestinian citizens of Israel are second-class citizens -- they cannot own much of the land, their towns and villages receive limited services, if any, and recently Israel banned the teaching of the Nakba -- Arabic for catastrophe, referring to the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine in order to create the State of Israel. Israel is at best an ethnic democracy, meaning that membership in an ethnic group is required to have full rights. An ethnic democracy is not a democracy, it is apartheid.

In terms of queer rights, yes, Israel has pride parades, some protection against discrimination and homosexuality is not illegal. Israel is not free of homophobia -- the murder of two queer people in Tel Aviv last year, the stabbings at Jerusalem Pride in 2005 prove that homophobic violence still exists in Israel. The militarization of Israeli society only increases the level of violence there. However, for the sake of argument I will humour the Zionists and say that queers in Israel have a good thing going. The problem is that none of these rights are truly extended to queer Palestinians. I want to exemplify this by recounting part of my trip to Palestine this summer. I was in the West Bank and was invited to Jerusalem Pride. With a Canadian passport, I can make a trip from Ramallah to Jerusalem, but a queer Palestinian from the West Bank would have to sneak into Jerusalem for Pride and could easily wind up in jail instead. At Pride in Jerusalem, soldiers and police outnumber participants by at least two to one. It may seem obvious, but if you need an army for your parade, your country is not safe for queers. All the speeches made at Pride revolved around the theme of making Jerusalem an open, diverse and welcoming city. It was clearly a message to homophobes, but in an occupied city that is off limits to millions of Palestinians, the message is sickeningly ironic. I am not arguing that queer Israelis should not fight for their rights. My point here is that whatever rights queer Israeli's enjoy, queer Palestinians do not. You cannot have true equality when apartheid exists.

Queers Must Support Israeli Apartheid

I now turn to the final, crucial step in Zionist logic: queers worldwide must support gay positive Israel, not homophobic Palestine. Intuitively we know this is wrong. It is offensive that they think that as queers we define our solidarity based on their narrow definition of gay rights and that they think we would forgive racism because they grant some gay rights. Yet somehow this argument is proving effective. To untangle this one fully though, we need to talk about what is really going on here. It comes down to this -- Israel, like most western imperial powers, has managed to co-opt the language of feminist and queer rights.

To explain how this works, it helps to look at Canada first. So we have the real Canada -- where there are over 500 murdered or missing aboriginal women that the police are not searching for, thousands of people, predominantly women living in poverty across the country and a Minister of Citizenship and Immigration appointing homophobes to the Immigration and Refugee Board. Then we have the mythical tolerant multicultural Canada, gay rights leader and liberator of Afghan women. I must admit the strategy is brilliant -- commit massive human rights violations, but trumpet the human rights you do offer in order to cover up your crimes. Then you can claim that unlike non-western states you respect women and queers and therefore you are civilized, democratic countries. That is how they demonize non-Western states -- label them intolerant and justify military occupations that bring tolerance to the intolerant.

In Israel's case, they claim to be democratic, civilized and tolerant because, unlike the allegedly sexist, homophobic Palestinians, they respect women and defend the human rights of gays and lesbians. This becomes blatantly obvious when you see the way the Israeli State promotes that they allow women and queer people to serve in the army. This inclusion is used to make the Israeli army appear tolerant and inclusive. This ignores, of course, that this "open" and "welcoming" army commits war crimes against Palestinians -- including women and queer people. There are no gay-friendly bombs, no feminist checkpoints and no such thing as a moral army.

If we do not challenge Israeli Apartheid as queer people, we allow the Israeli state to continue to propagate the myth that it is a tolerant, civilized democracy, even as it commits war crimes and repeatedly violates international law. When queer people visibly stand up against Israeli apartheid we interfere, not just with their PR campaigns, but with myth-making that is vital to letting them get away with apartheid.

Pride and ‘Politics'

One of the pro-Israel arguments that came out during protests against QuAIA marching in the Toronto Pride parade last year was the charge that QuAIA marching was politicizing Pride. Yes, it is offensive that straight, mostly homophobic Zionists are trying to tell us what pride is supposed to be about, but here I am inclined to agree with their assessment. Pride has, in many ways, lost touch with its radical roots and QuAIA is a return to good old-fashioned radical queer politics.

At a time where the Canadian military, the police, all political parties and major corporations march in pride, we need groups like QuAIA and other radical queer activists to make Pride political again. I often think that it would not be such a bad thing if pride lost all its corporate sponsorships. Think about it. What if queers here refused to buy into Canadian nationalism that tells us how great this country is because we have gay marriage? What if we instead demand to know why our country is involved in imperialist wars worldwide and wars on poor people, sex workers, migrants and First Nations people here at home? What if we recognize that we have won rights through struggle and honour those who fought, but at the same time critically examine how some of these rights were because some corporations know there is money to be made off us? What if we refuse to be a niche market, walking homo-dollar bills and instead spent our time, energy and resources to stand up against homophobia, racism, capitalism and apartheid? When that happens, we will have something to be proud of. So I am encouraging everyone to get involved -- join Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, and come out for Pride 2010 to make the anti-apartheid contingent bigger, bolder and louder than last year.

Jenny Peto is an activist with the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid.

An Angry Woman

2010-03-12T00:15:00.002-05:00

An Angry Woman: There's no democracy under occupation
by Malalai Joya, from ZNet, March 11, 2010.

Malalai Joya is an angry woman. She's angry about the war being carried out by the international coalition in her country, Afghanistan, angry about the UN bombs that are killing civilians in their villages, angry about calls for reconciliation with the Taliban and the war lords. "Stop the massacres in my country. Withdraw your foreign troops so we can stop Talibanization," is what the young Afghan deputy tells Western public opinion.

Huma: The conference in London, which took place at the end of January, formalized negotiations with the Taliban. What could happen next?

Malalai Joya: Millions of dollars have been promised to the Karzai regime so that insurgents will lay down their arms: at the same time millions of Afghans are dying in poverty. This will lead to the Taliban being rehabilitated, they will take control of the Loya Jirga, the meeting of the elders and the tribal leaders which is to be held soon. Can we really expect to establish democracy with such reactionaries? The Taliban aren't the only fundamentalists. When the USA and their allies overthrew Mullah Omar's regime, they replaced him with the war lords and the Northern Alliance who were led by Massoud. This group resembles the Taliban in its way of thinking. Over the past few years there's been a series of laws and judicial decisions that are scandalous. Under the pretext of national reconciliation, immunity was extended to the war lords and other known war criminals, many of whom sit in Parliament. These war lords are highly placed, they're in the Parliament, in ministries, the judiciary and they are all corrupt. And now the UN itself is crossing off the names of the ex-Taliban leaders from their black list. Is this the way to build the future of a people? Unless you want to persuade them that the Coca-Cola plant inaugurated by Karzai in the suburbs of Kabul, in our impoverished country where water is a precious resource, should serve as an emblem of the benefits of Western progress.

Huma: You were elected to Parliament in 2005. Eighteen months later you were suspended. Why?

Malalai Joya: At the opening ceremony of the parliamentary session I presented "my condolences to the Afghan people." Obviously, that didn't please a good number of deputies, who complained that they were offended. It's the war lords who wanted me out. I reminded that they had sacked Kabul during the 1992-96 civil war and that they were responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people. I said they should be dragged in front of the international courts. I also denounced the corruption, fed by the millions given by the international community under the guise of rebuilding the country. Very quickly, I couldn't go on. They cut my microphone as soon as I took the floor and I had to scream at the top of my voice to make myself heard over the insults and threats. Some deputies defended me, men and women, but they were few. I was called a communist and an infidel. The worst insults possible in their eyes. In a television interview, I ended up comparing Parliament to a zoo! Worse than stables because there at least the animals serve some purpose.

Huma: What will the reinforcement troops announced by Obama achieve?

Malalai Joya: The aim of the war was never to create democracy and justice nor to uproot the terrorist groups. The war's only purpose has been to perpetuate the occupation, install military bases and safeguard the takeover of a region that has substantial natural resources. Obama is just like Bush, if not worse, because he is escalating the war and bringing it to Pakistan. The American government is maintaining a dangerous situation in order to stay as long as possible in Afghanistan so it can more easily watch over neighboring countries like Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Uzbekistan. If Obama doesn't withdraw his soldiers there will be more bloodshed, more disasters. Look at the UN bombardments. In May 2009 in my own province more than 150 civilians were killed. This massacre allows the world a window onto the horrors being suffered by my people. But does the world really want to look in? I organized a press conference: a villager from Gerani, overcome by grief, came to tell us how he had lost 20 members of his family in the massacre. Mightn't he or other young men like him want to join up with the insurgents even if they are fundamentalists?

Huma: The situation of women under the Taliban regime finally moved international public opinion. What's the situation today?

Malalai Joya: The Afghan Constitution has clauses concerning women's rights. I was one of the many delegates in 2003 at the Loya Jirga who pushed for their inclusion, but the meeting is marked by the strong influence of fundamentalists with whom Karzai and the West cut deals. The base text might very well declare equality between men and women, but the country is ruled by Sharia law. The so-called democracy of the official Constitution is systematically flouted. It's only there as a token to attract international aid, which is then usually embezzled. Today Afghanistan is a country where women - often girls as young as 14 or 15 years - fleeing their conjugal home to escape extreme violence, are considered criminal and are imprisoned. Yes, there's an increase in the number of girls returning to school, but the records don't take into account the girls who have to leave school again, due to threats to their safety and pressure from their families to get married. Suicide has become the ultimate weapon of desperate young women, who are aware that there are alternatives but know that they will never have the right to them.

Huma: And what exactly are these alternatives?

Malalai Joya: All of the troops must leave and the militia of the warlords must be dismantled. Democracy can't be established by an occupying force that does nothing more than spread out and strengthen the Talibanization of my country. And it's my people who suffer. If the US and UN troops who are occupying my country don't voluntarily quit Afghanistan within a reasonable timescale they will find themselves confronted by even stronger resistance from the Afghans. The Western governments deliberately ignore that people are fighting to reconstruct the peace and safety of their country, in ways respectful of the rights of each man and woman. Democratic parties and associations are more often than not fighting in secret. Let's not forget that the Constitution bans the existence of all non-religious parties whose frame of reference does not include the Qur'an. Student protests against the recent bombardments and the rallies of hundreds of women last month at Kabul show the world the true path towards a real democracy in Afghanistan. There are so many faceless heroes and heroines. Their battle is in their towns and villages. Why does no single Western leader recognize the existence of a progressive movement that could emerge and play a role? I'm not losing hope, we need Western public opinion, and, in the course of my travels, I recognize that it's evolving. There have been protests against reinforcements being sent, people no longer believe in a "just war." But pressure needs to mount in order to sway the warmongering governments.

Translated by Kristina Wischenkamper and reviewed by Henry Crapo.

King and the Palestinian struggle for freedom

2010-03-10T23:35:00.002-05:00

King and the Palestinian struggle for freedom
by Sanna Towns, from Race-Talk, March 4, 2010. (Link found via MC.)

In two of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s most memorable writings, his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and his 1967 speech, “Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence,” he bemoaned the failure of Americans to speak out, to break their silence when witnessing injustice and immoral acts against humankind. He confessed his disappointment that Birmingham’s white Christian and Jewish communities were more devoted to “’order’ than to justice.” Motivated in his “Beyond Vietnam” speech to break “the betrayal of [his] own silences,”

King called for a “true revolution of values” within the United States – a revolution that shifted from profit motives and property rights to a society that valued people. A society, he lamented, that didn’t speak to the social betterment of humanity was not just and thus made the “giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism . . . incapable of being conquered.”

Today there is a growing community of human rights activists in the U.S., around the world, and especially in Palestine-Israel whose behavior mirrors and extends King’s confrontation with injustice in their own efforts to break the silence on the injustice of the cruel, oppressive Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian people. They realize that by maintaining a deafening silence, mainstream U.S. media and political leadership keep large segments of the U.S. population ignorant about the true nature of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice, and human rights. Few Americans know that the Palestinian freedom struggle has been predominantly nonviolent for the vast majority of Palestinians, and has always been grounded in some of the same principles expounded by Martin Luther King, Jr.

In his “Letter,” King identifies four basic components of a nonviolent campaign: “collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action.” So what are the facts of the Israeli injustices against the Palestinian people? For more than 62 years beginning in 1948, reminiscent of the ethnic cleansing experienced by Native Americans, Palestinian Muslims and Christians (the indigenous descendants of the first Christians) have suffered as the Israeli government expels them from their homelands, creating the state of Israel upon the 500-plus Arab-Palestinian towns and villages.[i] The suffering continues under a 42-year Israeli occupation marked by land confiscations for settlement building and wall construction and by restrictions on movement: to work, markets and water; to agricultural land and olive trees; to health facilities and educational institutions; and to Christian and Muslim religious sites, all but destroying family ties – discrimination similar to America’s segregated past. The separation wall and Israeli-only roads and settlements in Palestine divide populations racially for the benefit of illegal Israeli settlers (echoes of apartheid South Africa). Israel’s apartheid system has caused thousands of civilian deaths, many of them children, and widespread human rights violations.[ii] While the injustices mount, Israel has defied rulings by the International Court of Justice,[iii] violating more than 65 UN Resolutions and the Fourth Geneva Convention.[iv]

Americans have been led to believe that Palestinians have not been “honest partners for peace.” The truth is, however, negotiating for their freedom has been a daunting task. Palestinians have experienced the same broken promises, “blasted” hopes, and deep disappointments that King describes in his negotiations with Birmingham’s white leaders. President Clinton’s famed Oslo Peace Process began in 1993 with negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli leadership and the promise to end Israel’s occupation and the formation of a Palestinian state. Essential to these negotiations, however, was a blatant imbalance of power: on the stronger side, the nation of Israel, militarily superior and prosperous, supported by the wealth and power of the U.S., controlling more than 78% of original Palestine; on the weaker side, the Palestinians, barely surviving and holding on to the remaining 22% of land.

Currently, Palestinian leadership has refused to return to negotiations due to Israel’s unwillingness to abide by past agreements and to cease expanding illegal settlements. Israel has scoffed at and dismissed longstanding U.S. policy of ending illegal Israeli settlement expansion in Palestine, a policy that President Obama attempted but failed to enforce upon Israel.

Surviving this imbalance and the suffering it causes has been traumatic for Palestinians, requiring unimaginable resources of strength and faith. King would have identified with their plight and their need to find ways to cope with and confront their circumstances in ways that enable them to sustain themselves. King describes the process of self-purification as self-analysis and a way of discovering the extent to which he and his fellow protesters were prepared to endure the ordeals of their nonviolent actions. For many Palestinians, their lives as devoted Muslims and Christians make self-purification through fasting and prayer a much-practiced tradition and surely one that has empowered them during nearly 100 years of suffering and injustice. One ultimate self-purifying act within Palestinian society is articulated in the recent Kairos Document by Palestine’s Christian leadership, a document that proclaims “that our Christian word in the midst of all [the tragedies in our lives], in the midst of our catastrophe, is a word of faith, hope and love.”

While Americans know well the direct action tactics of the movement King led, little do they know about the decades of Palestinian engagement in nonviolent, civil resistance for justice and freedom. As far back as 1902, Palestinian villagers, in what is now Israel, staged peaceful protests against confiscation of their land by European Zionist settlers. From 1987 to 1993, during the largely nonviolent mass movement of the First Intifada, Palestinians were involved in mass public demonstrations, refusing to pay taxes, boycotting Israeli goods and facilities, and planting olive trees on land confiscated by Israelis.[v] But the most effective resistance to Israeli expulsions, expansionism, and occupation has been their refusal to stop “living in their homes, going to school, eating and living.”

According to Palestinian scholar and human rights activist Mazin Qumsiyeh, “this colonial occupation wants all Palestinians to give up and leave the country. . . . When Shepherds . . . go to their fields despite repeated attacks by settlers and even the attempted poisoning of their sheep, that is non-violent resistance. When Palestinians walk to school while being spat on, kicked and beaten by settlers and soldiers, that is non-violent resistance. When Palestinians spend hours at check points to get to hospital, their farm land, their work, their schools, or to visit their friends, that is non-violent resistance.”

More recently, Palestinians, along with Israeli and international activists, are resisting by protesting the construction of the separation wall that is stealing more of their land. In February, demonstrators in the village of Bil’in cleverly invoked Hollywood, reenacting the film Avatar by dressing up as the blue Na’vi natives opposing the encroaching occupation of an Alien (human) corporate empire.

Israel’s typical response to these nonviolent protests and others by Palestinians against home expulsions in East Jerusalem includes shooting rubber bullets and live ammunition, tossing tear gas, and showering protesters with sewage – the Israeli equivalent of Alabama’s Bull Connor.

While dozens of Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations are participants in this nonviolent, civil rights movement, the international community is also supporting the campaign by heeding the call of Palestinian Civil Society in 2005 for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. This international campaign (inspired by the international BDS campaign against apartheid South Africa) is the most politically and morally sound civil resistance strategy for ending Israeli occupation of Palestine until Israel complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights. In Minnesota human rights activists recently received extraordinary support at precinct caucuses for the “Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign: Divest for Justice in Palestine,” a campaign calling on the state of Minnesota to divest from Israel Bonds.

King’s appeal to the Birmingham clergy, pleading with them to break their silence and speak for justice, is equal to the pleas of the Palestinian Christian leadership of the Kairos Document as they call on Christians and Muslims, Palestinians and Israelis, and the world community for a serious commitment to justice and freedom for the Palestinian people. Furthermore, King is critical of the lax leadership of his fellow clergy and reminds them of the early Christians; they, too, struggled against injustices and endured criticisms but remained steadfast in their beliefs, thus, determined to transform “the mores of society.” How ironic that the descendants of the first Christians, the Palestinian Christian leadership, find themselves repeating the struggle for justice of their ancestors. Today this is their message to the world: “These days, everyone is speaking about peace in the Middle East and the peace process. So far, however, these are simply words; the reality is one of Israeli occupation . . . [and] deprivation of our freedom.”

Resources:

[i] Morris, Benny. The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004. This work is a revised edition of Morris’s earlier and classic work, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949_, published in 1988. Based on newly opened Israeli military archives and intelligence documentation, this work sheds further light on the battles, expulsions, and atrocities that led to the disintegration of Palestinian life and resulted in 700,000 Palestinians becoming refugees.

Pappe, Ilan. A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004.

Palestine, Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict A Primer. The Middle East Research and Information Project. http://www.merip.org/palestine-israel_primer/toc-pal-isr-primer.html

[ii] Interfaith Peace Initiative. Apartheid and Discrimination in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. http://www.interfaithpeaceinitiative.com/apartheid.php

The Initiative has compiled a good overview of Israeli apartheid and discrimination examples with reputable sources for reference.

B’tselem http://www.btselem.org/English/

- The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories endeavors to document and educate the Israeli public and policy makers about human rights violations in the Occupied Territories, combat the phenomenon of denial prevalent among the Israeli public, and help create a human rights culture in Israel.

[iii] “UN rules against Israeli barrier.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3879057.stm

“Anniversary of the ICJ’s Ruling on the Illegality of Israel’s Wall.” July 2009. http://www.nad-plo.org/inner.php?view=news-updates_080709

[iv] Neff, Donald. “Lessons to be Learned From 66 U.N. Resolutions Israel Ignores,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. March 1993. http://www.wrmea.com/component/content/article/146-1993-march/7132

[v] Awad, Sami. “Non-Violent Resistance.” Palestine Monitor. 18 Dec. 2008, http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article49

Israel Is an Apartheid State and That is Why They Are Losing Legitimacy

2010-03-09T22:04:00.002-05:00

Israel Is an Apartheid State and That is Why They Are Losing Legitimacy
by Judy Rebick, from transformingpower.ca, March 3, 2010.

Before Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) even began members of the Ontario Legislature and the Canadian Parliament are falling all over each other to denounce it. I can't remember another time when elected legislators formally denounced a student activity like this. Perhaps during the 1950's when McCarthyism was rampant but that was before my time.

Last week the Ontario Legislature unanimously passed a resolution denouncing Israel Apartheid Week submitted by PC Peter Shure who said calling Israel an apartheid state was "close to hate speech." While there were only 30 MPP's in the Legislature at the time, NDP MPP Cheri di Novo was one of them and spoke in favour of the resolution. This week a Conservative MP is introducing a resolution calling IAW anti-Semitic.

Before I deal with why these unprecedented attacks are taking place, I'd like to share with you a great talk I heard last night at Ryerson from Na'eem Jeena: , a leading activist and academic from South Africa who works for Palestinian solidarity. He told us that South African apartheid had three pillars of apartheid and Israel shares all three.

1. Different rights for different races. In the case of Israel, it is different rights for Jews and for non-Jews. For example the law of return of 1950 says Jews can return to Israel and be given citizenship even if they have no links to the country other than mythical biblical ones; whereas Palestinians cannot return even if their parents or grandparents lived there.

2. Separation of so-called racial groups into different geographical areas. Even within the borders of Israel, 93 percent of land is reserved as a national land trust or Jewish National Fund land is for the exclusive use of Jews. The 20 percent of the population that is Palestinians living in Israel have to share access to the 7 percent of private land that is left. The Israeli Supreme Court has made a number of decisions that Palestinians cannot live on Jewish lands. There are not only residential areas that are banned to Palestinians but there are separate roads for Jews and Palestinians. That was never true in South Africa even in times of crisis. Moreover Palestinians have less access to water than Jews living nearby

Finally the movement of Palestinians is severely restricted much more so than were blacks in South Africa. The famous pass laws in South Africa meant that Blacks had to show government issued passes to move around but Palestinians are even more restricted by walls and checkpoints and if they live in the Gaza Strip can't leave at all.

3. Security and Repression Matrix of Laws and Security. There was serious repression in the Black townships but there were never tanks or planes buzzing overhead like there is in West Bank. Israeli military violence against Palestinian communities. says Jena, is far worse than anything suffered by Blacks in South Africa during apartheid.

If Israel is becoming a pariah in the world it is not because of anti-Semitism, it is because they are practicing a form of apartheid even more egregious than that practiced in South Africa. Others have compiled comments from some of the most respected leaders of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa who see what Israel is doing as apartheid. There is a reason why the BDS is strongest in South African. People there recognize apartheid when they see it.

Finally the UN Convention on Apartheid condemns the crime of apartheid that refers to a series of inhuman acts—including murder, torture, arbitrary arrest, illegal imprisonment, exploitation, marginalization, and persecution—committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining the domination of one racial group by another. If the shoe fits.

So why are politicians including some from the NDP setting a student activity like IAW in their sites? An all party coalition of parliamentarians has been holding hearings on what they call the "new anti-semitism," by which they mean criticism of Israel. They heard from every University President who appeared before them that there is no rise of anti-semitism on their campuses and yet the false rumours of such a rise persist because of the equation of criticism of Israel with anti-semitism. ">Israel is beginning to see that the non-violent anti-apartheid and BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement is a greater threat to their power than the any military threat. In Israel and Palestine, they are moving to arrest non-violent activists who are leading the movement there. And they are using all their economic and political power to push friendly governments to move against these protests. But there is a problem. It's called democracy and freedom of speech. However much you might disagree that Israel practices apartheid, you cannot shut down a discussion of the issue or a demonstration or disinvestment campaign against Israel because freedom of speech is a fundamental democratic right in most Western countries. In Canada, the only way to shut down the movement is to vilify it as hateful or anti-semitic. That is what our parliamentarians are now trying to do.

I am Jewish and have been working one and off for Palestinian rights for many years, as have many other Jews who feel a special responsibility to speak out against injustices committed by Israel. During that time, I have rarely experienced any anti-semitism. In the IAW organizing, I have experienced none. If Israel is losing legitimacy in the world, it is because of what their government is doing to the Palestinians, not because of anti-semitism. >This attempt to shut down criticism of Israel is the most frightening assault on freedom of speech I have ever seen in this country. Whether or not you think Israel Apartheid Week is the best name for this week of discussion supporting Palestinian rights, please write your MP and your MPP and tell them you think it is wrong for Parliamentarians to denounce this kind of educational activity.

Indigenous Struggles in the Americas

2010-03-03T10:03:00.002-05:00

Indigenous Struggles in the Americas
by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, from Z-Net, March 2, 2010.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, a writer, teacher, historian, and social activist, is Professor Emeritus of Ethnic Studies and Women’s Studies at California State University. She spoke to NLP (http://www.newleftproject.org) about the historical and contemporary impact of imperialism in the Americas, and the nature of Indigenous peoples’ resistance to it.

You have been deeply involved in Indigenous peoples’ activism in the United States. What is the current situation of Indigenous people in the US economically and politically?

Decolonization is a difficult and long-term task for Indigenous peoples in North America, no less than for the peoples of Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Pacific, with advances and setbacks, and uneven results. Politically, the current situation is better than it has been since the onset of colonization, and that is due to the Post World War II surge of a permanent resistance to colonialism. The best account of the foundation for that movement is historian Daniel Cobb’s Native Activism in Cold War America: The Struggle for Sovereignty. As in the colonized world in general, sovereignty is the essential element without which nothing else is possible. The Pan-Indian movement, most identified with the American Indian Movement (AIM), rose out of the ferment of the 1960s militant movements and led to a pan-Indigenous movement, with notable advances in international law protection of Indigenous rights and limits on states’ sovereignty. This in turn unloosed an unparalleled cultural development of Indigenous writers, poets, filmmakers, actors, visual artists, sculptors, musicians, and an intelligentsia, including lawyers, historians, anthropologists, theologians, linguists, philosophers, economists, museum curators, administrators, and teachers.

Economically and socially, the situations of Indigenous communities in the United States are dire, with astronomical unemployment, dependence on federal transfer payments, with the resulting social ills of poor health, family dysfunction, alcoholism and increasing drug addiction and drug gangs. A few Indigenous nations have benefited from successful casinos where the income is reinvested into infrastructure and human needs, most notably in Oklahoma and New Mexico. But, the casino industry does not provide many jobs. The Chickasaw nation in Oklahoma have been innovative in investing the income from their highly successful casino into subsidized enterprises, such as organic vegetable farms that provide food for its citizens and school children as well as sales at farmers’ markets. They have created a number of labor intensive enterprises—pencil manufacturing, a chocolate factory, and others—and market the products throughout Oklahoma. The income is used to develop intensive training in the Chickasaw language, and they have established an endowed chair for a Chickasaw Studies department, which they subsidize, at the local state university. They have also begun purchasing and restoring charming old shuttered hotels in towns in their area. The Chickasaws, like the other five Indigenous nations forcibly removed in the 1830s from their ancient homelands in the Southeast, at first received new national territories in Indian Territory (Oklahoma), much smaller in parameters, to replace the lost lands. However, in the 1890s, the federal government dissolved the sovereignty of those Indian nations and divided their territories into individual allotments that could be bought and sold. So, they do not have territorial holdings, as do most other federally recognized Indigenous Nations west of the Mississippi. Other Indigenous communities in Oklahoma are implementing similar projects. Also, a number of the Indigenous communities (Pueblo Indians) of New Mexico who have established casinos have used the income to return to irrigated farming as they had practiced in the Northern Rio Grande valley for centuries before colonization, but had nearly abandoned in the past half-century. They have developed local and national markets for their traditional foods of green chili, squash, beans, and corn, especially blue corn. And there is a resurgence of use of the Indigenous languages.

How do you think the genocide of the native population of the United States relates to US foreign policy today?

I think it relates to every aspect of U.S. society, but especially foreign policy and militarism. The British settlers in the 13 North American colonies were organized into militias during the century and a half before those militias united into an army that established the independent United States. The militias had only one function: Kill Indians or drive them away in order to take their land. Actually, the British authorities attempted to limit the settlers’ incursion on Indian lands, particularly following the Treaty of Paris that ended the “French-Indian” war (7 Years War in Europe) in 1760, when the British agreed to a line marking its colonial holdings along the coast and agreed to prevent settlement beyond the Appalachian/Allegheny mountain chain, leaving the rest of the continent as Indian Country. This was one of the primary reasons for the settlers’ decision to separate from Britain to form their own continental empire. By the time of the War of Independence, tens of thousands of settlers illegally crossed the mountain barrier into the Ohio Valley. Those settlers, mostly Scots-Irish, formed the backbone of the army of independence led by George Washington, himself a lifelong colonial officer. This kind of colonial warfare formed the purpose and goals of the U.S. military after independence, what historian William Appleman Williams called a policy of “annihilation unto unconditional surrender,” a policy that has remained in effect. This is by definition a policy of genocide

How do you view North American traditions such as Thanksgiving and Columbus day?

Don’t forget July 4, a day that lives in infamy for the indigenous peoples of North America. Lincoln created Thanksgiving during the Civil War, and Columbus Day by FDR in 1934, as vehicles for controlling the narrative of settler colonialism as heroic and liberatory. Indigenous communities in the U.S., as well as Latin America, have made good use of Columbus Day with counter-events and information, and U.S. Indians have been countering the message of Thanksgiving.

You were deeply involved in opposition to the US proxy war against the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua during the 1980s. It was frequently claimed however that the Sandinistas were violating the human rights of the Miskito population. How do you reconcile your support for indigenous peoples with your support for the Sandinistas?

It’s interesting that the question is nearly always put that way, clean cut, Sandinistas or Indigenous, which side are you on, as if we are talking about Nazis and Jews, or workers and corporations, in which case one has to choose which side. Following the Sandinista triumph there was civil war, which of course the Reagan administration exploited; there are always civil wars following revolutions, since the revolution itself is a civil war. Take the case of the U.S. war of independence in which half the settler population (“Tories”) fought with the British against secession. The Miskitos were also divided, and the U.S. Christian missionaries in the Mosquitia had close relations with the U.S. government. The U.S. based American Indian Movement, already weakened by years of U.S. harassment, divided with one group (that also made up the International Indian Treaty Council) supporting the Miskitos who worked with the Sandinistas, while another, smaller group supported the anti-Sandinistas Miskitos. In Latin America, there was little support for the anti-Sandinista Miskitos who took up arms and allied with the U.S. intervention. So, it was much more complex than simply pro-Sandinista meant not supporting the Miskito demands for autonomy and self-determination. I would say that my own actions and position was in the majority Indigenous thinking on the issue. The northeastern region, the Mosquitia did become a war zone (as did the northwestern region), with U.S. controlled Honduras allowing camps across the border for the Contras and for the Miskito anti-Sandinista combatants who were supported by the CIA and the Contras. The heavy presence of the Sandinista army and restrictions and deprivations caused by war certainly were oppressive, and there were instances of abuses, but clearly not policy driven. The propaganda of gross human rights violations (Reagan’s UN ambassador claimed that 100,000 Miskitos had been “slaughtered,” which was more than the entire Miskito population) was overwhelming, beginning in February 1982.

What were some of the social achievements of the Sandinistas?

In the short period the Sandinistas had before the crippling effects of the Contra War, really only 3 years, they put food, health care, and literacy first, mobilized the already mobilized communities all over the country to get involved, all students and faculty to volunteer to teach reading and writing to the 60 percent illiterate, called for international assistance, both voluntary, governmental, and from the United Nations. The UN agencies, in particular, love it when a government invites them in to set up programs. UNESCO, for instance, provided materials and teacher training in literacy, and also awarded Nicaragua with its highest honor in 1981 for its success in wiping out illiteracy in the country. In the Mosquitia the Miskitos, the Sumos, the Ramas, and the English speaking Afro-Caribbean communities demanded literacy in their mother tongues, as well as bilingual text books in the schools, which the Sandinista government agreed to. The World Health Organization organized polio and other vaccination programs as well as training medical workers in working with communities to prevent infant mortality, largely caused by dehydration from diarrhea, by introducing water purification methods. The UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) implemented programs for food production to replace the commercial wheat and cattle agribusiness promoted under the Somoza dictatorship. Land titles were given to small farmers who had been pushed off their land by big producers and provided with seeds and farm tools. All of this took place in a devastated country. Only the wealthy neighborhoods of Managua had been rebuilt after the 9.0 earthquake of 1972 flattened the city, and added to that 2 years of out and out warfare against the Sandinista insurgents, including Somoza’s bombing of most of the large cities, the Sandinistas had to start from scratch and also bear the $90 million debt left by Somoza (a requirement from the Carter administration in order to recognize the new government). The Nicaraguan constitution, which was developed in community meetings all over the country as well as consultations with international law specialists, as well as with indigenous activists, included the establishment of 2 autonomous regions in eastern Nicaragua, southern region (majority Afro-Caribbean with minority populations of Miskitos, Rama, and Hispanic) and northern region (majority Miskito, with Afro-Caribbean, Sumo, and Hispanic minority populations), with parliaments to be elected in each to control all aspects of policy in their respective regions. Also, autonomous universities were established in each of the regions.

What is your view of the current Nicaraguan government led by Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega?

I tend to follow the views of the MRS, the Movement for the Renovation of Sandinismo, which split from Ortega’s domination of the FSLN. However, for the Miskitos, this administration has been certainly more responsive in terms of constitutional autonomy than those of the preceding 15 years.

Politically you have described yourself as being an “anarcho-syndicalist” - can you explain what that means?

My grandfather in Oklahoma was in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a national and international anarcho-syndicalist organization founded in 1905. He joined at the founding; he was already in the Socialist Party in Missouri, then in Oklahoma. He died before I was born, but I was always aware of his courage and commitment and the achievements of the IWW. My father was a sharecropper and tenant farmer, and he and his 8 siblings and mother had suffered a lot from the repression that came down on my grandfather. I call myself an anarcho-syndicalist in honor of my grandfather and that organic tradition in U.S. labor history. But, I don’t like labels, and I always want to be open to new thinking, changing my mind, developing. I do still strongly think that there is no better source for understanding how capitalism works and why it must be done away with than Marx.

President of Cant

2010-02-28T23:53:00.002-05:00

President of Cant
by Tariq Ali, from New Left Review, Jan-Feb 2010.

A year since the White House changed hands, how has the American empire altered? Under the Bush Administration it was widely believed, in both mainstream opinion and much of the amnesiac section of the left, that the United States had fallen under an aberrant regime, the product of a virtual coup d’état by a coterie of right-wing fanatics—alternatively, ultra-reactionary corporations—who had hijacked American democracy for policies of unprecedented aggression in the Middle East. In reaction, the election to the Presidency of a mixed-race Democrat, vowing to heal America’s wounds at home and restore its reputation abroad, was greeted with a wave of ideological euphoria not seen since the days of Kennedy. Once again, America could show its true face—purposeful but peaceful, firm but generous; humane, respectful, multi-cultural—to the world. Naturally, with the makings of a Lincoln or a Roosevelt for our time in him, the country’s new young ruler would have to make compromises, as any statesman must. But at least the shameful interlude of Republican swagger and criminality was over. Bush and Cheney had broken the continuity of a multilateral American leadership that had served the country well throughout the Cold War and after. Obama would now restore it.

Rarely has self-interested mythology—or well-meaning gullibility—been more quickly exposed. There was no fundamental break in foreign policy, as opposed to diplomatic mood music, between the Bush 1, Clinton and Bush 2 Administrations; there has been none between the Bush and Obama regimes. The strategic goals and imperatives of the us imperium remain the same, as do its principal theatres and means of operation. Since the collapse of the ussr, the Carter Doctrine—the construction of another democratic pillar of human rights—has defined the greater Middle East as the central battlefield for the imposition of American power around the world. It is enough to look at each of its sectors to see that Obama is the offspring of Bush, as Bush was of Clinton and Clinton of Bush the father, as so many appropriately biblical begettings.

Ignoring Gaza

Obama’s line towards Israel would be manifest even before he took office. On December 27, 2008, the idf launched an all-out air and ground assault on the population of Gaza. Bombing, burning, killing continued without interruption for twenty-two days, during which time the President-Elect uttered not a syllable of reproof. By pre-arrangement, Tel Aviv called off its blitz a few hours before his inauguration on January 20, 2009, not to spoil the party. By then Obama had picked the ultra-Zionist Doberman from Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, a former volunteer for the idf, as his Chief of Staff. Once installed, Obama called, like every us President, for peace between the two suffering peoples of the Holy Land, and again, like every predecessor, for Palestinians to recognize Israel and for Israel to stop its settlements in the territories it seized in 1967. Within a week of the President’s speech in Cairo pledging opposition to further settlements, the Netanyahu coalition was extending Jewish properties in East Jerusalem with impunity. By the autumn, Secretary of State Clinton was congratulating Netanyahu on the ‘unprecedented concessions’ his government had made. Asked by Mark Landler of the New York Times, at a press conference in Jerusalem, ‘Madame Secretary, when you were here in March on the first visit, you issued a strong statement condemning the demolition of housing units in East Jerusalem. Yet, that demolition has continued unabated, and indeed, a few days ago, the mayor of the city of Jerusalem issued a new order for demolition. How would you characterize this policy today?’, she did not deign to reply. [1]

A month earlier, the un Fact Finding Mission set up to look at the invasion of Gaza reported that the idf had not always acted by the book, though naturally rocket-attacks by Hamas had provoked it. Chaired by one of the most notorious time-servers of ‘international justice’, the South African judge Richard Goldstone, a prosecutor at the pre-orchestrated Hague Tribunal on Yugoslavia and self-professed Zionist, the Mission’s complaints against Israel could hardly have been feebler, in startling contrast to the testimony they heard in Gaza and which was made available on their website. [2] But unaccustomed to Establishment criticism of any kind, Tel Aviv reacted with dudgeon, and so Washington instructed its client at the head of the plo, Mahmoud Abbas, that he must oppose any consideration of it at the un. [3] This was too much even for Abbas’s followers and amid the ensuing uproar he had to retract, discrediting himself even further. The episode confirmed that aipac’s grip on Washington remains as strong as ever—contrary to delusions on the us left that the Israel lobby of old, never really much of a force, was now being superseded by a more enlightened brand of American Zionism.

In the Palestinian theatre of the American system, the lack of any significant novelty does not imply lack of movement. Viewed in a longer perspective, us policy has for some time been to coax Israel towards the creation of one or more bantustans, in its own best interests. [4] The condition of that has, of course, been the elimination of any prospect of a genuine Palestinian leadership or real Palestinian state. The Oslo Accords were a first step in this process, destroying the credibility of the plo by setting up a ‘Palestinian Authority’ that was little more than a Potemkin façade for the real authority in the occupied territories, the idf. Incapable of achieving even token independence, the plo leadership in the West Bank settled down to make money, leaving the bulk of the Palestinian people helpless: mired in poverty and regularly subjected to settler violence. In contrast, by creating a primitive but effective welfare system, capable of distributing food and medical care in poor neighbourhoods and looking after the weak, Hamas was able to win enough popular support to triumph in the Palestinian elections of 2006. Euro-America reacted with an immediate politico-economic boycott, hoisting Fatah back into power on the West Bank. In Gaza, where Hamas was strongest, Israel had for some time been inciting a coup by Mohammed Dahlan, Washington’s favourite thug in the plo security apparatus. Defence Minister Ben-Eliezer has openly testified before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee that in 2002, when the idf pulled out of Gaza, he had offered the Strip to Dahlan, who was quite willing to launch a Palestinian civil war, long a twinkle in the eye of many an Israeli colonizer. Four years later Dahlan was primed by Washington to implement a military putsch in Gaza, [5] but was beaten to the punch by Hamas, which took over the Strip in mid 2007. After Euro-American political and economic punishment of its voters for defiance of the West came Israeli military retribution, with the assault of late 2008, winked at by Obama.

But the result is not the impasse so regularly deplored by well-wishers of a ‘peaceful settlement’. Under repeated blows, and amid increasing isolation, the Palestinian resistance is being gradually weakened to a point where Hamas itself—unable to develop any coherent strategy, or break with the Oslo Accords of which it, too, has become a prisoner—is edging towards acceptance of the pittance on offer from Israel, garnished with a solatium from the West. No meaningful Palestinian Authority exists. Elected representatives from the West Bank or Gaza are treated like mendicant ngos: rewarded if they remain on their knees and follow Western bidding, sanctioned if they step out of line. Rationally, Palestinians would do far better to dissolve the Authority and insist on equal citizenship rights within a single state, backed by an international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanction till the apartheid structures of Israel are dismantled. Practically, there is little or no chance of this in the immediate future. In all probability what lies ahead is the convergence—already being hailed in Haaretz as even more enlightened than Rabin [6]—of Obama and Netanyahu on a final solution of ‘Palestinian’ entities Israel can live with, and Palestine can die in.

Harvesting Baghdad

For the moment, however, there are more pressing preoccupations: war-zones farther east have the first call on imperial attention. Iraq may have dropped from the headlines, but not from the daily security briefings in the Oval Office. In 2002, on his way up the political ladder as a low-profile state senator in Illinois, Obama opposed the attack on Iraq; it was politically inexpensive to do so. By the time he was elected President, American forces had occupied the country for six years, and his first act was to maintain Bush’s Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, long-time cia functionary and veteran of the Iran–Contra affair, in the Pentagon. A cruder and more demonstrative signal of political continuity could hardly have been conceived. In the last two years of the Republican Administration, us troop-levels were increased by a fifth, to 150,000, in a ‘surge’ that was hailed across the party spectrum as having crushed the Iraqi resistance, readying the country for a stable pro-Western, hopefully even democratic, future. The new Democratic Administration has not deviated at all from this script. The 3-year Status of Forces Agreement signed by Bush and his collaborators in Baghdad had stipulated that all us troops would leave Iraq by December 2011, although a subsequent agreement could obviously extend their stay, and the us ‘combat’ forces would quit Iraqi cities, villages and localities by June 2009. Before his election, Obama promised a withdrawal of all us ‘combat’ troops from Iraq within sixteen months of his taking office, i.e. by May 2010—adorned with a safety clause that this pledge could be ‘refined’ in the light of events. It promptly was, with the February 2009 announcement that combat troops would now leave Iraq by September 2010, while the ‘residual’ 50,000 forces could also engage in combat operations to ‘protect our ongoing civilian and military efforts’. [7]

The slaughter and devastation wreaked on Iraq by the United States and its allies...[full article]

Pro-sports, Anti-Olympics: Reclaiming the games, From the Games

2010-02-19T10:42:00.002-05:00

Pro-sports, Anti-Olympics: Reclaiming the games, From the Games
by Tyler Shipley, from The Bullet, February 19, 2010.

One of the first photographs I ever posed for was of my dad and I skating on our frozen backyard in Winnipeg. I wasn't even a year old but I was already engaged in an activity that would frame my moral and ideological compass for the better part of three decades (and counting.) Hockey has given me community – even as it has been used to legitimate politics that destroy communities. Hockey taught me values like teamwork and commitment – even as it reinforced values that perpetuate sexism, heterosexism and racism. And in perhaps the greatest irony of them all, hockey saved my life – even as it has been a vehicle for the propaganda that justifies our savage occupation of Afghanistan that continues to take so many lives.

Corporate Sporting Spectacle

And so it is with this year's great corporate sporting spectacle, Vancouver 2010. Each day, I read a new article describing the myriad destructions the Olympic Games are wreaking upon people in British Columbia and beyond. Roger Annis’ excellent piece in The Bullet provides just a sketch of that destruction – ranging from the militarization of Vancouver and the ‘cleansing’ of the city's impoverished to the innumerable offenses committed against the hundreds of Indigenous nations who have never ceded the territory upon which the Games are being held. Our ‘green’ Games are the most environmentally destructive on record.[1] As public money is poured into the seemingly bottomless pit of over-budget Olympic expenses, British Columbia's government has had to acknowledge that they are slashing-and-burning the services that build and protect the communities that Olympics claim to celebrate.[2] Speaking of celebration, the lavish opening ceremonies on Friday featured an alphabetically-ironic moment as flag-draped athletes representing Iran and Israel, two detestable regimes that detest one another and carry out unspeakable violence on people living in their territory often in the name of that conflict, paraded out one-after-the-other. It is hard to imagine Palestinians in Gaza or student protestors in Tehran being comforted by Olympic organizers’ claims that the Games represent the spirit of ‘international cooperation.’

In the meantime, of course, Canadians are being hammered over the head with pressure to conform to our own nationalist ‘spirit’ in nearly every conceivable medium. A friend of mine satirized CTV's set of over-the-top TV ads by suggesting that, if we don't cheer loudly enough for our athletes, a giant robot Donald Sutherland would descend and tell us ‘it's time to believe or die.’ Indeed, Sutherland’s melodramatic performances are indicative of the attitude that the new Harper-era Canada is projecting; no longer a polite assistant to power, we now intend to show the world that we are, indeed, powerful in our own right. Our (pro)rogue government thumbs its nose at global consensus on climate change and leads the charge in Afghanistan while we thump our chests to Molson ads that boast of our ‘awesomeness’ as we prove to the world that we are just as capable of jingoistic patriotic arrogance as our neighbours to the south. And in one of our most hubristic turns, we are using the Olympics to promote the image of a just-occupation in Afghanistan, exactly 30 years after we boycotted the Moscow Olympics to protest the injustice of the Soviet occupation of that same country.[3]

Capitalism Versus Sports

But what does any of this have to do with chasing a black rubber disc around a frozen pond? Does my compulsion to dig the puck out of the corner and throw a perfect pass into the slot mean that I am endorsing Canadian colonialism? If I am serious about resisting the BC government’s criminalization of poverty, must I also give up my dream of dropping down to block a shot from the point in a crucial penalty-kill in the third period? I would like to believe that we do not need to abandon the games that we love in order to critique the way those same games are exploited for the purposes of the Games. I'm not prepared to blame the activities that I love for the fact that they are being used to promote a corporate, militaristic and colonial agenda.

Indeed, this distinction between the games and the Games is, to me, of crucial importance. Sport is one of the few languages that I still share with most of my old friends and family. Many times, I've used an awkwardly-applied sports analogy to try to demonstrate the absurdity of capitalist imperatives, the wrongheadedness of the ‘war on terror’ or, in one instance, the injustice of strike-breaking. (“Dad, if you insisted that your team needed safer helmets, wouldn’t you be upset if the league simply replaced you with a new coach who would use the old helmets? What if one of your players got hurt because of it? That's exactly like the Employer hiring scabs!”) Certainly not an airtight analogy; but it provides an opening to a broader political conversation by starting from something that we can agree upon.

Sports can play a positive role in our communities in promoting healthy and active lifestyles, in celebration of leisure time, and in providing a venue for building meaningful social connections; ironically, the Olympics are actually undermining that role. As some $6-billion (at least) is thrown at the Olympics,[4] sports and community centers are being shut down in cities across Canada. The outdoor rinks where I grew up are disappearing, replaced by a handful of massive arenas that are always overbooked and inaccessible. Sporting venues are increasingly priced out of the range of poor and working poor families. Not surprisingly, research has consistently shown that Olympic athletes are overwhelmingly drawn from privileged sections of society.[5] The message here seems to be that only the rich can participate in sport; the poor must content themselves with buying team merchandise and watching on TV.

Of course, there is still much that sports can offer even to the observer. It doesn’t take long to realize that a hockey game cannot be won without a team of individuals cooperating and taking on different but crucial roles – a lesson that I have often remembered and come back to when organizing political demonstrations. Athletes often represent stories of resilience and struggle against a variety of obstacles; the protestors in Vancouver are showing that same sort of resilience in standing strong against the largest concentration of Canadian military forces in the world at this moment. Sport is, at its essence, an activity taken for its own sake – for fun. In a society that often appears to have internalized the logic of capitalist modernity where every activity must have some purpose (which is almost inevitably connected to someone’s ability to make profit) it does us all some good to be reminded of pursuits that lie primarily outside those parameters.

Protesting the Olympics in Support of Sport

Progressive political organizers often take as a starting point the notion that – as the anti-globalization movement claimed – ‘another world is possible.’ I see no reason that sports can’t be part of that new world. To be sure, many of the structures and assumptions built around sporting cultures need to be roundly interrogated. Like so many institutions in contemporary liberal capitalism – the family, for instance – sports have been attached to a variety of problematic value systems. Hockey culture in Canada is profoundly white; Tim Hortons’ apple-pie imagery of rural pond hockey is almost entirely devoid of racialized people and the NHL consistently treats Indigenous players as if they are naturally inclined to show poor sportsmanship, giving them harsher penalties for on-ice infractions and creating mythologies around their violent and unpredictable nature. And it only requires one viewing of the appalling weekly installments of Don Cherry’s sanctioned-hate segments on CBC to recognize that misogyny, homophobia and xenophobia are woven into the fabric of ‘Canada's game.’ But is this reflective of something wrong with hockey or something wrong with Canada?

Just as most progressive observers would support a re-formulating of the family rather than its destruction, sports ought to be treated as a sphere of contestation; we can have hockey without the war and we can have a competition between the world's fastest skiers and most skilled curlers without the Olympics. If, in protesting the Games, we forget about the games upon which the spectacle is built, we risk alienating ourselves entirely from people who might otherwise be receptive to the critiques we are bringing. What is worse, we risk alienating ourselves from something that can be important in our own lives. I made my first friendships and faced some of my earliest physical and emotional tests at the rink. I had my most formative brush with capitalism when my beloved Winnipeg Jets were sold to a businessman from Phoenix. In the darkest moments of a struggle with depression I was offered a free ticket to see the Toronto Maple Leafs lose – a pleasure that I cherished with all my prairie heart and that helped shake me through my own personal struggles.

I will continue to support and participate in the anti-Olympic protests. I will continue to denounce the Games as a corporate spectacle paid for by the sweat and blood of workers and Indigenous people. I will continue to reject the jingoism and war-propaganda that pepper the presentation of the Games, and I will insist upon a world where I can watch Sidney Crosby go head-to-head with Alex Ovechkin without simultaneously legitimating the destruction of communities like my own. In Emma Goldman’s famous appeal to dancing-in-revolution, she wrote, “I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy.”[6] Anti-Olympic protest is not about ‘the denial of life and joy,’ it is precisely the opposite. It is about rejecting a structure that limits the accessibility of life and joy for all. •

Tyler Shipley teaches at York University and is a member of CUPE.

Footnotes

1. no2010.com: “Environmental Destruction.”

2. “Province to cut $10 million from community services for children, families” by Jonathan Fowlie, Vancouver Sun, February 11, 2010.

3. “1980 Summer Olympics boycott echoes today” by Derrick O'Keefe, Straight.com, February 11, 2010.

4. “Olympics bill tops $6 billion - so far” by Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun, January 23, 2009.

5. Beamish, Rob. “The Persistance of Inequality: An Analysis of Participation Patterns Among Canada's High Performance Athletes,” International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Vol. 25, No. 2, 143-155 (1990).

6. Living my Life by Emma Goldman.

Memorial March Honours 3,000 Missing and Murdered Women

2010-02-15T11:50:00.001-05:00

This Is Where the Revolution Starts: 19th Women's Memorial March honours 3,000 missing and murdered women
by Moira Peters, from Vancouver Media Co-op, February 15, 2010. (Link found via SK.)

"This is where the injustice starts."

Dalannah Bowen addressed the 5,000 people gathered today in memory of Canada's 3,000 missing and murdered women. She was standing on the steps of the Vancouver Police Department station on Main Street in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

"This is where it starts for missing and murdered women," she said.

Bowen was followed to the mic by women who told stories of friends and relatives gone missing, or found dead, and of police inaction and disrespect.

"Each and every single person is part of this human family. We deserve to be treated like human beings," Bowen said.

Earlier in the morning at the Carnegie Centre, each and every person gathered for the beginning of the march witnessed a painful aspect of family: loss.

At 11:30 am, 400 people were gathered on the steps of Carnegie, on the corner and down the sidewalk on both sides of the building. Most were women. By 12:20, the crowd quadrupled and took up all four corners. Buses made it through the intersection with difficulty. By 1pm, the entire intersection was blocked, and "Carnegie hosts" in yellow vests linked hands, creating a corridor for the families of missing and murdered women to pass into the centre of the crowd. Most were women.

Drummers were invited into the centre. A cry rose. Hands pointed skyward. Pigeons flapped around the rooftops and seagulls circled. Higher, with unmistakeable white heads and majestic wingspans, two eagles soared.

A woman in a loose pink shirt and black hair stood on the steps of Carnegie, an eagle feather in her hand and a square of paper pressed to her breast. She raised the feather in the air and began a low wail. A song, a heartbreak. She concentrated on the sky, pleading with the sky, crying, her feather trembling.

The drums began. The crowd sang, for a half hour, while families filed out of the Carnegie patio and toward the centre of the intersection, carrying banners. Some were dressed in traditional regalia. Most were women.

The people marched.

"A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground. Then it's lost; it's down. No matter what. No matter how strong its warriors; no matter how powerful its weapons," said Mabel Nipshank. She located intent in violence against women as she spoke from the steps of the police station. The priority for Europeans in first contact with aboriginals, she said, was the disenfranchisement of women.

"They were afraid of the power of the First Nations women because when First Nations women spoke it echoed like thunder," she said.

Nipshank challenged two groups to collaborate in the demand for justice for killed and disappeared Indigenous women: First Nations leaders and white feminists.

"I don't have a whole lot of trust in our aboriginal leaders. They are pushing women off our territories and this" – she pointed to a placard with photos of hundreds of young women lost – "is what is happening to us. We need our leaders to challenge the colonial structures that have put us in poverty."

Nipshank called on feminists to quit talking the talk when they cannot walk the walk.

"Sometimes we don't fall into the white feminist ideology. [They] can't comprehend our oppression because [they] don't live it the way we do."

She asked the crowd to consider that the next case of a murdered or disappeared woman could be anyone's daughter, sister, aunt. "That is why we need to address this collectively. This is our problem as a whole people."

Sirens wailed.

Maggie de Vries told marchers about her sister who had been murdered at Robert Picton's pig farm. She described the last time she saw her sister Sarah. It was December 14, 1998, and her sister was on her way to work. She asked her little sister Maggie to "go home, baby girl."

"The investigation [into Sarah's disappearance and murder] did not have the full support of the province of British Columbia, of the Vancouver Police or of the RCMP. There was a resistance to admit there was anything wrong," she said.

"My sister was picked up, driven along a direct route: down Hastings Street to Boundary Road to the Lougheed Highway and onto Dominion Road. She was driven through a gate, and she never came out."

De Vries said in order to keep women safe the public needs an independent inquiry into the investigation of Vancouver's missing women.

Ann-Marie August read a poem, which she wrote for her best friend who disappeared.

"My sister, my friend. Where are you? What happened to you?"

The drums beat, the people marched. The sun shone. It was Valentine's Day.

Determination tested during my Olympic mitten trials

2010-02-13T23:04:00.002-05:00

Determination tested during my Olympic mitten trials
by Colleen Simard, from Winnipeg Free Press, February 13, 2010. (Link found via RDO.)

Last weekend, I went shopping for a birthday present for one of my sisters. While checking out Zellers I came upon a display of those red winter Olympic mittens. Yes, those hot-ticket items with the little maple leaf and the Olympic rings embroidered on them.

They've been a hot commodity since Olympic fever kicked in, and the price is great too. Even my son mentioned them a while back, saying he was tempted to get a pair. I told him it was OK -- he didn't have to boycott the Olympics just because I was.

But they were kind of cute. I felt guilty even picking up a pair and holding them. Should I buy my kid a pair? Yes, I was waffling on my principles over a pair of $10 mittens. For about 20 seconds or so I did think of buying them.

But what would I be teaching him if I bought him those mittens when he's just developing an understanding of indigenous issues and why the Olympics are controversial in the first place.

You see, it's not just about mittens. Actually, it's about guns -- metaphorically speaking. What it all comes down to is you can't sell out on something like a pair of mittens, no matter how cute they are.

You've got to stick to your guns.

Olympic fever is going full swing now, and I'm not looking forward to the next couple of weeks. I won't stand in their way, but I won't support them. I will grumble silently, but grumble nonetheless.

Granted, the Olympics have benefitted aboriginal people in a few ways. There are the plane loads of sports equipment that were flown to northern communities, so aboriginal youth can have a positive outlet for their energy.

There are the aboriginal Olympians, both past and present, who have been part of the games. They are now role models for our youth; our kids can achieve whatever they want if they put their mind to it.

And sure, it's great they've included our culture in the mix, but wouldn't it be foolish not to include us, considering we're the original inhabitants of this country? I think they were pretty much obligated to do so. It sure makes Olympic gear more marketable and sellable to give it some aboriginal flavour, too.

So thank you Olympics, but I still can't support you. I won't watch you, cheer for athletes, or buy any of your souvenirs.

How can I celebrate my "national pride" at the Olympics when my country refuses even to sign onto the Declaration of the Rights on the Indigenous People? How can I be proud about that?

When young aboriginal women go missing and it literally takes decades before anyone thinks to do something about it?

When most Canadians see treaty rights as something we "whine about" and they don't have to honour, and yet they continue to enjoy their side of the treaty deal?

The very land the Olympics is being held on is indigenous land, but it's never acknowledged as that in the mainstream. I just can't do it. I don't support the winter Olympics.

I don't care that the chiefs of the four host nations in B.C. are supporting the Olympics. I don't care that they're getting some kind of "Olympic legacy" money for being good hosts, because the price tag is likely bargain rate at best.

I want to know what the other guys -- the real indigenous people -- are thinking. How will they benefit from this "Olympic legacy?" And what do the Art Manuels and the Taiaiake Alfreds and the Clayton Thomas-Mullers and the Wapo Piesiws of the world think about everything?

What do they have to say about the ongoing use of indigenous land?

I don't care that the Olympic torch is getting blessed by aboriginal elders, or even if it ends up that the opening ceremony torch lighting is done by an aboriginal athlete. It'd be nice, but it wouldn't change anything.

I've got to stick to my guns, even when it comes to mittens.

The Battle for Marjah

2010-02-11T22:41:00.002-05:00

The Battle for Marjah: The Script Calls for Victory, No Matter What
by Patrick Cockburn, from CounterPunch, February 11, 2010.

American and Afghan forces are poised to attack the town of Marjah, the largest Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan, in the first major US military offensive since President Barack Obama announced that he was sending 30,000 reinforcements.

The US strategy is to expel, kill or capture the Taliban, prevent their return, and then provide aid and services to a grateful populace. Described as a sophisticated attempt “to win the hearts and minds of Afghans”, its covert and more realistic aim is to win the hearts and minds of the American press, particularly those back in the US who direct the efforts of reporters on the ground. The message the US military wants to send is that in Afghanistan it is fighting a winnable war and not blundering deeper into a quagmire.

The press likes short wars. Its audience is never so eager for news as during an armed conflict. The first newspapers date from the wars of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Television likes the melodrama of exploding shells and blazing tanks. And it is this very eagerness to report the fighting that makes it so easy to manipulate. The US army successfully sold the “surge” in Iraq as a military victory so that the American public scarcely noticed that US troops were withdrawing, leaving Iraq in the hands of a government closely allied to Iran.

Television is surprisingly ill-adapted to covering wars. It needs pictures, but on a modern battlefield there is very little to see. Ever since soldiers started using long range rifles everybody has very sensibly kept their heads down. Films are wholly misleading about what warfare today looks like, giving the impression that D Day was fought at close range, much like the battles of Hastings or Agincourt. “Saving Private Ryan” was praised for its gritty realism, presumably because it showed blood and guts. In reality, the film understandably enough goes along with the fiction that highly visible soldiers blaze away suicidally at each other at point blank range.

A frustrating lack of anything to see during real fighting explains why so many of the iconic photographs or films showing 20th century wars, such as a soldier at the moment of death in the Spanish civil war, or the raising of the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in Berlin 1945, turn out to have been staged after the event.

Misleading images of war go beyond faking striking or heroic scenes. Crucial events are omitted or exaggerated. In 2001-2 I covered the war in Afghanistan, and I was struck by how little fighting actually took place. The Taliban fighters were ordered by their commanders to go home to fight another day because the warlords had been bribed by the CIA, the Taliban leaders had been so advised by Pakistani military intelligence, and because it was the sensible thing to do. Cities like Ghazni and Kandahar fell without a fight. Well-armed Taliban disappeared back to their villages or crossed the border into Pakistan and bands of bewildered anti-Taliban guerrillas took over. But people watching TV or reading newspapers outside Afghanistan at the time were given the entirely misleading impression that the Taliban had been militarily defeated, never to fight again.

During the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and afterwards the news reporting from the mostly American news organizations was often very good, but was continually undercut by the dreadful talking heads back in Washington and New York. Ignorant and partisan former government officials, who had taken refuge in think tanks, were wheeled on as independent experts to pontificate night after night about a war they had never seen, except possibly during a brief visit to the Green Zone.

Government manipulation of news about wars in Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq has become easier since insurgents started targeting journalists. In Northern Ireland and Lebanon up to 1984 it was safer to be a journalist than anybody else. All sides, however bloodthirsty, cultivated the press and every gang of gunmen had a press officer. This changed in Lebanon when the precursors of Hizbullah started kidnapping journalists and since then Islamic fundamentalists have viewed foreign journalists as people to be captured and killed rather than cultivated.

These dangers encourage reporters to embed with American or British troops. Much criticized, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this so long as it is admitted that the embedded journalist’s view of the war is partial. The practical effects of this are serious. In November 2004, for instance, the US Marines stormed the insurgent held city of Fallujah west of Baghdad. The battle was heavily reported by embedded reporters and television crews as an American victory and an insurgent defeat. But as this battle was raging insurgents over ran the larger city of Mosul in northern Iraq, seizing some 30 police stations and $40 million worth of arms. So few American troops, and hence no embedded journalists, were there that this significant defeat was barely reported.

Wars are so genuinely confusing that even the identity of the victor may be obscure. The new US strategy and 30,000 US reinforcements sent to Iraq in 2007 are believed by many Americans, including generals, to have turned the tide of battle there. But the decisive military event in Iraq in 2006-7 was that the Sunni Arabs, who dominated the anti-American insurgency, were decisively defeated in a savage sectarian civil war with the Shia. Many of the Sunni in the capital were killed or fled to Jordan and Syria and Sunni leaders had to strike a deal with the Americans. As US military casualties fell, newspapers and television stations happily reported, often brushing aside the objections of their own correspondents in Iraq, that what had happened was a triumph for American strategy.

The largely mythical US success in Iraq is now to be replicated in Afghan towns like Marjah and skirmishes there will be heavily reported. A NATO spokesman says the people of the town will soon “feel the benefits of better governance, of economic opportunities and of operating under the legitimate authorities of Afghanistan.” But according to a leaked cable from the US ambassador in Kabul Karl Eikenberry to President Obama three months ago, no such Afghan authority exists at any level. Instead he warned that US troop reinforcements, which are now going into action, will only ensure “an indefinite, large-scale US military role in Afghanistan.”

Patrick Cockburn is the Ihe author of Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq.

Oglala Lakota traveler sees ‘deep parallels’ in Palestine

2010-02-05T19:46:00.002-05:00

Oglala Lakota traveler sees ‘deep parallels’ in Palestine
By Gale Courey Toensing, from Indian Country Today, February 5, 2010.

CAIRO, Egypt – An activist who traveled to Egypt on Christmas Day to participate in the Gaza Freedom March took along a case of Tanka Bars, hoping to distribute them to undernourished children in Gaza living under the Israeli government’s continuing siege.

But another repressive regime – the Egyptian government – blocked Mark Tilsen, a 26-year-old Oglala Lakota-Jewish man from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and 1,400 other international activists from entering the tiny Palestinian territory on the Mediterranean Sea.

“I still want to go to Palestine. I still want to go to Gaza. I still feel for the people of Palestine and their cause, and I still want to bring Tanka Bars to the hungry kids in Gaza who can use some protein,” Tilsen said from Cairo Jan. 4. He is the assistant director of marketing for Native American Natural Foods, which produces the bars.

Tilsen and the other activists traveled to Egypt from 45 countries over Christmas week to mark the one-year anniversary of the Israeli bombardment and invasion of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military killed more than 1,400 Palestinians including more than 300 children during the siege, while 13 Israelis were killed, including three soldiers killed by Israeli “friendly fire.”

The United Nations Human Rights Council appointed Richard Goldstone, former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, to conduct an investigation of the Israeli offensive.

The Goldstone Report, released last September, found strong evidence of Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity committed and called for holding Israel accountable before a court of international law. Conditions in Gaza one year after the invasion are still grim.

That report and the media attention it generated moved the terms of international solidarity with Palestine to a new level and gave impetus to solidarity events such as the Gaza Freedom March.

The march was to be Tilsen’s second trip to Palestine in a year. Last summer, he and Jewish family members from his father’s side, travelled to the West Bank with Birthright Unplugged, a nonprofit organization that takes delegations to the occupied West Bank.

“There’s an Israeli group called Birthright that takes Jews from across the world and shows them the most beautiful parts of Israel and what it means to be Jewish, and basically teaches them to fall in love with Israel, and it pays for their trips,” Tilsen said. “They feed you their indoctrination, but what we wanted was the other side – we wanted to see things from the Palestinian perspective.”

Tilsen’s 82-year-old grandfather, two aunts, two uncles and two cousins traveled around the West Bank for three weeks staying with Palestinian families, including a visit to Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem.

The visit was an eye – and heart – opener, Tilsen said.

“I’ve always been very interested in the Palestinian struggle and now I can actually see a lot more of the deep parallels between reservation life and refugee camp life.”

Oddly, at Dheisheh, Tilsen ran into a cousin who was with a delegation of Native youth.

“It was totally surreal. It was, like, we need to have this conversation at Wounded Knee; we didn’t need to travel all the way here.”

During a discussion about Palestine, a Palestinian youth at Dheisheh brought up the subject of colonization.

“I said the Lakota have been in this colonization game for more than 100 years longer than Palestinians, and we talked about the warning signs: Watch out when your leaders become co-opted by people who are your enemies, watch out when your religion becomes outlawed, take notice when your language is disappearing, and when your children are being educated by your enemies and taught to hate themselves – that’s one of the last stages of colonization,” Tilsen said.

He had an intellectual understanding of colonization before traveling to Palestine, “but it wasn’t deep. It was while I was there that I really understood emotionally and in my heart the deep parallels between the American Indian experience of Western expansion and the experience of becoming an alien in your own homeland, which basically has happened to the Palestinians.”

But he unintentionally provoked a controversy among the Native students during the discussion.

“I said to the Palestinian youth, ‘I think Palestinians are better off because your spirit is not conquered.’ That really upset a lot of the Native people. I think Lakota and Natives in general don’t like to admit we lost the wars. We lost militarily. We were defeated, and for many years we were a broken people and now in the past few generations, the strengths and embers that were preserved are starting to come back to life.”

The Palestinians were surprised by his remarks.

“They wanted to know what I meant. I told them about the poverty, the high unemployment, the alcoholism and the incredible number of suicides. Some of our people have given up the fight of what it means to be Lakota, what it means to be free, and I said I don’t see that here in Palestine.”

Tilsen traveled to Egypt last month with his uncle, David Tilsen. They spent almost two weeks there, and while only 80 of the 1,400 Gaza Freedom Marchers were ultimately allowed to enter Gaza after days of demonstrations, protests, and sometimes violent encounters with Egypt’s security forces, the trip was well worthwhile, Tilsen said.

“Oglala means ‘those who scatter their own.’ We send our people all across the world. To the people of Gaza, we say we tried to get to you, we did what we could, but we’re sorry it was not good enough. But this is as much a war of awareness as it is a war, and the more people that are aware of what’s going on in Palestine, the better chance there is to resolve the conflict.”

Faculty Statement in Support of Laurentian University's First Israeli Apartheid Week

2010-01-27T22:38:00.001-05:00

March 4-11, 2010: First Israeli Apartheid Week at Laurentian University

"Our freedom is incomplete witout the freedom of the Palestinian people." -- Nelson Mandela

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The Sixth Annual ISRAELI APARTHEID WEEK
"Solidarity in action: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions"
March, 2010.
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Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) 2010 is a series of campus events, classroom lectures, guest speakers, and film showings in cities around the world. The Sixth Annual Israeli Apartheid Week will take place around the globe and for the first time in Sudbury at Laurentian University from March 4-11, 2010.

Apartheid may seem like a harsh term to many who associate it exclusively with South Africa’s white segregationist rule - it’s defined as “separation” and was officially declared a crime by the United Nations in the 1976 International Convention of the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. In Israel, the policies aimed at Palestinians are rooted in former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s 1999 victory speech, which called for “peace through separation - we are here and they (Palestinians) are there.” Palestinian life in the occupied territories and Israel include separate roads, schools, neighbourhoods, identity cards and even license plates. The apartheid character of Israeli state policies is undeniable and has long been recognized by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela in South Africa, along with many others.

First launched in Toronto in 2005, IAW has grown to become an important global event in the struggle for solidarity with the Palestinian people. The week’s objective is to focus attention on the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation and educate about the apartheid character of Israeli state policies towards the Palestinians. These include the occupation itself, with the cutting up and division of Palestinian territories with the apartheid wall, military checkpoints, the blockade against Gaza, the denial of the Right of Return to Palestinian refugees, and the denial of basic human rights for Palestinians living within Israel’s borders.

Last year more than 40 cities around the world participated in Israeli Apartheid Week activities, which took place in the wake of Israel's brutal assault against the people of Gaza. This year, for the first time, IAW will be taking place here at Laurentian University with speakers, film showings, and other events. These will include author Yves Engler speaking on his new book on Canadian state support for Israeli Apartheid, and an educational discussion on the Right to Education and the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns with Alan Sears from Ryerson University and Rafeef Ziadah from Palestine House in Toronto.

IAW 2010 takes place following a year of major successes for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against the Israeli occupation on the global level. The BDS campaign has been called for by the Palestinian people themselves and is increasingly being taken up by unions and other groups in Canada. For more information on it go to http://www.bdsmovement.net/

Lectures, films, and events during IAW will highlight some of these successes along with informing people about the many injustices that continue to make BDS so crucial in the battle to end Israel’s apartheid practices.

The week is directed against all forms of hatred and bigotry -- including anti-semitism and Islamophobia.

At Laurentian there will be films and a number of speakers, and following the model developed for Women's History Week this past fall, we are asking faculty if they would be willing to devote some time to these issues in their classes during this week. We already have more
than six faculty members who have arranged for their classes during IAW to focus on various aspects of the Palestinian struggle, ranging from classes in English, to Sociology, to Service Social.

As resources for classroom use we have a number of films that can be shown in classes including ‘Occupation 101’, ‘Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land’, ‘SlingShot HipHop’, and ‘Edward Said on Orientalism’ (the Audio-visual Centre in the Fraser Auditorium Building has a copy), which has considerable content on the Palestinian struggle.

We also have a useful and short PowerPoint presentation that can be used from the Right to Education campaign. Your entire class does not need to be devoted to this topic and even spending a short amount of time on these questions could be quite useful.

For those who want their class events listed as part of Israeli Apartheid Week activities we will list them on a poster produced for the event. Please let us know about this.

Looking forward to hearing from you. Also please get in touch if you have any questions or concerns.

In solidarity,

Kaili Beck, Sociology and Labour Studies
Francois Boudreau, Service Social
Shana Calixte, Women's Studies
Norman Cheadle, Modern Languages
Dana Cudney, Sociology
Mrinalini Greedharry, English
Gary Kinsman, Sociology
David Leadbeater, Economics
Laurie McGauley, Women's Studies
Reuben Roth, Sociology and Labour Studies
Alexis Shotwell, Philosophy and English
Mercedes Steedman, Sociology and Labour Studies

For the Palestine Solidarity Working Group

For more information contact Gary Kinsman at gkinsman@laurentian.ca or at 675-1151 ext. 4221 or 523-2205.

"Eyes in Gaza" with Dr. Mads Gilbert (Sudbury)

2010-01-09T22:05:00.001-05:00

"Eyes in Gaza" with Dr. Mads Gilbert (Sudbury)

Date: Tuesday, 19 January 2010
Time: 6:30 pm
Location: Laurentian University, Arts Building room A-226 (above Tim Horton's), Sudbury, Ontario

Dr. Mads Gilbert, internationally acclaimed doctor, Head of the Department of Emergency at the University of North Norway, Professor, and local politician joins us for a special evening to describe his experiences in Palestine last winter, during "Operation Cast Lead." During the Israeli offensive against the people of Gaza, Dr. Mads Gilbert and Dr. Erik Fosse were the only two foreign doctors allowed into the region, spending days and nights at the busy and over-crowded Al-Shifaa Hospital in a region forbidden to the rest of the world. With a complete blockade on Gaza, including medical aid and media, Dr. Mads Gilbert became a common face, keeping the world informed of the atrocities taking place in the virtual prison known as Gaza. As such, he was seen on Al-Jazeera, BBC, CBS, ABC, CNN and more.

Dr. Mads Gilbert described his experience in Gaza as the most horrific, terrible spectacle he has ever witnessed. A long time activist and solidarity worker for the rights of Palestinians, he co-authored the book "Eyes in Gaza" with Dr. Erik Fosse on the realities of this offensive. And now, Dr. Gilbert has kindly taken the time to embark on an SPHR North American tour- on 14 different campuses- to continue sharing his experiences and the stories of Palestinians silenced. This tour is taking place approximately one year after 1300 Palestinians perished, with thousands more injured, and the stories and experience that Dr. Gilbert will share is like no other.

As a leading medical expert and moving speaker, Dr. Gilbert will share with us stories and experiences we will likely never forget.

This is a wheelchair accessible location.

For more information, call 705-675-1151 ext. 4221

Abdullah Almalki Refused Entry to Air Canada Flight

2009-12-08T09:39:00.001-05:00

Media release received via email from Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture:
Abdullah Almalki Refused Entry to Air Canada Flight
Members of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture Demand Answers for Why Almalki was not Allowed on Domestic Flight

December 7, 2009 - Members of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture are expressing major concerns about the fact that, after being given a boarding pass for an Ottawa-to-Windsor flight on December 2, Ottawa resident Abdullah Almalki was not allowed onto the domestic Air Canada flight. Almalki, a Canadian citizen who was found to be tortured with the complicity of his own government, was supposed to have been in Windsor the next day to deliver a talk on "two-tier citizenship" as well as the manner in which the Canadian government was complicit his torture in Syria.

"The very day Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in China talking about the need to respect human rights, we have a Canadian citizen, Abdullah Almalki, turned away from a domestic flight that would have taken him to Windsor to talk about human rights," says campaign spokesperson Matthew Behrens. "What is going on?"

At the last minute, Mr. Almalki, an Ottawa engineer and father of six, was informed he could fly to Toronto but not carry on to Windsor because he was apparently "restricted from travelling in US airspace." In addition, Mr. Almalki found that his bag, despite being bound for a domestic flight, was opened and searched, but no sticker explaining that invasive intrusion nor indicating who searched his bag was placed on it.

Mr. Almalki, tortured almost a full two years in Syria based on false allegations and questions that came from Canada and, according to the secretive Iacobucci internal inquiry, based on allegations that were “inflammatory, inaccurate, and lacking investigative foundation,” is seeking an apology, accountability, and compensation for the ordeal that he and his family were put through by the Canadian government.

This incident occurred the day before the House of Commons passed a motion calling on the government to respect a series of recommendations from the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security which, among other things, calls on the “Government of Canada do everything necessary to correct misinformation that may exist in records administered by national security agencies in Canada or abroad with respect to Mr. Almalki, Mr. Abou-Elmaati and Mr. Nureddin and members of their families.” (Mssrs. El Maati and Nureddin, both of Toronto, were also tortured both in Syria and, in Mr. El Maati’s case, in Egypt, based on similarly false allegations.)

Asked by members of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture how he felt about being turned away from the Air Canada flight, Mr. Almalki stated, "We have the O'Connor report more than three years ago, the Iacobucci report more than a a year ago – both of which confirm the Canadian complicity in my interrogation and torture in Syria – and now we have the MPs who represent the majority of the Canadian people in Parliament voting in favour of the government issuing an apology and correcting in Canada and abroad the huge and terrible misinformation that Canadian agencies falsely spread about myself and my family. When will the government act, and how much longer do my family and I have to suffer? Whose decision was it to prevent me from boarding a domestic flight to Windsor? I need answers, Canadians need answers.”

The refusal to allow Mr. Almalki on the Air Canada flight adds insult to the injury already sustained by the family earlier this year when they found out that his wife and oldest son, aged 15, had problems boarding a plane in Vancouver until his wife showed airport officials a copy of the 544-page Iacobucci internal inquiry report.

Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture is an organization that for a number of years has worked with Canadians who have been tortured with the complicity of their own government. In 2008, it organized two cross-Ontario caravans raising awareness of the issue and organizing speaking events featuring Mssrs. Almalki, El Maati and Nureddin.

For more information, or to contact contact Mr. Almalki, please contact Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture at (416) 651-5800 or visit www.abdullahalmalki.com.

Mahjoub hospitalized on 179th day of hungerstrike

2009-11-30T23:08:00.002-05:00

PLEASE ACT NOW: Mahjoub hospitalized on 179th day of hungerstrike
Security certificate detainee in 10th year of indefinite detention

* Take action: see below.
* Background (new webpage!): http://peoplescommission.org/en/mahjoub/

Mohammad Mahjoub was hospitalized in Kingston last Thursday evening, on the 179th day of a liquids-only hungerstrike. Mr. Mahjoub, a 50-year old father of two, has been detained for over nine years without charge under a security certificate. Until Thursday he was the sole detainee at the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre (KIHC), dubbed "Guantanamo North" to draw attention to the practice of holding prisoners indefinitely at the facility, on secret evidence. Mr. Mahjoub has been on hungerstrike since 1 June 2009.

Three weeks ago, dozens of medical professionals sounded the alarm, warning Minister of Public Safety Peter van Loan that, "we have serious reasons to believe that Mr. Mahjoub will die or, at minimum, be permanently impaired if he remains on hunger strike much longer" and urging the Minister "to immediately take the necessary measures to enable Mohammad Mahjoub to put an end to his hunger strike".

Their letter went on to note that Mr. Mahjoub "is at even greater risk because he is 50 years old, has hepatitis C, and was subjected to torture in his country of origin. In addition he has been detained for over 9 years, often in solitary confinement, and has been on lengthy hunger strikes on several occasions. These antecedents increase the likelihood that Mr. Mahjoub may experience life-threatening consequences."

Despite the urgent warning, the government has not taken action.

Mr. Mahjoub was in Federal Court on 26 and 27 October, requesting transfer to house arrest pending the outcome of his legal case. Mr. Mahjoub was forced to return to the KIHC from house arrest on 18 March 2009 in order to free his wife and two children from the intrusive and suffocating house arrest regime. He has requested release into a separate apartment in order to avoid placing the same unbearable burden on his family.

After years of being the object of widespread, intense criticism, the security certificate regime appears to be imploding, with the withdrawal of the certificate against Montrealer Adil Charkaoui, the removal of most of the interim conditions imposed on Ottawa-based Mohamed Harkat, repeated scandals involving CSIS withholding key exculpatory information from the courts, and potential freedom for Hassan Almrei and Mahmoud Jaballah, who both live under oppressive house arrest regimes in Toronto.

Immediate and determined action on the part of the government, taking into account the very serious abuses he has suffered under the unconstitutional security certificate process for the past nine years, could still enable Mr. Mahjoub to end the hunger strike before the damage is irreversable.

WHAT TO DO

1. Write urgently to Minister of Public Safety Peter van Loan and cc your own member of Parliament:

- Express your concerns that doctors have warned that Mr. Mahjoub could die or be permanently impaired if he remains on hunger strike (the hungerstrike began on 1 June 2009).
- Note that his situation is all the more precarious because he is 50 years old, has hepatitis C, was subjected to torture before coming to Canada, has spent long periods in solitary confinement in Canada, and has been on several lengthy hunger strikes previously.
- State clearly that the security certificate process has no place in a democracy, and that it is unbelievable that Mr. Mahjoub has been subjected to indefinite detention under this Kafka-esque process for over nine years (since June 2000).
- Ask the Minister to immediately take the necessary measures to enable Mr. Mahjoub to put an end to his hunger strike.

Minister of Public Safety Peter van Loan
email: VanLoP@parl.gc.ca
fax: (613) 992-8351

Find your MP's contact information: www.parl.gc.ca (click on "Members of Parliament")

**PLEASE forward a copy of your letter to abolissons@gmail.com.

2. Write a message of solidarity and support to Mohammad Mahjoub, reminding him that he is not forgotten and that efforts to end two-tier justice in Canada will continue. He can be reached at:

Mohammad Mahjoub
Kingston Immigration Holding Centre
c/o CSC RHQ Ontario Region
440 King Street West
PO Box 1174
Kingston, Ontario K7L 4Y8

3. One of the many unbelievable injustices of this system is that the detainees and their families are not only denied a living, they and their communities are actually forced to pay the costs of their own oppressive house arrest situations! Please help the families of security certificate victims to bear that cost by contributing to their ongoing costs of detention. Contributions can be sent to Homes not Bombs, PO Box 73620, 509 St. Clair Ave. West, Toronto, ON M6C 1C0. Put "Family Fund-Mahjoub" in memo portion of cheque.

Background information: http://peoplescommission.org/en/mahjoub/

Amy Goodman and Canada's Olympic Paranoia

2009-11-28T23:45:00.002-05:00

Amy Goodman and Canada's Olympic Paranoia
by David Zirin, from ZNet, November 29, 2009.

When it comes to independent, agitational journalism, the standard is Amy Goodman and her radio/television institution, Democracy Now! Goodman and her staff often find themselves accosted by officials, foreign and domestic. This happened again on Thursday. But it didn't happen in East Timor or Burma. Goodman was detained by our neighbors to the north.

Canadian border officials held Goodman in Vancouver for 90 minutes when she attempted to enter Vancouver to attend events launching her new book, Breaking the Sound Barrier . But the Canadian Border team didn't care what she was there to do. They wanted to know what she was going to say. They demanded to see her notes. They searched her car and surreptitiously checked her laptop. They returned her passport with papers demanding she leave the country within 48 hours.

What could possibly have led to this level of scrutiny? They cared little that she was there to discuss the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or the state of health care. The critical concern of the Canadian Border authorities was that Ms. Goodman would be discussing the 2010 Winter Olympic games in Vancouver. This is not a joke.

In an interview with CBC News, Goodman recalled that the border agent "made it clear by saying, 'What about the Olympics?' And I said, 'You mean when President Obama went to Copenhagen to push for the Olympics in Chicago?' He said, 'No. I am talking about the Olympics here in 2010.' I said, 'Oh I hadn't thought of that,' He said, 'You're saying you're not talking about the Olympics?' He was clearly incredulous that I wasn't going to be talking about the Olympics. He didn't believe me."

Ponder for a moment the Canadian state's paranoia wedded with arrogance. They moved quickly from concern that Goodman would be a critic of the games, to aghast that it would not be the centerpiece of her speech.

As Derrick O'Keefe, co-chair of the Canadian Peace Alliance said to me, "It's pretty unlikely that the harassment of a well known and respected journalist like Amy Goodman about whether she might be speaking about the Olympics was the initiative of one over-zealous, bad apple Canadian border guard. This looks like a clear sign of the chill that the IOC and the Games' local corporate boosters want to put out against any potential dissent."

In Vancouver, dissent is now the only obstacle to an Olympic-sized theft. The games stand to cost Vancouver, in the analysis of the Vancouver Sun , "$6 billion and counting so far." Local papers are starting to ask, "Could the Olympics bankrupt the City of Vancouver, or put it in a financial straitjacket for decades to come?"

But it's not just the economic theft.

Harsha Walia, member of No One Is Illegal and the Olympic Resistance Network, said to me, "In the lead-up to the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, we have witnessed and been subjected to an increasingly fortified police state, including intimidation and harassment of activists by security and intelligence forces as part of an unparalleled $1 billion security and surveillance network. In contravention of basic rights, police have stated their plans to set up checkpoints, search people without cause, and erect security exclusion zones."

The Canadian government has leveled public housing, stifled civil liberties and harassed local activists. The last thing they want is someone like Amy Goodman telling the world.

"I am deeply concerned that as a journalist I would be flagged and that the concern -- the major concern -- was the content of my speech. " said Goodman.

We need to see what happened to Ms. Goodman as a challenge to expose truth about Vancouver. Amy Goodman is just the tip of the iceberg. Let's make the 2010 Games the Titanic.

[Dave Zirin is the author of "A People's History of Sports in the United States" (The New Press) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com .]

What Swirls Around Fort Hood

2009-11-15T10:16:00.000-05:00

Can the Major Speak? What Swirls Around Fort Hood
by Vijay Prashad, from CounterPunch, November 13-15, 2009.

Words have ensnarled the rampage at Fort Hood. Nothing more needs to be said. Thirteen dead, and thirty-one injured. What sets this massacre apart from the bombing at Oklahoma City (with 168 dead) and Columbine High (with 12 dead), is that the assailant here is a Muslim at a time when the United States is at war in two Muslim-majority countries (Iraq and Afghanistan). Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols as well as Eric Harris and Dylan Kiebold were all white. Their acts brought forth revulsion, but not condemnation of Christianity; that would have been ridiculous.

All these acts have indeed once more refreshed the necessary, but repetitive, debates over gun control and mental health care for war veterans. It is fitting to remember that the father of Columbine victim Daniel Mauser (age 15), Tom Mauser is a leading gun-control advocate. Traction has not come his way, as it has not for many of those parents and loved ones of those who were killed by assault rifles that do not belong where they find themselves (such as in places like Guns Galore, in Killeen, Texas, home to Fort Hood, and where Major Nidal Malik Hasan bought his FN Herstal tactical pistol, a standard issue gun used by NATO troops in Afghanistan).

Fort Hood, like other bases that send young people to ghastly wars, has seen a spate of suicides (ten in 2009, and seventy-six since 2003) and cases of violence against women (up by 75% since 2001). Post-traumatic stress disorder has become a routine problem. Multiple deployments don't help. Nor does recalcitrance to admit to mental illness as a real injury, as much as a physical one.

All this is on the table. Including the failure by the military to identify serious problems in the well-being of Major Hasan. He was obviously not suited to the military, and should have been discharged rather than be shunted from Walter Reed to Ft. Hood. Large bureaucracies are like this: rather than take action, the envelope is pushed down the counter. This envelope contained a letter bomb.

Major Hasan's own reasons for action will probably never be known. He has acted. The action has provoked analysis. Some of the ideas are useful, and hopefully productive, others are toxic. The deployment of the idea of "political correctness" and the shifting of the burden of explanation to Hasan's religion is a convenient way to avoid all else. Muslim Americans anticipated the backlash immediately (one might remember CBS's Connie Chung right after the Oklahoma bombing in 1995, "According to a government source, it has Middle East terrorism written all over it." It turned out to be an Iraq War veteran and his friend; that's the closest the attack came to the Middle East).

All the requisite Muslim American organizations hastily put together press releases to condemn Major Hasan's attack, even before the smell of cordite left the processing center where he went on his rampage. This was mete. After all, it was important to make the point against the kind of assumptions that would float out of the slime of FOX and its various friends. As it turned out, it didn't stop anything. Nor could President Obama's plea to keep religion out of it. Nor could General George Casey, who told CNN, that the backlash against Muslims and Muslim American soldiers "would be a shame as great a tragedy as this was, it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well." The Army has been particular about diversity (for more on this see George Baca's forthcoming book from Rutgers, Conjuring Crisis: Racism and the struggle for civil rights in a southern military town). This is why it joined the amicus brief against the end to affirmative action at the University of Michigan (Grutter v. Bollinger). The text is instructive: "[the case's] outcome could affect the diversity of our [N]ation's officer corps, and in turn, the military's ability to fulfill its missions." When asked about this support, Lt. General Becton told NPR, that diversity was a "combat multiplier. It brings about unit cohesiveness." The brief was signed by all the senior officers, each one battle-tested. Nothing pious here.

But here comes the easy bile. Published, no less, than by Forbes. The author, Tunku Vardarajan, is a professor at the well-named Stern School of Business, but also a luminary in the various financial pages (a regular columnist at Forbes). His essay on the Fort Hood massacre is called "Going Muslim" (November 9). You can close your eyes and imagine what he argues. It does not require much sophistication.

Vardarajan thinks that Muslims are an entity apart. They cannot integrate. Indeed, theirs is a "fake integration." Fine, most of the "hundreds of thousands of Muslims in our midst," he writes, might not want to kill others, but "there are a few (perhaps many more than a few) who are so radicalized that they would kill their fellow Americans." The bulk of Muslims are not so radicalized, but, to Varadarajan, they are still irreducible ("Muslims are the most difficult 'incomers' in the ongoing integration challenge"). They are Muslims first and last. Consider this: "Muslims may be more extreme because their religion is founded on bellicose conquest, a contempt for infidels and an obligation for piety that is more extensive than in other schemes." Any Muslim, then, is a danger. It is nonsense, plagiarized from the paranoid notebooks kept by Daniel Pipes. I bet Vardarajan has not read the Quran, or listened to the Taqwacore bands or had an intense discussion with The Muslim Guy (Arslan Iftikhar).

Vardarajan used to write for the Wall Street Journal. In 2005, its editorial page described American Muslims as "role models both as Americans and as Muslims" ("Stars, Stripes, Crescent," August 24, 2005). The impetus for that statement was the imputed danger of Muslims in Europe (the so-called idea of Eurabia, the Fifth Column of Muslims). The WSJ decided that on balance Muslim Americans were ideal citizens, well-educated, professionals, with a voting pattern balanced between the two major parties, and, importantly for the paper, with a plurality in favor of a lower tax rate. Nothing of this kind comes out in Vardarajan's essay, which is far closer to the kind of reaction from Rush Limbaugh and Joe Lieberman (Calling Joe Biden, whose best line so far was used against Guiliani, that he can't say a sentence without a noun, a verb and 9/11).

If Muslims can be reduced to their religion, and if their religion is indeed extremist, then the pabulum of political correctness, Vardarajan believes, should go. "President Obama," he writes, "was as craven as a community college diversity vice-president when he said that no one should jump to conclusions." It "flies in the face of common sense" to be considerate to Muslims, who might "go Muslim" at any moment. Racial profiling is therefore good; it is not far to the internment camps.

Fort Hood Three

Not far from the gates of Fort Hood sits the Under the Hood Café. Run by Codepink member Cynthia Thomas whose husband has been on three tours of Iraq, the Café provides a safe place for veterans to come talk frankly about the things that the culture of the military forbids, such as how to deal with trauma and the loneliness of the post-battlefield condition. The Café recalls an earlier time, when Fort Hood was home to a coffeehouse, Oleo Strut (named for an aircraft shock absorber), which was the base of anti-war activity. In those days of the draft for the Vietnam War, the soldiers had a much clearer sense of disgruntlement and did not labor under the immense ideological feint of the war on terror. Everyone was familiar with the notion that Vietnam was not threat to the United States, and that the conflict in South-East Asia was absurd. That is not so clear these days.

In 1966, three soldiers refused to go to Vietnam. Pfc. James Johnson, Pvt. Dennis Mora and Pvt. David Samas joined together to form the Fort Hood Three. They were court-martialed and sentenced to two and a half years in Leavenworth Penitentiary. When they came of out jail, all three went to work in the Du Bois' clubs, affiliated to the Communist Party. In their Statement (June 30, 1966), the three pointed out that they refused to fight in the "immoral, illegal and unjust" war, which was being fought against an enemy that "had the moral and physical support of most of the peasantry who were fighting for their independence." They rejected the imputation of racism ("We were told that you couldn't tell [the Vietnamese rebels] apart - that they looked like any other skinny peasant").

The war was aimless. "No one used the word 'winning' anymore," they wrote, "because in Vietnam it has no meaning. Our officers just talk about five and ten more years of war with at least one half million of our boys thrown into the grinder. We have been told that many times we may face a Vietnamese woman or child and that we will have to kill them. We will never go there - to do that."

Substitute Afghanistan for Vietnam, and things are updated.

Major Hasan was obviously strained in many ways. He needed counseling. But he also needed to be part of a public discussion about the futility of these wars. There is not much of that on offer. He rather fell into discussion with a cleric in Virginia who was equally bilious, the mirror image of the war planners. There is too much blood in these conversations. There is insufficient courage to talk about peace and justice.

Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT His new book is The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, New York: The New Press, 2007. He can be reached at: vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu

Remembering: the Day After

2009-11-13T17:37:00.002-05:00

Remembering: the Day After
by Harsha Walia, from The Vancouver Sun, November 13, 2009.

When we launched life/ on the river of grief / how vital were our arms, how ruby our blood / With a few strokes, it seemed, / we would cross all pain, / we would soon disembark. / That didn’t happen. / In the stillness of each wave we found invisible currents. / The boatmen, too, were unskilled, / their oars untested. / Investigate the matter as you will, / blame whomever, as much as you want, / but the river hasn’t changed, / the raft is still the same. / Now you suggest what’s to be done, / you tell us how to come ashore. - Faiz Ahmed Faiz (Translation by Agha Shahid Ali)

This is not about Remembrance Day, this is about the day after, and the day after. A journal of sorts, this is about all the remaining days of the year. An invocation to memorialize all those who have suffered and died due to human and corporate greed, military wars and foreign occupations, man-made poverty and environmental devastation. A Remembrance to the Horrors of the World, if you will, to jar us from our collective amnesia that seems to set in on certain days.

I am reminded of scholars such as Reinhart Koselleck and Gilbert Achcar who describe war commemorations as sites of political and national mobilization, conceptualizing past memories of warfare and the fallen as powerful political tools directed primarily towards building support for current and future military operations. Within this context, it is revealing that the institutions that most vehemently uphold the symbolism of Remembrance Day are the ones that are most eager to create a steady flow of the dead to remember. Mark Steel sardonically writes, “Maybe this is why the Government is so keen on the current war – it is convenient to have another one in a place full of poppies.”

Never Again seems to have been rebranded into an affirmation of death, rather than life. Ironically, a day where – according to Veterans Affairs itself – we are to remember “our responsibility to work for peace”, we are bombarded with messages of militaristic glory. In the words of US combat veteran and renowned historian Howard Zinn, “Instead of an occasion for denouncing war, it has become an occasion for bringing out the flags, the uniforms, the martial music, the patriotic speeches...Those who name holidays, playing on our genuine feeling for veterans, have turned a day that celebrated the end of a horror into a day to honor militarism.” Indeed, should Remembrance Day stories not emphasize those soldiers who oppose wars, whether as conscientious objectors or war resisters? While many would like to cast them as cowards, refusing to blindly and obediently act on unjust, illegal, or immoral military orders are acts of heroism.

But again this is not about Remembrance Day. Today, I am haunted by the faces of those who are being slaughtered and murdered by ‘our boys’ in Afghanistan. The day after Remembrance Day, after we underscore the seemingly unique sacrifice of veterans and selectively grieve for them, where is the indignation and sorrow for the daily dead of Afghanistan? Where is our recognition – let alone remembrance – of the soaring number of deaths in a country where, just in the past six months alone, over 2000 people have been killed. According to figures by the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, civilian death in Afghanistan have soared by 24% during the first half of 2009 compared with same period last year.

I am curious whether former Afghani MP Malalai Joya will be wearing a red poppy during her book launch in Vancouver, and whether she will feel obliged to express her sympathy for dead Canadian soldiers. Joya is a women’s rights and anti-war activist - dubbed the bravest woman in Afghanistan by the BBC - who has repeatedly offered her condolences to mothers in NATO countries who have lost children due to their government’s eight-year occupation of her land. How must it feel to always validate the grief of an occupying country for its losses, while those responsible find greater fervour - and find applause amongst many of us - in perpetuating policies of death, violence, and destruction?

I ponder the future, February 2010 to be exact, and whether Vancouverites will awaken to the reality of state-sanctioned repression by over 16,500 military, police, and security personnel in the largest security operation in Canadian history. Vancouver will be occupied by more Canadian Armed Force troops than Afghanistan has been; bringing $1 billion worth of closed circuit TV cameras, electronic fencing and monitoring, armoured vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, and now LRAD sonic guns, to our streets. “Operation Podium”, with regular and reserve forces, JTF2 commandos, and NORAD fighter planes, will become the priority mission in 2010. How will we respond to these extraordinarily high levels of surveillance and, unless we are naïve, undoubtedly violence? We only have to look at recent episodes, such as Gustafsen Lake or Oka, where Indigenous people bore the force of the Canadian military and police – including surviving over 77,000 rounds of ammunition in the 1995 standoff in BC’s interior – for defense of their land and people.

Have we become so engrossed in our own narcissistic narrative of self-righteous freedom-lovers and democracy-promoters that we take offense to those who wear the white poppy (as if the values of peace and justice are any more politically biased than the glorification of war). To find out whether WWII was indeed a Good War that safeguarded us from fascism, ask a Japanese-Canadian who was declared an enemy alien, stripped of all their property, and forcibly interned.

Why do we find it improper when it is pointed out that we are in fact residing in a state and society that continues to marginalize dissent as unpatriotic, that illegally expropriates Indigenous lands and resources, that subjugates and stigmatizes those who are poor, that prioritizes bailing out and protecting the biggest thieves of public money, that excludes and expels thousands of immigrants and refugees, and that perpetuates its racist civilizing presumptions to advance wars and occupations?

Why is it inappropriate to suggest – on any day of the year - that freedom for the world’s majority is still an aspiration, though in reality nothing more than magnetic poetry and the shallow rhetoric of politicians?

This, then, is an invocation not just for Remembrance Day, but one to ritualize grief in response to all the violence in and around our daily lives. As Noam Chomsky writes, “silence is often more eloquent than loud clamor, so let us attend to what is unspoken”. In contrast to the tyranny of complicity, desensitization, and historical amnesia, with remembrance comes responsibility - so let us act accordingly.

If CSIS comes knocking...

2009-11-09T23:22:00.002-05:00

If CSIS comes knocking...
A community advisory from the People's Commission Network based in Montreal, November 10, 2009.

There have recently been visits by members of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) to various local social justice organizers and activists. This community advisory is in response to those visits.

Visits by CSIS to activists in Montreal are nothing new; they have taken place before around specific events or projects. CSIS has recently conducted over 60 visits to about 40 activists in the Vancouver-area, related to opposition to the 2010 Olympics. In general, CSIS visits can have different purposes: they are not only about information-gathering but can also be attempts to create or exploit divisions between activists, plant misinformation, intimidate, develop psychological profiles, and recruit informers.

If CSIS comes knocking, we strongly encourage total and complete non-cooperation. A CSIS visit to your home or workplace will be a surprise, but we encourage you to be ready to not cooperate with them in any way.

If you are in a precarious position -- due to your immigration status, pending criminal charges, probation, parole, or any other reason -- we strongly encourage you to NEVER EVER talk to CSIS alone. Instead, tell them to contact a trusted lawyer that you have chosen, and then refuse to say anything else. You can contact the People's Commission Network for references to lawyers who can act diligently against CSIS intimidation tactics.

If you are comfortable doing so, ask for the names, telephone numbers and cards of the CSIS agents who want to talk to you. Insist they provide their names, and don't say anything else. You are under no legal obligation, ever, to confirm your identity with CSIS.

Sometimes CSIS agents might begin speaking to you and only later identify themselves. In that case, if you are taken by surprise, we encourage you to refuse to continue speaking with CSIS. You can always default back to being silent. In dealing with security services, silence is the golden rule.

In all cases, you are encouraged to tell CSIS to leave your home or workplace or cease following you. Tell CSIS clearly to leave, in whatever fashion you feel is appropriate. You can insist they leave, to the point of closing doors in their face.

Remember, although CSIS can act in very ugly ways, it has no arrest or policing powers.

We encourage you to get in touch with the People's Commission Network to report any CSIS visits or related incidents. Your correspondence with the People's Commission Network will be considered confidential. Consider any unannounced CSIS visit to be harassment against you. If possible, we encourage you to write down your experience so that you have the facts clearly noted.

CSIS' job is to gather information for the state and to disrupt movements of social justice. Their broad mandate includes monitoring any activities they deem to threaten the current political and economic order. Their intimidation focuses on indigenous peoples, immigrants, racialized communities, radical political organizations, labour unions, as well as the allies of these groups. CSIS' actions, which show clear evidence of gross incompetence, racism, as well as complicity in torture, are just even more reason why they deserve no cooperation whatsoever by anyone involved in movements for social justice.

Total non-cooperation with CSIS and other security agencies by the entire social justice community - broadly and inclusively defined - is our best way of maintaining unity and solidarity, as well as keeping our focus on our important day-to-day organizing and activism.

To recap: Do not talk to CSIS or share any information with them, no matter how harmless you think it is. Do consider reporting the visit to the People's Commission Network.

Please share this community advisory within your networks, and with members of your organizations and groups, so we can encourage collective non-cooperation with CSIS.

In solidarity,

The People's Commission Network (Montreal) E-mail: abolissons@gmail.com Tel: 514-848-7583

Selected background information:

* Targeting of Anti-Olympics Movement: What To Do When Police & Spies Come Knocking
* Canada's spies: the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service