On 2 January 2009 at around 14:30 an Israeli drone fired a missile at an open area in Qarara village, close to Khan Yunis. The missile struck and killed two brothers, Mohammed (12) and Abed Rabbo (9) al-Astal, and their cousin, Abdul Sattar Walid al-Astal (11) while they were playing and eating sugar canes in the land.
“I was at home when I heard an explosion that was close to our area. An Israeli drone was flying in the sky above us at that moment.” Eyad al-Astal recalls. “Approximately ten minutes later, my brother Ibrahim (28) came to my house and told me that my two sons and their cousin were killed by an Israeli shell. I rapidly left the house and headed to the scene about 250 meters west of my house. There I saw a deep hole. Traces of blood and fragments of flesh were still there.”
Three years have passed since Eyad lost his two sons but he still carries vivid memories with him. “Every day and every minute feels like the moment when I lost my sons. In everything there is a memory of them. I miss them all the time.”
Eyad tries to describe what the life of his family is like without Mohammed and Abed Rabbo: “Our lives have been very difficult since they were killed. Every time I see another boy their age, I remember my sons. I still cannot look at their photos, it is too painful.” He says; “I always feel like crying but I try not to. My wife, Jawaher, cries everyday but tries to hide her tears from me. She does not want to add salt to my wounds. My wife always wants to go to our sons’ graves with her mother, but I don’t. I only went once and don’t want to go again. I can’t face the sight of their graves.”
Besides Mohammed and Abed Rabbo, Eyad and his wife have five daughters and two sons. Mohammed and Abed Rabbo were the oldest children and their siblings were either very young or not born yet at the time of their death. The youngest child was born one and a half years after the war and will have no memories at all. “When the children ask us where their brothers are we tell them that they were killed, martyred, and are in heaven now”, says Eyad.
The memory of his sons is at the tip of Eyad’s tongue. “My son Khaled looks exactly like his brother Mohammed and I often find myself saying ‘Mohammed!’ when I actually mean to call Khaled.” In order to keep going, Eyad tries to stay busy all the time, finding some distraction by meeting people and working as a mason.
Since the death of his sons Eyad is tormented by worries and fears for the safety of his other children. Before the death of Mohammed and Abed Rabbo he allowed his children to go anywhere at anytime. Even when there were explosions and shooting was heard in the area. After the incident he became very afraid for his children and he wants to keep them inside. “I am afraid that anything would happen to them, especially for my son Khaled, who is now in the first grade. From the moment he leaves the house I worry that something could happen to him. Every day he walks to school, which is 1 kilometer away from our home. I know education is important, otherwise I would forbid him to go, out of my fear.”
The children themselves are aware that their brothers were killed by a drone: the same type of drone they often hear and see flying above themselves. Eyad explains that “when they hear a drone they are too afraid to go outside. ‘The drone will bomb me if I go out’, is what they say.”
The area where Mohammed and Abed Rabbo were killed was an open area approximately three kilometres away from the border with Israel. “The children were used to playing in that area. Our piece of land is close to it. It is an agricultural residential area, far from any hostilities,” Eyad explains.
Eyad is sceptical about the future, given the continuing impunity. “The Israelis disregard our rights. They kill our children and bulldoze our lands and no one will hold them accountable,” he says. “I expect the Israeli court to reject our complaint. I can even imagine them killing me together with my other children. However, I want to hope that the complaint would have some result.”
PCHR submitted a criminal complaint to the Israeli authorities on behalf of the al-Astal family on 23 June 2009. To-date, no response has been received.
Traditional farming methods are crucial for protecting a number of threatened bird species in the developing world, including bustards, cranes, ibises and vultures, a study has found.
Livestock grazing and features associated with arable farming — such as hedgerows — create environmental conditions that certain birds currently depend on for food, shelter and breeding, the authors report.
But as industrial farming methods eliminate these habitats, these species are threatened with extinction, said Hugh Wright, a researcher in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom, and lead author of the study, published in Conservation Letters earlier this month (5 December).
“There really is no hope for these species if industrial farming continues unchecked,” he told SciDev.Net.
Although reintroducing or mimicking traditional farming techniques has had success in conserving wildlife in Europe, “conservation in the developing world has always focused on pristine forest ecosystems and has paid little attention to where farming might be beneficial,” Wright said.
The study found 29 bird species threatened by the decline of traditional agriculture in developing countries. This number could be much higher if all organisms, rather than just birds, are considered, as evidence from Europe suggests that traditional farming also benefits reptiles, amphibians, butterflies and even plants, Wright said.
Farmers can benefit too from protecting biodiversity since it helps to justify traditional agriculture and could prevent big agri-businesses from forcing farmers off their land, he added. Also, by offering farmers economic incentives to continue these beneficial practices, governments can ensure that conservation and development move forward together.
Tim Benton, professor of population ecology at the University of Leeds, United Kingdom, agreed that traditional agricultural methods are a valuable conservation tool, but said that adopting techniques aimed at saving a few iconic species can disadvantage farmers.
“Applying low-intensity farming instead of industrial methods often pits livelihoods against conservation, and can impose limits on a region’s development,” he said.
Instead, he said that “land sparing” — where some areas are intensively farmed while others are left primarily for conservation — can lead to more wildlife and better crop yields.
There is no one strategy, but a “middle ground” that combines land sparing and traditional farming methods to suit local conditions could be the best conservation strategy, he added.
Wright agreed that a mixed approach can maximise biodiversity. “You need to assess which species you have, how feasible it is to protect them, what it will cost and social issues as well before coming up with a conservation strategy for an area,” he said.
Demobilized soldiers will be able to study Asian cooking this year at the government’s expense, as part of an effort to reduce the number of foreign workers employed as cooks in Asian restaurants by training Israeli professionals to replace them.
It’s shocking for two reasons – one is the xenophobia that is rising to astonishing heights in Israel: not even the cooks of foreign cuisine can be foreign (I’ll come back to this) – but because of what it says about how Israel is using US military aid at a time of drastic cuts and austerity for American citizens. Haaretz says:
The cooking courses are estimated to cost about NIS 4.5 million a year, about NIS 1 million of which will come from the Defense Ministry budget.
That’s a few hundred thousands dollars – small change in the grand scheme of things – but not for the Israeli soldiers who will enroll in the course:
Six courses are scheduled for this year in the north, center and south, with a minimum of 25 students in each course.
Some recently demobilized soldiers taking the course may receive aid for housing and living expenses for the first few months. Though the NIS 30,000 tuition [about $8,000] is fully subsidized, students will have to pay NIS 1,800 each for clothing and equipment.
Is this what US aid is being used for?
Everyone knows that the US gives several billion dollars a year of taxpayer aid to Israel’s military – with few strings attached. The US in effect subsidizes sushi-making courses for Israelis, but at what price?
Last Autumn, as Congress was looking for ways to cut the US federal deficit by cutting spending and not raising taxes, Congress chose to cut $733 million from the Women Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program – a move which, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities would see 700,000 poor women and young children in the United States lose access to a basic nutrition program this year that has been shown to improve child outcomes.
Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers will be getting all-expenses paid sushi courses.
Recently Deborah Lipstadt – a leading Holocaust scholar and supporter of Israel – lashed out in a Haaretz interview against “over-the-top pandering” to Israel by US politicians. Lipstadt also said that abuse of the Holocaust by American politicians seeking the favor of Israel’s supporters amounted to “soft-core denial” of the Holocaust.
Lipstadt’s comments were directed at Republicans – who are having presidential primary elections unlike the Democrats – but could have just as easily been aimed at leading Democratic Party politicians as well.
One can only agree with Lipstadt that such pandering is “unhealthy” – so much so that we have absurdities such as today’s news: US-subsidized sushi-making courses for Israeli soldiers while American infants are to see cuts in nutrition and no one has the guts to object.
“Now that we’ve got the curry, is there really any reason for them to stay?”
As I mentioned, the xenophobia inherent in almost every aspect of Israeli policy – even to the point of objecting to sushi chefs from countries that invented sushi has reached the point where it out does satire.
It reminded me of a sketch from the BBC satirical show Not The Nine O’Clock News from the early 1980s. In it Rowan Atkinson (later of Mr. Bean fame) plays a politician of Mrs. Thatcher’s Conservative Party. Watch the whole sketch because you will see that what was political satire thirty years ago has now become real political discourse on a whole range of subjects.
In one line, Atkinson – satirizing anti-immigrant sentiments – says “Now, a lot of immigrants are Indians and Pakistanis, for instance, and I like curry. But now that we’ve got the recipe, is there really any need for them to stay?” The same now goes for sushi in Israel.
Oh, and don’t forget, that last year, just after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the reaction of Israel’s Ynet was, “Israelis fear sushi shortage after quake.” And here’s the Rowan Atkinson sketch.
Rabbi Yaacov Perin said at Israeli mass-murderer Baruch Goldstein’s funeral that “one million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.” A less blatant – but still gratuitously reprehensible – representation of this idea appears to have found its way into the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
I seem to consistently find myself getting into disputes over whether the daily Haaretz is a zionist-biased source. “They have left-wing columnists like Gideon Levy and Amira Hass,” my interlocutors point out. They also carry pieces by right-wing settlers like Israel Harel. When reporting a story concerning the IDF, they often reproduce the IDF spokesperson’s claims uncritically as the headline.
I’ve just seen a sub-heading on Haaretz that nearly made my eyes pop out.
As Haaretz itself reported, two Palestinian fighters were killed by the Israeli air force on Tuesday, and another one was injured, in a serious condition. According to Israeli army propaganda they were going to fire a rocket. Haaretz even points out the Israeli army’s own admission that:
in contrast to previous incidents in which the IDF launched a retaliatory attack in response to rocket fire on Israel, in this case the militant group was identified well in advance and the attack was planned and carried out before the militants were able to launch any rockets toward Israel
I.e. they were assassinated for suspected pre-crime, “well in advance”.
But, incredibly, Haaretz wants to tell us that today’s light injury of one Israeli soldier is “the first significant incident in the strip after few months of relative calm.” The light injury of an Israeli is a “significant incident”, the death of two Palestinians and serious injury of one more is… well, they don’t even get a mention. It seems like Haaretz has internalized the idea that one is a member of God’s chosen people; the others are cannon fodder to be snuffed out without a raised eyebrow.
This is, as I hope any sane person can see, outright racism. Yes, by the standards of other Israeli newspapers (e.g. the Jerusalem Post) Haaretz is comparatively progressive. But they still dehumanize Palestinians, still base their choice of vocabulary, the angle, of their story on the implicit entrenched assumption that an Israeli soldier has some essential right to be in the Gaza strip, that he’s a real person, so when he is lightly injured it is significant, and that the Palestinians have no agency, no personhood; they exist only as a foil for the Israeli army’s misbehaviour; absolutely they have no right to defend themselves so when an Israeli jet kills two of them and wrecks the body of another, cosmic balance is maintained. This is the way things are meant to be, the Israelis bomb; the Palestinians get bombed. Nothing amiss.
Haaretz’ decision to adopt this illogical and gratuitously unfair narrative raises grave concerns about its trustworthiness as a source for news stories concerning the Palestinians.
Due to recent events of alienation and/or expulsion of members of Palestine Solidarity Movement, including Palestinians, it became more and more evident that there are elements in the Solidarity Movement who continue to stir up friction and splits amongst activists, that leads to alienation of many genuine activists and even exiled Palestinians.
This state of affairs should raise alarm to anyone interested in Justice and Peace, that means anyone who works to put an end to decades of Palestinian suffering, and its slow genocide, and to anyone who understands that such high objectives require promoting the Liberation of Palestine.
It is also apparent that many of these destabilizing elements are simultaneously members of OTHER organizations, which membership approval operates through exclusivity, and restricted only to people of Jewish background.
Moreover, it is manifest that many of these Jewish-only organizations declare publicly that their prime motive for their activism is out of concern for the welfare of “Israel” and the “Israeli society”. Worse, some of these organizations do not even conceal that their criticism of “Israel” is done out of “love” and loyalty to this criminal entity. Simply put, they criticise and condemn “Israel” primarily to protect and help it thrive and survive.
This kind of blind allegiance and deep loyalty to “Israel” is of course expected from and omnipresent amongst hyper-Zionists and their circles, but it is quite disturbing to find the same loyalty amongst “supporters of Palestine” of Jewish background. It is also interesting to notice that even hyper-Zionists, through their think tanks, have recently arrived at the same conclusion that their counterparts, Jewish anti-Zionists, have known for decades; namely open criticism of “Israel” IS the best way to defend it. As we can see for example, in Mick Davis’s article: “Open debate is our best way of defending Israel in the diaspora,” The Jewish Chronicle, 17 June 2010. The article also appears on the website of the Jewish Chronicle under the title “Defending Israel in the diaspora”.
Through my research and extensive work, it became evident that the prime allegiance of many Jewish anti-Zionist organizations is not to Palestine or the Palestinians; their loyalty is to “Israeli” Jews and to the artificially manufactured “Israeli” society. It also seems clear that the prime motive for the activism of many members of such organizations is the concern for the welfare and future of “Israelis” and the perpetuation of their colonial society.
Factual and thorough scrutiny of these organizations invariably indicates that their primary concern and main focus are the following:
How to best consolidate and reinforce a good, secure and thriving future for the INVENTED *** “nation” of “Israel”, on the Historical Land STOLEN from its ancestral inhabitants, the Palestinians;
How to best disculpate the Jewish communities worldwide from their responsibility of decades of financial, political, moral and even military support of their “beacon of light”, “Israel”;
How to best further the interests of such invented “nation”, after the finalization of their imposed facts on the grounds, and getting rid of the banner of Zionism;
How to best ensure and secure the permanent presence of an invading settler society after grabbing most of the LAND of Palestine by wars of terror and conquest;
How to best pacify and allure Palestinians into accepting foreign violent invaders as rightful co-owners of Palestine and future “partners”;
How to best promote “Israeli” settler society as “liberal peace-loving”, whose main concern would be to live in peace and security, but who just happened to be “unfortunately” plagued with corrupt leadership;
How to best conceal that their garment of humanism and thin veneer of ethics is directed principally at “saving Israelis from themselves” and thereby their own reputation, rather than unconditional and altruistic protection of the dispossessed, terrorised, besieged and occupied Palestinians, and their moral cause of Liberation.
How best to divert the limited energy of activism into supporting the “Israeli peace camp”, “Israeli” organizations, and “Israeli” individuals and treat as angels and heroes those who exhibit a minuscule dose of normal human behaviour;
It is glaringly evident that the above listed motives and aims, do not fully hold the Palestinians’ welfare or interest at heart. They are neither intertwined, nor even the slightest convergent with Palestinian aims, who are mainly Liberationist.
What is troubling, is that motives and objectives of such Jewish-only groups, as listed above, also stand in stark contradiction with the Nuremberg Principles, especially the sixth principlewhich happens to have been established in the aftermath of WW2 crimes, and these crimes are still instrumentalized as a main pretext for the occupation of Palestine, in-spite of the fact that Palestinians had no connection whatsoever with WW2 crimes.
Arguably, standards of moral fiber and legal consistency, are ignored or at best stretched ad absurdum by members of Jewish-only organizations who claim to stand with Palestine.
Those of us who venture into the necessary exposure of this inconvenient reality, are subjected to brutal – and often illicit forms of attacks by the enforcers of Zionist narrative, encroaching on strictly domestic matters of government, including the judicial administration, to strangle our respective freedoms.
Dual-loyalty to two opposed parties, one being the torturer, and the other being his victim, is in practice a myth. Thus it is not surprising that those involved operate in secrecy, in the exclusion of “the other side”.
While non-Jewish candidates are barred from becoming members, by definition membership to Jewish-only organizations is open to ANY person from Jewish background. This makes it piece of cake for Sayanim, Mossad agents, Shin Bet and Zionist sympathisers to effortlessly infiltrate, manipulate and steer such organizations. No wonder then, that so many Jewish-only groups who claim to be “pro-Palestinian” appear to be more interested with aims more in tune with securing the presence of “Israelis” in Palestine, than the restoration of Palestinian sovereignty.
This brings us to the core problem: while those members of Jewish only organizations have the privilege (and rightly so) to be members and never excluded from pro-Palestinian organizations, the opposite is not true. i.e we are faced with an alarming phenomenon whereby, Palestinians and non-Jewish individuals are systematically excluded from participating, having an input, debating, voting, influencing or even being informed about or simply being aware with the inner dynamics and the type and topics of discussions that take place inside such Jewish only organizations.
The outcome of such asymmetrical and non-mutual arrangement is what we have seen lately, matters are discussed amongst these exclusive groups, decisions are taken, and then the pro-Palestinian organizations are approached, persuaded, pressured or coerced to adhere to those propositions and motions.
The secrecy and lack of transparency surrounding that type of activities is allowing inside the solidarity movement people who are not necessary or entirely genuine supporters of Palestine, “fair-weather friends”, people who are in essence more interested in the long term “Israeli” interest, than genuine support of Palestine. At best, their claimed care for the suffering of the oppressed society come secondary.
Signing petitions, giving out leaflets, stating words of support, throwing some crumbs to Palestinians, accompanied with patronizing pats on the shoulders, believing that they have done their humanistic “duty” of siding with justice, while simultaneously continuing to aim and work for securing the right of the invading “Israelis” to practice their “self determination” in someone else Homeland, reflects no doubt ethical blindness and almost moral bankruptcy. Imposing on Palestine forced marriage with a rapist monster is an obscenity.
Such ethical inconsistency of crying with the victim while protecting the criminal, is a regrettable case of hypocrisy and self deception.
Throughout the Palestinian movement, recent events reveal that some people on board of our movement deleterious to the Palestinian cause and some probably are disingenuous. Thus, such unhealthy, asymmetrical and exclusionary structures are indeed destabilizing and crippling the efficiency of Palestine Solidarity Movement, an efficiency vital to a Palestinian population under threat of annihilation… these are not trivial matters.
As a matter of principle, we refuse to apply the same exclusionary methods amongst pro Palestinian organization and will never resort to such racist exclusiveness. We cannot continue to claim to be humanist anti-racist while accepting simultaneously, the exclusionary nature applied by such organizations, especially in the light of compromised loyalty, and what we know about the sinister Mossad activities and the ease with which they infiltrate such groups.
It is therefore essential to crack open the shells of exclusion and secrecy, wherein topics of discussions are about “unfavourable” information to filter, which debates to “allow” and where to draw boundaries, and sinister attacks against activists who might not conform to “permissible” lines of discourse are cooked.
Under such conditions, it is imperative for the Palestine Solidarity movement to introduce a regulation that will allow room for transparency and reciprocity. Failure to address this issue would cause the continuation and aggravation of the crippling shift that has already befallen the movement.
.
Whereas some Jewish-anti Zionist supporters call for a two state solution with a thriving and secured Israel they love, whereby they actively support the theft of 80% of Palestine;
Whereas some others insist that the only solution should be a one secular state, one member one vote, whereby they establish a precondition that would not only exculpate the occupiers from any responsibility or blame but also grant the occupier lands that do not belong to them, rights that they have not earned and protection that they don’t deserve.
Whereas, many of those Jewish “anti-Zionists” are full members of the Palestinian movements and have the privilege to be part of and to vote in any organization they desire;
Whereas, they continue to exclude Palestinians and other non-Jewish individuals from being part of and voting in their Jewish-only organizations;
Whereas, Zionist methods of false accusations of anti-Semitism / Holocaust denial are used to neutralize and exclude, or push away certain members of the Solidarity Movement, including Palestinian refugees! (a crass mirror of the ethnic cleansing happening in Palestine);
Whereas, Jewish anti-Zionist individuals and groups have the right to vote and have the weight to even tilt the vote, have access to the minutes of meetings and have the privilege of being heard and their opinions respected in the broader solidarity movement;
Whereas, such affiliated Jewish groups do generally restrict their membership to Jews, hence barring non-Jewish persons from participating, or from having the right of access to their meetings as an observer, let alone from a vote within their tightly knit fellowship;
Whereas, the fundamental element of trust about the authenticity of intentions, about motivation, aims, and actions of such groups, has been profoundly shaken;
It appears evident that:
To put an end to this predicament, the exclusionary nature of such organizations must be revoked, and the fair and mutual openness to membership without discrimination against race, culture or religion must be requested.
The Solidarity Movement needs to have a system of disclosure of political affiliation of its prospective members, making it a contractual obligation of disclosure of their membership to any hitherto Jewish-only organization, or to any other organization linked to either the Palestinian cause, or to the occupiers of Palestine aka “Israelis”.
Representatives of the Solidarity Movements must have the mutual right to have access to and to be fairly represented in the insofar exclusive Jewish-only organizations, in equal numbers, and have rights to vote in these organizations.
To avoid any further mistrust, friction, crippling or fragmentation, reciprocity and mutual open membership is the way forward.
Behind a mysterious December 22 Associated Press story about “finding of fact” by a District judge in Manhattan Friday that Iran assisted al Qaeda in the planning of the 9/11 attacks is a tapestry of recycled fabrications and distortions of fact from a bizarre cast of characters.
The AP story offers no indication of the nature of the evidence in the case except that former members of the 9/11 Commission and three Iranian defectors provided testimony. What it didn’t say was that at least two of the Iranian defectors have long been dismissed by US intelligence as “fabricators” and that the two “expert witnesses” who were supposed to determine the credibility of those defectors’ claims are both avowed advocates of crackpot conspiracy theories about Muslims and Shariah law who believe the United States is at war with Islam.
The ostensible purpose of the case brought by families of 9/11 terror attack victims was to win damages from those responsible for 9/11. Dozens of such cases involving different terrorist attacks have been brought to US courts over the years, in which “default judgments” have been made against Iran over various attacks in which Iran was allegedly involved, but there is no chance of getting any money for the families.
The only real effect of the case is to promote right-wing political myths about Iran. One of the peculiarities of such cases is that the witnesses are not subject to cross examination in court. The witnesses have every incentive, therefore to indulge in false testimony, knowing that there will be no one to challenge them.
“A Fabricator of Monumental Proportions”
The lawyers and the “expert witnesses” behind the accusation of Iran in regard to 9/11 hoped to sell the press and public on recycled claims first made by Iranian “defectors” several years ago that they had personal knowledge of Iranian participation in the 9/11 plot. The lawyers produced videotaped affidavits by three such defectors who were identified, with a dramatic flourish, as Witnesses “X,” “Y” and “Z.”
In the one public hearing held on the case, the lawyers revealed the identity of purported former Iranian intelligence official Abolghasem Mesbahi – probably a pseudonym – and described his testimony that he had received a series of “coded messages” from a former colleague in the Iranian government in the late summer and early fall of 2001 warning that a terrorist attack against the United States was being planned, and that it was a plan that had been concocted by Tehran in the late 1980s.
Although the judge and the public were being led to believe that this is somehow new information going beyond what was known by the 9/11 Commission report, it is, in fact, very old information and has long been completely discredited. Mesbahi’s story doesn’t hold up, for several reasons, and the most obvious is that, despite his claim that he was warned nearly a month before the 9/11 attacks that civilian airliners would be crashed into buildings in major US cities, including Washington and New York on September 11, he never conveyed that information to the US government before that date.
In October 2001, Mesbahi claimed to right-wing journalist Kenneth R. Timmerman, as reported in Timmerman’s 2005 book that he had tried calling the legal attaché at the US Embassy in Berlin, but was “unsuccessful in several attempts.” But he did not claim any other attempt to reach a US consulate or the US Embassy in Germany by fax, e-mail or letter before September 11, nor did he go to the US Embassy in person to convey this warning. He told Timmerman that he called an Iranian dissident contact in the United States who, he believed, had contacts with US intelligence agencies only some hours after the attacks on New York and Washington.
It wasn’t the first time Mesbahi had claimed inside information about Iranian involvement in a terrorist attack only after the attack had taken place. He had told investigators working on the December 1988 terror bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 that Iran had asked Libya and Abu Nidal to carry out the attack on the personal orders of Ayatollah Khomeini. Unfortunately for his credibility, however, he had not come forward with the allegation until after the bombing had happened.
He had also provided affidavits to Argentine investigators in the case of the 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires, claiming his well-informed friends in Iranian intelligence had tipped him off that the decision to bomb the Jewish Community Center had been made at a meeting attended by top Iranian officials in August 1993.
But in fact, by his own admission Mesbahi had not worked for Argentine intelligence since 1988, and the FBI Hezbollah Office’s James Bernazzani, who had helped the Argentine intelligence service with the investigation in 1997, told me in a November 2006 interview that American intelligence officials had concluded Mesbahi did not have the continued high-level access to Iranian intelligence officials throughout the 1990s and beyond that he was claiming. They regarded him as someone who was desperate for money and ready to “provide testimony to any country on any case involving Iran,” according to Bernazzani.
Mesbahi wasn’t even consistent in the story he told about the alleged “coded messages.” In an interview with Timmerman, Mesbahi stated that he had gotten two messages from his contact, one on September 1, 2001 and a second three days later. And Timmerman wrote that his alleged contact had “phoned him again” on September 4, indicating that Mesbahi had made no reference to an elaborate scheme to send coded messages through articles in Iranian newspapers.
But in his affidavit to the 9/11 court case, he said he had gotten three messages – on July 23, August 13 and August 27 – and that the coded messages were placed in newspaper articles. Timmerman, who referred the lawyers to Mesbahi, discretely avoided pointing out the huge discrepancy between the two stories, which clearly indicates that Mesbahi fabricated the tale of messages in newspaper articles to make it more dramatic and convincing.
The second defector, Hamid Reza Zakeri, claimed he had been an officer of Iran’s Ministry of Information and Security and had provided security for a meeting at an airbase near Tehran on May 4, 2001 attended by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Hashemi Rafsanjani and Osama bin Laden’s son Saad bin Laden. He also claimed to have seen replicas of the twin towers, the White House, the Pentagon and Camp David in the entry hall to the main headquarters of the MOIS with a missile suspended above the targets, and “Death to America” written in Arabic (rather than Farsi) on the side.
Like Mesbahi, Zakeri also first told his tale to Timmerman, who recounts it in his 2005 book. Zakeri, who apparently defected from Iran in late July 2001, claimed he had told the US Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan on July 26, 2001 about the alleged meeting and replicas, warning them that he believed the Iranians and al Qaeda were planning an attack on those targets that would occur September 11. But CIA officials denied categorically to Timmerman that Zakeri had given any such warning to the Embassy and called Zakeri “a fabricator of monumental proportions” and “a serial fabricator.” Zakeri failed an FBI polygraph test in 2003, according to Timmerman.
Crackpot Hate-Islam Extremists as “Expert Witnesses”
Significantly, no reputable retired intelligence analyst on Iran was asked to help judge the testimony of the Iranian defectors. Instead, Clare M. Lopez and Bruce Tefft, both former CIA covert operations case officers, were invited to be “expert witnesses,” in large part to view the videotaped testimony of the three Iranian defectors and assess their credibility.
Based on the record of their public statements, however, they were selected for that role because they could be counted upon to endorse the defectors’ allegations of Iranian involvement in planning the 9/11 attacks and any other assertion, no matter how outlandish, that suggested Iranian guilt.
Lopez has been linked with the neoconservative faction of the Bush administration and the pro-Likud Party extreme right ever since she became Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee in 2005. Through a series of policy papers issued that year, the Committee sought to support from outside the push by a group of pro-Likud officials within the administration for a policy of regime change in Iran.
In particular, the Committee called for using the Mujahedin-E-Khalq or MEK, the armed opposition group listed by the US State Department as a terrorist group because of its assassinations of US officials during the regime of the Shah and bombings of large civilian events in Iran. The MEK had long enjoyed close working relations with Israel, but not with the United States, and the State Department had continued to oppose delisting and alliance with the MEK against Tehran, as proposed by the Defense Department and the Vice-President’s office.
Since 2009, Lopez has been a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy founded and headed by notorious Islam-hating extremist Frank J. Gaffney. One of Lopez’s projects has been to stir up public fear over an alleged threat to America – not from al Qaeda attacks, but from subversion by Muslim-Americans. She is one of a number of authors of a book published by Gaffney’s Center in October 2010 called “Shariah: the Threat to America,” which declares, “The United States is under attack by foes who are openly animated by what is known as Shariah (Islamic Law).”
Revealing the project’s anti-Islam paranoia, the book asserts, “Shariah dictates that non-Muslims be given three choices: convert to Islam and conform to Shariah; submit as second class citizens (dhimmis), or be killed.”
In a videotaped talk she gave on February 23, 2011, Lopez said Muslims, “believe they should be in charge of the world.” The main threat from Islam, she said, is “stealth Jihad” waged by Muslims who “hide behind a moderate image,” but whose “purpose is still the same” as that of al Qaeda.
A second aspect of Lopez’s work for Gaffney has been to intimidate opponents of the hard-line policies toward Iran – and especially the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) – by accusing them of being covert lobbyists for Iran.
Tefft, who retired from the CIA’s Operations Division in 1995, is even more explicit in arguing that there is a worldwide war against Islam. “We are fighting a 14-century war against Islam and its adherents, Muslims,” he declared in an interview with the right-wing website FrontPage in October 2007. “And it is a war that they have declared on all non-Muslims….” Islamic ideology requires Muslims to “make the world Islamic under the Caliphate, and to convert, kill or enslave all non-Muslims….” When the interviewer suggested that there are “moderate Muslims,” Tefft responded, “I don’t think so….” he said. “Were there ‘good’ or ‘moderate’ Nazis?”
Tefft referred to the way “the West” had “prevailed” over Islam with the “defeat of the marauding armies of Islam at the Gates of Vienna in 1529” and added, “We need to recall that period…and again contain Islam to its existing borders.”
When asked by this writer in a phone interview last week if he had been aware of the advocacy of Islamophobe arguments by Lopez and Tefft, Thomas Mellon, Jr., one of two lead lawyers in the case, did not answer directly, but said, “To the extent that you are accurate, we would say, fine, take them out.” He insisted that the lawyers for the case had not relied on any one of the ten “expert witnesses” listed on the case.
Also playing a central role in weaving the tale of Iranian complicity in the 9/11 attacks for the court case was the right-wing author and anti-Iran activist Kenneth R. Timmerman. According to the lawyers’ brief on the case, it was Timmerman who sought out one of the attorneys, Timothy B. Fleming, and brought to his attention the three Iranian “defectors” who claimed personal knowledge that Iran was involved in the planning of 9/11.
Like Lopez, Timmerman has been linked with hardline pro-Likud organizations and involved in efforts to overthrow the regime in Tehran. Along with Joshua Muravchik, and a group of Iranian exile foes of the Islamic regime, he established the “Foundation for Democracy in Iran” in 1995.
Timmerman has also expressed views sympathetic to the Hate-Islam movement. His 2003 book, “Preachers of Hate: Islam and the War against America,” portrays the United States and Israel as innocent victims of a vicious campaign against the West by whole Islamic societies that refuse to accept the US-Israeli narrative on terrorism. And his new novel, “St. Peter’s Bones,” has been praised by notorious Islam-hater Robert Spencer for revealing the “long-hidden origins of Islam.”
The “Material Support” and “Save Haven” Ploys
The most egregious allegations of Iranian complicity in 9/11 come from three former staff members of the 9/11 Commission – Daniel Byman, Dietrich Snell and Janice Kephart. They had all worked on the section of the 2004 report that had given heavy emphasis to the fact that Iran had not stamped the passports of Saudis who had later become hijackers in the 9/11 attacks when they entered Iran. The section had suggested that this and other evidence could indicate Iranian complicity in the plot, even if it could not yet be proven.
In their affidavits to the court, those three former staffers, two of whom (Snell and Kephart) are lawyers, argue that Iran’s failure to stamp the passports of the al Qaeda operatives constituted provision of “material support” to al Qaeda in executing the 9/11 attacks. US anti-terrorist law specifies that the provision of “material support” to terrorists includes any “service” to terrorists if the provider is “knowing or intending that they are to be used in preparation for, or in carrying out” a terrorist action.
However, a key piece of information in a different chapter of the 9/11 Commission report shows that Iran’s failure to stamp passports was not intended to aid al Qaeda. On page 169, the report says that, in order to avoid the confiscation by Saudi authorities of passports bearing a Pakistani stamp, the Saudi al Qaeda operatives, “either erased the Pakistani visa from their passport or traveled through Iran, which did not stamp visas directly into passports.” In other words, the Iranian practice of not stamping visas directly into passports applied to everyone. And since, as the Commission report acknowledged, there was no evidence of Iranian foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks, the existence of that policy did not support the thesis of Iranian “material support” for the al Qaeda plot.
The Commission staff went back to the two senior planners of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, in July 2004, to ask them specifically about the Iranian failure to stamp the passports of the hijackers, but, strangely, the Commission report gives no indication of what they said about whether the Iranian practice was intended to assist al Qaeda. Either the staff never asked the question, or the answer was ignored because it contradicted the line that those staff members were pushing in 2004 and are still pushing today.
The former Commission staffers also joined right-wing activists in highlighting the intelligence Commission report statements that “an associate of a senior Hizbullah operative” was on the same mid-November flight from Beirut to Tehran as a group of future hijackers, and that Hezbollah officials in Beirut and Iran had been “expecting the arrival of a group [from Saudi Arabia] during the same time period.” The former staffers insist that these could not have been coincidences and that they had to mean that Iran was involved in the al Qaeda plot.
The argument that the presence of an “associate” of a top Hezbollah official on the same flight as future al Qaeda hijackers could not have been a coincidence is absurd. There were obviously many “associates” of top Hezbollah officials, most whom would have had occasion to travel to Iran frequently. The statistical likelihood that one of them would be on the same flight as the future hijackers would not be so small as to merit suspicion.
And the very same section of the Commission report provides a clear explanation of the anticipation of a group traveling from Saudi Arabia to Iran that reveals the conspiratorial interpretation as dishonest. It says that a senior Hezbollah operative – said to have been Imad Mugniyeh – visited Saudi Arabia in October 2000 to “coordinate activities” there, that he planned to assist a group traveling to Iran in November, and that intelligence reports showed the planned visit to Iran involved a “top Hezbollah commander” and “Saudi Hezbollah contacts.”
But that didn’t stop the lawyers for the case from twisting the Commission report to fit the desired narrative: “The ‘activities’ that Mughniyah went to coordinate,” clearly revolved around the hijackers’ travel, their obtaining new Saudi passports and/or US visas for the 9/11 operation, as several of them did, as well as the hijackers’ security, and the operation’s security.”
Paul Pillar, who was the CIA’s senior intelligence officer on the Middle East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005 and had previously been the senior analyst at the agency’s Counterterrorism Center, was categorical about the matter when I interviewed him in 2006. The facts detailed in the Commission Report about passports, travel of the hijackers through Iran, and the presence of a Hezbollah official on one of the flights “don’t show Iranian collusion with al Qaeda,” he told me.
The lawyers’ brief refers to “the existence of a secret network of travel routes and safehouses” worked out from the mid-1990s onward as being “confirmed by al Qaeda military chief Saef al Adel in a May 2005 interview.” That implies that secret arrangements on such “travel routes and safehouses” were made between al Qaeda and the Iranian government. But al-Adel said nothing of the sort. He made it clear in his interview with a Saudi journalist that the Iranians who helped them with housing and logistics were not connected with the Iranian regime.
The “expert witnesses” and the lawyers carefully skirt the fact that in the latter half of the 1990s – at a time when the United States was officially still “neutral” on the civil war in Afghanistan – Iran was providing funding, arms and other support to the Northern Alliance, the non-Pashtun forces seeking to overthrow the Taliban regime which bin Laden and al Qaeda were helping to keep in power.
That Iranian support for the Northern Alliance was still ongoing when the organization’s chief, Ahmad Shah Massoud, was assassinated September 10, 2001 by two Arabs posing as journalists. The leader of the CIA’s post-9/11 covert paramilitary team in Afghanistan, Gary Schroen, reported that there were two IRGC Colonels attached to the Commander of the Northern Alliance, Bismullah Khan, when the CIA team arrived. Nevertheless, Lopez and Tefft as well as Israeli journalist Ronan Bergman, a former intelligence officer in the Israeli Defense Forces who boasts of his “close personal contacts” with senior Israel intelligence and military officials, cite reports supposedly originating with German intelligence that Iran helped al Qaeda operatives carry out the Massoud assassination.
All the “expert witnesses” insist vehemently that Iran continued to provide “safe haven” for al Qaeda operatives who fled from Afghanistan to Iran after 9/11, allowing them to direct terrorist activities against Saudi Arabia in particular. But that accusation merely recycles the claim first made in early 2002 by Bush administration officials seeking to prevent negotiations between the United States and Iran and push for the adoption of a regime change strategy in Iran.
The central pretense of the neoconservative “safe haven” ploy was that, if any al Qaeda operatives were able to function in Iran, Iran must have deliberately permitted it. But the United States has been unable to shut down al Qaeda’s operation in Pakistan after a decade of trying, despite the cooperation of the Pakistani intelligence service and the drone coverage of the tribal areas. If the same criteria applied to Iran were to be applied to the Bush administration and the government of Germany, they could be accused of having provided “safe haven” for al Qaeda operatives prior to 9/11.
In fact, after US complaints about al Qaeda presence in Iran in late 2001, Tehran detained nearly 300 al Qaeda operatives, and gave a dossier with their names, passport pictures and fingerprints to the United Nations. Iran also repatriated at least 200 of those detainees to the newly formed government of Afghanistan.
US Ambassador Ryan Crocker revealed last year that, in late 2001, the Iranians had been willing to discuss possible surrender of the senior al Qaeda officials it was detaining to the United States and share any intelligence they had gained from their investigations as part of a wider understanding with Washington. But the neoconservative faction in the administration rejected that offer, demanding that Iran give them the al Qaeda detainees without getting anything in return.
Iran’s crackdown on al Qaeda continued in 2002-03 and netted a number of top officials. One of the senior al Qaeda detainees apparently detained by Iran during that period, Saif al-Adel, later told a Jordanian journalist that Iran’s operations against al Qaeda had “confused us and aborted 75 percent of our plan.” The arrests included “up to 80 percent” of Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s group, he said, and those who had not been swept up were forced to leave for Iraq.
In further negotiations with the Bush administration in May 2003, Iran again offered to turn over the senior al Qaeda detainees to the United States in return for the MEK captured by US forces in Iraq. The Bush administration again refused the offer.
By 2005, a “senior US intelligence official” was publicly admitting that 20 to 25 top al Qaeda leaders were in detention in Iran and that they were “not able to do much of anything.”
In 2008, one US official told ABC news that administration officials had not been raising the al Qaeda issue publicly, because “they believe Iran has largely kept the al Qaeda operatives under control since 2003, limiting their ability to travel and communicate.”
But in the world of the right-wing Islam-hating extremists and others pushing for confrontation with Iran, reality is no obstacle to spinning tales of secret Iranian assistance to al Qaeda.
Dr Chris Busby interviewed 20th December 2011 by Theo Chalmers on Sky TV’s “One Step Beyond” about Fallujah, Fukushima and the cover-ups over the health effects of exposure to radioactivity
In Guatemala, former military officers and their supporters have filed legal charges against human rights activists, journalists, and surviving victims of State repression, even as a former general, Otto Perez Molina – himself implicated in Guatemala’s genocide – prepares to assume the Guatemalan presidency on January 14, 2012!
Moreover, Perez Molina has named high ranking trainers of the brutal Kaibil forces to the top three military command positions. Kaibil’s were directly implicated in the very worst of the State repression and genocide of the 1970s, 80s and early 90s, and some today have direct links to the Mexico-based “Zeta” narco-trafficking cartel.
Furthermore, Perez Molina is getting set to engage the Army in policing matters in partnership with the US government that is launching phase II of the brutal and deadly Mexican “war on drugs” in Central America.
2012: MARCHING TOWARDS THE PAST
As Otto Perez Molina prepares to assume the presidency on January 14, 2011, he has named commanders of Guatemala’s “special forces”, the feared Kaibils, to the highest positions in the military. Two officers have been appointed to cabinet level positions, even while the respected and courageous Attorney General, Claudia Paz, along with human rights activists and journalists, have come under legal and public attack by war veterans. Earlier this year, CICIG (the United Nations backed Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala) came under attack from a Washington lobbyist hired by Guatemalan businessmen.
On December 14, 2011, a dual US/ Guatemalan citizen, also a coffee plantation owner, filed legal charges against 52 people, including a US citizen who worked for Amnesty International in Guatemala during the genocide carried out by the military, and including Jennifer Harbury, an attorney who became an internationally recognized campaigner against torture following the extended torture and presumed extrajudicial execution of her husband, Efrain Bamaca, a guerrilla commander she met during peace negotiations in Mexico City.
This is the third legal complaint of its kind lodged over the past month and a half, in what CICIG characterized as an attack on the Attorney General, seemingly an orchestrated campaign pressuring her to resign.
Over the past 2 years, human rights organizations and lawyers – and some politicians – have worked very hard to retake control of the legal system and the administration of justice from organized crime networks which have corrupted elements of the police, prosecuting attorneys and judges.
The clandestine criminal networks in Guatemala today grew out of the military/ business alliances which in the 1960s to early 1990s controlled the nation through US-backed military juntas, carrying out crimes with total impunity ranging from genocide and large scale massacres to drug trafficking. The current Attorney General, Claudia Paz, has been extremely effective in arresting and prosecuting top organized crime figures and high ranking military officers implicated in crimes against humanity.
GENOCIDE AND WAR CRIMES LINKED SPECIAL FORCES COMMANDERS NAMED TO TOP GOVERNMENT POSITIONS
The return of current and former military officers to high ranking positions in government is deeply concerning to human rights activists. The Guatemalan special-forces unit known as the Kaibils is especially renowned for brutality, and has been extensively implicated in heinous massacres that occurred in the worst years of the “cold war” repression.
President elect Perez Molina is making no concessions to concerns. Kaibils were named to the three top military positions: Col. Ulises Anzueto as Defense Minister, Col. René Casados Ramírez as Commander of the Joint Chiefs of Defense, and Col Manuel López Ambrosio as Sub-commander of the Joint Chiefs of Defense. Anzueto’s appointment bucks hierarchy, by military tradition his appointment will force 16 Generals to resign. Another Colonel was named Interior Minister, Mauricio Lopez Bonilla, who managed Perez Molina’s presidential campaign.
In 1995, based on witness testimony and written documentation, Anzueto was named by Harbury as one of three officers responsible for the kidnapping, disappearance and torture of Efrain Bamaca. Ever since, the case has languished in Guatemalan courts, defying rulings of the Inter American Court of Human Rights.
Otto Perez Molina himself, and two other generals, were named in a second case, focusing on the commanding officers whose direct responsibility became apparent through declassified documents and evidence obtained during the first case, charges filed in March 2011.
ZETA-LINKS AS WELL
The placement of four Kaibils in top government positions, including the presidency, is even more shocking given the extensively reported ties between Kaibils and the gruesomely violent Zeta drug trafficking cartel.
The Zetas were originally an elite unit of the Mexican Army Airborne Special Forces (GAFE) and are reported to have been trained in Fort Bragg, a US military base, to combat drug trafficking. In the late 1990′s they were then trained by the Guatemalan Kaibil “special forces.”
It is widely reported that, in 2000, the unit known as the Zetas left GAFE, en masse, to begin work as Gulf Cartel’s enforcers. The Gulf Cartel has, for decades, had a solid presence in Central America. It grew out of a network of local traffickers with strong ties to various militaries and death squads.
Ever since, but particularly since 2005, reports of Zeta recruitment of former Kaibils and former Kaibil training of Zetas, have been frequent. As recently as April 6, 2011, the Mexican Vice Minister of Security reported that current and former Kaibils were training Zetas in northern Guatemala and participated in drug smuggling, at the same time denouncing a pattern of large scale robbery by Zetas of weapons from military bases in Mexico and Guatemala.
The newly appointed Guatemalan Minister of Defense was the director of the Kaibil training academy until 2009, and the Commander of the Joint Chiefs of Defense was a Kaibil instructor.
The Kaibils have been credited as responsible for introducing some of the most gruesome techniques to the Zetas, including severing heads and dismembering bodies. This is no surprise given the Kaibils’ savage history in the Guatemalan civil war. Most recently, on May 17, 2011 former Kaibils, now members of the Zetas, were arrested for the massacre and decapitation of 27 farmworkers on the Los Cocos farm in Sayaxche, Peten.
GENOCIDE PRESIDENT
The savagery of the Kaibils is well known, even within one of the most brutal militaries imaginable, as well documented in two “Truth Commissions,” the 1999 United Nations sponsored report “Memory of Silence” and the 1998 Catholic Church’s report “Guatemala Never Again.”
The United Nations backed Truth Commission found that during conflict over 200,000 people were killed and 45,000 disappeared. It found that 93% of the acts of violence were perpetrated by the military or paramilitary forces, 3% by armed revolutionaries and 3% unidentifiable authors. It documented 626 massacres by State security forces, the vast majority carried out against Mayan communities, and noted:
“The CEH has noted particularly serious cruelty in many acts committed by agents of the State, especially members of the Army, in their operations against Mayan communities… Acts such as the killing of defenseless children, often by beating them against walls or throwing them alive into pits where the corpses of adults were later thrown; the amputation of limbs; the impaling of victims; the killing of persons by covering them in petrol and burning them alive; the extraction, in the presence of others, of the viscera of victims who were still alive; the confinement of people who had been mortally tortured, in agony for days; the opening of the wombs of pregnant women, and other similarly atrocious acts, were not only actions of extreme cruelty against the victims, but also morally degraded the perpetrators and those who inspired, ordered or tolerated these actions.”
In August 2011, four former Kaibils and their commanding officer were sentenced to 6,060 years in prison for their participation in the gruesome massacre of 264 men, women and children in 1982 in the village of Dos Erres, Peten. This was the first time that soldiers have been arrested, tried and sentenced for any of the hundreds of massacres committed by State security forces during the “la violencia” (the violence), the military campaigns from 1981 to 1983.
The UN Truth Commission found that State forces committed acts of genocide against four Mayan peoples, the Achi, Q’anjobal, Kiche and Ixil. President elect Perez Molina commanded the Municipality of Nebaj military base from 1982 until the mid-1980′s, Nebaj being the center of the Ixil genocide. Survivors describe being tortured by him. At least one survivor has done so in court, and survivors and leaked military documents demonstrate involvement in massacres.
Legal cases against the intellectual and material authors of the Ixil genocide have also moved forward under the tenure of AG Claudia Paz y Paz. Former General Hector Mario Lopez Fuentes was arrested June 20, 2011, on charges of genocide against the Ixil people between 1982 and 1983. On October 12, 2011 Jose Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez, head of military intelligence from 1983 to 1985, was arrested and indicted for genocide against the Ixil people. The advancement of these cases is now seriously at risk
PRO-MILITARY RALLIES – “WHEN ‘MI GENERAL’ WINS, WE WILL FINISH WHAT WE STARTED”
2011 is the first year military officers (being the “intellectual authors”) have been taken to court for the political crimes of the 1980s, but the impending presidency of one of their own seems to have rallied their spirits.
On November 13, 2011 shortly after Perez Molina’s electoral victory, the military and their supporters rallied in a march in the center of Guatemala City, decrying the prosecution of military officers for war crimes. This is the first time since the end of the war that the military has carried out a demonstration of this kind.
In the year leading up to the 2011 presidential elections, reports from the countryside indicated that networks of former Civil Defense Patrollers, veterans and other military allies – all implicated in the genocide and other extreme human rights abuses – mobilized to rally support for Perez Molina. Over the past year, frequent reports of vague threats made by these networks have been heard from surviving victims from the 1980′s, along the lines of: “When ‘Mi General’ wins, we will finish what we started.”
POLITICALLY MOTIVATED LEGAL CHARGES
Since June 2011, the association of military veterans and their allies have been taking aim at the current Attorney General, Claudia Paz y Paz. In newspaper advertisements veterans denounced prosecutors and human rights defenders, claiming the veterans would respond to attacks. Given the long history of endemic repression in Guatemala, these advertisements are perceived by many as threats.
The ads asserted that military officers were being unfairly persecuted, and that instead of pursuing justice in civilian courts, the Attorney General must respect the military tribunal trials that some of those accused of war crimes had been submitted to, military trials presented clearly as a tactic to avoid being held legally responsible in civilian courts for atrocities.
This year, legislators also attempted to quietly push through a new amnesty law. Both mechanisms – the mis-use of military tribunals and the passing of amnesty laws – violate international law norms.
On November 2, 2011 retired Col. Ricardo Méndez Ruiz filed legal charges, naming 26 people as responsible for his kidnapping in 1982.
On November 29, 2011 the Military Widows Association filed charges against 32 people for 45 acts of violence they claim were carried out by armed revolutionary movements.
On December 14, 2011 dual US/ Guatemalan citizen and coffee planter Theodore Plocharski, who apparently moved to Guatemala in 1980, filed charges against 52 people attributing to them responsibility for 11 acts of violence against diplomats and foreign military officers.
Many of the individuals named as defendants are repeated in the three complaints. At least one person named in the charges had not even been born at the time of the alleged acts, others were infants, some were not in the country.
No one doubts that these charges are direct attacks against the Attorney General, human rights activists, academics, politicians and journalists. Claudia Paz’s deceased father and cousin were named in all three cases. Others named include: Miguel Angel Albizures, a founder of FAMDEGUA, the victims association that promoted the Dos Erres prosecution; Jennifer Harbury and Jean Marie Simon, international human rights activists; outgoing first lady Sandra Torres; as well as well-known journalists, politicians, feminists, clergy, academics, and others. Some were members of the revolutionary movements.
CICIG (the United Nations backed Commission Against Impunity) has characterized the series of legal complaints as an orchestrated attack against the Attorney General, noting that Ricardo Méndez Ruiz clearly stated in an interview that he was going after the Attorney General. The aim of the campaign appears to be to demonstrate that Paz does not lead impartial investigations, a possible pretext to force her out of office.
Even so, the Attorney General has assigned investigation of the charges to a special unit created to investigate war crimes. If the charges follow the example of those levied against military officers, it may take 15 or more years to go to court, if any evidence is uncovered. However given the chronic problems of lack of independence of the judiciary, there is definitely a risk that those charged could face biased trials.
President-elect Otto Perez Molina has picked up on the discourse of these seemingly frivolous legal charges. During a November 9, 2011 interview, Perez asserted that justice must be impartial, not “persecution of just one side.” Four distinct revolutionary movements participated in the 36 year armed conflict that ended in 1996. The first revolutionary movement was founded by military officers loyal to the democratically elected government overthrown in a CIA orchestrated coup in 1954.
LEGAL CASES AGAINST DRUG KING-PINS
In addition to helping advance criminal trials against Guatemalan war criminals, Paz has also been highly successful in arresting and extraditing top level drug kingpins, most of whom have been operating with total impunity for decades. The US ambassador to Guatemala, Arnold Chacon, expressed support for her in November, and on November 30, 2011 Assistant Secretary of State for Global Affairs, Maria Otero, during a visit to Guatemala met with Perez Molina. Many believe pressure from State Department led to a December 8 joint press conference presented by Perez Molina and Claudia Paz in which they assured that Paz’s job was safe.
PEREZ MOLINA TIES TO WASHINGTON
For decades the State Department has maintained a very close relationship to Perez Molina. In 1995 he was reported to have been on the CIA payroll while head of military intelligence in 1993, when he oversaw a secret torture center and prison reported to hold over 300 prisoners. His name was very frequently mentioned in Wikileaks cables. He is a graduate of the School of the Americas.
Despite extensive evidence of his participation in extreme violations, including a video and photographs of him standing over the bodies of three murdered and tortured indigenous men in 1982, the State Department appears to have done nothing to distance itself from him. The embassy recognized his victory the night of the election before the official tally was in. Obama even called to congratulate him on November 21, and to express the US interest in cooperation in security initiatives in Central America.
During a December trip to Mexico, Perez Molina visited Mexican President Felipe Calderon to discuss security cooperation. Human rights activists claim that Calderon’s “war on drugs” has cost 45,000 lives in Mexico and been unsuccessful in stemming trafficking. Calderon’s War is financed by the United States through the Merida Initiative which, when proposed in 2006, was intended to finance security operations in Central America as well as Mexico. However, only this year has Washington’s focus turned back to Central America, and the region is already showing signs of militarization.
Perez Molina and Calderon share some of the same friends in Washington. The Spanish public relations firm Ostos & Sola worked on both Perez Molina’s and Calderon’s campaigns, as well as the campaigns of Haitian President Michel Martelly and Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, all considered right wing. The firm’s Executive Director in Washington DC is Damien Merlo, who was previously Vice President of Otto Reich Associates, at a time when the DC lobby firm, run by Bush administration State Department appointee Otto Reich, advocated for the recognition of Honduran coup government of Roberto Micheletti.
MILITARIZATION versus JUSTICE
Earlier this year, in March 2011, Washington’s own breed of political hit men, lobbyists or strategic advisors, were hired to take on, or out, the highly successful United Nations backed Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, CICIG. Former Ambassador Robert Geldbard of Washington Global Partners, a former special envoy to the Balkans during the Clinton Presidency and later Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, was hired by Guatemalan businessmen, including WalMart Central America Vice President Salvador Paiz, reportedly to undermine CICIG’s image with its funders in Washington and New York, the Congress and the United Nations.
According to an October 15, 2011 article in the Economist, Guatemalan businessmen were reportedly angered by the arrest warrants issued against the former Minister of Governance Carlos Vielmann, accused by CICIG of running an organized crime related death squad within the police.
Cleaning up corruption at the highest levels of government is apparently not popular amongst the powerful economic and military sectors, but it is obviously key to ending the devastating violence, repression and impunity in Central America, and is completely dependent on the political will of the powerful sectors in Guatemala and the so-called international community.
As efforts were underway to undermine CICIG’s support in New York and Washington, both the UN and the State Department were pushing full steam ahead on the Central America Security Strategy, particularly focused on a push to ‘reform’ the police forces in Central America, which in El Salvador and Guatemala were created from forces ‘recycled’ from the militaries.
In the ‘Northern Triangle’ of Central America (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador), the police forces (historically linked to and dependent on the militaries) are infamously corrupt. The US, United Nations and international community are seemingly turning to infamously corrupt, violent and criminal military partners to ‘clean up’ security.
In furtherance to this focus on strengthening police forces in the Northern Triangle countries, in November, Panamanian President Martinelli announced that the US and Colombia are establishing in Panama a joint training center for police forces from throughout the region, bringing back nightmarish memories of the School of the Americas, which originally trained military forces from throughout Latin America in Panama.
PRIVATIZATION
There also appears to be a push to involve private security contractors in the police reforms and ‘anti-narcotics war’ in Central America. Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has coordinated a series of conferences for mayors and presidents of Central America, sponsored by private security corporation Continental Security and Integrated Systems (CIS). 55% of Plan Colombia funds were spent on US based private security contractors. It appears Central America will follow suit.
Military and former military officers dominate the private security industry throughout the region, and in recent years the presence of private security forces in the countryside, especially in Guatemala and Honduras, has grown extensively, largely present where mines, hydroelectric dams and biofuel projects are being developed by transnational corporations and the local elite.
In the Bajo Aguan region of Honduras, it is reported that 1980s death squad member Billy Joya advised the local police before a rash of death squad style killings of land rights activists in conflict with biofuel producers broke out; at least 50 campesinos activists have been killed in under two years.
In addition to Washington’s willingness to work with incoming president Perez Molina and his Kaibil cabal, in El Salvador former General Munguia was named Security Minister in November, an extremely controversial move toward ‘militarization’ of civilian security. Analysts claim that the appointment came in response to pressure form the US Embassy.
Perez Molina has pledged to deploy Kaibils to combat drug trafficking, despite accusations against current and former Kaibils of participating in drug trafficking. He has also pledged to mobilize the Airforce Special Forces in the drug war, and to expand the military by 2,500 new elements.
In Honduras, the reform program has been vigorously denounced as a charade run by the same corrupt power players that created the criminal networks within the police and that supported the 2009 military coup against the democratically elected government of President Zelaya. Alfredo Landaverde, a former Anti Narcotics Chief and one of the most outspoken critics of the “reform,” was gunned down by motorcycle assassins on December 7.
GRIM PROSPECTS FOR REAL SECURITY AND JUSTICE
While undoubtedly clean police forces are critical to building safe communities, pouring money, arms and training into corrupted security forces, as shown by the Zetas, will only fuel the violence, corruption and impunity.
There must be real political interest in addressing impunity and corruption and in prosecuting organized crimes’ political power players. Apparently prosecution of corruption is not good for transnational business interests, but the security industry is big business.
Gaza – In Israel, nothing is more rewarding than committing systematic mass killings and war crimes against Palestinians. It seems, according to Israel’s moral system and code of conduct, nothing is more trivial than a Palestinian life. Inflicting death on Palestinians is not punishable in Israel but instead ornamented with decoration and job advancement. I reckon it’s the highest and most honorable accomplishment through which an Israeli soldier can achieve most prominent ranks in the military.
This has been evident throughout the Palestine-Israel conflict, as countless planned massacres were and are still being committed against Palestinians since Palestine was occupied in 1948, and typically, the perpetrators have always been leaders of sorts, either political or military figures.
For example, every year Palestinians widely remember Sabra and Shatila massacre, in which thousands of Palestinians were slaughtered in Beirut, Lebanon in 1982. An independent Israeli investigation followed at the time, and it held the then minister of defense Ariel Sharon responsible for allowing the massacre to take place. Not only that, Sharon was found guilty of committing several pogroms against Palestinians. However, he never stood a trial; but on the contrary, he kept ascending the highest rungs of power, where he eventually ended up being Israel’s prime minister in 2001.
Colonizers living on land illegally sequestrated from Palestinians in the West Bank are possibly most hostile to Palestinians, who are subject to constant humiliation and attacks. Every now and then, news is heard of separate incidents of settlers stabbing an unarmed Palestinian, running over a child, or committing mass murder, like the Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein did in 1994, when he opened fire inside the Ibrahimi Mosque at the Palestinian prayers performing the dawn prayer during the Holy Ramadan, killing 29 persons, and injuring another 125.
Israel’s 22 day invasion of the Gaza Strip three years ago was not an exception. Based on universally held moral values and international laws of war, a lot of neutral and fact-based reports conducted by human rights organizations, including the Goldstone report, and consistent documentations proved that Israel committed war crimes against Palestinian civilians. Israel particularly dismissed the Goldstone report as “biased and one-sided,” refused to cooperate and claimed it would launch its own investigations.
A year ago, the Guardian reported that: “The military’s Judge Advocate General, Maj. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit ordered almost 50 investigations arising from the operation.” Surely, one can’t help but burst into laughter at what some of these investigations were about. The report continues recounting three specific cases, one of which was “for stealing and using a Palestinian’s credit card”. Another Israeli soldier was convicted “for forcing an 11-year-old boy to open bags which could have contained explosives.” For Israeli judges, stealing one’s money—still immoral of the Israeli army–is by all means far more incriminatory than bombing his body. And did Israel really sanctify the Palestinian children’s lives? If so, what about the 352 children who were killed in cold blood? Were they all posing a threat to Israeli soldiers?
Some of the alleged Israeli investigations were reportedly said to be covering—as Col. Tamir Yadi put it—”claims regarding incidents in which many uninvolved civilians were harmed,” but not mentioning a single word about Al Samouni massacre, the single most atrocious incident in the entire assault, where Israeli forces had ordered the entire Al Samouni family to gather in one house—of course, to ensure the highest ratio of casualties–before they premeditatedly bombed it, killing 21 persons and injuring 19 others.
The incident, however, grabbed the world’s attention as hundreds of media reports and firsthand witnesses amassed. Israel immediately pretended an investigation was under way. Despite the overwhelming evidence, including a bunch of air force officers’ compatible testimony, that Ilan Malka, a senior brigade commander, was responsible for authorizing the strike while being aware of a civilian presence in the area. Later on, exactly three years after the massacre, Israel deliberately buried the case and didn’t take any legal actions against him, but instead decided to promote him to the position of brigadier general.
This was quite shocking to me, but later I couldn’t think of any “state” other than Israel capable of doing this. And in retrospect, I was able to grasp the horridness of this racist, inhumane behavior of Israel.
December 27, 2011 marks the third anniversary of Israel’s war–or “Operation Cast Lead,” as Israel sinisterly put it– on the Gaza Strip in late 2008. What can’t be coincidental is the day on which Israel initiated its intensive airstrikes before it proceeded with a 22-day operation from land and sea; it was few days before 2008 drew to a close.
The end of every year is and will always be totally different for the people of Gaza, for it evokes all the painful memories of bodies torn asunder, of houses, mosques and schools destroyed. The timing of the strike was absolutely right, that Israel purposely intended to make the grievance of the people of Gaza recurrent.
Even the Gaza youth, instead of celebrating the heraldry of the new year by congratulating each other and posting hopeful wishes on all social networking sites like the people in the rest of the world do, you see most of them posting statuses of reverential sorrow and lamentation, and make the famous corner-taped black background picture indicating mourning for Gaza their profile pictures. Some others post pictures of burnt children or their beloved relatives Israel killed during the 22 days.
The same is true for Christians in Gaza. They suffered just as equally. When they were supposed to celebrate their Holy Christmas peacefully in 2008, Israel rained on their parade and turned it into an absolute nightmare, which is going to be remembered yearly.
The irony seems beyond imagination; while the entire world was preparing to welcome 2009’s beginning with celebrations and fireworks, Palestinians in Gaza were made to have their own special rituals and extraordinary fireworks too, but ones that rained downwards and made flesh sizzle and bones melt.
This, however, didn’t work completely. It is true Palestinians lost their sons and houses, but one thing they can’t lose for sure is their resilient spirit and ability to heal. In Gaza, meanwhile, Christians are going to churches, decorating their Xmas trees and having lively celebrations. Also, Muslims are going to celebrate on the eve of the New Year and hang out with family and friends. My friends and I have plans too.
– Mohammed AlNadi is Gaza-based English literature graduate. He works as a translator.
A Public hearing at Zochrot, a testimony given by Amnon Neauman, a Palmach soldier describing the occupation of the Negev village in 1948.
Initiated and organized by Amir Hallel. The testimony was video recorded by Lia Tarachansky. Miri Barak prepared the transcription. Eitan Bronstein edited, summarized, and added footnotes. Translated to English by Asaf Kedar. Video editing by Zohar Kfir.
Kyrgyzstan’s President Almazbek Atambayev has said that a US military base in the country’s capital Bishkek is “very dangerous” for the Central Asian nation.
Kyrgyzstan’s new leader made the remarks in a Thursday meeting with visiting US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake in the capital Bishkek.
Atambayev insisted that the annual $150 million fee the US pays Kyrgyzstan for the right to use the Manas Air Force Base was not worth all the risks involved in the matter.
“We want to transform Manas into a fully civilian airport; and keeping a military base for $150 million is slightly dangerous; not slightly, but very dangerous.”
After becoming the president last month, Atambayev said that his country has notified the US to close its military base following the expiration of its lease in 2014.
“Our country will honor all its international agreements, but we have warned the US embassy that they will have to close the base in 2014,” said Atambayev.
The Manas Air Force Base, which the US currently uses to support its operations in Afghanistan’s ten-year war, is located at a civilian airport on the outskirts of the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek.
The air base has been used since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and has played a major role in American military operations in the country.
The Kyrgyz government wanted to shut down the base in 2009 due to issues caused by US troops stationed in Manas. However, US officials managed to negotiate a new agreement later that year after increasing its annual payment to the Kyrgyz government.
At 10:55 am, an Israeli naval warship attacked the international observers and Palestinian captain of the Civil Peace Service Gaza (CPSGAZA) boat Oliva, injuring its captain in an apparent attempt to capsize it.
“The Israeli navy passed near us and the fishermen, and started to go around us, creating waves,” said Rosa Schiano, one of the international observers. “The fishermen escaped, but we couldn’t because of a problem with our engine. We couldn’t move, and they went around us very quickly. The Israelis saw that we couldn’t move, and that the captain was trying to fix the engine, but they didn’t stop. We told them, ‘Please stop! Please stop!’ But they didn’t.”
When the warship was two meters away from the Oliva, one of the waves it had created nearly capsized the small boat, filling it with water and causing the Palestinian captain to fall out, injuring his left leg.
“Their intentions were to do something very bad,” said international observer Daniela Riva. “Coming so close to us was very dangerous, and they obviously knew that.”
After more than twenty minutes, the warship retreated, and the Oliva was rescued by a small Palestinian fishing boat, or hasaka, which threw it a line and towed it toward the shore.
Background
Restrictions on the fishing zone are of considerable significance to Palestinian livelihood. Initially 20 nautical miles, it is presently often enforced between 1.5 – 2 nautical miles (PCHR: 2010). The marine ‘buffer zone’ restricts Gazan fishermen from accessing 85% of Gaza’s fishing waters agreed to by Oslo.
During the Oslo Accords, specifically under the Gaza-Jericho Agreement of 1994, representatives of Palestine agreed to 20 nautical miles for fishing access. In 2002 the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan empowered Catherine Bertini to negotiate with Israel on key issues regarding the humanitarian crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and a 12 nautical mile fishing limit was agreed upon. In June 2006, following the capture of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit near the crossing of Kerem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom), the navy imposed a complete sea blockade for several months. When the complete blockade was finally lifted, Palestinian fishermen found that a 6 nautical mile limit was being enforced. When Hamas gained political control of the Gaza Strip, the limit was reduced to 3 nautical miles. During the massive assault on the Strip in 2008-2009, a complete blockade was again declared. After Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli army began imposing a 1.5 – 2 nautical miles (PCHR: 2010).
The fishing community is often similarly targeted as the farmers in the ‘buffer zone’ and the fishing limit is enforced with comparable aggression, with boats shot at or rammed as near as 2nm to the Gazan coast by Israeli gunboats.
The fishermen have been devastated, directly affecting an estimated 65,000 people and reducing the catch by 90%. The coastal areas are now grossly over-fished and 2/3 of fishermen have left the industry since 2000 (PCHR: 2009). Recent statistics of the General Union of Fishing Workers indicate that the direct losses since the second Intifada in September 2000 were estimated at a million dollars and the indirect losses were estimated at 13.25 million dollars during the same period. The 2009 fishing catch amounted to a total of 1,525 metric tones, only 53 percent of the amount during 2008 (2,845 metric tones) and 41 percent of the amount in 1999 (3,650 metric tones), when the fishermen of Gaza could still fish up to ten nautical miles from the coast. Current figures indicate that during 2010 the decline in the fishing catch continues. This has caused an absurd arrangement to become standard practice. The fisherman sail out not to fish, but to buy fish off of Egyptian boats and then sell this fish in Gaza. According to the Fishermen’s Union, a monthly average of 105 tons of fish has been entering Gaza through the tunnels since the beginning of 2010 (PCHR 2009).
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). “The Buffer Zone in the Gaza Strip.” Oct. 2010.
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. “A report on: Israeli Attacks on Palestinian Fishers in the Gaza Strip.” August 2009.
This is what happens when you demand speedy production in an era of politicized regulation
By Meryl Nass, MD | February 12, 2022
All these tragedies have been due to failures of testing or failures in manufacturing processes. Most occurred before vaccine manufacturers were given virtually complete protection from liability in 1987.
With the duration of patent exclusivity determining how much new products earn, products are rushed to market as quickly as possible, most using a shortened path for FDA review. Recalls and market removals of approved products are much more common than they used to be. We can only expect more of these disasters in the future, especially if the products are mandated for everyone. … continue
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