Baby Doc is Dead But His Shadow Lingers Over Haiti
The October 4 death of former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier in Port-au-Prince has justly garnered world-wide attention. But too much about current Haitian politics has been left out of this round of media coverage.
Duvalier’s father Francois, nicknamed Papa Doc, died in 1971 after years of brutal repression of anyone not in Duvalier Senior’s inner circle. When Papa Doc died in 1971, his 19-year-old son (aka Baby Doc) was soon declared the new President for Life. The elder Duvalier had maintained power in no small part by successfully currying power with Washington, and his son did an even more impressive job of winning essential economic, political, and military support from the U.S. In his essential volume Damming the Flood, historian Peter Hallward explains that in return for that backing, Duvalier “…[provided] the sort of investment climate his patrons had come to expect – minimal taxes, a virtual ban on trade unions, the preservation of starvation wages, the removal of any restrictions on the repatriation of profits.”
But Duvalier’s iron-fisted rule, in which many thousands of people were slaughtered, broke down in the face of a courageous popular uprising of the downtrodden poor masses. This grassroots opposition was largely nurtured by community-based church groups, called ti legliz in Haitian kreyol, which were inspired by liberation theology and its focus on a “preferential option for the poor.”
With the help of the U.S. government, Duvalier and his wife fled with hundreds of millions of dollars for exile in Paris.
Duvalier’s return to Haiti in 2011 was met with gasps of horror from most of the populace but celebrated by his friends in the ruling elite, including the current president Michel Martelly. Duvalier retained a passionate hatred for Lavalas, the movement of the poor majority. Lavalas (which means “flood” in kreyol) was and still is led by former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. It was created to help the poor rise “from misery to poverty with dignity.” Aristide was elected president twice by large majorities but forced from office by U.S.-orchestrated coups in both 1991 and 2004. After a seven year global campaign of pressure combined with sustained grassroots activity in Haiti, Aristide and his family returned to their homeland in March of 2011.
Unlike the chill that greeted Baby Doc’s return, Aristide arrived home to throngs of many thousands of jubilant supporters who lined the road from the airport to his house and filled its courtyard, singing and chanting for hours. Though frequently described in the corporate press as inactive, since 2011 Aristide has thrown himself into promoting education, a key priority of his two presidencies. He has overseen the reopening and expansion of the University of the Aristide Foundation (UNIFA), which welcomed another group of incoming students this week. UNIFA includes a medical school, a nursing school, a law school, and a school of physical therapy (designed to assist victims of the 2010 earthquake).
Though Duvalier has died, his influence remains strong in Haiti. It extends into the current government of Michel Martelly, which came to power in a flawed U.S.-backed election in which fewer than 20% of Haitians turned out to vote. After Duvalier’s death, Martelly eulogized him as “a true son of Haiti.” Duvalier’s son Nicolas is an adviser to Martelly. Other Duvalier supporters include the Interior Minister and the Public Works Secretary of State.
True to its orgins, the Martelly government is currently engaged in a series of attacks on Aristide which have raised concerns in Haiti and throughout the world.
A recent open letter initiated by the Haiti Action Committee and Global Women’s Strike and signed by hundreds of individuals and organizations denounced these attacks: “On Aug. 21, Haitian police wearing black masks and carrying heavy arms appeared in front of the home of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide as a Haitian judge issued calls to arrest him. Hundreds of people courageously surrounded the house to protect him.
“One week before, President Aristide was summoned to court on false corruption charges. This is the fourth time since his return to Haiti in 2011 that he has been the target of a politically motivated legal case. (Previous charges were dropped before he could even challenge them in court.) The judge in this case, Lamarre Bélizaire, has been suspended for ten years from practicing the law by the Port-au-Prince Bar Association for using the court to persecute opponents of the present regime. His suspension is due to begin once he steps down as judge.”
Representatives Maxine Waters and Luis Gutierrez have also written open letters to Secretary of State John Kerry expressing their grave concern for Aristide’s safety.
President Aristide’s lawyer, Ira Kurzban, has warned, “The escalation of events against President Aristide are viewed as efforts to see how far Martelly can push without response from the international community. If a loud chorus of disapproval is not heard against the tactics of the Martelly government, both Aristide’s life and the future of democracy in Haiti are at risk.”
To that end activists throughout Haiti demonstrated on Tuesday, September 30 in support of Aristide’s right to continue his work without harassment from the Martelly regime. Thousands marched in Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haitien. In the Port-au-Prince demonstration, police cracked down on peaceful protestors. As Maxine Waters pointed out in an October 2 letter to Kerry, police used water hoses and tear gas on the thousands of marchers who were attempting to walk to Aristide’s home. Waters wrote, “These confrontational tactics were used despite reports that the demonstrators were peaceful. It has also been reported that police blocked the route along which the demonstrators had planned to march.”
Speaking to me at a San Francisco rally in support of the marches in Haiti, Robert Roth, co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee, noted: “Despite all the attacks against President Aristide and the Lavalas movement, the UNIFA opened its doors once again this week to 1,000 students. And the people took to the streets in large numbers to let it be known that they will defend the first democratically elected president in Haiti’s history and that they will defend their movement.”
Roth continued, “Little of this has been covered in the U.S. press, so it’s important that we get the word out. If a demonstrator is attacked in Hong Kong, the New York Times runs a front page story. If a demonstrator protesting the Martelly government is attacked by water hoses in Haiti, it doesn’t even make the news. If you read the mainstream press, it never happened. The police tactics being used right now in Haiti harken back to the days of Duvalier. That’s why we have to raise our voices and expose the dangerous level of repression in Haiti right now.”
Ben Terrall can be reached at: bterrall@gmail.com
October 11, 2014
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Haiti, Jean-Claude Duvalier |
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South Africa’s largest trade union federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), has joined with health sector unions to demand the expulsion of the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) from the World Medical Association (WMA).
COSATU, along with NEHAWU (National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union), DENOSA (Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa), as well as the SA Medical Association (SAMA), issued the joint call earlier this week. Organisers will protest outside the WMA today, Friday 10 October, supported by campaign groups like BDS South Africa.
In issuing the call for expulsion, COSATU claimed that the IMA “has never denounced or seriously confronted the Israeli government on its shameless use of torture”, and has “shown blatant disregard for the ethical issue of medical neutrality.”
The South African trade unions also accused the IMA of having “stood silently in the face of…the killing, harassment and wounding of Palestinian health professionals on duty; and the destruction of the Palestinian health systems.” They note that “direct appeals to the IMA [over many years] have been unavailing.”
COSATU was one of the first trade unions in the world to endorse the Palestinian-led, international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign. Citing the struggle against South African apartheid, COSTAU is urging the expulsion of the IMA from the WMA, until the Israeli body “unequivocally condemns, distances and actively counter’s Israel’s torture, occupation and apartheid policies.”
October 10, 2014
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | Congress of South African Trade Unions, COSATU |
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The 2nd conference “New Horizon: the International Conference of Independent Thinkers” was held in Tehran, September 29–October 1 2014, including over 30 journalists, writers and academics from around the world presenting papers and arguing issues of world geopolitics, with a focus on the Middle East. I came from Canada, along with University of Lethbridge Globalization Studies Professor Anthony Hall, author of Earth into Property: Colonization, Decolonization, and Capitalism (2010). It was greeted in western media by hysterical denunciations; firstly, by the American Jewish Committee which accused it of “promoting hatred of Jews and Israel”, and the Anti-Defamation League which accused it of “promoting anti-Semitic propaganda”. The conference almost didn’t take place at all, having been officially cancelled, supposedly as a gesture to the West, after the new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was elected last year. But after a flood of criticism on Iranian websites sympathetic to the organizers, the Iranian Foreign Ministry reversed itself. Nader Talebzadeh, the principle organizer, had had to lobby hard to reinstate the conference, calling the cancellation of the conference “a major mistake on the part of our government”.
“Have our leaders given in so much to the world that they are even afraid of a conference that might hurt Mr Obama’s feelings?” asked one blogger sarcastically.
The 1st New Horizon Conference in September 2012 was denounced in the West when it was addressed by the previous president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, probably best remembered in the West for his 2005 soundbyte that Israel should be “wiped off the map”, referring to Ayatollah Khomeini’s prediction that “the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.” The translation of the Persian text was later corrected but this was ignored in the West, where Ahmedinejad was further accused of “holocaust denial” for suggesting the figure of six million as the number of Jews who died in the holocaust was exaggerated, and he was mocked for suggesting that 9/11 was a conspiracy.
Indeed, most Iranians see 9/11 as involving some degree of conspiracy by the US and/or Israel, but then so do, for instance, 55% of Egyptians. So, not surprisingly, prominent at the New Horizon Conference this year was the world’s leading 9/11 conspiracy theorist, France’s Theirry Meyssan, who in 2002 published what is still considered the classic work on the topic, 9/11: The Big Lie (L’Effroyable imposture), translated into 28 languages, arguing that the attacks were organized by a faction of “the US military industrial complex in order to impose a military regime.” Meyssan also argues that the attack against the Pentagon was not carried out by a commercial airliner but by a missile. Also present was American filmmaker Art Olivier, who produced the feature film Operation Terror (2012), whose scenario followed Meyssan’s.
In a YouGov poll last year, 60% of Americans rejected the official explanation as published in the 9/11 Commission Report (2004), so Meyssan’s call for a UN investigation of 9/11 and the recent petition signed by 100,000 New Yorkers for an investigation of the collapse of World Trade Center building 7 are surely legitimate, though they have been blocked by politicians as “absolutely ridiculous” and “wild fantasies”.
Iran’s current President Rouhani was not associated directly with this year’s conference. Instead he was embroiled in a controversy with UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who both extended his hand in friendship to Rouhani at the UN General Assembly in a “historic meeting”, and then slapped him in the face from the UN General Assembly podium, attacking Iran for its “support for terrorist organizations, its nuclear program, its treatment of its people”, calling it “part of the problem in the Middle East”.
“On the contrary,” said a peeved Rouhani in his address to the UN, blaming the West and Saudi Arabia for sowing the seeds of extremism in the Middle East with “strategic blunders” that have given rise to the Islamic State and other violent jihadist groups. He also criticized the West’s sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program and reiterated his government’s desire to resolve the dispute, stating that no cooperation with the West against ISIS is possible until the sanctions are lifted. He called Cameron’s comments at the UN “wrong and unacceptable.”
Appropriately, the New Horizon Conference opened with the book launch of the Persian edition of US journalist Gareth Porter’s Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare (2014). Porter told me:
Through painstaking checking with experts and an IAEA official, I discovered that the documents submitted to the IAEA, which supposed showed Iranian plans to put nuclear warheads on their missiles, were fabricated by the terrorist group People’s Mojahedin of Iran and were passed on the IAEA by Mossad. They were contradictory—clearly doctored blueprints for an obsolete missile system.
Porter was awarded the UK Gellhorn Prize for investigative journalism in 2012 for exposing official lies concerning US policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan. With this latest expose, Porter did for the Iranian nuclear dossier what he and others did after 2003 in exposing the lies that prompted the US invasion of Iraq.
The sessions were varied. “The Gaza War and the BDS Movement Strategies” was addressed by Code Pink activist Medea Benjamin, who has been arrested dozens of time for her plucky protests at Congressional hearings against the war in Iraq, and who famously interrupted a speech by President Barack Obama in May 2013 protesting his continued use of drones against civilians. (She is barred from entering Canada.) Benjamin suggested a new project to highlight illegal Israeli settlements: activists hope to target one of the largest US-based real estate firms, RE/MAX, which “operates in over 90 countries, including Israel, where it sells homes complete with swimming pools in the West Bank to Israeli settlers in defiance of international law.” Every Sunday tens of thousands of “open houses” are held by RE/MAX around the world. Benjamin hopes activists will picket these open houses to embarrass RE/MAX into ceasing their West Bank activities. A session on Islam and the West, “Postsecularism and its Discontents”, emphasized the importance of ethics in Islamic civilization which makes subservience to market diktat unacceptable, and is a major stumbling block to understanding between the West and the Muslim world. “There is no teleology in western society, no guiding morality, only an obsession with materialism, with logos,” argued organizer Arash Darya-Bandari. “We believe it is necessary to control the negative tendencies in culture, such as pornography, alcohol, drugs, prostitution, to strive towards a more moral and justice society.”
“The ‘Islamic’ State Meme, its Precursors, and the US-Israel-Saudi Triangle” heard frontline reports from Meyssan and others about the intentional destruction of the Iraqi and Syrian states by the invasion of Iraq and ongoing western and Israeli support for insurgents in Syria, directly resulting in ISIS’s phenomenal success. “The West has abetted Sunni-Shia differences in the process to keep Muslims divided and allow continued western penetration and control of the growing chaos there,” charged Meyssan. Rouhani’s comment at the UN—“Certain intelligence agencies [who] have put blades in the hands of madmen, who now spare no one,”—is hard to argue with.
In the session “The Israeli Lobby in England”, Stephen Sizer, Anglican vicar and author of Christian Zionism—Road Map to Armageddon? (2004), explained that the vast majority of Zionists are not Jewish, but Christian. This prompted him in 2006 to draft what became known as the Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism, signed by four of the Heads of Churches, declaring Christian Zionism a heretical belief, both immoral and a contradiction of faith. The rector of the University of Middlesex was pressured to rescind Sizer’s PhD but the examination committee wouldn’t budge. Nor has Sizer been cowed by constant harassment, including a break-in and the theft of his computer. At the same time, on his visits to Tehran, Sizer lobbies on behalf of Iranian religious minorities and always brings Persian-language New Testaments as “gifts”. “My intent is to show the Iranians that genuine Christians are not a threat to anyone, but bring the message of peace and love.”
Contrary to the shrill cries in the western media that the conference was anti-Semitic, it was unique in my experience in addressing Zionism and US imperialism forthrightly and intelligently, without a hint of racism. The issue of anti-Semitism was addressed and dismissed, as “There is no issue with Jewish people or the Jewish religion,” explained Darya-Bandari, “but rather with Zionism, that secular distortion of Judaism that itself is racist, and has been used as a pretext to dispossess and kill Palestinians.”
The American Defense League loudly attacked the conference for focusing on Zionist control of western media and the outsize influence of the Zionist Lobby in the US and around the world. So what’s wrong with that? There is more than enough documented proof of this, as I discover when I researched Postmodern Imperialism. The ADL labelled several of the delegates as anti-Semitic, including ex-US Marine Ken O’Keefe, who has led several relief convoys to Gaza, has appeared several times on BBC’s Hardtalk in support of Gaza, and famously renounced his US citizenship in view of US crimes around the world. It should be remembered that the ADL was successfully sued in the 1990s for false accusations of anti-Semitism.
The conference issued a resolution condemning ISIS, Zionism, US unconditional support of Israel, Islamophobia, and calling for activism locally to boycott Israeli goods and to promote understanding between the West and the Muslim world, and to fight sectarianism. “This was a great opportunity to meet anti-imperialist activists from around the world, to bring Russians, Poles, western Europeans, North Americans together with Iranians and other Muslims, both Sunni and Shia, in a forum without sectarianism, truly supporting peace and understanding,” said delegate Mateusz Piskorski, director of the European Centre of Geopolitical Analysis in Warsaw and former MP in the Polish Sejm.
~
Eric Walberg, a journalist who is now writing for Al-Ahram Weekly in Cairo, is the author of From Postmodernism to Postsecularism: Re-Emerging Islamic Civilization.
October 9, 2014
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, False Flag Terrorism, Solidarity and Activism | 9/11, Iran, Islam, Palestine, RE/MAX, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Zionism |
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More than 500 anthropologists have publicly joined an academic boycott of Israel initiated by the American Studies Association,The Washington Post reported, with another 77 joining anonymously.
In February, the American Studies Association voted “to endorse a boycott of Israeli academic institutions to protest the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.”
Since then, the campaign attracted hundreds of anthropologists who voiced their opposition to “the ongoing Israeli violations of Palestinian rights, including the Israeli military occupation of the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and East Jerusalem.”
Driven by their commitment to promote and protect the rights of people with full realization of their humanity, the signatories said in a statement that “acting in solidarity with Palestinian civil society is a disciplinary tradition of support for anti-colonial and human rights struggles, itself an important departure from anthropology’s historical complicity with colonialism.”
The statement added that Israeli academic institutions are “complicit with the occupation and oppression of Palestinians.” The boycott means that signed members will not “collaborate on projects and events involving Israeli academic institutions,” teach at or attend conferences at those institutions, and publish in academic journals based in Israel.
The signatories demanded an end to the siege of Gaza and to the occupation of territories taken in the 1967 Six Day War and a dismantle of the settlements and walls.
They also called for an Israeli recognition of “the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel and the stateless Negev Bedouins to full equality; and respect, protect, and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.”
The academic boycott of Israel not only attracted the American Studies Association (ASA) — the oldest and largest association devoted to the interdisciplinary study of American culture and history — but also the Association for Asian American Studies and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association.
This anti-Israel academic boycott is a groundbreaking victory for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS), launched eight years ago to oppose Israel’s discriminatory policies towards Palestinians and its illegal occupation and settlement building.
October 6, 2014
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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Hundreds of American protesters, angered by Israel’s recent deadly assault on the Gaza Strip, gathered at the Port of Oakland to block an Israeli ship from unloading its cargo.
Workers with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) refused to unload the Zim Shanghai as about 200 activists picketed outside several of the port’s gates on Saturday morning.
The cargo ship is managed by Israel’s largest shipping firm, Zim Integrated Shipping Services.
About 50 police officers were also present at the port.
The protesters said they would continue with their “Block the Boat” campaign.
They said Israeli authorities must be held responsible for the deaths of more than 2,100 Palestinians during the recent 50-day war on Gaza.
“I think it was a big victory today for those who are opposed to the policies of Israel in Gaza,” said Steve Zeltzer, an organizer of the protest.
Similar actions were taken in August, when protesters blocked Israeli-owned ship Zim Piraeus for five days, forcing it to leave for Los Angeles with most of its cargo unloaded.
Longshore workers refused to cross picket lines to unload Zim Piraeus in August.
Protesters on Saturday said they hoped to achieve the same outcome.
“We ask the ILWU to carry on its long historical tradition of opposing injustice and honoring community picket lines. Let’s keep the pressure on and continue this tradition of labor blockades against oppression,” the “stop ZIM action committee” said in a statement.
September 28, 2014
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | Gaza, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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Block the boat protest. (FightBack!News/Staff)
Tampa, FL – 70 Palestine solidarity activists filed into the intersection of Maritime and 20th Street here to protest the docking of the ZIM Alabama, a container ship carrying Israeli goods. The Tampa Port Authority was woken early in the morning of Sept. 21 by protesters opposing the importation of Israeli goods. Israeli companies super-exploit Palestinian labor, paying very low wages.
Protesters were hoping to catch the attention of dockworkers arriving for work. Some members of the International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1402 waved and honked in support.
“It was really great to see dockworkers showing interest and support for our cause. There was a real sense of solidarity from the workers themselves,” said Caroline England, a member of Tampa Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).
After gathering at the intersection, protesters marched to the port itself. Upon approaching the security checkpoint at the port, police surrounded the protesters, attempting to cut them off from both the port and incoming workers. Police threatened to arrest a Palestinian American woman. However fellow protesters were able to get the police to back off. The rally continued until 8:00 a.m., when it was announced that International Longshoremen’s Association workers would not be entering the port until 1:00 p.m. due to an unspecified delay. Protesters retreated in order to rest and organize reinforcements for later.
The protesters gathered again at noon with a larger crowd than the morning. They conducted another march on the port, slowing traffic that was attempting to enter. Police stood by as protesters entered the port and protested the docking of the ZIM Alabama from Israel.
The action is part of the Block the Boat movement to place economic pressure on Israel to stop killing and oppressing Palestinians. There is a growing movement of students participating in the Boycott, Divest And Sanction (BDS) campaign.
Sam Beutler of Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of South Florida said, “Every little action on our part counts. The BDS movement was integral to the destruction of the South African Apartheid regime and can play a similar role in dealing with Israeli apartheid today – whether it be not buying Sabra hummus, HP computers, or attempting to stop a boat containing Israeli goods from docking. Each action moves towards the ending of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.”
This is the second protest of the ZIM Alabama in Tamp; there was another Aug. 30. Another Block the Boat rally is being organized to oppose the return of the ZIM Alabama.
September 24, 2014
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Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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The Union of European Football Associations has rejected an Israeli bid to host games during the 2020 European Championships. The decision follows a campaign by Palestinian sports teams and campaign groups and activists across Europe.
The Israeli Football Association bid to host games in Jerusalem as part of the UEFA 2020 tournament that will take place across 13 cities, but UEFA announced on Friday that Jerusalem was not one of the successful bidders.
75 Palestinian football teams and NGOs wrote to UEFA president Michel Platini arguing that holding the UEFA 2020 games in Jerusalem would be tantamount to “rewarding” Israel for its massacre of more than 2,100 Palestinians, including over 500 children, during its recent 52-day assault on Gaza.
Campaigners across Europe pressured UEFA and national football associations not to accept the Israeli bid. Sit-ins were held by Palestine solidarity activists at the headquarters of French and Italian football associations.
Abdulrahman Abunahel, the coordinator in Gaza with the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee said:
“Given that awarding Israel the right to host the games would have been a sign of support for Israel’s massacre in Gaza and its war on Palestinian football, UEFA has made the only sensible decision.
“We thank all those who joined us in opposing Israel’s bid to host games in Jerusalem, a city from which Israel is ethnically cleansing Palestinians. Our online campaigning and the occupations of football association buildings in France and Italy undoubtedly played a role in persuading UEFA to to make the right choice.”
“Israel has launched a war on football in Palestine: footballers have been killed, stadiums bombed and players have been refused permission to travel to matches. UEFA must suspend the membership the Israeli Football Association if it continues to maintain its links with the Israeli state that practices occupation, colonisation and apartheid.”
Thousands of people participated in a Twitter storm action on Tuesday to tell UEFA that awarding Israel the right to host UEFA 2020 tournament games would amount to a message of approval for its massacre in Gaza.
Among those killed in Israel’s recent massacre in Gaza were Ahmad Muhammad al-Qatar and Uday Caber, two 19-year-old football players at the start of their careers, and 49-year-old Ahed Zaqout, a footballing legend in Palestine known as “the voice of football” for his live commentaries. 32 sports facilities and around 500 athletes’ houses were also damaged.
Palestinian groups also warned that hosting games in Jerusalem would legitimise Israel’s forced displacement of Palestinians from occupied East Jerusalem, which is recognised as occupied Palestinian territory by the EU and UN.
Israel recently announced plans to further expand illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem, a step that the UN and other agencies have warned will lead to further expulsions and forced evictions of Palestinians from their homes.
In a public letter protesting against UEFA’s decision to allow Israel to host the Under 21 tournament in 2013, more than 50 footballers including Didier Drogba and Frederik Kanoute called the Israeli-hosted tournament “a reward for actions that are contrary to sporting values”.
In 2010, UEFA president Michel Platini said: “Israel must choose between allowing Palestinian sport to continue and prosper or be forced to face the consequences for their behavior”.
Campaigners are now planning to intensify the pressure on Platini to live up to his promises and suspend the Israeli Football Association.
September 19, 2014
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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Palestinian ambassador to South Africa Abdul-Hafid Nofal said that Johannesburg university decided not to accept any student or deal with any academic or lecturer from Israel.
In a press release on Wednesday, Nofal said that the academic council of the university issued a decision prohibiting the admission of Israeli students to any of its collages and departments.
The decision also included a ban on hiring or hosting academics and lecturers who work for Israeli universities, according to the Palestinian ambassador.
He noted that Johannesburg university was the first one in South Africa to have taken a bold decision three years ago to boycott Israeli universities.
In a related context
What really winds up Israel is that this rejection comes from a famous scientist, and it is science that drives its economy, prestige and military strength.
Stephen Hawking‘s decision to boycott the Israeli president’s conference has gone viral. Over 100,000 Facebook shares of the Guardian report at last count. Whatever the subsequent fuss, Hawking’s letter is unequivocal. His refusal was made because of requests from Palestinian academics.
Witness the speed with which the pro-Israel lobby seized on Cambridge University’s initial false claim that he had withdrawn on health grounds to denounce the boycott movement, and their embarrassment when within a few hours the university shamefacedly corrected itself. Hawking also made it clear that if he had gone he would have used the occasion to criticise Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians.
While journalists named him “the poster boy of the academic boycott” and supporters of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement celebrated, Ha’aretz, the most progressive of the Israeli press, drew attention to the inflammatory language used by the conference organisers, who described themselves as “outraged” rather than that they “regretted” Hawking’s decision.
That the world’s most famous scientist had recognised the justice of the Palestinian cause is potentially a turning point for the BDS campaign. And that his stand was approved by a majority of two to one in the Guardian poll that followed his announcement shows just how far public opinion has turned against Israel’s relentless land-grabbing and oppression.
Read More: Stephen Hawking’s boycott hits Israel where it hurts: science
September 15, 2014
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | Israel, Palestine, South Africa, Zionism |
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Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, met in Dushanbe, capital of Tajikistan, on Thursday ahead of the 14th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
The two allies discussed “pressing issues of bilateral cooperation, particularly in energy, aircraft engineering and infrastructure”, said a Kremlin statement.
It is the fourth meeting in 2014 between the two leaders.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said during Thursday’s meet that the leadership of the two nations will “jointly face external challenges”.
“I am ready to maintain further contacts with you to strengthen mutual support and expand openness between our countries, so that we could always draw from each other’s support, jointly face external challenges and achieve our grand development and revival goals,” said Xi.
Earlier last week, China put its weight solidly behind Russian President Vladimir Putin’s seven-point peace plan for Ukraine, even as the EU prepared another wave of sanctions targeting Russia’s banking and energy sectors.
The Russian President on Thursday lauded the milestone deal signed earlier this year in May, the $400-billion gas supply deal between the two countries, securing the world’s top energy user a major source of cleaner fuel.
“This was done with the direct support of the President of China. Now we have practically begun its implementation, which, I am certain, will proceed in the same business-like manner and will be efficiently carried through by both parties – Russia and the People’s Republic of China,” said Putin on Thursday in Dushanbe.
The deal opened up a new market for Moscow as it risks losing European customers over the Ukraine crisis.
Putin’s “personal friendship” with the Chinese President is a political triumph for the Russian President even as Western leaders step up attempts to isolate Putin internationally over Russia’s alleged support to pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine.
“We are making headway in other traditional areas of cooperation as well, including nuclear power, aircraft engineering, infrastructure and so forth,” Putin said on Thursday.
Xi said Beijing and Moscow have overseen new progress in the joint development of long-haul jumbo jets and heavy helicopters, as well as other major joint projects.
“Early this month you personally took part in the ceremony to launch the construction of the Power of Siberia gas pipeline, which shows how seriously you take the expansion of Chinese-Russian energy cooperation,” Xi told Putin.
“We have set up an intergovernmental Chinese-Russian commission on investment cooperation. We are actively considering cooperation in the construction of high-speed railways. We have launched cooperation in satellite navigation systems, which you personally have given great attention to,” he added.
Xi and Putin had also held talks in July in Brazil during the 6th BRICS Summit.
Xi has held talks or met with Putin for nine times since he assumed the office of China’s President in March 2013, testifying to stronger and more assertive Sino-Russian relations.
In a major highlight of an investment meet on Tuesday, Moscow and Beijing have entered into a pact to boost use of the rouble and yuan for trade transactions.
During its maiden meeting in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, the Russia-China Investment Cooperation Commission discussed 32 bilateral investment projects on Tuesday, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said.
Both Xi and Putin will now attend the 14th summit of the SCO slated for Thursday and Friday in the Tajik capital.
TBP
September 12, 2014
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Solidarity and Activism | China, Russia, Sino-Russian relations |
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E M E R G E N C Y P R O T E S T
NO to another war!
FRI ►SEPT 12 5 – 6 pm
Times Square 43rd St & 7th Ave International Action Center IACenter.org 212-633-6646
www.facebook.com/events
Maryland/DC/Northern Virginia
Regional International Action Center
Emergency Response Protest on 9/11:
Say No to U.S. War in the Middle East
Stop Obama’s New War on IRAQ & SYRIA:
On the eve of 9/11 President Obama announced a new U.S. war of aggression. Emergency response actions are urgently needed.
Obama lied last night just like Bush and Colin Powell lied in 2003 and Lyndon Johnson did in 1964. He told us how terrible ISIS is, how barbaric. He will announce a new “Coalition of the Willing”. He is using the Big Lie to launch another war.
But ISIS is not the “reason” the U.S. is going to war. ISIS is the PRETEXT. It is the latest of a string of pretexts from the Maine in 1898 to Vietnam’s Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 to “weapons of mass destruction” in 2003, pretexts/lies to maintain an empire.
ISIS is barbaric? It is the Pentagon that is barbaric. What are more barbaric than U.S. bombs in Syria and Iraq? U.S. drones wipe out whole wedding parties from Pakistan to Yemen, slaughtering men, women and yes, children.
It was U.S. war and occupation that killed more than a million Iraqis and destroyed that country. It was U.S. arms that fed Syria’s civil war, killing hundreds of thousands and half-destroying that country. Now Obama wants to destroy the other half.
ISIS grew from the poison of U.S. wars, arms and the cynical policy of inflaming sectarian divisions. Stop the Pentagon from waging war on the people and the people there will take care of ISIS. Continuing to wage war will arouse a billion people against the U.S. and its war machine.
The Bush “War on Terror” militarized every police force in the U.S. targeting people of color. The prison population soared. It globalized invasive surveillance and locked thousands in secret detention and solitary confinement. Now Obama promises a new “war on terror” reaching years into the future. We say NO!”
September 11, 2014
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Solidarity and Activism | Middle East, Obama, Syria, United States |
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Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel | September 10, 2014
The campaign, which started two years ago, asks for support from professionals from the academic and scientific field, and also from associations linked to this field, such as student’s and worker’s unions, research centres, professional associations, etc. From the 1,400 people who have signed the manifesto, 150 are professors, 850 are teachers and 200 are researchers. More than 52 associations linked to the academic field have also signed; among them there are research groups and University departments.
This initiative is part of an international campaign: Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) to Israel. This international calling is a non-violent strategy driven by the Palestinian Society in 2005. It is growing as an effective pressure strategy towards Israel, so that it respects Human Rights and International Law. Last year, the physician Stephen Hawking, the Nobel Peace Prize Desmond Tutu and four American academic associations adhered to the boycott. It’s important to emphasize that this demand is at an institutional level and not at an individual one. On the same line, the European Union has established a de facto boycott to all collaboration with Israeli research centres and Universities placed in the Occupied Territories.
The campaign will keep collecting signatures and foresees to support specific campaigns which will develop in different Spanish universities, such as the University of Vic and the University of Malaga, where the aim is to break ties with the Haifa University and the Tel Aviv University, respectively.
In Catalonia, activists from the above mentioned campaign, occupied on May 15th the Secretary of Universities and Research asking for transparency in all of the agreements signed last November when a delegation of businessmen, councillors and directors of research centres lead by Artur Mar travelled to Israel to tighten economic and academic ties with Israeli institutions.
September 11, 2014
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | Israel, Palestine, Spain, Zionism |
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Members of the European Parliament (MEP) yesterday called to hold Israel accountable for its war in the Gaza Strip and to suspend the EU-Israel association agreement, the Anadolu news agency reported.
In a statement, the MEPs declared, “Israel’s direct targeting of civilians and its reckless cause of civilian deaths is a clear breach of international human rights law.”
Member of the Unitarian Left (GUE/NGL) parliamentary group, Martina Anderson said: “You cannot go on with an agreement after you have broken it.”
The European Union condemns the establishment of illegal settlements on the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 and considers it a violation of international law, but the association agreement with Israel is still valid.
Anderson stressed the Palestinians’ right to sovereignty, freedom and to live with dignity and respect and that they, as parliamentarians, should take responsibility otherwise they will become “partners in crime”.
Portuguese MEP, Marisa Matias said that suspending the association agreement with Israel is not a sufficient step, stressing on the need to apply an arms embargo and start working on a full ban of Israeli products produced in the occupied territories.
September 11, 2014
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | European Union, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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