Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik August 2004 / Timeline August, 2004
Version 3.0
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08/01/2004
Første
verdenskrig starter officielt, 1914.
08/01/2004
Det er nu femten måneder siden, at USAs præsident Bush
erklærede krigen i Irak for vundet.
08/01/2004
The 80,000 member Peace and Freedom Party nominates Leonard Peltier
as their candidate for president in the upcoming November
elections.
08/02/2004
WILPF’S 28th International Congress: Water,
Women, Peace
2-8 August 2004, Goteborg, Sweden
The 28th WILPF Congress, meeting in Goteborg, Sweden, recently
concluded adopting an international programme for 2004-2007, a
series of resolutions and statements on a variety of issues, and a
proposal to hold an international women's peace conference in Cuba
in 2006. The international programme frames WILPF activity for the
next three years in three main interlinked areas: Peace and
Security - Disarmament, Demilitarization; Environment and
Sustainable Development; and Global Economic and Social
Justice.
08/02/2004
Amnesty roser danske soldater for ikke at acceptere
tortur
Amnesty Internationals danske afdeling roser den handlekraft som
forsvarskomandoen netop har vist ved at hjemsende en dansk
efterretningsofficer, der er mistænkt for at have
begået torturlignende overgreb på irakiske fanger.
"Det er rart at se, at det danske forsvar omgående handler i
den slags sager", siger Amnestys danske generalsekretær Lars
Normann Jørgensen. "Men det er også positivt at
opleve, at flere danske menige tilsyneladende siger fra overfor en
behandling af irakiske fanger, som de mener er i strid med
internationale standarder. Det viser, at danske militærfolk
har forstået budskabet om, at Danmark ikke accepterer tortur,
og at de er villige til at gå forrest i kampen mod tortur,
også når det gælder kollegaer", siger Amnestys
generalsekretær Lars Normann Jørgensen.
Ikke et ord om tortur i dansk lov
Danmark har underskrevet og ratificeret FN's torturkonvention.
Derfor har såvel FN's torturkommission og Amnesty
International gentagne gange opfordret den danske regering til at
indskrive torturkonventionen i lovgivningen. Et udvalg nedsat under
den tidligere regering anbefalede da også at indarbejde
konventioner i dansk lovgivning. I en betænkning fra 2001 om
indarbejdelse af menneskerettighedskonventioner i dansk lov, fandt
udvalget frem til, at det reelt har en effekt at indarbejde
konventioner i lovgivningen. Alligevel afviser regeringen at
gøre det, og derfor står der i dag ikke et ord om
tortur i den danske straffelov. Den aktuelle sag i Camp Eden
understreger endnu en gang, at tortur også er et dansk
anliggende. Derfor vil Amnesty i den kommende tid forsøge at
lægge fornyet pres på den danske regering for at
få den til at ændre holdning og kriminalisere tortur
direkte i dansk lovgivning.
08/03/2004
Iraq Veterans Against the War
By: Alexander Zaitchik
NEWS & COLUMNS
http://www.nypress.com/17/30/news&columns/AlexanderZaitchik.cfm
Back in March, the Army released the results of a poll conducted
to gauge frontline morale in Iraq. It was hardly a shocker to learn
that most of those stationed there almost a year after the fall of
Baghdad weren't very happy about it. Confirming an earlier study
published by the military paper Stars and Stripes, the Army found
that morale was "low or very low" among a slight majority of U.S.
soldiers, while almost three-quarters felt that battalion-level
leadership showed a "lack of concern" for their safety.
The report was a wake-up call for a military establishment still
haunted by Vietnam. When the rank and file soured on that war,
G.I.s didn't just shoot themselves—the Iraq poll was
commissioned after a rash of suicides—they famously turned
their guns and grenades upon their superiors. By 1970, "fragging"
unpopular officers rivaled the mainlining of Burmese brown as a
popular jungle pastime. Desertion shot way up; reenlistment way
down. The breakdown of the U.S. war machine in Indochina was so
complete that some observers called it the biggest military
collapse since the Tsarist armies abandoned the Eastern Front.
Writing in the June 1971 issue of the Armed Forces Journal, Col.
Robert D. Heinl described the U.S. military as "drug ridden and
dispirited where not near mutinous."
It took about six years to reach this boiling point in Vietnam. If
more than half the troops in Iraq were losing faith after a single
year of relatively few casualties, how could U.S. commanders expect
to maintain the discipline, order and morale needed for the long
haul? Upon the poll's release, a senior army commander told the
Washington Post he was "extremely worried by the numbers," adding
that they should "set off alarm bells."
It's now been four months since the Army released its study. One
hundred and thirty-six thousand U.S. soldiers remain in Iraq; many
are neck-deep in their second brutal summer. The one-thousandth
American casualty is loosely scheduled for late August. There is no
discussion of setting a date for U.S. withdrawal, even though the
Bush administration's case for the war has already been judged and
shredded by History. Yet disruptive manifestations of widespread
discontent among the ranks have not materialized. As of this
writing, there are still only four known cases of soldiers refusing
to deploy. Instances of outright combat refusal in Iraq have
remained few and far between. To the Pentagon's surprise and
relief, the branches are hitting or nearing their expanded
recruitment goals. It's three months before a presidential election
in which both candidates vow to continue the bloody occupation, and
the highest-profile symbols of anger in the military are a few
pro-Kerry vets in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. What's wrong
with this picture?
Tod Ensign, director of New York-based Citizen Soldier, a
non-profit G.I.-rights advocacy organization, attributes the lack
of public dissent to the relatively fresh wound of 9/11, which
fueled patriotism and created an immediate sense of war that has
been manipulated by the Bush administration. He also points to the
economy.
"The thinking is, 'This really sucks, but it's all I've got,'" says
Ensign. "They want the G.I. Bill, they want their college loans
repaid. It's not like the late-60s, when you could walk down the
street and get another job. The cost of refusing is very high."
Still, there are signs that more soldiers may be getting ready to
take their chances. The G.I. Rights Hotline, which provides
counseling to soldiers considering deployment refusal or
conscientious-objector status, claims it is now handling 3000 calls
a month—a 50 percent increase from what it received in
2003.
Another possible storm cloud over the now-quiet Iraqi front is the
founding of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), which announced
itself to the world last Thursday at a press conference in Boston.
The IVAW advocates immediate withdrawal and seeks to create
political pressure at home while encouraging active-duty soldiers,
reservists and recent veterans to come forward and speak out
against the occupation. The founding membership totals just
12—double the number that hatched Vietnam Veterans Against
the War in 1967. Within two years that group had grown to more than
30,000 active members demanding an end to the war, including a
returning Navy lieutenant named John Kerry.
Michael Hoffman, co-founder of IVAW, stormed Baghdad with a First
Marine Division artillery battery and observed the early months of
the occupation from Tikrit, an experience that confirmed his worst
fears. Not only was the war based and sold on lies, he says, U.S.
troops are the problem in post-Saddam Iraq—not the solution.
Upon his return he began working with veterans groups opposing the
occupation, activity that led directly to the founding of IVAW,
which he hopes will provide an outlet for the widespread G.I. anger
he believes is simmering in Iraq.
"The organization will fill a void," says Hoffman. "It's really
hard for guys over there to express themselves. Any of their
stories that we can relay is a big thing, because the picture we're
getting is filtered. The guys with the lowest morale are the guys
with the least access to computers—in Najaf, Samarra,
Fallujah. The guys in Baghdad who have it the best have the access
to the computers all the time. The ones who are pushed out to the
other areas are getting the worst of it. Right now there's no
outlet for anti-war feeling. We'll be a magnet for venting. I
expect a lot of people to come out of the woodwork."
One of the groups Hoffman contacted upon his return from Iraq was
Military Families Speak Out, until the founding of IVAW the closest
thing to a megaphone for antiwar sentiment among the enlisted. MFSO
began with two families in November of 2002; it now contains more
than 1500 families with new members joining every day. Co-founder
Nancy Lessin, whose stepson completed a tour of Iraq last year,
says the organization's growth tends to follow the news, especially
when the president says something callous or stupid. When Bush
declared the end of major combat on May 1, 2003 ("We knew that it
was such a lie," she moans), membership exploded. When Bush
taunted, "Bring 'em on!" in the face of rising Iraqi resistance,
the phone calls and emails poured in.
Even if a groundswell of public refusers does emerge out of the
work of groups like IVAW and MFSO, Tod Ensign worries that the
support network won't be in place to handle it. During the height
of the Vietnam War, there was a developed ring of counseling
centers and coffee houses entrenched around U.S. bases all over the
world, agitating against the war and offering legal assistance.
There is currently only one such center, near Fort Bragg, called
Quaker House. "If 10 to 20 people came forward tomorrow," says
Ensign, "it would enormously strain whatever resources are out
there. These are very difficult cases."
IVAW's Mike Hoffman is sadly confident that the occupation will
drag on, and that many more than 20 soldiers will soon come out
against it, led by returning vets. "If the war continues the way it
is," he says, "I expect something like what happened in Vietnam.
They have a chance to pull out the troops, but if the government
sticks to its guns, it's gonna happen."
Should John Kerry be in the White House when Iraq veterans start
tossing their medals in its direction, the irony will be thick. We
know Kerry the decorated veteran can throw, but can he catch?
Volume 17, Issue 30
© 2004 New York Press
08/03/2004
EURO-MPs RISK ARREST TO HALT WORK ON NEW NUKE FACTORY
http://www.jeanlambertmep.org.uk/downloads/pressrel_articles/0408Aldermaston.htm
TWO Euro-MPs risk arrest after pledging to join a campaign of non-violent direct action to halt construction of a laser facility for testing 'the next generation of nuclear weapons' at the atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston, Berkshire.
Green Party MEPs Caroline Lucas (South-East England) and Jean Lambert (London) have joined more than 30 peace campaigners - including CND Chair Kate Hudson and veterans of the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp - in agreeing to physically obstruct and prevent construction of the planned 'Orion' Laser Facility when work starts next year.
Caroline Lucas, who was arrested in 2002 for 'breaching the peace' during a non-violent demonstration at the Trident nuclear Submarine base in Faslane, Scotland, said: "This proposed facility is an assault on local health, local democracy and world peace.
"It breaches the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and flies in the face of the International Court of Justice's 1996 ruling that the use or threat of nuclear weapons would be unlawful.
"I will be pursuing all legal means to 'block the builders' and prevent the construction of the Orion Laser facility at Aldermaston - or anywhere else."
Their decision to join the 'block the builders' campaign comes as the world mourns the anniversary of the dropping of the first nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 7th, 1945.
Jean Lambert, who visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki and met relatives and survivors of the blasts which brought us into the nuclear age, said:
"I have seen at first hand the devastation caused by nuclear weapons - and the human price still being paid more than half a century on.
"The Government's commitment to nuclear weapons is an extraordinary and counterproductive waste of money too: there are so many better things we could be spending our money on to contribute to world peace than finding better and more efficient ways to blow ourselves up.
"As long as the Government remains committed to researching and developing new nuclear weapons systems, and as long as the international institutions and agreements fail to stop it, I will remain an active campaigner in the non-violent resistance to this unlawful escalation of Weapons of Mass Destruction."
The proposed Orion laser facility is designed to replicate the conditions of a nuclear explosion in a 100-metre building and is expected to play an essential role in the testing of new nuclear weapons, currently being designed in the US.
The non-violent 'block the builders' campaign has been initiated by the Aldermaston Women's Peace Campaign, which has joined 90 local authorities in calling for a full public inquiry into the Orion facility - a demand which the government has so far ignored.
A spokesperson said: "The developments [at AWE] should be subject to both public and parliamentary scrutiny. If the Government won't let either the public or parliament discuss its plans then we will use all non-violent means at our disposal to stop this facility being built.
"The Government has strenuously denied any plans to build new nuclear weapons - but, after Iraq, why should anyone believe anything it says about Weapons of Mass Destruction?"
08/04/2004
Weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East Resolution/ WILPF
The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom's International Executive Committee, meeting in Berlin, July 31 - August 4, 2000 resolved that,
Whereas the multilateral discussions on regional security agreements, including all countries in the Middle East, were discontinued in 1995 because of Egypt's refusal to continue discussion because of Israel maintaining its policy of "nuclear ambiguity";
Whereas many countries in the regional have declared and undeclared weapons of mass destruction - biological, chemical and nuclear - as well as delivery vehicles, or appear to be developing such, leading to increased hazards of war and unspeakable destruction;
Whereas Israel's continued nuclear weapons programme poses a threat of accident, contamination, and calamity to Israel itself and the region, and is a spur to the arms race in the Middle East;
Aware that Israel and the United States were the only two votes in the United Nations against reaffirmation of the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space Treaty, indicating an alliance in the "weaponization" of space, adding a new and dangerous dimension to the Middle East arms race;
Whereas the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled in 1997 that nuclear weapons are generally illegal under international humanitarian law;
Whereas Mordechai Vanunu continues to be imprisoned;
Whereas the Israeli government is unwilling to engage in the recently held Knesset debate on nuclear policy; and
Whereas the New Agenda Coalition at the Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty called for unequivocal actions by the nuclear weapons states for the elimination of such weapons,
Therefore, be it resolved that the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom:
Add its voice to the calls for reconvening the multilateral discussion for the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction from the Middle East, including weapons in space and, in particular, calls on Israel to associate itself with the New Agenda Coalition for the elimination of nuclear weapons, and to become an active signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and, as a sign of this policy, to release from prison Mordechai Vanunu.
08/04/2004
Nepalese Army Takes in Women for Combat
http://www.peacewomen.org/news/Nepal/Aug04/nepalese%20army.html
The Royal Nepalese Army has completed the training of its first
group of female recruits, after authorities decided that 5 percent
of soldiers should be women, writes UPI.
08/06/2004
Amerikansk atombombe eksploderer over den japanske by Hiroshima, 1945.
Litteratur: Aagaard, Lars Henrik: Hiroshima-bomben
brænder endnu. I: Berlingske Tidende,
08/06/2004.
08/06/2004
Revideret dansk, amerikansk, grønlandsk aftale om 'forsvaret af
Grønland'. Forsvarsaftalen fra 1951 fornyes, idet den nye
traktat reelt er en tillægsaftale til 1951-aftalen. 'These
agreements pave the way for an upgrade of radar facilities at Thule
Air Base, which will support the U.S. missile defense program',
writes the Royal Danish Embassy, Washington DC.
Kilde: Terp,
Holger Den nye traktat om forsvaret af Grønland har
demokratisk underskud.
08/09/2004
8000 Palestinians Inside Israeli Jails, 385 Minors, 83
Females
GAZA, August9,2004 (IPC)-- More than 8,000 inmates are currently
held in 256 Israeli jails and concentration camps including 83
female prisoners in Majedo prison, and 385 minors, according to a
report by the 'Ansar Al Assra' organization.
Nearly 40 prisoners are afflicted with chronic diseases and in
urgent need of surgical operations, 97 prisoners have been serving
for more than 20 years, while 5000-6000 have been on remand. The
number of administrative detainees – those held without
charge or trial - stands at 1250. Most worryingly, nearly all
Palestinian prisoners are subjected to some kind of torture or
abuse.
08/10/2004
Army 'psyops' at CNN News giant employed military 'psychological
operations' personnel
By Geoff Metcalf
(c) 2000 WorldNetDaily.com
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=17437
CNN employed active duty U.S. Army psychological operations
personnel last year, WorldNetDaily has confirmed through several
sources at Fort Bragg and elsewhere.
Maj. Thomas Collins, U.S. Information Service has confirmed that
"psyops" (psychological operations) personnel, soldiers and
officers, have worked in the CNN headquarters in Atlanta. The
lend/lease exercise was part of an Army program called "Training
With Industry." According to Collins, the soldiers and officers,
"... worked as regular employees of CNN. Conceivably, they would
have worked on stories during the Kosovo war. They helped in the
production of news."
The CNN military personnel were members of the Airmobile Fourth
Psychological Operations Group, stationed at Fort Bragg, North
Carolina. One of the main tasks of this group of almost 1200
soldiers and officers is to spread 'selected information.' Critics
say that means dissemination of propaganda.
08/13/2004
Gandhi's Grandson to Kick Off Unarmed Palestinian
Campaign
By: Amira Hass
Ha'aretz Daily (Tel Aviv, Israel)
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/464085.html
Arun Gandhi, grandson of the great Indian leader Mohandas
Karamchand 'Mahatma' Gandhi, is to kick off a Palestinian
campaign for an unarmed, popular struggle against the Israeli
occupation.
The campaign is being organized in Ramallah by a group of
Palestinian social and political activists formed after a ruling of
the International Court of Justice in The Hague against the
separation fence and Israel's occupation in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip. The group's members are anti-fence activists, members of
non-government organizations for water and agriculture development,
and central Fatah activists, headed by minister-without-portfolio
and Fatah activist Kadura Fares.
08/16/2004
US Department of peace?
By: Kurt Singer
Dennis Kucinich,the Representative of Ohio surprised the Bush
Administration by introducing a new bill in the House HR 2459.To
counteract the current brainwashing of the public to accept the
Iraq war the Ohio legislator wants to create a Department of Peace,
adding a new government post to the executive branch with cabinet
status. Kucinich was one of the candidates of the Democratic
Party's primary for the presidency. He ran as a Franklin D.
Roosevelt liberal and lost to Senator Kerry he now upports.The
Department of Peace would "advise the Secretary of Defense and the
Secretary of State on all matters relating to national security and
the protection of humasn rights... and escalation of armed and
unarmed international conflict.
"This Department would train persons involved in armament pruchase,
teach peace and nonviolence in the schools. Advise the President on
second opinions in times of conflict, occupation or United Nation
decisions. Such a bill will never pass in Congress. Still the Ohio
legislator stubornly wants to educate the Washington Powers to move
away from wars and President George W.Bush's believe that God had
chosen him to be "the leader of the free world."
The leader of a super power. Leader? Leiter "FUEHRER"?
08/16/2004
I Love You, Madame Librarian
By Kurt Vonnegut
I, like probably most of you, have seen Michael Moore's Fahrenheit
9/11. Its title is a parody of the title of Ray Bradbury's great
science fiction novel, Fahrenheit 451. This temperature 451'
Fahrenheit, is the combustion point, incidentally, of paper, of
which books are composed. The hero of Bradbury's novel is a
municipal worker whose job is burning books.
And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate
librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their
powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over
this country, have staunchly resisted anti- democratic bullies who
have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have
refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have
checked out those titles.
So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or
the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or
the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of
our public libraries.
And still on the subject of books: Our daily sources of news,
papers and TV, are now so craven, so unvigilant on behalf of the
American people, so uninformative, that only in books can we find
out what is really going on. I will cite an example: House of Bush,
House of Saud by Craig Unger, published near the start of this
humiliating, shameful blood-soaked year.
In case you haven't noticed, and as a result of a shamelessly
rigged election in Florida, in which thousands of African Americans
were arbitrarily disenfranchised, we now present ourselves to the
rest of the world as proud, grinning, jut- jawed, pitiless war
lovers, with appallingly powerful weaponry and unopposed.
In case you haven't noticed, we are now almost as feared and hated
all over the world as the Nazis were.
With good reason.
In case you haven't noticed, our unelected leaders have dehumanized
millions and millions of human beings simply because of their
religion and race. We wound and kill 'em and torture 'em and
imprison 'em all we want.
Piece of cake.
In case you haven't noticed, we also dehumanize our own soldiers,
not because of their religion or race, but because of their low
social class.
Send 'em anywhere. Make 'em do anything.
Piece of cake.
The O'Reilly Factor.
So I am a man without a country, except for the librarians and the
Chicago-based magazine you are reading, In These Times.
Before we attacked Iraq, the majestic New York Times guaranteed
that there were weapons of mass destruction there.
Albert Einstein and Mark Twain gave up on the human race at the end
of their lives, even though Twain hadn't even seen World War I. War
is now a form of TV entertainment. And what made WWI so
particularly entertaining were two American inventions, barbed wire
and the machine gun. Shrapnel was invented by an Englishman of the
same name. Don't you wish you could have something named after
you?
Like my distinct betters Einstein and Twain, I now am tempted to
give up on people too. And, as some of you may know, this is not
the first time I have surrendered to a pitiless war machine.
My last words? "Life is no way to treat an animal, not even a
mouse."
Napalm came from Harvard. Veritas!
Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler.
What can be said to our young people, now that psychopathic
personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without
a sense of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the
treasuries of our government and corporations and made it all their
own?
08/16/2004
Dear Peace Studies Discussion Group Subscriber,
This will be the last message posted on the Peace Studies
Discussion Group.
I guess when one both begins and ends a discussion group, the
inevitable privilege is that one has the first and last word.
Perhaps that is fitting. Except for the initial months, when I
worked to set a tone of courtesy and civility among newcomers, I
consciously kept quiet on my own discussion groups, so as not to
abuse the power a listowner has at his or her disposal. (And for
those of you who were curious, or not curious enough, Robin is also
a male name).
I wish to thank all of you again for making the discussion group a
success.
I do indeed hope you have been served by the Peace Studies
Discussion Group.
But now that this particular venue is ending, I wish to draw our
attention to the immediate future.
People are without food, clothing, money, employment, education,
health care and hope.
Millions and millions and millions of people.
And others are dying every day due to the violence inherent in our
poorly organized and poorly tended "civilizations".
And yet others are being killed by militarism and its logical
outcome: war.
What are we doing together, as responsible civilians, as
individuals of conscience, to stop the collective slaughter?
If we believe in justice for all, I believe we must work to undo
the causes of violence against others: both direct and structural.
Thus, I believe it is not only our responsibility to serve the
homeless, but to seek to end it. Moreover, I believe it is our
responsibility to stop wars fought in our names; to speak out
against those who say they kill in our names; and to work to build
community in the truest sense of the word (not one against the
other, but each with respect for the other).
These past three-and-a-half years have been the most fearful years
of my entire lifetime. I believe that McCarthyism (where communism
was the ideological enemy and everyone was asked to tell on a
friend or neighbor) pales in comparison to the last few years of
fear-mongering, where terrorism is the ubiquitous enemy that
requires us to give up essential civil liberties and allow
fundamental aspects of our democracy to be altered or done away
with all in the name of "freedom", "liberty", and "security".
Professors are being black-listed and people of good will who
disagree with war, invading other countries, and hair-raising new
presidential doctrines of pre-emptive war are derided and accused
of not being patriotic. And while we are all looking the other way,
the United States is starting a whole new set of arms races.
I refuse to believe that such "leadership" represents the values
and ideals of those who have taught me to be kind to others, as
they would be kind to me. I resist all of this violence with every
breath in my body. And I invite you to do everything in your power
to change the direction of this country between now and
November.
I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that said, "Think. It's
patriotic."
The background was an American flag. How I would like to be proud
of it again before my life is over.
In the words of Garrison Keillor, "Be well. Do good work. And keep
in touch."
(Or something to that effect.) Please do.
Peace to everyone (and I mean EVERYone),
Robin
Robin J. Crews
Peace List Founder & Owner
Peace and Conflict Home Website Founder & Owner
www.peace-studies.net
08/16/2004
Marines Make Website Take Down Information On Riot Control
Agents
http://prorev.com/2004/07/marines-make-website-take-down.htm
SUNSHINE PROJECT - Citing alleged dangers to US Department of
Defense research programs and employees, the United States Marine
Corps is insisting that the Sunshine Project remove three US
government documents from its website. The situation pits a small
non-profit organization that seeks to uphold arms control treaties
against the US Department of Defense, which wishes to keep its
research on chemical weapons secret.
The documents in question all concern US Army research on
antipersonnel "non-lethal" chemical weapons. Items discussed in the
documents include the Advanced Riot Control Agent Device program
and the use of synthetic opiates (e.g. fentanyl), tranquilizers
(normally used to sedate wild animals), and other drugs as
antipersonnel weapons.
Because the US Marine Corps alleges that the presence of the
documents on the Sunshine Project website physically endangers US
Department of Defense employees, the Sunshine Project has
temporarily removed the documents from its website and requested
that the US Marine Corps send more information about its
assertions.
08/16/2004
Depopulation & Perception Management
http://www.allthingspass.com/docs/matrix_sudan.htm
By Keith Snow
Part One: SUDAN
"I don't know that there's any significant CIA role in Sudan."
Smith College Professor Eric Reeves
Raging in Sudan for the past 18 years is a "civil war" - by
implication Africans killing Africans -- which has devastated
millions of human lives. Human rights advocates have also
documented horrific political repression by the National Islamic
Front (NIF) government of Khartoum. Using food as a weapon,
disrupting planting cycles and social services, and pillaging food
stores, the war has brought unmerciful suffering on millions of
people. Some 1.7 million Sudanese have died, often noncombatants,
often women and children.
In the Smith College lecture reported by the Voice (Dec. 2000),
Professor Eric Reeves decried the NIF as "the only party that wants
the conflict to continue." Voice correspondent Dimitri Oram says
his article entirely ignores the opposition Sudan People's
Liberation Army (SPLA) because the SPLA was hardly discussed by
Reeves. It is "a very one-sided war," Reeves says. "For example:
the government has an air force, while the opposition forces lack
even a single plane."
Reeves has published about 40 Op-Eds, he says, in major U.S. and
U.K. newspapers, and he is "interviewed on a very regular basis by
all major news media in the U.S." He also produces a daily analysis
on the Sudan situation, and he persists in lobbying congressional
legislators to forge a peace in Sudan. He has never traveled to
Sudan, and he admits that he is far less informed about the
geopolitical dynamics of Sudan's southern neighbors like Congo and
Rwanda.
Respecting Professor Reeves' righteous indignation about, and his
attacks against multinational oil conglomerates indifferent to the
slaughter that they perpetuate, Reeves should be commended for
speaking up at all on Sudan. His efforts toward capital markets
sanctions against the oil companies unquestionably deserve our
complete support. Nonetheless, his picture is significantly
misrepresentative, and it is selective, and it is precisely Reeves'
incomplete picture or his naivete -- or his intentional obfuscation
of truth -- that dictates his privilaged access to the U.S.
media.
Any failure to articulate the roles of the U.S. government, the
U.S. military, the United Nations, the U.S. media, "humanitarian"
aid organizations, or powerful extra-governmental forces - e.g.
multinational corporations and their directorships and clandestine
security and intelligence operatives - serves, inadvertently, at
the very least, to support these western terrorist enterprises and
their brutal agendas. Sound harsh? For the victims, it is.
War does not occur in a vacuum. Sudan's National Islamic Front
government, the Sudan People's Liberation Army, their allies and
enemies, are entangled in the international geopolitical struggle
for control in Central Africa. The war in Sudan also hinges on
dynamic Arab-Israeli interests. Neither is war in Sudan divorced
from the Ethiopia-Eritrean conflict, from war in Angola or Sierra
Leone.
This article examines the greater context of war in Sudan, that
hidden, destroyed and manipulated by the U.S. media. Here is the
tip of the iceberg on foreign intrigue, exploitation and espionage
in Africa. It is based on research about Africa over the past five
years, and ten months of investigations in Africa. The most recent
visit ended in late December 2000. Because Rwanda and Uganda
comprise the power center for U.S. control of central Africa, the
Sudan conflict is explored here through a Uganda prism. Sources in
Africa will not be named: their lives are at risk as it is.
Please consider that We, the U.S. public, nurtured by this
insidious and perpetual propaganda machine, are overwhelmingly
misinformed, apathetic and racist about Africa. Behind this shield
of ignorance and indifference the U.S. government prosecutes open
war with impunity against virtually all peoples and lands
non-white. Africa is the extreme. Islam is the extreme. Sudan is
the extreme.
It is irresponsible to ignore, dismiss or deny the role of the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or US Special Operations Forces
(SOF) in a country as ideologically hostile and strategically
lucrative as Sudan. To put this in context of the scope and
capabilities of these forces, SOF conducted over 2216 deployments
involving more than 14,000 personnel in 139 countries in 1994
alone. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) overseas Navy Seals, Army
Rangers and Delta Force, elite units deployed for psychological
operations, counter-insurgency and tactical special exercises. Like
the CIA, the SOF are unquestionably hostile threats to
Khartoum.
THE ROAD TO HELL
(Is Paved With US Landmines.)
Ties to U.S. intelligence predate the current Islamic regime. From
1964 to 1984 Sudan was run by the corrupt U.S. client dictatorship
of Col. Jaafar Nimeiri. Within three days of the March 4, 1984
visit by former CIA Director and then Vice-President George Bush --
which came under the U.S. propaganda banner of food AID for
starving millions - Nimieri instituted a purge against Islamic
society, including mass arrests, executions and torture. Draconian
IMF and World Bank "reforms" led to starvation, unemployment, mass
riots and state repression. As Nimieri stood arm-in-arm with Ronald
Reagan for a New York Times piece in April, the U.S. quickly sent
$64 million of a $181 million aid package to Khartoum to crush the
insurrection which soon toppled "old friend" Nimieri. The State
Security Apparatus then employed 25,000 full-time and 20,000
part-time agents and informers.
A 1989 coup brought the National Islamic Front (NIF) to power. In
the 1990's the Pentagon and CIA increasingly targeted Sudan as a
hotbed of terrorism [read: Islam]. CIA Director John Deutch in 1996
visited Ethiopia to delineate preemptive strikes on Sudanese
"terrorists" and their sponsors. Bill Clinton dispatched Tomahawk
cruise missiles that destroyed a pharmaceuticals factory in
Khartoum that was duplicitously marked as a chemical weapons
production site by CIA operatives. The true motivation for this
bombing remains cloaked in the secrecy of the "National Security"
apparatus, a euphemism for the private accumulation of wealth and
power at the expense of the public trust.
The Sudan People's Liberation Army SPLA leader John Garang is a
Christian of the minority Dinka tribe with a degree from Grinell
College (Iowa) and advanced degrees from Iowa State, and with
military training from the U.S. Army's Fort Benning in Georgia.
Originally based in Ethiopia, the SPLA shifted to South Sudan and
Uganda after rebel leader Yoweiri Museveni seized power by force in
Uganda in 1987. Several factions often at war with one another, the
SPLA has for years received covert military support from the U.S.
and its clients.
In 1996, the U.S. sent nearly $20 million in military hardware
through the front line states of Eritrea, Ethiopia and Uganda.
Since then the US has escalated its covert support but U.S.
military assistance is also routed through Egypt and Israel, who
have trained rebels and shipped weapons via Eritrea, Uganda and
Ethiopia. In 1998, U.S. military assistance to Egypt was $500
million, and to Israel $1000 million. Uganda has contracted Israel
to refurbish four Russian Mig fighter aircraft recently
acquired.
Yoweri Museveni's presidency in Uganda came at the expense of
hundreds of thousands of refugees. A former Dar Es Salaam
University (Tanzania) classmate of John Garang -- and of Congolese
figurehead Laurent Kabila (assassinated!) -- Museveni soon became
the primary conduit for US military support to the SPLA in
Uganda.
Egregious atrocities committed by the Uganda People's Defence
Forces against President Museveni's opposition escalated in the
late 1980s and 1990s and were mostly ignored by human rights
organizations. Ugandan opposition and human rights activists claim
that intimidation, torture and massacres perpetrated over the 14
years of Museveni's control far overshadow the brutality under Idi
Amin, the Ugandan leader demonized by the West for balking at
neocolonial policy forced on Uganda by the West, or the atrocities
committed under his sucessors during the "civil war" of the
1980's.
The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is one of several military threats
that sprung out of people's disaffection to Museveni, his
Anglo-American patrons, their private agenda aimed at looting
Uganda, and their silent war against the people. These rebel
factions are routinely demonized by the US media for strategic -
albeit horrible - tactics learned from Museveni and his rebel army
and pursued by the UPDF. The western press with a virtual media
blackout favors Museveni's Uganda with very selective, expedient
coverage.
The new Museveni government after 1987 quickly forged cooperative
military agreements with John Garang and the SPLA to help defend
Uganda from growing insurgencies. The "insurgency" of the LRA for
example, provided the U.S., the SPLA and Museveni with a public
relations pretext used to gain continued weapons acquisitions and
logistical support. In fact, the U.S. and Uganda were covertly
arming the SPLA in Sudan.
Having eliminated most of the actual LRA rebels, but to support the
pretext for arms shipments to Uganda, UPDF forces disguised
themselves as LRA insurgents, attacked villages and raped, tortured
and murdered innocent civilians, and then returned to SPLA camps in
Uganda and Sudan. (Such UPDF tactics persist.) When the few
legitimate LRA rebels emerged from the bush (1996) for "good faith"
peace talks with the Museveni government, their position was
undermined: Museveni tasked Col. Fred Torit (now a Minister in
parliament) with frustrating the peace accords. Forced back to the
bush, the LRA sided with Sudan's National Islamic Front. Armed and
supplied by Khartoum the LRA pursued a massive forced recruitment
campaign. Suddenly the LRA was a serious force for both SPLA and
Museveni to contend with, and an effective obstacle to the covert
U.S./SPLA project in south Sudan.
The SPLA has perpetrated its share of atrocities in Sudan and it is
unreasonable to ignore their responsibility in perpetuating war.
March of 1997 saw a series of coordinated assaults on southern
Sudanese towns where the SPLA captured wounded or killed 16,000
enemy soldiers. SPLA forces have looted relief supplies and medical
facilities, slaughtered civilians, torched villages. They have
raped, pillaged, and abducted and forcibly recruited child
soldiers.
ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS
The U.S. has consistently denied that it provides military aid
for the SPLA or other north/south factions of the pro- "democratic"
and pro- "Christian" Sudanese Allied Forces (SAF). Opposition
members in Uganda cite meetings between SPLA, Ugandan People's
Defense Forces (UPDF), and U.S. military personnel. Weapons have
been and continue to be flown in through Entebbe (Uganda) and the
neighboring airfield recently refurbished by U.S. military
contractors; from Tanzania weapons are shipped across Lake
Victoria.
U.S. Special Ops have trained guerillas in and out of Uganda for
operations in Congo, Rwanda, and Sudan, and for Uganda's own
insurgencies. Ongoing programs include the Joint/Combined Exchange
Training (J/CET): From 1995-97 the J/CET program ran operations in
34 of 53 African countries. The International Military Education
and Training (IMET), and Expanded-IMET (E-IMET) fund, arm, and
train foreign soldiers in the U.S. The Africa Crisis Response
Initiative (ACRI) missions are run by the U.S. Army Special Forces
Command. The Africa Center for Security Studies (ACSS) programs are
reportedly run by retired U.S. military experts involved in School
of the Americas atrocities using death squads and torture as
policy.
Trained by U.S. Green Berets, Uganda's 3rd Battalion was
immediately deployed to crush an insurgency in western Uganda. SPLA
guerillas have also been trained by Special Ops. The U.S. Defense
Intelligence Agency has foreign agents operating in Africa who
travel under U.S. passports to consult and direct clandestine
operations. South Africa - a staunch American ally - has shipped
military hardware to both sides in the Sudanese conflict.
Private military companies (PMCs) like Military Professional
Resources Inc. (MPRI), run by some 16 former U.S. generals out of
Washington D.C., Sandline International (U.K.), and Executive
Outcomes (S.A.) operate with impunity across Africa, typically
securing sites and guarding private foreign enterprises. These
elite mercenary armies have certainly been contracted to defend oil
operations in Sudan. They deploy superior firepower and
overwhelming lethal force.
(See Covert Action Quarterly, Diamonds Are Forever: The Role of the
US Military (Africa) Spring/Summer 2000;
see for US Firms, War Becomes a Business, Boston Globe,
2/18/97;
see An Army of One's Own, Harpers, 2/97.)
The World Bank/IMF have given Uganda at least $1.8 billion, funds
routinely routed to Uganda's war efforts and weapons stockpiles.
Receiving some $1.5 million in +transparent+ weapons assistance
from Washington in 1998 and 1999, Uganda has also purchased
military equipment with minerals pirated out of Congo. No
coincidence, and in affiliation with PMCs and their intelligence
networks, Barrick Gold Corporation is mining the Kilomoto gold
deposits just over Uganda's western border in Congo. Former CIA
Director and U.S. President George Bush, U.S. Senator Howard Baker,
and former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney are just three of
Barrick's big guns (Annual Report, Barrick Gold Corporation). War
on Uganda's northeast SPLA frontier revolves around gold
concessions controlled by a Branch Energy (UK) partnership with
Museveni's gang. Such elite enterprises prosper because of their
secret intelligence and security links; all have numerous agents at
the highest levels of governments, all are pirating mineral wealth
out of the Congo-Uganda-Sudan theater of war.
ALLAH'S WILL BE DONE
Khartoum's bombing of civilian population centers may be
deliberate and horrible, but SPLA guerillas have intentionally set
up bases in existing villages to use the civilian population as
human shields. Further, the one-sidedness of Khartoum's air
capacity is partially offset by the voluminous "humanitarian"
relief sorties ferried in and out of Sudan by land and air.
Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) is a multi-billion dollar
international enterprise coordinating 35 major U.N. and foreign
government (UNICEF, WFP, WHO, FAO, UNHCR, USAID), non-government
(OXFAM, CARE, ICRC, World Vision) and religious relief and donor
organizations working in Sudan. Journalist Wayne Madsen reports
that "while they are not actually CIA fronts, some of these
Christian and other ["humanitarian"] relief organizations have been
involved in shipping weapons to the SPLA with food and medicine
relief flights."
Southern Air Transport - a known CIA front - shipped landmines and
other weapons on Norwegian People's Aid (NPA) flights: NPA was a
Nobel Prize co-recipient for their campaign to ban landmines
(1998). USAID is considered a cipher for covert weapons shipments:
"Skyways" out of Nairobi and "Legion Express" out of Miami are two
of the air transport companies believed to be CIA fronts retained
by USAID for OLS sorties (Wayne Madsen: Genocide and Covert
Operations in Africa, 1993-1999).
Some 2.0 million people are said to have died in Sudan since 1983.
In Congo, some 3.0 million people have died over the past three
years. Given the interests of western aid, intelligence, security
and defense industries, of multinational petroleum and mining
conglomerates, of agribusiness, and of their public relations,
propaganda, diplomatic, and legal corps, war-by-design seems not
only plausible, but probable. In fact, it appears that one the
Reagan-Bush-Clinton administrations' major foreign policy
objectives on Africa is depopulation. This policy is proliferating
under George Bush Jr.
"Civilian destruction and dispersal [by the Sudan government] are
the means of ensuring that the opposition military forces in the
south are denied food, or the aid of a cohesive society," wrote
Professor Eric Reeves in the Washington Post. "It is a crude but
terribly effective weapon of mass destruction. To make sure of the
genocidal efficiency of the bombing campaign, the Khartoum regime.
is attacking with much greater frequency the medical and food
relief programs of those trying heroically to save people of the
south from disease and starvation."
This certainly is a nasty and crude and horrible way to wage war.
It is also the favored way of the United States. War is war.
Virtually every sector of American society profits by the
perpetuation of war and its concommitant horrors in Africa. Barring
some significant US gesture of reconciliation, do we honestly
expect the Khartoum government to sit "in good faith" at the same
table and talk -- with the duplicitous agents of western
multinational corporations, intelligence and the military - about
PEACE?
08/17/2004
Iraq Casualties
By Kurt Singer
To count the dead and wounded in a war remains a difficult task.
Military and civilian government sources are reluctant to release
final statistics.Figures available on August 17, 04 by the
Washington Post, Boston Globe and the Internet count American death
at 943. Iraqi death between 10.00 to 25.000. Wounded American
soldiers 5.890. However the military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany
treated 13.591 American soldiers from Iraq in the same time
period.
Officicial American estimates of wounded Iraqis are not published,
but Iraqi hospitals reported large amount of casualties. How many
bombs were dropped over Iraq has never been released. As Erich
Maria Remarque wrote about World WAr I, "there is nothing new in
the West."
08/17/2004
Who goes there? Congress should review use of civilians to guard
Army bases
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040816/OPINION/408160543
Because the U.S. Army doesn't have enough soldiers available for
guard duty at 50 bases in the United States, the job is done by
private security guards.
Military veterans must shake their heads in disbelief when they
hear that civilians now pull guard duty for the Army.
The situation may sound ridiculous, but it raises serious security
concerns
As U.S. Rep. Lane Evans, R-Ill., told the Los Angeles Times,
private security guards patrol installations where there are
"chemical weapons and intelligence materials." That kind of
material, he says, "should not be compromised with questionable
contracting processes and poor security." He wants the House Armed
Services Committee to conduct hearings on the contracts.
Evans is right. Congressional hearings are needed for several
reasons.
First, there's the security issue. After attacks on the Pentagon
and New York on Sept. 11, 2001, the Army saw a need to increase
security at its bases. But should civilians, rather than soldiers,
do that job? Are these private guards adequately screened for
security clearance? Congress should delve into the issue.
Also, the fact that 4,300 private guards are working at 50 military
bases points out how thin the Army is stretched by the deployment
of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military planners in the
Pentagon didn't anticipate that the war in Iraq would lead to a
continuing commitment of about 135,000 troops. Congress should ask
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld how long he expects the
government to resort to using civilian guards at Army bases.
The committee also should review why two of the security-guard
contracts worth as much as $1 billion were obtained by companies
that were not required to submit bids.
The two companies -- taking advantage of a law meant to aid
impoverished Alaska natives -- received two no-bid contracts even
though they had little security experience, the Los Angeles Times
reported. The companies -- both small, native Alaska firms -- then
subcontracted the guard work to Vance Federal Security Services and
Wackenhut Services Inc. The latter companies, both large and
experienced, failed to win contracts when bids were required.
The Armed Services Committee needs to pull a little guard duty of
its own and look into the billion-dollar program that pays
civilians to guard Army bases.
Local Bases Use Private Guards
Newport News Daily Press
August 13, 2004
By Kimball Payne
The head of a local security firm and military officials defended
the Army's decision to use civilians as base guards Thursday,
saying the private company provides top-notch security that frees
up the military and cuts costs.
"My people have to be able to meet the qualifications of an MP.
They can run, they can jump, they can shoot," said Ron Hancock, the
chief executive officer of Alutiiq Security and Technology in
Chesapeake. "My guys are mostly former MPs and police officers. ...
They are not mall guards."
Alutiiq guards have been working posts and checking cars at Fort
Eustis, Fort Monroe and Fort Story since February.
Military officials stressed that the guards work almost exclusively
at entrance gates and are given the same training as Department of
the Army civilians, who routinely staff Army bases with military
police.
"They're strictly the checks at the entrances ... gate guards
essentially," said Dawn Thacker, a spokesperson for Fort Monroe and
Fort Story. She declined to say how many contractors were working
on the bases, citing security concerns.
A mixture of Alutiiq employees and contractors from Wackenhut
Services - one of the county's largest security firms - stand guard
at all three bases under the contract. Thacker said the guards have
done a superb job and have meshed well with the Army, which has
been changing the way that gates are guarded over the past few
years.
"It used to be soldiers and then it became soldiers and Department
of the Army civilians and now it's Department of the Army civilians
and the contractors," Thacker said. "So soldiers are actually being
phased out of base operations entirely."
By staffing the gates with civilians, the Army has been able to
concentrate on other missions.
With ballooning costs and an increasing number of deployments to
Afghanistan and Iraq, the move also made budget sense. "It's easier
to pay a contractor than it is to pay a federal employee with all
their benefits," Thacker said.
08/18/2004
Army will withhold payment to Halliburton due to suspicious
bills
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/withhold_payment.html
The U.S. Army has decided to withhold 15 percent of future payments
to Halliburton because the company apparently billed taxpayers for
work that was never undertaken or completed, Reuters reports.
Halliburton had said yesterday that the Army would give it more
time to explain the suspicious bills, but today's news indicates
that was not the case. The company told Reuters that its claim
yesterday that Army officials had given it more time to explain the
suspicious bills "were accurate at the time based on clear oral
assurances from senior Pentagon representatives."
The Pentagon last week told Halliburton's KBR subsidiary that $1.8
billion in bills from the company's work in the the Middle East are
not verifiable. The $1.8 billion represents 43 percent of
Halliburton's total bills submitted to the Pentagon for
reimbursement. The company was given until Aug. 15 to justify those
bills, but failed to meet that deadline. It also failed to meet two
previous deadlines that had been extended, Reuters reported.
If Halliburton fails to justify its expenses, the Pentagon can
withhold up to 15 percent of requested reimbursements. The Army
estimated that KBR work orders with a future value of $8.2 billion
could be affected by a 15 percent withholding, or $60 million per
month. So far, Halliburton has received $4.3 billion from the
Pentagon for its work under the Army's LOGCAP contract. Under
LOGCAP, Halliburton's KBR subsidiary is charged with feeding the
troops, transporting military supplies and personnel, and
constructing military housing -- mostly in Iraq and Kuwait.
The withholding of payments will affect future, not past, invoices
submitted by Halliburton.
"At the end of the day, we do not expect this will have a
significant or sustained impact on liquidity," said Cris Gaut,
chief financial officer, in a news release. "There are very few
companies in the world that could or would adapt this quickly
while, at the same time, financing an operation of this
magnitude."
Halliburton will take legal action against the Pentagon over the
dispute. The company wants a judge to rule that the 15 percent
withholding does not apply to its LOGCAP and Restore Iraqi Oil I
and II contracts with the Army, which constitute the bulk of its
work in the Middle East.
More Information:
HalliburtonWatch: Pentagon says 43% of Halliburton's Iraq expenses
are not verifiable
HalliburtonWatch: Halliburton overcharged for meals by $186
million
HalliburtonWatch: Two reports explain how Halliburton took
taxpayers for a ride in Iraq
HalliburtonWatch: Gasoline Overcharges
HalliburtonWatch: Government widens criminal probe of Halliburton's
gas overcharges
08/18/2004
Thule Radar Work Set for 2005, to Cost $260 Million
The early warning radar system at Thule Air Base in Greenland is expected to undergo $260 million in upgrades over three years, beginning in 2005, Inside Missile Defense reported today.
The improved system would give the planned U.S. missile defense system a better tracking ability by enabling the radar, 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle, to follow missiles launched from the Middle East, according to Inside Missile Defense.
Upgrades would be similar to work done on early warning radar systems at Beale Air Force Base in California and to a project under way at Fylingdales Air Base in the United Kingdom (see GSN, Feb. 6, 2003). Those efforts involved enhancing “computer processing capabilities, graphic displays and communication integration” with system command and battle management computers, according to the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.
The agency plans to spend $15 million for Thule radar work in fiscal 2005, $142.1 million in fiscal 2006 and $102.7 million in fiscal 2007 (Thomas Duffy, Inside Missile Defense.
08/19/2004
Iraq oil exports halved : Oil flows drastically reduced for
ninth day as uprising, civil unrest, disrupt pipelines.
Iraq's main southern pipeline was still shut Wednesday, reducing
the country's oil exports by half their normal flows for the ninth
day, oil officials and shipping agents familiar with the situation
said, writes Reuters.
08/20/2004
Adopted by the national executive board of Asian Pacific
American Labor Alliance (APALA) Friday, August 20, 2004
END U.S. OCCUPATION OF IRAQ - BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
WHEREAS, there is general agreement in the United States and
throughout the world that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass
destruction that posed an imminent threat to this country or to
Iraq's neighbors, and that the government of Iraq had few if any
discernable ties to those who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon; and
WHEREAS, the pretexts for war have been systematically revealed to
have been fabricated, manipulated, exaggerated, or distorted to
justify an invasion of Iraq planned long before September 11, 2001;
and
WHEREAS, the federal government has approved $150 billion in public
funds for the U.S. war in Iraq, draining those funds away from
domestic priorities including transportation, health care, and
national security; and
WHEREAS, the military invasion and continued occupation of Iraq has
actually increased the level of international terrorism and made
the U.S. and the world less, not more safe and secure; and
WHEREAS, the Bush administration doctrine of "unilaterlism and
pre-emptive military assault" has isolated the U.S. in the
international community of nations and alienated even long-time
international allies of the U.S.; and
WHEREAS, the post-war U.S. occupation has provided a profit bonanza
for U.S. and other multinational corporations awarded no-bid
contracts for work in Iraq, while providing to the Iraqi people
little or none of the promised reconstruction, restoration of
electric power, water and sanitation; and
WHEREAS, the occupation of Iraq has been treated by the Bush
administration as a golden opportunity to create a model of
wholesale privatization and corporate domination intended to pave
the way for this model to be imposed elsewhere in the world,
including in the U.S.; and
WHEREAS, working families in the United States have paid a heavy
price for the U.S. involvement in Iraq with the deaths of nearly
900 U.S. military personnel - with more than 5000 others wounded -
since the start of the war on March 19, 2003, and the death of as
many as 13,000 or more Iraqi civilians and the wounding, maiming,
and dislocating of tens of thousands of other civilians; and
WHEREAS, the Bush Administration has used the Iraq War and the "War
on Terrorism" as a platform to advocate for restrictions of civil
liberties, with measures such as the Patriot Act; and
WHEREAS, the war and occupation of Iraq has engendered an
atmosphere of hostility and discrimination toward immigrants and
people of color generally, and has led to the victimization,
stereotyping, and, in some cases, arrest and detention of innocent
people; now therefore be it
RESOLVED, that the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO
recognizes the courage and sacrifices of U.S. military personnel
who have faced extraordinary dangers in the U.S. war in Iraq and
who now want to come home; and
RESOLVED, that Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO calls
on the National AFL-CIO to demand an immediate end to the US
military occupation of Iraq and speedy return of all U.S. military
personnel to their homes and families, and to support the repeal of
the Patriot Act and the reordering of national priorities toward
the human needs; and be it finally
RESOLVED. that Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO, in
recognition and furtherance of its position in opposition to
current U.S. policy in Iraq, will affiliate with and help actively
support and promote U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW) to protect
our members, their families, communities and jobs, and the lives
and livelihoods of working people everywhere.
08/20/2004
Ashcroft defends interviews with protesters
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/08/21/MNG2A8CA2C1.DTL&type=printable
- Anna Badkhen, Chronicle Staff Writer
Attorney General John Ashcroft defended recent FBI interviews of
political activists across the country Friday, saying federal
agents questioned only protesters the government believed were
plotting to firebomb media vehicles at the Democratic National
Convention in Boston last month or might have known about such
plots.
Political activists and civil rights advocates scoffed at
Ashcroft's explanation, calling his defense of the interviews part
of a government campaign to intimidate protesters. "They see that
activists are trying to send a message, and they don't want
activists getting their message out," said Rachael Perrotta, 24,
one of the protesters interviewed by the FBI. "They want to
marginalize us. I think it's a smear campaign by the FBI and the
federal government to discredit the protest movement."
Amid government warnings that terrorists might want to disrupt this
year's election, federal agents have interviewed political
activists around the nation in recent weeks. Protesters and FBI
officials said the agents questioned the activists about potential
violence during the national political conventions and other
election-year events. Lawyers, civil liberties activists and
several Democratic congressmen have criticized the interviews as
political harassment, saying they were designed to stifle protests
and violated the protesters' First Amendment rights. At a news
conference in Washington on Friday, Ashcroft called these
accusations an "outrageous distortion." "We interviewed a very
limited number of people that we believed were either participating
in a plan to criminally and violently disrupt the Democratic
National Convention, or individuals that might have known something
about that plan," Ashcroft said.
Before the Democratic convention, U.S. Secret Service and police
officials had warned of an alleged plot by self-described
anarchists to throw homemade explosives, known as Molotov
cocktails, at vans of television crews covering the convention. The
warning was based on claims of an informant who described such a
plot, a senior U.S. law enforcement official told the Associated
Press this week. New York City law officers also have warned of
potential violence for the Republican convention, which starts Aug.
30. Authorities anticipate that hundreds of thousands of protesters
will descend upon the city, and some groups have announced they are
planning to "disrupt" the convention, although no groups have
mentioned using bombs or any other weapons. Gary Bald, assistant
director of the FBI's counterterrorism division, said the bureau
does not have enough evidence to move against any group or person
who might be plotting violent protests in New York. Federal
investigators have infiltrated some organizations and are
monitoring Internet sites that publish protest plans for updates
about potential violence.
Protesters who say they have been interviewed by the FBI denounced
Ashcroft's allegations that they would target the media, calling
his claims a pretext for a political crackdown. "I am a media
relations coordinator. The thought that I would be involved in
anything like this is just so preposterous," said Perrotta, who is
managing media coverage for an antiwar, anti-Bush march from Boston
to New York called DNC2RNC that began after the Democratic
convention. Perrotta said the four FBI agents who interviewed her
in Boston last month never asked her specific questions about
firebombing television trucks during the Democratic convention. She
said they asked general questions about violence during national
political events. Perrotta said she had never heard any of her
fellow political activists talk about using bombs. "This includes
anarchist groups and liberal groups," she said. She said the FBI
was "spreading a lie."
Bill Dobbs, spokesman for United for Peace and Justice, a
national coalition of more than 800 antiwar groups whose 250,000
members plan to march across New York on Aug. 29, also said he had
not heard of any plans to throw homemade bombs at the media. "This
sounds like classic fear-mongering by law-enforcement on the eve of
a major protest," Dobbs said. "It poisons the atmosphere."
Other activists questioned Ashcroft's assertion that the FBI
interviewed only a "handful" of protesters. Ann Beeson, associate
legal director of American Civil Liberties Union, said she was
aware of dozens of interrogations in Colorado, a handful more in
Missouri, and several in New York and Massachusetts. Joe Parris, an
FBI spokesman, has said federal agents had interviewed "around 25"
activists in different states.
Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University,
said the government's treatment of political activists was
reminiscent of the anti- Communist crackdowns of the Cold War era.
"The Ashcroft Justice Department has taken ... a perverse interest
in peace demonstrators," Turley said. "Pretty soon federal prisons
are gonna look a lot like the streets of San Francisco."
08/23/2004
Third of Africans Undernourished
By Jonathan Katzenellenbogen, International Affairs Editor
Business Day (Johannesburg) NEWS
http://allafrica.com/stories/200408200244.html
UNDERNUTRITION is Africa's most fundamental development problem and
the problem is getting worse.
That is the conclusion of a report released this week by the
International Food Policy Research Institute, a Washington based
think-tank which is part of a global network of agricultural
research bodies.
According to the report, a household is regarded as being "food
secure" if it has reliable access to sufficient quantity and
quality of food for its members to enjoy a healthy and active
life.
More than a third of Africa's population is undernourished and more
than 30% of babies are born underweight.
While the prevalence of undernutrition has come down from nearly
35% between 199092 to about 33% in surveys conducted between 1999
and 2001, the number of people that are undernourished has risen by
nearly 33-million, or 20%.
About a third of African children suffer from stunted growth and
will therefore have to face physical and learning problems, says
the report.
The report draws its data from United Nations surveys on nutrition,
but as there are none of these conducted in SA, the report does not
present any statistics on undernourishment in the country. But it
does show that 25% of children in South Africa suffer stunted
growth, a consequence of malnutrition, compared with 39% for
sub-Saharan Africa.
Wars are a significant cause of Africa's food problems, as are
negative shocks such as droughts, floods, and economic
downturns.
The report, Africa's Food and Nutrition Security Situation,
Where Are We and How Did We Get Here?, says that policies to
ensure that people have enough to eat should be a far greater focus
of development policy. It says that goal is hampered by low
incomes, such that even if agricultural productivity rises there is
no effective demand to make investments by farmers profitable.
But the author, Todd Benson, who has extensive experience as an
agricultural policy adviser in Malawi, says that food and nutrition
security are necessary to begin development.
By helping foster maternal and early childhood health, food and
nutrition security make it easier for people to become productive
through their lives and break out of a poor health and poverty
trap.
The report says that opening national markets to trade, improved
education, direct intervention to improve nutrition, and greater
emphasis by governments on agriculture can improve nutrition.
North Africa is the only region in Africa that can be considered
food secure, in part due to its wealth based on oil.
Copyright © 2004 Business Day.
08/23/2004
International Crisis Group - Darfur Deadline
One week before the UN Security Council deadline for Sudan expires,
it is clear the international community needs to get much tougher
over Darfur. Failure now would not only mean many tens of thousands
more dead in Darfur, but likely condemn Sudan to more years of war
and further spread instability to its neighbours.
Darfur Deadline: A New International Action Plan
http://www.icg.org/home/index.cfm?l=1&id=2920
The latest report from the International Crisis Group, calls for
the Security Council to adopt more forceful measures, most
importantly to authorise the African Union (AU) to send a strong
peacekeeping mission -- at least 3,000 troops, preferably many more
-- to Darfur to protect civilians. To demonstrate its seriousness
and help persuade the Government of Sudan to accept this mission,
it should also impose an arms embargo on it and targeted sanctions
against responsible regime officials and ruling party businesses,
as well as establish an International Commission of Inquiry to
investigate mass atrocities.
Such steps are immediately necessary because, despite dramatically increased international attention on Darfur, Khartoum has still not fulfilled its repeated commitments to neutralise the government-supported Janjaweed militias responsible for gross human rights violations and the massive humanitarian disaster. History has shown that Khartoum responds constructively to direct pressure, but it must be concerted, consistent and genuine.
"All we've heard so far are empty promises from Khartoum and empty threats from the international community", says John Prendergast, Special Adviser to the President at ICG. "The world spotlight has finally come to Darfur, but the action needed to end the killing hasn't followed".
08/25/2004
Sudan aid 'flown on gun-running planes'
By Andrew Gilligan, Evening Standard
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/12775278?source=Evening%20Standard
The British Government has been sending aid to Sudan and elsewhere
in Africa on airlines accused by the UN of gunrunning. Yesterday,
the Department for International Development (DfID) suspended all
future contracts with Buraq Air, its main operator of relief
flights to Sudan, and launched an inquiry after the Evening
Standard told it about the firm's record.
The DfID used Libya-based Buraq as recently as two weeks ago and
another cargo airline, Aerocom, in February. The Standard has
learned both are named in an official UN Security Council report as
being involved in the illegal smuggling or attempted smuggling of
nearly 6,000 automatic rifles and machineguns, 4,500 grenades, 350
missile launchers, 7,500 landmines and millions of rounds of
ammunition from Serbia to Liberia, in breach of a UN arms
embargo.
Liberian-supplied arms have been used by rebels to attack British
troops in Sierra Leone.
As Foreign Secretary Jack Straw held talks with Sudan's President
al-Bashir, Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs
spokesman, said it was "extraordinary" that the DfID had relied on
"airlines with such a chequered past".
Six illegal arms shipments to Liberia, worth at least ?1 million,
took place in 2002, according to the UN. Aerocom flew the first
four, but was then prevented from flying the remainder by the
Serbian authorities. Instead, the companies brokering the arms
asked for Buraq to fly the fifth shipment. Buraq made a false
flight application, claiming the arms were to go to Nigeria. It was
refused by the Serbs because the airline was based in Libya.
According to Civil Aviation Authority records, available online,
Buraq's aircraft numbered 5A-DMQ made two flights for the DfID from
Manston in Kent to Nyala, Darfur, between 4 and 9 August. Buraq
also flew two DfID aid shipments on the same route in June. In a
statement, the DfID said that it worked to "the highest ethical
standards" and did not know either Buraq's or Aerocom's backgrounds
when it hired them.
Aerocom was unavailable for comment. Buraq's acting cargo manager
Abdulrazzak Shellig said he did not dispute the UN report but
insisted his company's involvement with Liberia was innocent.
08/26/2004
Indonesia concern on missile plan
Indonesia today expressed concern about Australia's plans to
acquire long-range cruise missiles which Canberra said would give
it the "most lethal capacity" for air strikes.
"We are talking here of an offensive capability, no longer
defensive capability, and we have to ask ourselves against whom is
this long- range cruise missile being directed," Indonesian foreign
ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said.
Defence Minister Robert Hill said earlier that Australia planned to
acquire air-to-surface missiles able to destroy air and sea targets
up to 400km away.
The range of the new missiles, which will begin coming into service
in 2007, would be up to four times the range of any missile now
available to the air force, The Australian newspaper reported.
The plan comes amid mixed relations with neighbouring Indonesia,
widely perceived among the Australian public as the country's
biggest security threat.
"The Australian Government I believe has been very pronounced, very
forceful in expressing their opposition to missile technology
proliferation," Mr Natalegawa said.
"We'll be looking at this very carefully and we'd like to be
enlightened against whom such an offensive capability is being
directed," he said.
A study by an Australian think-tank revealed yesterday that the
Australian public ranked Indonesia as the country's greatest
military threat.
Relations with Indonesia have been rocky since Australia in 1999
led international intervention in East Timor following a
violence-marred vote for independence from Jakarta, writes Agence
France-Presse.
08/27/2004
Arbejdermuseet i Rømersgade i København
genåbner efter en omfattende resturering med en Herluf Bidstrup
udstilling. Samtidig genåbnes Arbejderbevægelsens
Bibliotek og Arkiv.
08/27/2004
The Unofficial RNC Media Guide
You might how noticed that the big three TV stations haven't done
much with convention coverage this year. Nothing, in fact. They
claim that the convention is so scripted that it's nearly worthless
to the average viewer. Luckily, the folks at MediaChannel.org don't
agree. And to help out the independent journalists striving to find
the real stories in New York, they've created this handy and
insightful unofficial media guide. It has sources, protest
informationeven restaurants. Even if you're not going to be in
the Big Apple, the guide is a fascinating look at how the media
should be working at a convention.
08/27/2004
Mordechai Vanunu Speaks about Space Weapons and Nuclear
Weapons
Background:
Mordechai Vanunu was a technician at Dimona, Israel's secret
nuclear facility, from 1976 to 1985. He discovered nuclear weapons
were being secretly produced and in 1986 he leaked photos and
information to the London Sunday Times showing Israel had
stockpiled about 200 hundred nuclear warheads, with no
authorization from its parliament or citizens. At that time Israel
was insisting it would not introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle
East. Vanunu was kidnapped by the Israeli Mossad in Italy and
returned to Israel for a secret trial. He spent 18 years in prison,
including 11 years in solitary confinement. After completing his
sentence he was released in April 2004 and ordered not to speak to
foreigners or leave the country. He has received death threats and
has been given refuge at the Anglican cathedral of St George's in
East Jerusalem.
An American member of the Global Network Against Weapons and
Nuclear Power in Space (see www.space4peace.org) was visiting the
West Bank and East Jerusalem. Vanunu agreed to speak with the GN
member, defying his court order, and gave permission for his
interview to be distributed on the Internet.
Interview:
Question: Are you familiar with plans to move the arms race into
space?
Vanunu: Yes, this is open information that was available to read
from the news media and was available to me in the prison years. I
knew about the Cassini case and now I know about the new initiative
by George Bush to develop nuclear weapons for the space program.
This was also worked on in the Clinton administration. George Bush
raised it again. I hope this program will not materialize and not
be developed. We don't have any enemies in space and the US does
not have any enemies. We don't need any nuclear weapons in space or
any nuclear race in space.
Question: Do you feel weapons in space are dangerous?
Vanunu: Yes! We don't need nuclear weapons in space! We are alive
to see space and enjoy the sky, not to be frightened from the sky.
People should raise their eyes and look to the sky and heavens and
enjoy and feel God and the love of God, not to fear nuclear
weapons. No other state should follow the US and play this game of
weapons in space.
Question: Are you familiar with the nuclear power reactors that are
planned to be used in provide power for space-based weapons?
Vanunu: No, I don't know much about this, only some things I've
read. Cassini was a spacecraft with a reactor working with
plutonium.
Question: Are you familiar with the joint Israeli/US system to
create a missile defense system called the Arrow system? This would
give, they say, both a sword, as a weapon, and a shield, as a
defense, to Israel.
Vanunu: Yes, I heard about this. In the last two days the latest
Arrow test failed. Israel tries to create an environment that it
needs missiles, enemies to fight, all this propoganda to keep up
the race, to develop these nuclear weapons and a new generation of
missiles. They encourage and push other states like India, Pakistan
and Iran to follow. We should tell them and tell Israel that we,
the world, are living in a new age, a new century, post-Cold War.
The last century had a lot of weapons and wars. This century should
be century of peace and disarmament of all kinds of weapons. All
missiles should be destroyed. We need to have a new century of
peace, of human beings living in peace that don't need any kinds of
weapons. No is going to fight Israel and no one is going to fight
the United States. The human race needs to learn to live in peace
and to work together. We don't need any weapons.
Question: What are the enormous military expenditures over time are
doing to the Israeli economy?
Vanunu: Thirty percent and more, maybe fifty percent of the Israeli
budget is for defense. All this money on defense is coming from not
giving to others what they deserve in life - high education and
high health - especially the minority Palestinians in the occupied
territories. Instead of giving them help, Israel spends the money
on the army and incursions and fighting the Palestianians. The way
to peace is also by reducing the defense budget, reduce it on a
large scale. The same with the United States. Since George Bush has
been in office he has raised the budget fromm $280 billion to $400
billion. All this is not necessary in this age. The defense budget
is one of the most powerful ways to impose on people
psychologically and through policies, in Israel and the United
States. The people behind the very large defense budgets are the
new modern secret power. We should fight it by reducing the defense
budget in every country. Many countries in Europe have had to
reduce their defense budgets, armies and weapons systems. Israel
has continued to keep its large weapons program, in spite of the
fact that we are living in a different age. We the people should be
free the from the defense budget. We should be able to use it and
control it and hopefully in the future reduce it to a very small
amount, maybe 5%.
Question: What advice would you give to activists in the United
States in the US who see our country becoming more militarized and
having less democracy? How can we best make an impact on our
government when corporations are increasingly controlling it,
military corporations like Boeing and Lockheed?
Vanunu: This is my advice to those in the US who are working for
peace, who want to control those industries behind the huge
production of weapons systems and nuclear weapons. Demand to reduce
the large army power, the amount of weapons, the budgets sent to
these huge defense corporations. Try to force government from
developing new and more advanced weapons, more advanced aircraft,
more advanced submarines, because there are no future enemies who
are going to fight them. Maybe there are states who are competing
economically, in health and social standards, but not in weapons.
There is no enemy who wants to destroy Israel or the US. The human
race has learned that they do not want to kill each other. They
want to compete, develop, they do not want to kill each other. We
should be fight by demanding a reduction to all these weapons and
the weapons industry. The companies behind it, like Boeing and
Lockheed, they should go into civilian production for the US and
for the world.
Question: You have expressed you would very much like to come to
the US.
Vanunu: I believe in the US constitution, I believe in US democracy
and in individual freedom. I believe in the liberty of the US as it
was established 230 years ago. The US constitution was the most
advanced, it has survived, and I believe it will continue to be
advanced. I want to come the United States and be one of your
citizens. To give my support to keep the US free spirit, liberty
and freedom of speech, which is very important for the US people. I
want to live there, to experience it, to support it, especially
since 9/11 and the Patriot Act, which is bad for the people. And I
hope, that without fighting anyone, that I can contribute to
reducing nuclear weapons in the US and the world, with the message
that we the people in the US and Israel and all the world don't
need nuclear weapons. The US and the US Defense Dept. does not need
to fear these views. The US can survive and be good and strong
without nuclear weapons. Human rights are more powerful than
nuclear weapons.
Question: How can we help you to reach the US and to increase your
safety here in Jerusalem?
Vanunu: I would like the people to write to their Congress to
demand from them to know about my story and situation. I need
activitsts in the US people to help intervene. I am not under a
sentence by court but under restriction by Israel law which is not
according to democracy. They have taken from me the basic human
rights of freedom of speech and freedom of movement. The US and
Congress has the right to protect these very important human
rights. Congress was involved when the Jews in Russia were under
these restrictions and the US put sanctions against Russia until
they let the Jews leave. Now the US should do the same to Israel.
The US should speak and raise these issues. But first of all demand
that Israel to let me go and be free. I am not safe here. I don't
feel safe here.
I would like to bring these matters to Congress. If Congress or
visitors can come to visit me here, I would be glad to see them
here. Isreal is not the democracy that is presented to the US
media. The US has the right to intervene and to protect human
rights such as freedom of speech.
08/28/2004
NYC Police Arrest 250 in Bicycle Protest
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
In the first major clash between police and demonstrators
converging for the Republican National Convention, more than 250
bicyclists were arrested during a protest ride that snaked through
the city and passed by Madison Square Garden.
Bikers chanted anti-Bush slogans, stifled traffic and, in some
places, argued with motorists during the Friday night ride, which
began at Union Square and drew thousands of cyclists.
Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne said the bikers had caused
"massive disruptions'' and endangered motorists. Participants said
their ride was peaceful and that the arrests were an excessive show
of force.
Police had passed out leaflets to the riders warning them not to
ride more than two abreast, and many of them ignored that warning,
Browne said. Among the protesters arrested was one who allegedly
threw a beer can at an officer, he said. The officer was
uninjured.
"We gave them every opportunity to comply with the law,'' Browne
said. "Those who didn't were arrested.''
A total of 264 people were arrested as of early Saturday, according
to Sgt. Michael Wysokowski, a police department spokesman.
The protest began as a monthly Critical Mass bike ride, but what
was usually a crowd of hundreds swelled to thousands, with
organizers saying the excursion drew a horde of bikers who wanted
to protest the convention.
Bill Dobbs, of the antiwar group United for Peace and Justice, said
the monthly Critical Mass ride "has provided joy to bicyclists and
bystanders for years now.''
"The arrests are completely unnecessary,'' Dobbs said. ``Police
needlessly escalated tension. Let us hope that they are more
restrained as we go into the convention period.''
08/28/2004
How far to the right have we gone?
http://www.historiansagainstwar.org/rnc.html
2 - 4 pm CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave. and 34th St., New
York
A Town Hall Meeting organized by Historians Against the War
Featuring Andrew Bacevich, Thomas Bender, Renate Bridenthal, and
Ellen Schrecker.
08/29/2004
GAO Report and 60 Minutes to rerun Halliburton story
This Sunday, 60 Minutes is scheduled to update the story about Halliburton doing business in Iran through an offshore (Cayman Islands) subsidiary.
Note that Treasury (OFAC) reopened the investigation after the story ran. As a result, a grand jury has been empaneled in Houston to investigate the situation. For more see:
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/dresser_terror_sales.html
This issue was first raised by NYCity's fire and police pension funds -- who have questioned Halliburton's management about this as shareholders.
Also, it's interesting that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) today released the following report:
International Taxation: Tax Haven Companies Were More Likely to Have a
Tax Cost Advantage in Federal Contracting. GAO-04-856, June 30.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-856
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d04856high.pdf
08/29/2004
War Making Headlines, but Peace Breaks Out
By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent
The chilling sights and sounds of war fill newspapers and television screens
worldwide, but war itself is in decline, peace researchers report.
In fact, the number killed in battle has fallen to its lowest point in the post-World
War II period, dipping below 20,000 a year by one measure. Peacemaking missions,
meantime, are growing in number.
"International engagement is blossoming," said American scholar Monty G. Marshall.
"There's been an enormous amount of activity to try to end these conflicts."
For months the battle reports and casualty tolls from Iraq (news - web sites) and
Afghanistan have put war in the headlines, but Swedish and
Canadian non-governmental groups tracking armed conflict globally find a general
decline in numbers from peaks in the 1990s.
The authoritative Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in a 2004
Yearbook report obtained by The Associated Press in advance of publication, says 19
major armed conflicts were under way worldwide in 2003, a sharp drop from 33 wars
counted in 1991.
The Canadian organization Project Ploughshares, using broader criteria to define
armed conflict, says in its new annual report that the number of conflicts declined
to 36 in 2003, from a peak of 44 in 1995.
The Stockholm institute counts continuing wars that have produced 1,000 or more
battle-related deaths in any single year. Project Ploughshares counts any armed
conflict that produces 1,000 such deaths cumulatively.
The Stockholm report, to be released in September, notes three wars ended as of 2003
- in Angola, Rwanda and Somalia - and a fourth, the separatist war in India's Assam
state, was dropped from the "major" category after casualties were recalculated.
It lists three new wars in 2003 - in Liberia and in Sudan's
western region of Darfur, along with the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq. These joined
such long-running conflicts as the Kashmiri insurgency in India, the leftist
guerrilla war in Colombia, and the separatist war in Russia's Chechnya (news - web
sites) region.
Other major armed conflicts listed by the Stockholm researchers were in Algeria,
Burundi, Peru, Indonesia's Aceh province, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Israel, and
Turkey. Their list also includes the U.S.-al-Qaida war, mainly in Afghanistan, the
unresolved India-Pakistan conflict, and two insurgencies in the Philippines.
"Not only are the numbers declining, but the intensity" - the bloodshed in each
conflict - "is declining," said Marshall, founder of a University of Maryland program
studying political violence.
The continuing wars in Algeria, Chechnya and Turkey are among those that have
subsided into low-intensity conflicts. At Canada's University of British Columbia,
scholars at the Human Security Center are quantifying this by tackling the difficult
task of calculating war casualties worldwide for their Human Security Report, to be
released late in 2004.
A collaboration with Sweden's Uppsala University, that report will conservatively
estimate battle-related deaths worldwide at 15,000 in 2002 and, because of the Iraq
war, rising to 20,000 in 2003. Those estimates are sharply down from annual tolls
ranging from 40,000 to 100,000 in the 1990s, a time of major costly conflicts in such
places as the former Zaire and southern Sudan, and from a post-World War II peak of
700,000 in 1951.
The Canadian center's director, Andrew Mack, said the figures don't include deaths
from war-induced starvation and disease, deaths from ethnic conflicts not involving
states, or unopposed massacres, such as in Rwanda in 1994.
08/29/2004
The World says No to the Bush Agenda!
http://www.unitedforpeace.org
Massive march past Madison Square Garden
Gather 10:00AM, Seventh Avenue 14th Street, New York.
08/29/2004
TRANSCEND Peace University (TPU) will begin a new semester!
TRANSCEND Peace University is the world's first global peace
university for policy makers, practitioners, scholars, students, UN
staff and others working in peacebuilding, conflict transformation,
post-war reconstruction, rehabilitation and reconciliation,
development, human rights, and other related fields. Please forward
this announcement to individuals, organisations, UN agencies and
governments which you believe may be interested in participating in
the TPU's September Semester 2004. For more information or to apply
on-line, please visit
Johan Galtung, the Rector of TPU and one of the founders of peace
studies, invites you to join practitioners and students from around
the world online.
Since 1996, 300+ on-site workshops have been offered for 6,000+
participants around the world, using the TRANSCEND manual "Conflict
Transformation By Peaceful Means," published by the United Nations.
There will be certificates; for single courses, diplomas for
clusters of courses and eventually BA, MA; and PhD degrees.
Participants may combine online and onsite courses.
In the Sept. 2004 Semester TPU will offer the following 13 courses:
1. Peaceful Conflict Transformation, Johan Galtung
2. Nonviolence as Political Tool and Philosophy, Jorgen Johansen
3. Peace Journalism, Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick
4. Peace, Music, Literature and the Arts, Olivier Urbain
5. Deep Culture in Conflict, Johan Galtung and Wilfried Graf
6. Democratization and Development, Paul D. Scott
7. Conflict Prevention, Intervention, Reconciliation and Reconstruction, S.P. Udayakumar
8. Dialogue, Peace and Development, Katrin Kaeufer and Claus Otto Scharmer
9. Peace and Tourism, Lynda-Ann Blanchard and Freya Higgins-Desbiolles
10. Peace Business, Jack Santa Barbara and Sara Horowitz
11. Peace and Macro-history, Sohail Inayatullah
12. Peace Museums, Christophe Bouillet
13. Peace Zones, Christophe Barbey
Starting Date: September 27, 2004
Ending Date: December 17, 2004
Deadline for Registration: September 17, 2004
Cost per one Course: For European Union, North American and East
Asian/Australian participants 300 Euros. For all others 150 Euros.
For more information or to register, please contact the TRANSCEND
Peace University Global Center in Cluj, Romania with a staff to
handle information, applications, payments, course related
questions, and computer problems: tpu@transcend.org
Fax +40-264-420298,
Tel +40-724-380551;
web-site www.transcend.org/tpu
08/30/2004
Arun Gandhi, the Peacemaker
by Kurt Singer
He is 70 and in his late autumn years is pereaching his legendary
grandfather's non violent philosophy to the Palestinians and
Israelis alike. Ariel Sharon allowed him a visa but did not see him
during his stay in Jerusalem.
His grandfather's theory of non violent resistance had brought down
the colonial powers of Britain and freed India. But Arun Gandhi's
visit to Israel and the occupied land of the Bible and Koran fell
on very polite but deaf ears.
It was a hot late August 2004 day when Arun Ghandi the Pacifist
visited Yasser Arafat in his sandbagged and bullet ridden
headquarters at the West Bank.
Armed body guards protected the Palestinian leader and his visitor.
Arun Gandhi believed that Arafat in 1959 had adopted a nonviolent
passive resistance there would have been a free Palestine state.
Instead Arafat had founded the militants FATAH and championed
militant guerilla warfare, armed struggle, airplane hijackings,
killing of civilians and suicide bombers." It's not to late now"
the aging Gandhi declared.Nonviolence would win. Arafat sat
silently during Arun's press conference." If the Palestinian people
rise up and start a non violent movement it would boost world
sympathy. The nations of the world would rise up and put more
pressure on Israel."
Gandhi also visited the dozen jailed hungerstriking Palestinian
prisoners together with the Red Cross doctors who examined them.
One of the militant fighter in jail said to him."You have great
ideas Mr. Gandhi but we are in a war and there is no peace in
sight." "This is why I am here" Gandhi replied. In 1991 he founded
with his wife the M.K. Institute of Non Violence at the Christian
Brothers University in Memphis, Ten. He became a US citizen in
1995. "Many bad things happened 55 years ago but revenge will not
solve the problem". Arun said he learned that from his grandfather
with whom he lived at the age of 12 after his father was jailed in
South Africa for 15 years, refusing to obey the Apartheid laws.
"The Palestinians should not behave like the Israelis and use non
violent resistance".
Arun had found sympathizers in both Israeli and Palestinian groups
and believes that both sides realize that new concepts must begin
to end this struggle. Over a hundred Palestinian suicide bombers
have not changed the occupation and the time has come for new
strategies like non violent resistance. During his visit in
Bethlehem he visited the new Israeli fence barrier which he called
a new Berlin Wall. A candle light meeting of about a hundred
Muslim, Christians and Jews honored Arun Gandhi and his
grandfaher's non violent philosophy.
Peace is a rare flower and elusive as in Mahatma Gandhi's days the
father of Nonviolence. He never received the Nobel Peace Prize.
08/30/2004
Defence Force looks overseas for soldiers
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3587878&thesection=news&t
hesubsection=general&thesecondsubsection=&reportid=52007
By RUTH BERRY
The New Zealand Herald
The Defence Force is being forced to recruit soldiers from overseas as it
tries to combat staff shortages.
Its annual report reveals that personnel numbers have continued to drop
despite a series of pay rises and other measures designed to stem departures
from the ranks.
Ten years ago Defence Force numbers totalled 17,547. That figure now stands
at 12,853.
The Defence Force has now turned overseas for recruits, but believes its
efforts have been hindered by immigration requirements.
It has negotiated some changes with the Immigration Service and wants the
service to make more changes to its skilled migrants category in order to
further "reduce barriers".
Officers, soldiers and new recruits wanting to train for a career in the
armed forces are being sought.
08/31/2004
A Day of Nonviolent Civil Disobedience and Direct Action
http://www.warresisters.org/RNC_CD.htm and
http://www.a31.org/truesecurity
4:00 Decentralized actions at war profiteers and more. 6 pm
Orientation at Madison Sq. Park or on the Steps of New York Public
Library, 5th Ave and 41st St. 7 pm converge at Madison Square
Garden.
Transform the streets of NYC into stages of resistance and forums
for debate through nonviolent action. Among the many groups calling
for civil disobedience on this day are the War Resisters League and
the True Security Cluster.
08/31/2004
'Cheap' Kiwi army recruiting Islanders
By Claire Harvey, New Zealand correspondent
From The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,10618152%255E2703,00.html
PACIFIC Islanders make great New Zealand rugby players, and now they can be
Kiwi soldiers as well.
The New Zealand Defence Force is recruiting in the Cook Islands, Tokelau and
Niue to replace troops who leave the NZDF for foreign military positions or
the private sector.
But the Opposition New Zealand First Party claims the recruiting system is
"exploitation of a cheap labour source", saying the defence pay rates are
too low for the forces to keep trained staff.
The Labour Government of Prime Minister Helen Clark was undermining the
local labour market by going offshore for troops, said New Zealand First
defence spokesman Ron Mark.
And a crunch is looming because the NZDF has ordered new equipment, such as
105 light armoured vehicles due to arrive next year, which needs extra
troops and engineers.
"We've got the toys, but we haven't got the boys," Mr Mark said. "Rather
than meeting the needs of New Zealanders by raising pay and improving
conditions, the Government is just going to a cheap labour pool.
"What's next, recruiting a whole battalion of Gurkhas?"
The lowest ranks of the NZDF earn less than $NZ25,000 ($23,250) a year,
although all personnel are getting a 2.5 per cent pay rise this year, the
third rise in as many years, thanks to Defence Minister Mark Burton's
lobbying in cabinet.
By comparison, an Australian army tank crew member earns just over $34,000.
"We are talking about very small numbers of people being recruited from
overseas," Mr Burton said.
"In the army we have recruited 15 people from overseas in the past 18
months, and in the navy it is 10 or 20 a year for the past decade."
But most units are operating at less than 75 per cent of their staffing
requirements, according to the NZDF annual report, and there are critical
shortages in some areas such as navy mine-clearance diving teams.
Overall numbers in the Kiwi defence force have dropped from nearly 21,000 in
1990 to just under 13,000 last year.
08/31/2004
Danmarks Humanistiske Forskningscenter lukker.
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